CHAPTER XIV COMMERCIAL VENTURES
German law in America—Waetzoldt's reports—The British blockade—A report from Washington—Stopping the chlorine supply—Speculation in wool—Dyestuffs and the Deutschland—Purchasing phenol—The Bridgeport Projectile Company—The lost portfolio—The recall of the attachés—A summary of Dr. Albert's efforts.
In addition to the exercise of its diplomatic functions, now more important than they had ever been before, the German Embassy had assumed the burden of large commercial enterprises. Their execution was entrusted to Dr. Albert, the privy councillor and fiscal agent for the Empire. There was apparently no limit, either financial or territorial, to the scope of his efforts, and the fact that he was able to administrate such a volume of work is no small tribute to his zeal. But that very zeal outran his regard for American law, so in one of his earlier ventures he set out to substitute the law of the Empire for that of the nation to which he was accredited.
Dr. Albert was informed on March 10, 1915, by a German lawyer, S. Walter Kaufmann of 60 Wall Street, that his clients, the Orenstein-Arthur Keppel Company, had an order for 9,000 tons of steel rails to be shipped to Russia, despite instructions from the company's home office in Berlin that "no orders should be accepted for shipment to any country at war with Germany, because of Paragraph 89 of the Gesetz Buch." The Gesetz Buch is the German Penal Code. (One of Kaufmann's law partners was Norvin R. Lindheim, legal adviser to Germany's agents in the United States.) The manufacturers begged the permission of the Embassy to accept the order and pass the actual manufacture on to the United States Steel Company, in order to evade the letter of Paragraph 89, and in order "to delay the order, if that would in any way be desirable." The matter was neglected in the Embassy, and on July 13 the Orenstein-Arthur Keppel Company wrote from Keppel, Pa., to the German consul, Philadelphia, Dr. George Stobbe, again asking permission to accept the order. The consul replied, denying permission, on the ground that the shipment would facilitate the Russian transport of troops, and that such action would be within the meaning of Paragraph 89 of the Gesetz Buch. "That you are in position to delay the delivery of the order, to the prejudice of the hostile country ordering, in no way makes you less punishable," he continued. He forwarded a copy of his ruling to the Ambassador for approval, and it in turn was forwarded to Dr. Albert. The order was not taken; the fear of punishment by Germany was greater than the protection afforded by American Law.
The foregoing episode reveals the nature of Dr. Albert's chief problem—the financial blocking of supplies for the Allies. Let Boy-Ed destroy the ships, von Papen dynamite the factories and railways, Rintelen run his mad course of indiscriminate violence—the smooth financial agent would undertake only those great business ventures in which his shrewdness and experience could have play. He was receiving reports constantly on the economic status, and the following extract from a report from G. D. Waetzoldt, a trade investigator in the Consulate in New York, will illustrate the German frame of mind about midsummer of 1915:
"The large war orders, as the professional journals also print, have become the great means of saving American business institutions from idleness and financial ruin.
"The fact that institutions of the size and international influence of those mentioned could not find sufficient regular business to keep them to some extent occupied, half at least, throws a harsh light upon the sad condition in which American business would have found itself had it not been for the war orders. The ground which induced these large interests to accept war orders rests entirely upon an economical basis and can be explained by the above-mentioned conditions which were produced by the lack of regular business. These difficulties, resulting from the dividing up of the contracts, are held to have been augmented, as stated in business circles, by the fact that certain agents working in the German interest succeeded in further delaying and disturbing American deliveries....
"So many contracts for the production of picric acid have been placed that they can only be filled to a very small part."
Dr. Albert also received a report from another trade expert, who had had a long conference with ex-Senator John C. Spooner of Wisconsin as to whether or not there could be prosecutions under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law against British representatives because of the restrictions placed by the British Government upon dealings by Americans in certain copper, cotton and rubber.
Naturally one of the most vital problems that stirred Dr. Albert was the British Orders in Council blockading Germany, from which resulted the seizure of meat and food supplies and cotton by British war vessels. He was always on the alert for information of the attitude of the Administration and the people of the United States toward the blockade. In another report dated June 3, 1915, Waetzoldt said: