The New York bureau was estimated to cost $6,640 per month, the bureau in Berlin about half that sum; two years' effort would have cost about $200,000. The writer proposed to establish a lecture service as auxiliary, the total expenses of which, covering the Chautauquas of one summer, he estimated at $75,000. The investigator concluded:
"Hoping that my proposals will lead to a successful result, I will take the liberty of advising in the interest of the German cause—aside from the fact whether my proposals will be carried out or not—that the following should be avoided on the part of Germany in the future:
"1. The Belgian neutrality question as well as the question of the Belgian atrocities should not be mentioned any more in the future.
"2. It should not be tried any more in America to put the blame for the world war and its consequences alone on England, as a considerable English element still exists in America, and the American people hold to the view that all parties, as usual, are partly guilty for the war.
"3. The pride and imagination of the Americans with regard to their culture should not continually be offended by the assertion that German culture is the only real culture and surpasses everything else.
"4. The publication of purely scientific pamphlets should be avoided in the future as far as the American people are concerned, as their dry reading annoys the American and is incomprehensible to him.
"5. Finally it is of the utmost importance that the authorities as well as the German people cease continually to discuss publicly the delivery of American arms and ammunition, as well as to let every American feel their displeasure about it."
The Foreign Office never saw fit to act upon the investigator's proposals, for less than a month after he had written his report, it appeared, verbatim, in the columns of a New York newspaper. Axiom: The most effective means of fighting enemy propaganda is by propaganda for which the enemy unwittingly supplies the material.
