The evidence introduced pointed clearly to the conclusion that the German-Hindu plot, complex as it is to us as critics, was unfruitful even to Berlin. Perhaps its very breadth made it awkward to manage. Nearly four years of war passed, and there was no mutiny in India. The stewards of the Indian domain knew anxious moments, but they found some solace in the realization that half way around the world, in the United States, there was a pair of eyes to watch every pair of mischievous hands, and that the conspiracy directed against the Orient could not take effect while those eyes were open.
It requires no special gift of prophecy to predict that secret conspiracies will continue unless those eyes are more vigilant than ever. The United States Attorney announced as the conspirators were being sentenced that he felt that the court might well instruct their dark associates to "cut out their propaganda," and that their Gahdr presses were even then turning out "barrels and bales of seditious literature." To this Judge Van Fleet gravely responded:
"The people are going to take the law into their own hands, as much as we regret it. The citizens of this country are going to suppress manifestations hostile to our allies."
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The Maverick was lost in a typhoon off the Philippines in August, 1917.
CHAPTER XVII MEXICO, IRELAND, AND BOLO
Huerta arrives in New York—The restoration plot—German intrigue in Central America—The Zimmermann note—Sinn Fein—Sir Roger Casement and the Easter Rebellion—Bolo Pacha in America and France—A warning.
Germany learned during President Roosevelt's administration that the Monroe Doctrine was not to be tampered with. The United States stood squarely upon a policy of "hands off Latin America." But both commercial and diplomatic Germany were attracted by the bright colors of the somewhat kaleidoscopic political condition of the Central and South American nations. In political confusion, Mexico, at the outbreak of war, led all the rest. This suited Germany's purpose perfectly—provided that at least one faction in Mexico might be susceptible to her influence. The first three years of war proved to the satisfaction of the most skeptical that Mexican unrest would trouble the United States, and it was upon this theory that Germany long before 1914 baited her hook for Mexico.