Had the Hamburg-American officials carried out their part of the enterprise by means of the false clearance papers—and the same applies to Boy-Ed—a guest of the nation and to others engaged in the project—they would have put the American Government in the position of officially endorsing their work of deceit and stealth. “Is it a nice thing,” asked Prosecutor Wood, “to have this Government endorse the lies of these defendants?”
Boy-Ed, furthermore, violated the clause of The Hague Conference of 1907, which says: “Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and waters as a base of naval operation against their adversaries.”
QUEER WIRELESS CODES
Another operation that appealed to Captain Boy-Ed’s ingenuity was the use of the wireless to frustrate the enemy. He had given implicit instructions to Skipper Suhren in regard to the use of the wireless. Members of the crew of the Sacramento are accused of breaking the Government seal and using the radio plant. The Government officials also found such extensive misuse of the German-owned wireless plants in America that they were obliged either to close them down or take them over. The Sayville, Long Island, plant, finally was taken over and operated by the government.
CUTTING IN ON MESSAGES
But Boy-Ed delighted in circumventing the Federal authorities. A few instances have been published, but there remain hundreds of cases which the Federal radio inspectors have uncovered. To Chief Flynn of the Secret Service and Charles E. Apgar, an inventor, much credit is due for detecting one ingenious method used by Boy-Ed and others for sending out wireless messages. Apgar, an enthusiastic wireless operator, spent much time “listening in” to the messages sent every night from the wireless plants at Sayville, Long Island, to Germany. Finally he hit upon the scheme of recording the splash and splutter of the radio in a phonograph. After perfecting his device he began to “can” the Berlin messages—coming and going—every night. Then reeling off these messages on his phonograph, he would study again and again the dots and dashes of each word. He observed that messages had been repeated by the Sayville operator, that numbers were thrown in at intervals and finally that between words there were gaps of varying lengths—all means undoubtedly of sending messages in code—a new language of science invented by the Germans. Many messages were sent by Boy-Ed, himself. It was after a thorough study of these canned messages that the government began to operate the Sayville plant itself.
FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS
Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to send spies to the adversaries’ countries, to make arrangements for naval reservists to return to Germany, all of which required the use of fraudulent passports. While there have been charges that Germany had a factory for forging passports and while the New York World charged, at the time of Boy-Ed’s recall, that he had dealings with a gang of forgers and counterfeiters, who made passports, there is evidence that the naval attaché did pay money to German reservists, who procured passports fraudulently. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian, thirty-three years old, who had served in the German Navy, and afterwards came to this country to start on his life work. Before the war he had applied for his first citizenship papers; but his name had not been removed from the German naval reserve list.
“After the war started,” says Stegler, a well-dressed young man with rather stern features, “I received orders to return home. I was told that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work.”
Stegler then became a member of the German secret service in New York. “There is not a ship that leaves the harbour, not a cargo that is loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches and reports every detail,” he said afterwards. “All this information is transmitted in code to the German Government.” In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler was sent to Boy-Ed’s office, and there he received instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was to buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden’s birth certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government. Stegler has pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men were convicted of conspiracy in connection with the project. Stegler paid $100 for the document. Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term on Blackwell’s Island.