In prosecuting the war, Germany and her allies have proceeded from the beginning upon the theory that “the end justifies the means” and acting upon that theory have held in supreme contempt the rights of neutral nations.
From the beginning of the war, subjects of Germany, resident in the United States, have continuously violated our laws in the most outrageous and flagrant manner.
At the very threshold, they sought to use the United States as a base from which to supply the German raiders in the South Atlantic, and to that end, by fraud, obtained from the collectors at various ports of the United States legal clearances, thus subjecting every ship which lawfully cleared from any United States port to seizure by the Allies.
Next, they sought and obtained, by fraud, and false swearing, passports to be used by German reservists in returning to Germany, travelling under the guise of American citizens; thus placing in danger the lives and liberty of honest Americans travelling with legitimate passports and entitled to the protection of this Government.
Because the Allies were able to purchase in the United States munitions of war, foodstuffs and all other supplies they might need, and were able to transport them, and because the United States did not at the behest of the Imperial German Government, stop the sale and transportation of the supplies, which its citizens had a perfect right to sell and transport, German residents devised the inhuman scheme of making chemical fire bombs and infernal machines to be placed on ships carrying passengers and supplies, with the deliberate intent and purpose that the ships should be crippled or sunk in mid-ocean—it mattered not to them that all on board might find a watery grave.
Numerous attempts have been made to equip men of the most desperate character with necessary explosives and other implements of death and destruction and have them go from the United States into Canada, our friendly and respected neighbour, to destroy railroads, canals, ships, warehouses and factories without regard to human life.
Agents have been sent to the United States with unlimited money at their command to engage gunmen and thugs to blow up our munition plants and factories—many explosions have occurred—many lives have been lost—much damage has been done—I cannot say who caused such wholesale murder to be committed, but I have the right as you have, to suspect.
It is a matter of record that the German Military Attaché, Captain Franz von Papen, and the German Naval Attaché, Captain Boy-Ed, knew of and sanctioned some of the conspiracies above referred to—perhaps the German Ambassador did not know of them; but it will be hard to convince a hard-headed, common-sense American citizen that he did not know what his right hand and his left hand were doing in such a crucial period.
Murder has followed murder on the high seas, one crime came fast upon another in the United States, and now we are told that this Government must do as the Imperial German Government directs; or murder on a more colossal scale will be the result. The people of the United States have not taken orders from any Government since 1776, and the German murderers ought to have known we would take none now, least of all from a Government that had forfeited its right to the respect of any civilized nation.
“The German Spy in America” will give you some small conception of what the Germans in the United States have been doing since August 1, 1914. Its author has followed their nefarious plots very closely and he has an intimate knowledge of his subject.