“1. Have a new statement of the condition of your paper.
“2. Practice a control over the financial management.
“In addition to this, we must have an understanding regarding the course in politics which you will pursue, which we have not asked heretofore. Perhaps you will be so kind as to talk the matter over, on the basis of this letter, with ——.”
Plans for the purchase of an English daily in New York which would support the German cause were worked over at length by Dr. Albert and his assistants. Proof also that Dr. Albert and his associates contemplated the creation of news bureaus in New York and Berlin which would furnish and disseminate throughout the United States news favourable to the German Government is given in the memorandum prepared apparently by an expert newspaper man, outlining the plan and cost of organization and giving certain suggestions.
Dr. Albert gave consideration to the suggestion of paying the expenses of American newspaper men who would go to Germany and send back articles favourable to the German cause. He did so under orders from von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, who caused one of his aids to write to the German Ambassador a letter suggesting that certain journalists be invited to visit Germany.
EFFORTS TO OUTWIT THE BRITISH BLOCKADE
Varied and important as were these various duties, already mentioned, still the paramount task to which Dr. Albert devoted himself was a scheme to outwit England’s blockade of Germany. This tall, silent man, working in his little office, was concerned with the purchase of millions and millions of dollars’ worth of supplies—cargo after cargo—for shipment to Germany, direct or through neutral countries. In this campaign he used every means of deceiving the enemy that were in his power.
Let it be said that this is meant as no reflection on Dr. Albert. In war one nation may establish a blockade and the other nation will attempt to run it. International lawyers agree that one nation has a right to establish such a blockade. If the shipowner obtains ingress to the port he makes big profits by the sale of his goods, but if he is caught by the other belligerent he loses his ship and cargo. It is a gamble.
It has already been established as a part of international law, through decisions of Lord Stowell in England more than a century ago and of the United States Supreme Court during the Civil War, that if it can be shown that shipments of supplies to a neutral country are really designed for transhipment to a belligerent, then the enemy has a right to seize and confiscate those goods.