After the Orders in Council were issued by England, Dr. Albert sought first to make the embargo unpopular in America. Letters and other documents in his dossier show that plans were submitted to him for stirring up sentiment in this country against what was denounced by pro-Germans as arbitrary seizures on the part of Great Britain. For instance, Edward D. Adams of 71, Broadway, New York, who for many years was a representative in that city of the Deutsche Bank, sent a letter to Dr. Albert in which he makes the following suggestion:
“The South politically is of very great importance to the Democratic Party and to the re-election of its representatives at our next Presidential election. The Cabinet and Congress have represented in them Southern men to a considerable number who are keenly alive to the importance of keeping the Democratic Administration in close touch with the Southern voters, and it takes such action from time to time as will secure their sympathy and support.”
Likewise plans were worked out for the arousing of the meat packers in Chicago to protest to Washington over the seizure of meat ships bound for Germany by way of neutral ports.
German representatives studying public sentiment in this country also suggested to Dr. Albert that indignation against Great Britain could be aroused by making it appear as if the British blockade was hurting America in preventing the receipt here of various non-contraband articles from Germany. One associate wrote to Dr. Albert:
“From a German standpoint, the pressure on the American Government can be strengthened by the interruption of deliveries from Germany even if the British Government should permit exception. Those shipments especially should be interrupted which the American industries so badly require; withholding of goods is the surest means of occasioning the placing before the Administration in Washington of American interests. Those protests have the most weight which come from American industries which employ many workmen.”
In the early months of the war Dr. Albert was a buyer of enormous supplies of cotton, wheat, copper, lubricating oil and other articles needed by Germany for the prosecution of the war. He signed contracts for meat and other supplies amounting to millions of dollars and he made payment the moment the ships were loaded here so that the American seller got his money regardless of what happened to the cargo while on the high seas. Of course, after the German Government seized all food supplies, the British Government took the attitude that all food supplies bound for Germany were intended for the Government and were therefore contraband. In the next place all purchases of food or other material by Dr. Albert as the official representative of the German Government made them Government supplies and therefore contraband of war. The moment the British Government discovered that these articles were purchased by Albert, no matter whether they were bound for neutral countries, or not, England argued she was justified in seizing the ships and confiscating them. But as a fact, England paid the American shippers in most instances.