All automobiles, motor-cars, bicycles and horses are hereby proclaimed the property of the Imperial Government and it is forbidden under penalty of death for any person save a soldier in royal uniform to use them.
The railroads will be opened for traffic under Imperial control within forty-eight hours. No uneasiness need be felt, therefore, that your food supply will fail. The subways and surface lines will be ready for use within twenty-four hours.
All persons are ordered to resume their usual occupations tomorrow morning at daylight when the means of transportation have been restored.
Resistance of any kind will be absolutely futile. The President of the United States and his entire Cabinet are prisoners of war, and your Capitol, duly guarded, is in my hands. Your fleet is in the Pacific, and I have destroyed the locks of the Panama Canal.
The Imperial Government earnestly desires that all bloodshed be avoided. We have the best interests of the people at heart. We will establish for the first time in your history a government worthy of this nation. My Imperial Master will treat all loyal subjects as his beloved children. His foes will be ground to dust beneath his feet. For these no quarter will be asked, none given.
I have already caused the arrest and imprisonment of two hundred well-known citizens to be held as hostages for your good behavior.
Your great churches, your municipal buildings and your big commercial houses have all been mined. At the first outbreak of rebellion, your hostages will be shot and your city reduced to ashes.
In the name of my Imperial Master I command the peace.
Prince Karl von Waldron,
Governor-General of the
Provinces of North America.
Vassar read this remarkable proclamation aloud amid a silence that was strangling.