In the midst of all my strutting and gabbling, however, I found early opportunity to report at the Imperial German Consulate General, No. 11 Broadway. Two or three days later, Aug. 21, 1914, the Vice-Consul, Dr. Kraske, wrote me a letter, in his own hand, telling me that "a gentleman who is interested in you"—Capt. von Papen, to wit—would meet me next morning at the consulate. It may be worth remarking that Dr. Kraske, of his own volition, addressed the letter to "Baron von der Goltz." I had used merely my Mexican military title in registering at the Holland House.
I met Von Papen next day at the consulate. The conversation at first touched on prevailing conditions in Mexico, to which country, as well as to the United States, you may remember, Capt. von Papen was jointly accredited as Military Attaché. Attention was next devoted to a scheme proposed to the German Embassy by a man who had a plan for raiding Canadian towns on the Great Lakes, using motor boats armed with machine guns. In consequence of unfavorable information concerning the writer this scheme was rejected, as were several other tentative ones for various reasons. Among them was a plan to invade Canada with armed forces composed of German reservists in the United States, aided by German warships then in the Pacific. Another, for a time considered rather more feasible, was to seize the Island of Jamaica, in the British West Indies, also with naval aid. This plan, indeed, went so far that my Mexican rank of captain received German ratification, in order to give me military status should I be captured on British soil with arms in my hands. But this, too, was given up.
The activity finally decided on was a plan to blow up the locks of the canals connecting the Great Lakes, the main railway junctions of Canada and the largest grain elevators, with the double purpose of destroying one of England's chief sources of food supply and of throwing the Dominion into such a panic of suspicion that public opinion would demand the retention at home of the Canadian contingent of troops then mobilized for transportation to England.
Our conferences led me to believe the plan was fairly feasible and Capt. von Papen thereupon put entire responsibility for the details of execution into my hands.
So the Welland Canal plot—the obvious part of it, and the only part any outsider till now has heard a breath of—was hatched and began to grow up under my protection. Why it was permitted to be quite so obvious I must reserve the explanation for a few paragraphs. The one fact to note now is that it was almost transparent, and that I took no precautions to make it otherwise. Instead, I even talked and boasted of it and my important part in its execution.
Two things were needed—men and explosives. The first I got by going to Baltimore and asking for volunteers from among the crews of the German merchant ships laid up there. There were plenty of them. I selected the ones I wanted, and their captain promised to pay them off at the Baltimore Consulate and send them to New York under charge of a ship's officer. In Baltimore I was also supplied with a revolver, my own being out of order, and with a passport for one Bridgeman Henry Taylor—a passport issued by your American State Department, supposedly to an American citizen. But he, it merely happened, did not exist.
Back in New York, I reported to Capt. von Papen, and, as I needed money for the sailors who were coming, he gave me a check for two hundred dollars, drawn by himself and payable to Bridgeman Taylor. I got it cashed through the kindly offices of an acquaintance, Mr. Stallford, a member of the German Club on Central Park South. The sailors arrived in New York, were quartered in various places and were immediately put under the surveillance of detectives, just as I had expected and indeed hoped. The explanation of my cherishing such a seemingly absurd hope I must again momentarily defer.
II—A TALE OF DIABOLICAL CUNNING
Coming at the explosives was a more complicated matter. How it was done is best explained by the documents held by your secret service, which were part of the evidence at the trial of Hans Tauscher in the Federal Court here on a charge of plotting against the peace of the United States. Tauscher testified that he had no knowledge of the Welland Canal plot and that he sold the dynamite believing it was to be used for mining in Mexico. The jury believed him or gave him the benefit of a doubt, for they acquitted him.