As the buzzards fly to the carcass, so gathered the hungry German scribes around the “Reptile-fund”; but their pens were cheap and the “Press-Bureau” was able to feed a whole army of them, and yet have abundant means to devote to other methods for influencing public opinion. Its machinations are, of course, conducted with the greatest secrecy. All manner of blinds are used. Its agents assume in their articles a style of great independence, deal largely in loud and captious epithets, occasionally even criticise this or that measure of the government, and ape the ways of honest and patriotic men. The “Central Press-Bureau” itself is pushed as far out of sight as possible; stalking horses and scarecrows are put forward; and the institution is made to appear as only a myth. But the Cave of Æolus is in Berlin, and the winds which are let loose there blow to and fro, hither and yon, through all Germany, starting currents in other parts of the world. In this cave the old snake-worship of so many ages and peoples still exists, and the god is the “Reptile-fund.” Out of this cavern are blown the double-leaded leaders which fall thick all over the land, and always, as if by magic, just in the right place. False reports eddy through the air; stubborn facts are pulled and bent and beaten until they get into the proper shape. The light which is permitted to fall upon them is managed as skilfully as in an art-gallery or a lady’s drawing-room. With the aid of the “Reptile-fund” the “Press-Bureau” found little difficulty in extending its business of buying up journals, paying sometimes as high as a hundred thousand thalers for a single newspaper; and where this could not be done money was freely
spent to start an opposition sheet. Whenever a journal was found to be growing weak, aid was proffered on condition that it should open its columns to the “Press-Bureau”; sometimes with the understanding that one of its agents should be placed in the editorial chair. So thoroughly has this system of bribery taken possession of Prussian journalism that the court decided (October, 1873), in a suit against the Germania newspaper, that to accuse an editor of being in the pay of the “Press-Bureau” is not a criminal offence, since it does not in the public estimation tend to lower his character.
Occasionally, in spite of the greatest care, the secrets of the Bureau are betrayed. Thus in February, 1874, a circular was sent to various journals, and amongst others to the Neue Wormser-Zeitung, with the offer to furnish from the capital, first, a tri-weekly original article on the political situation; second, original political and diplomatic advice from all the departments of the government, also three times a week; third, a short but exhaustive parliamentary report; fourth, special correspondence from other capitals (written in Berlin); fifth, original accounts of foreign affairs, drawn from the special sources of the Bureau; and, sixth, a short daily, as well as a more lengthy weekly, exhibit of the Berlin Bourse. For these services nothing was demanded; but, that the thing might not appear too bald, it was stated that the editor should fix his own price. Now, it so happened that when this circular was received by the Neue Wormser-Zeitung that paper was in the hands of Herr Westerburg, a Social Democrat, who straightway took the public into his confidence.
The newly-acquired provinces of Prussia were a favorite field for the operations of the Berlin Bureau. General Manteuffel, in 1866, suppressed the Schleswig-Holsteinische Zeitung, and handed the country over to the reptile-press. In Alsace and Lorraine also journals were suppressed, and others established, by the government. In these provinces the independent press has wholly disappeared, with the exception of two tame and unimportant sheets. In fact, if we except the Catholic and a few Social Democratic newspapers, there is hardly a journal of any weight in the German Empire in which the press-reptile is not found. “I know,” wrote to Professor Wuttke an author well acquainted with the circumstances—“I know few German newspapers in which there is not a mud-bather.” For even passing services the Bureau is ready to pay cash. Chaplain Miarka, the editor of the Katholik, has declared publicly that he was offered 7,500 thalers on condition of consenting to write in a milder manner during the elections.
The working up of public opinion through the press extends far beyond the boundaries of the German Empire. The proceedings of the court in the trial of Von Arnim in 1874 developed the fact that he, whilst representing Prussia at the Tuileries, had entered into relations with various journals of Paris, Vienna, and Brussels; and it is generally understood that 50,000 thalers were placed at the disposition of Herr Rudolf Lindau for the purpose of manipulating the Parisian press. Through these and similar means an opening for the articles of the “Press-Bureau” was made in English, French, and Belgian newspapers; and these articles, which
had been first written in German, were translated back into German and published by the reptile-press as the expression of public opinion in foreign countries on Prussian affairs. “I could give the names,” says Professor Wuttke, “of the press-reptiles who write for the Indépendance Belge, of those who take care of the Hour, and of others whose duty it is to furnish articles to the Italian and Scandinavian newspapers.”[98] To hold the English in leading strings, Berlin had, in 1869, a North Germany Correspondence, and then, under the supervision of Aegidi, the director of the “Press-Bureau,” a Norddeutsche Correspondenz, which is still the chief source from which both English and American journals draw their information on German affairs. The attempt made from Berlin to buy Katkoff’s Journal of Moscow was defeated by the incorruptibility of the proprietor.
The reptile-press, of course, ignores and strives to hush whatever may throw light upon the dark workings and intrigues of the “Press Bureau”; and no better instance of its power in this respect can be given than the history of Professor Wuttke’s book on German journalism. Its existence was not recognized by the press-reptiles; its startling revelations were ignored or received in profound silence; and so successful was this policy that a year after the publication of the work only three hundred copies had been sold; and it is chiefly through the efforts of a Catholic newspaper—the Germania—and of Windthorst, a leader of the party of the Centrum, that it has finally been brought to public notice and has now reached a third edition. In the German
Parliament, on the 18th of December, 1874, Windthorst took Professor Wuttke’s book with him to the speaker’s stand, and, in a powerful address against any further grant of the “Secret Fund” (Reptilien-fond), made special reference to this work, which he characterized as “conscientious” and full of startling revelations which leave room to suspect even worse things. A year before (December 3, 1873) the same speaker declared in the Prussian Landtag that in Germany the government had nearly succeeded in getting entire control of the press; that the influence of the “Reptile-fund” was already noticeable in foreign countries, particularly in the newspapers of Vienna; and that the attempt had been made to establish a “Reptile-Bureau” in connection with the London embassy; and when this was found not to work well, a “Press-Bureau” for England, France, and Italy was organized in Berlin. These charges, made in public parliamentary debate, were allowed to pass without contradiction, although Aegidi, the director of the Central Bureau, was a member of the Assembly and present during the discussion.
Eugen Richter, the member for Hagen, brought forward other accusations of like import on the 20th of January, 1874. We have already given an example of the uses to which the Prussian government puts the reptile-press, in the instance of the forged army address attributed to Benedek, and published throughout Germany at the outbreak of the war with Austria in 1866.[99] Similar services were rendered by the “mud-bathers” at the time of the crisis with
France in 1870. A false telegram, purporting to come from Ems, dated July 13, 1870, in which the French minister, Count Benedetti, was said to have grossly insulted King William, was eagerly taken up by the venal press and commented upon in a way which excited the greatest indignation in the minds of the Germans against Napoleon, who, they firmly believed, was bent upon humiliating Prussia. In this way public feeling in both countries was fanned into a heat which could be cooled only by blood. The account of the interview at Ems was a fabrication, as Benedetti has since clearly shown; but Bismarck’s “swineherds” had faithfully done their unholy work.[100]