Chapter 5

showed that the man at the time he attacked the American was dressed in a soldier's uniform, which is grey, and which could not he mistaken for the black uniform of a red cross worker.

It was often said in Berlin, "Germany hates England, fights France, fears Russia but loathes America." No one, not even American officials, questioned it.

The hate campaign was bearing fruit.

In January, 1916, there appeared in Berlin a publication called _Light and Truth_. It was a twelve-page circular in English and German attacking President Wilson and the United States. Copies were sent by mail to all Americans and to hundreds of thousands of Germans. It was edited and distributed by "The League of Truth." It was the most sensational document printed in Germany since the beginning of the war against a power with which Germany was supposed to be at peace. Page 6 contained two illustrations under the legend:

WILSON AND HIS PRESS IS NOT AMERICA

Underneath was this paragraph:

"An American Demonstration--On the 27th of January, the birthday of the German Emperor, an immense laurel wreath decorated with the German and American flags was placed by Americans at the foot of the monument to Frederick the Great (in Berlin). The American flag was enshrouded in black crape. Frederick the Great was the first to recognise the independence of the young Republic, after it had won its freedom from the yoke of England, at the price of its very heart's blood through years of struggle. His successor, Wilhelm II, receives the gratitude of America in the form of hypocritical phrases and war supplies to his mortal enemy."

One photograph was of the wreath itself. The other showed a group of thirty-six people, mostly boys, standing in front of the statue after the wreath had been placed.

When Ambassador Gerard learned about the "demonstration" he went to the statue and from there immediately to the Foreign Office, where he saw Secretary of State von Jagow. Gerard demanded instantaneous removal of the wreath. Von Jagow promised an "investigation." Gerard meanwhile began a personal investigation of the _League of Truth_, which had purchased and placed the insult there.

Days, weeks, even months passed. Von Jagow still refused to have the wreath removed. Finally Gerard went to the Foreign Office and told von Jagow that unless it was taken away that day he would get it himself and send it by courier to Washington. That evening Gerard walked to the statue. The wreath had disappeared.

Week by week the league continued its propaganda. Gerard continued his investigation.

July 4, 1916, another circular was scattered broadcast. On page 1 was a large black cross. Pages 2 and 3, the inside, contained a reprint of the "Declaration of Independence," with the imprint across the face of a bloody hand. Enclosed in a heavy black border on page 4 were nine verses by John L. Stoddard, the lecturer, entitled "Blood-Traffickers." (Printed in the beginning of this chapter.)

The league made an especial appeal to the "German-Americans." Germany, as was pointed out in a previous article, counts upon some German-Americans as her allies. One day Ambassador Gerard received a circular entitled "An Appeal to All Friends of Truth." The same was sent in German and English to a mailing list of many hundred thousands. Excerpts from this read:

"If any one is called upon to raise his voice in foreign lands for the cause of truth, it is the foreigner who was able to witness the unanimous rising of the German people at the outbreak of war, and their attitude during its continuance. _This applies especially to the German-American_.

"_As a citizen of two continents, in proportion as his character has remained true to German principles, he finds both here and there the right word to say. . . ._

"Numberless millions of men are forced to look upon a loathsome spectacle. _It is that of certain individuals in America; to whom a great nation has temporarily intrusted its weal and woe_, supporting a few multi-millionaires and their dependents, setting at naught--unpunished--the revered document of the Fourth of July, 1776, and daring to _barter away the birthright of the white race_. . . . We want to see whether the united voices of Germans and foreigners have not more weight than the hired writers of editorials in the newspapers; and whether the words of men who are independent will not render it impossible for a subsidised press to continue its destructive work."

Gerard's investigation showed that a group of German-Americans in Berlin were financing the _League of Truth_; that a man named William F. Marten, who posed as an American, was the head, and that the editors and writers of the publication _Light and Truth_ were being assisted by the Foreign Office Press Bureau and protected by the General Staff. An American dentist in Berlin, Dr. Charles Mueller, was chairman of the league. Mrs. Annie Neumann-Hofer, the American-born wife of Neumann-Hofer, of the Reichstag, was secretary. Gerard reported other names to the State Department, and asked authority to take away the passports of Americans who were assisting the German government in this propaganda.

The "league" heard about the Ambassador's efforts, and announced that a "Big Bertha" issue would be published exposing Gerard. For several months the propagandists worked to collect data. One day Gerard decided to go to the league's offices and look at the people who were directing it. In the course of his remarks the Ambassador said that if the Foreign Office didn't do something to suppress the league immediately, he would burn down the place. The next day Marten and his co-workers went to the Royal Administration of the Superior Court, No. 1, in Berlin, and through his attorney lodged a criminal charge of "threat of arson" against the Ambassador.

The next day Germany was flooded with letters from "The League of Truth," saying:

"The undersigned committee of the League of Truth to their deepest regret felt compelled to inform the members that Ambassador Gerard had become involved in a criminal charge involving threat of arson. . . . All American citizens are now asked whether an Ambassador who acts so undignified at the moment of a formal threat of a wholly unnecessary war, is to be considered worthy further to represent a country like the United States."

Were it not for the fact that at this time President Wilson was trying to impress upon Germany the seriousness of her continued disregard of American and neutral lives on the high seas, the whole thing would have been too absurd to notice. But Germany wanted to create the impression among her people that President Wilson was not speaking for America, and that the Ambassador was too insignificant to notice.

After this incident Gerard called upon von Jagow again and demanded the immediate suppression of the third number of _Light and Truth_. Before von Jagow consented Mrs. Neumann-Hofer turned upon her former propagandists and confessed. I believe her confession is in the State Department, but this is what she told me:

"Marten is a German and has never been called to the army because the General Staff has delegated him to direct this anti-American propaganda. [We were talking at the Embassy the day before the Ambassador left.] Marten is supported by some very high officials. He has letters of congratulations from the Chancellor, General von Falkenhayn, Count Zeppelin and others for one of his propaganda books entitled 'German Barbarians.' I think the Crown Prince is one of his backers, but I have never been able to prove it."

On July 4th, 1915, the League of Truth issued what it called "A New Declaration of Independence." This was circulated in German and English throughout the country. It was as follows:

* * * * * * * *

A NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Seven score years have elapsed since those great words were forged that welded us into a nation upon many fiery battlefields.

In that day the strong voices of strong men rang across the world, their molten words flamed with light and their arms broke the visible chains of an intolerable bondage.

But now in the red reflex of the glare cast from the battlefields of Europe, the invisible manacles that have been cunningly laid upon our freedom have become shamefully apparent. They rattle in the ears of the world.

Our liberty has vanished once again. Yet our ancient enemy remains enthroned in high places within our land and in insolent ships before our gates. We have not only become Colonials once again, but subjects,--for true subjects are known by the measure of their willing subjection.

We Americans in the heart of this heroic nation now struggling for all that we ourselves hold dear, but against odds such as we were never forced to face, perceive this truth with a disheartening but unclouded vision.

Far from home we would to-day celebrate, as usual, the birthday of our land. But with heavy hearts we see that this would now seem like a hollow mockery of something solemn and immemorial. It were more in keeping with reality that we burnt incense upon the altars of the British Baal.

Independence Day without Independence! The liberty of the seas denied us for the peaceful Commerce of our entire land and granted us only for the murderous trafficking of a few men!

Independence Day has dawned for us in alien yet friendly land. It has brought to us at least the independence of our minds.

Free from the abominations of the most dastardly campaign of falsehood that ever disgraced those who began and those who believe it, we have stripped ourselves of the rags of many perilous illusions. We see America as a whole, and we see it with a fatal and terrible clarity.

We see that once again our liberties of thought, of speech, of intercourse, of trade, are threatened, nay, already seized by the one ancient enemy that can never be our friend.

With humiliation we behold our principles, our sense of justice trodden underfoot. We see the wild straining of the felon arms that would drag our land into the abyss of the giant Conspiracy and Crime.

We see the foul alliance of gold, murderous iron and debauched paper to which we have been sold.

We know that our pretenses and ambitions as heralds of peace are monstrous, so long as we profit through war and human agony.

We see these rivers of blood that have their source in our mills of slaughter.

The Day of Independence has dawned.

It is a solemn and momentous hour for America,

It is a day on which our people must speak with clear and inexorable voice, or sit silent in shame.

It is the great hour in which we dare not celebrate our first Declaration of Independence, because the time has come when we must proclaim a new one over the corpse of that which has perished.

Berlin, July 4th, 1915.

AN ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA DOCUMENT

* * * * * * * *

The League of Truth, however, was but one branch of the intricate propaganda system. While it was financed almost entirely by German-Americans living in Germany who retained their American passports to keep themselves, or their children, out of the army, all publications for this bureau were approved by the Foreign Office censors. Germans, connected with the organisation, were under direction of the General Staff or Navy.

In order to have the propaganda really successful some seeds of discontent had to be sown in the United States, in South America and Mexico as well as in Spain and other European neutral countries. For this outside propaganda, money and an organisation were needed. The Krupp ammunition interests supplied the money and the Foreign Office the organisation.

For nearly two years the American press regularly printed despatches from the Overseas News Agency. Some believed they were "official." This was only half true. The Krupps had been financing this news association. The government had given its support and the two wireless towers at Sayville, Long Island, and Tuckerton, N. J., were used as "footholds" on American soil. These stations were just as much a part of the Krupp works as the factories at Essen or the shipyards of Kiel. They were to disseminate the Krupp-fed, Krupp-owned, Krupp-controlled news, of the Overseas News Agency.

When the Overseas despatches first reached the United States the newspapers printed them in a spirit of fairness. They gave the other side, and in the beginning they were more or less accurate. But when international relations between the two countries became critical the news began to be distorted in Berlin. At each crisis, as at the time of the sinking of the _Arabic_, the _Ancona_, the _Sussex_ and other ships, the German censorship prevented the American correspondents from sending the news as they gathered it in Germany and substituted "news" which the Krupp interests and the Imperial Foreign Office desired the American people to believe. December, 1916, when the German General Staff began to plan for an unrestricted submarine warfare, especial use was made of the "Overseas News Agency" to work up sentiment here against President Wilson. Desperate efforts were made to keep the United States from breaking diplomatic relations. In December and January last records of the news despatches in the American newspapers from Berlin show that the Overseas agency was more active than all American correspondents in Berlin. Secretary of State Zimmermann, Under-secretaries von dem Busche and von Stumm gave frequent interviews to the so-called "representatives of the Overseas News Agency." It was all part of a specific Krupp plan, supported by the Hamburg-American and the North German Lloyd steamship companies, to divide opinion in the United States so that President Wilson would not be supported if he broke diplomatic relations.

Germany, as I have pointed out, has been conducting a two-faced propaganda. While working in the United States through her agents and reservists to create the impression that Germany was friendly, the Government laboured to prepare the German people for war. The policy was to make the American people believe Germany would never do anything to bring the United States into the war, but to convince the German public that America was not neutral and that President Wilson was scheming against the German race. Germany was Janus-headed. Head No. 1 said:

"America, you are a great nation. We want your friendship and neutrality. We have close business and blood relations, and these should not be broken. Germany is not the barbaric nation her enemies picture her."

Head No. 2, turned toward the German people, said:

"Germans, President Wilson is anti-German. He wants to prevent us from starting an unlimited submarine war. America has never been neutral, because Washington permits the ammunition factories to supply the Allies. These factories are killing your relatives. We have millions of German-Americans who will support us. It will not be long until Mexico will declare war on the United States, and our reservists will fight for Mexico. Don't be afraid if Wilson breaks diplomatic relations."

The German press invasion of America began at the beginning of the war. Dr. Dernburg was the first envoy. He was sent to New York by the same Foreign Office officials and the same Krupp interests which control the Overseas agency. Having failed here, he returned to Berlin. There was only one thing to save German propaganda in America. That was to mobolise the Sayville and Tuckerton wireless stations, and Germany did it immediately.

At the beginning of the war, when the British censors refused the American correspondents in Germany the right of telegraphing to the United States via England, the Berlin Government granted permission to the United Press, The Associated Press and the _Chicago Daily News_ to send wireless news via Sayville. At first this news was edited by the correspondents of these associations and newspapers in Berlin. Later, when the individual correspondents began to demand more space on the wireless, the news sent jointly to these papers was cut down. This unofficial league of American papers was called the "War-Union." The news which this union sent was German, but it was written by trained American writers. When the Government saw the value of this service to the United States it began to send wireless news of its own. Then the Krupp interests appeared, and the Overseas News Agency was organised. At that moment the Krupp invasion of the United States began and contributed 800,000 marks annually to this branch of propaganda alone.

Dr. Hammann, for ten years chief of the Berlin Foreign Office propaganda department, was selected as president of the Overseas News Agency. The Krupp interests, which had been subscribing 400,000 marks annually to this agency, subscribed the same amount to the reorganised company. Then, believing that another agency could be organised, subscribed 400,000 marks more to the Transocean News Agency. Because there was so much bitterness and rivalry between the officials of the two concerns, the Government stepped in and informed the Overseas News Agency that it could send only "political news," while the Trans-ocean was authorised to send "economic and social news" via Sayville and Tuckerton.

This news, however, was not solely for the United States. Krupp's eyes were on Mexico and South America, so agents were appointed in Washington and New York to send the Krupp-bred wireless news from New York by cable to South America and Mexico. Obviously the same news which was sent to the United States could not be telegraphed to Mexico and South America, because Germany had a different policy toward these countries. The United States was on record against an unlimited submarine warfare. Mexico and South America were not. Brazil, which has a big German population, was considered an un-annexed German colony. News to Brazil, therefore, had to be coloured differently than news to New York. Some of the colouring was done in Berlin; some in New York by Krupp's agents here. As a result of Germany's anti-United States propaganda in South America and Mexico, these countries did not follow President Wilson when he broke diplomatic relations with Berlin. While public sentiment might have been against Germany, it was, to a certain degree, antagonistic to the United States.

Obviously, Germany had to have friends in this country to assist her, or what was being done would be traced too directly to the German Government. So Germany financed willing German-Americans in their propaganda schemes. And because no German could cross the ocean except with a falsified neutral passport, Germany had to depend upon German-Americans with American passports to bring information over. These German-Americans, co-operating with some of the Americans in Berlin, kept informing the Foreign Office, the army and navy as well as influential Reichstag members that the real power behind the government over here was not the press and public opinion but the nine million Americans who were directly or indirectly related to Germany. During this time the Government felt so sure that it could rely upon the so-called German-Americans that the Government considered them as a German asset whenever there was a submarine crisis.

When Henry Morgenthau, former American Ambassador to Turkey, passed through Berlin, en route to the United States, he conferred with Zimmermann, who was then Under Secretary of State. During the course of one of their conversations Zimmermann said the United States would never go to war with Germany, "because the German-Americans would revolt." That was one of Zimmermann's hobbies. Zimmermann told other American officials and foreign correspondents that President Wilson would not be able to bring the United States to the brink of war, because the "German-Americans were too powerful."

But Zimmermann was not making these statements upon his own authority. He was being kept minutely advised about conditions here through the German spy system and by German-American envoys, who came to Berlin to report on progress the German-Americans were making here in politics and in Congress.

Zimmermann was so "dead sure" he was right in expecting a large portion of Americans to be disloyal that one time during a conversation with Ambassador Gerard he said that he believed Wilson was only bluffing in his submarine notes. When Zimmermann was Under Secretary of State I used to see him very often. His conversation would contain questions like these:

"Well, how is your English President? Why doesn't your President do something against England?"

Zimmermann was always in close touch with the work of Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed when they were in this country. He was one of the chief supports of the little group of intriguers in Berlin who directed German propaganda here. Zimmermann was the man who kept Baron Mumm von Schwarzenstein, former Ambassador to Tokyo, in the Foreign Office in Berlin as chief of foreign propaganda and intrigue in America and China. Mumm had been here as Minister Extra-ordinary several years ago and knew how Germany's methods could be used to the best purpose, namely, to divide American sentiment. Then, when Zimmermann succeeded Jagow he ousted Mumm because Mumm had become unpopular with higher Government authorities.

One day in Berlin, just before the recall of the former German military and naval attaches in Washington, I asked Zimmermann whether Germany sanctioned what these men had been doing. He replied that Germany approved everything they had done "because they had done nothing more than try to keep America out of the war; to prevent American goods reaching the Allies and to persuade Germans and those of German descent not to work in ammunition factories." The same week I overheard in a Berlin cafe two reserve naval officers discuss plans for destroying Allied ships sailing from American ports. One of these men was an escaped officer of an interned liner at Newport News. He had escaped to Germany by way of Italy. That afternoon when I saw Ambassador Gerard I told him of the conversation of these two men, and also what Zimmermann had said. The Ambassador had just received instructions from Washington about Boy-Ed and von Papen.

Gerard was furious.

"Go tell Zimmermann," he said, "for God's sake to leave America alone. If he keeps this up he'll drag us into the war. The United States won't stand this sort of thing indefinitely."

That evening I went back to the Foreign Office and saw Zimmermann for a few minutes. I asked him why it was that Germany, which was at peace with the United States, was doing everything within her power to make war.

"Why, Germany is not doing anything to make you go to war," he replied. "Your President seems to want war. Germany is not responsible for what the German-Americans are doing. They are your citizens, not ours. Germany must not be held responsible for what those people do."

Had it not been for the fact that the American Government was fully advised about Zimmermann's intrigues in the United States this remark might be accepted on its face. The United States knew that Germany was having direct negotiations with German-Americans in the United States. Men came to Germany with letters of introduction from leading German-Americans here, with the expressed purpose of trying to get Germany to stop its propaganda here. What they did do was to assure Germany that the German-Americans would never permit the United States to be drawn into the war. Because of their high recommendations from Germans here some of them had audiences with the Kaiser.

Germany had been supporting financially some Americans, as the State Department has proof of checks which have been given to American citizens for propaganda and spy work.

I know personally of one instance where General Director Heinicken, of the North German-Lloyd, gave an American in Berlin $1,000 for his reports on American conditions. The name cannot be mentioned because there are no records to prove the transaction, although the man receiving this money came to me and asked me to transmit $250 to his mother through the United Press office. I refused.

When Zimmermann began to realise that Germany's threatening propaganda in the United States and Germany's plots against American property were not succeeding in frightening the United States away from war, he began to look forward to the event of war. He saw, as most Germans did, that it would be a long time before the United States could get forces to Europe in a sufficient number to have a decisive effect upon the war. He began to plan with the General Staff and the Navy to league Mexico against America for two purposes. One, Germany figured that a war with Mexico would keep the United States army and navy busy over here. Further, Zimmermann often said to callers that if the United States went to war with Mexico it would not be possible for American factories to send so much ammunition and so many supplies to the Allies.

German eyes turned to Mexico. As soon as President Wilson recognised Carranza as President, Germany followed with a formal recognition. Zubaran Capmany, who had been Mexican representative in Washington, was sent to Berlin as Carranza's Minister. Immediately upon his arrival Zimmermann began negotiations with him. Reports of the negotiations were sent to Washington. The State Department was warned that unless the United States solved the "Mexican problem" immediately Germany would prepare to attack us through Mexico. German reservists were tipped off to be ready to go to Mexico upon a moment's notice. Count von Bernstorff and the German Consuls in the United States were instructed, and Bernstorff, who was acting as the general director of German interests in North and South America, was told to inform the German officials in the Latin-American countries. At the same time German financial interests began to purchase banks, farms and mines in Mexico.