CHAPTER VI

GERMAN PROPAGANDA

How the Poison was Spread—The Press—The Pulpit—The Word-of-Mouth Rumor—Various Canards Directed Against American Morale—Stories and Instances of the Hun’s Subtlety.

Germany made two mistakes—one in beginning the war, the other in losing it. The world has reckoned with her far otherwise than as she hoped. Now she learns what it is to feel defeat. Shrewd as the shrewdest, more patient than the most patient, not lacking courage while victory was with her—yet always showing that peculiar German clumsiness of intellect—Germany fought with trained skill on both sides the sea. The world knows the story of the battles in France. Let us now study the battles fought in silence in America.

In actual practice the various secret methods which the Germans employed in America could not always be defined one from the other. A certain confusion and over-lapping existed between the spy systems and those of propaganda and sabotage. Often one man might practice all three. The purpose of this chapter is to take the humblest form of German secret work in America, that practiced by the least skilled and most numerous branch of her spies—the sort of thing which usually is classified as propaganda.

Let no one undervalue the work of propaganda. No army is better than its morale, and no army’s morale is better than that of the people which send it to the front. The entire purpose of enemy propaganda is to lessen the morale either of an army or a people; and that precisely was Germany’s purpose with us.

Anything is good propaganda which makes a people nervous, uneasy or discontented. Many of the stories which Germany spread in America seemed clumsy at first, they were so easily detected. Yet they did their work, even though sometimes it would have seemed that the rumors put out were against Germany and not for her. These rumors, repeated and varied, did serve a great purpose in America—they made us restless and uneasy. That certainly is true.

One of the favorite objects of the German propaganda was the Red Cross work. Hardly any American but has heard one or other story about the Red Cross. The result has been a very considerable lessening of the public confidence in that great organization. The average man never runs down any rumor of this sort. At first he does not believe what he hears. At the fourth or fifth story of different sorts, all aiming at one object, he begins to hesitate, to doubt. Without any question, the Red Cross has suffered much from German propaganda. Not that this organization should be called perfect, for such was not the case with any war organization. Not that the Y. M. C. A. work was perfect, for it was far from that. But the point is that all of these organizations, all the war charities, all the war relief organizations, were more nearly perfect than German propaganda has allowed us to believe. The most cruel and malicious statements against the Red Cross, wholly without foundation, were made, with apparent feeling of all lack of responsibility, by German-loving persons in all parts of the country. A complaint came to Washington Headquarters all the way from Portland, Oregon. Comment is unnecessary:

I am informed that one Bertha A——, who is in the Government service, Bureau of Aircraft Production, Executive Department, Cable Section, office in “D” Building, 4½ Missouri Avenue, Washington, D. C., has written a letter to a friend of hers here that a ward in one of the hospitals in Washington had been set aside for some seventy-five girls who were working in the different bureaus in Washington and had become pregnant since arriving in Washington; and that it was rumored that there were about three hundred in addition to the above who had been sent home for the same reason. Would suggest that she be interviewed. We will look up her antecedents here and if possible secure the letter which she has written or copy thereof. Upon being advised that such a letter had been written, I interviewed the husband of the lady to whom the letter was written, he being bailiff in one of the circuit courts here, and he stated that the quotation as made above was substantially correct.

Nearly everyone has heard the story of the Red Cross sweater which had a five-dollar bill pinned to it for the lucky unknown soldier who might be the recipient. This sweater is always reported to have been sold and to have turned up in some part of America with the proof attached to it. In no instance has there been any foundation for this rumor. A like baselessness marks the stories of Red Cross graft and misappropriation of funds and waste of money. No doubt there was a certain amount of inefficiency in this work; but that the Red Cross was looted or conducted by dishonest persons was never believed to be true even by the German agents who started the stories.

During the time of the influenza epidemic, a common story was that doctors had been found spreading influenza germs in the cantonments. It was reported, as no doubt every reader will remember, that two doctors had been shot in one post. Sometimes the story would come from a man who got it from an enlisted man who had been one of the firing squad who had executed several doctors in this way. There was not a word of truth in any of this. The inoculation propaganda was German propaganda, pure and simple. It might not seem clear how such mendacity could be of direct help to Germany; but it had this result—it made American mothers and fathers more uneasy about their sons. It made them want to keep their boys at home.

The powdered glass rumor was one of the most widely spread instances of German propaganda. Who has not heard it divulged in secrecy by some woman, with the injunction that not a word must be said about it? A German nurse had been detected putting powdered glass in the rolled surgical bandages in the Red Cross work rooms. She had disappeared before she could be arrested, and she had not left her name. That mysterious German woman who worked with the Red Cross is still absent. The rumors of powdered glass in bandages have been practically groundless—only one division, that in upper New Jersey, reports any case of that sort actually run down. The charges of powdered glass in food sent to the soldiers or put in tinned goods have been found equally baseless. Two cases of glass found in food stuffs are authentically reported,—both accidents, and the glass was broken and not powdered.

The charges of poisoned wells around cantonments was another canard. Rumors came out that horses, and men also, had been killed by the poisoned water. The entire investigating force of the United States has found one case of poisoned water in a horse trough in West Virginia—and no horse drank of it. The charges about poisoned court-plaster were proved to be equally groundless—indeed, they would seem to be of small reason in any case, because, if Germany was putting out the court-plaster, why should she speak of it; and why should America put it out at all? The psychology of it is this: anything which makes the people feel uneasy or anxious is good propaganda for the enemy.

Stories were spread very widely at one time that Canada and England were not practicing food conservation—that we were shipping our food to England and she was eating it without reservation, whereas we were denying ourselves sugar and butter. Perhaps you had best talk with someone who lived in England during the war as to the truth of that. It was one of the many German lies. There was the charge that the price of gasoline was due to the fact that the Standard Oil Company was dumping and wasting large quantities of gasoline. There was nothing in that, of course.

The report of Polish pogroms, general Jew killing expeditions by the Poles, were magnified and distorted, all with the purpose of making both the Poles and Jews dissatisfied with the conduct of the war. Continually these anti-Ally stories got out, and always they were hard to trace.

This form of propaganda, spread by word of mouth, was the most insidious and most widely spread of all forms. It was of course, made the more easy by the excited state of mind of the people during war times. You will remember that you yourself bought more newspapers than you ever did in your life—you looked for new headlines, new sensations, all the time. At home, your wife also was eager for sensations, for the news, for the gossip. It was ready for her and every member of her family, and her neighbors and neighbors’ families. The spread of a rumor is not governed by the laws of evidence; and hearsay testimony rarely is given twice the same—it always grows.

Into this form of German propaganda came spite work against German-Americans who themselves were loyal. A great deal of League activity had to do with running down rumors against persons declared to be pro-German. Sometimes these things were found baseless; and again enough pro-Germanism was found to warrant a stern rebuke.

Sometimes, public speakers, well trained in their tasks, put out propaganda which at the time seemed an innocent statement of facts. To the Lake Placid Club of New York came a certain “Belgian officer” who spoke very good English, and who purported to be able to tell all about the war. He made a long speech, regarding which many members of the local Red Cross complained bitterly to the American Protective League. This man’s talk, while purporting to be that of an ally of this country, was really German propaganda. He denied or justified German atrocities, deplored Red Cross knitting, declared it would take ten million Americans to beat the Germans; that they were going into a hell of vermin, dirt and disease; that our army as yet was difficult to find. There was a German orchestra at the Club, supposed to have come from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They all applauded vociferously when the speaker made such statements as, “After the war there will be a day of reckoning.” Further details, which proved that this speaker really was spreading German propaganda, led to his being traced to New York. He was found to have worked at different times in Iowa, Kansas, and elsewhere. The last report was that he was supposed to have sailed for his native country.

There was no way, shape nor manner in which Germany did not endeavor to embarrass us. She had, besides her carefully trained public speakers, her secret workers who had assigned to them definite objectives. For instance, it was known that the negro race would furnish a considerable number of soldiers for our army. A very wide German propaganda existed among the negroes in Georgia and Carolina, and in such northern cities as Indianapolis, where large numbers of that race were located. A certain German was indicted under seven counts for this manner of activity. It was proved that he had told a great many negro privates in the army that they would be mutilated if captured, and that they were going to starve to death in France if they ever got across. The horrors of war with the American forces were pointed out to these simple people; but, on the other hand it was explained to them that if they would work for the German interests, they would be allowed to set up a government of their own in America if Germany won the war! They were told Germany loved the negroes and believed in their equality with the white race in every way, and would support their government when once her war was won! One such secret German worker among colored soldiers and civilians was M. F—— of New York, indicted under seven counts in June, 1918, under the new Espionage Law. F—— put out much the same story to frighten the negroes and make them discontented—wholesale mutilation at the hands of Germans if they were captured in France. He declared that their eyes would be gouged out and their ears cut off. He also said that Germany was allowing our transports to reach Europe unharmed because she wanted a lot of Americans in France, where, after cutting off their supplies, she intended to starve them all to death.

This looks like making out a bad case for Germany—but softly. F—— also said that, on the other hand, Germany did not want to kill the negroes if they would not fight; that if only they would work for Germany’s interests, they should have their own country and their own government. Stories like this were circulated in the South and among cities in the North with a heavy negro population. F—— was the first propagandist to be caught with the goods. He was talking much with colored privates in the draft army.

Of course, a prime object of propaganda was to obstruct the draft and to prevent the shipment of munitions. It largely failed, as everyone knows. But still it cannot be said that Germany did not invest such money well as she spent on her secret pro-German propaganda in America. She knew that she had ruined Russia by propaganda. We might further have learned the danger of propaganda as a weapon had we heard the rumor that Germany herself had her collapse hastened by propaganda which Great Britain managed to spread among her people. It is a matter of history that German propaganda caused the Italian debacle in the first Austrian advance into Italy.

Nor is it to be believed that Germany has ceased in her propaganda. She does not believe herself defeated even now. The undying occult spirit of the old Teutonic Knights still lives to-day in America. Now, you will begin to hear attempts to make us dislike England, attempts to incite Ireland to revolt against England, attempts to make us dislike France, stories that England and France owe us much for everything they gave us in the way of equipment, aeroplanes, munitions; stories that we will never get back any of the moneys we loaned to the Allies; stories of how simple and innocent the German people are, how anxious they are to be friendly to America. That is all propaganda. By this time we ought to know how to value it.

Of course, the German language papers in this country were hotbeds of propaganda and sedition. Some of them were suppressed by the censorship, some by the indignant American people who informed the courts of justice. Most of them by this time have become tame since they have seen the penitentiary sentences imposed upon the more outspoken of these German editors living in America. These foreign language papers were prominent in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities. They show the strength of German sentiment in America. Every one of them was a center of propaganda, at first outspoken, then more careful. The great majority of these papers, in order to protect their business investments, tried to cover up when they found which way the wind was setting. The censorship officers were flooded with complaints against these papers. For instance, there came all the way from Indianapolis a complaint against a paper printed in Baltimore, Maryland, “The Bavarian Weekly.” A. P. L. had many extended translations of articles printed in this paper, the general tenor of which was a laudation of Germany and German methods. One wonders what Germany would have done to any American newspaper printed within the confines of Germany which might have expressed such hostile sentiments against the country harboring it.

In addition to these, there were, of course, the English language papers which for one reason or another were covertly or outspokenly in favor of Germany. Papers all the way from New York to Pueblo, Colorado, were bought or were attempted to be bought outright by German capital. The most sensational scandals of this sort came out of New York.

It is known that in many towns the German element undertook to sow seeds of discontent in the minds of savings bank depositors. Rumors got out—no one could tell where they started—to the effect that the United States Government was going to confiscate all the savings of the people; that the bonds would never be paid off. Of course, all this was absurd, but it had its effect upon servant girls and others who were loyally putting their savings into the securities of the government. It cost a great deal of time and expense to run down such rumors.

The pulpit was a recognized part of the German system of spy work in America, as has elsewhere been noted. It is not just to accuse all Lutheran ministers of desecrating the cloth they wore. There are good Lutheran ministers who are loyal Americans without question. At the same time it is true that more charges have been brought against pastors of the Lutheran church, and charges of more specific nature, than against any other class or profession in our country. There are scores and hundreds of such reports which came into the National Headquarters of the A. P. L. from all parts of the country, more especially those parts which have heavy German settlements. These are so numerous that one cannot avoid calling the Lutheran pulpit in America one of the most active and poisonous influences which existed in America during the war. A sample report comes in from the Chief of the A. P. L. at Armour, S. D.:

I have reported on five German Lutheran preachers of this vicinity. They are all of the same stripe—profess loyalty, but actions speak otherwise. It seems strange to me that they have such an anxiety to get into active war work in the army and navy.

In yet another and longer specification, the same chief states:

I am becoming concerned about the large number of reports I get locally regarding German Lutheran ministers in this part of South Dakota. They are attempting to obtain positions of trust in Government work in the army and navy. _I would not trust one of them in this part of the State. We have had trouble continually with the German communities where these ministers are located._ Twenty-nine were convicted from Tripp.... Our Government might as well choose men from Berlin as to select German Lutheran ministers from this part of South Dakota. It seems to me that the A. P. L. should investigate and see what is inducing all these German Lutheran ministers to apply for Government positions. If even one succeeds in obtaining an appointment, it would be an opening.

This matter went before the Military Intelligence Division in Washington and received proper handling there.

A report from Osage, Iowa, came in against a certain priest in another Iowa town. The entire record of this man is given, besides other details regarding his parentage, his education, and his conduct of his church. “Previous to the entry of the United States into the war, he upheld Germany in all particulars. Since war has been declared, he has been more careful in his speech. A service flag was dedicated in our village, which consists of but one street. The ceremonies were held in front of this man’s house. He did not attend the services. The next Sunday he roasted his congregation for giving money toward the flag and told them they should give quite as much to the church. A committee of five men visited him and invited him to subscribe to the Third Loan.”

One of these clerical gentlemen who have remained loyal to the Kaiser, though not to Christ, is the Reverend John Fontana, Lutheran clergyman of New Salem, North Dakota. He was convicted for preaching sedition, and got a three-year sentence in a Federal Court. This did not deter his likewise loyal Kaiserliche congregation. By a vote of fifty-seven to twenty-two the members decided to continue him as their beloved pastor. Yet this is what Judge Amidon said to Fontana when he was arraigned,—words which ought to be printed in large letters and displayed prominently in every street of every city of every portion of America. The Judge said to the prisoner:

You received your final papers as a citizen in 1898. By the oath which you then took, you renounced and abjured all allegiance to Germany and the Emperor of Germany, and swore that you would bear true faith and allegiance to the United States. What did that mean? That you would set about earnestly growing an American soul, and put away your German soul.

Have you done that? I do not think you have. You have cherished everything German and stifled everything American. You have preached German, prayed German, read German, sung German. Every thought of your mind and every emotion of your heart through all these years has been German. Your body has been in America, but your life has been in Germany. You have influenced others who have been under your ministry to do the same thing.

There have been a good many Germans before me in the last month. They have lived in this country, like yourself, ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, and they have had to give their evidence through an interpreter. It has been an impressive part of the trial. As I looked at them and tried, as best I could, to understand them, there was written all over every one of them, “Made in Germany.” American life had not dimmed that mark in the least.

I do not blame you and these men alone. I blame myself. I blame my country. We urged you to come; we welcomed you; we gave you opportunity; we gave you land; we conferred upon you the diadem of American citizenship—and then we left you.

When we get through with this war, and civil liberty is made safe once more upon this earth, there is going to be a day of judgment in these United States. Foreign-born citizens and the institutions which have cherished foreigners are going to be brought to the judgment of this Republic. That day of judgment looks more to me to-day like the great Day of Judgment than anything that I have thought of for many years. There is going to be a separation on that day of the sheep from the goats. Every institution that has been engaged in this business of making foreigners perpetual in the United States will have to change—or cease. That is going to cut deep, but it is coming.

It must be pointed out that in spite of this charge of the judge, and in spite of the sentence of this minister of the gospel, his flock remained loyal to him and invited him back to preach when he got out of jail!

It has always been charged against the Germans in America that they were the most clannish of all the foreigners coming to settle in this country. They, longer than any other people, retain their own institutions, their own language, their own customs. In parts of the country there are schools which teach the German language more than they do the English—a practice which, in all likelihood, will be discontinued when the troops come back from France and Germany. Without any doubt or question, pro-German school teachers were German propagandists, usually of the indiscreet and hotheaded sort.

From Terre Haute, Indiana, comes a complaint regarding Miss Lena Neubern—that is what we will call her—a hot socialist and worse, who was a school teacher. Miss Neubern had two brothers in that city who refused to allow an American flag to be placed in front of their store, or to allow their clerks to attend the parade of the Third Liberty Loan. A committee of citizens called on them and told them “in strong term what was expected of them.” Miss Neubern taught her school children, Americans, that the “Kaiser was just as good a man as President Wilson; that the United States was in this war, not for democracy, but for commercial supremacy; that the United States was as greedy as Germany; that we were controlled by England, always the enemy of the United States.” Miss Neubern refused to allow the Star Spangled Banner to be sung in her room, and did all she could to hinder the sale of Thrift Stamps among the children, though in other schools large numbers of stamps had been sold. This active and intelligent young woman pleaded guilty of this charge and was dismissed by the school board. One wonders whether the German Government would have stopped at the dismissal in a similar instance!

Another form of German propagandist might have been found higher up in educational circles. The faculties of our great universities have always been made up in part of a class of men who are of the belief that intellect and scholarship are best shown by eccentricity and radicalism. More than that, we had a number of actual Germans in our university faculties in America. Since it is the proposition here to deal in concrete facts and not in mere general assertions, let us print something which came in, embodied in the report from Champaign, Illinois.

Champaign, Illinois, is the home of the University of Illinois, and for some reason university towns seem to act as chutes for all sorts of independent thought. There are two strong German settlements in Champaign County, and a very strong German settlement in the city, where many residents have shown very pro-German tendencies. These German settlements have their own German schools, taught by their German Lutheran ministers under the pretense of teaching religion. Sentiment became so intense that the local A. P. L. Chief was requested by the Government to close these schools if possible. Some of them have reopened since the armistice. In such localities the Germans have been very independent and often quite outspoken, so that it was necessary in many cases for the A. P. L. to use influence to prevent violence to them. There were only one or two cases where the citizens got out of control, although many citizens of German descent refused to buy bonds and made disparaging remarks regarding the war.

The A. P. L. Chief says: “We were confronted with the problem of ousting five alien enemies at the University of Illinois, two of them regarded as dangerous. We also had to handle a cook at the aviation barracks, an alien enemy who was deliberately wasting food. We convicted the wife of a German minister in the Federal Court for making disloyal remarks. We had some difficulty with Russellites, Mennonites, and radical Socialists, but all have been kept in hand. Our organization consists of seventy-five members, but about twenty-five of us have done most of the active work.” A good and worthy twenty-five.

The reference to Russellites and Mennonites covers two regions of great A. P. L. activity. Pastor Russell, as he was known, passed away from this scene some time ago, but he left behind him seeds of discord. He was perhaps not so much disloyal as he was eccentric and fanatical in his mental habit. His book, “The Finished Mystery,” was so open a plea against war that it was proscribed by the United States Government. A. P. L. operatives ran down a great deal of so-called pro-German talk which originated in the Russellites. An instance of this comes from Coloma, Michigan, which reports: “Radical socialists became active during August, 1917. Acting under instructions from the Department of Justice, we put all of these meetings out of business in the territory of our jurisdiction. No more socialist meetings of any kind here. We got information which resulted in my calling upon certain Russellites. Collected five books of ‘The Finished Mystery,’ and some copies of the ‘Kingdom News.’ Russellites were watched, and they promised to discontinue activities until after the war. They have done so.”

It is not to be denied that the following of the radical banner among all nations of the world is an increasing one and one which will demand great care on the part of the governments on both sides of the Atlantic. Bolshevism is the great threat of the day, and we shall have to meet it in America as it must be met in Germany and Russia before there can be any lasting peace.

At times some of these radicals have got caught in the jaws of the amended Espionage Act, as for instance, Eugene V. Debs, the veteran Socialist candidate for the presidency, who was given three concurrent sentences of ten years each. Early in the fall of 1918, Dr. Morris Zucker, a well known Socialist in Brooklyn, was arrested on a charge of sedition and locked up. He is said to have declared that the stories of German atrocities committed by German army officers were not true and that they were circulated by capitalists in this country to further their own purposes. Dr. Zucker was of the belief that American soldiers are “make believe” soldiers. On September 6, 1918, in Philadelphia, Joseph V. Stillson, secretary of the “Kova,” a Lithuanian newspaper, was caught by the Espionage Act and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at Atlanta.

In Chicago, in December, 1918, there began the trial of Victor L. Berger, Congressman-elect from Milwaukee, for violation of the espionage act and conspiracy to obstruct the United States in prosecuting the war with Germany. With Berger, four other Socialist co-defendants were arraigned: Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the Socialist party; J. Louis Engdahl, Editor of the _American Socialist_; William F. Kruse, Secretary of the draft-evading organization of the anti-war Socialists, and Irwin St. John Tucker, a radical Episcopalian rector.

The trial before Federal Judge Kenesaw M. Landis lasted for more than a month and resulted in a verdict of guilty against all of the defendants. On February 20, 1918, Judge Landis sentenced the convicted men to twenty years’ imprisonment in the federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In sentencing the men, Judge Landis said:

Their writings and utterances fairly represent the consistent, personal campaigns they conducted to discredit the cause of the United States and obstruct its efforts. By no single word or