Part 18

Events moved rapidly in the United States after that. On Saturday, February 3, Ambassador Bernstoff was given his passports, and on April 6, 1917, the Congress, upon the recommendation of the President, declared that a state of war existed with Germany. From that day forth the Secret Service, and all of the forces of the Government were used in rounding up and arresting spies and suspects.

Many hundreds of arrests Were made by Secret Service agents and other officers of the Government and a score of convictions secured. A large number of suspected persons were interned at Fort Oglethorpe, in Georgia. Probably not one of the arrested persons could be ranked as a great military spy, and yet when all of their activities were pieced together they must have been of great value to the Imperial German Government. The varied character of the work they were doing for the enemy indicated that it must have been more or less systematized, and that it was in all probability under the direction of some one person acting as the master spy.

For instance, on the 15th of July, 1917, an alien was indicted by the Federal Grand Jury, in New Orleans, on the charge of being a spy. It was learned that the man had been hovering in the neighborhood of the local naval station for many days at a time. Once he was seen to be making notes in a book. At a given time his rooms were searched, and the authorities found a number of blue prints and plans of the naval station in his possession. He was indicted on the charge of obtaining this information clandestinely “and for the purpose of supplying it to the enemy, the Imperial German Government, against the peace and dignity of the United States.” The case attracted much interest because it was the first time since the days of reconstruction that any one had been indicted in New Orleans for a plot against the United States.

About the time of the New Orleans incident a German nobleman was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, for activity in the interest of the Kaiser. The man had made a sensational escape from Canada, about eighteen months previously. He had been arrested in Quebec on a spy charge, and was being taken in an automobile to St. Thomas, Ontario. Near the outskirts of the town he attacked the official who was driving the car, and knocking him into a state of insensibility, escaped. He took the badge and the revolver of the stricken man, and made his way to the United States, coming into this country by way of the Niagara Falls bridge. He admitted that he had once been a captain in the German army, but denied that he had engaged in any unlawful business in the United States.

In the early days of the participation of the United States in the war, and when the people of this country did not even know of the departure of our war vessels for the other side of the Atlantic, the fact of their departure was published in Berlin, four days before they actually arrived in Queenstown. This was a serious leak, to say the least. The American newspapers scrupulously observed the request of the Secretary of the Navy to avoid publishing the date of the departure or arrival of any vessel. Where did the Berlin authorities obtain their information? That was a question which agitated many persons. It was solved when the Secret Service, early in July, of 1917, arrested three men in New York, for conducting a private postal service, in the interest of Germany. It was claimed that for months they had been sending “mail” to Scandinavian countries for transmission to Germany. These letters were entrusted to the sailors on the ships, and ordered to be handed to certain persons in Norway and Sweden, and by them sent to their destination in the German Capital.

Several bundles of these letters were seized by the representatives of the American Government. It is a significant fact that many of them were in code. They came from all parts of the United States, and from Mexico and South and Central America. The letters were written in English, Spanish and German. Some of them were business communications, and were admittedly harmless. It was proven that this novel “mail service” worked in both directions, letters going to and from Germany. It was also shown that remote parts of Mexico were in wireless communication with Berlin. Significance was also attached to the fact that parts of wireless outfits had been brought in on some of the Scandinavian boats, and that these were afterward erected in Mexico. None of the men were subjected to any pressure on the part of United States officials, and all were told that they had the right to be represented by counsel, if they so desired.

But these arrests in different sections of the country, almost simultaneously, and the varied character of the activity of the men involved, helps to confirm the statement, made on the floor of the Senate, that during and before the war, we had thousands of German spies in the United States.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Redundant Chapter titles have been removed from this eBook.

Page 163: “exclaimed Tandy” was printed as “explaimed Tandy”.