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cial Bulletin called upon all Germans to defeat the 'starvation blockade' of England by forwarding provisions to their relatives and friends in Germany by parcel post, and gave detailed directions for such shipment. Any interference with such packages, it was advised, would constitute a casus belli. To excite feeling against England old disputes were revived and the longforgotten tirades which they occasioned were reprinted and circulated. The officers of the Alliance were officious in presenting before the State Department the claims of citizens whose property had been held up by the British blockade. The German societies in the South urged the cottongrowers to insist upon their right to ship their product to Germany unless an embargo should be placed on munitions. England, they repeated again and again, had always been the tyrant of the seas, the sworn enemy of America.

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A feature of the agitation has been the large number of organizations which have, apparently, sprung spontaneously into existence. Among these are the 'American Neutrality League,' which professes to favor simon-pure neutrality by opposing the export of arms; the American Independence Union,' which advocates a real independence of England by the observance of true neutrality; the 'American Truth Society,' which professes to have that jewel, so far as it relates to the war, in its exclusive possession; the "Friends of Peace,' who abhor the munitions traffic on humanitarian grounds and whose convention in Chicago was promoted by the president of the New York federation of German societies; and many others. All are mere aliases for the same agencies—the same names appear in the directorates and memberships. So apparent was this fact that the president of the National Al

liance suggested the advisability of the officers of the 'American Independence Union' resigning in favor of gentlemen whose names would not so clearly betray their German origin and partisanship. He also urged the members to form branch societies of the 'American Neutrality League,' cautioning them, however, to avail themselves, so far as possible, of Anglo-Americans for the official positions.

The American Truth Society has been the principal literary agency of the propaganda. In view of the reiterated protestations of undivided loyalty which head all petitions circulated by the German sympathizers, the pamphlet, A German-American War, published immediately after the Lusitania tragedy, is interesting. The author, who is the president of the society, seriously questions the loyalty of the German element in the event of a war with Germany, and goes so far as to predict a revolution which would drench the country in blood. If this is the brand of truth the society espouses, its work need not be taken seriously.

Besides these organizations there are those which are frankly German in name as well as in sympathy, such as the 'German Defense Committee,' and the 'German Information Bureau.'

Just as the German government counted upon an insurrection in Ireland, so the Alliance and the partisans of Germany in this country turned to Irish organizations for support. As far back as 1907 a working agreement was made with the Ancient Order of Hibernians; in 1910 the scope of the agreement was enlarged. Since the war the branch societies have been urged to get into touch with similar Irish organizations. Accordingly, Germans have assisted ostentatiously in the celebration of Irish holidays. In some places the enthusiasts further 'hyphenated' their citizenship by the

formation of 'German-Irish-American' organizations.

There is no question that these activities, like the discontent in Ireland, were carefully noted by agents of the German government and set down as an asset in the event of war. Several years ago the Kaiser conferred upon the president of the National GermanAmerican Alliance the Order of the Red Eagle of the fourth class— not a high honor, to be sure, but a trinket which would naturally be appreciated by any German who felt that he was only geographically and politically an American.

Bernhardi predicted that in the event of war between England and Germany the United States would gladly seize upon the opportunity to effect the conquest of Canada. A pamphlet addressed to the German element has recently made its appearance in the United States. The author proposes the following plan:

'Many Americans are hoping for an expedition against Canada during this war; some, of course, are dubious about such a proceeding in view of the weakness of the American Army. For that reason the idea is freely advanced in the American press that recourse should be had to the five hundred thousand German reservists in the United States, who would form the backbone of an army that could immediately be pushed against the Canadian frontier. In this long frontier England has always presented the most vulnerable part of her entire colonial empire; Canada, too, presents a far greater area for friction with the United States than the West Indian Archipelago.

'But even if the German-Americans cannot persuade their countrymen of the advantages of such a proceeding against Canada, they nevertheless have the opportunity of inciting and equip

ping the German reservists in America for an independent campaign against Canada, even though the official circles of the German element would, to appearances, have to keep aloof. Before the battle of the Falkland Islands the plan had received consideration of sending the five cruisers of Admiral Spee to Vancouver and of providing a rendezvous on this rich island for the army which was to be improvised in this manner. The Times gave the alarm and the British Ambassador in Washington protested to the American government against the massing of armed Germans on the Canadian border which the press described.

'Some other rendezvous than Vancouver could be selected, and, if it were not betrayed, such an expedition against Canada promises satisfactory results. Troops there are in plenty, since, according to official statistics, five hundred and fifty thousand German reservists are being detained in the United States, of whom thirty-five thousand are in New York City and fifty-three thousand in Chicago. These men are lacking neither in enthusiasm nor warlike spirit. Furthermore, the German troops would undoubtedly be received with open arms by the Germans of Canada, who, according to the census of 1911, number five hundred twenty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven.'

These statements might be regarded as merely the vaporings of an irresponsible pamphleteer but for the fact that the volume contains an introduction bearing the name of Admiral von Knorr, of the German Navy. Then, too, the indictments recently returned against the German Consul-General at San Francisco, together with several members of his staff, for conspiracy to organize a military expedition, give the statements some degree of official endorsement.

IV

It is quite improbable that all this persistent, and ofttimes intemperate, propaganda, has gained converts for the German cause. It has, however, had one important effect it has encouraged the amazing effrontery with which agents of the German government and German subjects in private life have prosecuted their designs in the United States. While these demonstrations were not taken seriously by native Americans, they served, nevertheless, to give to these foreigners an exaggerated idea of the strength of the pro-German sentiment. Backed by this sentiment they could defy the law and transgress diplomatic privilege. This was the natural inference which the attachés of the German embassy and the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador drew from the expressions at the 'peace' meetings which followed the Lusitania tragedy. The convicted officials of the Hamburg-America line, the perpetrators of passport frauds and bomb outrages, and the paid instigators of strikes felt that their crimes were condoned by a large and influential portion of the public, and that the rest were at most indifferent.

The field seemed prepared for an active propaganda from official sources. In April, 1915, Franz von Rintelen, an agent of the German secret service, was sent to New York with a large fund for the purpose of convincing labor of the inhumanity of the munitions industry. The notorious 'Labor's National Peace Council' was promoted. To the everlasting credit of the representatives of labor be it said that they were never deceived as to the true purposes of the organization, or tempted by its campaign fund. The character of the 'labor' interested in the movement can be gauged by the personalities of those subsequently

VOL. 117-NO. 4

indicted in connection with its work. A few individuals were attracted to Washington by the promises of a junket with all expenses paid, and the group was dubbed a 'convention.' 'Part of the activities of this organization,' says District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall, 'consisted in stirring up strikes in various plants which were engaged in munition manufacture. In each case where a strike was purchased there was labor opposition to the strike.' With Von Rintelen's departure, which occurred just in time to enable him to escape the clutches of the law, and with the indictment of the other promoters, the labors of the council came to an end.

German agents next turned their attention to the organization of the 'American Embargo Conference.' With this work the German embassy was kept closely in touch. Germans were cautioned to keep in the background, in order that the movement might have, to all outward appearances, a purely American character. Nevertheless, the National Alliance is actively supporting the work, which consists chiefly in flooding members of Congress with petitions, letters, and post-cards calling for the interdiction of the traffic in munitions. The Alliance also makes frequent appeals to its members to support the Fatherland, a magazine whose editor, as published correspondence shows, has received payments from, German agents. Many efforts have been made by them to acquire control of a newspaper or press agency for promulgating the German view in the United States.

German diplomacy failed, according to Maximilian Harden, because it proceeded on the theory that the other man was a stupid fellow. The efforts of the German agents in the United States have failed because they underestimated the intelligence of the American

people. 'Nowhere,' says Dr. Eduard Meyer, professor of history in the University of Berlin, 'has the general hostility to Germany manifested itself more surprisingly or with greater intensity than in the United States. Here at least we had flattered ourselves that we had gained a firm foothold.' The appeals to the civilized world, issued broadcast by German professors and theologians at the beginning of the war, have given place to pamphlets with such inquiring titles as 'Why do the Nations Hate us?' 'Why are we Disliked Abroad?' 'The Unfriendliness of America,' and so on. The solutions presented are in the main the same. It is the answer which the parvenu in wealth and power always flings at his critics: "They are jealous of my success.'

Viewed in the light of history, the propaganda of those Germans who are only geographically and politically Americans is as unnatural as it is pernicious. It stands condemned by the results which would follow its adoption by other nationalities in this country. The United States would become a polyglot jumble of compact organizations in which French, Italians, Slovaks, Poles, Jews, Greeks, and every other people would strive to preserve their peculiar customs, institutions, and languages; the more virile would naturally attempt to impose their distinctive ideas of culture on all the others; racial feuds would disrupt the country and make of it a heterogeneous mass of warring factions. Under these influences an American nation would be impossible, and without an American nation the American state would succumb to disintegration.

Nor can the activity of these propagandists be defended under the aegis of a superior German culture. True culture demands neither a press agent nor a conscious propaganda. Twenty-two hundred years after Charonea Greek

thought still dominates the modern world. Germans are proud to assert that Lessing discovered Shakespeare before he was duly appreciated even by his own countrymen, and that to-day his dramas enjoy a greater vogue in Germany than among English-speaking peoples. This was not the result of any imperial policy, of any 'will to power,' nor was any propaganda necessary to attract Longfellow, Bancroft, and the thousands of other Americans who have studied in German universities. The influence of true German culture lies in the power of no man and of no government either to limit or to destroy. It is prized as highly by native Americans as by native Germans. But every people and in time this will include the Germans themselves — resents the muezzin-call of the zealots of modern 'Kultur.' It makes neither for comity nor for good will. Japan has acquired more 'Kultur' than any other country, and yet no peoples entertain for each other the same degree of dislike as the Germans and the Japanese.

The separatist ideal pursued with increasing zeal during the last twenty years made the fulfillment of the mission of the German element impossible. A people that insisted upon the superiority of their own culture, disparaged the Anglo-Saxon race as decadent, put themselves in ostentatious opposition to everything which might savor of English influence, had simply fallen from their high calling. Under the influence of false leaders they became nothing more or less than the dupes of Prussian Junkerdom.

In estimating the activities of the Germans during the last eighteen months, allowance must be made for the high tension of feeling produced by the war. Nor must it be imagined that the majority of Germans in this country subscribe to the opinions put forth by the noisy propagandists. This group,

though compact and well organized, forms but a small fraction of the thirty millions of citizens of German birth or descent in this country. But it is for this majority, for the descendants of those who fought at Oriskany; of those who over the trenches of Yorktown heard the opposing commands given in

their native tongue, and finally saw the garrison march out to the music of German airs; of those who fought under Schurz and Sigel in the Civil War, to rebuke these false prophets, and to turn the aspirations of their countrymen in the direction of true American nationalism.

SHARKS OF THE AIR

BY LEWIS R. FREEMAN

THE sea raid, the land raid, the airship raid this was the trio of bugaboos under the menace of which Britain, uninvaded, almost unthreatened, for a thousand years, stirred uneasily at the outbreak of the war and turned anxious eyes toward the leaden mist curtain which veiled the North Sea. Then the bulldog of the Navy, after a tentative snap or two, set its teeth in an ever-tightening stranglehold, and with the dying gasps of German sea-power the threat of the sea and land raids disappeared for good. So far as England was concerned, only the ways of the air were left open to Germany; only the menace of the Zeppelin remained.

And when weeks had lengthened to months, and summer had given way to autumn, and autumn to winter, without the threatened bombing from the sky, the name of Zeppelin ceased to have interest for the stolid Briton, now just awakening to the fact that he had a mighty task to perform beyond the seas. Continued immunity bred contempt, and even the fore-running raids of the spring of 1915 failed to stir Lon

don from her impassive calm. By midsummer she was showing signs of being bored with the whole subject, and the sky-searching antics of the comedians in her packed music halls began to be greeted with yawns from the stalls. She was becoming impatient of her darkened streets, and captious 'Pro Bono Publicos' wrote to the papers demanding more illumination and a general return to 'Business as Usual.'

The authorities' still kept up a pretense of preparedness. The so-called anti-aircraft guns - really a nondescript lot of ordnance, left over after the fittest of the few available pieces had been requisitioned for use in France, on the coast or by the Navy— still had their crews of half-trained amateurs, and the golden beams of the searchlights continued to whirl and dip and curtsey in their nocturnal minuets. Buckets of water and boxes of sand stood ready for emergency use in the art galleries and museums, and on the hoardings conspicuous posters gave with meticulous particularity instructions as to how one should act if Zeppelin bombs began raining in his vicinity.

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