CHAPTER XXIV

GERMAN PROPAGANDA AMONG NEGROES

Insidious Efforts to Create Dissatisfaction Among Colored Americans-Germany's Treacherous Promises-How the Hun Tried to Undermine the Loyalty of Our Negro Citizens-Steps Taken to Combat Enemy Propaganda-Work of the Committee on Public Information.

Many were the methods resorted to by Germany and her allies in their desperate efforts to win the war. Some of them were among the most despicable, dishonorable, and unscrupulous ever recorded in the annals of military history. By no means did the Imperial German Government confine its war activities to soldiers, to battleships, or to battlefields-those open, legitimate methods which honorable nations use, as a last resort, to settle international differences. On the contrary, Germany sought in many nefarious, secret ways (as was discovered and revealed by the Military Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Justice) to aid her war program right here on American soil, through propaganda work among enemy civilians, and through acts of open outlawry committed either directly by her subjects or by pro-German sympathizers.

Even prior to the breaking out of hostilities, Germany diligently endeavored to promote anti-war sentiment in America, designed to produce an increased number of pacifists who were opposed to the declaration of war as well as to our country's war program. She tried in a number of ingenious ways to appeal to, and to cause dissatisfaction among various racial groups which go to make up America's composite population, and to make them lukewarm in the support of their Government. For instance, in her effort to disaffect the Irish-American group, she paraded before them in certain newspapers, in the form of subsidized articles, by lectures, public speakers, and otherwise, the Irish Home Rule Question so dear to the Irish heart, the alleged mistreatment of Ireland by England, the

execution of Sinn Feiners and of Sir Roger Casement; by which sort of propaganda work she hoped to set Americans of Irish descent against the idea of supporting this country as an ally of England.

In order to influence German-Americans, she energetically fostered in this country various kinds of propaganda designed to make this racial group support the "Fatherland" more and America less; she urged German-American workers in munition plants and in other establishments supplying war materials "to be true to the Fatherland" and to withdraw their labor from all such industries, and not only that, but her agents aided and abetted German sympathizers to commit acts of sabotage and violence in order to impair or destroy the power of this country to produce war materials and the implements of war. Her secret service agents and paid hirelings strove to promote strikes and friction among various groups of American workingmen, and even encouraged and engaged in the blowing up of bridges, railroads, munition plants, and other indispensable adjuncts connected with the successful prosecution of war.

In addition to her insidious plans to disaffect those of alien birth or parentage, she also attempted propaganda work among nativeborn Americans both white and black, and it required all the courage and intelligence of the white press and the Negro press, ably assisted by the Committee on Public Information and its countless number of loyal public speakers, white and black, to counteract the pacifist propaganda, "Made in Germany," which threatened for a time to keep our country from participating in the world's great struggle for freedom and democracy.

Foremost among those who successfully combated this proGerman propaganda was Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, whose forceful opposition to hyphenated Americans and pacifists will ever stand as a monument to his 100-per-cent Americanism. Even before our country's entrance into the arena of war as an ally of Great Britain and France, German propaganda made itself manifest in a determined effort to influence American voters in favor of placing an embargo upon all shipments of arms, ammunition, etc., to belligerent nations; the defeat of Germany's plan in this regard led up, indirectly if not directly, to the Lusitania disaster, which may be said to have brought the United States into the war.

Propaganda Among Negroes

Active German propaganda of various kinds was attempted, and was officially recognized to exist among the colored people of this country, and it is one of the most remarkable facts of the war that in spite of so many insidious plans to bring about disaffection among them by emphasizing racial discriminations, injustices, and the like, in spite of so many temptations to be disloyal, the entire racial group of colored Americans remained absolutely loyal and actively patriotic. Authentic information that the Germans tried to incite the colored people of the South against the United States was brought out by Mr. A. Bruce Bielaski, Chief of the Bureau of Investigations, Department of Justice, in a Congressional inquiry conducted by the Senate Committee which investigated German propaganda in America. Mr. Bielaski said that "The colored people did not take to these stories, they were too loyal. Money spent among them for propaganda was thrown away." During the course of the same official hearing, Captain George B. Lester, Military Intelligence Officer, told the Senate Propaganda Investigating Committee that German propaganda among Negroes of the South was particularly active in the Spring and Summer of 1918.

Stirred Race Hatred

In the course of his testimony, Captain Lester said: "When the thirty-one propagandists who reached this country (from Germany) shortly after the outbreak of the war organized the Fuehr publicity bureau in New York, they set aside one 'section' for dealing with American race problems. They kept records of every lynching, every attack by a Negro upon a white person, and every item of alleged oppression of the Negro race by the whites. The directing head of the propaganda was the German ambassador at Mexico City. In this country Reiswitz, former Consul at Chicago, acted as his assistant. The Negroes were told by the propagandists that in Europe there was no color line; that there the blacks were equal to the whites; that if Germany won the war the rights of Negroes throughout the world would equal those of whites. On the military side the propaganda took the form of stories that Negro soldiers were left on the ground to die and that they always were put in the first line trenches in France and used almost exclusively as 'shock

troops.' The German agents passed the word among Negro recruits that if Germany won the war, a certain section of the United States would be set aside where the Negroes could rule themselves."

As later developments proved, this was an unsuccessful attempt to weaken the morale of Negro soldiers. In his story of the work of Germans among colored Americans generally, Captain Lester said that "the propaganda became so annoying that a conference of leading Negroes (referring to the Negro Editors' Conference which was also attended by a number of other leaders of Negro thought and opinion) was called in June, 1918, in Washington, D. C., and a movement immediately started through the War Department and the Committee on Public Information to offset it." "As a result,' he added, "the activity of the German agents soon ceased." It was the splendid team work of Negro editors throughout the country that, in large measure, helped to guard colored Americans against such propaganda and to maintain a healthy morale among them.

Lynchings During the War

While German propaganda failed to affect the colored people to the extent of diverting them from their loyalty to the United States, yet the truth of the matter is that the morale of the colored people was kept more or less disturbed and at a frazzled edge during most of the war by what came to be known as "anti-Negro propaganda." Much of this could not be traced to German sources, but plainly had its origin in age-old prejudices which have existed in America against colored people along certain well defined lines. The number of lynchings of Negroes seemed to be on the increase during the course of the war, and THESE LYNCHINGS, BE IT REMEMBERED, WERE NOT "Made in Germany." According to the records compiled by Monroe N. Work, in charge of records and research of Tuskegee Institute, there were 58 Negroes lynched in 1918 and 38 lynched in 1917, a total of nearly 100 Negroes lynched on American soil while our country was at war and while hundreds of thousands of loyal Negro soldiers and millions of law-abiding cclored Americans were supporting the Government with unfaltering patriotism.

This unfortunate condition gave German newspapers abroad much ground for effective criticism, and the following press reports

indicate the kind of articles which frequently appeared in the German press, some of which were reprinted in American newspapers. Many of these articles carried the impression to the German people that Germans were being lynched in America.

The Munich Neueste Nachtrichten said that at the Berne prisoner-of-war conference the German representatives would have the opportunity of bringing up the question of Praeger, who was lynched, remarking that questions were asked of the foreign office representative at the last session of the Reichstag on this case. It ealled attention to the cases of Consuls Bopp and Schack of San Francisco, which, it said, should be made the subject of an interpellation in the Reichstag. The paper said that the German delegates should bring up the whole question at the conference and be able to assure better treatment for Germans in America.

The Kolnische Volkszeitung published a long article headed "JUDGE LYNCH, MISTER MOB." The article asserted that formerly American writers alleged that the crime of lynching existed only in the black belt, but now, the paper declared, lynch law belongs to the approved rites of "culture" in the United States.

"The most horrible scenes of human bestiality which can be recorded," it goes on, "are quite natural for the Yankee.

He no longer gets excited over a lynching, and is only ashamed when foreigners call attention to this 'people culture.'"

It is always asserted, the paper proceeded, that mobs and the scum of the people are responsible for lynchings.

"Every American who uses the word MOB in this sense,' adds, "lies, because he knows that all classes of society, without exception, including men and women, partake."

At Brookhaven, Miss., the paper sets forth, a colored man was lynched by 20,000 persons, and many landowners from Lincoln drove in during the night in order to "enjoy the crime."

That paper also referred to Praeger, and declared that after energetic action by the German government, Washington gave the press the tip to discourage lynching. It scoffed at President Wilson's message regarding crimes committed by the German army, saying "he lives in a glass house and should not throw stones."

Articles of this kind generally appeared prior to and to excuse what the Germans call "reprisals," otherwise Hun brutality.