Part 17 (1/2)

Of course, these vilifiers of their own country were loud in their denunciations of me, but the prospect of losing the protection of their pa.s.sports kept many of these men from open and treasonable denunciation of their own country.

The Government actually encouraged the formation of societies which had for their very object the scattering of literature attacking the President and the United States. The most conspicuous of these organisations was the so-called League of Truth. Permanently connected with it was an American dentist who had been in jail in America and who had been expelled from Dresden by the police authorities there. The secretary was a German woman who posed as an American, and had been on the stage as a snake dancer. The princ.i.p.al organiser was a German named Marten who had won the favour of the German authorities by writing a book on Belgium denying that any atrocities had taken place there. Marten secured subscriptions from many Germans and Americans resident in Germany, opened headquarters in rooms on the Potsdamerstra.s.se and engaged in the business of sending out pamphlets and leaflets attacking America. One of his princ.i.p.al supporters was a man named Stoddard who had made a fortune by giving travel lectures in America and who had retired to his handsome villa, in Meran, in Austria.

Stoddard issued a pamphlet ent.i.tled, ”What shall we do with Wilson?”

and some atrocious attempts at verse, all of which were sent broadcast by the League of Truth.

This was done with the express permission of the German authorities because during the war no societies or a.s.sociations of any kind could meet, be formed or act without the express permission and superintendence of both the military and police authorities.

Anyone who has lived in Germany knows that it would be impossible even in peace times to hang a sign or a wreath on a public statue without the permission of the local authorities; and yet on the Emperor's birthday, January twenty-seventh, 1916, this League of Truth was permitted to place an enormous wreath, over four feet high, on the statue of Frederick the Great, with an American flag draped in mourning attached, and a silk banner on which was printed in large letters of gold, ”Wilson and his press are not America.” The League of Truth then had a photograph taken of this wreath which was sent all over Germany, again, of course, with the permission of the authorities. The wreath and attachments, in spite of frequent protests on my part to Zimmermann and von Jagow, remained in this conspicuous position until the sixth of May, 1916. After the receipt of the _Suss.e.x_ Note, I again called von Jagow's attention to the presence of this wreath, and I told him that if this continuing insult to our flag and President was not taken away that I would go the next day with a cinematograph operator and take it away myself. The next day the wreath had disappeared.

This League, in circulars, occasionally attacked me, and in a circular which they distributed shortly after my return to Germany at the end of December, 1916, it was stated, ”What do you think of the American Amba.s.sador? When he came to Germany after his trip to America he brought a French woman with him.” And the worst of this statement was that it was true. But the League, of course, did not state that my wife came with me bringing her French maid by the express permission of the German Foreign Office.

I have had occasion many times to wonder at the curious twists of the German mind, but I have never been able to understand on what possible theory the German Government permitted and even encouraged the existence of this League of Truth. Certainly the actions of the League, headed by a snake dancer and a dentist, would not terrorise the American Congress, President Wilson or me into falling in with all the views of the German Government, and if the German Government was desirous of either the President's friends.h.i.+p or mine why was this gang of good-for-nothings allowed to insult indiscriminately their country, their President and their Amba.s.sador?

One of the friends of Marten, head of this League, was (------) (---------), a man who at the time he was an officer of the National Guard of the State of New York, accepted a large sum of money ”for expenses” from Bernstorff. Of course, in any country abroad acceptance by an officer of money from a foreign Amba.s.sador could not be explained and could have only one result--a blank wall and firing party for the receiver of foreign pay. Perhaps we have grown so indulgent, so soft and so forgetful of the obligations which officers owe to their flag and country that on (---------)'s return from Germany he will be able to go on a triumphant lecture tour through the United States.

There was published in Berlin in English a rather ridiculous paper called the _Continental_Times_, owned by an Austrian Jewess who had been married to an Englishman. The Foreign Office, after the outbreak of the war, practically took over this sheet by buying monthly many thousand copies. News coloured hysterically to favour the Central Empires was printed in this paper, which was headed ”A Paper for Americans,” under the editors.h.i.+p of an Englishman of decent family named Stanhope, who, of course, in consequence did not have to inhabit the prison camp of Ruhleben.

(--------) was a contributor to this newspaper, and scurrilous articles attacking President Wilson appeared. Finally (---------) wrote a lying article for this paper in which he charged that Conger of the a.s.sociated Press had learned of Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt's proposed expedition; that Conger told me; that I cabled the news to Was.h.i.+ngton to the State Department; and that a member of President Wilson's Cabinet then gave the information to the British Amba.s.sador.

Later in a wireless which the Foreign Office permitted (---------) to send Senator O'Gorman of New York, (---------) varied his lie and charged that I had sent the information direct to Great Britain.

_The_Continental_Times_ was distributed in the prison camps and after (---------)'s article I said to von Jagow, ”I have had enough of this nonsense which is supported by the Foreign Office and if articles of the nature of (---------)'s appear again I shall make a public statement that the prisoners of war in Germany are subjected to a cruel and unusual punishment by having the lying _Continental_Times_ placed in their hands, a paper which purports to be published for Americans but which is supported by the Foreign Office, owned by an Austrian and edited by a renegade Englishman!”

This _Continental_Times_ business again caused one to wonder at the German psychology which seems to think that the best way to make friends is to attack them. The author of ”The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” must have attended a German school.

An Amba.s.sador is supposed to be protected but not even when I filed affidavits in the Foreign Office, in 1916, made by the ex-secretary of the ”League of Truth” and by a man who was constantly with Marten and the dentist, that Marten had threatened to shoot me, did the Foreign Office dare or wish to do anything against this ridiculous League. These affidavits were corroborated by a respectable restaurant keeper in Berlin and his a.s.sistants who testified that Marten with several ferocious looking German officers had come to his restaurant ”looking” for me. I never took any precaution against these lunatics whom I knew to be a bunch of cowardly swindlers.

Marten and his friends were also engaged in a propaganda against the Jews.

The activities of Marten were caused by the fact that he made money out of his propaganda; as numerous fool Germans and traitorous Americans contributed to his war chest, and by the fact that his work was so favourably received by the military that this husky coward was excused from all military service.

It seemed, too, as if the Government was anxious to cultivate the hate against America. Long before American ammunition was delivered in any quant.i.ty to England and long before any at all was delivered to France, not only did the Government influence newspapers and official gazettes, but the official _Communiques_ alleged that quant.i.ties of American ammunition were being used on the West front.

The Government seemed to think that if it could stir up enough hate against America in Germany on this ammunition question the Americans would become terrorised and stop the s.h.i.+pment.

The Government allowed medals to be struck in honour of each little general who conquered a town--”von Emmich, conqueror of Liege,” etc., a pernicious practice as each general and princeling wanted to continue the war until he could get his face on a medal--even if no one bought it. But the climax was reached when medals celebrating the sinking of the _Lusitania_ were sold throughout Germany. Even if the sinking of the _Lusitania_ had been justified only one who has lived in Germany since the war can understand the disgustingly bad taste which can gloat over the death of women and babies.

I can recall now but two writers in all Germany who dared to say a good word for America. One of these, Regierungsrat Paul Krause, son-in-law of Field Marshal Von der Goltz, wrote an article in January, 1917, in the _Lokal_Anzeiger_ pointing out the American side of the question of this munition s.h.i.+pment; and that bold and fearless speaker and writer, Maximilian Harden, dared to make a defence of the American standpoint. The princ.i.p.al article in one of the issues of his paper, _Die_Zukunft_, was headed ”If I were Wilson.” After some copies had been sold the issue was confiscated by the police, whether at the instance of the military or at the instance of the Chancellor, I do not know. Everyone had the impression in Berlin that this confiscation was by order of General von Kessel, the War Governor of the Mark of Brandenburg.

I met Harden before the war and occasionally conversed with him thereafter. Once in a while he gave a lecture in the great hall of the Philharmonic, always filling the hall to overflowing.

In his lectures, which, of course, were carefully pa.s.sed on by the police, he said nothing startling. His newspaper is a weekly publication; a little book about seven inches by four and a half, but wielding an influence not at all commensurate with its size.

The liberal papers, like the largest paper of Berlin, the _Tageblatt_, edited by Theodor Wolff, while not violently against America, were not favourable. But the articles in the Conservative papers and even some of the organs of the Catholic Party invariably breathed hatred against everything American.

In the Reichstag, America and President Wilson were often attacked and never defended. On May thirtieth, 1916, in the course of a debate on the censors.h.i.+p, Strasemann, of the National Liberal Party and of the branch of that party with Conservative leanings, violently opposed President Wilson and said that he was not wanted as a peacemaker.

Government, newspapers and politicians all united in opposing America.

I believe that to-day all the bitterness of the hate formerly concentrated on Great Britain has now been concentrated on the United States. The German-Americans are hated worse than the native Americans. They have deeply disappointed the Germans: first, because although German-Americans contributed enormously towards German war charities the fact of this contribution was not known to the recipients in Germany. Money sent to the German Red Cross from America was acknowledged by the Red Cross; but no publicity was given in Germany to the fact that any of the money given was from German-Americans. Secondly, the German-Americans did not go, as they might have done, to Germany, through neutral countries, with American pa.s.sports, and enter the German army; and, thirdly, the most bitter disappointment of all, the German-Americans have not yet risked their property and their necks, their children's future and their own tranquillity, by taking arms against the government of America in the interest of the Hohenzollerns.

For years, a clever propaganda had been carried on in America to make all Germans there feel that they were Germans of one united nation, to make those who had come from Hesse and Bavaria, or Saxony and Wurttemberg, forget that as late as 1866 these countries had been overrun and conquered by Prussian militarism.