would have become publicly known and British and other hostile warships patrolling the seas would have been on their guard. The defendants were convicted, but the case remained open on appeal.

About the same time the criminal features of the Teutonic propaganda engaged the lengthy attention of a Federal Grand Jury sitting in New York City. A mass of evidence had been accumulated by Government agents in New York, Washington, and other cities. Part of this testimony related to the Dumba and Von Papen letters found in the Archibald dossier. Another part concerned certain revelations a former Austrian consul at San Francisco, Dr. Joseph Goricar, made to the Department of Justice. This informant charged that the German and Austrian Governments had spent between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000 in developing an elaborate spy system in the United States with the aim of destroying munition plants, obtaining plans of American fortifications, Government secrets, and passports for Germans desiring to return to Germany. These operations, he said, were conducted with the knowledge of Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador. Captains Boy-Ed and Von Papen were also named as actively associated with the conspiracy, as well as Dr. von Nuber, the Austrian Consul General in New York, who, he said, directed the espionage system and kept card indices of spies in his office.

The investigation involved, therefore, diplomatic agents, who were exempt from prosecution; a number of consuls and other men in the employ of the Teutonic governments while presumably connected with trustworthy firms; and notable GermanAmericans, some holding public office.

Contributions to the fund for furthering the conspiracy, in addition to the substantial sums believed to be supplied by the German and Austrian Governments, were said to have come freely from many Germans, citizens and otherwise, resident in the United States. The project, put succinctly, was "to buy up or blow up the munition plants." The buying up, as previously shown, having proved to be impracticable, an alternative plan presented itself to "tie up" the factories by strikes. This was

Dr. Dumba's miscarried scheme, which aimed at bribing labor leaders to induce workmen, in return for substantial strike pay, to quit work in the factories. Allied to this design was the movement to forbid citizens of Germany and Austria-Hungary from working in plants supplying munitions to their enemies. Such employment, they were told, was treasonable. The men were offered high wages at other occupations if they would abandon their munition work. Teutonic charity bazaars held throughout the country and agencies formed to help Teutons out of employment were regarded merely as means to influence men to leave the munition plants and thus hamper the export of war supplies. Funds were traced to show how money traveled through various channels from the fountainhead to men working on behalf of the Teutonic cause. Various firms received sums of money, to be paid to men ostensibly in the employ of the concerns, but who in reality were German agents working under cover.

Evidence collected revealed these various facts of the Teutonic conspiracy. But the unfolding of such details before the Grand Jury was incidental to the search for the men who originated the scheme, acted as almoners or treasurers, or supervised, as executives, the horde of German and Austrian agents intriguing on the lower slopes under their instructions.

CHAPTER III

VON RINTELEN'S ACTIVITIES-CONGRESSMAN

IN

INVOLVED GERMANY'S

REPUDIATIONS

DISMISSAL OF CAPTAINS BOY-ED

AND VON PAPEN

N this quest the mysterious movements and connections of one German agent broadly streaked the entire investigation. This person was Von Rintelen, supposed to be Dr. Dumba's closest lieutenant ere that envoy's presence on American soil was dispensed with by President Wilson. Von Rintelen's activities

belonged to the earlier period of the war, before the extensive ramifications of the criminal phases of the German propaganda were known. At present he was an enforced absentee from the scenes of his exploits, being either immured by the British in the Tower of London, or in a German concentration camp as a spy. This inglorious interruption to the rôle he appeared to play while in the United States as a peripatetic Midas, setting plots in train by means of an overflowing purse, was due to an attempt to return to Germany on the liner Noordam in July, 1915. The British intercepted him at Falmouth, and promptly made him a prisoner of war after examining his papers.

Whatever was Von Rintelen's real mission in the United States in the winter of 1914-15, he was credited with being a personal emissary and friend of the kaiser, bearing letters of credit estimated to vary between $50,000,000 and $100,000,000. The figure probably was exaggerated in view of the acknowledged inability of the German interests in the United States to command anything like the lesser sum named to acquire all they wanted-control of the munition plants. His initial efforts appeared to have been directed to a wide advertising campaign to sway American sentiment against the export of arms shipments. His energies, like those of others, having been fruitless in this field, he was said to have directed his attention to placing large orders under cover for munitions with the object of depleting the source of such supplies for the Allies, and aimed to control some of the plants by purchasing their stocks. The investigation in these channels thus contributed to confirm the New York "World's" charges against German officialdom, based on its exposé of the Albert documents. Mexican troubles, according to persistent rumor, inspired Von Rintelen to use his ample funds to draw the United States into conflict with its southern neighbor as a means of diverting munition supplies from the Allies for Amer ican use. He and other German agents were suspected of being in league with General Huerta with a view to promoting a new revolution in Mexico.

The New York Grand Jury's investigations of Von Rintelen's activities became directed to his endeavors to "buy strikes." The

outcome was the indictment of officials of a German organization known under the misleading name of the National Labor Peace Council. The persons accused were Von Rintelen himself, though a prisoner in England; Frank Buchanan, a member of Congress; H. Robert Fowler, a former representative; Jacob C. Taylor, president of the organization; David Lamar, who previously had gained notoriety for impersonating a congressman in order to obtain money and known as the "Wolf of Wall Street," and two others, named Martin and Schulties, active in the Labor Peace Council and connected with a body called the Antitrust League. They were charged with having, in an attempt to effect an embargo (which would be in the interest of Germany) on the shipment of war supplies, conspired to restrain foreign trade by instigating strikes, intimidating employees, bribing and distributing money among officers of labor organizations. Von Rintelen was said to have supplied funds to Lamar wherewith the Labor Peace Council was enabled to pursue these objects. One sum named was $300,000, received by Lamar from Von Rintelen for the organization of this body; of that sum Lamar was said to have paid $170,000 to men connected with the council.

The Labor Peace Council was organized in the summer of 1915, and met first in Washington, when resolutions were passed embracing proposals for international peace, but were viewed as really disguising a propaganda on behalf of German interests. The Government sought to show that the organization was financed by German agents and that its crusade was part and parcel of pro-German movements whose ramifications throughout the country had caused national concern.

Von Rintelen's manifold activities as chronicled acquired a tinge of romance and not a little of fiction, but the revelations concerning him were deemed sufficiently serious by Germany to produce a repudiation of him by the German embassy on direct instructions from Berlin, i. e.:

"The German Government entirely disavows Franz Rintelen, and especially wished to say that it issued no instructions of any kind which could have led him to violate American laws."

It is essential to the record to chronicle that American senti. ment did not accept German official disclaimers very seriously. They were too prolific, and were viewed as apologetic expedients to keep the relations between the two governments as smooth as possible in the face of conditions which were daily imperiling those relations. Germany appeared in the position of a Frankenstein who had created a hydra-headed monster of conspiracy and intrigue that had stampeded beyond control, and washed her hands of its depredations. The situation, however, was only susceptible to this view by an inner interpretation of the official disclaimers. In letter, but not in spirit, Germany disowned her own offspring by repudiating the deeds of plotters in terms which deftly avoided revealing any ground for the suspicion— belied by events-that those deeds had an official inception. Germany, in denying that the plotters were Government "agents," suggested that these men pursued their operations with the recognition that they alone undertook all the risks, and that if unmasked it was their patriotic duty not to betray "the cause," which might mean their country, the German Government, or the German officials who directed them. Not all the exposed culprits had been equal to this self-abnegating strain on their patriotism; some, like Fay, were at first talkative in their admissions that their pursuits were officially countenanced, another recounted defense of Werner Horn, who attempted to destroy a bridge connecting Canada and the United States, even went so far as to contend that the offense was military-an act of war-and therefore not criminal, on the plea that Horn was acting as a German army officer. In other cases incriminating evidence made needless the assumption of an attitude by culprits of screening by silence the complicity of superiors. Yet despite almost daily revelations linking the names of important German officials, diplomatic and consular, with exposed plots, a further repudiation came from Berlin in December, 1915, when the New York Grand Jury's investigation was at high tide. This further disavowal read:

"The German Government, naturally, has never knowingly accepted the support of any person, group of persons, society or