"By reason of the admitted purpose and intent of Dr. Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate industries of the people of the United States and to interrupt their legitimate trade, and by reason of the flagrant violation of diplomatic propriety in employing an American citizen, protected by an American passport, as a secret bearer of official dispatches through the lines of the enemy of Austria-Hungary, the President directs us to inform your excellency that Dr. Dumba is no longer acceptable to the Government of the United States as the Ambassador of His Imperial Majesty at Washington.”

Dr. Dumba was not recalled by his Government until September 22, 1915, fourteen days after the American demand. Meanwhile Dr. Dumba had cabled to Vienna, requesting that he be ordered to return on leave of absence "to report." His recall was ostensibly in response to his personal request, but the Administration objected to this resort to a device intended to cloak the fact that he was now persona non grata whose return was really involuntary, and would not recognize a recall "on leave of absence." His Government had no choice but to recall him officially in view of the imminent contingency that otherwise he would be ousted, and in that case would be denied safe conduct from capture by an allied cruiser in his passage across the ocean. His request for passports and safe conduct was, in fact, disregarded by the Administration, which informed him that the matter was one to be dealt directly with his Government, pending whose official intimation of recall nothing to facilitate his departure could be done. On the Austrian Government being notified that Dr. Dumba's departure "on leave of absence" would not be satisfactory, he was formally recalled on September 28, 1915.

The seized Archibald dossier included a letter from the German military attaché, Captain Franz von Papen, to his wife, containing reference to Dr. Albert's correspondence, which left no doubt that the letters were genuine :

"Unfortunately, they stole a fat portfolio from our good Albert in the elevated (a New York street railroad). The English secret service of course. Unfortunately, there were some very

important things from my report among them such as buying up liquid chlorine and about the Bridgeport Projectile Company, as well as documents regarding the buying up of phenol and the acquisition of Wright's aeroplane patent. But things like that must occur. I send you Albert's reply for you to see how we protect ourselves. We composed the document to-day."

The "document" evidently was Dr. Albert's explanation discounting the significance and importance of the letters. This explanation was published on August 20, 1915.

The foregoing disclosures of documents covered a wide range of organized German plans for embarrassing the Allies' dealings with American interests; but they related rather more to accomplished operations and such activities as were revealed to be under way-e. g., the acquisition of munitions combined with propaganda for an embargo-were not deemed to be violative of American law. But this stage of intent to clog the Allies' facilities for obtaining sinews of war, in the face of law, speedily grew to one of achievement more or less effective according to the success with which the law interposed to spoil the plans.

The autumn and winter of 1915 were marked by the exposure of a number of German plots which revealed that groups of conspirators were in league in various parts of the country, bent on wrecking munition plants, sinking ships loaded with Allies' supplies, and fomenting strikes. Isolated successes had attended their efforts, but collectively their depredations presented a serious situation. The exposed plots produced clues to secret German sources from which a number of mysterious explosions at munition plants and on ships had apparently been directed. Projected labor disturbances at munition plants were traced to a similar origin. The result was that the docket of the Federal Department of Justice became laden with a motley collection of indictments which implicated fifty or more individuals concerned in some dozen conspiracies, in which four corporations were also involved.

These cases only represented a portion of the criminal infractions of neutrality laws, which had arisen since the outbreak of the war. In January, 1916, an inquiry in Congress directed the

Attorney General to name all persons "arrested in connection with criminal plots affecting the neutrality of our Government." Attorney General Gregory furnished a list of seventy-one indicted persons, and the four corporations mentioned. A list of merely arrested persons would not have been informative, as it would have conveyed an incomplete and misleading impression. Such a list, Mr. Gregory told Congress, would not include persons indicted but never arrested, having become fugitives from justice; nor persons indicted but never arrested, having surrendered; but would include persons arrested and not proceeded against. Thus there were many who had eluded the net of justice by flight and some through insufficient evidence. The seventy-one persons were concerned in violations of American neutrality in connection with the European war.

The list covered several cases already recorded in this history, namely:

A group of Englishmen, and another of Montenegrins, involved in so-called enlistment "plots" for obtaining recruits on American soil for the armies of their respective countries.

The case of Werner Horn, indicted for attempting to destroy by an explosive the St. Croix railroad bridge between Maine and New Brunswick.

A group of nine men, mainly Germans, concerned in procuring bogus passports to enable them to take passage to Europe to act as spies. Eight were convicted, the ninth man, named Von Wedell, a fugitive passport offender, was supposed to have been caught in England and shot.

The Hamburg-American case, in which Dr. Karl Buenz, former German Consul General in New York, and other officials or employees of that steamship company, were convicted (subject to an appeal) of defrauding the Government in submitting false clearance papers as to the destinations of ships sent from New York to furnish supplies to German war vessels in the Atlantic.

A group of four men, a woman, and a rubber agency, indicted on a similar charge, their operations being on the Pacific coast, where they facilitated the delivery of supplies to German cruisers when in the Pacific in the early stages of the war.

There remain the cases which, in the concatenation of events, might logically go on record as direct sequels to the public divulging of the Albert and Archibald secret papers. These included:

A conspiracy to destroy munition-carrying ships at sea and to murder the passengers and crews. Indictments in these terms were brought against a group of six men-Robert Fay, Dr. Herbert O. Kienzie, Walter L. Scholz, Paul Daeche, Max Breitung, and Engelbert Bronkhorst.

A conspiracy to destroy the Welland Canal and to use American soil as a base for unlawful operations against Canada. Three men, Paul Koenig, a Hamburg-American line official, R. E. Leyendecker, and E. J. Justice, were involved in this case.

A conspiracy to destroy shipping on the Pacific Coast. A German baron, Von Brincken, said to be one of the kaiser's army officers; an employee of the German consulate at San Francisco, C. C. Crowley; and a woman, Mrs. Margaret W. Cornell, were the offenders.

A conspiracy to prevent the manufacture and shipment of munitions to the allied powers. A German organization, the National Labor Peace Council, was indicted on this charge, as well as a wealthy German, Franz von Rintelen, described as an intimate friend of the German Crown Prince, and several Americans known in public life.

In most of these cases the name of Captain Karl Boy-Ed, the German naval attaché, or Captain Franz von Papen, the German military attaché, figured persistently. The testimony of informers confirmed the suspicion that a wide web of secret intrigue radiated from sources related to the German embassy and enfolded all the conspiracies, showing that few, if any, of the plots, contemplated or accomplished, were due solely to the individual zeal of German sympathizers.

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CHAPTER II

THE PLOT TO DESTROY SHIPS-PACIFIC

COAST

CONSPIRACIES-HAMBURG-AMERICAN

CASE-SCOPE OF NEW YORK

INVESTIGATIONS

THE plot of Fay and his confederates to place bombs on ships carrying war supplies to Europe was discovered when a couple of New York detectives caught Fay and an accomplice, Scholz, experimenting with explosives in a wood near Weehawken, N. J., on October 24, 1915. Their arrests were the outcome of a police search for two Germans who secretly sought to purchase picric acid, a component of high explosives which had become scarce since the war began. Certain purchases made were traced to Fay. On the surface Fay's offense seemed merely one of harboring and using explosives without a license; but police investigations of ship explosions had proceeded on the theory that the purchases of picric acid were associated with them.

Fay confirmed this surmise. He described himself as a lieutenant in the German army, who, with the sanction of the German secret information service, had come to the United States after sharing in the Battle of the Marne, to perfect certain mine devices for attachment to munition ships in order to cripple them. In a Hoboken storage warehouse was found a quantity of picric acid he had deposited there, with a number of steel mine tanks, each fitted with an attachment for hooking to the rudder of a vessel, and clockwork and wire to fire the explosive in the tanks. In rooms occupied by Fay and Scholz were dynamite and trinitrotoluol (known as T-N-T), many caps of fulminate of mercury, and Government survey maps of the eastern coast line and New York Harbor. The conspirators' equipment included a fast motor boat that could dart up and down the rivers and along the water front where ships were moored, a high-powered automobile, and four suit cases containing a number of disguises. The purpose of B-War St. 5