Face to Face with Kaiserism Part 26

There is in Mexico, for instance, one force that never sleeps,--the German propaganda. It is the same method as that used by the Teutons in every country, the purchase or rental of newspaper properties, bribing public men and officers of the army and the insidious use of Germans who are engaged in commerce.

This propaganda is backed by enormous sums of money appropriated by the German government which directs how all its officers and agents, high and low, shall partic.i.p.ate in the campaign.

In the long run a paid propaganda always fails. It is like paying money to blackmailers. The blackmailer who has once received money becomes so insatiable that even the Bank of England will not satisfy him in the end. Sometimes the newspapers which are not bought, but are equally corrupt, become vehement in their denunciation of the country making the propaganda in the hope of being bought and in the hope that their bribe money will be in proportion to their hostility. Corrupted public men who are not bribed often become sternly virtuous and denunciatory with a similar hope. Those who have received the wages of shame, on the other hand, become more insistent in their demands, crying, "Give! Give!" like the daughter of the horse-leech.

The blows of war must be struck quickly. Delays are dangerous and the temporary paralysis of one country by propaganda may mean the loss of the war. The United States has been at a great disadvantage because our officials have not had the authority, the means or the money to fight the German propaganda with effective educational campaigns, both offensive and defensive.

Bernstorff in this country disposed of enormous sums for the purpose of moulding American public opinion. I, in Berlin, was without one cent with which to place America's side before the German people. It is a conflict of two systems. In Berlin I did not even have money to pay private detectives and on the rare occasions when I used them as, for instance to find out who was connected with the so-called American organisation, the League of Truth, which was engaged in a violent propaganda against America inside Germany, I was obliged to bear the expense personally.

South of the Rio Grande the Germans are working against us, doing their best to prejudice the Mexicans against the United States, playing upon old hatreds and creating new ones and, in the meantime, by their purchase of properties and of mines creating a situation that will const.i.tute for us in the future a most difficult and dangerous problem.

The Germans cannot understand why we do not take advantage of conditions in Mexico in order to conquer and hold that unfortunate country. They could not believe that we were actuated by a spirit of idealism and that we were patiently suffering much in order really to help Mexico. They could not believe that we were waiting in order to convince not only Mexico but the other States of Central America and the great friendly republics of South America, that it was not our policy to use the dissensions and weakness of our neighbours to gain territory.

On one occasion before the war I and several other Amba.s.sadors were dining with the Kaiser and after dinner the conversation turned to the strange sights to be seen in America. One of the Amba.s.sadors, I think it was Cambon, said that he had seen in America whole houses being moved along the roads, something of a novelty to European eyes where the houses, constructed of brick and stone, cannot be transported from place to place like our wooden frame house. The Emperor jokingly remarked: "Yes, I am sure that the Americans are moving their houses. They are moving them down towards the Mexican border."

CHAPTER XXI

EN ROUTE HOME--KAISERISM IN AMERICA

Our party was so numerous that we were compelled to charter a special train to take us from Madrid to La Coruna, the port in the extreme northwestern corner of Spain from which the _Infanta Isabela_ was to sail.

Just before the train started, a Spanish gentleman from the Foreign Office, who had courteously come to see us off, said to me, "Do you know you have a Duke as engineer?" "The Duke of Saragossa is going to take out your train." So we ran forward to the engine and I shook hands with the Duke who was in blue overalls.

This Duke of Saragossa, Grandee of Spain, often drives the engine of the King's train. Why he engineered our train I do not know, unless it was because of the rumours that German agents would try to stop my journey home.

At any rate the Duke proved a most competent engineer, guiding us with velvet touch through the steep inclines and sharp turns of the Guadarrama mountains. At Venta de Banos his turn at the engine ended and on my invitation he came to dine with us in the dining car. He proved a most charming gentleman, speaking English well. He said that his great ambition was to visit America and see the big locomotives and the pretty girls. At dinner he was, of course, dressed in his overalls and carried out the professional touch by using clean cotton waste instead of a pocket handkerchief.

Arrived at La Coruna in the morning, carriages sent by the Spanish government met us and the Mayor and the other officials were most polite. The Mayor accompanied us on board ship next day, giving to Mrs. Gerard a beautiful basket of flowers entwined with ribbons of the colours of the City of La Coruna.

We found the _Infanta Isabela_ a clean splendid ship--her Captain competent and kind. I cheerfully recommend her to any who wish a safe voyage across the Atlantic during the war.

My stay in Havana was brief and I was soon en route northward from Key West.

As our train came north through Florida there were crowds and bands at the stations and at St. Augustine my eyes were delighted by the sight of Frank Munsey and Ex-Senator Chauncey Depew.

At the station in Washington Secretary McAdoo met me. What a splendid record of achievement is his since the war, and now with the burden of all the railways in the country added to that of finance I suppose in no country at war has one man so successfully undertaken such gigantic tasks.

President Wilson was ill in bed but next day got up on purpose to hear my report. I was with him for over an hour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "INFANTA ISABELLA," ON WHICH AMBa.s.sADOR GERARD RETURNED FROM EUROPE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN HAVANA HARBOR, MARCH, 1917]

The following day I arrived in New York, being met in Jersey City by a committee headed by the celebrated lawyer, John B.

Stanchfield; Clarence Mackay, Herbert Swope (whose splendid articles in the _New York World_ were the first warnings to America and other countries respecting the ruthless submarine warfare), United States Marshal Thomas D. McCarthy, State Senator Foley, James J. Hoey,--a faithful trio of good friends who saw me off for Denmark only a few months before. I was escorted to the City Hall where I was welcomed by the Mayor. In a speech on the steps of the City Hall I said:

"We are standing to-day very near the brink of war, but I want to a.s.sure you that if we should be drawn into the conflict it will be only after our President has exhausted every means consistent with upholding the honour and dignity of the United States to keep us from war. I left Berlin with a clear conscience, because I felt that during all my stay there I had omitted nothing to make for friendly relations and peace between the two nations.

"I am very glad to-day to see on the list of this Reception Committee the names of people of German descent. It is but natural that citizens of German descent in the beginning of the war should have had a sentimental feeling toward Germany, that they should have looked back through rose-coloured gla.s.ses on that land which, however, they left because they did not have equality of opportunity.

We read to-day in the newspapers for the first time that there is a prospect that after the war the Germans will be given an equal share in their own government. I believe that in our hour of trial we can rely upon the loyalty of our citizens of German descent, and if they would follow me I would not be afraid to go out with a regiment of them and without any fear of being shot from behind.

"The nation that stands opposite to us to-day has probably no less than 12,000,000 men under arms. I have seen the Germans take more prisoners in one afternoon than there are men in the entire United States Army.

"Does it not seem to you ridiculous that the two States of New York and New Jersey should have more chauffeurs in them than there are soldiers in our army? My companions from the Twelfth Regiment that have honoured me by coming here to-day, and more men like them throughout the country, have done what they can. But they can't do it all. There must be a public sentiment if we are to maintain ourselves as a nation. If we had a million men under arms to-day we should not be near the edge of war.

"Gentlemen, I have tried in Berlin to be, as the Mayor has told you, an American Amba.s.sador, and I thank you because you, an audience of patriotic Americans, by your presence here set your seal of approval upon my conduct during the last two and a half years."

I have never been able to understand why so many people did not sooner realise what Kaiserism meant for us. But now, at last, the nation understands that we must fight on until this menace of military autocracy has vanished and that not until then will the world enjoy a lasting peace.

Almost as soon as I was settled in New York I was drafted.

Drafted by a public curiosity which insisted on knowing something about Germany and the war.

And so for me began a new life--that of a public speaker--I spoke first in New York at a lunch at the Chamber of Commerce--war had not then been declared and I was compelled to be careful--for even then there seemed a fear of Germany, a foolish desire to surrender all manhood to a fat neutrality.

On April 2nd came President Wilson's message demanding war. I was in the opera house that night. Between the acts extras appeared.

I telephoned Swope of the _World_ who confirmed the news. While I was receiving this information one of the directors of the Metropolitan Opera Company came in the room. I told him what had happened and asked if he was not going to do something--order the news read from the stage--for example, and the "Star Spangled Banner" played. He said, "No, the opera company is neutral."

I returned to the box where I was sitting and stepping to the front called on the house to cheer President Wilson. There was, for a moment, surprise at such unconventional action, but the whole house soon broke into cheers.

Conventionalism was gone.

The opera was DeKoven's "Canterbury Pilgrims" and a few minutes after the curtain rose on the last act Frau Ober, a German singer, who was taking one of the princ.i.p.al parts, keeled over in a faint,--rage, perhaps, that the Yankees were at last daring to cheer, to a.s.sert themselves against the Kaiser!

As I spoke in Albany, Buffalo, Harrisburg, Trenton and Boston, in Philadelphia, Providence and many times in New York and other places, I noted always an eagerness to learn about Germany, the war and foreign affairs. We Americans had travelled, but not with our eyes open--"seeing, we saw not."

The first great, great question we faced was that of universal service for the war--or the selective draft--again how farsighted our President then proved himself. What would be our situation now if we had tried to go to war under the volunteer system? This question once solved, our President led us with a breadth of vision, an efficiency, and on a scale commensurate with the size of the undertaking in which we at last had become partners.

Perhaps we are a little over indulgent, however, in the treatment of the German enemy alien within our gates. No American singer or musician could travel about Germany at will, unwatched by the police, collecting money from Americans to be used in propaganda, or things much worse, against America. Americans in Germany are compelled to report twice daily to the police and cannot leave their homes at night. November 17, 1917--seven months after we went to war with Germany--I met Hugo Schmidt, a director of the Deutsche Bank, riding in Central Park. He lived at the German Club, saw whom he liked and only reported to the police when he changed his residence. In January 1918, he was finally interned.

Long before our break with Germany, American consuls and officials were insulted in the street and in opera houses because they made use of their own language, not at all because they were taken for British for every one knew that all British had been interned.

The wife of our naval attache attended a reception presided over by a German admiral's wife. She was presented to this high personage by the wife of a German naval officer, who, in making the presentation, spoke in English. The admiral's wife rebuked both the wife of our attache and the officer's wife for daring to talk English. I am thankful to say that Mrs. Gherardi immediately left the house to receive later the officially ordered apologies of the admiral's wife.

And while Americans did not dare use their own language in Berlin in time of peace between the two countries yet after the outbreak of war, newspapers in the United States, printed in German, owned by Germans and German sympathisers, dared to attack America and her President.

The autocracy always hope to divide us, to make of us a Russia, torn by Maximalists and Minimalists, by Militarists and Bolsheviki and, consequently, impotent for war.

In travelling through the United States in August and September of 1917, although I was on private business, I made speeches in many cities, such as Minneapolis, and Helena, Billings, b.u.t.te and Missoula in Montana, Spokane, Seattle and Tacoma in Washington, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and surrounding country, Los Angeles, San Diego and Pasadena and then Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland. In all this territory I found great enthusiasm, great patriotism and a sincere desire to learn about Germany and the war. But I found everywhere also the trail of Germany's poisonous propaganda.

The great majority of our citizens of German-American descent have been splendidly loyal to their country in this crisis of its history. But the fact must be faced that there are those who, for some unknown reason, still sympathise with the German Kaiser in his war of aggression.

More unfortunately there are politicians in America who seek the votes of those disaffected, and approach treason in doing so. In all the history of sordid politics, there is nothing more nauseating than the effort of these cheap politicians thus to gratify their personal ambitions.

Their shameful ident.i.ty is known to all. A generation from now their own descendants will be applying to the courts for a change of name.