Germany, The Next Republic? Part 5

"An American Demonstration--On the 27th of January, the birthday of the German Emperor, an immense laurel wreath decorated with the German and American flags was placed by Americans at the foot of the monument to Frederick the Great (in Berlin). The American flag was enshrouded in black c.r.a.pe. Frederick the Great was the first to recognise the independence of the young Republic, after it had won its freedom from the yoke of England, at the price of its very heart's blood through years of struggle. His successor, Wilhelm II, receives the grat.i.tude of America in the form of hypocritical phrases and war supplies to his mortal enemy."

[Ill.u.s.tration: First page of the magazine "Light and Truth"]

One photograph was of the wreath itself. The other showed a group of thirty-six people, mostly boys, standing in front of the statue after the wreath had been placed.

When Amba.s.sador Gerard learned about the "demonstration" he went to the statue and from there immediately to the Foreign Office, where he saw Secretary of State von Jagow. Gerard demanded instantaneous removal of the wreath. Von Jagow promised an "investigation." Gerard meanwhile began a personal investigation of the _League of Truth_, which had purchased and placed the insult there.

Days, weeks, even months pa.s.sed. Von Jagow still refused to have the wreath removed. Finally Gerard went to the Foreign Office and told von Jagow that unless it was taken away that day he would get it himself and send it by courier to Washington. That evening Gerard walked to the statue. The wreath had disappeared.

Week by week the league continued its propaganda. Gerard continued his investigation.

July 4, 1916, another circular was scattered broadcast. On page 1 was a large black cross. Pages 2 and 3, the inside, contained a reprint of the "Declaration of Independence," with the imprint across the face of a b.l.o.o.d.y hand. Enclosed in a heavy black border on page 4 were nine verses by John L. Stoddard, the lecturer, ent.i.tled "Blood-Traffickers."

(Printed in the beginning of this chapter.)

The league made an especial appeal to the "German-Americans." Germany, as was pointed out in a previous article, counts upon some German-Americans as her allies. One day Amba.s.sador Gerard received a circular ent.i.tled "An Appeal to All Friends of Truth." The same was sent in German and English to a mailing list of many hundred thousands.

Excerpts from this read:

"If any one is called upon to raise his voice in foreign lands for the cause of truth, it is the foreigner who was able to witness the unanimous rising of the German people at the outbreak of war, and their att.i.tude during its continuance. _This applies especially to the German-American_.

"_As a citizen of two continents, in proportion as his character has remained true to German principles, he finds both here and there the right word to say. . . ._

"Numberless millions of men are forced to look upon a loathsome spectacle. _It is that of certain individuals in America; to whom a great nation has temporarily intrusted its weal and woe_, supporting a few multi-millionaires and their dependents, setting at naught--unpunished--the revered doc.u.ment of the Fourth of July, 1776, and daring to _barter away the birthright of the white race_. . . . We want to see whether the united voices of Germans and foreigners have not more weight than the hired writers of editorials in the newspapers; and whether the words of men who are independent will not render it impossible for a subsidised press to continue its destructive work."

Gerard's investigation showed that a group of German-Americans in Berlin were financing the _League of Truth_; that a man named William F. Marten, who posed as an American, was the head, and that the editors and writers of the publication _Light and Truth_ were being a.s.sisted by the Foreign Office Press Bureau and protected by the General Staff. An American dentist in Berlin, Dr. Charles Mueller, was chairman of the league. Mrs. Annie Neumann-Hofer, the American-born wife of Neumann-Hofer, of the Reichstag, was secretary. Gerard reported other names to the State Department, and asked authority to take away the pa.s.sports of Americans who were a.s.sisting the German government in this propaganda.

The "league" heard about the Amba.s.sador's efforts, and announced that a "Big Bertha" issue would be published exposing Gerard. For several months the propagandists worked to collect data. One day Gerard decided to go to the league's offices and look at the people who were directing it. In the course of his remarks the Amba.s.sador said that if the Foreign Office didn't do something to suppress the league immediately, he would burn down the place. The next day Marten and his co-workers went to the Royal Administration of the Superior Court, No. 1, in Berlin, and through his attorney lodged a criminal charge of "threat of arson" against the Amba.s.sador.

The next day Germany was flooded with letters from "The League of Truth," saying:

"The undersigned committee of the League of Truth to their deepest regret felt compelled to inform the members that Amba.s.sador Gerard had become involved in a criminal charge involving threat of arson. . . .

All American citizens are now asked whether an Amba.s.sador who acts so undignified at the moment of a formal threat of a wholly unnecessary war, is to be considered worthy further to represent a country like the United States."

Were it not for the fact that at this time President Wilson was trying to impress upon Germany the seriousness of her continued disregard of American and neutral lives on the high seas, the whole thing would have been too absurd to notice. But Germany wanted to create the impression among her people that President Wilson was not speaking for America, and that the Amba.s.sador was too insignificant to notice.

After this incident Gerard called upon von Jagow again and demanded the immediate suppression of the third number of _Light and Truth_. Before von Jagow consented Mrs. Neumann-Hofer turned upon her former propagandists and confessed. I believe her confession is in the State Department, but this is what she told me:

"Marten is a German and has never been called to the army because the General Staff has delegated him to direct this anti-American propaganda. [We were talking at the Emba.s.sy the day before the Amba.s.sador left.] Marten is supported by some very high officials. He has letters of congratulations from the Chancellor, General von Falkenhayn, Count Zeppelin and others for one of his propaganda books ent.i.tled 'German Barbarians.' I think the Crown Prince is one of his backers, but I have never been able to prove it."

On July 4th, 1915, the League of Truth issued what it called "A New Declaration of Independence." This was circulated in German and English throughout the country. It was as follows:

A NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Seven score years have elapsed since those great words were forged that welded us into a nation upon many fiery battlefields.

In that day the strong voices of strong men rang across the world, their molten words flamed with light and their arms broke the visible chains of an intolerable bondage.

But now in the red reflex of the glare cast from the battlefields of Europe, the invisible manacles that have been cunningly laid upon our freedom have become shamefully apparent. They rattle in the ears of the world.

Our liberty has vanished once again. Yet our ancient enemy remains enthroned in high places within our land and in insolent ships before our gates. We have not only become Colonials once again, but subjects,--for true subjects are known by the measure of their willing subjection.

We Americans in the heart of this heroic nation now struggling for all that we ourselves hold dear, but against odds such as we were never forced to face, perceive this truth with a disheartening but unclouded vision.

Far from home we would to-day celebrate, as usual, the birthday of our land. But with heavy hearts we see that this would now seem like a hollow mockery of something solemn and immemorial. It were more in keeping with reality that we burnt incense upon the altars of the British Baal.

Independence Day without Independence! The liberty of the seas denied us for the peaceful Commerce of our entire land and granted us only for the murderous trafficking of a few men!

Independence Day has dawned for us in alien yet friendly land. It has brought to us at least the independence of our minds.

Free from the abominations of the most dastardly campaign of falsehood that ever disgraced those who began and those who believe it, we have stripped ourselves of the rags of many perilous illusions. We see America as a whole, and we see it with a fatal and terrible clarity.

We see that once again our liberties of thought, of speech, of intercourse, of trade, are threatened, nay, already seized by the one ancient enemy that can never be our friend.

With humiliation we behold our principles, our sense of justice trodden underfoot. We see the wild straining of the felon arms that would drag our land into the abyss of the giant Conspiracy and Crime.

We see the foul alliance of gold, murderous iron and debauched paper to which we have been sold.

We know that our pretenses and ambitions as heralds of peace are monstrous, so long as we profit through war and human agony.

We see these rivers of blood that have their source in our mills of slaughter.

The Day of Independence has dawned.

It is a solemn and momentous hour for America,

It is a day on which our people must speak with clear and inexorable voice, or sit silent in shame.

It is the great hour in which we dare not celebrate our first Declaration of Independence, because the time has come when we must proclaim a new one over the corpse of that which has perished.

Berlin, July 4th, 1915.

AN ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA DOc.u.mENT

The League of Truth, however, was but one branch of the intricate propaganda system. While it was financed almost entirely by German-Americans living in Germany who retained their American pa.s.sports to keep themselves, or their children, out of the army, all publications for this bureau were approved by the Foreign Office censors. Germans, connected with the organisation, were under direction of the General Staff or Navy.

In order to have the propaganda really successful some seeds of discontent had to be sown in the United States, in South America and Mexico as well as in Spain and other European neutral countries. For this outside propaganda, money and an organisation were needed. The Krupp ammunition interests supplied the money and the Foreign Office the organisation.

For nearly two years the American press regularly printed despatches from the Overseas News Agency. Some believed they were "official."

This was only half true. The Krupps had been financing this news a.s.sociation. The government had given its support and the two wireless towers at Sayville, Long Island, and Tuckerton, N. J., were used as "footholds" on American soil. These stations were just as much a part of the Krupp works as the factories at Essen or the shipyards of Kiel.

They were to disseminate the Krupp-fed, Krupp-owned, Krupp-controlled news, of the Overseas News Agency.