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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #61996 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61996)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Throttled!, by Thomas Tunney
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll
-have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
-this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Throttled!
- The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters
-
-Author: Thomas Tunney
-
-Editor: Paul Merrick Hollister
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2020 [EBook #61996]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROTTLED! ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by deaurider, Charlie Howard, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note: Italic and some underlined text are indicated by
-_underscores_. Boldface text is indicated by =equals signs=.
-
-
-
-
-THROTTLED!
-
-[Illustration: Inspector Thomas J. Tunney]
-
-
-
-
- THROTTLED!
-
- _THE DETECTION OF THE GERMAN
- AND ANARCHIST BOMB PLOTTERS_
-
-
- BY
-
- INSPECTOR THOMAS J. TUNNEY
-
- Head of the Bomb Squad of the New York
- Police Department
-
- AS TOLD TO
-
- PAUL MERRICK HOLLISTER
-
- Author, with John Price Jones, of “The German
- Secret Service in America”
-
-
- ILLUSTRATED
- FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
-
-
- [Illustration]
-
-
- BOSTON
- SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
- PUBLISHERS
-
-
-
-
- Copyright, 1919
- BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
- (INCORPORATED)
-
-
-
-
-TO
-
-ARTHUR WOODS
-
-Formerly Police Commissioner of the City of New York, now colonel in
-the United States Army, whose vision and coöperation made the work of
-the Bomb Squad possible, this volume is respectfully dedicated
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION
-
-
-Inspector Tunney’s Squad was formed early in August, 1914, to
-specialize in organized crimes of violence. It did some radically
-effective work against Black Handers, and handled several cases
-against domestic enemies of law and order, but as time wore on and war
-developed, the Squad’s energies became directed solely against the
-nefarious activities of Germans among us.
-
-Inspector Tunney is a most skilful detective, resourceful, persistent,
-understanding human nature, a good leader. He picked a squad of
-fearless, tireless men, who not only worked long and hard, but showed
-marked skill and tact. They proved themselves to be Americans all
-the way through, aggressive, loyal, bound to put the job through, no
-matter what the difficulties might be. They were occupied in hunting
-out Germans who were outraging our neutrality; and then--after we
-finally started to make war against those who had so long been warring
-against us, on the high seas and in our very midst--they set to work to
-thwart and capture active German enemies. The results they got went
-far toward making it possible to maintain order in New York during
-those months and years which were full of such menace to the safety of
-the city, when the national danger seemed so plain--so increasingly
-plain--and the national military strength was so woefully weak. In
-many cases the Inspector worked in coöperation with one or more of the
-Federal Secret Service forces. The Federal work was seriously hampered,
-however, at first by hopelessly inadequate organization, and, later,
-by the existence of several entirely distinct forces, instead of one
-powerful, unified body.
-
-Inspector Tunney has written a most interesting book. Much of what
-he tells I knew about at the time, from conference with him, or with
-Major Scull, Colonel Biddle, or Major Potter, and some of the events
-described I had intimate knowledge of because of personal attention
-to the cases. Some, however, I personally know nothing about, as they
-have taken place since I left the Department on January 1, 1918. And a
-vast amount of good work, of real public service, was done by Inspector
-Tunney and his men that is not touched upon in this book, that probably
-will never be written, since, though of great value to the public
-peace, it lacks some of the dramatic features which characterize the
-tales that are told.
-
-No one can read the book without seeing how brutally active our
-enemies were here in this country, even while we were at peace with
-them, how they flouted our neutrality brazenly and contemptuously, how
-they busied themselves through their accredited officials and their
-many secret agents in trying to paralyze our industrial life. Their
-deliberate effort was to prevent the shipment of all vital supplies to
-the Allies, and they sought this end by fomenting labor troubles, by
-burning factories, by blowing up ships. It mattered not the slightest
-to them that in this kind of activity they destroyed the property of
-a people at peace with them, nor did they give a deterring thought to
-the fact that they were maiming and killing human beings with their
-burnings and blastings. It did concern them, however, to keep things
-dark, to work under cover, so that they might continue this underhanded
-war against us without being found out. It was the warfare of the
-savage, who knows not fair play, who is guided by no rules or customs,
-who strikes down his enemy in the dark, from behind.
-
-The lessons to America are clear as day. We must not again be caught
-napping with no adequate national Intelligence organization. The
-several Federal bureaus should be welded into one, and that one should
-be eternally and comprehensively vigilant. We must be wary of strange
-doctrine, steady in judgment, instinctively repelling those who seek
-to poison public opinion. And our laws should be amended so that
-while they give free scope to Americans for untrammeled expression of
-differences of opinion and theory and belief, they forbid and prevent
-the enemy plotter and propagandist.
-
-There was another part of the Squad’s work, which had to do not with
-foreign, but with domestic, enemies. The industrial condition of
-unemployment, which was so sharp in 1914 and 1915, was exploited by
-those who believed in propaganda by violence, hoping to find eager and
-bitter listeners in the thousands who could not get work. To ameliorate
-the hardships of the situation the police in New York tried several
-plans which were at that time rather new as police methods. They found
-jobs for people; they afforded relief in cases of distress from funds,
-more than half of which were subscribed by policemen. When street
-meetings were held and excitement ran high, they held unswervingly to
-the line of conduct mapped out for them. They not merely permitted free
-assemblage but protected meetings so long as they kept the laws; and
-the law was kept if the meeting did not incite to violence or obstruct
-the highways. In case of threatened violence, action, prompt and
-strong, was taken to prevent it. Order must be maintained. Inspector
-Tunney’s Squad were actively engaged here, not in trying to bottle up
-the preachers of any particular doctrine, but simply in finding out who
-were the plotters of violent deeds and bringing them to justice.
-
-I believe the police methods in these times were wholesome and
-effective, and are the right ones to follow in times of public
-excitement and industrial disturbances. They make it clear in practice
-that leeway will be given to all for the full exercise of their lawful
-rights; and equally clear that adequate means will be taken to prevent
-recourse to unlawful measures. In many places in this country where
-serious disorder and bloodshed have come to pass, the trouble seems to
-have been fostered, at least, by the denial to groups of people of some
-of their lawful rights.
-
-I hope this book will help to teach another lesson also: the need in
-our police forces of brains and high morale; the need of cultivating
-the professional spirit in them, that shall dignify the work, shall
-banish political influence and all other influences that go to break
-the heart of the policeman who tries to do his plain duty; the need of
-having the public take an intelligent interest in police methods and
-results, doing away with the smoke-screens of mystery and concealment
-which are traditionally employed to cover dishonesty or incompetency.
-
- ARTHUR WOODS
-
- February, 1919.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
- CHAPTER PAGE
- I THE BOMB SQUAD 1
-
- II WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY 8
-
- III PLAYING WITH FIRE 39
-
- IV THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES 69
-
- V A TRUE PIRATE TALE 108
-
- VI ALONG THE WATERFRONT: SUGAR AND SHIPS AND ROBERT FAY 126
-
- VII ALONG THE WATERFRONT (II): “DAMN HIM, RINTELEN!” 156
-
- VIII MR. HOLT’S FOUR DAYS 183
-
- IX THE NATURE FAKER 217
-
- X THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, AND THE ANARCHIST 246
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
- Inspector Thomas J. Tunney _Frontispiece_
-
- PAGE
- Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military Intelligence 4
-
- Paul Koenig 10
-
- Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book” 22, 23, 26, 27, 36, 37
-
- Alexander Dietrichens and Frederick Schleindl 30
-
- Carmine and Carbone in Court 46
-
- Pages from the bomb-thrower’s textbook 52
-
- A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after the arrest of the
- Anarchists 60
-
- Detectives in Disguise--George D. Barnitz, Patrick Walsh, James
- Sterett, Jerome Murphy 64
-
- Threats to Polignani 66
-
- Frank Abarno and Carmine Carbone 66
-
- A Handbill, printed in Hindu, used by the Hindu-Boche Conspirators 72
-
- The Hindu-Boche Conspirators 76
-
- The _Annie Larsen’s_ Cash Account 80
-
- Gupta’s Code Message 80
-
- How the Hindus used Price Collier’s “Germany and the Germans” as
- a cryptogram 90
-
- Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for a certificate as
- able seaman 106
-
- Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N. 118
-
- Robert Fay and Lieut. George D. Barnitz 130
-
- Fay, Daeche and Scholz arraigned in Court 130
-
- The Fay Bomb Materials 138
-
- Lieutenant Fay’s Motor Boat 150
-
- Rudder Bombs 154
-
- Franz Rintelen 160
-
- Henry Barth, who posed as the German Secret Service Agent 164
-
- Ernest Becker 168
-
- Captain Charles von Kleist and Captain Otto Wolpert 168
-
- Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who located part of one of
- the bombs in the German Turn Verein in Brooklyn 174
-
- Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached to the Military
- Intelligence, who unearthed numerous German intrigues 180
-
- Mrs. Holt’s Mysterious Letter 208
-
- The First Word from Texas 208
-
- Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as Captain Claude
- Stoughton 224
-
- From Fritz Duquesne’s Past 230
-
- Papers found in Fritz Duquesne’s effects 236
-
- Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy 248
-
- Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence 252
-
- Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence 260
-
- Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence 268
-
-
-
-
-THROTTLED!
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-THE BOMB SQUAD
-
-
-For the past twenty-three years I have been a member of the police
-department of the City of New York. It is a long time, in any
-single job. The department is comparable in size to a manufacturing
-establishment of the first magnitude--it employs more than ten thousand
-men--and its occupations are varied enough to suit the inclinations and
-ambitions of any man. And so I went through the mill, graduating from
-one duty to another until in 1914 I was an acting captain, and had been
-in charge of various branches of the Detective Bureau in Brooklyn and
-Manhattan.
-
-My duty was the detection of crime, my specialty, meaning by that
-the special branch of crime with which I had been most often thrown
-into contact, was bomb-explosions. As far back as 1904 there were a
-number of mysterious explosions in New York which caused considerable
-property damage, and there I made the acquaintance of the bomb itself.
-It was an interesting subject for study, and a wicked weapon in use.
-I managed to pick up information of bomb-manufacture in several ways:
-Black-Handers, in prison, told me how they had made their missiles;
-at the New York office of the Du Pont explosives company I had an
-opportunity to study blasting; the publications of the Bureau of Mines
-furnished more information, the practice of the Bureau of Combustibles
-of our own department proved interesting and instructive, and I found
-myself before long forced to become something of a student of chemistry.
-
-The difference between our work and the work of the laboratory chemist,
-however, was that in our case there was no time to make an explosive
-mixture and test it--some criminal usually had done that for us, and we
-were called to the scene to find out, from such clues as the wreckage
-afforded, the name and address of the criminal. The laboratory chemist
-mixes ingredients and counts his work done at the moment of explosion;
-the detective begins at that moment a stern chase, and a long one, back
-to the ingredients and the man who mixed them.
-
-By the early part of 1914 I had seen a good deal of experience in
-tracing bomb outrages to certain of the anarchistic and Black Hand
-elements in the population of the city. As the year wore on these
-occurrences became so numerous as to warrant special attention, and
-on August 1, the approximate date of the outbreak of war in Europe,
-Police Commissioner Arthur Woods created in the police department the
-Bomb Squad. I was in command, and reported direct to the Commissioner.
-As the volume of work increased, and more men were taken on, the
-Commissioner delegated his supervision of the Bomb Squad to Guy Scull,
-who was then Fifth Deputy Police Commissioner, and who is now a major
-in the United States Army. That supervision was later passed on to
-Nicholas Biddle, a Special Deputy Commissioner, who, as I write this,
-is lieutenant-colonel in the United States Army, in charge of the
-Military Intelligence Bureau in New York; and following Mr. Biddle,
-Fuller Potter, another special Deputy Commissioner, and now a major in
-the Military Intelligence, directed the policies of the Squad.
-
-Within a few months the personnel of the Bomb Squad included the
-following picked men: George D. Barnitz, Amedeo Polignani, Henry Barth,
-George P. Gilbert, Edward Caddell, Patrick J. Walsh, Jerome Murphy,
-James J. Coy, Valentine Corell, James Sterett, Henry Senff, Michael
-Santaniello, Joseph Fenelly, Joseph Kiley, Charles Wallace, William
-Randolph, Thomas Jenkins, and Anthony Terra--all detective sergeants,
-and George Busby, a lieutenant. To this list were added the names of
-James Murphy, Robert Morris, Thomas J. Ford, Walter Culhane, Vincent E.
-Hastings, Thomas J. Cavanagh, Louis B. Snowden, Thomas M. Goss, Daniel
-F. Collins, Frederick Mazer, Edward J. Maher, Walter Price, William
-McCahill, and Cornelius J. Sullivan. It made a list of fine material
-for the work which we were called upon to do, and no one will begrudge
-me here a word of tribute to their aptitude, their courage--to all of
-the qualities which made them such able and vigilant guardians of the
-neutrality of our country during the years preceding our entrance into
-the war. Many of the Bomb Squad went to war later: Barnitz became a
-junior lieutenant in the United States Navy, in intelligence work of a
-high order. Barth, Caddell, Corell, Fenelly, Jenkins, Walsh, Sterett,
-Santaniello, Randolph, James Murphy, Morris, Ford, Culhane, Hastings,
-Cavanagh, Snowden, Goss, Collins, Price, Mazer, Maher, McCahill and
-Sullivan became sergeants in the Corps of Intelligence Police of
-the National Army. And after I became connected with the Military
-Intelligence Branch of the War Department, I had frequent occasion to
-deal during the war in coöperation with the men whom I have mentioned
-in service.
-
-[Illustration: Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military
-Intelligence]
-
-My first desire in taking charge of the Squad was to suppress the
-activities of persons using explosives to destroy life and property.
-What knowledge of the physics and chemistry of explosives my experience
-had accumulated I passed on to the men. These periods of instruction
-went into considerable detail. We discussed the kinds of explosives
-used, their relative strength, their ingredients, the methods of
-detonating them, the containers into which they were loaded, and the
-use of clockwork, fuses, acids and gas-pressure to explode them.
-Special and explicit instruction was given for the handling of
-unexploded bombs--a bomb bearing an electrical attachment should not be
-placed in water, for example, as water is a conductor of electricity;
-it is wise never to smoke in the presence of explosives, even if you
-think you know that certain kinds of explosives “_never_ explode by
-fire.” The only thing you can depend on explosives to do one hundred
-times out of one hundred, is what you don’t expect them to do. The Bomb
-Squad was told never to--and why never to--carry bombs on passenger
-trains, cars or ferries, or anywhere near where metals were being
-shipped. The Bomb Squad was instructed not to remove a bomb found in a
-position where its explosion would not endanger life and property, but
-to send for an expert and wait until he arrived on the scene, and was
-told which positions were dangerous and which were not. Altogether we
-conducted a rather thorough course in explosives.
-
-As the war grew in proportions, and the interest of America in the
-conflict became more and more intimate, the activities of the Bomb
-Squad became somewhat diverted from the object for which it had been
-primarily organized, and its title was changed to the “Bomb and
-Neutrality Squad.” We had not expected in August that the German would
-try to tip over our neutrality with bombs, but that is what he did, and
-that is what kept us grimly busy for three years, until our own nation
-had gone to war with those who had so long been waging war upon her.
-And that is how the stories which follow come to be told.
-
-Not that the entrance of the United States into the war put a stop to
-the activities of the Squad. I have already cited those who entered
-the national service. Their presence in the Naval and Military
-Intelligence, their close relations with those whom they left behind in
-headquarters, with such men as Commander Spencer Eddy and Lieutenant
-Albert Fish of the Navy, Colonel Biddle and Major Potter of the Army,
-and with the Corps of Intelligence Police, made possible a degree of
-coöperation in spy-hunting in New York which would have been impossible
-to develop within a short time with any other set of men, and which
-went far towards preserving our domestic security.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY
-
-
-The trend of events in early 1915 made it apparent that the Bomb
-Squad would be called upon to handle more and more cases of attempted
-violation of neutrality. Anyone who remembers our national mind at that
-time will recall that it was not yet made up and very liable to attacks
-of brainstorm. Every person was seeing events of unheard of violence
-and magnitude pass him pell-mell, giving no warning, and not waiting
-for comment, and he was too dazed to watch any single event with any
-high degree of balanced judgment or reasoning partisanship. It was a
-troubled hour, and one in which it behooved us of the Police Department
-to keep our heads cool and our eyes open. The Bomb Squad had to act as
-a safety valve.
-
-By the summer of 1915 war orders placed by the Allied governments in
-the autumn and winter of 1914 were being filled and shipped overseas
-in great quantities. By this time, too, the German navy showed no more
-sign of coming out of Kiel in force than it had shown for a year past.
-The task of delaying, diverting or destroying those shipments devolved
-upon the Germans in America. It took no superhuman amount of reasoning
-to combine the abnormal destruction of property in New York with the
-strong suspicion of German activity and to arrive at a decision to
-check up wherever it was humanly possible the sources and agencies of
-destruction.
-
-Late in the autumn, in our work on the waterfront, we found a man who,
-we decided, was worth watching. We learned gradually that Paul Koenig
-was a pretty well-known figure along both banks of the Hudson, and that
-he carried, as chief detective for the Hamburg-American Line, a certain
-amount of authority. That steamship line, which within a week of the
-outbreak of war had attempted to send ships to sea under false cargo
-manifests to supply the German naval raiders, now had more time than
-business on its hands as its entire fleet was tied up in Hoboken. And
-yet in spite of the dull times which we knew had been thrust upon them,
-their man Koenig was curiously busy, and we became busily curious to
-find out why.
-
-We were more curious than successful at first. We assigned men to
-follow him and observe his habits and haunts. This was not as easy as
-it might have been with another man, for the Department of Justice had
-already tried it and had come to the conclusion that he was not worth
-following.
-
-Now a good shadow is born, not made. The moment the man followed
-realizes or even suspects that he is being followed, he becomes a
-problem and either gets away or conducts himself in a way which disarms
-suspicion and sometimes embarrasses the pursuit. Koenig, a man of keen
-animal senses, was unusually quick in discovering his shadower. It used
-to confuse certain agents considerably to have him disappear around
-a corner, and when the agent quickened his pace and swept around the
-same corner after him, to have Koenig pop out of a doorway with a laugh
-for his pursuer which meant that the day’s work had gone for nothing.
-I have known men who were excellent detectives and poor shadows.
-Sometimes they were too large and conspicuous, sometimes they were
-over-zealous, sometimes they excited suspicion by being over-cautious;
-rare enough was the combination of artlessness and skill which made a
-man a good shadow, told him when to saunter away in the opposite
-direction, when to pass his man, and how to efface himself. It is,
-I think, the instinct of the good fisherman who knows just how much
-line to run out, and just when to exert the pressure. For Koenig was a
-slippery fish.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, International Film Service_
-
-Paul Koenig, the Hamburg-American employe, who supplied and directed
-agents of German violence in America]
-
-By a new method of “tailing” or shadowing, we learned that he
-frequented several popular German places in the city, such as Pabst’s
-in Columbus Circle, the German Club, in Central Park West, where Dr.
-Albert, Boy-Ed and von Papen frequently went, Luchow’s restaurant in
-14th Street, as well as the good American hotels Belmont and Manhattan.
-Both of the hotels are centrally situated, and have several entrances,
-including direct connection from the basement with the Subway--one of
-the easiest places to lose oneself in the city. (A murderer not many
-months ago avoided arrest for two days by riding back and forth in
-Subway trains.) But such places as these were no more than the natural
-points towards which any German might gravitate, and we could never
-pick up a scrap of conversation to give us a lead in any specific
-direction.
-
-The fact remained that he was busy, going and coming, and that
-he conducted a good deal of his business from his office in the
-Hamburg-American building at 45 Broadway. We might as well have
-tried to penetrate to Berlin with a brass band as to have entered the
-building for information. But there was one advantage we could take: we
-could “listen in” on his telephone wire.
-
-When the men tailing him reported in that he was in the
-Hamburg-American Building, and probably in his office, we cut in on
-his wire, and posted an officer at our receiver to take down all
-conversations which passed. The outgoing calls were disappointing.
-Koenig was no fool--or rather was a highly specialized fool--and was
-not careless enough to give information of aid and comfort to the
-enemy through such a gregarious medium as a public telephone wire. We
-listened for a long while, in vain....
-
-Then came a call which offered possibilities. A man’s voice told Paul
-Koenig that it thought Paul Koenig was a “bull-headed Westphalian
-Dutchman,” and added other more lurid remarks. The conversation was
-short, but while it lasted indicated that someone was not pleased with
-Mr. Koenig. Within the next few days the same voice called “P. K.”
-again and told him several things it had forgotten to mention, all
-pointing to the fact that the owner of the unknown voice had been
-misused.
-
-We hunted up the number from which the disgruntled calls had been
-made. It was a public telephone pay-station in a saloon. Crucial
-events can almost always be traced to some trivial circumstances--the
-poem “for the want of a nail the battle was lost” is an illustration
-of what I mean. We are not dealing here with possibilities but with
-facts, yet I cannot sometimes help speculating on the extent to which
-German atrocities might have been carried in New York and Canada,
-if we had not found a bartender with a good memory in that saloon.
-Yes, he remembered a fellow who had come in there at certain times to
-telephone. Yes, he came in once in a while. Didn’t know his name, but
-thought he lived around the corner at such and such a number. At that
-number we found out the man’s name--the bartender’s description had
-been accurate. The name was George Fuchs.
-
-So to George Fuchs we mailed a letter, typed on the stationery of a
-wireless telegraph company, suggesting that we had a position for which
-we believed he was the proper man, and that we would be pleased to have
-him call at the office of the company, at an appointed hour, to discuss
-the work and wages. Fuchs did not show up at the appointed hour, which
-disturbed the plans momentarily, but when he did arrive, he was
-greeted cordially by an executive of the “company” who proceeded to get
-acquainted with the applicant. The manner of the wireless person was so
-disarming, his German was so good, and his certainty that Fuchs was the
-man for the job so taken for granted that the two adjourned to a nearby
-restaurant. (Detective Corell had a very good working knowledge of
-German.)
-
-“Who did you say you were working for?” Corell asked, across the crater
-of Fuchs’s glass of beer.
-
-“That bull-headed Westphalian Dutchman,” Fuchs sputtered. “He is some
-relative of my mother’s. She was a Prussian, though, _Gott sei dank!_”
-
-Corell laughed at the right time, and in the conversation which ensued
-drew out the man’s grievance against Koenig. In September Mr. and
-Mrs. Koenig had paid a visit to the Fuchs household in Niagara Falls,
-N. Y., where Fuchs lived with his mother in the Lochiel Apartments. The
-wonders of the Falls had received proper attention from the strangers,
-and Koenig showed some interest in the Welland Canal, the channel
-through which shipping circumnavigates the Falls. He said that the
-waterway was closely guarded, otherwise he would like to go over and
-have a look at it, and suggested, as a convenient substitute, that
-Fuchs go over to Canada and take some snapshots of the locks for him.
-
-“Why don’t you go yourself?” Fuchs asked.
-
-“They would probably pick me up if I did,” Koenig replied.
-
-“Well, that’s just why I won’t take any camera over there with me,”
-Fuchs rejoined. “But I’ll go if you want a report.”
-
-The bargain was closed. Fuchs, Koenig said, was the very man, as he was
-known on the Canadian side as George Fox, was an American by birth, and
-would not excite suspicion. So at 7 P. M. of September 30--slightly
-more than a year since Horst von der Goltz and Captain von Papen
-had made their first abortive attempt to destroy the Canal--“Fox”
-registered at the Welland House in Welland, close by the waterway.
-There he spent the night. The next morning he went to Port Colborne,
-the Lake Erie mouth of the Canal, and during the balance of the day
-followed its course northward, making mental notes of the shipping and
-the construction and guarding of the locks. By night he had reached
-Thorold, where he found a room, jotted down his observations, and spent
-the night. The next day he covered the balance of the 27 miles to Lake
-Ontario, noting the number of locks, and the fact that there were two
-or three armed soldiers on guard at each. With his head full of good
-ideas for bad plans he reached Niagara Falls again that night--October
-2.
-
-Koenig was enthusiastic over his report, but when Fuchs had written
-it down he decided that it would be hazardous to have such a document
-found on his person. “Mail it to me at Post Office Box 840 in New York.
-Sign it just ‘George’--nobody would know who that was even if they did
-find it.” He went back to New York. Fuchs heard nothing from him for a
-few days, except that action had been deferred. Then the country cousin
-began to importune the city cousin, and Koenig suggested that he come
-down to New York to work for him. Which Fuchs did, and on October 8
-was placed on the payroll of the “Bureau of Investigation” at eighteen
-dollars a week. Koenig arranged that Fuchs was to hire men who would
-row a boatload of dynamite across the upper Niagara River to smuggle
-it into Canada, and he had meanwhile arranged with two others, Richard
-Emil Leyendecker, his chief assistant, and Fred Metzler, his secretary,
-to carry out a definite plan to sever the main artery of lake traffic
-by blowing it to pieces.
-
-By Sunday, November 7, Fuchs had been occupied in several odd jobs for
-Koenig, such as spying on outward-bound cargoes along the waterfront,
-doing special guard duty at Dr. Albert’s office, and going over to
-Hoboken to frighten a poor German agent named Franz Schulenberg, who
-had come on from the west to collect money from von Papen. On that
-Sunday he was sick and did not report for duty. He asked for his
-regular pay, however, and Koenig refused it, doubting that Fuchs had
-really been too ill to report, and holding that illness should never
-interfere with service to the Fatherland. This created bad blood
-between the two. On November 22 Koenig discharged him for “constant
-quarrelling with another operative, drinking, and disorderly habits,”
-and announced that he would not be paid for his services of the
-previous day, when he had refused to go on duty in a river-launch. That
-$2.57 due Fuchs had poisoned his soul against Koenig, and he had grown
-so bitter that the result we already know--evidence was at last in our
-hands for an arrest.
-
-It was a case for federal prosecution, obviously, so we called in
-Captain William Offley and Agent Adams, an able operative of the
-Department of Justice. A few hours later Koenig was placed under
-arrest. He resented the intrusion, and snapped to Barnitz: “Anyone who
-interferes with Germans or the German Government will be punished!”
-His house up-town was searched and that search disclosed, among other
-matters, an item which is unquestionably one of the richest prizes of
-the spy hunt in America.
-
-It was Paul Koenig’s little black memorandum book--a loose-leaf
-affair, scrupulously typewritten, and brought down to within a day of
-his arrest. A fanatic on office efficiency might have conceived it,
-but none but a German would have kept it posted up. For it told the
-story of his Bureau of Investigation with a devotion to detail almost
-religious.
-
-The Hamburg-American Line probably never thought that when they
-assigned a shrewd ruffian named Paul Koenig to investigate an alleged
-case of wharfage graft in Jersey City away back in 1912 they had
-established a “Bureau of Investigation.” But Paul Koenig knew better.
-He surrounded his lightest activities with an air of mystery and
-efficiency true to the best of amateur-detective tradition. He called
-his first case by a mystic number, he conferred the ominous alias of
-“xxx” upon himself, hired a man named Fred Metzler as his secretary,
-and convinced himself that he and Metzler were a bureau. In the light
-of the all-absorbing importance which his bureau held for him, we are
-not surprised (and we must not smile), when we see chronicled neatly
-in his little black book that on May 13, 1913, he rented a room at 45
-Broadway for “new offices,” on May 24 his first private telephone was
-installed, on Nov. 19 a steel cabinet was purchased for the files of
-the department, on May 28 of 1914 the adjoining room was added to Room
-82, and Room 82 was converted into a _private_ office for the chief,
-and on July 14 a new safe was purchased and placed in the office. It
-may be that the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand had something
-to do with that last item, for it is certain that the Hamburg-American
-Line knew that war was coming well in advance of the declaration. At
-any rate, we find that on July 31, 1914, before England and Germany
-had actually gone to war, and on the same day that the director of the
-Hamburg-American in New York received instructions from Berlin that
-war was coming and that he was expected to supply German naval vessels
-in American waters--on that day Paul Koenig began his war duties by
-placing a special guard on all the piers and vessels of the Line in New
-York Harbor.
-
-Up to this time the cases Koenig had handled were matters of
-shipping--stowaways, fires, steerage rates, charges against ships’
-officers. On August 22 he became a German military spy. We find it
-entered in his own words:
-
- “Aug. 22. German Government, with consent of Dr. Buenz,
- entrusted me with the handling of a certain investigation.
- Military attaché von Papen called at my office later and
- explained the nature of the work expected. (Beginning of
- Bureau’s services for Imperial German Government.)”
-
-The “certain investigation” consisted in sending two men to Canada
-to spy on the Valcartier training camp where the first Canadian
-Expeditionary Force was being mobilized, and to report to the military
-attaché their state of readiness, in order that he might try some means
-of keeping them at home if it were not already too late. What von Papen
-had in mind was dynamiting the Welland Canal; it failed, but the case
-is of momentary interest to us here because it marked the beginning of
-a service on Koenig’s part which grew very fast and extended in many
-and diverse directions.
-
-The Bureau was divided into three parts, the pier division, the special
-detail division, and the secret service division, or “Geheimdienst.”
-No one was allowed to forget that P. K. was head of all three. In his
-rules and regulations he records, among other gems, these:
-
- “#2. In order to safeguard the secrets and affairs of the
- department prior to receiving a caller, hereafter my desk must
- be entirely cleared of all papers excepting those pertaining to
- the business in hand.
-
- “#9. All persons related to me, however distant, will be barred
- from employment with the Bureau of Investigation. This does not
- apply to my wife.
-
- “#6. It has been found detrimental to the discipline of the
- Office to invite direct employees of the Bureau to my residence
- or other place socially, or to accept their invitations,
- therefore this practice must cease. This ruling does not
- apply to agents of the Secret Service Division nor to direct
- employees if engaged with me on an operation which requires
- either social entertainment or travelling.”
-
-He had an elaborate and complicated outlay of badges, shields and
-photographic identification cards for each operative, for which each
-operative stood the expense. His meticulous attention to detail, and
-the diligent caution which he observed at all times is indicated in a
-list of aliases which he set forth in the memorandum book. In 26 cases
-listed he used 26 different names--none of them his own. For example,
-in what he called “D-Case 250,” in dealing with an operative named
-“Sjurstadt” Koenig was known to Sjurstadt only as “Watson”; in D-Case
-316, when he negotiated with his agent von Pilis (a propagandist who
-was later interned, by the way) Koenig was “Bode.” He devised a new
-name for himself for every new case, and sometimes used two or three
-names in dealing with different individuals in the same case. Naturally
-a man of as many identities as Koenig had to keep a record of who
-he was, and so his list of aliases furnished the government with an
-excellent catalogue of the pies in which he had his tough fingers. Each
-of his own employees in the Secret Service Division was known to him in
-three ways: by his Christian (or rather, his German) name, by a number,
-and by a special pair of initials. Thus Richard Emil Leyendecker, the
-art-woods dealer associated with him in the Welland Canal affair, was
-Secret Agent Number 6, known as “B. P.”; Otto Mottola, a member of the
-New York Police Department was Secret Agent Number 4, known as “A. S.
-(formerly A. M.).” The connections of the bureaus were mentioned in
-his reports by numbers, the Imperial German Embassy being 5000, von
-Papen being 7000, Boy-Ed 8000, and Dr. Heinrich Albert, the commercial
-attaché of the embassy, 9000.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-_SECRET SERVICE DIVISION._
-
-_List of Aliases Used by XXX._
-
- _D-Cases._
- Sjurstadt #250 Watson
- Markow #260 von Wegener
- Horn #277 Fischer
- Portack #279 Westerberg
- Berns #306 Werner
- Scott #309 Werner
- McIntyre #311 Bode
- Miller #314 Reinhardt
- Harre #315 Kaufmann
- Kienzle #316 Wegener
- Wiener #316 Wegener
- von Pilis #316 Bode
- Burns #325 Reinhardt
- Stahl #328 Stemmler
- Coleman #335 Schuster
- Schleindl #343 Wöhler (Paul)
- Leyendecker #344 Heyne
- Feldheim #357 Winters
- Warburg #362 Blohm
- Van de Bund #358 Taylor
- Lewis #366 Burg
- Hammond #357 Decker (W.P.)
- Uffelmann #370 Schwartz
- Hirschland #371 Günther
- Neuhaus #371 Günther
- Ornstein #371 Günther
- Witzel #371 Wöhler
- Plochmann #375 Breitung
- Archer #289 Mendez
- Bettes ---- Goebels
- Reith #382 Brandt
-
-
-_SECRET SERVICE DIVISION._
-
-_Ciphers Used In_
-
-_Confidential Reports_
-
-(Oct. 1914-Sept. 1915)
-
- ---oOo---
-
- 5000 I. G. Embassy
- 7000 ” ” Military Attache
- 8000 ” ” Naval Attache
- 9000 ” ” Commercial Attache
- -------
- 7354 von Knorr
- 7371 Tomaseck
- 7379 Tokio
- 7381 Copenhagen
- 7600 Burns Agency
- 9001 Herbert Boas
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-[Illustration:
-
-_SECRET SERVICE DIVISION._
-
-_SAFETY BLOCK SYSTEM_
-
-Operatives of the S. S. Division, when receiving instructions from me
-or through the medium of my secretary as to designating meeting places,
-will understand that such instructions must be translated as follows:
-
-
-_For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight)_
-
-A street number in Manhattan named over the telephone means that
-the meeting will take place 5 blocks further uptown than the street
-mentioned.
-
-Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Central Depot.
-
-Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front of P. O. Box 840.
-
-Hotel Ansonia means Cafe in Hotel Manhattan (basement).
-
-Hotel Belmont means at the Bar in Pabst’ Columbus Circle.
-
-Brooklyn Bridge means Bar in Unter den Linden.
-
-
-_For week Dec. 5 to Dec. 12 (midnight)_
-
-Code to remain the same as previous week.
-
-
-_For week Dec. 12 to Dec. 19 (midnight)_
-
-A street number in Manhattan named over the telephone means that the
-meeting will take place 5 blocks further downtown than the street
-mentioned.
-
-
-_SECRET SERVICE DIVISION._
-
-(Geheimdienst)
-
-
-_Rules and Regulations._
-
---1915--
-
- #1. Beginning with November 6th, no blue copies are to be
- made of reports submitted in connection with D-Case #343, and
- the original reports will be sent to H.M.G. instead of the
- duplicates, as formerly.
-
- #2. In order to accomplish better results in connection with
- D-Case #343, and to shorten the stay of the informing agent at
- the place of meeting, it has been decided to discontinue the
- former practice of dining with this agent prior to receiving
- his report. It will also be made a rule to refrain from working
- on other matters until the informant in this case has been
- fully heard; and all data taken down in shorthand. (11-11-15)
-
- #3. Beginning with November 28th, 1915, all operations
- designated as D-Cases will be handled exclusively by the Secret
- Service Division, the Headquarters of which will not be at
- the Central Office, as heretofore. This change will result in
- discontinuing utilizing operatives or employees attached to the
- Central Office, Division for Special Detail and Pier Division.
- On the other hand, great
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-In the same way he disguised his meeting places. In his instructions to
-the Secret Service Division we find this:
-
- “Operatives of the S. S. Division when receiving instructions
- from me or through the medium of my secretary as to designating
- meeting places will understand that such instructions must be
- translated as follows:
-
- “_For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight)._
-
- “A street number in Manhattan named over the telephone means
- that the meeting will take place 5 blocks further uptown than
- the street mentioned.
-
- “Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Central Depot.
-
- “Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front of P. O. Box 840.
-
- “Hotel Ansonia means café in Hotel Manhattan (basement).
-
- “Hotel Belmont means at the bar in Pabst’s Columbus Circle.
-
- “Brooklyn Bridge means bar in Unter den Linden.”
-
-Each week he rearranged this code, so that anyone who thought that
-cutting in on a telephone call meant knowing where Koenig was bound
-was not likely to find him there. The man knew his German New York,
-and had numerous convenient meeting places where he could meet an
-agent and converse undisturbed, such as a German hotel at Third Avenue
-and 42d Street, or a German bar at Broadway and 110th Street, or a
-lodging house at South and Whitehall Streets, near the lower tip of
-the island, or a saloon connected with a Turkish bath in Harlem. He
-not only made it almost impossible to trace him by tapping his own
-wire, but his operatives were instructed to call him from pay-station
-telephones in locations where there was not one chance in a million
-of identifying the person who had called. Fuchs, of course, was the
-one-millionth chance, but Fuchs was no longer obeying Koenig’s orders,
-was persistent, and careless. Altogether Koenig had built up a system
-of caution on paper which almost beat the game, and which enabled him
-to conduct a large volume of business.
-
-The functions of his departments were clearly defined. The pier
-division guarded the piers and vessels of the Line, and furnished him
-information of sailings from the New York waterfront, which he in turn
-passed on to the naval attaché, Boy-Ed. Through this division he was
-able to keep in touch with the waterfront element for whatever service
-of violence might be necessary, and to keep a fairly complete record of
-shipping. The special detail division was assigned to the guarding of
-von Bernstorff’s summer place at Cedarhurst, Long Island, Dr. Albert’s
-office in the Hamburg-American building, von Papen’s office at 60 Wall
-Street, and the Austrian consulate in New York. This division conducted
-every week a test to determine whether or not Dr. Albert was being
-shadowed. We find entered in his notes on his operatives this:
-
- “_H. J. Wilkens_ is commended by me for good service rendered
- thus far as attendant on Dr. Albert. This commendation is based
- on a note received from the latter under date of November 12,
- reading as follows:
-
- “‘Dear Mr. Koenig:
-
- “‘The service rendered by your bureau’s operative, H. J.
- Wilkens, have proven entirely satisfactory.
-
- “‘Yours truly,
- (Signed) H. T. ALBERT.’”
-
-Apparently Koenig’s performance of his duty to the German cause
-encouraged the high officials of the German government in the United
-States to rely upon him, for these posts were gradually placed under
-his direction during the summer of 1915, the Embassy at Cedarhurst on
-July 3, Dr. Albert’s office on Sept. 1, von Papen’s office on Oct.
-26, and the Austrian Consulate on December 15--three days previous to
-Koenig’s arrest, and less than a week after Captain von Papen, who was
-returning to his own country by the request of our country, had called
-P. K. to the German Club to “express his thanks for the services this
-Bureau have rendered to him.” “At the same time,” the little notebook
-confides, “he bid me Good-Bye.” We find these functions mentioned with
-a suggestion of reverence.
-
-But the autobiography of Paul Koenig resumes its dark shroud of mystery
-when it turns to the functions of the division of secret service. There
-he is the dominating figure, a sort of cross between a Dr. Moriarity
-and a gorilla, a slippery conniver one minute and a pugnacious bully
-the next, convicted by his own complimentary reports. It was in
-handling the “D-cases” already mentioned that he employed his many
-false names, his secret numbers, his elusive places of appointment, and
-his essentially Teutonic discipline. The nature of the work of this
-division may best be suggested by citing a case which appears rather
-often in his records--Case D-343.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- may not be in my interest. The stenographer of the Central
- Office, however, will continue to write out checks as
- heretofore, but the check-book itself, will always be kept
- under lock and key. (11-23-15)
-
- #11. Operatives of the Pier Division in future will carry as
- their means of identification only the Bureau’s identification
- card, on the reverse side of which a photograph of the bearer
- will be pasted, with my signature written above and below the
- photo. The front side of the card will also bear my signature.
- These men will not carry any more shields, as in the past.
- Any changes in the personnel of the Pier Division, such as
- attachments and detachments, will be brought to the attention
- of the Marine Superintendent or other Superintends at whose
- piers they are stationed. There will be special operatives
- selected to check up operatives of the Pier Division and
- employees of the piers, who will not be named to anyone in
- advance, but who will, at Intervals, make their inspections,
- carrying with them as their means of identification, a
- commission consisting of a letter on Company’s stationery,
- setting forth their authority, which will be duly signed by
- me and counter-signed by one of the Company’s Vice Directors.
- These special operatives are to be known as Central Office men,
- and do not come under the jurisdiction of the Pier Division.
- (11-23-15)
-
- #12. Beginning with today, specific plans have been decided
- upon as to the best manner in which to keep newspapers and
- clippings dealing with the war and political subjects.
- Clippings that refer to D-Cases of this Bureau will continue to
- be placed in the private files, together with their respective
- reports. An exception to this particular rule may be made in
- the event that there are too many clippings at hand, in which
- case they may be bound together and kept separate, as is being
- done in the case of operation D-#332. Other clippings are to be
- mounted on cardboard, and the name of the newspaper and date
- typewritten thereon. Articles of interest that cover an entire
- page or more will not be clipped, but will be kept whole in
- a temporary folder in view of binding same later. This, also
- applies to copies which deal with matters on which reports have
- been rendered. (12-7-15)
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- covering G. G. Station #3 on Sunday, November 21st, from 10
- A.M. until 5 P. M. Contrary to the list of assignments for the
- Pier Division he did not do guard duty at the Hoboken Piers
- during the night of November 20th to 21st. In order to be at
- his new post, G. G. Station #3, he was given this night off
- with pay, to be charged to Case #242. Wages while on duty at
- G. G. Station #3 will be the same as heretofore.
-
- _H. v.Staden_ on November 22d, at 10 A. M., reported to Central
- Office duty as instructed. He will work jointly with Opt.
- W.H.M., his salary to remain unchanged.
-
- _H. Pearsall_, on Saturday, November 20th upon being instructed
- by Opt. H.J.W. that he was to be assigned to the Pier Division,
- declared that he refused to accept this post, and tendered
- his resignation. According to a written report submitted
- by Opt. H.J.W., H. P. acted insolently, and belittled this
- Bureau’s service. As H. P. did not tender his resignation
- to me personally or by mail, I did not take cognizance of
- what he told Opt. H.J.W. regarding leaving the department,
- but discharged him at once upon hearing of his conduct. His
- services ended on November 21st at 10 A.M. While he has been an
- alert watchman, he has often proven to be a cranky, quarrelsome
- employee, who was the cause of a great deal of trouble while on
- the piers.
-
- I congratulate myself on having ridden this Bureau of an
- ignorant, stubborn and hot-headed man of the caliber of
- Pearsall, whose last words to stenographer F. Metzler were that
- he would not trust me for a dollar. While it is understood that
- this former employee is disbarred from reinstatement, he will
- never be given any sort of a recommendation, nor will I receive
- him. He is to be kept out of the office entirely.
-
- _George Fuchs_ was dismissed from the Bureau’s services
- on November 22d at 4.30 P.M. The reason for his discharge
- is general conduct displayed on Company’s piers, constant
- quarreling with another operative, drinking and disorderly
- habits. He will receive no pay for the night of November 21st
- to 22d, during which he refused to join Opt. J.P.C. in his
- duties on Company’s Launch #4.
-
- _William McCulley_, on November 16th at 3 A.M., was appointed
- Chief of the Secret Service Division, his duties to commence
- on Sunday, November 28th, at 9 A.M. Salary $28. per week. Upon
- his word he promised to remain in this capacity for at least
- six months and to be at my disposal at all hours. He is to take
- a residence in New York City, and will be known as “William
- MacIntyre” at the Headquarters of the Secret Service Division
- to be established on December 1st, 1915.
-
- _R. E. Leyendecker_, on November 23d, at 11 P.M., was appointed
- Assistant to the
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-Rule number 1 of the division stated:
-
- “Beginning with Nov. 6 (1915) no blue copies are to be made
- of reports submitted in connection with D-Case 343, and the
- original reports will be sent to H. M. G. instead of the
- duplicates, as formerly.”
-
-“H. M. G.” we learned from the key to special personages for whom the
-division was conducting investigations, was von Papen himself. Rule 2
-reads:
-
- “In order to accomplish better results in connection with
- D-Case 343, and to shorten the stay of the informing agent at
- the place of meeting, it has been decided to discontinue the
- former practice of dining with this agent prior to receiving
- his report. It will also be a rule to refrain from working on
- other matters until the informant in this case has been fully
- heard, and all data taken down in shorthand.”
-
-The book revealed that in D-Case 343 Koenig’s alias was Woehler, and
-his agent’s name Schleindl. In his notes on operatives Koenig had
-written that “Friedrich Schleindl ... who was first known as Operative
-#51, and later as Agent C. O., beginning with October 21st will be
-called Agent B. I.” This enabled us to interpret a further regulation
-of the division, to this effect.
-
- “Agent B. I. has been requested not to call again at the
- Central Office, this ruling to take effect immediately. Other
- arrangements will be made to meet him elsewhere. Whether or not
- the stenographer of the Central Office will continue to write
- reports covering D-Case 343 will be determined later.”
-
-Rule 4 read:
-
- “Supplementing Rule 2, it has been decided that I refrain from
- drinking beer or liquor with my supper prior to receiving Agent
- B. I., for the reason that I wish to be perfectly fresh and
- well prepared to receive his reports.”
-
-And Rule 3 contained this passage:
-
- “... great care is to be taken that operatives and agents of
- the Secret Service Division remain entirely unknown to members
- of the Central Office and other divisions. These regulations
- do not apply to D-Case 343, which has been handled since the
- beginning of July (1915) with the knowledge of employees not
- belonging to the Secret Service Division. Until more favorable
- arrangements can be made this practice may be continued.”
-
-Here clearly was an unusually important case. The notes indicated
-that Koenig was receiving frequent reports of great value from this
-Schleindl, had been receiving them for at least five months, was
-reporting them to von Papen, and intended to safeguard his obtaining
-further information. When a German voluntarily forswears his beer,
-something serious is on foot.
-
-Lieut. Barnitz, with Detectives Walsh and Fenelly, arrested Schleindl
-the same day we closed in on Koenig. In his pocket was a cablegram
-referring to Russian munitions. He was a German reservist, born in
-Bavaria. At the outbreak of war he was a clerk in the National City
-Bank of New York, and lived away up in the Bronx, and in the first
-reaction to war he reported at the German Consulate for duty. Months
-passed, and he had not been called upon, when one night he met a German
-who told him to report at the Hotel Manhattan to meet another German
-named Wagoner. “You’ll find him in the bar,” added his informant.
-
-“Wagoner,” who was Paul Koenig himself, met the youth, and playing
-on his patriotism drew from him the information that he had access
-to many cablegrams to and from the Allied governments through the
-bank concerning the purchase and shipment of war supplies. Offering
-Schleindl a retainer of $25 a week, Koenig told him to steal from the
-files all such messages he could lay his hands on, together with
-copies of express-bills showing when the goods were delivered to the
-piers for shipment, all data relating to the prices paid, detailed
-descriptions of the purchases, and any other particulars which would
-help the German Government to complete its knowledge of what supplies
-America was shipping abroad. Schleindl grew quite enthusiastic in the
-work. Starting with light thefts, he gradually grew bolder, until he
-was in a position to steal documents night after night, take them
-to his appointment with Koenig, have them copied, and arrive at the
-Bank early enough the following morning to put them back where they
-belonged. Friday night was the regular appointment, but often messages
-of big shipments came in and he relayed the news at once to his chief.
-The extra $25 a week practically doubled his earning power, and made
-devotion to the Fatherland very attractive--so much so that he began
-to be afraid that Koenig, who was merely the receiving station for
-his reports, and who took no risks himself, would receive more than
-his share of credit. If there were any iron crosses to be given out,
-or any ribbons for foreign service, Schleindl felt that he had earned
-his, so he forwarded to his brother in Austria from time to time
-stenographic notes written in the Bavarian dialect which would be
-especially difficult of translation. In order to evade the censor he
-tore them into scraps and sifted them into the folds of newspapers
-which went unmolested through the British mail censors at Kirkwall.
-These scraps, pieced together and translated into reports, were
-forwarded by his brother to German officials.
-
-[Illustration: Alexander Dietrichens]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _International Film Service. Inc._
-
-Frederick Schleindl]
-
-[Illustration: Schleindl and Dietrichens at a German party]
-
-Schleindl’s zeal had led him into other channels of German activity.
-At college in Germany he had had a friend named Alexander Dietrichens,
-later known variously as Willish, Sander, Glass, and Lizius--one of
-those Riga Russians of German parentage who have served Bolshevism so
-eminently in Russia. In 1915 Dietrichens was in America, and the two
-renewed their friendship. He said he was eager to serve the Fatherland,
-and that he only wanted to know who was supplying munitions to the
-Allies to start a campaign of destruction against them. He suggested
-the Du Pont factories at Wilmington, and asked the young bank clerk
-to come along. Schleindl, impressionable and emotional, had not the
-courage. He confessed to me that he wept at the thought, and that he
-asked Dietrichens whether any harm could come to him if the explosion
-killed anyone. “Very likely,” Dietrichens answered cheerfully.
-Schleindl then declined, but he helped the dynamiter to the extent of
-keeping an occasional bomb or a package of dynamite for him during the
-day in his locker or under his desk at the bank. The main cache where
-Dietrichens stored his explosives was near Tenafly, New Jersey, but
-when Schleindl and I visited it, in a deserted spot almost a mile from
-the nearest building, the shanty was empty.
-
-Schleindl was tried, convicted and sentenced to an indeterminate term
-in the penitentiary, for the theft of documents. Koenig pleaded guilty
-to the charge, but sentence was suspended on him owing to the greater
-importance of the Welland charges.
-
-The Schleindl and Dietrichens cases are only two examples of many to
-which the little black book gave clues. It suggested investigations
-into many others, for it was a real storehouse of names, and knowing
-Koenig’s close relationship with the highest German authorities in
-the United States, it contributed a large number of items to the bill
-of complaint against Germany which provoked the President’s Flag Day
-warning of 1916. Koenig’s mere mention of the name of “Horn” in D-Case
-277 gave evidence of the German sponsorship of the attempt of Werner
-Horn to blow up the Vanceboro bridge in February, 1915; the name
-“Stahl” in D-Case 328 indicated by Koenig’s own hand that it was he who
-paid Gustave Stahl for the false affidavits that the _Lusitania_ had
-carried guns; the name “Kienzle” in D-Case 316 was the name of a man
-who was involved in trying to blow up vessels sailing for France and
-England; the name “Hammond” in D-Case 357 led to the disclosure that
-the Bureau of Investigation, although chiefly engaged in spying and
-destroying plots, sometimes ran other and more delicate errands for von
-Bernstorff.
-
-Posing this time as “W. H. Becker” Koenig called on one J. C. Hammond,
-a writer and publicity man who had offices at 34th Street and Broadway.
-To Hammond he stated that from the standpoint of the Germans in America
-two newspapers were taking irritating and unfriendly attitudes. These
-were the _New York World_ and the _Providence Journal_. Both papers had
-taken, soon after the outbreak of war, definite stands on the American
-issues involved, and both pursued the subject in a typically thorough
-fashion, the Providence paper obtaining much of its information from
-sympathetic British sources, and the _World_ having an influential
-position politically which led it across the trail of what the
-newspaper men call “big stories.” The _Providence Journal_ in fact
-emerged from comparative obscurity during the early months of war with
-startling charges against German agents both here and abroad, supported
-by evidence which seemed incredible though of sound origin. These
-stories were republished widely through the country. It was undoubtedly
-having a powerful effect upon the public, for the country, dazed with
-the fact of war, was ready to take sides against the nation which was
-apparently guilty of the worst acts. Some of those charges were true,
-and although they seemed at that time so fantastic as to be almost
-impossible, the members of the German Embassy knew they were true and
-squirmed inwardly every time a fresh one burst out. The _World_ had
-a habit of not only spreading exciting news articles over its front
-page, but lending color to them by publishing photographs of supporting
-documents to prove their authenticity. So von Bernstorff and the
-attachés, after having tried to bring influence to bear in many subtle
-ways to curb the publications, called in Koenig, and he made his little
-pilgrimage to Hammond’s office.
-
-He offered the publicity agent a large sum of money to find out what
-exposures the two papers had still in the ice-box, ready to release.
-Later, he increased this to a blanket offer of any sum which Hammond
-should name, provided the latter could induce the papers to turn over
-to him the articles and affidavits in their possession. The offer was
-not accepted. Hammond did not bite at the offer of a later reward of
-$100,000 which Koenig hung up to silence the publication of anti-German
-news in certain other large newspapers in the country, nor did he, as
-Koenig requested, go to England to visit Rintelen, to find out where
-Rintelen had left a trunk full of valuable papers when he fled the
-United States.
-
-The name “Lewis” mentioned in the citation of another case in the
-little black book revealed a further variation of the services of the
-Secret Service Division. The United States owned a large quantity
-of Krag-Joergensen rifles for which in that year of peace it had no
-use, but which several foreign governments would have been glad to
-buy. Commercial bachelors who were looking for war brides all took
-turns paying court to the rifles, and all without success. Readers
-of the newspapers may recall a small tempest which raged around the
-alleged sale of the rifles, and the charges levelled at one after
-another German of the attempt to purchase. Each new charge was denied
-by its victim, and it finally developed that a Mrs. Selma Lewis had
-been involved in the negotiations, and was willing to pose as the
-purchaser. The “man behind” was Franz Rintelen, acting for the German
-Government, and the name “Lewis” here in Koenig’s notes, amplified by
-the full name and address of Mrs. Lewis in a small address book which
-we also captured, indicates that Koenig worked for Rintelen as well
-as the abler and more authentic members of the embassy of destruction
-which Germany kept in America.
-
-I think I have made it clear that when the United States interned
-Paul Koenig it made prisoner one of the busiest men of the German
-spy system, and one of the strangest. He was physically powerful and
-mentally quick with a German sort of quickness. He had the most supreme
-self-confidence it has been my pleasure to meet, and that caused his
-downfall. If he had administered his bureau in a manner calculated to
-breed loyalty in his employees he would have been more successful,
-but he conceived his work as a one-man job, and made his subordinates
-goose-step to his tune. It is certain that had he not set down with
-such care every item which would be useful to the United States in
-unearthing his actions, no one can say how long they would have
-continued. Napoleon had his Waterloo, however, and Paul Koenig had his
-notebook, and with the same scrupulous foresight the indomitable “xxx”
-left that notebook where we would be most likely to find it.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _HEALTH RULES._
-
- #1. I have decide to refrain from chewing tobacco in the
- office, as it disagrees with my health, thereby interfering
- with my work. (12-1-15)
-
- #2. I shall drink no more whiskey. (12-6)
-
-
- _HEALTH TABLE #1._
-
- XI.
-
- 9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-25-28-28-  11
-
- XII.
-
- 1-3-5-8-9-11-13-16-
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- safeguarding of the Imperial German Embassy at Cedarhurst,
- L. I.
-
- Sept. 1. Bureau was entrusted with the safeguarding of the
- offices of Commercial Attache Dr. Albert.
-
- Oct. 26. Bureau was entrusted with the safeguarding of the
- offices of the Military Attache.
-
- Nov. 12. Began first investigation for Austro-Hungarian
- Government.
-
- Dec. 13. As 6.30 P.M. Captain von Papen, German Military
- Attache, received me at the German Club to express his
- thanks for the services which this Bureau have rendered
- to him. At the same time he bid me Good-Bye.
-
- Dec. 15. Bureau was entrusted with the safeguarding of the
- offices of the I. & R. Austro-Hungarian Consulate General.
-
-
- _LIST OF_ _IMPORTANT CASES HANDLED._
-
- - 1913 -
-
- C.#17. Investigation Re: Jersey City Wharfage Graft.
-
- C.#24. Investigation of Baggage Department, Hoboken.
-
- C.#32. Chinese Stowaways on S.S. “PRINZ JOACHIM”, Voy. 77.
-
- C.#40. Investigation Re: Thefts of Cargo on the Atlas Pier, New
- York City.
-
- C.#41. S.S. “FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE”, Arrival at New York July 2,
- 1913.
-
- C.#49. Charges Made Against W. Barbe, Chief Officer, S.S. “CARL
- SCHURZ”.
-
- C.#54. Investigation Re: S.S. “PRINZ FRIEDRICH WILHELM”,
- Arrived at New York on June 3.
-
- C.#67. Fire on Board S.S. “IMPERATOR” on August 28.
-
- C.#69. Fire Patrol on S.S. “IMPERATOR”, & etc.
-
- C.#70. Max Ludwig Thomsen, Alias Thomspson.
-
- C.#95. Charges Against Paul Koenig.
-
-Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”]
-
-It is a rare treat, aside from its now past informative value. And it
-contains one real mystery which the Westphalian himself can alone clear
-up. The page headed “Health Rules” reads as follows:
-
- “#1. I have decided to refrain from chewing tobacco in the
- office as it disagrees with my health thereby interfering with
- my work. (12-1-15.)
-
- “#2. I shall drink no more whiskey. (12-6.)”
-
-Which leads one to believe that he saw the practical value of an
-exemplary life. But we must wait for him to explain the page headed
-“Health Table,” which reads:
-
- “XI
-
- “9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-28-28.
-
-
- “XII
-
- “1-3-5-8-9-11-13-16.”
-
-The “XI” is evidently November, of 1915, the “XII” December. What did
-he do on those dates so accurately mentioned? Did temptation lead
-him twice from the path on the 17th and 28th of November? If so,
-what could this temptation have been? Is it possible that the same
-conscience which made him typewrite his rules of conduct weakened, and
-then remorse turned about and forced him to set down his lapses from
-grace? Is it further possible that each of the dates cited means that
-Paul Koenig broke his brand new health rules ten times in November and
-eight times in December, and _chewed tobacco in office hours_?
-
-We must wait in patience--some day his Westphalian conscience may
-answer.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-PLAYING WITH FIRE
-
-
-The business of crime prevention and detection depends largely on
-the confidence one man has in another. That is one reason why a
-“stool-pigeon” is an uncomfortable ally on a case. You can not be
-sure that a man who associates with criminals and is giving them away
-is not giving the case away at the same time. His gang hates him for
-squealing, his evidence is the evidence of a traitor, and he is a good
-person not to depend on. I make that point here because I have always
-tried to avoid using stool-pigeons, and because the story to follow
-will illustrate what can be accomplished by a dependable man.
-
-The story really starts about twenty years ago. In the spring of 1900,
-an Italian from Paterson, N. J., Brescia by name, attended a meeting
-of anarchists in a house in Elizabeth Street, New York. The group was
-composed of two parties, one which we may call the progressives, and
-one the inactives. Brescia assailed the inactives, denounced them as
-cowards, and stirred up so much dissension that the meeting broke up
-for fear of a police raid, and several of the members retaliated at
-Brescia by accusing him of being a police spy. He sailed for Italy, and
-on July 29, in the little Lombardi town of Monza, murdered King Humbert
-the Good. When the news was cabled to America it was hailed with proper
-grief by the public and with great joy by the anarchists who had called
-Brescia a traitor. His execution, which followed swiftly, made him a
-martyr. So to do him honor, the group was named the Brescia Circle.
-
-By 1914 the membership of the circle was nearly 600. A cosmopolitan
-lot: Italians, Russians, Russian Jews, Germans, Austrians, Spaniards
-and Americans, of both sexes. The leaders were agitators whose speaking
-ability had lifted them out of the ranks and who found an easier living
-by their wits than by their hands. The Bomb Squad knew something of
-their activities and habits, for the past history of anarchist cases
-linked up certain names in a pointed way. We knew their fondness for
-bombs, and the records of the police department contain many instances
-of anarchists inspired to violence by the inflammatory speeches of
-such agitators, as their idol, Francisco Ferrer, had preached violence
-in Spain. The outbreak of war in Europe, from which so many of the
-group had migrated to America, and the promise of social confusion
-which it held for them had stirred the Brescia Circle more than a
-little. The active members met regularly in the basement of a building
-at 301 East 106th Street, a shabby house in a shabby district east of
-the New York Central tracks. These meetings, which occurred usually
-on a Sunday, as many of the members were working during the week,
-were addressed by such notorious anarchists as Emma Goldman, Becky
-Edelson, Frank Mandese, Carlo Tresca and Pietro Allegra--names probably
-unfamiliar to the general public, but names with which the Police
-Department had “auld acquaintance.” Occasionally an editor of an
-anarchist newspaper in Lynn, Massachusetts, Gagliani by name, came to
-speak in the cellar, and Plunkett, Harry Kelly, and Alexander Berkman
-were usually to be found in the group.
-
-The winter of 1913–1914 was one of industrial depression. Many of
-the radical labor element rallied to the I. W. W. and the unemployed
-readily joined them. The methods of the anarchists and I. W. W.’s
-were similar, and the advocates of unrest were enlisted under both
-standards. In the late winter demonstrations began and multiplied
-until in March a youth named Frank Tannenbaum, to whom Emma Goldman
-later took a fancy, led a mob of I. W. W.’s into St. Alphonsus’ Church
-demanding food. The police waited until they had passed inside, then
-locked the doors, and arrested the whole lot. This was but one instance
-of a number which promised more trouble. Whatever nice distinctions of
-creed separated the Industrial Workers from the anarchists were paper
-distinctions; the performances of both bodies made it fairly plain that
-if you scratched an anarchist you found an I. W. W. underneath.
-
-There may have been some intimation from abroad of the impending
-war, among the anarchists, for in July certain of them began to
-grow demonstrative. On Independence Day Mandese was arrested in
-Tarrytown, in uncomfortable proximity to the estate and person of
-John D. Rockefeller. Carron, Berg and Hansen, three members of the
-Brescia Circle, were engaged on that same day in perfecting a bomb in
-their rooms at Lexington Avenue and 104th Street, when the machine
-exploded prematurely and killed them. That bomb had been intended for
-the Rockefeller family. Naturally everyone with a shred of respect
-for order who read of these episodes recoiled from them, but it was
-necessary to judge them from the anarchist’s own standpoint to see that
-while one of the cases had resulted in death, and the Mandese incident
-in arrest, both had been successful in creating a disturbance. The
-anarchist likes disturbance as well as he dislikes order, for unrest is
-contagious, and means new recruits to the cause. It became our duty,
-therefore, to make a careful investigation of these disturbances at
-their source, and we insinuated a detective into the Brescia Circle
-itself.
-
-He spoke only English--a good language for social intercourse, but
-not the key to the affairs of the group in the 106th Street basement.
-Whenever the more prominent agitators had a really important matter to
-discuss they used the Italian tongue, and it was impossible for our man
-to eavesdrop. Perhaps he was over-eager, for twice he was brought to
-trial by the Circle charged with spying. Twice he was acquitted. But
-when his enemies had him formally charged a third time with treachery,
-the anarchists decided that although they had no evidence against him
-beyond a powerful suspicion, he would be better outside. Outside he
-went.
-
-On October 3, the anarchists gave a grand ball at the Harlem Casino in
-honor of Emma Goldman, and at that affair announcement was made that
-October 13 would be observed by those of the cause with a celebration
-at Forward Hall, in East Broadway, fitting to the anniversary of the
-“assassination” of Francisco Ferrer. The orator, Leonard Abbott, also
-reminded the gathering that “the Catholic Church had been responsible
-for Ferrer’s death.” At five o’clock in the afternoon of October 12
-a vicious explosion occurred in the north aisle of St. Patrick’s
-Cathedral. It was an anarchist’s bomb. The nave of the church held
-numerous worshippers, who were panic-stricken, but who fortunately
-escaped injury with the exception of a young man struck in the face by
-a flying splinter from one of the altars. Shortly after midnight of
-the next day a bomb placed in the front area of the priests’ house of
-St. Alphonsus’ exploded with violence enough to break every window in
-the house and every window in the house across the street. Ferrer’s
-“assassination” had evidently been appropriately observed.
-
-The situation was disturbing. We had to put a stop to bombing before
-the anarchists grew bolder and began to kill someone beside themselves.
-Of course we wanted all the evidence we could lay hands on, and
-yet the evidence we had been able to obtain had not prevented two
-outrages. We felt that undoubtedly the best place to look for it was
-still the Brescia Circle, as it constituted the chief organization
-and headquarters for the element which we believed guilty. And we now
-return to the question of the stool-pigeon.
-
-It would have been possible to employ one of the Circle, perhaps. It is
-certain that I should have been uneasy with only his evidence to depend
-upon, for a bomb does not wait to be investigated. Planting a man in
-the Brescia Circle had not been successful, but I felt that it could be
-made successful. So out of five or six candidates from the department I
-chose Amedeo Polignani for the work.
-
-He was a young Italian detective who kept his own counsel, short,
-strong, mild-mannered and unobtrusive. And he knew Italian. “Your name
-from now on is Frank Baldo,” I said. “Forget you’re a detective. You
-can get a job over in Long Island City, so as to carry out the bluff.
-You are an anarchist. Join the Brescia Circle and any other affiliated
-group, and report to me every day. The older members may be suspicious
-of you, and they’ll probably follow you, so we had better arrange when
-you are to telephone and I’ll let you know whenever and wherever I want
-to see you.” We discussed every possible angle of the work in order
-to anticipate and forestall whatever accident either of omission or
-commission might occur to make Polignani’s position suspicious. He was
-instructed to call me by telephone at certain hours, using a private
-number, telephoning from a public pay-station in a store in which
-there was not more than one booth, so that no one might follow him and
-hear his conversation through the flimsy walls of a booth adjoining.
-He was to deport himself in a retiring manner, and to throw himself
-earnestly into the part he was to act. I felt sure that his quiet,
-agreeable nature would disarm any suspicion of him as a newcomer, and
-that complete concentration upon the spirit of the masquerade would
-gradually draw out important information. First and foremost, he was
-to be on the watch for evidence of the man who had committed the two
-bomb outrages in October; secondly, he was to cover the activities and
-intentions of the anarchists in general; thirdly, he was to keep his
-eyes and ears open and his mouth shut, and to deal with any emergency
-which might arise.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by International News Service_
-
-Carmine and Carbone in Court]
-
-It often happens in fiction that a man journeys to a far country
-and somewhere on the voyage sheds his identity like an old suit of
-clothes to proceed through years of adventure as another individual;
-in the movies it is no feat at all for a girl to disguise herself as a
-man and hoodwink the rest of the actors through several hundred feet
-of film; but it remained for a New York detective to discard his name
-and his associations for six months, and without once stirring outside
-his jurisdiction, without any disguise, and without miraculous power,
-to add to the records--and consequently to the efficiency--of his
-department a store of information of one of the most troublesome groups
-of anarchists in the United States.
-
-He bade his little family in the Bronx good-by, got employment at
-manual labor in a Long Island City factory, and hired a cheap room at
-1907 Third Avenue. Throughout November he attended meetings of the
-Brescia Circle, listening to bitter speeches full of wild plans to
-overthrow the government, and the organized church, and getting the lay
-of the land. To such members as chose to speak to him he was courteous
-and friendly, but they were not many. The more important members had a
-way of gathering in corners and whispering to each other, and the new
-member was not invited to join the charmed inner circle. So he held his
-peace, and memorized names and faces, and presently his opportunity
-came.
-
-Polignani had noticed on November 30 a young Italian cobbler, named
-Carbone, who seemed to have influence in the Circle, and he confirmed
-this judgment on the next two Sunday evenings as he saw Carbone in
-whispered conversation with Frank Mandese and one Campanielli. The
-next Sunday night the same trio was in star-chamber session when a
-good-natured wrestling match started in another part of the room, and
-Carbone turned to watch it. Polignani was tossing various members to
-the floor, and as he was smoothing his ruffled hair after a short
-bout, Carbone tapped him on the shoulder and said, “You’re a strong
-fellow--I’m glad to see you a member of the Brescia Circle!” The
-detective smiled, and the two fell into conversation, which continued
-as they left the society’s rooms and strolled up Third Avenue.
-
-“The trouble with those fellows,” said Carbone, “is that they talk too
-much and don’t act enough. They don’t accomplish anything.”
-
-“That’s right,” Polignani agreed.
-
-“What they ought to do is throw a few bombs and show the police
-something,” Carbone continued. “Wake them up! Look--” he held up the
-stumps of five fingers of his right hand--“I got that making a bomb.
-Some day I’ll show you how to make ’em.”
-
-That arrangement suited Polignani perfectly. He had a lead, after
-tedious “watchful waiting,” which had been punctuated by the explosion
-of a mysterious bomb at the door of the Bronx County Court House on
-November 11. He had listened to reams of oratory against the ruling
-classes, law, order and the churches, had heard his fellow members
-chided because the bombs at St. Patrick’s and St. Alphonsus’ had been
-too weak, and had heard speakers advise any members who contemplated
-the use of dynamite not to take too many people into their confidences.
-Carbone was deliberately confiding in “Baldo,” and the detective made
-up his mind to cultivate him.
-
-This extract from his notebook will illustrate how the acquaintance
-ripened:
-
- “I did not see Carbone again until Sunday the 27th. On this day
- he spoke to me of a friend named Frank and said that if all
- anarchists were like his friend they would be all right. He
- thinks nothing of making and throwing a bomb. On January 1st
- about 1.45 P. M. Carbone met me as per appointment. We went to
- where the meeting of the unemployed was being held and both
- of us shook hands with Louise Berg, Mandese, and Bianco.... He
- introduced me to his friend Frank....”
-
-Enter the third conspirator, Frank Abarno, 25 years old, and a native
-of San Velle, Italy. Almost on the heels of his introduction to the
-promising new member, the new member began to take a new interest
-in life, for on January 3 Carbone drew Polignani out of the meeting
-after the speeches and said quietly, “Come on up to the 125th Street
-Station. It’s warm up there, and we won’t be bothered. I’ll tell you
-something about making bombs.” And on the way up Lexington Avenue
-Carbone explained that he needed some caps about two inches long. All
-the dynamite he wanted he could get from his uncle, a contractor “out
-in the country.” “We’ll get some dynamite, and then you and Frank and
-me will blow up some churches, see?”
-
-“Sure,” the detective answered. “What church?”
-
-“St. Patrick’s is the best. This time it’ll be a good one too--not like
-before.”
-
-“Did you hear what Mandese was saying the other night?” Polignani
-asked. “He was scrapping with another fellow and the fellow says, ‘If
-they wouldn’t give me no work I’d throw bombs.’ And Mandese said to
-him, ‘The only kind of bombs you shoot are the kind you shoot with
-your mouth,’ and he says, ‘What kind of bombs do you shoot then?’ And
-Mandese says, ‘The kind that went off at Madison Square and the two
-churches, see!’”
-
-Carbone apparently did not care for the results of the previous
-explosions, for he said:
-
-“Well, they were no good. That bomb that killed Carron and Berg and
-Hansen wasn’t made right. It was wound too tight--that’s why it went
-off too soon. I can make a bomb from a brass ball off a bed-post that
-will start something.”
-
-A fortnight passed, and Carbone turned up at the Brescia meeting-place
-in company with Abarno. They beckoned to Polignani and the three walked
-down Third Avenue, Abarno mouthing anarchy, and suddenly suggesting
-that he would like to go into St. Patrick’s, find Cardinal Farley
-alone, and choke him to death. The gentle soul then remarked: “Carbone,
-you make some bombs!”
-
-“If I can get those caps I’ll make a bomb that will destroy the
-Cathedral clear down to the ground, but if I can’t get the caps then
-I’ll have to make the other kind.”
-
-“Well, you make two bombs,” said Abarno. “We’ll set them off on the
-outside of the church about six o’clock some morning and then we
-can get away clean and get to work on time and nobody will know the
-difference.”
-
-Carbone asked Abarno to get him some sulphur, and turned to Polignani a
-slip pencilled, “Collorate di Potase, 1 lb.” and “Andimonio.” “You get
-that at a drug store, Baldo,” he said.
-
-“Baldo” complied, and a few weeks later the materials were assembled.
-Carbone instructed Polignani to call on Abarno for a booklet on bomb
-manufacture, and about six in the evening of February 4 Abarno gave the
-detective the pamphlet to read while he went out to get some spaghetti,
-as the two had an appointment with Carbone at 7.30. Polignani was
-hardly out of Abarno’s sight when he sprinted to a telephone and called
-me. I met him at once, at headquarters, and turned the booklet over to
-the photographer, who got to work immediately photographing the pages.
-Our time was short, and before we had the job done I had to restore the
-book to Polignani. On Lincoln’s Birthday Carbone gave the book to our
-man again, to study, and this gave us time to finish the photographic
-copying.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- ISTRUMENTI
-
- Una bilancia usata L. 8.--
- Un termometro ” 2.50
- Misure ” 3.--
- Matracci di vetro ” 6.--
- Tre imbuti di vetro e tre bacchette di vetro ” 2.--
- Lampada a spirito ” 1.--
- Un mastello di legno di 30 o 35 litri ” 3.--
- Spese varie e impreviste ” 20.50
- ---------
- TOTALE L. 46.--
-
- Raccomandiamo a coloro che si vogliono mettere a questi lavori,
- di procurarsi prima di tutto il denaro necessario; altrimenti
- arrischiano di doversi fermare a mezza strada, di tirar le cose
- in lungo ed esporsi inutilmente.
-
- Raccomandiamo agli stessi di non trascurare nessuna delle
- precauzioni necessarie per non attirare l’attenzione della
- polizia, di non mettersi in vista colla propaganda pubblica, di
- non farsi vedere coi compagni conosciuti, e di non lavorare mai
- nelle case soggette ad essere perquisite.
-
- Sopratutto raccomandiamo non mettersi a fabbricare esplosivi
- per il gusto di fabbricarli. Tutto ciò che si può avere bello e
- fatto, è inutile, è stupido il volerlo fare da sè, quando non
- si ha la pratica ed i mezzi che hanno quelli del mestiere. Nei
- posti in cui si può avere la dinamite--e oggi la si può avere
- quasi dappertutto--perchè mettersi a fabbricarla?
-
- Bisogna poi che fra i diversi esplosivi, le diverse bombe,
- ecc., ognuno scelga le cose che per lui sono più facili e più
- pratiche ricordandosi sempre che: =E’ meglio una cosa piccola
- fatta, che una grande restata in proposito.=
-
- --13--
-
- stessa: si legano bene con fil di ferro intorno alla rotaia,
- si mette capsula e miccia, si copre con terra e la mina è
- pronta. Questa produce una rottura di mezzo metro. Per avere
- rotture più estese non v’è che preparare parecchie di queste
- mine, a debita distanza e munirle di miccie di eguali qualità e
- lunghezza; e raccogliere insieme i capi delle miccie, in modo
- che dando fuego alle miccie lo scoppio è contemporaneo in tutti
- i punti. Spesso è vantaggioso per far saltare gli scambii, cioè
- i punti dove s’incrociano diverse linee. Per mettere fuori
- d’uso una locomotiva o una macchina a vapore qualsiasi, basta
- far scoppiare 3 o 4 petardi in un tubo intemo della caldaia.
-
-
- BOMBE
-
- Sono recipienti di metallo pieni di materia esplosiva, che
- scoppiando si rompono in pezzi e feriscono i circostanti.
- Possono avere qualunque forma, ma la sferica è più efficace.
- Per farle scoppiare si può adoperare una capsula con miccia
- che brucia rapidissimamente tanto da aver giusto il tempo
- per accenderle e lanciarle. Si può anche applicarvi tutto
- a l’intorno dei luminelli con capsule o altri apparati, in
- modo che per l’urto della caduta il fulminato scoppi e faccia
- scoppiare la carica della bomba, come in quelle all’Orsini.
-
- La bomba fa tanto più effetto quanto più il metallo è
- resistente, sempre che la carica abbia la forza di farla
- scoppiare. Quindi il miglior metallo è il ferro o l’acciaio,
- poi il rame, l’ottone, il bronzo, quindi la ghisa ed infine
- lo zinco solo o legato con stagno; il piombo non serve. LO
- SPESSORE DELLE PA-
-
- --39--
-
-Pages from the bomb-thrower’s textbook]
-
-I realized when I saw the translation how Carbone knew so much about
-making bombs.
-
-“La Salute e’ in voi!” read the cover, or “Health is in you!” Evidently
-a toast to the brotherhood for which it was prepared. It was a pamphlet
-of some sixty pages, measuring about four by eight inches, and cleanly
-printed in Italian. It was nothing less than a text-book on how to go
-about making bombs--a sort of guide to anarchist etiquette. It would be
-unwise to reproduce its instructions here in detail, as they were too
-accurate for the general peace, but the index which follows will give
-a conception of the thoroughness with which the anonymous writers in
-far-off Italy covered their subject.
-
- “Index--
- First principles 1
- Instruments 7
- Manipulation 8
- Explosive material 11
- Powder 14
- Nitroglycerine 14
- Dynamite 20
- Fulminate of mercury 23
- Gun cotton 27
- Preparation of fuses 31
- Capsule and petard 34
- Application of explosive materials 35
- Bombs 39
- Incendiary materials 44”
-
-Yes, it was accurate--and very practical. To quote from its advice to
-struggling anarchists:
-
- “We recommend most earnestly that if you wish to engage in
- this line of work, you procure, before all else, a sufficient
- amount of money, otherwise you risk being put out in the middle
- of the street, only to find your long work and trouble all in
- vain. We recommend at the same time that you do not omit any
- precaution necessary to avoid attracting the attention of the
- police, and avoid mixing with the public, nor be seen with
- known companions. And do not work at it in the house except
- when necessary....
-
- “The work should be done in a well ventilated room provided
- with a good chimney place and furnished in such a way that you
- can hide things if anyone enters, and this room ought to be on
- the top floor of the house on account of the odors that are
- always being produced....
-
- “Above all we recommend that you never make explosives for
- the mere pleasure of making them. All you do beyond enough is
- useless and stupid--especially so when you have neither the
- practice nor the proper means for making them. As to the place
- to keep the dynamite, why make it until it is needed? Take
- heed that among the various kinds of explosives, bombs, etc.,
- always choose the one that will be most easily used and most
- practical, remembering always that it is better to do a little
- thing well than to leave a big thing half done....”
-
-The little booklet contained a list of the necessary tools with their
-estimated costs, and said of the chemicals to be used, “The materials
-to be employed should be sufficiently pure. They may be had of dealers
-in chemical and pharmaceutical products, and it is well not to buy all
-the stuff from the same merchant, in order that he may not know what
-you wish to make....” It explained the relative forces of explosives
-in this way: “The relative force which the various explosives have
-is as follows: Shot-gun powder has a force of 1; an equal amount of
-‘Panclastite’ has the force of 6; of dynamite 7; of dry gun-cotton 9
-(if with 50% of salts of nitre, 5); of nitroglycerine 9; of fulminate
-of mercury 10 or 3½; of nitromannite 11.... All the other explosives of
-which we speak, such as melenite, etc., have nitroglycerine for their
-bases, therefore have no greater force than that of nitroglycerine.”
-
-After an exposition of the method of making nitroglycerine--the mere
-reading of which would make your hair bristle--the compilers conclude
-“... it is not very dangerous to use when cold, notwithstanding
-all that has been said. It would be a great work if some American
-manufacturer would devise some means of congealing it so that it would
-be less sensitive to shock, so that it might safely be carried on the
-railways.” Of fulminating cotton they remark, “As it ignites with
-instantaneous rapidity it is best to use a fuse that burns the most
-quickly; for example, when for use in bombs made to throw at a person,
-it will be enough to twist the cord, etc., etc.” Minute directions are
-given for the home-laboratory manufacture of the explosives listed, and
-the experimenter who cared to attempt their manufacture was warned in
-the simplest and most emphatic terms of the caprices of the different
-materials. He was told how to make cord-fuses that would burn at the
-rate of 8 hours to the yard, and of 6 hours to the yard; paper fuses
-which would reach the explosive two hours after a spark had touched the
-corner of a sheet of prepared paper; thread fuses which would sparkle
-fifteen seconds to the metre, or three minutes to the metre; and,
-finally, an instantaneous fuse which “Because it will burn with all the
-speed of electricity ... may be made to serve many important purposes:
-to fire a mine under a passing train, under gatherings, or troops of
-cavalry.”
-
-If the bomber wished to blow up a wall, he was told how to compute
-by simple mathematics the quantity of explosive required. A bridge
-“will require twice the charge needed for a wall”--and the vulnerable
-points of the bridge were indicated. Telephone and telegraph poles and
-wires, street gratings, street railways, locomotives, steam-boilers,
-all came in for their share of attention. “It is very easy to find
-suitable receptacles for bombs,” the writer went on. “For example,
-large inkwells, brass handles such as are used on letter-presses....
-For certain purposes a bottle may be made to serve as a bomb--they
-are suitable for throwing from a window.... Fragile glass bottles
-when filled with this solution (an incendiary mixture) make handy
-incendiary bombs to hurl among troops, official gatherings, etc.; also
-to pour from windows upon troops, or to throw from a drinking glass or
-pail....” I have wondered whether Gavrio Prinzip of Sarajevo ever saw
-this book, and whether it may not have been translated into Italian
-from the original German.
-
-Mere possession of this wicked treatise would suggest that the owner
-was up to no good, especially if the owner, as in this case, was known
-to be a volatile member of an anarchistic circle who had already
-declared his intentions of wrecking something. It was reasonable to
-assume that there must be such a book of instruction in existence, that
-the bombers had not been handling delicate explosives with no better
-knowledge than word-of-mouth, hearsay chemistry, but I am free to
-confess that my first sight of the pamphlet brought the plots of the
-men we were watching very close to grim reality. I never knew just when
-we would get an ambulance call and have to go and pick Polignani out of
-the wreck of a premature explosion, and I never heard him report in on
-the telephone that I didn’t experience a momentary apprehension of his
-latest news. The detective himself was calm enough, and enthusiastic
-over the fact that the trail was growing hotter all the time. The
-question of evidence of the previous explosions was in the background
-now, and the activities of the Brescia Circle as a political unit did
-not concern us nearly as much as the activities of three of its members
-with their “andimonio, collorate di potase” and their pamphlet, and
-their hatred of the Catholic Church.
-
-Polignani had seen this hatred demonstrated many times by Carbone.
-They passed two Sisters of Charity one chilly evening near the Harlem
-station, and the anarchist spat, and cursed them. So the detective
-was not surprised by Abarno’s proposal on the night of St. Valentine’s
-Day that the three conspirators plant their bombs in St. Patrick’s
-Cathedral. “We’ll go over there some day soon and look for a good place
-to set them. And then we’ll plant the bomb on some good holiday--say on
-March 21, eh?”
-
-“What’s that day?” Polignani inquired.
-
-“The Commune!” Abarno answered.
-
-Polignani bought the antimony and the chlorate of potash, and at a
-subsequent meeting watched uneasily while Carbone tried to pulverize
-the antimony with a hammer. It was too hard work, however, and “Baldo”
-was directed to buy a small quantity of the pulverized substance. This
-he did. The three had meanwhile been trying to pick out a good room in
-an English-speaking lodging house in 29th Street, but finally gave it
-up and hired a furnished room at 1341 Third Avenue. There they brought
-their materials, consisting of twelve yards of copper wire, a trunk
-full of odds and ends, tools, fuse cord, and various ingredients. To
-this supply they wanted to add some hollow iron balls, but the hollow
-iron ball market was sparse, and they finally substituted three tin
-hand-soap cans. On February 27 Polignani and Abarno made a tour of
-inspection of St. Patrick’s, and as they were descending the steps
-Abarno remarked that when he had destroyed the Cathedral they would
-turn their attention first to the Carnegie residence at 90th Street and
-Fifth Avenue, and then to the Rockefeller home. “We won’t wait till
-March 21,” he observed impatiently. “Let’s get this job done soon. Say
-Tuesday morning.”
-
-[Illustration: A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after the
-arrest of the Anarchists
-
-The message reads:
-
- “MR. WOODS
- My Dear Sir
-
- Your police Espionage may go as far as you like for the
- promotion of your Bankrupt Law & Order of Society. The
- Anarchists of New York have but one Life to give for the Ideal
- of Humanity and absolute Freedom of mankind the world over.
- yours The Society for the Propagation of absolute Liberty and
- Human Freedom....”
-]
-
-High noon of the following day saw the three plotters cheerfully at
-work in the furnished room. Abarno and Carbone measured carefully the
-proportions of sulphur, sugar, chlorate of potash and antimony; Carbone
-filled the tins with the mixture, and led the fuses into the heart of
-the mass, glancing up from time to time to the detective with real
-pride, as if to say: “See, Baldo? That’s how an expert works!” “Baldo”
-had contributed his share of the materials--a few lengths of iron rod.
-Carbone bound these to the outside of the cans with cord, and added a
-few bolts which he found in a bureau drawer, and a coat-hanger, twisted
-out of shape. Round and round this shapeless tangle of metal he wove
-copper wire, and so produced two heavy, compact bombs. Polignani had
-grown almost gray when, after boring the fuse holes in the can-tops,
-Carbone casually picked up a hammer and began to tattoo the cans.
-The detective promptly took refuge behind the bed, near the floor.
-
-“No use to hide there, Baldo!” This with a laugh from Carbone. “If
-she goes off she’ll blow the whole house down. How’s that, Frank?” he
-added, showing the finished product to Abarno.
-
-“I’ll throw that one and you can throw the other, Carbone,” Abarno
-said. “Now listen. We will meet here Tuesday morning at six o’clock
-to the minute. We will get to the Cathedral just at 6.20. Then we’ll
-light the bombs, and the fuses will burn slow for twenty minutes, so
-as we can get over to the Madison Avenue car and then we can all get
-to work on time, and we will have a good alibi all right. Then we’ll
-get together Tuesday night and go some place and have a good time to
-celebrate throwing a scare into Fifth Avenue, boys! Tuesday morning,
-six o’clock sharp?”
-
-Carbone and Polignani assented, and Abarno left.
-
-Polignani kept in close touch with me from that moment forward. Ever
-since the day when Carbone had sent him to the drug store for black
-antimony, with instructions to bribe the drug clerk if he could not
-easily obtain it, we had had a double check on the conspirators, for I
-had assigned two men to shadow them constantly. The case was building
-towards a climax. Polignani had shrewdly kept the slip on which
-Carbone wrote the prescription for the explosives, and when Carbone
-asked where it was he said, “I tore it up. I didn’t want it to be
-found on me. It would get me into trouble.” The anarchist praised the
-detective for his forethought. The two men from the Bomb Squad never
-let Abarno and Carbone out of their sight, so that for a month we had
-not only the direct evidence of Polignani of what the conspirators
-said and did in his presence, but evidence from the two shadows which
-accounted for their time more fully, probably, than they could have
-recalled themselves. And so when Polignani--who did not know he was
-being observed--told me of the final plans, I passed the information on
-to the two shadows, and we formulated a counter-campaign for Tuesday
-morning.
-
-Shortly after sunrise on Tuesday, Polignani tumbled out of bed and into
-his clothes. He ate a hasty and nervous breakfast at a cheap lunch-room
-around the corner, and hurried to the sidewalk before 1341 Third
-Avenue, arriving a few minutes after six. Abarno joined him at 6.30.
-
-“Where’s Carbone--isn’t he here?” he said by way of greeting.
-
-“No,” replied “Baldo.”
-
-“Well, we can’t wait for him. We can’t lose any time. I got to be at
-work at 7.30. Come up and get the bombs with me. We’ll probably meet
-him on the way down the street. Or maybe he’s at the shoe-shop.”
-
-The two men went upstairs and into the third-floor-back. “Give me the
-key,” Abarno muttered. Polignani did so. Abarno opened the trunk and
-took out the two bombs. “You take one and I’ll take the other,” he
-whispered. “Come on. Put it under your coat.”
-
-When they started down Third Avenue the two shadows--who had also risen
-early--disengaged themselves from the doorways where they were idling
-and proceeded at an even pace down the Avenue behind the men. A few
-hundred yards or so in the rear of the procession was a limousine, and
-I was in the limousine. I could spot the men distinctly, and I had to
-chuckle when I saw them catch sight of a uniformed officer a block or
-so ahead and hastily cross the street. The same thing occurred twice
-again in the course of the march. Our parade continued. No one but
-ourselves paid any attention to the two laborers who were carrying
-lumpy bundles under their coats.
-
-At Fifty-third Street my chauffeur turned west and slipped into high
-speed. We were at the Cathedral in a minute more, and I jumped out and
-hurried into the vestibule. No one there but three or four scrub-women,
-puttering around in the half-light with their mops and pails. Several
-hundred worshippers were already gathered in the front of the nave,
-where Bishop Hayes was conducting early mass. As I passed into the body
-of the church there was no one near except an elderly usher, with white
-hair and beard. I stepped into a dark corner and waited.
-
-[Illustration: 1. Detective George D. Barnitz
-
-2. Detective Patrick Walsh
-
-3. Detective James Sterett
-
-4. Left to right: Patrick Walsh, Jerome Murphy and James Sterett]
-
-A matter of two or three minutes passed, though it seemed much longer.
-Then I saw Abarno and Polignani enter the vestibule, cross it and enter
-the church itself, taking their cigars out of their mouths as they
-turned towards the north aisle. Abarno led the way. At the tenth pew
-he motioned to Polignani to sit there, and Polignani obeyed, dropping
-to his knees in prayer. Abarno continued to the sixth pew ahead. Two
-of the scrub-women had deserted their mops, and were dusting the pews
-along the north aisle near the newcomers. Abarno rested for a moment in
-his pew, with his head and body bent as if in prayer, then rose and
-rejoined Polignani. Again he rose, and this time moved toward the north
-end of the altar, where he crouched for several seconds, placing his
-bomb against a great pillar. With his other hand he flicked the ashes
-from the coal of his cigar and touched the glowing end to the fuse. He
-had taken perhaps three steps down the aisle again when the scrub-woman
-stopped plying her dust-cloth. She fastened an iron grip on Abarno’s
-arms and hustled him down the aisle so swiftly that no one remarked the
-affair. The scrub-woman was Detective Walsh, disguised. The elderly
-usher passed the two and hurried to the spot where Abarno had crouched
-by the pillar. He saw the lighted fuse and pinched it out with his
-fingers. The elderly usher, underneath his makeup, was Lieutenant
-Barnitz. Polignani was promptly placed under arrest and led to the
-vestibule with Abarno--for the evidence was not yet all in.
-
-Abarno immediately suspected Carbone of treachery. He protested
-violently that the missing conspirator had instigated the whole affair,
-that it was his idea, that he had made the bombs, and that he could
-be found living with a Hungarian-Jewish family on the fourth floor of
-a house at 216 East 67th Street. He was fluent in the accusations he
-made against Carbone, and he grew more fluent as he recovered from the
-fright of his arrest. So while we escorted the two bombs and the two
-prisoners to headquarters, other members of the Bomb Squad visited
-Carbone and placed him under arrest.
-
-From them at headquarters we verified the story as we already knew it.
-Each man accused the other. Both men exonerated Polignani of any part
-in suggesting the plot or in making the bombs for several days after
-their arrest. But Polignani’s true identity could not be unknown to
-them indefinitely, of course, and when they found out that they had
-been confiding in a full-fledged detective--ah, then the storm broke!
-Prompted, I suspect, by pseudo-legal advice, they cried “Frame-up!”
-until they grew hoarse, but it was too late, for in the possession of
-Assistant District Attorney Arthur Train was already a sworn statement
-which fixed their guilt by their own confession.
-
-[Illustration: 1. The Dagger Threat to Polignani
-
-2. The Black Hand Threat
-
-3. Frank Abarno
-
-4. Carmine Carbone]
-
-The anarchists rushed to their rescue, but their efforts were chiefly
-verbal. At the Brescia Circle, and at I. W. W. headquarters at 64 East
-4th Street, it was common gossip that counsel for the defendants were
-going to supply 45 or 50 witnesses to swear that Polignani had invited
-them to make bombs. This I had enjoined him strictly not to do,
-as a newcomer who talks bombs is a suspicious character in anarchist
-circles. I know he obeyed. There was organized a “Carbone ed Abarno
-Defence Committee” with headquarters at 2205 Third Avenue, which
-solicited other neighboring Italian clubs with anarchistic tendencies
-for support of the two. Polignani’s photograph appeared presently in a
-New York Italian newspaper with this caption:
-
- “The filthy carrion who by order of the Police of New York
- devised the bomb plot which led up to the arrest of Abarno and
- Carbone, now before the Courts. All of us comrades will keep
- this in mind.”
-
-He received several threatening anonymous letters, some bearing the
-familiar “black hand,” others sketching on newspaper photographs of him
-the point in his anatomy at which he might expect to feel the dagger of
-revenge; others mere bombastic defiance. (The anonymous letter-writer
-is very often a courageous soul who spells out his messages with
-letters and words clipped from newspapers, so that his handwriting will
-not betray him.)
-
-What was the reward of those five months invested in patience? The
-two prisoners convicted and sentenced to terms of from six to twelve
-years, was one result. But a far greater one was a sharp decrease in
-bomb-throwing in New York, and perhaps the most gratifying was the
-discord which grew in the Brescia Circle. The group was frightened,
-and the members began to suspect each other of espionage. One former
-anarchist was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t even trust himself--he
-had been dreaming the night before that he was a spy. The Brescia
-Circle became disorganized, and several other similar groups in the
-city suffered the same fate. Their leaders drifted away--and got into
-more trouble, as we shall see later.
-
-We never found the original of the treatise on bombs. Carbone said he
-had destroyed it. But there are probably other copies from the same
-press in the hands of accredited bomb-throwers. If not, they may apply
-to the New York police department.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES
-
-
-Bret Harte said that “the heathen Chinee” was peculiar. The British
-have learned long since that the Hindu, being an Oriental, cannot
-help being equally “peculiar,” and it is a great tribute to British
-persistence that it has labored so hard and so successfully in the good
-government of a people so temperamentally complex. They have studied
-the Hindu, and have understood him as well as may be. Understanding him
-they have watched him. When war broke out, this great Oriental empire
-presented to Britain a grave problem, for as a Hindu editor in the
-United States phrased it, “England is Germany’s enemy. England is our
-enemy. Our enemy’s enemy is our friend.”
-
-It is not in my intention or power to discuss the methods which England
-employed to maintain strict loyalty in the Indian peninsula, but to
-outline here the part we played in uncovering a plot which threatened
-seriously to complicate her efforts around on the other side of the
-earth.
-
-Scotland Yard told us in February, 1917, that Hindus were conspiring in
-bomb plots with certain Germans in the United States. If it was true,
-it was against the laws of our country. They supplied us with a few
-names, but tactfully suggested that inasmuch as it was our country and
-our laws which the plotters were attempting to disturb, we would prefer
-to develop the case ourselves. Various authorities in this country had
-already had strong suspicions of the British claims, but as yet those
-suspicions had not grown to proof of any specific act. So we went to
-work.
-
-Among other names which were furnished us was that of one Chakravarty,
-whose address was 364 West 120th Street, New York. For more than a
-fortnight men of the Bomb Squad under Mr. (now Lieut.-Col.) Nicholas
-Biddle, as special aid to the commissioner, watched that house. They
-hired a room opposite, where through a slit in the window shade they
-could keep the doorway under observation. At the hours when working New
-York leaves its home to make money, and comes home at night having made
-it, the door was rarely used, but sometimes at mid-forenoon, sometimes
-in the small hours of the morning, the men on watch saw several
-dark-skinned individuals pass in and out of the house. The building
-itself gave no sign of suspicious activity. We were on the brink of
-war, and as was the case in most of the other houses in the block, an
-American flag hung draped in the front window. What went on behind the
-camouflage screen we did not know. Now and then our men, hiding in the
-shadow of the areaway, would go quietly up into the dark doorway and
-listen, but the house never gave out a sound. There was certainly no
-indication that these Hindus were conspiring with the Imperial German
-Government in dynamite plots.
-
-We knew certain East Indians who could be depended upon, and told them
-to call upon Chakravarty. This ruse failed because Chakravarty never
-presented to the callers anything but a guileless reception. So far
-as they could learn his occupation was that of manufacturer of pills;
-he and a certain Ernest Sekunna constituted the Omin Company, which
-company packed in aluminum boxes and sold to a limited clientele pills
-which like most patent remedies were recommended for any ailment from
-indigestion up or down--if the pill sold, then it was a success. This
-news did not quiet our impatience, and we decided on a raid.
-
-On the night of March 7, 1917, Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Randolph,
-Murphy, Jenkins, Walsh, Sterett and Fenelly called at the house,
-Sterett, pretending to be a messenger, and carrying a dummy package,
-presenting himself at the front door, and the rest of the party
-covering other avenues of escape. The portal was opened by a little
-Hindu who looked up innocently to Sterett and said that Dr. Chakravarty
-was not in--he had gone to Boston. The detectives announced their
-intention of searching the house. The little man protested, and was
-given certain short reasons why the search was in order. Surprise,
-injured innocence, and irritation crossed his olive-drab face, and
-he announced that he was a patriotic American and that he had never
-done anything to break the laws of the United States. If we wanted
-Dr. Chakravarty, he said, we should go and get him, and not disturb a
-peaceful household in this way, and he added that Chakravarty had left
-for New England months before, leaving no address. In this the little
-Hindu was borne out by the answers which the other occupant of the
-house gave to our questions--this was Sekunna, a German of thirty-five
-or so. We searched the house, and took the two prisoners and
-considerable material to headquarters.
-
-[Illustration: A Handbill, printed in Hindu, used by the Hindu-Boche
-Conspirators]
-
-The search disclosed a supply of literature of the Omin Company
-describing the properties of its pills, a photograph of Sekunna and
-Chakravarty as the turbaned benefactors of an unhealthy world, and a
-number of express money-order receipts, deeds and a bank book which
-showed the missing Chakravarty to be one who had acquired a good deal
-of money during the past two years. The photograph on closer inspection
-revealed that the little prisoner was Dr. Chakravarty himself. Sekunna
-verified this, and Chakravarty, confronted by it, admitted it.
-
-We asked the prisoner how he had suddenly come by the $60,000 which
-his books showed. He said that it was his inheritance from the estate
-of his grandfather in India, and that no less a personage than
-Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet, had paid him, in December, 1916,
-$25,000 of the $45,000 due from the estate. About $35,000 had been
-given him, he added, by a lawyer named Chatterji, from Pegu, Burma, in
-March, 1916.
-
-So far as he gave us his history, it related that he had graduated from
-the University of Calcutta, and had lived for a time in London, and
-later in Paris, before coming to the United States. He had heard that
-there was a warrant out for his arrest in India for sedition, probably
-due, he suggested, to his having written several articles on the
-subject of British Rule.
-
-“Have you been to Germany recently?” I asked.
-
-“Of course not,” he answered. “How could I get there, with the British
-watching for me? They would arrest me if I tried to go. Why do you ask
-that?”
-
-“Because I wanted to know,” I answered. I had good reason to believe
-that he had been there because among his effects we found several
-exhibits which pointed toward such a trip. A letter from a woman in
-Florida dated December 13, 1915, said:
-
-“I would never for one moment try to deter you from the effort or
-achievement of your lofty ideals and noble aims, for in this as in many
-other things my spirit accords with yours. Brother dear, _do_ nothing,
-_say_ nothing, _trust_ nobody, without extreme caution. God speed you.
-God hasten your return to those who are interested in you, and in all
-in which you are interested. Bless you, precious brother.”
-
-This indicated a journey, clearly. A cablegram dated Bergen, Norway,
-Dec. 23, 1915, addressed to Sekunna, read, “Safe arrival here,” and
-took him as far as the Continent, at least. Three postcards supplied
-the rest of the information; they were addressed by Sekunna to
-himself at a Berlin address, and bore the instructions, “Return to
-Sender, E. A. Sekunna, Omin Company, 417 E. 142nd Street, New York
-City”; postmarked Berlin in December and January, they suggested
-that Chakravarty had used them as part of a pre-arranged system of
-communication with America in which he did not wish his own name used.
-
-I found among the papers a photographic print of Chakravarty wearing
-a fez, which I knew was not an orthodox head-dress for a Bengalese.
-Furthermore, it struck me that the print was of the size and finish
-usually used on passports for identification of the bearer. I showed it
-to him, with the remark:
-
-“Why do you tell me you haven’t been in Berlin, when you used this
-photograph so you could get a passport as a Persian?”
-
-He bit. “I see you got me,” he replied. “I lied to you. I want to tell
-you a different story--the real one. I did go to Germany.”
-
-“Why?”
-
-“To see Wesendonck. He is a secretary for India of the German foreign
-office. He wanted to make plans for propaganda for the liberation of
-India from British rule.”
-
-Chakravarty sat there and unfolded an amazing story. He touched
-gingerly upon his own part in it at first, then evidently sensed the
-fact that there were others in the plot guilty of perhaps no less
-reprehensible but more violent crimes, and the little doctor’s capture
-and confession not only gave clues to the authorities which enabled
-them to follow up the outstanding German-Hindu plots in America, but
-developed prosecutions of the first magnitude and the keenest general
-interest.
-
-[Illustration: 1. Franz Schulenberg
-
-2. Ram Chandra
-
-3. Ram Singh (on the left)
-
-4. Dr. Chandra Chakravarty and Dr. Ernest Sekunna
-
-5. Dr. Chandra Chakravarty in his Persian Dress]
-
-The enterprises must be recounted out of their actual sequence.
-The first he claimed to have had little part in--the project of an
-uprising in India which its sponsors hoped would repeat the Mutiny of
-1857--but with a more successful outcome. Captain Hans Tauscher, the
-New York agent of the Krupp steel and munitions works, was in Berlin
-when war broke out. He reported for active duty to Captain von Papen,
-in New York, as soon as he could cross the Atlantic, and one of his
-earliest services was the purchase of a large quantity of rifles, field
-guns, swords and cartridges, which he stored in 200 West Houston
-Street, New York. On January 9, 1915, he shipped a trainload of arms
-and ammunition to San Diego, California. There it was loaded into a
-little vessel, the _Annie Larsen_, which had been chartered by German
-interests, and the _Annie Larsen_ put to sea, ostensibly for Mexico,
-where revolutionary arms were in demand. Her real destination was a
-rendezvous off Socorro Island with the _Maverick_, a tank-ship which
-had been bought in San Francisco with German money. The _Maverick_
-was to trans-ship the arms, flood them with oil in her cargo tanks in
-case she might be searched, and proceed by way of Batavia and Bangkok
-to Karachi, a seaport in India which is the gateway to the Punjab.
-There she would be met by friendly fishing vessels who would land her
-cargo, and if all went well, there would be a massacre of the garrison
-of Karachi, and hell would break loose over India. The effect of such
-an uprising upon Great Britain’s sorely tried military condition of
-early 1915 would have been incalculable. The native troops in France
-who were helping to stop the breach until England’s great armies could
-be trained would have to be recalled, the semi-loyal tribes would have
-seen their opportunity, Germany would hardly have hesitated to throw a
-Turkish force at the northern passes, and altogether it would not have
-been pleasant for the integrity of the British Empire.
-
-The _Maverick_ and the _Annie Larsen_ missed connections at Socorro.
-The _Annie Larsen_ wandered about the Pacific for some weeks and
-eventually put into Hoquiam, Washington, where the United States
-seized the arms. The _Maverick_ blundered from Socorro to San Diego,
-to Hilo, Hawaii, to Anjer, Java, by way of Johnson Island, then to
-Batavia, Java, where she was received with disappointment by a German
-agent and where she was finally sold. The filibuster ended in flat
-and costly failure: the arms cost not less than $100,000 and probably
-$150,000, the freight to the Pacific Coast some $12,000, the charter
-of the _Annie Larsen_ $19,000, the purchase of the _Maverick_ involved
-hundreds of thousands, not to mention the individual fees of the
-numerous agents employed.
-
-We knew in a general way of this plot, though it remained for the
-tireless efforts of United States District Attorney John W. Preston in
-San Francisco to unearth the details. In a raid which had been made on
-the office of Wolf von Igel, von Papen’s secretary, at 60 Wall Street,
-New York, agents of the Department of Justice had found von Igel’s
-memoranda of correspondence in arranging the expedition through the
-San Francisco consulate. But Chakravarty said that the revolutionary
-end of the project had been handled by another Hindu, Ram Chandra, and
-denied that he was guilty of any part in it. Ram Chandra had negotiated
-with the German consuls in Seattle and San Francisco, and through
-them with Tauscher and von Papen. Chakravarty supplied the names of
-Hindus who had sailed on the _Annie Larsen_, said that there had been
-Filipinos and Germans aboard as well, and added that the Filipinos had
-been transferred to a German ship, and had later escaped from her in a
-motorboat while she was being pursued by a Japanese cruiser. But, he
-said, he had nothing to do with it--it was Ram Chandra who was the real
-agent.
-
-It was this Ram Chandra who was editor of the Hindu revolutionary
-newspaper _Ghadr_ (Mutiny) published at Berkeley, California. He
-succeeded to the editor’s chair in 1914 when his predecessor, Har
-Dayal, out on bail after an arrest for ultra-free speech, had fled
-across the continent and the Atlantic Ocean to Berlin. There Dayal
-established the Hindustani Revolutionary Committee, collaborating with,
-taking orders from, and financed by the German Government, under the
-direction of Herr Wesendonck of the Foreign Office. Ten million marks
-had been placed to their credit, and German consulates throughout the
-neutral world had instructions through their parent-embassies to render
-all possible assistance to the revolutionary project, and to spend
-whatever money might be necessary, charging it to the account of the
-Indian Nationalist Party. Three hundred thousand dollars was invested
-in China and Java. Hindus were sent through Persia and Afghanistan into
-India with German credit to foster unrest, and Afghanistan itself was
-full of spies trying to break the Amir’s promise, given to the British
-Government at the outbreak of war, that he would maintain strict
-neutrality. It was this same Har Dayal who conferred with Chakravarty
-when the latter made his visit to Berlin in December, 1915. The reason
-for this visit to Berlin came out very soon, and that will lead us in
-turn to the second of the German-Hindu plots hatched in America.
-
-[Illustration: The _Annie Larsen’s_ Cash Account
-
-Gupta’s Code Message]
-
-Chakravarty got bail from a surety company without much trouble. Two
-or three days after his arrest he called me up on the telephone and
-said that a man named Gupta had threatened him. “He says I must give
-him $2,000. And there is another man named Wagel. He is a Hindu.
-He wants $10,000 from me, otherwise he will do me harm. He already
-has had $7,000 from the German Government in Mexico. He has demanded
-$20,000,000 of Count von Bernstorff to finish up the revolution in
-India.”
-
-“Wait a minute, now,” I suggested. The figures were going to my head.
-“Where is Wagel?”
-
-“I do not know,” Chakravarty answered.
-
-“Well, where is Gupta?”
-
-“He is a student at Columbia,” replied the little man.
-
-“All right, doctor,” I said, “we’ll not let any harm come to you.”
-
-Detectives Coy and Walsh at once got on the trail of Gupta. They found
-him in his dormitory room at 73 Livingston Hall, Columbia, and brought
-him to headquarters. “I saw of Chakravarty’s arrest in the paper,” he
-said, “and I thought I might be arrested if he implicated me.” Gupta
-knew full well he would be arrested, for there was jealousy between the
-two, and he went on to reveal why.
-
-Heramba Lal Gupta was then thirty-two years old. Since his boyhood
-in Calcutta he had been all over the world, and had studied in the
-United States. In the spring of 1915 he had several conferences with
-Captain von Papen in the city in which the military attaché conceived
-such confidence in the young Hindu that he gave him $15,000 for
-expense money and sent him to Chicago to confer with Gustav Jacobsen,
-an ex-German consul. With him went Jodh Singh, another Hindu who had
-migrated from Brazil to Berlin and thence to Captain von Papen, and an
-art collector named Albert H. Wehde. They were joined by George Paul
-Boehm and a German named Sterneck, and two plans were arranged. Gupta,
-Singh and Wehde were to proceed to Japan to establish connections and
-obtain assistance for fomenting Indian revolt. Boehm and Sterneck
-were to go to the Philippines, pick up a third plotter, Chakravarty’s
-lawyer-friend Chatterji, proceed thence to Java to meet two escaped
-officers of the destroyed German cruiser _Emden_, and thence to the
-Himalayan hills north of India, where Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the Arctic
-romancer, was on an expedition. There they were to overpower the Cook
-party, Boehm was to assume the explorer’s identity and travel about the
-hills spreading sedition among the native tribes. This wild plan failed
-completely, as the Germans never kept their appointment in Java. (Gupta
-believed in preparedness to the extent of taking Boehm to several
-shooting galleries in Chicago and practising pistol firing with him.)
-
-Gupta, Singh and Wehde set sail from San Francisco in the _Mongolia_
-and landed in Yokohama, September 16, 1915. Gupta immediately got
-in touch with various prominent Hindus. Although their conferences
-were enthusiastic and the prospect of obtaining Japanese arms for the
-revolution was good, his work was hampered by the discovery on the part
-of British agents that Gupta was in Japan. He was notified within a
-week of his arrival that he must leave by the next steamer: the next
-steamer was bound for Shanghai, a British port; the order was equal to
-delivery into the hands of the British, and death. A Japanese friend
-came to his rescue. He took him to his house, followed by the police.
-By a subterfuge the police were distracted long enough to allow the
-Hindu to slip out the back door, jump into an automobile, and flee
-to the interior of the country. There he was hidden for six months,
-between the flimsy walls of his friend’s house. It was May of 1916
-before he could escape, smuggled out in an eastbound vessel, and it was
-June before he returned to New York. There he found that the following
-order had been issued from Berlin:
-
- “Berlin, February 4, 1916. To the German Embassy, Washington.
-
- “In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively handled by
- the committee to be formed by Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar
- and Herambra Lal Gupta, the latter of whom has meanwhile been
- expelled from Japan, thus cease to be representatives of the
- Indian Independence Committee existing here.
-
- “(Signed) ZIMMERMANN.”
-
-Gupta, in short, found himself displaced. His expedition had been a
-failure. Chakravarty had had his job for nearly six months. He tried
-to negotiate with Chakravarty for a restoration of some of his lost
-prestige, but the little man would not have much to do with him. In
-January, 1917, the French secret service intercepted at the Swiss
-border a letter postmarked New York, November 16, 1916, and addressed
-as follows:
-
- “Mr. Albourge
- “Hotel Des Alpas
- “Territel
- “Montreau, Switzerland.”
-
-The letter was in cipher, and was seized and returned to French
-agents in the United States, and by them turned over to the American
-authorities for investigation, at about the time when diplomatic
-relations were broken off with Germany. Search here disclosed little.
-The letter was typewritten, and the only clue to its message was a hint
-suggested by a sub-address on the back of the envelope:
-
- “Mr. Chatterjee”
-
-who was apparently a Hindu. (This, by the way, was the same Chatterji
-who persists in cropping up in the wings of this story from time to
-time). Now there is no “Hotel Des Alpas” in Montreux; the name of the
-inn referred to is the “Hotel des Alpes.” Again, the name “Territel”
-was apparently a misspelling of “Territet,” and “Montreau” probably
-meant “Montreux.” When we captured Gupta we found in a memorandum book
-not only the address cited above, but the _same misspellings_--pretty
-conclusive proof that he was the author of the letter. This address was
-later found with the same misspellings, in the mailing list of _Ghadr_,
-the revolutionary paper published in California. Thus little errors
-combined to forge important links.
-
-The code of the Gupta letter was a popular and scholarly volume by an
-American author: Price Collier’s “Germany and the Germans,” published
-in New York in 1913. The letter was so written that the words which
-contained the meat of each sentence were carefully enciphered. The
-letter said, for example:
-
- “... I do
- not believe there
- are very many men
- including
- 98-5-2
- 98-1-1
- 98-1-9
- 98-4-1
- 98-5-8
- 98-3-3
- ------
- ”Who can show much
- better results a-
- long the line of
- 97-1-3
- 97-1-11
- 97-6-5
- 97-8-4
- --------
- 132-1-1
- --------
- “Undertook”
-
-Turning to page 98 of “Germany and the Germans,” we see that the second
-letter of the fifth line is _b_; the first letter of the first line is
-_h_; the ninth letter of the first line is _u_; the first letter of
-the fourth line is _p_; the eighth in the fifth line is _e_; and the
-third in the third line _n_. Sum total: B-h-u-p-e-n--a Hindu name. On
-page 97, the first few lines read:
-
- “am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor
- has been baptized with the blood of the martyrs,
- and feels himself to be in all sincerity the instrument
- of God; if we are to understand this one, we must
- admit so much.
-
- “In certain ...” etc.
-
-Thus 97-1-3 is _w_, 97-1-11 is _o_, 97-6-5 is _r_, 97-8-4 is _K_; total
-w-o-r-k. 132-1-1 is _I_. Our translation reads therefore:
-
- “_I do not believe that there are very many men including
- Bhupen, who can show much better results along the line of work
- I undertook._”
-
-Four columns to the typewritten page it ran on over seven sheets of
-foolscap, and wound up with a plea in plain English which showed that
-Gupta was angry:
-
- “Seems no action taken yet. If want work, change methods
- completely. I insist the man in charge is not only useless but
- spoiling the work; important workers wasting time for want of
- coöperation and funds while that man is squandering money. Do
- not care what you decide, I inform you as it is my duty but you
- don’t seem to pay any attention. This is my last warning for
- the cause. Again I appeal to you to think more seriously and
- not spoil the work by leaving it in the hands of irresponsible
- and insane person. I again tell you that no one is willing to
- work with him because he does not understand anything, secondly
- he spends money in a ridiculous way, thirdly he does not do any
- work. Think seriously and reply.”
-
-In order to show why Gupta was upset and also in passing to show how
-innocently he had coded his letter, we shall quote it in full, with
-those words in italics which had to be decoded months later:
-
- “Dear _Chatto_: Am back from _Japan_. Had lots _trouble_.
- _Thakur_, real _name Rash Behari Ghose_, splendid worker in
- _India_ still in _Japan_. Sent report twice, besides messages
- through _German_ sources. Went to _Japan_ as planned. Am
- surprised to hear from _Tarak_ you said I had no _right_ to go
- to Japan. See my reports submitted to the committee. Before
- leaving _Berlin Shanghai_ authorities also wanted me for
- important work. This I was told at _German Embassy_ so cannot
- understand why you failed to know anything about me. Have sent
- two reports since my return. Hope you got them. _Tarak_ said
- you were not satisfied with _my work_ and _Bhupen Dutt_ said
- that such incapable men as _I_ should not have been sent to
- America. _Bhupen_ before leaving _America_ said to _Chakravarty
- ‘Gupta_ nothing but _adventurer_; should not have been sent,’
- and as usual everybody knew and it naturally prejudiced men
- _I_ had to work with. What right had _Bhupen_ to make such
- remarks? I don’t claim to be a very capable man. You remember
- I did not want to _come here_. But how _Bhupen_ measured my
- abilities? If no report was received how could anybody pass an
- opinion on unknown things? You may _criticize my_ reticence.
- I do not believe there are very many men including _Bhupen_
- who can show much better results along the line of _work I_
- undertook. Results of such work cannot be shown in _black and
- white_ but I challenge anybody who dares ignore the _solid
- work_ done through _our agencies_. Time alone can prove it.
- You cannot compare the _work_ lately undertaken with the
- _program_ we started with. If we _failed to start a revolution
- in Bengal_ as asked by you it has been for the best. If we
- _failed land arms_ it was due more to _Germans_ than anybody
- else. Our _men worked, suffered_. Still _suffering_. The whole
- plan under the direct supervision of _Germans_ of more capable
- _brains failed_ too. We have succeeded in laying foundation
- for _future work_. Our _work_ in _Japan_ has been unique. Even
- _Lajpat Rai_ who slights our _work_, quite often admits in
- three months more _solid work_ done there than any other part
- of the world outside _India_ in number of years. I understand
- _Chakravarty_ has charge of affairs. Met him. _Tarak Harish_
- says he was given instruction to form a _committee_ of five
- including _myself_. He did not agree. Said all depended on his
- discretion. Fact is he has grudge against me and the fault lies
- with _you_. Report went to _Berlin_ concerning his _relations_
- with _Mrs. Warren_. You told him I did it. I did not. Even if
- I did you had no business to mention my name. I like also to
- know how did the _committee_ satisfy itself as to the charge
- being false. From _Chakravarty’s letters_ only? He wanted me
- to _apologize_. I did not: will not. First I did not _report_;
- secondly suppose I did, in the interest of the _cause_. I was
- of opinion he had _connection with Mrs. Warren_. She came to
- know many things about _work_ through _him_. Am still of same
- opinion. I do not care how many _women man enjoys_ but he has
- no right to talk about serious _work to women_. I do not know
- what _work he_ doing. Does not give me any information. The
- _house_ he took with _princely furniture_ shows at once _German
- connection_. Some of his _pamphlets_ nothing but _German
- propaganda_. It may be your _policy_. We have _centres in
- Japan, Burmah, Manila_; regular _communication_ with _India_
- through _Japanese_ sources. _Working_ but badly _in need of
- funds_. Started _work_ with impression _balance of funds
- credited_ to my _account_ would be forthcoming but no sign of
- it. For better _work_ need send at least one more _man_ to
- _Japan_. _Tarak_ going _China, Chakravarty_ told him his
- men would _watch Tarak_ for a month. If behaves well will be
- helped, given facilities. What _grand diplomacy! Chakravarty_
- told me _committee_ not sure of _Tarak_ so sent him away.
- _Tarak_ said large _funds_ have been sanctioned. He can draw
- without receipt. Will you blame me (if this be true) if I fail
- to understand the policy? _Ram Chandra working_ in his own
- way. I did not interfere for _fear_ of creating divisions.
- Only helped getting _funds_. Have now influence over him but
- as _Chakravarty gone San Francisco_ I consider my duty keep
- quiet until hear from you. Have _worked_ to best abilities and
- shall work but cannot do so at the instance of people who I am
- sure do not know the exact nature of work _done last year_ and
- _half_. Am surprised at _mean jealousies_, even sacrificing
- _work_. Am shocked at your _faith shaken in me_ and _my work_.
- Hope to hear soon all regarding _work_. Remember me to all.
- Did not mail the first letter as waiting for information from
- _Berlin_.”
-
-[Illustration: How the Hindus used Price Collier’s “Germany and the
-Germans” as a cryptogram]
-
-Followed the postscript in English already cited.
-
-The reader will probably be interested, even at the cost of
-interrupting the narrative, in the way in which this cipher code was
-discovered and the letter translated. By a partial decipherment by
-common methods of deduction, it was found to be almost sure that on a
-certain page of the code book--the name of which was of course not
-then known--the phrase “foreign legation” would appear. The cipher
-experts deduced, too, that the phrase “rush to a newspaper” must appear
-in a certain line of another page of the volume, and working further
-they assembled some twenty-five fragmentary words and phrases of whose
-position in the missing volume they were certain. The problem was to
-find the volume. The nature of the words and phrases suggested that
-the work was a recent one, probably dealing with history--and perhaps
-with the nature of a people. These limitations reduced the field of
-possibility to a minimum of 100,000 volumes, and the cipher experts set
-agents at work searching for such books. The caption of the letter,
-“Hossain’s Code,” threw them off the scent and they spent some time in
-scouring Allied Europe and America for such a code. There was none,
-for “Houssain” was merely a Hindu agent in Trinidad. Then, one of the
-agents hunting for the needle in the haystack found it--Mr. Collier’s
-book.
-
-Gupta, it is evident, was a prejudiced judge of Chakravarty’s ability.
-Even when Gupta was arrested Chakravarty wiped out past scores, and
-went bail for the man who had blackmailed and traduced him. But Gupta
-was definitely in trouble this time. The evidence supplied of his trip
-to Japan, its purpose, and his collusion with Germans brought him to
-trial in Chicago with Jacobsen, Wehde, and Boehm. (Mr. Chatterji was a
-witness for the prosecution.) The three Germans, after a trial in which
-the State’s case had been admirably handled by U. S. District Attorney
-Clyne, were convicted and sentenced to serve five years in prison and
-pay fines of $13,000. Gupta was sentenced to two years, fined $200, and
-released on bail, pending an appeal. He jumped his bail and escaped to
-Mexico in May, 1918, while a number of his countrymen were being tried
-in San Francisco.
-
-His escape was probably due to fear. The Hindus are a vengeful lot, and
-it is no more than possible that the “grapevine cable” had informed him
-that friends of the men on trial in San Francisco were planning to get
-even with him for having supplied part of the evidence used against
-them. Some of that evidence we found in his room at Columbia, and more
-in his safety deposit box in a Columbus Avenue bank. Among other items
-was the list of addresses in Switzerland already mentioned, and this
-was amplified by a letter which we found in Chakravarty’s house, from
-Sekunna to the little doctor, which read:
-
- “My dear boy,
-
- “Enclosed please find addresses from Wesendonck. Send your
- reports to: Mr. Director Karl Hirsch, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.”
-
-Chakravarty, in turn, furnished us with two more codes which were used
-in writing to these addresses: One which cited pages and word-numbers
-in a certain German-English dictionary, and a second, based on an
-entirely different principle. The second and third were often used in
-the same letter, as this fragment from one of Chakravarty’s reports
-will show. The letter reads, in part:
-
- “50337069403847695228, 265-3, 331-6, 497-2, 337-10-3, 335-14,
- 77-11.”
-
-The first series of figures is written in the third code mentioned, and
-must be deciphered by using the following square:
-
- _1 2 3 4 5 6 7_
- _1_ A B C D E F G
- _2_ H I J K L M N
- _3_ O P Q R S T U
- _4_ V W X Y Z
-
-Each letter is indicated first by the digit marking the horizontal
-row in which the letter falls, second by the number of the vertical
-column. Thus “A” is 1-1, or 11: “K” 2-4, or 24, and so on. But if the
-Hindu wished to transfer a message in cipher, he would not stop with
-this simple designation of the letters, for they would recur too often
-and fall too readily under the “laws of repetition” by which most
-ciphers can be untangled. So after he had his word translated by this
-square chart, he added four key numbers to it, those key numbers being
-fixed and permanent, and being added in rotation. In order that we may
-find out what this word is, we must therefore subtract the key number
-thus:
-
- _Message_ 50337069403847695228 (or divided into letters)
-
- 50 33 70 69 40 38 47 69 52 28
- _Key numbers_ 25 11 26 32 25 11 26 32 25 11
-
- _Result_ 25 22 44 37 15 27 21 37 26 17
-
-Consulting our chart again, we see that 25 is “L,” 22 is “I” 44 is “Y,”
-and that the message deciphers thus:
-
- _L I Y U E N H U N G_
-
-The line we quoted above read:
-
-“_Li Yuen Hung is now the president of China_” After transmitting the
-proper-name in the second cipher (as the name of course would not have
-appeared in the dictionary code), Chakravarty had lapsed back into the
-first code, as being swifter.
-
-Gupta, we observed, was harshly critical of Chakravarty. Let us see
-whether he was justified. Chakravarty said he had been commissioned to
-deal only with the broader propaganda. From captured reports which he
-transmitted through the German embassy as well as through the mails
-to Switzerland, he had been delegated to form a committee of five,
-with Ram Chandra as one of the other members, to handle Indian affairs
-here. They were to send an agent to the West Indies to stir up the
-Hindu coolies there, of whom there were estimated to be 100,000, and
-to send back to India all who would volunteer for revolution. The same
-policy was to be followed in British Guiana, Java, and Sumatra. From
-Ram Chandra’s _Ghadr_ press were to be issued reams of propaganda in
-the various Indian dialects for circulation throughout the East and
-West Indies, in Hindustan itself, and even for German aviators to drop
-upon Hindu troops in France. Chakravarty was to procure letters of
-introduction to parties in Japan which would assure a safe welcome to
-an emissary to be sent there to carry out what Gupta had failed to do,
-and an envoy was to be sent to China for a similar purpose. It was a
-broad program, and the doctor set to work immediately upon his return
-to organize his staff.
-
-In all his work he had the coöperation of von Bernstorff and the
-embassy at Washington. Chakravarty organized a Pan-Asiatic League as
-a blind, so that Hindus posing as its members could travel without
-exciting suspicion. His work was somewhat handicapped in the early
-spring by an automobile accident which took him to the hospital, and by
-the seizure of the military attaché’s papers in von Igel’s office. He
-hired a Chinaman named Chin as the delegate to China, and shipped him
-off on a Greek vessel from New York. Referred by Berlin to Houssain,
-the spy in Trinidad, Chakravarty established contact with him, and
-supervised the formation of an organization there. In July Chakravarty
-started for a tour of the West, in the course of which he visited two
-disloyal Hindus in Vancouver and determined upon a plan of action for
-that section. Then he swung down to San Francisco, where he called
-upon Ram Chandra, the western head of the committee. He conferred with
-friendly agents of Japanese newspapers who proposed to attack the
-Anglo-Japanese treaty. He conferred with W. T. Wang, private secretary
-to the new president of China, as the secretary was leaving for Peking,
-and learned that “some of the prominent people are quite willing to
-help India directly and Germany indirectly--on three conditions, those
-conditions being a secret treaty with Germany for military protection,
-to last five years after peace had been declared, and to be secured by
-giving China one-tenth of all the arms and ammunition which she would
-undertake to smuggle across the Indian frontier.” By the late autumn of
-1916 Chakravarty was acting as the master-wheel in a most elaborate and
-complicated machine for disturbing British rule in almost all of her
-colonial holdings, and it is safe to say that if the _Maverick_ affair
-had not roused shipping inspectors to unusual vigilance to prevent
-filibustering, the United States might have seen the bloody result of
-his work by March of 1917, when we arrested him. Even as it was, he was
-the general manager of a going concern.
-
-It may be wondered how he was able to perfect an organization. The
-answer to that we found in Gupta’s safety deposit box--a list of two
-hundred or more members of an Indian society in the United States, a
-large proportion of whom were students in American colleges, sent
-here for education on scholarships, in the hope that they would return
-to their native country and uplift it. Some of them were influential
-agents, and they were scattered conveniently about the country. Add to
-this force the coöperation of almost innumerable German agents and pay
-it with a share of the $32,000,000 which Chakravarty said had been set
-aside in Berlin for anarchistic, race-riot and Hindu propaganda in the
-western world, and you have a real factor for trouble. It is perhaps
-surprising that the organization worked undiscovered as long as it
-did, but it is more surprising that having worked under cover for more
-than fourteen months it did not break out into a grave demonstration.
-Chakravarty’s arrest, however, came in time, and the authorities were
-on the whole satisfied that so much time had elapsed because it gave
-them more clues to work on and a larger group to round up.
-
-And Chakravarty himself was pleased, I think. When he confessed his
-trip to Berlin, he was on the horns of a dilemma, for he feared the
-British would revenge themselves on him. I assured him that he would be
-protected as an American prisoner. He said, “Well, if I tell you about
-what I have done for the Germans, and they hear about it, they will
-kill me. And in any case my own people will kill me. You don’t know
-them!” I again quieted him and suggested that he tell me now where he
-got the money which he said had come to him from his estate in India.
-
-“Von Igel gave it to me,” he answered. “I could not go to his office
-downtown, so I sent Sekunna. In all I got $60,000. I spoke of the
-poet, Tagore, because he won the Nobel prize, and I thought he would
-be above suspicion.” He had bought the house at 364 West 120th Street
-and equipped it comfortably as a residence. He bought a house in
-77th Street to open a Hindu restaurant. He bought a farm at Hopewell
-Junction to use as a rendezvous for the plotters. And when he had given
-us valuable information, and had appeared at the trial, and had been
-himself convicted and had served his sentence (a short term) in jail,
-and the smoke had cleared away, he was the owner of three nice parcels
-of real estate and a comfortable income. Dr. Chakravarty, although
-a failure as a Prussian agent, fared pretty well as an investor of
-Prussian funds.
-
-After a series of digressions which I hope have not led us too far
-from the path, we may return to the third of the Hindu-German projects
-in which we of the Bomb Squad were especially interested. Ever since
-Captain von Papen’s check-book had been captured by the British at
-Falmouth in January, 1916, students of the German plots in the United
-States had wondered why two of the stubs bore the entries:
-
- “Feb. 2, 1915, German Consulate, Seattle
- (Angelegenheit) $1,300.
-
- “May 11, 1915, German Consulate,
- Seattle
- (for Schulenberg) 500.”
-
-In December, 1917, Barnitz, Randolph and I had gone to San Francisco
-to testify in the _Annie Larsen-Maverick_ case. It so happened that a
-German who was unable to give a satisfactory account of himself had
-just been picked up at San Jose. His name was Franz Schulenberg, and
-at the invitation of the San Francisco authorities we assisted in the
-examination of the prisoner. He testified that in the early months
-of 1915 he had met Lieutenant von Brincken, of the San Francisco
-Consulate, who had sent him to the consul at Seattle. There von Papen
-in person paid him $4,000 to buy fifty guns, fifty Maxim silencers, a
-ton of dynamite, and deliver it to one Singh, at the border between
-Sumas, Washington, and Canada. There Singh was to deliver it to a
-small army of coolies, who would start a reign of terror in the
-Canadian northwest, dynamiting bridges, railways and shipping, and
-shooting guards. Schulenberg had actually bought some of the munitions
-when he received a letter from von Brincken telling him to break off
-relations with the Hindus. After some time he tried to get more money
-from von Brincken, but Franz Bopp, the consul, spurned him, and von
-Brincken sent him to New York, to get it from von Papen. Von Papen
-refused to pay him further. While Schulenberg was in Hoboken, three men
-from Paul Koenig’s staff approached him and posing as United States
-agents offered him $5,000 for any information which would incriminate
-Count von Bernstorff. Von Papen had had Koenig send them--although
-Schulenberg did not know this--to test him. One of the three was George
-Fuchs. The air was getting thick around von Papen’s head at the moment,
-and he could not afford to have a disgruntled and unpaid henchman
-gabbling about the saloons in Hoboken. But Schulenberg believed that
-the three were really American secret service men, and refused to
-divulge what he knew. The next morning a German whom he had not seen
-before appeared at his lodging house and gave him a railroad ticket
-to Mexico. “They’re after you--the secret service,” he said. “Here’s
-a ticket. Use it.” Schulenberg was half sick anyway, and evidently it
-did not enter his mind to squeal. He fled to Mexico, and von Papen thus
-disposed of a troublesome source of information. When we talked to
-Schulenberg, two years later, he was a sorry reminder of another German
-failure.
-
-Although we three members of the Bomb Squad had made the trip to San
-Francisco to testify to the circumstances of Chakravarty’s arrest, and
-to the statements which he and Gupta had made, we were not in at the
-death of the Hindu hunt. The trial was a long affair, with more than a
-hundred defendants. Aided by the revelations of the little doctor, the
-Government had presented to the Grand Jury a picture of violation of
-Section 13 of the Federal Code which caused indictments to be returned
-against the entire German consulate of San Francisco, its accomplices
-among the shipping men who chartered the _Annie Larsen_ and bought
-the _Maverick_, its Hindu agents from the nucleus of Berkeley and Ram
-Chandra’s editorial rooms, and a list of other notorious characters
-which included von Papen and von Igel, both of whom were by this time
-safe in Germany. We did, however, have opportunity to observe the
-Indian prisoners, and we noticed that they did not seem altogether
-fond of each other. They were forever whispering, wagging their heads,
-stuffing notes down each other’s necks and when the testimony of one of
-their number grew too truthful they squirmed and scowled. Chakravarty’s
-life was threatened during the trial. The officials in charge of the
-case all had more than their usual share of responsibility to maintain
-order. The trial lasted more than six months. The Germans upbraided
-each other in the court room: von Brincken, who had been jealous
-of Bopp, and had accused him of indifference to his duties, openly
-showed his independence of his chief, and ill feeling spread among
-the defendants. Its climax came on April 24, 1918, the day when, with
-the testimony all in, Judge Van Fleet ordered a recess preparatory to
-delivering his charge to the jury. Ram Singh, one of the defendants,
-suddenly rose in the court room and fired two shots at Ram Chandra from
-a revolver. Ram Chandra fell dead, and as he did so, a bullet from the
-revolver of United States Marshal Holohan broke Ram Singh’s neck. The
-jury then received its charge, retired, and returned convictions of the
-great majority of the conspirators.
-
-So, just as Holohan’s bullet broke Ram Singh’s neck, Chakravarty’s
-statements had broken the neck of the Hindu plot. But there was one
-more incident related to it in store for us; it will conclude our
-story. The men in charge of the _Annie Larsen_ were a spy named
-Alexander V. Kircheisen and a Captain Othmer. Kircheisen’s name had
-appeared in several German secret service reports as “K-17.” As late
-as 1917 he was arrested in Copenhagen, Denmark, and on his person
-was found a letter addressed to another agent, La Nine by name. The
-letter advised La Nine that if he arrived in the United States before
-Kircheisen, he was to call for the former’s mail at “Kotzenberg’s, 1319
-Teller Avenue, in the Bronx.”
-
-When this information reached us, Detectives Randolph and Senff called
-at Mr. Kotzenberg’s house. He knew nothing of Kircheisen, he said,
-except that he was a friend of his cousin’s.
-
-“Who is your cousin?” asked Randolph, in German.
-
-“His name is Othmer,” Kotzenberg replied. “He escaped from San
-Francisco, and he came back across the whole country, half by train and
-half in automobile. He stayed here for a while. One morning he put on
-some overalls and he left and he went away on a Norwegian boat, and I
-guess now he is back into Germany.”
-
-Randolph and Senff searched the house. They found among other papers,
-an application which Kircheisen had filled out in New York on January
-9, 1917, for a certificate of service as an able seaman. In order to be
-granted such a certificate he had to swear that he was a naturalized
-citizen of the United States, and that he would “support and defend
-the Constitution of the United States against all enemies ... and ...
-bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” which he swore without any
-qualms of conscience. Furthermore, his character was attested to by one
-Charles A. Martin, who also wanted a seaman’s certificate. The records
-of the office show that Kircheisen obligingly turned about and swore
-to Martin’s good character. I have often wondered who Martin was....
-We found in Kotzenberg’s house an expense account which the fugitive
-Othmer had submitted to von Papen after he had left the unfortunate
-_Annie_ at Hoquiam. And finally, we found two scraps of a memorandum
-book, which constituted the log of _Annie_ herself. It reads:
-
- “Mar. 8. left S.D.
- Mar. 18. arr Soc.
- Apr. 5. Start Digg. wells.
- Apr. 9 boat _Emma_ arrived.
- 2 sailors.
- Apr. 10. _Emma_ arrived.
- two crews working on well
- April 16. Well 22 feet struck hard rock bottom no water gave up
- Apr.17. left for Mex. coast
- ” 22 went ashore in boat look for water
- Apr.24th. arr at Acapulco
- U. S. S. _Yorktown_ _Nansham_(?)
- _N. Orleans_ _Annapolis_
- April 27 left Acapulco
- May 19 gave up Socorro
- made for coast
- June 7 (_two illegible words_)
- got provisions
- June 29 arr. Hoquiam
- July 1 arr. W.
- 1 arr. Investigator
- Jul. 4 _aus_”
-
-So, in a word, Othmer summed up all the efforts of the Hindus and the
-Germans to hatch revolution in America. All, all “_aus_”!
-
-[Illustration: Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for a
-certificate as able seaman]
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-A TRUE PIRATE TALE
-
-
-Of all the stories of the sea to which the war has given rise, here is
-one that is certainly not the least entertaining. It is not a story of
-hunting a criminal. The only part which the Bomb Squad played in it
-was bringing the prisoner back to justice. It called for no service on
-our part save that of examining the prisoner, and returning him, with
-his statements and the statements of others who had dealings with him,
-to New York. And I think those statements themselves had best tell the
-story.
-
-
-(_From Detective Corell to the Commanding Officer of the Bomb Squad,
-April 1, 1916_)
-
- Sir: In compliance with orders received I went to Lewes,
- Delaware, to investigate and if possible bring back one Ernest
- Schiller, an alleged German spy....
-
-
-(_From, a statement taken by Corell at Lewes, Del., March 31, 1916_)
-
- My name is Ernest Schiller. I am a native of Russia, 23 years
- of age.... My occupation is that of textile engineer. I arrived
- in New York in April, 1915, in the steamship _Colorado_ from
- Hull, England, as a member of the crew, my assignment on the
- ship being greaser. My name on the ship was Frank Robertson.
- When I arrived at New York the captain gave me some of my money
- and I left the ship. I worked all told about eight or nine
- months, in Pawtucket, R. I., Lawrence, Mass., Whitinsville,
- Mass., Newton Upper Falls, Mass., and finished erecting a
- factory in Salem, Mass....
-
-
-(_From the examination of Clarence Reginald Hodson, alias Ernest
-Schiller, Robinson, Robertson, A. Henry, New York, April 1, 1916_)
-
- _Question._ What is your full name?
-
- _Answer._ Clarence Reginald Hodson.
-
- _Q._ What other names are you known by?
-
- _A._ Robinson, Robertson, A. Henry, and Ernest Schiller.
-
- _Q._ Where were you born?
-
- _A._ Petrograd, Russia.
-
- _Q._ Where were your father and mother born?
-
- _A._ My father in Russia, my mother in Germany. We lived in
- Petrograd until I was about 10 or 11. Then we went to England.
- My father and mother left me in Chatham House College, in
- Ramsgate. I stayed there three years....
-
- _Q._ What is the name of the head of that college?
-
- _A._ A. Henry.
-
- _Q._ Did you graduate?
-
- _A._ No. I was put on a Cadet--a Marine ship--named _Conway_,
- to train as a marine officer. I was on that ship two years.
- I left when I was 17 and went to work in a machine shop in
- Oldham, outside Manchester, and learned the trade of machinist
- there. I left there in August, 1914, and I joined the English
- Army.... I was asked to leave the job--was told that they would
- not have any young fellows on the job.... My boss said that
- sooner or later I should have to leave and that it would be
- better to go now, and that there would be a better opportunity.
-
- _Q._ At that time were your sympathies with the English?
-
- _A._ They were never with England. I just wanted to see what
- it was like to be a soldier. I didn’t intend to fight against
- Germany. I did not think the war would last long--only a few
- months--and I knew all the time I could run away if I wanted
- to. So in December I left.
-
- _Q._ What was the occasion of your leaving?
-
- _A._ I commenced to discriminate the soldiers and make them
- out as to what they really were, and I found them a lot of
- rats. I saw that I was not a Britisher in my ideas, and that
- I favored the cause of Germany. I used to stay away from the
- other soldiers all I could, and go out with a newspaper and
- read in the fields. They were always bullyragging me, and one
- time I almost killed two soldiers for it. They chastised me for
- a German spy. I got away, and worked in Bath for a week, and
- then the police caught me and brought me back, and I was later
- discharged by my colonel when I explained that I could not
- agree with their theory of the war....
-
-
-(_From the statement of “Schiller” to Corell_)
-
- A few months ago I received a letter from my mother and she
- wanted me to go back to Russia. I came down to New York to get
- my passport, but it did not arrive, so I waited a month. My
- money was gradually going down, so I borrowed some money, I
- won’t say from whom....”
-
-
-(_From the examination of Hodson_)
-
- _Q._ While in Lawrence, Mass., where did you stop?
-
- _A._ At the Saxsonia House, with Germans....
-
- _Q._ What are the names of any other people that you met at the
- Saxsonia House?
-
- _A._ Met a gentleman named Gruenwald at a German party. He
- invited me to come to his saloon in Lawrence....
-
- _Q._ While up in his saloon was there anybody else you were
- acquainted with there?
-
- _A._ Nobody, but I knew a young lady who stopped at the same
- house....
-
- _Q._ You were quite friendly with her?
-
- _A._ Yes, platonic friendship.
-
- _Q._ Did she loan you any money?
-
- _A._ She loaned me money from her own will. Two hundred
- dollars.... I only asked for $30, but she brought $200 in gold,
- all in gold....
-
- _Q._ How long after that before she loaned you any more?
-
- _A._ About a month later.... Telegraphed to her “Want money
- immediately.” I received by 12 o’clock $40. She said some more
- money coming tonight. Next morning I went to the address in
- Hoboken and there was a letter and there was another $40 in
- the letter. Then I received $10 another time from her.
-
- _Q._ That’s $290.
-
- _A._ Yes, all I can think of.
-
-
-(_From the “Schiller” statement_)
-
- ... so I borrowed some money, I won’t say from whom. I went
- to Boston again and was looking for work. I could not get the
- work I wanted, so I returned to New York, and in Hoboken I ran
- across a few fellows, I do not know their names, and we made a
- plan to get some money....
-
-
-(_From the Hodson examination_)
-
- _Q._ Now where did you meet the Germans?
-
- _A._ When I arrived in New York, in a saloon near the Cunard
- Steamship Company in West Street about 12th, I met a man who
- I thought was a German, and I talked to him about blowing up
- ships, and we then went to Hoboken where I met the man Haller
- in a saloon.... Then we proposed which ship to blow up. That
- was the Cunard liner _Pannonia_....
-
- _Q._ And how did you come to decide upon that boat?
-
- _A._ Because I knew perfectly well that all were carrying
- plenty of ammunition.... I went down to the piers, and I saw
- this boat, and I thought that would be the right kind of a
- boat.... I met the three men in the vicinity of Pier 54. I
- bought them their suppers.... I then told the unknown man to
- get some dynamite ... and I gave him $6. Becker said that he
- had a boat, and I gave Becker $8 to buy gasolene, then to buy
- two revolvers out of a pawnshop.... I bought Haller a revolver
- and 100 cartridges....
-
- _Q._ Did you see them after that?
-
- _A._ Yes, I saw them Saturday morning and asked Becker about
- his motorboat and he said that he did not expect it would be
- frozen up, and acted as if he would have been willing to go
- into the plot only that the boat was frozen up. Becker said
- that the boat could be launched in two hours, and although I
- do not know anything about running a motorboat it is my belief
- that it would have taken six hours to launch this boat---the
- boat we were supposed to use to go over in to blow up the
- _Pannonia_--and this would be too late to get to the ship
- before she sailed.... Since that time I have not seen any of
- these men....
-
-
-(_From the “Schiller” statement_)
-
- ... but the other fellows left me, so I went on my own accord.
- I saw the steamship _Mattoppo_ was going to leave, so I stowed
- away on her, in a life boat, where I remained for five days.
- The sixth day we left....
-
-
-(_From the statement of Captain R. Bergner, of the British S. S.
-“Mattoppo”_)
-
- At 3:30 P. M. on the 29th March, the British S. S. _Mattoppo_
- sailed from 12th Street pier, Hoboken, destined to
- Vladivostock, Russia.
-
-
-(_From the “Schiller” statement_)
-
- That night ... I came out from my hiding place and walked
- towards the captain’s cabin....
-
-
-(_From Captain Bergner’s statement_)
-
- At about 7:45 P. M. ... when at a point about twenty miles from
- Sandy Hook Lightship, I was talking to the Chief Engineer in
- his room, and at 8:05 P. M. left and went to my own cabin, and
- as I entered my bedroom, which was adjoining, I was held up at
- the point of two revolvers by one Ernest Schiller, who said to
- me: “Hands up! I am a German. I am going to sink your ship.” He
- then made me turn round and gave me a frisk. He found nothing
- on me. He ordered me to shut my cabin door; then stood me in
- a corner and kept me covered with the two revolvers. Then he
- said: “Where is the safe? You have two thousand pounds aboard,
- and I want the money!” He told me he had placed bombs aboard
- the ship and was going to blow her up.
-
- At 8:20 P. M. the Second Engineer knocked at my door, and
- receiving no reply opened it. Schiller instantly covered him
- with one of the revolvers and ordered him to come into the
- room, which he did. He then locked and bolted the doors on the
- inside and asked me for my keys.... He got them and proceeded
- to go through all the ship’s papers and my private effects. He
- opened my cash box and took four pounds in gold and five pounds
- in silver and said it was the first time he had ever robbed
- anyone but he needed the money. On seeing from the ship’s
- papers that she had barbed wire in her, he said: “That is
- contraband, and I am going to sink her.” He then inquired where
- I was bound for, and on my telling him she was going to Russia
- he seemed to hesitate about sinking her as he said he loved
- Russia. The conversation continued until about midnight....
-
-
-(_From the “Schiller” statement_)
-
- While I was in the Captain’s room the Second Engineer came up,
- and after searching him to see if he had any revolvers on him,
- I told him to sit down and make himself comfortable. I asked
- the Captain if he had any whiskey, as I was cold and had not
- had much to eat for five days, so the Captain gave me a bottle
- of whiskey and biscuits. After wishing one another good health
- we sat there for a couple of hours....
-
-
-(_From Captain Bergner’s statement_)
-
- At midnight he said that he was going to disable the wireless,
- and on hearing someone in the chart room he bound me on my
- honor not to leave the cabin saying that if I did he would
- shoot me on sight....
-
-
-(_From the statement of the Second Officer Allen Maclurcom_)
-
- When I came on watch at midnight I passed someone outside the
- chart room, but it being dark, and thinking it was the Captain,
- I walked on into the chart room, where this party followed
- me, and told me to throw my hands up. He told me the ship was
- under German command, and not attempt to make any resistance
- as it would mean the sacrifice of the Captain’s and Second
- Engineer’s lives. He said if the ship had been going to England
- he would have destroyed her immediately, but as she was bound
- for Russia he would probably spare her. Then he told me to
- walk ahead of him to the port-after-lifeboat, and get the axe,
- which was in the forward end of it. He then took me back to the
- Marconi room....
-
-
-(_From the statement of the wireless operator, Alexander Dunnett_)
-
- I was on watch in the wireless room when this man came along
- with the Second Officer. He held me up with two revolvers, and
- brought me along to the apprentice’s room, together with the
- Second Officer. The latter told the apprentice, who acts as
- second operator, to come out. Schiller held him up, and told us
- both to go up to the chart room....
-
-
-(_From the Second Officer’s statement_)
-
- He then took me back to the Marconi room, and proceeded to
- demolish the installation, holding the revolver against my
- ribs. From there he went to the Chief Engineer’s cabin and
- demanded his rifle, I accompanying him, and after obtaining it,
- threw it overboard. From there he made me walk ahead of him
- to the Chief Officer’s cabin, who he disarmed whilst he was
- asleep. He then ordered me to the bridge to steer south-west by
- compass, and as I was going on the bridge the Third Officer
- came down and he held him up, I going on the bridge in the
- meanwhile.
-
-[Illustration: Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N.]
-
-
-(_From the Wireless Operator’s statement_)
-
- Schiller came back again, and took us into the Captain’s
- room. Some time later he came back again and brought me down
- to the wireless room to see if I could repair the wireless
- installation, which he said he had smashed. I told him it might
- be possible to repair one instrument, and he said, “We will
- leave it until morning,” and then brought me along the deck
- to the Fourth and Fifth Engineers’ cabins and I opened the
- door and he went in. Both engineers were asleep and he made me
- search all the drawers; he brought out a revolver and a box of
- cartridges, which he made me throw over the side. He then took
- me to the Third Engineer’s cabin, and searched all the drawers
- there. He brought out of there a bottle of whiskey, and asked
- me if I had any money. Then he marched me up to the Captain’s
- cabin and ordered me to remain there until 6 A. M.
-
-
-(_From “Schiller’s” statement_)
-
- I went into the various officers’ rooms and took all the
- revolvers from them. From the Steward I took ten dollars, and a
- two-dollar bill from the Second Mate.
-
-
-(_From the Second Officer’s statement_)
-
- At 1:30 A. M. he returned to the bridge and ordered me to steer
- south by compass.
-
-
-(_From the “Schiller” statement_)
-
- Then I went to the Captain’s cabin again, and told him I should
- sink the ship, but the Captain said he has worked since a boy
- on ships for a few shillings a week and he has worked himself
- up to this and surely it has not come to this. He said he has
- a wife and a child--a girl--and showed me on the wall the
- portrait of the child, and I asked him suppose the ship went
- down would he get another job, and he said he would have to
- work as a longshoreman. He said it was too rough for the boats
- to be lowered, so I did not want to commit murder. And knowing
- that the Captain would lose his position, and as I am a young
- man and can always find work, I asked the Captain if he will
- put me ashore in the morning. He gave me his word of honor that
- he would....
-
-
-(_From Captain Bergner’s statement_)
-
- At 5:30 A. M. ... he let me take charge of the ship, and I made
- for Delaware Breakwater....
-
-
-(_From the Wireless Operator’s statement_)
-
- At 6 A. M. he told me I could go below, but not to go into the
- wireless room. I was along near the carpenter’s room when he
- was searching it, and he made me bring out an axe and took me
- to the wireless room again; there he told me to smash up one of
- the instruments, and he stood in back of me threatening me. I
- asked him then if that would do, after I had partly demolished
- the instruments, and he told me to leave the axe and lock the
- door, which I did. He then left me.
-
-
-(_From “Schiller’s” statement_)
-
- When we sighted shore the Captain said that we would have to go
- straight towards the lighthouse, or else, if we went the other
- way (the way I wanted to) we should run ashore, so I left it to
- the Captain and trusted to his word, as he said he would land
- me....
-
-
-(_From Captain Bergner’s statement_)
-
- On approaching land he ordered one of the ship’s boats to be
- manned, and said that he was going to take two of the ship’s
- officers along as hostages to guarantee that I should not run
- him down, and he wanted three Chinese from the crew to row him
- ashore....
-
-
-(_From the statement of John S. Wingate, Keeper of the Cape Henlopen
-Coast Guard Station_)
-
- At about 11:30 A. M. I noticed a steamship coming in from off
- shore. I said to the crew that it was a war vessel coming but
- I didn’t know whether it was German or British. At 11:45 the
- lookout reported to me that the steamer was headed direct for
- Hen and Chicken Shoal. I immediately ordered the signal “J. D.”
- hoisted on the pole, which means, “You are standing into
- danger.” When we supposed the ship saw our signal, he stopped,
- and laid to for about ten minutes, when he hard a-port and went
- clear of the shoal.
-
- A few minutes later he lowered a boat--we thought to take
- soundings, for the boat pulled away from the ship and headed
- direct for the beach.
-
-
-(_From the Second Officer’s statement_)
-
- At approximately 11:45 A. M.... I got into the small boat at
- his command, with four of the crew, and we proceeded toward
- shore, but were stopped by the pilot cutter _Philadelphia_ who
- told us that if we attempted to land we would be drowned. The
- _Philadelphia_ then towed us into smooth water....
-
-
-(_From Captain Wingate’s statement_)
-
- Meanwhile the pilot boat was heading down on the ship, blowing
- her whistle to warn the ship of her danger. By this time the
- ship hoisted a signal “K. T. S.,” which means “_Piracy_.” I
- ordered my boat made ready at once when I saw the “Piracy”
- signal; five minutes later he started for the ship. At 12:20 I
- had called Keeper Lynch of the Lewes station telling him what I
- was going to do, and to meet me off the Point.
-
-
-(_From the statement of Captain John S. Lynch of the Lewes Coast Guard
-Station_)
-
- I and my crew launched our power lifeboat and started for the
- steamer. Before I could get to the steamer I saw the pilot
- boat towing in the steamer’s skiff. The pilot boat let go of
- the skiff right off the Capes, and the occupants of the skiff
- started to row for shore. I called to them and they stopped. We
- went alongside, and I told them I would take the man ashore and
- save them the trouble. So he got into our boat.
-
- I then run off and picked up Captain Wingate, whose boat is a
- rowboat, and we went alongside the steamer. I asked for the
- Captain of the steamer, and they told me he was going ashore in
- the sail pilot boat, so we run alongside the sail pilot boat,
- and I asked the Captain of the steamer to come along with me.
- He says, “I will not. Not with _that_ man in your boat. He’s
- got five guns on him!” I then told him that I did not care how
- many guns he had as I was not afraid of him and he requested me
- to take the man ashore myself. Then this man Ernest Schiller
- began to throw his guns overboard: Schiller throwed one gun
- overboard, Captain Wingate, who had come aboard my boat throwed
- two overboard, and C. A. Jenkins throwed another one overboard,
- Schiller having thrown them into the bottom of the boat. He,
- Schiller, throwed a lot of cartridges overboard, and when
- we came ashore we searched him and took the balance of the
- cartridges which he had on him and throwed them overboard. I
- then brought him up to the Customs Office and left him there.
-
-
-(_From “Schiller’s” statement_)
-
- I am willing to go back to New York ... immediately, and
- confess my guilt. I swear on oath that there are no bombs
- placed on the ship, to my knowledge. I simply made that
- statement to the Captain as a bluff.
-
-Thus this venturesome Russian, Hodson by birth, Schiller by preference,
-and German by conviction, who single-handed captured a steamship,
-returned to New York, thirty-six hours after he had left port. He
-walked the plank to the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta for life,
-for “piracy on the high seas.”
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-ALONG THE WATERFRONT
-
-I
-
-_Sugar and Ships and Robert Fay_
-
-
-Anyone familiar with the waterfront of a great port can appreciate its
-difficulties as an area to be policed. One of the busiest sections of
-the community during the daytime, it is little frequented at night. In
-districts where you find few people you will rarely find lights, and
-where there are no lights you may well expect crime. The contours of
-the shoreline are irregular, following usually the original margins
-of solid ground lining the natural harbor, and for every thoroughfare
-which can pass as a street there are a dozen or two alleys, footpaths,
-shadowy recesses and blind holes. Locks and keys and night watchmen
-will protect the land side of the piers, but from the water side
-entrance to any pier is easy, concealment still easier, and flight no
-trick at all.
-
-If New York harbor in 1914 had presented the aspect of the same harbor
-of twenty years before, I could hardly estimate the confusion which
-would have resulted from the coming of war. But there is probably no
-port in the world which handles New York’s volume of shipping with
-greater orderliness--I speak now from the standpoint of “law and order”
-rather than of the terminal facilities of the port. Its waterfront was
-physically clean and its longshore population, thanks to a competent
-police force, manageable. And yet, as Shakespeare said, “there are land
-rats and water rats--”
-
-From August, when war was declared and the Bomb Squad formed, through
-the fall of the year 1914, certain changes came over the waterfront.
-Great German liners of the Hamburg-American and North German Lloyd
-Lines, freighters of the Atlas Line, and a miscellany of other vessels
-flying the red-white-and-black lay idle in port when England’s fleet
-blockaded the seaward channels. Some eighty German vessels were tied
-up at their piers. They dared not move, for Germany’s only available
-convoys were in southern waters trying to dodge the British and prey
-upon shipping. The Hamburg-American Line and Captain Boy-Ed made
-several abortive attempts to supply the raiders, but the considerable
-merchant fleet caught in port by the war stayed in port. This dumped
-on the longshore population some thousands of ardent Boches. Meanwhile
-the great steamship lines owned by neutral and allied capital entered
-on a period of activity such as they had never seen before. The first
-ships from abroad brought purchasing agents and European money to
-barter for American supplies, for immediate delivery. Any man who owned
-anything that bore a speaking likeness to a cargo-boat suddenly found
-himself potentially wealthy. The whole United States began to pour into
-the New York waterfront a huge volume of supplies for the Allies--and
-for a time for Germany, via neutral Holland and Scandinavia--and out of
-the Hudson and East rivers flowed a steady, swelling current of this
-overseas trade.
-
-By the arrival of the year 1915 the current was well under way.
-The piers were extremely busy and the facilities for trouble were
-multiplying. On January 3 there was an explosion on the steamship
-_Orton_ in Erie Basin for which there was no apparent explanation.
-A month later a bomb was discovered in the cargo of the _Hennington
-Court_, but no one could say how it came there. Toward the end of
-February the steamship _Carlton_ caught fire at sea--mysteriously. Two
-months passed, then two bombs were found in the cargo of the _Lord
-Erne_. We might have had a look at them, for that was the business of
-the Bomb Squad, if those who had found the bombs had not dumped them
-overboard rather hastily. A week later a bomb was found in the hold of
-the _Devon City_. Again no explanation. Nor any reasonable cause why
-the _Cressington Court_ caught fire at sea on April 29. Our attention
-had been directed to each of these instances, and we had investigated,
-and folders waited in the files for the reports which properly
-developed would lead to an arrest, and the sum total of those reports
-was--nothing. Then our luck turned for a moment.
-
-The steamship _Kirkoswald_, out of New York, laden with supplies for
-France, docked at Marseilles, and in four sugar-bags in her hold were
-found bombs. The French authorities commandeered them, and removed
-and analyzed the explosive charge. The police commissioner cabled at
-once to Marseilles requesting the return of one of the bomb-cases,
-together with the bag in which it had been found, and an analysis of
-the contents. No answer. So he cabled again. The bomb-case then began
-a journey back to the United States, presented with the compliments
-of the Republic of France by M. Jusserand to the State Department
-at Washington, and forwarded in turn to Mayor Mitchel of New York.
-Our study disclosed that it was of a new type: a metal tube some ten
-inches long, divided into two compartments by a thin aluminum disc. One
-compartment had held potassium chlorate, a powerful explosive, and the
-other had contained sulphuric acid. The acid had been expected to eat
-through the thin disc separating the compartments, and explosion was to
-have followed, but for some reason it had failed. The metals were of
-good quality, and the workmanship was thorough.
-
-Here was our first clue on the case. Many policemen work on theory
-so determinedly that they exclude really important facts which do
-not fit comfortably into the theory. I have always believed in
-taking the evidence, building a theory upon it, and then trying to
-confirm or reject that theory as new facts appear. It was well that
-we followed such a policy here, for we had nothing but the bomb-tube
-itself to build our theory upon. What did it offer? First, we were
-fortunate in having a bomb to study, for usually the fire following
-an explosion leaves no trace of its origin. We had its construction
-and ingredients as real, if vague, clues. Second, we knew that
-the _Kirkoswald_ had carried supplies to France, and that all of the
-vessels on which bombs had been found or fires had broken out, had
-also been carrying supplies to the Allies. The list, by this time, had
-grown, for there were three more ship cases of fires or bombs in May,
-one in June, and five in July. Our primary theory was, therefore, that
-the bombs were made and placed on the vessels either by Germans or
-their paid agents.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y._
-
-Lieut. Robert Fay (on right) and Lieut. George D. Barnitz after Fay’s
-arrest]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood_
-
-From left to right: Fay, Daeche and Scholz, arraigned in Court]
-
-The _Kirkoswald_ carried sugar. By examining the cargo-records of the
-other ships which had suffered near or actual mishaps, we found that
-they had also carried sugar, and that in the instances when fire broke
-out, the highly inflammable sugar gave a lot of trouble to the fire
-crew. The vigilance of the waterfront and harbor police had of course
-been keyed up to detect anything suspicious, but a bomb-planter does
-not often carry his bomb under a policeman’s nose, and it seemed not
-unreasonable to suspect that the bombs had gone aboard with the sugar.
-So I went to a sugar refinery to see how sugar was made.
-
-I followed the process from the entry of the raw sugar to the bagging
-and shipping of the finished product. All of the sugar shipped abroad
-went in bags, which were sewn tight either by hand or by machinery.
-After considerable testing I found that it was fairly easy to open a
-hand-sewn bag and sew it up again without leaving evidence of what I
-had done; the machine stitches, however, resisted any intrusion, and
-were hard to duplicate once they had been taken out. I put that fact
-away for future reference and looked in on the shipping department, to
-learn there that the only two persons who could know of the destination
-of a consignment of sugar before it was actually loaded into a vessel’s
-hold were the shipping clerk of the refinery and the captain of the
-lighter who took the sugar from the refinery to the ship.
-
-So we first paid court to the lighter captains and their aids. We
-followed shipments of sugar from the refinery doors to the lighters,
-saw the shipping clerk hand over his bill to the captain, saw the
-lighter pull out for a pier somewhere about the harbor, followed him to
-the pier, and watched the transfer of the cargo into the vessel’s hold.
-If a lighterman knew that hand-sewn bags could be ripped open, and
-wished to insert a bomb and close the bag again, he would have to do it
-on the way from the refinery to the pier--of that we were confident,
-for as soon as the lighter pulled up to the vessel’s side the
-stevedores rushed the cargo into the hold, the hatches were sealed, and
-the cargo-checker, employed by the vessel, turned over to the lighter
-captain his receipt for the consignment. There was apparently no other
-time for tampering with the bags.
-
-How to watch the bags themselves from the refinery into the vessel was
-a troublesome problem. The river, during the daytime, is in constant
-traffic, and navigation for a cumbersome lighter in the river-paths is
-about as comfortable as crossing Fifth Avenue on foot at rush hour.
-The river at night was comparatively free, and it was then that most
-of the lightering was done. A waterman can identify the uncouth shapes
-of queer craft on dark waters, a landsman cannot, but we had to make
-the best of a bad bargain and chase the lighters in a motorboat, often
-diligently following a blinking light through the mist for hours to
-discover finally that it was on the wrong ship. Ships on a dark river
-are like timid spinsters in a dark street--they exhibit, perhaps
-through fear of collision, perhaps because ships are feminine, a strong
-suspicion of anything that approaches. Our barking motorboat advertised
-itself half a mile away. If we drifted we lost our quarry. We tried to
-smuggle men aboard the lighters, but there were so many, and they were
-bound in so many different directions, that we were not manned for this.
-
-So passed June and July. It was a thankless task, and one which had
-its risks. Detective Senff fell into the river one night when he was
-chasing a suspicious character around under a pier at the foot of West
-44th Street and nearly drowned before he could be pulled out. The case
-seemed to be getting no further than abstractions. Ashore, however, we
-learned that most of the lighter captains in the harbor were Germans,
-and in an effort to reduce the field we learned the names of the
-captains of the lighters which had most frequently visited the vessels
-on which fires had occurred. This took time and an exhaustive study of
-lighterage receipts, but it brought out the fact that in every case
-of a delivery of sugar to an outward bound vessel, the captain of the
-lighter had returned a full receipt--which exploded the possibility
-that a lighterman might take a bag from one shipment, put a bomb in it,
-and add it to the next.
-
-I am happy now to say that we did not give up. We couldn’t, for the
-ship fires were going right on, increasing in frequency, and somebody
-was making bombs, for they continued to be found. On the assumption
-that a lighter captain who would place a bomb in a sugar-bag must first
-get the bomb, we began to shadow the captains, not only afloat but
-ashore, and then suddenly the case took a queer twist and our theory of
-German intrigue got badly balled up.
-
-We followed certain lightermen to their homes, their drinking haunts,
-and their other places of business, and among their other places of
-business found the residence--on the lower West Side of Manhattan--of a
-man known to be a river pirate. That was enough for an arrest, and on
-August 27 we brought Mike Matzet, Ferdinand Hahn, Richard Meyerhoffer
-and Jene Storms, Germans, and John Peterson, Swede, to headquarters
-for examination. Matzet confessed that he, and “all the rest” of the
-lighter captains, as he expressed it, had been regularly stealing sugar
-from the consignments, and selling it to river pirates for ⅙ the market
-price, which allowed the pirates to re-sell it at ⅚ the market for 400
-per cent. clear profit. The pirates in a motorboat would steal into the
-shadow of a lighter as she lay at her anchorage, take off a few bags,
-and slip away. We had seen such boats, but had never been able to close
-in and see what they were doing. The checkers who were supposed to
-render a true and just account of the number of bags which later passed
-into the hatches of the ocean vessels were merely accomplices who
-shared in the profits when the stolen sugar was sold.
-
-There were no bombs on the captains (who presently went to jail) but
-they were all fully aware of the conditions along the waterfront, for
-one said to a pirate who was “buying” sugar: “Take all you want--the
-damn ship will never get over anyway!” No bombs--and what if there had
-been? We were reasonably certain that the ships were being fired, but
-we did not know now whether it was for German reasons, or merely to
-efface the sugar thefts before the cargoes reached the other side of
-the ocean and were discovered by the consignees. The conviction of the
-thieves was not much consolation for the slow development of the case,
-and it fixed no guilt for bombs.
-
-But when you are bound on a long trip, and you have mislaid your
-ticket, it is second nature to go through your pockets one by one,
-knowing full well that it is not in any of them, for you “just looked
-there.” Then you find it in one of the pockets where you knew it could
-not be. Acting on a not dissimilar instinct we began to retrace our
-steps from June to September, and to follow again the progress of
-sugar from the refinery to the hold of the outward bound steamer. Our
-theory that the bombs had some connection with the sugar was either
-to be proven or destroyed this time. It was in this more or less dull
-review that we made the acquaintance of the Chenangoes.
-
-They were nothing more romantic than fly-by-night stevedores whom the
-lighter companies engaged at the sugar wharves to load cargoes. They
-worked by the day, or by the job, there were always plenty loitering
-around to be hired, and they drew their pay and went their way. No
-one ever had to wonder who they were or where they came from, for a
-stout body was all the recommendation a Chenango required. They were
-a nondescript type of common labor, the same, I suspect, that carried
-materials for the Tower of Babel, and speaking almost as many tongues.
-The same face rarely appeared a second time to be hired--not that there
-was anything particularly unpleasant about the work, but rather that
-all work is repulsive to a Chenango. He is the hobo of labor and if the
-same man had been re-hired, no one would have noticed or cared. We paid
-such attention to them as their variety permitted--followed them to all
-the points of the compass, and watched them closely while they worked,
-to see whether any of them seemed to linger aboard in the cargo, or
-carried any suspicious package. The wickedest thing we found was an
-occasional pint flask on the hip, which was no proof of any special
-criminal affairs.
-
-Ever since we had examined the _Kirkoswald_ bomb we had had lines
-out to follow the sale of chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid--the
-ingredients of the bomb. We examined reams of sales’ records submitted
-by explosive and chemical manufacturers, traced dozens of reports from
-drug stores, and found nothing of consequence. Those two substances are
-widely and harmlessly used, and rarely purchased in small quantities by
-any individual whose intentions might excite suspicion. Under our rigid
-city explosives’ laws investigation of purchases was facilitated for
-us, but all the facility in the world could not help the case without
-anything to investigate. So passed September and a part of October, and
-just about the time when the bomb case was growing dull and the ship
-fires which were constantly occurring had almost found us calloused,
-the French Government, with traditional courtesy, helped us out again,
-and blew our sugar theory into many and small pieces.
-
-[Illustration: The Fay Bomb Materials
-
-Suit cases containing an atlas, two maps of the harbor, drawing
-instruments, tools, a wig and two false mustaches, a telescope bomb,
-and several packages of ingredients]
-
-Captain Martyn, the French military attaché in New York, telephoned to
-say that he thought we would be interested in a man who he believed was
-trying to buy some explosive. What kind? Trinitro-toluol, or “TNT,” one
-of the most violent propellants used in modern shell. Yes, we would be
-interested.
-
-A war exporter, Wettig by name, had told Captain Martyn that a fellow
-with whom he shared office space had asked him to obtain a quantity of
-TNT--a small quantity, for trial purposes. The purchaser, who was known
-both as Paul Siebs and Karl Oppegaarde, and who lived at the Hotel
-Breslin, directed Wettig to deliver the material to a Jersey address
-and said he would then receive payment. On the axiom that a bomb in the
-hand is worth two in someone else’s, we were introduced to Wettig, and
-formulated with him a plan to follow the explosive. So on Thursday,
-October 21, Detective Barnitz accompanied Wettig to a “dynamite store”
-at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where the latter bought some 25 pounds of
-TNT. The two returned to New York with their package. We looked up Mr.
-Oppegaarde and asked him what he proposed to do with his purchase. He
-said he really hadn’t the slightest idea: an acquaintance of his, a war
-broker named Max Breitung, had referred a certain Dr. Herbert Kienzle,
-a German clock-maker, to him as a likely person to obtain explosives.
-Dr. Kienzle had placed the order, had wanted it delivered at a garage
-in Main Street, Weehawken, to a man who bore the name of Fay, and who
-had assured Siebs that when he had it delivered he would be paid for
-his services. Further than that he knew nothing. Nobody seemed to know
-anything, although here was a considerable amount of vicious explosive
-in which five men were very much interested. We spent the rest of that
-day in looking up what we could of the players in this little game of
-“passing the TNT”--from Kienzle to Breitung to Siebs to Wettig to Fay.
-
-Six men were assigned to the case: Murphy, Walsh, Fenelly, Sterett,
-Coy and Barnitz, and they most admirably stayed on the job. On Friday
-Detectives Barnitz and Coy took the explosive to the Weehawken garage.
-Fay was not there, but a man who was there told the detectives he lived
-at 28 Fifth Street, so the men from the Bomb Squad and their package
-called at the boarding house where Fay lived. Again he was not to be
-found, but our men had a chat with the landlady, who told them that Mr.
-Fay was a real nice gentleman who had lived there with his friend Mr.
-Scholz for a month, always paid his bills, subscribed to a magazine,
-and was working on inventions, or at least so she thought, because he
-used a table to draw plans on. Sociable, too--
-
-They left the TNT for him. I ought to remind the reader that it is
-harmless unless confined or heated, and cannot be properly exploded
-without a proper detonating charge. It may have been a bit rough on the
-boarding house, but we had gone to deliver the goods to Fay; Wettig had
-told him they would be delivered (though not by whom) and we had to
-carry out the plan even though Fay was not at home.
-
-At the same hour, across the Hudson Detectives Coy, Walsh and Sterett
-learned why Fay had not been receiving visitors, for they found him in
-Siebs’s company in the Hotel Breslin. Effacing themselves until the
-interview was over, they tailed Fay to the West 42nd Street ferry, then
-across the river to Weehawken, up the long hill to the town, and to his
-garage at 212 Main Street. In the early evening an automobile emerged
-from the garage, driven by Fay and containing another passenger, and
-wound out of town in a northerly direction along the Palisades. Behind
-it was a police car. North of Weehawken a few miles where the country
-is inhabited by installment-plan “villas,” moving-picture studios and
-scrub-oak trees, Fay stopped his car at the roadside and disappeared
-with the other man into the underbrush and then into the deeper woods.
-The police car waited until they returned, and followed them back to
-their boarding house, where the detectives took up a vigil outside.
-
-A New York policeman has not the power of arrest in another state, and
-it began to look as though we might have to make an arrest in Jersey,
-so Chief Flynn assigned Secret Service Agents Burke and Savage to
-the case and they joined forces with us Saturday morning. Detectives
-Barnitz, Coy, Walsh, Sterett, Fenelly and Murphy were watching the
-house in Weehawken. About noon Fay and his companion appeared, and got
-aboard a Grantwood street-car. The Bomb Squad followed at a discreet
-distance to the point where the men had dodged into the woods the
-night before. Barnitz, who was in command, sent Sterett and Coy in
-after them. But nature was against us, for the fallen leaves carpeting
-the woods crackled under foot, and to snap a twig was to shout one’s
-presence through the clear air. Twice Fay turned sharply around and
-peered through the trees. The two detectives were nearly discovered
-on both occasions. They finally decided that it would be impossible
-to approach their men without alarming them, so they returned to the
-waiting automobile. The police party waited an hour or more, and then
-realized that Fay and his companion had evidently gone out the other
-side of the woods and so worked their way back to civilization.
-
-Barnitz thought and acted swiftly. He sent Sterett and Coy at once to
-New York to cover Dr. Kienzle, on the chance that Fay might get into
-communication with him--it was a long chance, but the only one that
-offered, for the men were now lost to us. Barnitz, Murphy, Fenelly and
-Walsh returned to Weehawken to watch Fay’s house. For two hours nothing
-happened to interest them, and Barnitz was beginning to wonder whether
-he would ever see his quarry again when an express wagon drove up and
-stopped at 28 Fifth Street. The driver presently trundled a trunk out
-of the house, swung it up into his wagon and drove off. The police car
-idled along behind him for a mile or so through the Weehawken streets,
-and the wagon stopped at another house. While the driver was indoors
-this time, Fenelly, who was roughly dressed and light of foot, slipped
-up behind the wagon, vaulted into the back of it, took one look at the
-trunk and rejoined the others. “There’s a plain calling-card on the
-trunk. It reads ‘Walter Scholz,’” he said. Again the expressman headed
-a small parade, which terminated when the detectives saw him leave
-the trunk in a storage warehouse. Barnitz dared not follow it there
-for fear of arousing suspicion, and he figured that the trunk would
-probably not be removed during the week-end at least. The detectives
-once more returned to the boarding house and resumed their tedious
-watch.
-
-The evening passed, and there was no word either from Coy and Sterett
-or the lost men. Late fall evenings in Weehawken are cold. Some time
-after midnight two figures came up the street, and as they turned in
-to the boarding house we saw they were Fay and Scholz. Out of the
-shadows a moment later Sterett and Coy slipped up to the car--“I could
-have kissed ’em both,” Barnitz said afterward. They had covered the
-office of the Kienzle Clock Company at 41 Park Place, picked up Dr.
-Kienzle as he left the office, tailed him until five in the afternoon,
-and then saw him enter the lobby of the Equitable Building at 120
-Broadway--where he met Fay and Scholz! The men conversed for a few
-moments, and Fay excused himself. He went to a telephone booth and
-closed the door. Sterett went into the next booth. Through the thin
-partition he heard Fay call the garage, ask whether a package had been
-delivered to him there, then say “it hasn’t, eh?” and hang up the
-receiver. He rejoined Scholz and Kienzle and the three went to a Fulton
-Street restaurant to dine. The detectives went to the restaurant but
-did not dine, and when the Germans left, and Kienzle parted from the
-others, they tailed Fay and Scholz to Grand Central Palace, saw them
-appropriate two young women, dance with them, pledge them in a few
-drinks, and finally leave them and return to Weehawken.
-
-That trunk episode made us uneasy. It might have meant that they
-had been frightened and were going to disappear, and it certainly
-signified their intention of moving. We decided to force the issue, and
-accordingly in the small hours of Sunday morning we directed Wettig,
-of whom, of course, Fay had no suspicions, to call at Fay’s house
-later in the forenoon to arrange to test the TNT. From the automobile,
-which was parked at the street-corner some distance from the house,
-the detectives saw Wettig enter, and in a few moments saw him come
-out-of-doors with Fay and Scholz. They strolled to the street-car line,
-allowed two cars to pass unsignalled, and then, suddenly, hailed a
-third. It had closed doors, and when Murphy, Fenelly, and Coy, seeing
-the men climbing aboard, tried to reach the car themselves, the doors
-had slammed in their faces and the car was on its way. Somewhere in
-the shuffle Walsh had been mislaid--he had been last seen up the block
-covering an alley which led back of the boarding house. There was no
-time to pick him up, and the automobile followed the car to Grantwood
-and the now familiar woods. At times the car was out of sight of the
-pursuers, and they fully expected to lose their men again. But from far
-in the rear they saw the car stop opposite the woods. The doors snapped
-open, and the first person to set foot on the ground was Walsh. The
-second and third were Fay and Scholz, and the last, Wettig. Walsh had
-seen them climb aboard in Weehawken, and had promptly sprinted for the
-next corner ahead, where he caught the car! That was good shadowing
-technique.
-
-The Germans slipped into the protection of the underbrush immediately.
-Barnitz was not disposed to let them get away again, so he spread out
-his forces so as to follow the party and finally surround it, and the
-Bomb Squad, the Secret Service and two members of the Weehawken police
-entered the wood and wove a circle about their victims. As they closed
-in they saw Fay enter a little shack in the depth of the brush, and
-bring out a package, from which he took a pinch of some material and
-placed it on a rock. With a nice new hammer he dealt the rock a sharp
-blow, there was a loud report, and the handle snapped in his hand. The
-detectives closed in at once, and Barnitz said, “You’re under arrest!”
-
-“Who is in charge of you all?” Fay asked.
-
-“I am,” Barnitz replied.
-
-“Well, I will tell you that I am not going to be placed under arrest,”
-Fay announced. “If I am, great people will suffer! You will surely have
-war. It cannot be--it is impossible. I will give you any amount of
-money if you will let me go.”
-
-This was good news, not for its financial content but because we had
-no previous evidence against this man Fay save that he had TNT in his
-possession. Here he was, trying to confirm our suspicions.
-
-“How much will you give me?” Barnitz parleyed.
-
-“All you want--any amount!”
-
-“Fifty thousand?”
-
-“Yes, fifty thousand, if you want it.”
-
-“Got it with you?” Barnitz asked instantly.
-
-“No, I haven’t got it all, but I can get it. I’ll pay you a hundred
-dollars now as a guarantee, and I’ll give you the balance at noon
-to-morrow.”
-
-Barnitz called two of the other men. “Get this,” he said, and turning
-to Fay: “All right, where’s your money?” Fay paid him. Then they
-took him to the Weehawken headquarters, guilty at least of attempted
-bribery, and Barnitz turned in the cash as Exhibit A.
-
-We suspected that he had something more than the possession of
-explosives to conceal, and so he had, for a search of his rooms and the
-garage brought to light the parts for a number of thoroughly ingenious
-mechanical contrivances which, although they were of a new type, we
-immediately recognized as bombs. In a packing case at the storage
-warehouse were four bombs finished and ready to fill. He had apparently
-intended to manufacture them on a large scale, for in addition to his
-trial quantity of TNT Fay had twenty-five sticks of dynamite, 450
-pounds of chlorate of potash, four hundred percussion caps, and two
-hundred bomb cylinders. Apparently, too, he had German sympathies, for
-we found in his rooms a regulation German army pistol, loaded. The
-discovery of a chart of New York harbor, and the information, which
-we soon got, that he had a motorboat in a slip opposite West 42nd
-Street, pointed the finger of guilt toward the waterfront--which after
-all those months of waiting was the direction in which we were most
-interested.
-
-Fay told his story. He was a lieutenant of the German Army, detached
-for special secret service. He ascribed his detachment from his command
-to his own brilliant realization, as he was on the fighting front in
-France, that if all the American shells that were being fired at him
-from French seventy-fives and British eighteen-pounders could be sunk
-before they reached France they would not cause his countrymen so
-much annoyance, and also that pushed to its capacity that idea would
-probably influence the outcome of the war. The fact is that Fay’s
-career, training, education, languages and character were well known
-to the secret service in Berlin, and that when they wanted to assign a
-reliable and desperate man to Captain von Papen in New York, they sent
-him. They knew that Fay had spent years in America, and that he was
-trained in mechanics. They gave him $4,000 and a plan of campaign, and
-said: “Go west.”
-
-It was natural that when he landed he should seek out his
-brother-in-law, Walter Scholz, who was working as gardener on an
-estate in Connecticut. It was natural, too, that when he set about
-getting supplies for his bombs he should call on Dr. Kienzle, who made
-clock machinery, for Dr. Kienzle had already written to the German
-secret service in Berlin recommending just such work as Fay had come to
-undertake. When he came to require explosives, it was only natural that
-Kienzle should refer him to his friend Max Breitung, with the result
-which we have seen, and naturally Paul Daeche, who was a good friend
-of both Kienzle and Breitung (he had tried to return to Germany with
-both of them on the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_ when she put out of New
-York and put in to Bar Harbor in late July, 1914)--naturally Daeche was
-interested in Fay’s projects and devices, and helped him with them.
-Daeche was one of those doubtful Germans who had come to America to
-“study business methods”--in short a commercial spy, willing to make a
-living.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y._
-
-Lieutenant Fay’s Motor Boat]
-
-Fay was crestfallen after his arrest. He worried, first, over what his
-government would think of him when he had left home promising that not
-a single munitions’ ship would leave New York and reach the Allies;
-second, because revealing his commission to destroy those ships would
-place Germany in a bad light with other neutral nations; third, for
-fear he might implicate the Imperial German Embassy at Washington. He
-protected the Embassy for a time, and then admitted that his plans had
-only been waiting a word from von Papen and Boy-Ed for consummation.
-His mines were all ready to be set, and the attachés, whom he had met,
-had not given the word. All his clever craftsmanship had gone for
-nothing.
-
-The bombs were so constructed that they might be attached under water
-to the rudder-post of a vessel as she lay at her pier. Inside the
-bomb case was a clockwork, so poised as to fire two rifle cartridges
-into a chamber of ninety pounds of TNT. Lieut. Robert S. Glasburn, of
-Fort Wadsworth, who testified at Fay’s trial, is my authority for the
-statement that the government requires only 100 pounds of TNT, exploded
-at a depth of fifteen feet under water, to destroy a dreadnought;
-Fay’s ninety pounds would have torn the rudder out like a toothpick
-and ripped away the entire after part of the vessel. The helmsman of
-the vessel himself was unconsciously to have set the bomb off, for the
-clockwork was geared to a wire attached to the rudder itself in such a
-way that each normal swing of the rudder would wind up the mechanism
-until it fired the cartridge. The bomb chamber was fitted with rubber
-gaskets so that no water would be admitted before the charge had done
-its work. Fay was a skilful hand, and had done the assembling himself.
-Scholz bought the materials at various machine shops about New York,
-Kienzle supplied the mechanisms and approved the finished product.
-Breitung contributed 400 pounds of chlorate of potash to make a German
-holiday, and Daeche just hung around and helped everybody.
-
-Fay knew it was easy to approach a pier from the water-side, for he
-had spent hours fishing idly in the river to determine that very fact.
-Just as soon as the military attaché said the word, he and Scholz were
-to put out into the darkness of the river in their fast motorboat and
-visit ten ships sailing for England and France, donning a diver’s suit,
-and attaching a bomb to each rudder. He would first slip alongside the
-police patrol boats, whose haunts he knew, and steal the guns from
-them, counting on the swiftness of his own craft to get away from
-pursuers. He even entertained the possibility of visiting the British
-patrol cruisers outside the harbor to fix bombs to them--though hardly
-seriously, I suspect. He had made a different type of bomb, resembling
-a telescope, in which the carefully timed dissolution of a white
-powder would release a firing pin on a large quantity of potassium
-chlorate. This type he proposed to smuggle into the cargo. When he had
-created such a reign of terror in New York harbor that no ship dared
-leave, he would go to Boston and Philadelphia and do likewise, then
-to Chicago and Buffalo to paralyze lake shipping, and thence to New
-Orleans and San Francisco and home by way of New York or Mexico. It was
-a great pity, he said, that he had been arrested, for this program had
-been cancelled. He wished he had got word to start sooner. He had had a
-few bombs ready for some time. Then there came a slack period, and he
-sent Daeche to Bridgeport on a little side mission for Germany: to get
-some dum-dum bullets. These Fay intended to forward to Berlin through
-von Papen to support a protest from Germany to the United States that
-we were shipping dum-dum bullets to the Allies. We were not, naturally,
-but that did not prevent his bringing back a few bullets with the
-jackets carefully notched by a German agent in Bridgeport.
-
-We had heard enough of what he had intended to do, and of his
-disappointment. What had he accomplished? What ships had he blown up?
-Was he responsible for the five fires in the hold of the _Craigside_
-on July 24? No. Did he make the bombs found on the _Arabic_ on July 27?
-Did he cause the fires on the _Assuncion de Larrinaga_, the _Rotterdam_
-or the _Santa Anna_, and did he put a bomb aboard the _Williston_? He
-did not, he assured me.
-
-I showed him the _Kirkoswald_ bomb.
-
-“Did you ever see that?”
-
-“No,” he answered.
-
-“Didn’t you make that?”
-
-“I did not,” he replied, and laughed. “That’s a joke. I see now why
-they sent me over to this country--they wanted someone to make bombs
-that would do some damage. That’s crude work.”
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y._
-
-The Rudder Bomb
-
-A Closer View of the Rudder Bomb]
-
-His answer was truthful. We had to admit it for there was absolutely no
-evidence to connect him with any specific act outside his confession,
-and we had to find comfort in the fact that he was guilty at least of
-having intended to continue the reign of terror along the wharves.
-Bombs had been found or fires had broken out on no less than twenty-two
-vessels bound out of New York up to the time we closed on Fay--and not
-one was his prey. He was tried with Scholz and Daeche. The only law
-then applying to his case, and the one under which he was tried,
-charged him with “conspiracy to defraud the insurance underwriters”
-who had insured cargoes on certain ships. When the charge was read to
-him, Fay innocently asked: “What are underwriters?” He found out. Fay
-went to Atlanta for eight years, Scholz for six, and Daeche for four.
-Kienzle and Breitung were not brought to trial and after we went to
-war were invited to join various other Germans in an internment camp.
-Fay had been at Atlanta a month when he escaped. German friends gave
-him clothes and helped him to Baltimore, where Paul Koenig met him and
-paid him $450, with injunctions to go to San Francisco and get more.
-For some reason the fugitive feared that there was a plot against his
-life in San Francisco, although he had protected the “great people,” so
-instead of going west he fled immediately to Mexico. From there he fled
-to Spain, and it was not until the summer of 1918 that he was caught
-there.
-
-He was a bold and important criminal in his field, and we were glad
-to have brought him in. He was not the one we wanted most, not if our
-sugar theory was sound. The pursuit of Fay had certainly scared that
-theory up an alley. It was high time we got out of the alley and back
-into Main Street.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-ALONG THE WATERFRONT
-
-II
-
-“_Damn Him, Rintelen!_”
-
-
-The pursuit of Robert Fay unearthed what trial lawyers delight in
-calling “not one scintilla of evidence” that he had actually set fire
-to a ship. Fay was punished for what he intended to do and not for any
-real achievement for the German cause.
-
-Yet the thought persisted in our minds that he knew who was making and
-placing ship bombs. He professed ignorance. “I do know this much,” he
-said, after a long session of futile questioning, “I do know that a
-certain man paid another man $10,000 to make those bombs. I won’t tell
-you who he is, because I think he is now a prisoner in the Tower of
-London, and he might get into more trouble. You can make what you like
-out of that.”
-
-We made this out of it--that the prisoner then in the Tower to whom
-Fay referred was probably Franz Rintelen. He was a German of prominent
-station who had had a vision quite like Fay’s--a vision of interrupting
-American shipping, and so damming the flood of war supplies. In early
-1915 he had come to America equipped with plenty of authority and a
-bank credit limited only by the resources of the German Empire, and
-had spent six months here trying to exercise that authority and spend
-the money in numerous ways. He had tried to buy rifles of the American
-government, he had fostered peace demonstrations, promoted strikes,
-lobbied for an embargo on munitions and made himself busily useless in
-numerous other ways, only to sail for home in the fall of the year--and
-fall into the hands of the British.
-
-But the charges which I have just cited, and which are now fully
-confirmed against this man, were not then known to us, and Fay’s tip
-was too ambiguous to help us at the moment. Instead of ceasing after
-his arrest, the fires continued. The day after we caught Fay in the
-woods the steamer _Rio Lages_ which had sailed a few days previously
-took fire out at sea. A week later a blaze started in the hold of
-the _Euterpe_. The _Rochambeau_, of the French line, caught fire at
-sea on November 6, and the next day there was an explosion aboard
-the _Ancona_. The _Tyningham_ suffered two fires on her voyage east
-during early December. There was a maddening certainty about it all
-that suggested that every ship that left port must have nothing in her
-hold except hungry rats, parlor matches, oily waste and free kerosene.
-Never in the history of the port had so many marine fires occurred in
-a single year. Marine insurance was away up and our patience was away
-down.
-
-The steamship companies put on special details of guards to watch the
-vessels from the moment they entered port until they sailed again.
-We resumed patrolling the river in various disguises. Fay’s swift
-motorboat had disappeared, but there were plenty of others, and the
-men of the Bomb Squad suffered real hardship in all sorts of inclement
-weather. It seemed as though every item of cargo was watched as it
-passed into the hold, and every stranger about the piers carefully
-followed, but there was absolutely nothing to excite suspicion. So we
-returned to our sugar theory and the Chenangoes.
-
-I mentioned the fact that they were a floating tribe in more senses
-than one, and that the same man rarely came back twice for employment.
-A few familiar faces, however, could occasionally be spotted in the
-crowd at work loading the lighters. We made it our business to study
-these steady workers and found them for the most part a harmless lot of
-Scandinavians.
-
-Those who came, worked once, and vanished, were of all nationalities,
-with a considerable German representation. Some of them used to come
-from Hoboken, and by a process of elimination we found that certain of
-the Hoboken delegation were sailors from the idle North German Lloyd
-and Hamburg-American ships. We followed them and asked enough questions
-about them to learn the entire history of any civilized people, but
-nothing in the form of legal evidence resulted. A friend who knew the
-methods taught in the Wilhelmstrasse for destroying property said it
-would be futile for us to follow those men anyway, for the destroying
-agent himself rarely knows the men higher up, the real conspirators.
-So it began to look as if even the arrest of a guilty Chenango would
-not supply the background necessary to picture the bomb system in its
-entirety.
-
-On one of the early days of 1916 Detectives Barth, Corell and Senff
-reported for duty and were assigned to Hoboken. They were instructed
-to hang about the restaurants, saloons and hotels where the officers
-and petty-officers from the German ships were accustomed to gather,
-and posing as confidential German agents they were to fish about for
-whatever might take their bait. All three men are fine Americans of
-German descent, with an excellent command of the German language, so
-they got on well with the longshore folk they met in the “stubes” of
-Hoboken. They occasionally suggested in a vague way that they Were
-the picked servants of the Kaiser, and aroused some interest and no
-suspicion among their new acquaintances. Every man has more or less
-desire to be a “secret service man” and in looking back on the German
-antics in America during the war I think one may attribute as much of
-their activity to the dramatic instinct, as to their cupidity or their
-real patriotic zeal. (Paul Koenig is an exaggerated example of what
-I mean.) And so it was with those to whom the three Bomb Squad men
-talked: a nod here, and a wink there, a whisper and a wag of the head,
-and they took on some importance.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, by International Film Service, Inc._
-
-Franz Rintelen]
-
-Their reward came when a German whom Barth had picked up suggested
-quietly that he knew a man who had been doing work for the government
-(German) and wouldn’t Barth like to meet him? Barth would. So with
-some ceremony Barth was introduced as one of von Bernstorff’s special
-agents to a funny little old man who looked like a cartoon of the late
-Prussian eagle. He was Captain Charles von Kleist of Hoboken. The three
-lunched together in Hahn’s restaurant, in Park Row, New York, and von
-Kleist found Barth agreeable. He was very glad to meet a real agent,
-for he had a grudge against a fellow over in Hoboken who said he was a
-member of the German secret service.
-
-“You can’t be too careful of those fellows,” Barth said. “There are a
-lot of fakes around. What’s he done to you?”
-
-“This Scheele, he has a laboratory, where he has been doing work,
-making some things. I was his superintendent now for a long time, and
-he owes me several hundred dollars, but he does not pay me. I think von
-Igel ought to know about it, and perhaps Captain von Papen himself.”
-
-“So do I,” said Barth. “I’ll see that it gets to him. What was it you
-were doing over there?”
-
-Von Kleist was a chemist. Dr. Walter T. Scheele had been employing him
-in his laboratory at 1133 Clinton Street, Hoboken, in a factory which
-was ostensibly for the manufacture of agricultural chemicals. The real
-business they transacted was the manufacture of bombs. Ernest Becker,
-the chief electrician of the North German Lloyd liner _Friedrich der
-Grosse_, and Carl Schmidt, her chief engineer, had made the containers
-out of sheet metal. These Becker had delivered to Scheele, and up in
-the laboratory the containers had been filled with explosive. Becker
-would come then and take them away, and the bombs had been used to
-great advantage, von Kleist continued, in harassing the shipping. But
-what good did it do him, he asked Barth, if he got no pay for it?
-
-“You wait,” returned the “secret agent.” “I’ll get you fixed up. I know
-a man who is close to von Igel, and I’ll have him meet you. If what you
-say is true, you certainly have something coming to you. Wait till I
-get this other man.”
-
-A few days passed. Then von Kleist came again to Hahn’s restaurant, and
-was introduced to “Herr Deane,” who Barth said spoke no German, but
-was a good man in spite of the handicap. A trace of suspicion crossed
-the old chemist’s face, and Barth hastened to add: “We have to use all
-kinds of people to fool these stupid Yankees, see?” This bit of heavy
-satire reassured von Kleist, and he found Deane a likable person, who
-seemed interested in his case against Scheele. He went over the ground
-again. “If you want any more proof I’ll show you,” he concluded. “Come
-to my house.” “Deane” (who votes under the name of George D. Barnitz,
-of the Bomb Squad) joined Barth and accompanied von Kleist to his house
-at 1121 Garden Street, Hoboken, and out of the muddy back yard the old
-man dug up an empty bomb container, _almost an exact duplicate of the
-“Kirkoswald” bomb_! “There is one of them--and I have filled dozens
-like that,” he said.
-
-“Let’s go for a ride,” Barth suggested. “We can go down to Coney
-Island and have supper--the hotel has opened up--and we’ll talk things
-over.” The old man felt very amiable towards his new friends, and was
-a talkative and appreciative guest. They dined at the Shelburne and
-later Barnitz wrote out a statement of von Kleist’s services as the
-latter outlined them. “This is just for the sake of regularity, you
-understand. I have to have a written report to give to the chief, or
-else you won’t get yours. You can sign this as your formal statement.”
-
-“All right,” von Kleist agreed, and signed. “How long do you think it
-will be before I could get some money?”
-
-“Oh, don’t worry about that part of it,” Barth said. “I tell you what
-we’ll do. We’ll all three go up to see the chief now--I want him to
-meet you anyhow, and you can supply any more facts that we may not have
-down.”
-
-So they came up to my office--not von Igel’s. Barnitz and Barth said
-his expression changed when he entered headquarters and knew he had
-been betrayed. He said, “I see now why you have been so good to me.”
-
-The prisoner was docile. He said he knew he was caught and he wanted to
-help us round up the rest. I showed him the _Kirkoswald_ bomb, and told
-him where it had been found. “Yes,” he said, “Captain Steinburg and
-Captain Bode came to the laboratory after they saw in the paper that
-the bomb had been found in Marseilles and they gave Dr. Scheele the
-devil because it had not gone off. It was supposed to explode within
-four days, but it didn’t explode in twelve.” “How many did you make?”
-I asked. “I don’t know how many,” the prisoner answered. The ones that
-were put on the _Inchmoor_ and the _Dankdale_ went off all right, and
-there were two fires on the _Tyningham_. “I gave one box of thirty
-of them to two Irishmen from New Orleans, O’Reilly and O’Leary. They
-took them down there to set fire to ships with them.”
-
-“Did you give the rest to Becker?”
-
-“Yes. And he gave them to Captain Wolpert. Wolpert is superintendent of
-the piers of the Atlas Line over in Hoboken. Captain Bode, he is also
-a superintendent, for the Hamburg-American Line. Captain Steinburg I
-don’t know much about, but he is in Germany now.”
-
-[Illustration: Henry Barth, U. S. Army, who posed as the German Secret
-Service agent in the von Rintelen ship bomb cases]
-
-I thanked him for his information, and asked him if he would tell me
-everything about the plot, from its beginning up to the moment. He said
-he would; that he was going to help the United States now. I excused
-myself for a moment and left the room.
-
-Von Kleist saw an electrician in a rough shirt and overalls repairing
-the lights in the room, and struck up a conversation with him. The
-electrician’s English carried a slight German accent, and von Kleist
-said:
-
-“Sie sind deutsch, nicht wahr?” (You’re German?)
-
-“Ja,” replied the workman.
-
-Still using the mother tongue the prisoner asked the workman to do
-him a favor. “Deliver these notes for me, will you? I can’t go out of
-here, and I would like to send word to some people.” And he wrote on
-two messages, one addressed to Wolpert and Bode, the other to Schmidt
-and Becker. The substance of both was the same: “Beat it--I’m pinched.”
-Detective Senff had been disguised as an electrician and stationed in
-the room for the express purpose of getting any statement the prisoner
-made--a practice not usually necessary, but this was a serious case.
-Evidently von Kleist’s profession of transferred loyalty to the United
-States was only a scrap of paper. We locked him up.
-
-That night Walsh and Murphy watched Captain Bode’s house in a New
-Jersey suburb, while Sterett and Fenelly covered Wolpert’s house
-nearby. Both men reported at their respective piers for work the next
-morning, and both were invited by the detectives to come over to
-headquarters “to consult with us in a little waterfront investigation
-we were carrying on.” Senff went to the North German Lloyd piers to
-call on Becker. The guard at the pier-head put through a telephone
-connection, and Senff told Becker he wanted to see him on an urgent
-matter. Presently Becker appeared at the pier gates, and through the
-bars Senff whispered: “Von Kleist wants to see you. Trouble--” Becker
-returned in an instant with his hat and came to headquarters. A little
-later in the day the net caught Schmidt, and after a year and a half of
-waiting we had rounded up in twenty-four hours five promising prisoners.
-
-Von Kleist, we knew, was not altogether reliable; Bode was positively
-robust in his denial of any knowledge of the affair. Becker, a thin
-blond youth, made a complete confession. Yes, he had made the bomb
-containers--several hundred of them, under Schmidt’s orders. He had
-filled them with chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid at the Scheele
-laboratory and had seen Captain Wolpert take them away. At that
-moment Wolpert, a hulking red figure, who had been conversing fairly
-freely, shut up tight, and refused to answer further questions. Becker
-acknowledged that he had made the _Kirkoswald_ bomb, and added that the
-later cases were larger than that.
-
-“Captain Wolpert,” I said, “don’t you think you’re doing Germany more
-harm than good by doing this sort of thing?”
-
-“Damn it!” he exploded. “I gave it up June first. But you’ve got to do
-what those bull-headed fellows tell you, haven’t you?”
-
-“Did you know Robert Fay, Captain?” I asked.
-
-“Yes--I met him one time in Schimmel’s office with Rintelen,” he
-replied.
-
-“You mean _von_ Rintelen?” I asked, using the aristocratic prefix which
-Rintelen had assumed.
-
-“No!” bellowed Wolpert. “Not _von_, damn him--_Rintelen_!”
-
-[Illustration:
-
- _Copyright, International Film Service_
-
-Ernest Becker
-
- _Copyright, International Film Service_
-
-Captain Charles von Kleist (left) and Captain Otto Wolpert (right)]
-
-The result of our first examination of the four was the arrest of Carl
-Schmidt, chief engineer of the _Friedrich der Grosse_, and three of
-his assistants, Georg Praedel, William Paradies and Friedrich Garbade.
-We covered the laboratory, but Dr. Scheele had fled, to Florida. There
-he received a telegram telling him it was safe for him to return to
-New York. He had traveled as far as Baltimore when another telegram
-informed him of the arrests, and he fled to Cuba, and it was March
-of 1918 before he was arrested by the Havana police and extradited
-to New York. The laboratory was in a secret room on the top floor of
-the factory, accessible only through a trap door, and the trap itself
-was pierced with eyeholes so that anyone at work inside could see
-who was outside. We found a rich store of explosive and incendiary
-chemicals--all the ingredients of the bombs, which Lieutenant Busby
-brought back as evidence. Scheele was a finished chemist, and a German
-spy of 23 years’ standing. It had never occurred to him that von
-Kleist would squeal for want of money. “How good a German are you?” he
-had asked von Kleist when he engaged him in March, 1915. (The first
-project of the two was to saturate fertilizer with lubricating oil and
-thus smuggle the oil into Germany.) “I’m as good a German as you ever
-pretended to be,” von Kleist answered. “You are not,” said Scheele,
-“or you wouldn’t have taken out naturalization papers here. I didn’t
-do that.” “Well, I couldn’t have got my captain’s sailing license if I
-hadn’t,” said von Kleist.
-
-Loyalty to Germany alone had not satisfied the appetite of von Kleist,
-for he had caught a glimpse that night of the check for $10,000, signed
-“Hansen” which Scheele proudly waved as evidence of what Germany
-thought of his ship-destroying ability. In the Austrian-subsidized
-Transatlantic Trust Company, where von Rintelen had deposited a large
-amount of money on his arrival from Germany, he had an account in the
-name of Hansen. Here then was the explanation of Fay’s remark about his
-friend who was a prisoner in England.
-
-So far, so good. We knew that Becker, Schmidt and the other engineers
-had made the bombs, and that Becker and Scheele had filled them. On
-the evidence the four were convicted; Becker and von Kleist were sent
-to Atlanta for two years, and the other four to the penitentiary for
-six months. We were satisfied, but could not prove, that Wolpert and
-Bode had disposed of the bombs where they would do the most damage.
-They refused naturally to convict themselves, were admitted to bail of
-$25,000, which was provided by friendly Germans, and were interned when
-we went to war. The four assistants served their terms and then were
-extended the privileges of internment camps as dangerous enemy aliens.
-
-So far, so good, but the snake was not yet dead--we had only cut off a
-section of his tail. To be sure, he could not get about with his former
-vigor. The ship fires, which had continued through February, stopped,
-and one can count on his fingers the fires that broke out on ships
-after that date. Our theory had served its purpose--but who were the
-men higher up?
-
-When Paul Koenig had been taken into custody in late December, 1915, we
-had found in his house in West 94th Street an address book containing
-some hundreds of names of folk with whom he apparently did business.
-The memorandum book is mentioned elsewhere in this volume in detail,
-but the present case may show just what specific use we made of the
-catalogue of spies which the obliging Koenig had left in our hands.
-Among other entries was this:
-
- “Boniface during the day--3396 Worth--ask for
-
- Boniface at night 1993 Chelsea--Never home until 10:30 P. M.”
-
-We had gone systematically through the book, checking up our knowledge
-of each person mentioned, in order to see whether the trail of Koenig,
-von Papen, Boy-Ed and the Hamburg-American interests might not lead us
-to other unexpected outrages, and so we were seeking this Boniface who
-was “never home until 10:30 P. M.” For months he proved elusive, but
-not long after the arrest of the Hoboken bomb-manufacturers we located
-a certain Bonford Boniface.
-
-He had only a single room for lodgings, and we called there one day
-while he was known to be elsewhere and made a careful examination of
-its contents. Our first signal that Boniface might be off-color was the
-discovery of a file of clippings from newspapers describing the arrest
-of von Kleist and his crew. Apparently he was interested in German
-bombs. There was no evidence of the reason for his interest, however,
-and the detectives were about to ‘leave the room as they had found it
-when they ran across two letters signed “Karl Schimmel,” one postmarked
-Buenos Aires and one from Holland. Both were colorless messages asking
-how fortune was treating Boniface.
-
-Now a cat may look at a king, and a man may receive friendly notes from
-the Argentine and Holland without molestation, but I recalled something
-of this name Karl Schimmel. He had come under suspicion before, first,
-when the so-called “Do-Do Chemical Company” of 395 Broadway had applied
-to the fire department for permission to store dynamite on the premises
-of its executive, Karl Schimmel, at 127 Concord Avenue, the Bronx. The
-application had been denied, and the fire department had asked the
-Bomb Squad to look up the Do-Do Chemical Company and its officers. It
-had no factory, no visible business, and as we presently found out no
-Karl Schimmel, for he became alarmed at our investigations and fled to
-Mexico, and South America, and then, with the aid of Count Luxburg he
-made his way back to Germany. Again, Wolpert had spoken of having met
-Fay in Schimmel’s office with Rintelen--but Wolpert would not talk.
-There was a reasonable margin of doubt in our minds of Schimmel’s
-behavior--enough to warrant Barth’s going to Boniface and asking him to
-come to headquarters.
-
-Schimmel, Boniface told us, had employed him for a time at $25 a week.
-And what had he done in return? Nothing more than provide Schimmel
-with a list of weekly sailings of all steamships leaving New York for
-Europe, together with a description of their cargoes. Why had Schimmel,
-a lawyer, been interested in sailings and cargoes? Boniface said he
-did not know. How had Boniface compiled the list? At first, he said,
-by scouting along the waterfront, picking up scraps of conversation
-here and there and keeping an observant eye on the trucks bound for
-the piers. Pier-guards began to notice him a trifle too attentively,
-the waterfront was too many miles long, twenty-five dollars a week was
-only twenty-five dollars a week, and Boniface, it must be remarked, was
-racially thrifty. So he adopted the much simpler expedient of buying
-each morning a copy of the _New York Herald_, a newspaper which pays
-some attention to shipping, net cost in those days one cent, copying
-sailing dates, hours and destinations from its columns, and conjuring
-the cargoes out of his imagination.
-
-Where had he delivered his reports? To Schimmel in his office at 51
-Chambers Street. Whom had he seen there? Why, Rintelen, once, but he
-didn’t know what his business there was. Another time a man named
-Herman Ebling. (Ebling, it developed later, had been directed by
-Wolpert, who had had his orders from á Captain Steinburg, to take a
-tube of glanders germs and a dipping stick, seek out the wharves where
-horses were being shipped abroad for artillery and transport, and
-insert the germ-soaked stick into the nostrils of every third horse he
-could reach, in order that a serious epidemic might presently break
-out. Ebling claims he threw the tube overboard without fulfilling his
-mission.) Where was Ebling? Boniface professed not to know. Whom else
-had he seen? Well, there was another German lawyer, Martin Illsen,
-counsel for the _New Yorker Herold_, a German daily.
-
-We sent for Illsen and questioned him of his dealings with Schimmel.
-He had written an article which he sent to the newspapers protesting
-against the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies, for which
-Schimmel had paid him $100. That he said was the extent of his service.
-
-[Illustration: Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who successfully
-located a part of one of the bombs in a locker in the German Turn
-Verein in Brooklyn]
-
-“Did you ever see this man Ebling there?” I inquired, feeling that
-in Ebling we might find the missing link between the bomb-makers and
-the fires. “Yes,” Illsen replied. “Where is he now?” Illsen did not
-know. “Do you remember meeting anyone else in the office?” “Yes, there
-was a lithographer. His name is Uhde. He comes, I think, from Brooklyn
-but I do not know where he is.”
-
-It is our business to find out where people are, and as the reader may
-already have observed, to follow a case through from one man to another
-if we have to question a thousand individuals on the way to our goal.
-We took up the search for Uhde, and investigated everyone of that name
-in Greater New York. More months had passed before we finally found the
-man we were after--Walter Uhde. We pounced on him without the formality
-of an examination, and searched his room, to find some correspondence
-with Schimmel and more newspaper accounts of the arrest and trial
-of the Hoboken gang. It was this evidence and the pressure which it
-brought to bear upon his conscience that made Uhde give up evidence
-enough to picture the bomb plot in its entirety.
-
-It began, as the outbreak of the ship fires already had indicated,
-in the early months of 1915. One winter night there was a secret
-meeting in the restaurant of the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum. In a private
-dining-room sat Dr. Scheele, the chemist, Captain Wolpert, the
-dock-superintendent, Karl Schimmel, the lawyer, Uhde, the lithographer,
-Eugene Reistert, the proprietor of the restaurant, and a certain
-Captain Steinburg. This man was particularly dangerous to the welfare
-of the United States. His real name was Erich von Steinmetz, and he was
-a captain in the German navy. At that time he had just come to America
-by way of Vladivostock, dodging the immigration examiners by travelling
-in woman’s dress, and evading the quarantine authorities by concealing
-in the fold of the dress the same tubes of glanders germs with which
-he sent Ebling to inoculate the horses for the Allies. Steinmetz was
-Rintelen’s first and ablest assistant, and Schimmel was his second.
-The two men outlined to the dinner party a plan to manufacture and
-plant the bombs. The sailors would make the containers, Scheele would
-see that they were filled and would act as paymaster for the group,
-Schimmel and Wolpert would keep in touch with the sailings and cargoes,
-and Wolpert, Uhde and Reistert would deliver them to the small fry who
-could be hired to place them in sugar-bags and other freight.
-
-How well the plan succeeded we already know. Wolpert distributed the
-bombs to several local points of German operation in the greater city,
-and even Scheele had on one occasion carried a box full of bombs packed
-only in sawdust from the laboratory over to the Labor Lyceum. Reistert
-and Uhde tested a few of the infernal machines in the rear of the
-building, and Uhde fancied them so much that he kept one as a souvenir,
-stowed away in the toe of an old boot in his locker at the Turn
-Verein, where Detectives Barth and Jenkins found it. The conspiracy
-had originated in March; the first day of May, Wolpert gave a bomb to
-a Chenango who smuggled it aboard the _Kirkoswald_, with the result
-which we have followed. On May 7, 1915, the glorious _Lusitania_ was
-torpedoed, and on the following morning, Karl Schimmel, coming into his
-office and finding Illsen and Boniface there, exclaimed:
-
-“Ah--that U-boat commander has done well enough, but he has stolen all
-the glory away from me. I had nine cigars on the _Lusitania_.” (For
-“cigars” read “bombs.”) “If they had not torpedoed her the cigars would
-have done the work!”
-
-He may have told the truth. His secret is at the bottom of the Atlantic
-now, along with what shreds of respect the civilized world might
-otherwise have had for Germany. It is certain that Schimmel tried to
-place his “cigars” aboard the vessel, for Reistert had given Uhde $100
-and a little man named Klein a package of bombs with instructions to go
-to a saloon in West Street near the White Star piers. There they were
-to meet a third man, to whom they would deliver the package, and that
-man would see them safely aboard the ship. The man did not appear at
-the appointed hour, so they left the package with the bartender, and
-went to the missing man’s house in Harlem, where they paid him his fee.
-It was the same Klein who had been carrying a bomb in his pocket one
-afternoon when Schimmel had sent him to South Ferry to place it aboard
-a ship. But the bomb caught fire, and before he could rid himself of it
-it had burned through his clothing, so Schimmel magnanimously gave him
-$20 for a new suit and his trouble. And it was the same Klein whom we
-found dead of disease in a hospital, beyond the law’s reach, when we
-finally were tracing him for arrest.
-
-The stories of the culprits combined to lay at their door the origin
-of most of the ship fires with which we had been afflicted for the
-past two years. If nothing else had proved it, the cessation of the
-fires would have been enough. We were anxious, after our twisting,
-winding search, rather to have the guilty men convicted and placed in
-safe-keeping than to fix definitely upon them the guilt for all of the
-fires--that would have been practically impossible--but the very fact
-that the fires ceased is sufficient evidence of their complete guilt.
-It was not until October 17, 1917, six months after the United States
-had gone to war, that our long hunt came to an end, and we arrested
-Boniface, Reistert, Uhde and one Peter Zeffert. It was Zeffert who
-confessed to having gone to Schimmel’s office one afternoon to help him
-fill the bomb containers with chemicals. Reistert was there, and the
-three took the bombs away in a taxi-cab to meet a destroying agent in
-a waterfront saloon. The agent did not show up, and Messrs. Schimmel,
-Reistert and Zeffert thereupon returned to the Chambers Street office
-and unloaded the tubes.
-
-I am sorry that our laws were not at that time drastic enough to punish
-the men as they deserved. James W. Osborne, the assistant United States
-Attorney who tried the case, wove an admirable prosecution, and Judge
-Harland B. Howe turned a stern face upon the prisoners. Wolpert had
-been haled from Atlanta to answer to the new charge, as had von Kleist
-and Becker. The engineers were brought out of their internment camps.
-And last, and foremost of all, Franz Rintelen was there--returned
-to us by the British to answer to a series of charges which he had
-tried hard and expensively to conceal. The best our laws of the moment
-could do for these men who had defiled our hospitality and destroyed
-millions of dollars’ worth of property on our soil was to sentence them
-to one-and-one-half years in Atlanta. It is to the everlasting credit
-of Judge Howe that Rintelen, Wolpert, von Kleist, Becker, Praedel,
-Paradies and Garbade received the maximum prison term, and the maximum
-fine of $2,000 each. Under the espionage act later adopted each of them
-could be sentenced to twenty years and fined $10,000.
-
-Popular consent would have made short work of these men’s lives.
-Justice had to preside over their trials, however, and they were
-punished to the full extent of an inadequate law. A more drastic
-criminal code would probably have frightened the German spies in the
-United States, and it is equally true that German agents who were
-caught in the net of the law laughed up their sleeves as they made use
-of one after another of the law’s technical provisions and privileges
-to avert what would have been certain and swift death had they worn
-the field-gray uniforms of their nation. They have not suffered in
-proportion to their crimes. But their nation is paying the price.
-
-[Illustration: Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached to the
-Military Intelligence, who unearthed numerous German intrigues]
-
-There is something in the spectacle of Rintelen serving his sentence
-at Atlanta--a long sentence, which he tried numerous tricks to
-evade--that is peculiarly German, and that comes more nearly satisfying
-our popular desire for retribution than the plight of any of his
-wretched employees. He came to America arrogant, rich, defiant, cruel,
-and sly--to wage war upon us. One of his first acts was to sign his
-check for $10,000 to manufacture bombs to destroy our shipping. When
-certain Americans crossed his reeking trail he ran away in terror.
-By great good luck he was captured, discovered, and returned and by
-considerable persistence and patience on the part of the Bomb Squad
-one of his trails was laid bare. (He had many others.) He suffered
-great indignity, as he thought, at being tried with the manual laborers
-whom he had employed and left in trouble. He was convicted and sent
-to prison. He pleaded ill-health, though he was a strong man, and
-he tried to be transferred to a more lenient prison. He invoked the
-aid of his crumbling government, who informed Washington that unless
-he were surrendered to Germany that nation would take the lives of
-American soldiers captured in battle. Every trick failed, and Franz
-Rintelen, tried not as a prisoner of war for what morally were acts of
-war against the United States, but by our peace courts, and under our
-lenient peace laws, must now serve out his term in an American prison,
-although his nation has given up the war and begged for clemency.
-
-Rintelen used to suggest that he was an illegitimate relative of the
-late Kaiser. It may be true: the two have something in common. The
-Kaiser has become plain Hohenzollern, and the chief German bomb-plotter
-in the United States, is, as Wolpert angrily said that day at
-headquarters, “not _von_ Rintelen, damn him--_Rintelen_!”
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-MR. HOLT’S FOUR DAYS
-
-
-The facts were apparently unrelated to each other. Only a flight of
-imagination would have connected them, and imagination, though it is
-often valuable in speculating on what probably happened, is not court
-evidence of what did happen. In the order of their occurrence, the
-facts were these:
-
-1. On April 16, 1906, Leone Krembs Muenter, wife of Erich Muenter, an
-instructor in German in Harvard College, died, soon after the birth
-of her second baby. The circumstances of her death were suspicious,
-and the Coroner directed that the stomach of the body be taken to the
-Harvard Medical School for examination. Dr. Muenter, on the following
-day, requested that he be allowed to escort the remains from Cambridge
-to Chicago for burial, and this permission was granted. With the
-children he made the gloomy pilgrimage west. The body of the dead wife
-was cremated. Dr. Muenter wrote at once from Chicago to the New York
-Life Insurance Company directing that the policy on his wife’s life be
-made payable to her sister, instead of to himself. The examination of
-the lining of the stomach had indicated slow arsenical poisoning and a
-warrant was issued at once for the husband. But it reached Chicago to
-find him gone--no one knew where.
-
-2. In a corridor of the main floor of the Senate wing of the United
-States Capitol at Washington used to stand a telephone switchboard. On
-the night of Friday, July 2, 1915, an explosion near it blew fragments
-of the board through the walls of the telephone booths adjoining. No
-one was about, which was lucky, for the wrecked switchboard was not the
-only damage done: plaster rained from the walls and ceilings, every
-door nearby was blown open (one was a door into the Vice-President’s
-office which had not been in use for forty years), the east reception
-room was wrecked, a gaping hole was torn in the stonework of the wall,
-and fragments of windows, mirrors, crystal chandeliers and telephone
-apparatus flew in every direction.
-
-3. In his country home on East Island, where Long Island reaches out
-into the Sound to form Glen Cove, John Pierpont Morgan was having
-breakfast on the morning of Saturday, July 3, 1915. It was nearly
-half past nine, and the members of his family, together with several
-holiday guests, were in the breakfast room, which is on the eastern
-side of the house. An automobile drove up to the front door, and the
-butler was confronted by a man of dingy appearance who asked, in an
-accent suggesting German, to see Mr. Morgan. He presented a card
-bearing the legend “Society Summer Directory: represented by Thomas C.
-Lester.” The butler wanted better credentials and asked for them. The
-stranger pulled a revolver from his pocket, covered the butler with it
-and stepping inside the door demanded, “Where is Morgan?”
-
-With good presence of mind the butler answered, “In the library,”--the
-library being in the west wing of the house, and away from the
-breakfast room--and stepped toward the library door. Unfortunately it
-was open, and the intruder, who was following with his gun aimed, saw
-that the room was empty, and that the butler had lied. At the same
-moment Physick, the butler, realized that his ruse had not worked. He
-shouted, “Upstairs, Mr. Morgan! Upstairs!” hoping by the urgency of his
-cry to convey to the banker a warning that something was distinctly
-wrong and at the same time to get him out of range. Mr. Morgan at once
-hurried up a rear stairway and began to search for the trouble. A
-moment later Mrs. Morgan joined him. They proceeded from one room to
-another, found nothing, and asked a nurse what was wrong. As the little
-search party reached the head of the main staircase, with Mrs. Morgan
-in the lead, she caught sight of a strange man with a revolver in each
-hand. Lester had come up the front staircase. Mr. Morgan saw his wife
-between himself and the guns, brushed her aside, and charged. The man
-fired twice as the two went to the floor, grappling, and the hammer
-of his revolver clicked twice more on caps that did not explode. Two
-wounds, one in the front of the abdomen, and the other in the left
-thigh, did not prevent Mr. Morgan, from overpowering his assailant: he
-lay with the full weight of his 220 pounds on the man’s body, pinning
-down the revolvers to the floor. One of the guns Mrs. Morgan and the
-nurse wrenched from the man’s hand; the other Mr. Morgan captured.
-Physick had meanwhile roused the servants, and he stunned the intruder
-with a lump of coal as he lay on the floor. Lester’s unconscious form
-was then trussed up and taken to the Glen Cove jail.
-
-There, briefly, were the facts. The Morgan shooting I have recounted
-in some detail to show the desperation with which the stranger
-trespassed, and attempted murder. It was not an affair which suggested
-a motive of robbery, but apparently a cold attempt at assassination.
-The Capitol explosion had been fruitless in its results so far as the
-loss of human life was concerned, and its origin was at that time a
-complete mystery. The Muenter affair had long since passed out of my
-memory. How to get evidence to establish motives for the crimes, fix
-the entire responsibility, and punish the offenders?
-
-Never, probably, has long-distance communication played a swifter or
-more helpful part in a case. In order to show just how a nation which
-has been called to the hunt can enter into the pursuit, let us follow
-the developments in their strict chronological order.
-
-At seven o’clock Saturday morning, before Lester had appeared at the
-door of the Morgan house, the newspapers in Washington received a
-typewritten form letter, signed “R. Pearce,” protesting in excited
-terms against the shipment of munitions to the nations at war. Its
-second paragraph read:
-
- “In connection with the Senate affair would it not be well to
- stop and consider what we are doing?”
-
-The writer stated further:
-
- “Sorry, I, too, had to use explosives (for the last time I
- trust). It is the export kind, and ought to make enough noise
- to be heard above the voices that clamor for war and blood
- money. This explosion is the exclamation point to my appeal for
- peace.”
-
-Again he wrote:
-
- “By the way, don’t put this on the Germans or Bryan. I am an
- old-fashioned American...”
-
-And he added, in a penned postscript:
-
- “We would, of course, not sell to the Germans if they could buy
- here, and since so far we only sold to the Allies, neither side
- should object if we stopped.”
-
-At half-past nine o’clock the shooting occurred at Glen Cove. About the
-same time Dr. Charles Munroe, consulting expert of the Bureau of Mines,
-was called to the Capitol to make an examination of the wreckage of the
-explosion. He soon arrived at the conclusion that the shock had been
-caused by no spontaneous combustion, but by a fair quantity of high
-explosive.
-
-While he was prying about among the débris, Lester was being lodged in
-the Glen Cove jail. His bonds were loosened, leaving him a very sore
-set of ankles and wrists, his cut forehead was bound up, and when he
-was questioned, he gave out the following statement:
-
- “I, Frank Holt, of Ithaca, N. Y., and lately professor of
- German at Cornell, do hereby freely make to William E. Luyster,
- justice of the peace, the following statement of the facts
- concerning my visit to the home of J. P. Morgan at East Island,
- Glen Cove, N. Y.
-
- “I have been in New York City about ten days and had made a
- previous trip to the home of Mr. Morgan last week. My motive in
- coming here was to try to force Mr. Morgan to use his influence
- with the manufacturers of munitions in the United States, and
- with the millionaires who are financing the war loans, to have
- an embargo put on shipments of war munitions, so as to relieve
- the American people from complicity in the death of thousands
- of our European brothers.
-
- “If Germany should be able to buy munitions here we would of
- course positively refuse to sell to her. The reason that the
- American people have not as yet stopped the shipments seems
- to be that we are getting rich out of this traffic, but do we
- not get enough prosperity out of non-contraband shipments?
- And would it not be better for us to make what money we can
- without causing the slaughter of Europeans?
-
- “I am very sorry that I had to cause the Morgan family this
- unpleasantness, but I believe that if Mr. Morgan would put
- his shoulder to the wheel he could accomplish what I have
- endeavored to do. I wanted him to do the work I could not do.
- I hope that he will do his share anyway. We must stop our
- participation in the killing of Europeans, and God will take
- care of the rest.”
-
-Lester, then, was not Lester at all, but Frank Holt.
-
-Meanwhile I knew nothing of what had transpired. I had risen that
-Saturday morning looking forward to a day of relaxation and pleasure,
-for there was to be a field day for the police at Gravesend Bay. On the
-way down to the track I read with some interest of the explosion in the
-Capitol, and then dismissed it from my mind: the newspapers, which had
-been printed about one o’clock of that morning, carried no news except
-a description of the effects of the explosion. Furthermore, it was a
-holiday, with another to follow, and I proposed to enjoy it.
-
-About noon Police Commissioner Woods called me to the telephone, told
-me hurriedly that Mr. Morgan had been “shot by a German,” and told me
-to get down to Glen Cove as fast as possible. “Find out the man’s
-motives and any accomplices he had,” the commissioner said. “Keep in
-touch with me.” And hung up. I found Detective Coy of the Bomb Squad,
-and a patrolman who knew German in case we should need an interpreter,
-and after some delay in getting a car, we hastened to the little Glen
-Cove jail.
-
-Then, at four o’clock, for the first time, I was told the facts as
-Glen Cove knew them. A search of Holt’s person had disclosed two
-revolvers, three sticks of dynamite, a number of loose cartridges, a
-cartoon clipped from a Philadelphia newspaper, an express receipt, and
-a scrap of paper bearing the names in pencilled handwriting of Mr.
-Morgan’s children. Frank McCahill, the constable in charge, showed
-me the statement Holt had made, and supplied the further information
-that Holt had been identified by some of Mr. Morgan’s employees as a
-man who had been seen on the estate two days before--on Thursday. Glen
-Cove had been in a turmoil since the shooting. Newspaper reporters
-and photographers had flocked to the jail, had taken photographs of
-the prisoner, and already prints of the photographs were on their way
-to every large newspaper in the country. His statement, as well as a
-description of the man, had been telegraphed over the Associated and
-United Press wires in every direction. So I decided to have a talk with
-the prisoner himself.
-
-He was brought out of his cell, and we sat in comparative privacy on
-two camp-stools in the corridor. He was a frail, slight fellow, with
-deep eye-sockets, a prominent hook-nose, and a retreating chin. His
-accent was certainly German. His name, he said, was Frank Holt, and
-he was born in the United States. He told me he was forty years old,
-that his father and mother had been born in America, although they had
-both French and German ancestors, and that his wife and two children
-were in Dallas. For several years, he said, he had taught in Vanderbilt
-University, and during the year just past had been instructor in German
-in Cornell University, at Ithaca. He had left Ithaca two weeks before,
-and had stopped at a Mills Hotel in New York before coming down to Glen
-Cove.
-
-“What did you try to kill Mr. Morgan for?” I asked.
-
-“I didn’t intend to kill him. I want to persuade him to use his
-influence to stop the shipment of ammunition to Europe.”
-
-“Well, you chose a pretty strong means of persuading him, didn’t you?
-What was the dynamite for?”
-
-“I was going to show him what was causing all the trouble--explosives.”
-
-He answered frankly, but not completely. The scrap of paper bearing
-the names of the Morgan children, he said, was only a memorandum;
-he had intended to hold them hostage until Mr. Morgan promised to
-exert himself to stop the export of supplies to the Allies. No amount
-of questioning would bring an answer as to where he had bought the
-dynamite, but he readily volunteered the approximate addresses of the
-shops where he had purchased the revolvers and cartridges. These facts
-gave me something to work on, and I went outside to a telephone while
-he was locked up again.
-
-Meanwhile the whole United States had been taking a keen interest in
-the case. Holt’s statement had reached Washington on the Associated
-Press wire, and was delivered to Captain Boardman of the Washington
-Police. Captain Boardman had been busy all morning throwing out lines
-on the Capitol case, and attempting to trace the author of the R.
-Pearce letters, which had been mailed in the city about nine o’clock of
-the previous evening. He read the Pearce letter over several times in
-search of some clue to the writer. Presently the Holt statement came
-in. From the two communications these sentences met the Captain’s eyes:
-
-
-_Pearce_
-
- “We would, of course, not sell to the Germans if they could buy
- here, and since so far we only sold to the Allies, neither side
- should object if we stopped.”
-
-
-_Holt_
-
- “If Germany should be able to buy munitions here we would, of
- course, positively refuse to sell to her.”
-
-Captain Boardman’s next move was to wire to his chief, Major Pullman,
-who happened to be in New York to attend that same field day that Coy
-and I had missed. His message, dated 2 P. M. (while we were on the way
-to Glen Cove), read:
-
- “Ascertain from F. Holt, in custody at Glen Cove, N. Y., for
- shooting J. P. Morgan, his whereabouts Thursday and Friday, as
- he may have placed the bomb in the Capitol here Friday night.”
-
-This message, sent in care of Inspector Faurot, was relayed to us at
-Glen Cove by Guy Scull, deputy commissioner, but not until after the
-Associated Press man at the jail had had a tip telegraphed from his
-Washington office to ask Holt the same question. Holt denied that he
-had been in Washington, flatly. But McCahill knew he had been in Glen
-Cove Thursday, so at 5 P. M. he telegraphed Captain Boardman:
-
- “F. Holt was in Glen Cove Thursday, July 1, P. M.”
-
-I telephoned headquarters the numbers of the revolvers, and the
-neighborhood in which Holt said he had bought them. Several members of
-the squad started out from headquarters to identify the pawnshops, and
-to find out what they could of the history of three sticks of dynamite
-marked “Keystone National Powder Company. 60 per cent. Emporium, Pa.”
-
-Holt had proved obstinate to all questions of the source of his supply
-of dynamite. The man was getting tired: he had had a hard day, had been
-considerably battered, had been interviewed, photographed, harried with
-questions, his ankles and wrists ached, his head throbbed, and his
-mind, which though alert and active, was none too stable, was showing
-signs of exhaustion. His condition suggested that he might be in a mood
-to supply some of the further information we needed, so I suggested
-that we take an automobile ride and he could show me where he had been
-the day before. He protested at once.
-
-“No! My head is aching, and you want to take me on a ride and make a
-show of me to the morbid crowd. I will not tell you--not until later.
-Later perhaps, but not now!”
-
-“All right,” I answered. “Later.”
-
-Then I decided we had better get our information down on paper in a
-formal examination.
-
-The meeting convened at once, with Coy, McCahill, a county detective
-from Mineola, two deputy sheriffs, two patrolmen, a stenographer and
-myself as board of inquiry. It may serve to describe the fellow’s
-manner, as well as to bring out what the examination further disclosed,
-if we make use here of extracts from the proceedings:
-
-_Question._ Where were you born?
-
-_Answer._ Somehow my brain is in such a shape that I can’t
-remember--Wisconsin, I know. I don’t know what it is that affected
-me--something inside of me--maybe it is the shock I got from that.
-
-_Q._ You speak with a German accent. Were you born in Germany, or in
-any of the European countries--tell me the truth.
-
-_A._ Now listen. That has been said before--that I speak with a foreign
-accent. That is because I speak several languages. I speak French,
-German, Spanish, and all that. That is the cause of that, you see?
-
-_Q._ We will eliminate the trouble of asking you questions if you will
-tell us the town or city in which you were born.
-
-_A._ Yes. Now I am trying to think (a pause) I will have to disappoint
-you.
-
-_Q._ Your memory is very clear on other things.
-
-_A._ As I told you, I have been lying there, thinking, thinking.
-
-I took up the matter of the express receipt found on him:
-
-_Q._ On June 11, 1915, you shipped a box by the American Express
-Company to D. F. Sensabaugh, 101 South Marsalis Street, Dallas, Texas.
-What did that box contain?
-
-_A._ It evidently must have been a typewriter. I would not be sure now,
-I think it was a typewriter.
-
-And then the cartoon, clipped from the Philadelphia paper, brought out
-a very unexpected fact:
-
-_Q._ How many times have you been in Philadelphia?
-
-_A._ No time.
-
-_Q._ You came to New York from Ithaca?
-
-_A._ Yes.
-
-_Q._ Do you mean to truthfully answer my question by saying that you
-have not been to Philadelphia at any time since you left Ithaca?
-
-_A._ At no time.
-
-_Q._ You have a clipping of a Philadelphia newspaper in your
-possession. Where did you get that?
-
-_A._ I think I got that out of a Philadelphia paper of course, that I
-found lying around. I think it was a cartoon.
-
-_Q._ Were you not in Philadelphia when you purchased that paper?
-
-_A._ I did not purchase that. I saw that lying around somewhere,
-probably in the Mills Hotel.
-
-_Q._ Where did you sleep last night?
-
-_A._ Now, I will tell you. A reporter from the Associated Press asked
-me about this Washington business, and he was trying to connect me with
-that. I suppose that is what you are trying to do.
-
-_Q._ I am not trying to connect you with anything. I want truthful
-answers. I am very frank and honest with you. I will fairly investigate
-every answer that you make.
-
-_A._ Yes, I thought that over since he was here, and I think it is just
-as well to say that I wrote that R. Pearce letter. I was in Washington
-yesterday and came back on the train. I think it is just as well to say.
-
-Here was news! McCahill slipped out of the room, and sent this telegram
-to Captain Boardman:
-
-“Holt was in Washington Friday. Will wire full particulars later,” and
-returned for the particulars, which Holt continued to unfold.
-
-He had gone to Washington early Friday, arriving at 2 P. M., hired a
-furnished room near the Union Station, and two hours later walked over
-to the Capitol and found the Senate wing deserted. He placed a bomb
-near the telephone booth, timed so as to explode in eight hours. He
-idled away the evening, mailed the R. Pearce letters, took a midnight
-train to New York, stopped at the Mills Hotel for mail, and took an
-early train to Glen Cove Saturday morning. What his activities had been
-since then we well knew. But while the confession of his responsibility
-for the Washington outrage was a really surprising bit, it did not
-conclude our work, for he had pointed out several new alleys of
-possibility which we must search.
-
-By seven o’clock we had, first, a sketch of Holt’s recent career as
-a teacher. This we proceeded to verify by telephone to New York and
-by telegraph thence to Ithaca, Dallas, Nashville, and Philadelphia.
-His account of the Washington bombing Mr. Scull telephoned to
-Washington, and Major Pullman left at once for Long Island to secure
-a more complete confession. We had the numbers of his revolvers and
-were already at work upon that clue. We had no information except
-the trade-mark of where he had got his dynamite, and knowing the
-strict city restrictions on its sale, I felt confident that he had
-accomplices who supplied it to him. The chances were, too, that Holt
-had more dynamite than the three sticks which he said had made up the
-Capitol bomb, and the three on his person. We knew he had called at
-the Mills Hotel, and we sent a man to search his room. We had a wholly
-unsatisfactory statement of his birthplace, which he had already
-contradicted once, and which lent color to the Germanic origin of his
-accent. And finally, Holt had given a description of the methods he
-used in making his bomb which I cannot detail here for obvious reasons,
-but which from my acquaintance with explosives I knew to be untrue. By
-no means all the particulars of his acquaintance with dynamite had
-been explained, and the fact that this remarkable teacher of foreign
-languages, a man apparently of fair intellect, had committed one major
-crime and confessed to another all in the same day, made the motive all
-the more obscure. But we had learned that he talked freely, and that
-meant that he would give us more information, either consciously or
-unconsciously.
-
-Holt was moved about half past seven that night to safer keeping in
-the county jail at Mineola, and we reconvened there an hour later for
-further examination. Major Pullman joined us in the course of the
-evening and took part in the questioning. By that time I had word from
-New York that a telegram had arrived for Holt at the Mills Hotel signed
-by D. F. Sensabaugh, and inquiring for particulars. Thinking that this
-was a clue to possible accomplices I tried, taking several different
-angles of attack, to find out whether Holt had told Sensabaugh (who
-he said was his father-in-law), what he was going to do, and why he
-had written that evening to his wife. The result of this questioning
-was nil. Then we went over his course in Washington, step by step, and
-brought out nothing of significance; then returned to the topic of his
-views on the shipment of munitions, and tried to draw out any talks
-which he might have had with friends on that subject. His answer to
-this was:
-
-“I have not talked to my friends about it, because my friends, in
-my position, they are not the kind of people who would talk on such
-things. Do you suppose that a university professor would undertake that
-sort of thing? I think that can be easily figured out that I could not
-have anybody else with me.”
-
-That was the conclusion which we were being forced to accept. But the
-mystery of the dynamite purchase was still unsolved. Holt said we could
-not guess the reason why he was withholding the answer to it. I was
-inclined to agree with him just then. I couldn’t guess. But he betrayed
-in one of his replies the real factor which was to solve the mystery.
-Major Pullman asked:
-
-“Why did you decide to go to the Capitol?”
-
-“Merely,” replied the thin figure in the chair, “to get the most
-prominent place in the country. You see I wanted to call attention to
-my appeal.”
-
-In this he had succeeded. The whole country was working on the case.
-If our feeling that Holt had bought more explosives was no more than a
-theory at first, it was strengthened when he admitted that he had spent
-nearly $275 in two weeks, had only six sticks of dynamite to show for
-it, and was able to account for only $50. He denied that he had ever
-been in the German Club in New York, reiterated that he was born in the
-United States, dodged the exact city, then suggested Milwaukee, said
-that the name of the college he had attended in Texas “wouldn’t come,”
-and sidestepped cleverly any admission which might allow us to trace
-the dynamite purchase. Thus ended Saturday, July 3, which had started
-out as a holiday. I left two men to watch Holt, and went home, tired
-out, and not at all satisfied.
-
-While we had been busy with the prisoner, the wires to Boston and
-the trains to Chicago had been carrying out their routine tasks
-of syndicating news. A police officer in Cambridge in reading the
-description of Holt which had flashed out to the newspapers detected
-a familiar ring to the natural phrase “shambling walk” which had been
-used to describe Holt’s gait. Thousands of men whom we encounter in
-daily life have shambling walks, but to this officer only one man had
-a shambling walk in which he was interested, and that man was Erich
-Muenter, a Harvard instructor, whom he had suspected of wife-murder
-nine years before. Nine years is a long time, and the average person
-cannot recall offhand the gait of anyone whom he last saw nine years
-ago, but those two words had evidently typified to the Cambridge
-officer the murderer who got away. When the news photographs followed
-the description to Boston and the Cambridge police saw them, they
-were not so sure, for Muenter had had a beard, and in his Cambridge
-days his head was not bandaged. But suspicion had been aroused, and
-that was enough to issue the news throughout the country during the
-night. Reporters in Ithaca tried to verify it from Holt’s associates at
-Cornell, and failed, reporters two thousand miles away in Dallas tried
-to verify it from Holt’s confused father-in-law, and failed. Dallas,
-however, supplied the particulars of his previous life so far as
-anyone seemed to know them, and these particulars were again relayed,
-verified, and amplified in every city in which Holt had ever been known
-in recent years.
-
-Sunday morning, Independence Day, I went early to Mineola and
-questioned Holt again, with little result. Meanwhile the Bomb Squad
-at work in New York had found one of the shops in Jersey City where
-Holt had purchased a revolver. He gave his name to the proprietor as
-“Henderson,” and his address as Syosset, Long Island--a little station
-not far from Glen Cove. I asked him why he gave this fictitious name
-and address; he replied he had happened to see Syosset on a timetable,
-and that the name Henderson popped into his head. We then returned to
-my favorite subject, dynamite, and Holt finally said that he would tell
-me on the following Wednesday, July 7, where he had bought it. Why
-Wednesday, July 7? He would not answer, and no amount of questioning
-served any end except that of further confusion.
-
-The day was not without developments, however. During the afternoon
-District Attorney Smith of Nassau County paid a visit to the jail, and
-identified the wretched Holt as a former acquaintance in Cambridge,
-Erich Muenter. At almost the same hour the Chicago authorities came
-into possession of the news photograph of the man mailed from New York
-the day before. They hurried with it to the home of two spinsters,
-known to be sisters of the missing Muenter, and obtained from them an
-unqualified identification: it was their lost brother, and “the news
-would kill their mother.” This Pearce-Lester-Holt-Henderson-Muenter
-was becoming more interesting every minute. Wife-poisoner, dynamiter,
-gunman--what next?
-
-“Next” was Monday. The second revolvershop had been discovered, and
-again the use of the alias Henderson and the address Syosset. Holt,
-when I called on him in the morning, repeated only what he had told
-the day before, and reiterated, “Wednesday I will tell you,” until it
-became almost a refrain. He denied that he was Muenter, and that he had
-ever heard the name. I returned to New York to spend the rest of the
-daylight in investigation among the explosives’ manufacturers. From the
-records of the Ætna Company, of which the Keystone was a subsidiary, we
-learned during the afternoon that one Henderson had telephoned an order
-for 200 sticks of dynamite to be delivered at Syosset. I was just ready
-to start for Syosset with Commissioner Scull when, as if we had not
-already had enough to interest us, our friends the anarchists exploded
-a bomb in Police Headquarters itself. Curiously enough, although it was
-a delay, this did not prove the disturbing incident which one might
-believe. We had had anonymous threats of it some weeks before; it was
-one year and a day after the accidental death of the anarchist Berg,
-who was killed making a bomb, and it seemed to have no connection
-whatever with the Holt case. No one was injured, and after steps had
-been taken to follow the case, I went home to sleep what was left of
-the night.
-
-Tuesday arrived.
-
-I went to Syosset, and interviewed the station agent, George D. Carnes.
-Carnes said he knew a man named Henderson. Henderson had seen him first
-about three weeks before when he came to the little station to claim a
-new trunk which had been shipped down from New York, apparently empty,
-as it weighed only thirty-six pounds. Henderson had signed for the
-trunk, and gone away. He reappeared some days later and asked Carnes
-whether he had received two boxes of dynamite and two boxes of fuses
-and detonating caps--he had to blow up some stumps and he expected the
-explosives. They had not arrived. Henderson made inquiries for several
-days, and when the boxes came, claimed them, signed the name of Frank
-Hendrix to the receipt, and drove away in a Ford. At last we seemed to
-be on the right trail.
-
-He had received the material, we knew, but where was it? In the trunk,
-perhaps. Had the trunk been shipped out of Syosset? No, Carnes said.
-We telephoned several stations in the vicinity, and finally at Central
-Park, a few miles west, we struck the trail again. The baggage records
-there revealed that a Henderson had checked a trunk to the Pennsylvania
-station, New York, on July 2--Friday. That was enough to take us to
-Central Park.
-
-The check number I telephoned to New York for detectives to trace
-from the station if they could. Information of a stranger is freely
-offered in a village, and we found shortly that Holt had employed a
-small boy with a wheelbarrow to convey his trunk from a shanty in the
-woods to the station, and to the shanty we went. Near it lay a charred
-dynamite-box, and there were a few wax-paper wrappers from sticks of
-dynamite which the weather had left for our information. No explosive
-was to be seen, but there was evidence that he had burned some of it
-nearby.
-
-[Illustration: Mrs. Holt’s Mysterious Letter
-
-The First Word from Texas]
-
-If he had not burned it all, the balance of those two hundred sticks
-were in the trunk. The day was growing old. Carnes and I sped back to
-Mineola, and the station agent identified Holt as the dynamite man. I
-repeated my questions; Holt replied, “I will tell you Wednesday.”
-
-“Look here,” I said. “I have the number of that check. That dynamite
-is in the trunk. It’s liable to go off any minute and kill a lot of
-people. I can trace that check, but it will take time, and you
-better tell me quick where you left the trunk.”
-
-“All right,” Holt answered, and said that he had sent it to a storage
-warehouse whose office was somewhere near 40th Street and Seventh
-Avenue. Two minutes later Lieut. Barnitz and I were out of the jail and
-in a motor bound for New York.
-
-It took just 28 minutes to cover the 20 miles to Fifty-Ninth Street
-and Fifth Avenue, and we turned south to the section around Fortieth
-Street. We found the office of the storage company--empty. The
-warehouse itself was at 342 West 38th Street, and we hurried over
-there, arriving simultaneously with the detectives who had been tracing
-the check number from the Pennsylvania station. An old watchman was
-in charge who knew nothing whatever of the records of the office, but
-who turned bright green when we told him what we were after. While
-Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Murphy, Sterett, Walsh and Fenelly went up
-into the recesses of the warehouse to hunt for the trunk, I called
-headquarters.
-
-“Commissioner Woods just called and wants you to call him at the
-Harvard Club,” the office said. I did so, and reported our progress.
-
-“Get that trunk as fast you can and find out exactly what’s in it,”
-said the Commissioner. “Washington just called me to say that Governor
-Colquitt down in Dallas just wired them. He says Holt’s wife got a
-letter from Holt dated July 2 saying that he’s put dynamite on a ship
-now at sea, and that it will sink on the seventh!”
-
-On the fifth floor of the great dark barn they discovered the trunk,
-with a dozen others on top of it. There were no lights, and it was
-necessary to roll it over, haul it out, snake it across other piles,
-and carry it down four flights of steep stairs in the dark to the
-office. Barnitz picked up an axe and hacked the lock away. He lifted
-the cover, and there we found one hundred and thirty-four sticks of
-dynamite--one hundred in their original box, and the rest packed in
-small spaces between hammers, nails, bolts, and other tools, several
-bottles of sulphuric and nitric acid, and 197 detonating caps--a pretty
-package to trundle down four flights of dark stairs and open with an
-axe!
-
-Fifty sticks of the original 200 were unaccounted for. I telephoned the
-report to the Commissioner, and followed it to the Harvard Club, in
-44th Street, while Barnitz telephoned for the inspector of combustibles
-to come and take possession of the explosives. The Commissioner, with
-Guy Scull, were sitting in the lounge, and I was reporting in greater
-detail when the Commissioner was called to the telephone. He returned a
-moment later, and his first remark was this:
-
-“_Holt is dead at Mineola!_”
-
-And there went our case.
-
-The first wild report from Mineola had it that Holt had been shot by
-a German. The international consequences of the case, which had been
-hovering just out of reach for the past four days, now seemed certain.
-A nation which was still bitterly angry over the recent _Lusitania_
-sinking would certainly not brook the violation of its Capitol and the
-attempted assassination of one of its chief figures by a German agent,
-and if Holt had been shot by a German, it was more than likely that he
-had been killed to prevent a further confession which would implicate
-the Imperial German Government. These thoughts passed through our minds
-as we motored back across the Queensboro Bridge, and retraced the route
-Barnitz and I had just traveled.
-
-Holt was not shot by a German. Holt was not shot at all. An aged guard
-had been left to watch him that evening, just after Barnitz and I had
-left, for the prisoner, despairing over the Muenter identification, had
-already made one attempt with a bit of tin from a lead pencil to cut
-the arteries of his wrists, and we did not want him to try again. The
-old bailiff who sat outside the cell cage had not only left the cage
-door unlocked, but had been careless enough to leave Holt’s cell door
-ajar. The prisoner seemed quiet enough, and the bailiff fell asleep. He
-woke to find Holt’s body in a twisted heap in the center of the floor
-of the cell corridor. Holt had evidently been feigning sleep and while
-the bailiff dozed had crept out, climbed to the top of the cage, and
-dived headforemost to the concrete floor.
-
-There we found him. The man’s skull was crushed from the impact of his
-dive. Rumors that he was shot by a mysterious rifle bullet from outside
-notwithstanding, Holt bore no wound except the bruise Physick gave him
-with the lump of coal, and the wound which was the result of his fall.
-If Holt was a German agent, he died with his secret.
-
-We had no time to analyze the question. We knew that Holt had written
-his wife he had placed dynamite aboard a ship which was at sea, and
-that July 7, the date on which he had promised an explosion, was less
-than two hours away. On the theory that he might have shipped an
-express parcel containing a bomb overseas from some nearby station, Mr.
-Scull and I spent the night in an exhaustive canvass by telephone and
-motor of every station in Nassau County. Many of the station agents
-were asleep, but we woke them, and searched until dawn. The net result
-was record of two shipments to Europe since the day Holt received the
-dynamite: One from Syosset the other from Oyster Bay. Back to New York
-again we raced, and at the office of the Adams Express Company found
-the Syosset package, opened it, and found--no dynamite at all. The
-Oyster Bay package had already been shipped to Europe; we telephoned
-the consignor, and learned that it contained clothes for a poor
-relative in England.
-
-Apparently Holt had not shipped a bomb. While we were opening his trunk
-at the warehouse the night before, the government was issuing from
-Washington a wireless bulletin to all ships at sea, warning them to
-search the cargo thoroughly for a bomb. One by one the vessels which
-had sailed during the past week reported that they had investigated
-with no result, and as these reports came in we began to rest easier
-in our minds. Yet he had so persistently refused to tell us of the
-dynamite “until Wednesday” that we could not ignore the prophecy he
-had made to his wife--“With God’s help, a ship that sailed from New
-York July 3 will sink on July 7.” At noon, of Wednesday, July 7,
-an explosion occurred in the hold of the steamship _Minnehaha_, in
-mid-ocean, so strong as to blow out a section of the upper decks. The
-_Minnehaha_ had left New York on July 3. Happily there was no loss of
-life, and she reached port safely.
-
-Two and two make four, but we must not add them for a moment. Holt--or
-Muenter, as he was fully and finally identified--may have placed a
-bomb in the _Minnehaha_. His promise may have been valid, but there
-is another possible origin for that explosion, namely, the activities
-of Paul Koenig’s little group. He may have placed a bomb on the
-_Minnehaha_ which was exploded by a bomb placed there by another. He
-may have placed a bomb on quite another ship--which did not explode,
-and which may have traveled harmless to its consignee in England. That
-consignee may have been fictitious, or he may have been an accomplice;
-if an accomplice he may have been German. We must not add two and two
-until we have gathered up the loose threads as they were gathered up
-during those last active days, and begin to sort them out.
-
-If we do, we shall see that the Ithaca police found in Holt’s rooms
-a scrapbook curiously replete with newspaper reports of crimes,
-fratricides, patricides and plain murders. But no cases of wife-murder,
-nor of arsenical poisoning. And no clippings dating back of 1906;
-for all the evidence of the scrapbook, Holt had never existed before
-1907. His wife, who, by a queer coincidence, bore the same maiden
-name, Leona, as the one whom he had poisoned, apparently knew nothing
-of Holt’s life before she met him in Texas in 1909, loved him, and
-married him. She did not know that he was born in Germany, and educated
-in Germany or that he had fled from Chicago to Mexico in 1906 and had
-then worked back into Texas as a student. He probably wrote to her
-from Ithaca in September, 1914, that he had just had the pleasure of
-meeting Professor Ernest Elster, of Marburg, Germany, who was visiting
-Cornell, and that Elster had highly commended him for his articles on
-Goethe--but if he did write to her, what then? Perhaps Herr Professor
-Elster had commended Holt for some other past or projected service to
-_Kultur_. There is a queer development of the story in the fact that
-on September 4, 1915, Mrs. Frank Holt, writing from Dallas, Texas, to
-Griffithe’s warehouse, enclosed one dollar to pay for storage on a
-trunk left there by her husband July 2, and signed her name: “F. H.
-Henderson.” Perhaps the rumor is true that a woman appeared at the
-offices of J. P. Morgan and Company in New York on July 2, 1915, and
-attempted to warn Mr. Morgan of “something that was going to happen the
-next day” and perhaps she was a friend of von Rintelen’s. Mr. Morgan
-never saw her. But it is a fact that Rintelen had said to an American
-with whom he was dealing: “Morgan and Root ought to be put out of the
-way!”
-
-Probably--not perhaps--speculation has already carried this story too
-far. The facts are that Mr. Morgan recovered from his wounds, and that
-two and two make four.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-THE NATURE FAKER
-
-
-Richard Harding Davis could have done justice to this story.
-
-In December of 1917 we had been eight months at war. We would be an
-innocent and purposely ignorant nation if we did not acknowledge that
-even after we had been eight months at war there were German spies
-in the United States practising their quiet trade in order to make
-our waging of war as difficult as possible, just as for three years
-they had practised to keep us out of the war entirely. It would be as
-absurd to assume that there are not German spies in America to-day who
-have been here throughout our part in the war, and who have done their
-utmost to cripple us.
-
-But there is one who will not be here indefinitely....
-
-In December, 1917, I received a complaint that valuable papers had been
-stolen from a certain Captain Claude Staughton, who lived at 137 West
-75th Street, Manhattan. The Captain himself said that the lives of
-thousands of American soldiers were in jeopardy, and that neither they
-nor he would rest in conscious security until those papers were found.
-So two other Thomases of the Bomb Squad, Sergeant Thomas J. Ford and
-Detective Thomas J. Cavanagh, were sent to investigate the theft.
-
-They found that Captain Staughton lived in an apartment on the second
-floor of the premises at 137 West 75th Street and that his rooms were
-shared by a Captain Horace D. Ashton. Staughton, they learned, was a
-captain of West Australia Light Horse--or was supposed to be--and a
-photograph they found of the captain in his uniform revealed four gold
-wound-stripes on his sleeve, which suggested an interesting and heroic
-experience overseas. The detectives’ first assumption was that the
-missing papers had had to do with British war work on which the captain
-was detailed to the United States. Then they found several photographic
-prints in which he was dressed in the uniforms of other nations than
-Great Britain, and their second assumption was that he might be another
-of the nervy little band of counterfeit officers which had done all its
-fighting in the restaurants and sympathetic check-books of New York
-during the war.
-
-The detectives learned that Ashton had his mail forwarded to the
-“Argus Laboratories” at 220 West 42d Street. They called upon Ashton,
-and inquired about his room-mate. Duquesne was all right, Ashton
-said--was employed by an engineering company downtown as an inspector
-of airplanes, was in Pittsburg at the moment, but was expected shortly
-to return. Duquesne returned, and was placed under arrest on the charge
-(we had no better one at the moment) of unlawfully masquerading in the
-uniform of one of our allies, a uniform to which he had no title. A
-thousand questions sprang up in our minds about the man: why was he
-in disguise, how long had he been posing, how could he carry out the
-bluff without being discovered, especially by the highly reputable firm
-which employed him?--those were a few. We began to investigate, and
-from Ashton and other sources we pieced together the checkered pattern
-of his career. Many of the fragments are missing, and some of them are
-probably in the wrong places, but this is the picture we found.
-
-He had applied for work at the J. G. White Engineering Company on
-September 18, 1917, and in his rather detailed application for
-employment set forth that his name was Fred du Quesne. He stated
-further that he was 39 years old, married, and a United States
-citizen, though born in a British colony. His nearest relative was
-“A. Jocelyn du Quesne,” in Los Angeles, and he had evidently had some
-trouble in parting the name in the middle, for it was written over an
-erasure. His next nearest relative was set down as “Viscount François
-de Rancogne, Prisoner of War, Germany,”--an address safe enough from
-prompt investigation. Last of all his relatives was cited Edward
-Wortley, “Colonial Secretary, Jamaica, B. W. I.” The three names
-were impressive, and with the possible exception of Los Angeles, the
-addresses were too remote to enable the J. G. White Company to find out
-quickly what sort of man this du Quesne might be.
-
-He described himself as a graduate of St. Cyr, the French West Point,
-as master of French and English (not German or Portuguese or Spanish),
-and as having lived in England, France, Africa, Australia, Central
-America, Brazil, Argentine, and the United States (but not Germany).
-Present position he had none, but he would like one as “Inspector
-of military devices, purchasing agent for same, or army supplies
-transportation.” You or I, were we working for the Kaiser, would
-have liked just such a position. He gave as references the name of
-Thomas O’Connell, a relative employed by the J. G. White Company in
-Nicaragua; Ashton, Senator Robert Broussard of Washington, and the
-Marquis (not “viscount” this time) de Rancogne, “Lieutenant General of
-Cavalry, France.”
-
-He then set forth his previous experience, which I may quote direct in
-the light of later events:
-
-“1898 to 1899. Secretary to board of selection on military devices
-and contracts. South Africa reporting Genr. de Villiers. (salary) £10
-weekly.
-
-“1899 to 1902. South African War. Was inspector of military
-communication and reported secretary of war.” (_He does not state which
-secretary of war_) £12.2.6 weekly.
-
-“1902 to 1903. Lived in United States to start residence. Had an
-experience job in the subway looking on. $25.00.
-
-“1903 to 1904. Went on tour of Congo Free State in the interests of
-making favorable publicity in this country for King Leopold. Gerard
-Harry in charge of campaign for the King. Received $10,000 for the job,
-with expenses.
-
-“1904–5–6. Headed Eldu expedition and industrial research party in
-Australia. Sir Arthur Jones financed me. Received £2,000 yearly.
-
-“1907–8. Toured Russia for _Petit Bleu_. Publicity. 1,000 florins
-weekly.
-
-“1908–9–10. Organized and built string of theatres in British West
-Indies. Financed and erected hydro-electric plant for S. S. Wortley &
-Co., Kingston, Jamaica. Made percentages.
-
-“1911–12. Lived in Nicaragua and Guatemala. Was with Mr. Thomas
-O’Connell in Nicaragua for one year. Made industrial and investment
-investigations, especially ore, fibre, rubber. $5,000 and expenses
-yearly. Mr. Hite financed. Address New Rochelle.
-
-“1913–14–15–16. Explored and travelled in South America, Brazil,
-Argentine, Peru, and Bolivia, on own account. Also conducted special
-expedition for Horace Ashton of 220 W. 42d St., New York.”
-
-An eventful record, certainly. We asked Ashton to cast a little light
-on it. Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne, he said, was a scout in the Boer
-war--“the leading scout” were his exact words--but not for the British,
-but the Boers. There may have been a touch of irony in Duquesne’s
-description of himself as “inspector of military communications” for
-he had been captured eight or nine times in his migrations through the
-British lines and had escaped each time--until the last, when he was
-made a prisoner of war at Cape Town, and according to an entry in the
-records of Scotland Yard, “was sent to Bermuda, whence he escaped after
-the declaration of Peace.” The same records say: “The man Duquesne
-was acting as correspondent for a Belgian paper, the _Petit Bleu_; he
-was however in reality working for the Boers....” Duquesne fancied
-photographs of himself, as he made up rather dashingly, and an old
-print which the Bomb Squad men found in his effects bore out the fact
-of his imprisonment, for there he stood in his Bermuda jail with the
-shackles on his ankles and a grim, martyred expression on his face.
-
-The lure of Africa called to him, evidently, and he went back. We
-need not take too seriously his statement that he made a junket for
-King Leopold through the Belgian Congo, but anyone who remembers the
-uproar over the slavery by which the depraved old monarch was turning
-his colony into gold to pay for his excesses will also recall the
-international complications which the Congo threatened. It was a likely
-spot for an international spy. During his survey of the publicity
-possibilities of the jungle Duquesne conceived a few publicity
-possibilities for himself, and he came to America as a mighty hunter of
-big game.
-
-“I ran across him first,” said Ashton, “in 1909.--At that time he was
-writing an article for _Hampton’s Magazine_ called ‘Hunting Big Game
-in Africa.’ In publishing his articles he needed photographs, and he
-came to me. I was interested in his conversation and I said to him:
-‘Why don’t you lecture?’ So he went down to the Pond Lyceum Bureau. He
-went on a lecture tour for the Lyceum and later on a tour of the Keith
-circuit....”
-
-We found in his effects a program of the lectures he gave, its cover
-decorated with a small round photograph of Colonel Roosevelt in hunting
-costume and a large studio photograph of Duquesne in khaki, wearing
-boots and a revolver, and looking sternly out of the picture as
-tradition says a lion-hunter should look. Page two carried a synopsis
-of his lecture, of which one topic was “Hunting with Roosevelt,” and
-a reproduction of a number of newspapers which were then publishing
-his “Hunting Ahead of Roosevelt,” an article written for _Hampton’s
-Magazine_. On page three Captain Duquesne figured again in effigy, this
-time standing beside the prostrate form of “A Rare Specimen--the ‘White
-Rhinoceros,’” and we are to believe that he killed the beast. Page four
-(and last), reproduced a cartoon from the _Washington Star_ of January
-26, 1909, which portrayed President Roosevelt pointing to a picture
-of an elephant, and enthusiastically inquiring of a hairy hunter
-labelled “Duquesne”: “I want to know his vital spot!”
-
-[Illustration: Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as Captain
-Claude Stoughton]
-
-A quotation from _Hampton’s Magazine_, also printed in this program,
-gives a new vision of the man’s life from 1900 to 1909. It is probably
-as truthful as any--here it is:
-
-“When the British succeeded in cutting cable communications between the
-Boer Republic and the rest of the world, Duquesne carried the news of
-the Boer victories over the Mozambique border, and from there he wrote
-his despatches to the _Petit Bleu_, the official European organ of the
-Boer Government. He was once captured by the Portuguese and thrown into
-prison at Lorenzo Marques. Later he was taken a prisoner to Europe at
-the request of the British Government. When the ship that conveyed him
-and his guard touched at Naples, he was suffering from a fever and in
-consequence was placed in an Italian hospital. On his recovery he was
-allowed to go free. He went to Brussels and was sent back to the front
-by Doctor Leyds, with plans for the seizure of Cape Town by the Boer
-commandos then mobilized in Cape Colony.
-
-“Everything was ready for the taking of the city when, a traitor
-having revealed the plot, Duquesne and a number of others were captured
-in Cape Town inside the British defenses. This was the climax of what
-has come to be known as the ‘Cape Town Plot.’ Some of the prisoners
-were shot and some sentenced to death who later had their sentences
-changed to life imprisonment. Captain Duquesne was among the latter.
-Ten months later he escaped from the Bermuda prisons, got aboard the
-American yacht _Margaret_ of New York while she was coaling at the
-dock, and was conveyed to Baltimore.
-
-“Back to Europe he went again, as war correspondent and military writer
-on the _Petit Bleu_; thence to Africa, where he took a commission on
-the Congo. In East Africa he hunted big game for sport and profit, and
-finally he came to New York to do newspaper and magazine work.”
-
-He cut a figure in America as a hunter. Back in 1910, when Congress
-amused itself with light diversions, when President Taft was in the
-White House and when President Roosevelt was in Africa, the eyes of the
-nation were turned perforce toward that great preserve of wild game. On
-March 24, 1910, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture
-went into session with the Honorable Charles F. Scott in the chair.
-Late March in Washington has a hint of spring, and that Thursday was
-probably an off-day, with nothing much to do, for the committee’s
-business was the consideration of H. R. 23261--a bill “to import into
-the United States wild and domestic animals whose habitat is similar to
-government reservations and lands at present unoccupied and unused....
-_Provided_, that such animals will thrive and propagate and prove
-useful either as food or as beasts of burden, and that two hundred
-and fifty thousand dollars ... be appropriated for this purpose.” The
-bill was Representative Broussard’s, of Louisiana; he had in mind the
-re-population of the unyielding backwaters of his constituency with
-happy families of--what? Foreign sheep, or parrots, or egrets, or fish?
-Not at all. Families of hippopotamuses.
-
-The Gentleman from Louisiana addressed the meeting briefly, saying
-that he had brought to the hearing three distinguished specialists in
-the matter of wild beasts, Dr. Irwin of the Bureau of Plant Industry,
-Major Frederic Russell Burnham, a fine old pioneer whom Richard Harding
-Davis did describe in his “Real Soldiers of Fortune,” and “Captain
-Fritz Duquesne, formerly in the Boer army, who is lecturing and writing
-on this subject....” Dr. Irwin spoke earnestly for the introduction
-of the hippo, Major Burnham made an absorbing address on the habits
-of wild animals he had known--and a herd of camels he once pursued in
-Texas--and our bright and voluble Captain Fritz then told the committee
-extraordinary things of the home of the hippopotamus, the delicacy of
-its flesh, the amiability of its temperament, and the carelessness
-of its appetite. “During my boyhood,” he said at one stage of the
-proceedings, “the French soap manufacturers used to come down there
-and pay us all sorts of prices, competing with one another, to get the
-fat of the hippopotamus; and we made a considerable amount of money
-from saving the fat when we killed a hippo. The Boers were in the habit
-of going down to the river and killing a hippo and bringing it in and
-dividing it among the different families in the district. It is pretty
-hard to get rid of four and a half tons of meat. In the case of the
-bones of the animal, we would take an ordinary wood saw and saw them
-in halves, and make a great big pot of soup for a large number of the
-people, including the Kaffir servants on the ranch, or the farm, as we
-call it.” Again: “My father was instrumental in sending the camel to
-Australia from Africa, and also in introducing it into the Kalahari
-desert. The German Government now uses the camel exclusively for its
-cavalry in the Kalahari desert, which is practically the counterpart of
-the deserts in this country. My father had the contract to take them
-over to Australia for the West Australian Government and I took them
-over there. To-day camels and ostriches from Africa are being raised in
-Australia.”
-
-Mr. Chapman asked: “Do you think animals such as you have mentioned
-would become acclimated here without difficulty?” Duquesne replied:
-“Yes, I was over there recently in one place where Colonel Roosevelt
-passed through, and the frost was that thick (indicating about one
-inch). That is where he went to get some of his best animals....” In
-discussing the zebra he said: “There is nothing wrong with the animal.
-The English in Africa want to get percentage, you know. They put an
-animal out and they want to break it in right away, and they want to
-get some money for it right on the spot. That is what they are in
-Africa for. They want to take on the animals and break them in at
-once. The Germans are more scientific than the English. In German East
-Africa they are making a great success of domesticating these animals
-I have spoken of, and crossing the zebra.... The Germans in Germany,
-France, and Belgium, not to mention those in the United States, tried
-scientifically to make the leopard change his spots, too.”
-
-The man really exhibited an unusual acquaintance with wild beasts, and
-he summed up the picturesque argument for the bill when he said: “If
-there is vegetation in a river, the hippopotamus will never leave the
-river. If you had the hippopotamus in Louisiana and it ate up all your
-water plants you would be quite willing to let the hippo live down
-there. You see the water plants have to live on a certain amount of
-air, and the fish live on a certain amount of air. Neither the plant
-nor the fish can live on air that is not there. As the plant is the
-stronger, and is able to take the air from above, it will draw it at
-the bottom and draw it from the top, and the fish is suffocated in the
-water. Then when a storm comes and blows the water plants, which are
-floating, all to one side, the fish are netted up against them and kept
-in one place until they die. These plants exhaust the air in the water
-that is passing through the fishes’ gills and that destroys the fish.”
-I wish there were space here to reproduce all the proceedings of that
-hearing--it is historic vaudeville: a German spy teaching a class of
-American congressmen about the hippo, and suggesting subtly that when
-they purchase a fleet of the great beasts for the Louisiana bayous,
-they let him round them up. He would have done it if there had been
-American money in it.
-
-[Illustration: 1. Fritz Duquesne as a War Correspondent
-
-2. Duquesne as a Boer Soldier
-
-3. From Duquesne’s Press Notices
-
-4. As a British Prisoner of War
-
-5. A Prisoner’s Bank Note Found in Duquesne’s Effects]
-
-American money appeared from another source, however, in 1911. Duquesne
-had been working in a desultory way for the moving pictures, and he
-interested one Hite, a functionary in the Thanhouser Film Company, in
-a plan to explore Central America with a moving-picture camera. Ashton
-said he also obtained financial support from Frank Seiberling of the
-Goodyear Rubber Company of Akron, a great patron of sports, and the
-financier of the ill-fated balloon “Akron” in which Walter Wellman once
-tried to cross the Atlantic. He set sail in 1911 for Jamaica, where he
-enlisted the finances of his father-in-law, Wortley, in the project,
-and then moved on to Guatemala. There he was suspected of revolutionary
-activities, and after cabling Washington and receiving a satisfactory
-report from the state department, he was released, and made his way
-through Honduras to Nicaragua. There he spent some time, and saw
-something of O’Connell, the railroad man--enough to receive a pass
-over all lines of the Nicaraguan railroad.
-
-In 1913 he returned to the United States. Among the papers which we
-discovered was a record of an insurance policy for a maximum of $80,000
-worth of moving picture film at $4 a foot, which Duquesne took out
-with the Mannheim Insurance Company in New York on December 17. He was
-setting out on another expedition, and he wished to insure his reels of
-film on shipboard from
-
- “seas, fires, pirates, rovers, assailing thieves, jettison,
- barratry of the master and mariners, and all other perils,
- losses and misfortunes that have or shall come to the hurt,
- detriment or damage of the said goods and merchandise or any
- part thereof.”
-
-By a separate certificate the company also insured Duquesne against
-further risk, thus:
-
- “It is agreed that this insurance covers only the risk of
- capture, seizure or destruction by men-of-war, by letters of
- marque, by taking at sea, arrests, restraints, detainments
- or acts of kings, princes and people authorized by and in
- prosecution of hostilities between belligerent nations....”
-
-and off to the Spanish Main and the pirates and the assailing thieves
-sailed Fritz Duquesne.
-
-His migrations during the years of 1914 and 1915 are not clear. This
-much is certain: that on June 16, 1915, Sir C. Mallet, the British
-minister at Panama, wrote to the foreign office in London the following
-note, setting forth an observation he had made that day in the Zone:
-
-“Through a Canal Zone detective I learnt confidentially that a
-passenger named Captain F. Duquesne, travelling with a passport issued
-by the United States Consul at Mañaos, Brazil, had embarked for
-Trinidad on the R. M. S. _Panama_ on the 14th instant.
-
-“My informant stated that Captain Duquesne poses as an American officer
-but in reality is an intelligence officer in the service of the German
-Government.
-
-“I have warned the Governor of Trinidad by telegraph so that a watch
-may be kept on Captain Duquesne’s movements.”
-
-The wily captain had been cruising rather busily through the Caribbean,
-over the Isthmus, and into South America. His passport connected him
-with Mañaos, the British message established his presence at Panama
-and Trinidad, a German war communiqué dated “December 20,” and signed
-by the German consul, Lehmann, in Guatemala, showed that he was an
-acceptable guest at the outposts of the German Empire. And he had
-visited Nicaragua before he entered Panama in 1915, for we found in his
-possession this letter:
-
- “Managua, May 5, 1915.
-
- “Imperial German Consulate
- for Nicaragua:
-
- “It is a pleasure for me to recommend to you, my countrymen,
- the bearer of this, Mr. Fritz Duquesne, Captain of Engineers to
- the Boer army, very warmly.
-
- “The same gentleman has on many occasions given many notable
- services to our good German cause.
-
- “The Imperial German Consul,
- “UEBERSEXIG.”
-
-Enclosed in the envelope was Uebersexig’s personal card, reinforcing
-his recommendation of Duquesne as an accredited German agent.
-
-Trinidad is a good jumping-off place into the far tropics, and it
-is quite possible that as Ashton said Duquesne disappeared into the
-interior of Brazil, and “explored the unknown regions of Brazil and
-the Amazon.” It is not hard to find unknown regions of Brazil within
-a few miles of the coast. He probably did not penetrate far into the
-interior, for in January of 1916, he showed up in lower Brazil.
-
-He emerged from the interior as a valiant explorer, preceded by native
-carriers whom he had hired to transport his precious movie-film. As
-he approached the port of Bahia Duquesne’s personality underwent a
-perceptible change. Duquesne suddenly became George Fordham. Among his
-papers we found an application for shipment by a Brazilian broker which
-read as follows:
-
- “Honorable Superintendent.
-
- “Francisco Figuerado requests a permit to ship for New York
- via steamer _Verdi_ to sail on January 28, 1916, a case as
- described below:
-
- “Bahia, January 27, 1916.
-
- “Raul E. de Oliveira, Custom House Broker.
-
- “1 case weighing 80 kilos 00$500
-
- “One case of potter’s earth in dust (samples)”
-
-Potter’s earth may have been included in the materials in the case,
-but that is doubtful, for on October 4, 1916, “Mrs. Alice Duquesne
-being duly sworn deposes and says that she accompanied her husband,
-Captain Fritz Duquesne, during his trip through Central America in the
-Spring and Summer of 1914. That in the baggage was an iron trunk used
-to carry moving picture films and negatives which she presumes to be
-the same trunk that was subsequently shipped by Capt. Duquesne per
-the S. S. _Tennyson_ from Bahia to New York sailing in January, 1916.
-That the said trunk was about ½ inch thick, and made of iron about 45
-inches in length by 30 inches in height by 26 inches in depth ... had
-a hinged cover that overlapped the sides of same, and fastened down
-with two thumb screws and a lock. That two iron bands went around the
-trunk and were riveted to same. That the cover was lined with packing
-where it overlapped the sides of the trunk. That the said trunk was
-of very solid construction, painted a dark green, almost black, and
-that two men were required to lift same.” Hardly a suitable receptacle
-for potter’s earth. Furthermore, George Fordham, whose handwriting is
-identical with that of Fritz Duquesne for the simple reason that the
-two men were the same, on February 11 signed an invoice at the American
-consulate in Bahia stating that he solemnly and truly declared that
-the 28,000 feet of moving picture film and the 4100 negatives which
-he was shipping back to the United States were to the best of his
-knowledge and belief of the manufacture of the United States and had
-been exported from the United States in 1913.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- 1. A significant clipping found in Duquesne’s effects
-
- 2. A German Communique found on Duquesne
-
- 3. The United States Customs invoice by which Duquesne, as
- “George Fordham,” shipped his “Films”
-]
-
-The _Tennyson_ sailed quietly out of the river-mouth into the Atlantic
-and Duquesne vanished just as quietly. On February 26, when the ship
-was coasting along the Brazilian forest toward the Equator, a terrific
-explosion occurred in her hold, and three sailors were killed. The iron
-trunk never reached New York. The news of the catastrophe set fire to
-the British in South America and the English press seethed with such
-paragraphs as this--which we found in Duquesne’s papers, clipped from
-an Argentine newspaper:
-
- “Rio de Janeiro.
-
- “The confession of the clerk Bauer, arrested in connection
- with the _Tennyson_ outrage, which led to the discovery of the
- papers and funds of the band of German bombers in an English
- safe deposit institution reveals a plot of far-reaching
- consequences fraught with danger to the neutrality of a number
- of South American republics, as well as peril to the lives of
- their citizens.
-
- “Besides a number of important documents, the police seized
- $6,740 in American bills, which were in an envelope marked
- ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ and addressed: ‘Piet Naciud.’
- When this name was published it caused quite a shock in the
- Allied circles here, as this man always cultivated their
- society and even recited at their benefits. He was ever loud
- in his denunciations of the Germans, and as he was a Boer,
- or pretended to be one, was doubly liked for his seemingly
- praiseworthy attitude. Little did the English dream that they
- were harbouring a black-hearted spy in their midst whom they
- now know as one of the leading plotters whose audacity is
- beyond belief. The safe deposit was in his own name, and he
- gave his home address as Cape Town. Neither he nor the agent
- Niewirth and his fellow conspirators have yet been arrested. It
- is believed that they left with Naciud in a powerful motorboat
- that he owned.”
-
-How Captain Fritz Duquesne, alias Fordham, alias Naciud, must have
-chuckled as he sat safely in the neutral Argentine and read this
-flattering tribute to his audacity. For he did turn up presently
-in Buenos Aires, and embarked on a new audacity--nothing less than
-collecting the insurance of $80,000 for the loss of the film which he
-claimed to have shipped in the iron box!
-
-Let Ashton take up the story:
-
-“... his wife ... tried to collect the insurance, but was advised
-that she would have better chances ... if he would disappear. He
-then assumed the name of Fredericks. In 1916 a report was published
-in the New York _Evening Post_ and the New York _Times_ that he had
-been assassinated by Indians in the interior of Bolivia, and being
-interested I called at the office of the N. Y. _Post_ and asked Mr.
-A. D. H. Smith, editor, to look this report up, and he found that
-the report came from the Associated Press, the same being signed
-‘Fredericks.’ They also had a cablegram signed, ‘Captain Duquesne,’ and
-it said: ‘I am still alive.’ The report also said that he was the sole
-survivor of an attack from the Indians and that he was somewhere in
-Bolivia recovering in a hospital, the location being unknown. He sent
-the message signed ‘Fredericks’ himself from Buenos Aires.
-
-“He then became connected with the Board of Education of the Argentine,
-supplying films for the schools, and a certain politician in Buenos
-Aires claims he gave him $24,000 with which to purchase films (certain
-educational films). He claims to have come to New York with a man named
-Williamson and purchased the films, paying $24,000 in cash.”
-
-Mrs. Duquesne was already in New York, having a hard time collecting
-her claim against the German-owned Mannheim Insurance Company for the
-“sympathy verdict” for damage to the films. He stored the new films
-he claims to have purchased in the Fulton and Flatbush Warehouse, 437
-Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn--stored them as “statuary,” and used to visit
-the warehouse frequently. On one occasion he arrived after hours, and
-tried unsuccessfully to bribe the watchman to admit him. He moved to
-a small hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and about two weeks after the
-storage of the cases of “statuary” in the Brooklyn warehouse, the
-warehouse mysteriously caught fire.
-
-By a queer coincidence the “films”--Duquesne has never proved that he
-did buy them--which of course were destroyed in this fire too, had been
-insured by their purchaser, “Mr. Frederick Fredericks,” for $33,000 by
-the Stuyvesant Insurance Company, and he set out to collect the $33,000
-for the total loss of his property. If both claims proved successful,
-he and his wife would have gathered in some $113,000. But they found it
-one thing to be insured and another thing entirely to get the money.
-Times were not treating Duquesne well.
-
-Along in July, 1917, when the United States was in the throes of
-buckling down to the business of war, and Washington was sweltering
-under its increased load of war-time population and business, Ashton,
-Duquesne’s old friend, happened to have business in the capital. He
-dropped in to call on Robert F. Broussard, of New Iberia, Louisiana,
-who in 1915 had been elected senator from this state ... the same
-Broussard who had been the author of the hippopotamus bill. Ashton
-asked the United States Senator from Louisiana if he had heard from
-Captain Duquesne. Ashton continues: “his secretary overheard the
-conversation (his secretary is a charming young lady) and I took her
-out to dinner, and about five days later she wrote me and said, ‘You
-may be interested to know that Captain Duquesne is in Washington, but
-does not want it known.’ I immediately became interested and concluded
-that if Captain Duquesne was in Washington and did not want it known,
-especially to me, I ... would investigate. So I went to Washington ...”
-and learned something of Duquesne’s whereabouts and circumstances.
-
-“After hearing this story in Washington,” Ashton continues, “I learned
-that this man was in desperate need of assistance and I offered to
-help him in any way that I could.... Senator Broussard was trying to
-secure a position for him with General Goethals,... also at this time
-he had plans on file with the Secretary of the Navy, of an invention
-to destroy mines in harbors, and was hoping that he might secure a
-position with the Navy Department. I had been offered a position
-with George Creel, and I also introduced Duquesne to him, and I then
-got in touch with Major Kendall Barnelli. I advised him to listen to
-Duquesne and to give him a position. I also advised Barnelli that I was
-investigating Duquesne’s story.”
-
-Damon Ashton then brought Pythias Duquesne back to New York and put him
-up in the apartment in which the Bomb Squad men had first been called
-to investigate the theft of papers. Duquesne begged his friend not
-to make him known under his own name, as the insurance case for the
-warehouse fire was still pending. So Duquesne continued to masquerade
-as “Fredericks.” His health was poor, and he did not go to work at
-once. At times Ashton’s charity seemed to irk Duquesne, and he even
-went to the telephone and called up an agency to discuss a lecture
-tour. The lecture agents told him that only war lectures were making
-money. There was a real inspiration, and after working for several
-days to assemble a uniform of the West Australia Light Horse, correct
-in every detail, he dressed up in it and called at the lecture bureau
-as Captain Claude Staughton. His Australian experience as chaperone
-to the camels stood him in good stead, and he went about town mixing
-with British Army officers without arousing suspicion. He even got on
-famously with the late Sir George Reed, prime minister of Australia,
-whom he met one night at the Hotel Astor.
-
-The Pond lecture folk took him up and arranged a tour for him.
-Consciously or unconsciously, they swallowed Duquesne whole. They
-had him photographed in his new uniform, with the ribbons of three
-decorations over his heart, and they reproduced the natty figure on the
-cover of a publicity folder announcing the subjects on which Captain
-Claude Staughton was prepared to talk. “Captain Staughton,” read the
-folder, “has perhaps seen more of the war than any man at present
-before the public.... He wears ribbons showing that he has received
-five medals: two of these the King’s and Queen’s for service in the
-Boer war, carrying seven clasps; one is for service in Natal, and two
-for bravery in saving lives. A sixth French medal for which he has been
-cited is yet to be awarded. At the outbreak of the Boer war, Captain,
-then Lieutenant, Staughton, was an officer in one of Australia’s crack
-horse regiments, the Mounted Rifles. He went with his regiment to
-Africa, and served in Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Natal
-and Basuto Land. He was with Kitchener at the Battle of Paardeburg when
-General Cronje was captured; was with Lord Roberts at the Capture of
-Bloemfontein; at the fall of Johannesburg and the seizure of Pretoria.
-Later, in pursuit of DeWet’s army, he was attached to General Knox’s
-flying column as intelligence officer and commandeering officer for
-the Australian Bushmen. He later entered the Cape forces and took
-active part in the clearing up of Basuto Land, and in the last Natal
-insurrection he fought with the Natal forces.”
-
-That is a mere fragment of the fighting in which this eulogy proceeded
-to sketch Captain Staughton’s modest part. New Guinea, Gallipoli,
-Flanders, the Somme, Arras (illustrated by motion pictures), four
-times gassed, three times bayoneted, once pronged by a German
-trench-hook--those were the high lights of the career which, the folder
-assured the public, had finally brought him face to face with the most
-fearless lecture audience in the world--the United States. He would be
-pleased to lecture on the story of the Anzacs, underground warfare--or,
-on “German Spy Methods,” of which “he had learned much in Egypt.”
-
-One of the sub-topics in this lecture on German spy methods was this:
-“Germany pays nothing for its spying on us.--We pay it all.--How long
-will we stand it?”
-
-Well, we stood it for a long time--too long a time by half. But
-not long enough to permit Captain Staughton to lecture before many
-audiences, nor to ask this question too frequently. He gulled a few
-suburban Sunday schools, but his arrest put an end at least to his
-attempt to pick up a bit of odd change by collecting insurance.
-
-For the steamship _Tennyson_ was British territory, and, as this is
-written, the report comes that this picturesque charlatan is going back
-across the Atlantic, to be tried for the murder of a British sailor. So
-begins the last chapter in the story of Fritz Duquesne.
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, AND THE ANARCHIST
-
-
-We caught a glimpse, in the chapter describing the attempt to wreck St.
-Patrick’s Cathedral, of the peace-time game of the anarchist group;
-we looked into their meeting places and their disorderly minds; and
-those of us who are familiar with the localities which were their
-haunts in New York City will have been enabled to visualize with some
-clearness the squalid surroundings in which they worked. War gave
-them new opportunities, and possibly a few high-lights which the Bomb
-Squad caught of the anarchist, I. W. W., and Russian activities since
-1914 may prove to be readable. If they are readable the author should
-be content, but he will not be unless he has put before his people
-something which may serve as a warning for the period of readjustment
-which the end of war has opened.
-
-An anarchist publication appeared in New York, dated November 15, 1918,
-four days after Germany had signed the armistice, with this legend on
-its front page, in large type:
-
- “The War Is Dead: Long Live the Revolution!”
-
-It reflects the joyful frame of mind with which orthodox anarchists
-received the news of peace, and hailed the beginning of what they
-thought would be unrestrained guerilla warfare on law and class. They
-had done very little to help the war, and their two chief figures, Emma
-Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were in prison for obstructing the draft
-of America’s army. Yet the anarchists as a class were extremely happy.
-Let us review some of the reasons why.
-
-On October 25, 1915, Har Dayal, who had fled at the outbreak of war to
-the protection of Berlin, where he was placed in charge of the Indian
-Nationalist Committee, wrote from Amsterdam, Holland, to Alexander
-Berkman in New York. The letter follows:
-
- “Dear Comrade:
-
- “I am well and busy and sad. Can you send me some earnest and
- sincere comrades, men and women, who would like to help our
- Indian revolutionary movement in some way or other? I need the
- coöperation of very earnest comrades. Perhaps you can find
- them in New York or at Paterson. They should be real fighters,
- I. W. W.’s or anarchists. Our Indian party will make all
- necessary arrangements.
-
- “If some comrades wish to come, they should come to Holland. We
- have a centre in Amsterdam, and Dutch comrades are working with
- us. If some comrades are ready to come, please telegraph me
- from New York to the following address:
-
- “‘Israel Aaronson, c/o Madame Kercher,
- “‘116 Oude Scheveningerweg,
- “‘Scheveningen, Holland.’
-
- “My assumed name is ‘Israel Aaronson.’ Kindly don’t
- telegraph in your own name. The word ‘yes’ will suffice. The
- Rotterdam-Amerika Line will receive instructions from us here
- to give tickets, etc., to as many persons as you recommend. All
- financial arrangements will be made by our party.
-
- “News from India is good. We have lost (?) some very brave
- comrades in the recent skirmishes.
-
- “It would be better if you could intimate in your telegram how
- many comrades wish to come. For instance, put the number in
- some sentence. I shall understand, e. g., Five months’ holiday
- coming. Etc., etc.
-
- “The need for the services of comrades is urgent. Please do
- come to our help. We are fighting against heavy odds.
-
- “With love and respect.
-
- “Your for the Fight,
- “HAR DAYAL.”
-
- “P. S. Kindly be very careful in keeping everything secret
- and confidential. When comrades arrive they should go and
- see Domela Nieuwenhuis, 20 Burgmestre Schooklaan, Hilversum
- (near Amsterdam). He will tell them where to meet me. Please
- also write a letter to the above address in Scheveningen, in
- addition to the telegram. Telegram may be intercepted.
-
- “H. D.”
-
-[Illustration: Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy]
-
-Not satisfied apparently that this letter would reach Berkman, Har
-Dayal wrote another a week later, which read as follows:
-
- “Address: Israel Aaronson,
- “c/o Madame Kercher,
- “116 Oude Scheveningerweg,
- “Scheveningen.
-
- “Dear Comrade:
-
- “I am well and busy. Can you send me some earnest and sincere
- comrades men and women, to help our Indian revolutionary party
- at this juncture? They should be persons of good character. If
- Tannenbaum is free, would he like to come?
-
- “Please keep this matter strictly _secret_ and _confidential_.
- Kindly don’t discuss it with too many people.
-
- “This is a great opportunity for our party. I need the
- coöperation of earnest comrades for very important work.
- Several of our comrades have come from India with encouraging
- news and messages.
-
- “If some comrades can come, please _wire_ and _write_ to the
- above address to my assumed name, ‘Israel Aaronson.’ I shall
- send you money immediately to the name which you telegraph. Let
- it be a name beginning with a B. I shall understand. Please
- don’t telegraph in your own name.
-
- “Kindly also word the telegram in such a way that I can
- understand how many comrades are coming. If five comrades wish
- to come, please wire:
-
- “‘Five hundred dollars job vacant come.’ Just put the number of
- comrades before the ‘_hundred_.’ Or use any other device.
-
- “Kindly also send me names and addresses of the prominent
- anarchist comrades in Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden,
- Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, and other European
- countries. Please also send letters of introduction for me to
- them from Emma or yourself, if you know them.”
-
-And so on. There is enough to show the company the Hindu-German
-intriguers kept, and to show that the Hindu committee in Berlin had
-enough money to buy mercenaries from the American anarchist group, for
-which the American brokers would hardly go unrewarded. Rintelen, within
-a week of his arrival in the United States in May, 1915, had tried to
-hire anarchists to blow up shipping and start strikes in munitions
-plants. It further shows that during that week in October of 1915,
-Har Dayal had a bright thought that if he could only get letters from
-Emma Goldman or Berkman introducing him to the anarchists of Europe,
-and could perhaps introduce to them in turn his lieutenant, Frank
-Tannenbaum, from America--the same who stormed St. Alphonsus’ church
-with a gang of I. W. W.’s in 1914, demanding food--he could hoodwink
-the anarchists into believing that he was playing their game, and
-really make good use of them in playing his game--which of course was
-Berlin’s.
-
-As it happened, Tannenbaum was busy. So was Emma. So was Berkman,
-who received the letter. He was just formulating plans to go to San
-Francisco and become an editor--not a new avocation, for he had for
-ten years helped Emma Goldman issue a publication known as “Mother
-Earth”--and to carry out certain radical and novel ideas. Before we
-sketch the way in which he put those ideas on paper, it may be well
-to see what experiences he had had to generate ideas, and just what
-promise his career contained that he would be of guiding benefit to
-these United States.
-
-Alexander Berkman was a Russian by birth, and was then about 44 years
-old. When he was a youth of 20 he became involved in the famous
-Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, and on July 22, 1892, he burst into
-the office of Henry Frick, a steel manufacturer, in the Carnegie
-Building in Pittsburg and shot that gentleman in the neck. He then went
-to the Western Penitentiary and served fourteen years. This qualified
-him as a rare martyr among anarchists. After he got out of prison he
-was occasionally arrested in various cities, for wherever he appeared
-among advocates of violence there was pretty certain to be trouble.
-The long prison term had given him a chance to develop his mind, and
-he had written 512 pages on “The Prison Life of an Anarchist,” which
-the “Mother Earth Publishing Company” brought out, and which sold for
-$1.15--a very interesting book indeed.
-
-So he went to San Francisco in the fall of 1915. A short time before he
-left New York his friend Bill Shatoff gave him a farewell dinner. As
-the evening wore on the diners adjourned to the neighborhood of Second
-Avenue and Fifth Street for a frolic, and Berkman and Shatoff playfully
-mauled a policeman, and took his club away, for which both men were
-arrested. But that did not interfere long with Berkman’s departure for
-the Coast, and the purpose and fruit of his journey appeared within a
-short time.
-
-[Illustration: Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence]
-
-It was called _The Blast_. According to its own description _The
-Blast_ was a revolutionary labor weekly, which meant that it preached
-revolution every so often to those who had a grievance against their
-employers and to those who had no employers but who had a deep contempt
-for anything of the sort. Alexander Berkman appeared as editor and
-publisher, E. B. Morton as associate editor, and M. E. Fitzgerald
-as manager. It sold for five cents a copy, unless you bought it in
-bundles, in which case you paid half that price.
-
-In the first issue, dated January 15, 1916, the title of the paper is
-explained by the editor. “Do you mean to destroy?” he asks. “Do you
-mean to build? These are the questions we have been asked from many
-quarters by inquirers sympathetic and otherwise. Our reply is frank and
-bold: We mean both: to destroy and to build. For socially speaking,
-Destruction is the beginning of Construction.... The time is NOW. The
-breath of discontent is heavy upon this wide land. It permeates mill
-and mine, field and factory. Blind rebellion stalks upon highway and
-byway. To fire it with the spark of Hope, to kindle it with the light
-of Vision, and turn pale discontent into conscious social action--that
-is the crying problem of the hour. It is the great work calling to
-be done. To work, then, and blasted be every obstacle in the way of
-the Regeneration!” In a congratulatory telegram in the same issue,
-Emma wrote to Alexander: “Let _The Blast_ re-echo from coast to coast,
-inspiring strength and courage into the disinherited, and striking
-terror into the hearts of the craven enemy, now that one more of our
-brothers has fallen a victim to the insatiable Moloch. May _The Blast_
-tear up the solidified ignorance and cruelty of our social structure.
-Blast away! To the daring belongs the future.”
-
-A sample of the methods by which _The Blast_ proposed to begin its
-regeneration of the disinherited is this delicate editorial paragraph:
-
-
-“_Judas Made Respectable._
-
- “Judas Iscariot delivered the Nazarene agitator into the hands
- of the Roman District Attorney. This base betrayal incensed the
- people against the mercenary stool-pigeon. Judas had enough
- decency to go and hang himself.”
-
-A slap evidently at the person whom Emma referred to in her telegram,
-who had just sold out to Moloch.
-
-It was a cardinal principle of the paper to be scurrilous and direct
-in its attacks upon the enemies of anarchy. General Harrison Grey
-Otis, a Los Angeles publisher whose newspaper building was bombed in
-1912 after labor trouble, was referred to as “General Hungry Growl
-Otis,” Colonel Roosevelt as “The Human Blowout.” The leading cartoon
-of the second issue, drawn--and well drawn--by Robert Minor, showed a
-huge figure of a laborer bearing on a tray the figure of a tiny though
-corpulent judge, its mouth open in speech, and its chair guarded by
-three stolid elephantine policemen. The laborer is bearing the dish to
-a feast of anarchists, the title of Minor’s contribution is “The Court
-Orders--.” The court had evidently ordered in the direction of _The
-Blast_, and Berkman did not like the order. In the same issue he wrote
-editorials against conscription in England, against the convention
-of the American Federation of Labor which had just been held in San
-Francisco, against its president, Samuel Gompers, and against national
-preparedness.
-
-I have quoted these extracts not because they are specially interesting
-or readable, but because they will give one who is not wholly familiar
-with the practical platform of anarchy a suggestion of anarchy’s tone
-of voice. It is not friendly, but is on the contrary quite snobbish.
-Selig Schulberg, in an article on Mexico, gently suggested: “Toilers
-of America, if the Hearsts, Otises and Rockefellers have property, for
-which they want protection, in Mexico, let _them_ protect it!” The
-editor says: “The Fords, the Bryans, the Jane Addams may be sincere.
-If so they are blind leaders of the blind.” A writer signing himself
-“L. E. Claypool,” wrote, under the title “Preparedness is Hell,” this
-tribute to our tortured Ally in Europe: “Most of you gents that yell
-(i. e., yell, ‘What about Belgium?’) never heard of Belgium till this
-war broke out. A lot of you probably don’t know that the language
-of the Belgians is French. Further, you don’t know that Belgium had
-a treaty with England and France which placed the little nation in
-the war before the German invasion. You may not know that French and
-English engineers and military experts had surveyed the land and were
-preparing to make it a battle ground long before the Germans did
-so.” That statement was typical German propaganda of a very crude
-sort, calculated to appeal by its insinuation to the class of readers
-who affected _The Blast_. The platform of the paper, in a word, was
-Against.
-
-Berkman was in a rich field for labor unrest. California is a strong
-labor state. The whole country, outside as well as inside California,
-had been excited over the _Los Angeles Times_ bomb affair in 1912, and
-it revived that excitement when two of the culprits were prosecuted
-three years later. One finds constant reference to the case in the
-files of _The Blast_, and to the strikes at Lawrence, Mass., and
-Ludlow, Colorado, and Youngstown, Ohio. Anti-capitalistic rough-house
-in any corner of the continent was good copy for Berkman. If it
-flagged for a moment he took up the cudgels for his friend Emma, who
-had just been arrested in New York and sentenced to the workhouse for
-distributing birth-control literature. Or he dove into international
-relations, comparing in one instance Villa and President Wilson, with
-little mercy for the latter. The issue of April Fool’s Day, 1916,
-carried a leading editorial directed against the Pacific Coast Defense
-League, just organized to bring the national guard of the Pacific and
-Mountain states into a condition of higher efficiency and to start
-a program of “healthy physical and military training” in the public
-schools. This editorial was signed by Tom Mooney, who soon appeared in
-the columns of the paper in another capacity.
-
-The publication did not go unheeded by the Post Office department.
-On May 1 Berkman burst out with an article headed, “To Hell With The
-Government,” in which he used language that would make any ordinary
-head of hair curl up. He was angry because the Government had issued an
-order holding up all succeeding issues of the paper. In an editorial
-he said he welcomed the uprising in Ireland--the Easter Day affair in
-Dublin which cost several Sinn Feiners their lives. Other anarchistic
-publications in the country were meeting the same fate. _The Alarm_, in
-Chicago, _Revolt_ of New York, _Regeneracion_, a Mexican revolutionary
-sheet issued in Los Angeles, and _Voluntad_, a Spanish paper in New
-York, were closed up. But Berkman went on publishing, and howling about
-the constitutional freedom of the press. Back in New York other friends
-of his had been making more trouble: Mrs. Max Eastman and Bolton Hall
-were arrested for circulating birth-control pamphlets, and Bouck White
-was jailed for distributing an effigy of the American flag bearing a
-dollar-mark. Berkman took up their cases and howled. He sent appeals
-for help in his fight against the Post Office department, and raised
-a little money. One of his liberal contributors was a writer named
-John Reed, who sent him five dollars from New York. Then a strike
-broke out, fostered by the I. W. W., on the iron ranges in Northern
-Minnesota, and William M. Haywood wrote Berkman an appeal for help
-which the latter published in _The Blast_ with a eulogy. He found
-no dearth of subjects to fill his pages, and then suddenly came an
-interruption.
-
-San Francisco turned out in a great preparedness parade on July 22.
-Someone threw a bomb into the ranks of the marchers. Nine people were
-killed. The next issue of _The Blast_ said substantially: “Well,
-they might have expected it,” and said actually: “To try to connect
-the Anarchists, the I. W. W., the Labor elements or the participants
-in the peace meeting with the bomb tragedy is stupid. The act was
-obviously the work of an individual who evidently sought to express
-his opposition to Preparedness for Slaughter by using the ammunition
-of Preparedness. Terrible as it is, it is merely a foretaste in
-miniature of what the people may expect multiplied a million times,
-from the Preparedness insanity.” When two men, Nolan and Tom Mooney,
-were arrested and charged with the crime, _The Blast_ rushed to their
-defense. When Warren Billings and Israel Weinberg were added to the
-list of accused, _The Blast_ ran sketches of the defendants by Minor,
-the staff artist. The case was of consuming interest to the anarchist
-group, and they rubbed their hands, in _The Blast_ office, over their
-good luck that it had happened right in their own little circle. _The
-Blast_ ceased firing random shots and focussed on the bomb case in
-salvos, followed the course of the trials, drew a parallel between the
-condition of the San Francisco suspects and that of Fielden, Neebe and
-Schwab, three of the anarchists who were implicated in the Haymarket
-bomb outrage in Chicago in 1886 and pardoned.
-
-The business of being an anarchist became surrounded with more and
-more difficulty as the year drew toward a close. Caplan, the fourth
-Los Angeles bomb suspect to be tried, was convicted and sentenced to
-ten years; a group of laborers who had engaged in violence in strikes
-against the United States Steel Corporation were under sentence in a
-Pittsburg prison; Carlo Tresca (whom we recall as a speaker at the
-Brescia Circle in 1915), and ten others were in jail in Duluth charged
-with murder in the I. W. W. strike on the Mesaba Iron range; the Magon
-brothers, two Mexican revolutionary anarchists, were in prison, and the
-days of _The Blast_ were numbered. Berkman came back to New York in the
-fall. While he was absent, _The Blast_ sputtered once more in its
-issue of January, 1917, with a venomous cartoon by Minor, and went out,
-for want of funds.
-
-[Illustration: Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence]
-
-Berkman found Emma Goldman well and prosperous. She had visited him in
-March in San Francisco, and again in June and July had delivered two
-series of birth-control lectures there. After her first visit, _The
-Blast_ had blossomed out with a book advertisement, which included
-the list of volumes sold by the Mother Earth Publishing Company in
-New York. There were the usual texts on anarchy, revolution, and
-syndicalism, and it is interesting to note among the books sent to
-Berkman for review the following titles: “A Few Facts About British
-Rule In India. Published by the Hindustani Gadar, San Francisco,”
-“India’s ‘Loyalty’ to England. Published by The Indian Nationalist
-Party,” and “The Methods of the Indian Police in the Twentieth Century.
-Published by the Hindustan Gadar.” Har Dayal had been the editor of
-_Ghadr_ until 1914; apparently his acquaintanceship with Berkman was
-being kept fresh by his successors at the nest of Hindu intrigue in
-Berkeley.
-
-But when Berkman got back to New York he found that birth-control was
-no longer the thing. A new development had taken place, half-way
-around the earth, and it looked promising for the anarchistic
-interests. So we must leave the two for a moment.
-
-On January 9, 1917, the Russian premier resigned. A fortnight later
-the newspapers announced that the Germans had recaptured considerable
-important ground on the Riga front. On February 3, the United States
-severed diplomatic relations with Germany, gave Bernstorff his papers,
-and sent him home two weeks later. On March 11 a revolutionary
-demonstration broke out in Petrograd, and the next day the Czar of All
-the Russias abdicated his throne. A new cabinet was formed, its foreign
-minister told the Allies that Russia would continue to fight, and the
-United States recognized the new régime. The news was hailed with a
-good deal of fraternal spirit in America, and with special cordiality
-in New York, where there were great numbers of Russians who had left
-Europe to escape the persecution of the old régime.
-
-Many of the New York Russians knew what was going to happen in
-Petrograd. The Bomb Squad made friends with an anarchist as early as
-February 1, 1917. On that day at a spot not far from where Shatoff
-and Berkman had attacked the policeman a year before, a certain
-Mr. Plotkin met a Mr. Bogdanovitch. Plotkin urged Bogdanovitch to
-call a special conference of all the revolutionary organizations in
-the city to protest against militarism. “No,” said the conservative
-Bogdanovitch. “Our group will either have to pass a resolution as a
-single unit, or else go over to Group 2 and see what they are doing
-about this news that we are going to have war. Don’t be too ready to
-jump to conclusions.” So the two went to call on Group 2, which was
-in session--some 50 Russians and Russian Jews, who spent the evening
-harmlessly reading the war prospects from American newspapers. No
-resolution was passed.
-
-The next night, however, there was a lecture at Beethoven Hall, at 210
-East 5th Street. The speaker was introduced as “Mr. Bornstein,” who had
-just returned from Russia. “Mr. Bornstein” was Leon Trotzky.
-
-Trotzky, using the Russian language, told of the plans that were being
-developed for revolution. “You anarchists here,” he said, “don’t want
-any militarism or any government which is of no help to the working
-class, and is always ready to fire on the workman. It’s time you did
-away with such a government once and forever!” After his speech, the
-chairman, Comrade G. Chudnofsky, rose and addressed the crowd of 300
-in the hall, to this effect:
-
-“Comrades, some of you can’t read English. You don’t know what is
-going on until you see it in the Russian papers. Only to-day I noticed
-that the Police Commissioner is going to call out all the reserves he
-can get to handle the situation, since Germany notified America what
-she would do. The capitalistic government is _afraid of us_! They are
-afraid of the working class. Remember that, for in case of war, we can
-protest against militarism and start our own war. Here is a resolution
-which I propose to prevent any of our loyal number joining the army. I
-will read it.” And he read it.
-
-The next day Bill Shatoff was scheduled to speak at a meeting at Number
-9 Second Avenue, but he was suddenly called to Boston, and a substitute
-took the platform. He was howled down because he made a speech which
-reflected loyalty to the United States. The audience consisted of 75
-Russians, of whom some 30 were anarchists known to the Bomb Squad. The
-United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany that night.
-
-On February 4 the representatives of several of the Russian anarchist
-groups were to meet at 534 East 5th Street and pass the resolution
-against militarism, but they could not agree upon it, and the session
-ended by postponing the matter. Most of the delegates present adjourned
-to 64 East 7th Street (almost within earshot of the Washington Arch),
-to hear Chudnofsky rave against enlistment, the police, the government
-and the war.
-
-Those little meetings were typical of the eruptions which occurred
-throughout the poorer districts of the great city during the remainder
-of the month of February. Such propagandists as Chudnofsky and Trotzky,
-uttering their exhortations to a multiplication of such groups as
-gathered in the Fifth Street house, spread among the gossipy East
-Siders and into the remotest slums the news that great things were
-about to happen in Russia, and rumor and expectancy set the stage for
-the arrival of the news of the revolution on March 12. The leaders then
-began to mobilize their forces and act quickly. Under Shatoff, Schnabel
-and Rodes the revolutionary fire was passed along from one to another.
-The story was that Russia was free, reclaimed from Czardom and all that
-it had meant of oppression.
-
-The lid was off, and it was a case of first come, first served. The
-Provisional Government was no better than any other, these men said.
-“Russia shall be ours.” “How?” asked the eager disciples. “By helping
-yourselves,” answered Shatoff and Schnabel and Rodes. “That’s all very
-well,” said the proletariat, “but we haven’t the price.” “Oh, in that
-case, come to the farewell meeting on March 26 for Leon Trotzky, at
-Harlem River Casino, and all will be made clear to you.”
-
-Some 800 people were at Trotzky’s farewell party, which was held under
-the auspices of the German Socialist Federation. Alexander Berkman and
-Emma Goldman were among those present. A blond Russian made a speech in
-which he said: “Comrades, some of us are going back to Russia to push
-the revolution as we think it ought to be pushed, and those who remain
-here must get ready to do their share of the work as it ought to be
-done.” Trotzky then rose and speaking first in German, then in Russian,
-repeated the advice the previous speaker had given, and added: “You who
-stay here must work hand in hand with the revolution in Russia, for
-only in that way can you accomplish revolution in the United States.”
-He was cheered to the echo.
-
-(There are still those who wonder why we have not recognized the
-Bolsheviki.)
-
-The pier of the Norwegian-American line the next morning was a strange
-sight. Trotzky, with his wife, Chudnofsky, Plotkin, and a group
-of fifty more Russians, including such names as Muhin, Rapaport,
-Dnieprofsky, Yaroshefsky and Rashkofsky, sailed for Norway. An
-undersized, wild-eyed, fanatic little plucked-bantam of a Russian
-expatriate literally set out from Hoboken to upset the Provisional
-Government of Russia, prevent the formation of a republic, stop the war
-with Germany and prevent interference from other governments--that was
-his open boast. And, if such a mission can be crowned with success, he
-succeeded.
-
-The leaders of the groups left behind began that very afternoon to
-examine recruits for the return to Russia. They met at 534 East 5th
-Street and elected a committee of five to serve as examining board
-for applicants for the $20 to $50 free passage money extended by the
-Provisional Government to help Russians who had fled the persecutions
-of the old days to repatriate themselves. It is unnecessary to state
-that the Provisional Government hardly knew how thoroughly these homing
-pigeons were going to re-establish themselves. All those who passed
-muster were put down for a sailing date.
-
-The Norwegian ship bearing Trotzky and his party put into Halifax and
-the British detained the entire passenger list. On April 15 a mass
-meeting of anarchists, socialists, and Industrial Workers of the World
-was held at Manhattan Lyceum to make a formal protest to the British
-government against their detention. Kerensky asked for their release,
-and they were allowed to go on. By this time a second consignment had
-left, but by a different route. On April 3 George Brewer, H. Gurin,
-Mr. and Mrs. David Rohlis, one Kotz, one Schmidt, one Nemiroff and 27
-others left the Pennsylvania Station for Chicago, Vancouver, Japan
-and Siberia. On April 23 Comrades Bogdanovitch, Bendetsky, Albert
-Greenfield, John (or Ivan) Stepanoff, Michael Smirnoff, Henry Shklar
-and 89 more left on the Erie Railroad for Seattle, Japan and Siberia.
-On the 12th day of May, “Dynamite Louise” Berg, sister of the anarchist
-who was killed July 4, 1914, by the accidental explosion of a bomb,
-boarded the steamship _United States_ of the Scandinavian-American Line
-in Hoboken for Christiania and Russia. On that ship sailed nearly a
-hundred others of the anarchist and revolutionary element. Ninety more,
-including Sokoloff, a prominent I. W. W., left for San Francisco
-and Japan two days later. On May 26 Mrs. Bill Shatoff, with Alexander
-Broide, J. Wishniefsky, and 18 more members of the Coöperative
-Anarchist Organization sailed from Hoboken on the _Oskar II_. Two days
-passed and Meyer Bell, an anarchist who had seen the inside of many an
-American jail for revolutionary agitation, and Mrs. Meyer Bell, with
-110 others took their departure for San Francisco and the Orient. The
-last consignment but one, a group of 90 more potential Bolsheviki,
-followed them on June 24.
-
-[Illustration: Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence]
-
-Shatoff and Wolin waited until their flock had been herded out of
-the country, and then vanished themselves. No one knew their route,
-but they were heard from in Seattle. Altogether some 600 anarchists
-made the pilgrimage. Some never reached Russia. Others who did get
-back found that conditions offered slim picking, and the Chinese and
-Manchurian ports are sprinkled with them to-day--men without a country,
-who cannot live in Russia, and who may not return to the United States.
-
-Those who did get through to the capital of Russia straightway joined
-the organization. Trotzky had found Lenine there with plans already
-well advanced. The Provisional Government superficially was adequate
-to handle the situation, and during June it gave some slight promise
-of being able to prosecute its share of the war, but a breach was
-coming. A Council of Workmen and Soldiers had sprung up to oppose the
-Duma and the government when the Duma voted for an immediate offensive
-in Galicia, the Council voted for a separate peace. Kerensky swung
-himself back into balance for a month, and led a military offensive. It
-turned into a retreat, the retreat into a rout. Korniloff took command
-of the army on August 2, and the following day the military governor
-of Petrograd was assassinated. The deposed Czar was taken to Siberia.
-On September 2 Kerensky tried the expedient of arrest against his
-rising enemies in Moscow. On September 16 he proclaimed a new republic,
-but political structures could not keep out the terrifying German
-military advance that already was threatening Petrograd nor the German
-propaganda which was already there. Mid-October saw the government in
-flight to Moscow. On the 21st of October Leon Trotzky, at the head of
-the Bolsheviki in the Council, declared his party for an immediate
-democratic peace, and left the hall at their head, cheering. Municipal
-elections on November 1 rejected the Bolsheviki, but they would not be
-rejected, and on November 7 the Maximalists deposed Kerensky and took
-possession of the Government. Lenine became premier, Trotzky minister
-of foreign affairs.
-
-The New York delegation won influential positions under the new
-régime. A United States senator has described the current Russian
-government as nothing but “Lenine and a gang of anarchists from New
-York, Philadelphia and Chicago.” Wolin took charge of a branch of the
-press--a sort of commissioner of public misinformation. Shatoff, in
-America a humble syndicalist and I. W. W., rose to the eminence of
-chairman of the “Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle Against
-Speculators and the Counter Revolution” in Petrograd, a commission
-whose activities are perhaps better described by its common title
-in the capital. It is called the “Blood and Murder” or the “To the
-Wall” committee. He has filled in his spare time as Commissioner of
-Railroads, and has been commonly credited in Petrograd with the murder
-of the Czar and his family. Ouritzky, Shatoff’s predecessor at the
-head of the Committee, had amassed a fortune of some four million
-roubles during his tenure of office. He died a violent death. Shatoff,
-in October of 1918, had not followed suit. The same John Reed who
-contributed to the support of the _Blast_ appeared in Petrograd as a
-sympathetic correspondent, and was made consul to New York--a portfolio
-which he was unable to use when he returned to New York because of
-his indictment, along with Max Eastman and several other editors of
-a paper known as _The Masses_, for attempting to obstruct the draft.
-The balance of the New York anarchists who made up the expeditionary
-force of 1917 found their way, such of them as escaped the rigors of
-Petrograd life, into positions of influence in the government of one
-hundred or more millions of Russian people. To be sure, their hold is
-not too secure, but they are enjoying for the moment a sense of power
-which is intoxicating. Nothing seems to please a Bolshevik of the New
-York City group more than power--the same thing he tried to overthrow.
-I suppose it makes a difference whose power it happens to be.
-
-Neither Goldman nor Berkman returned to Russia. Their publishing and
-bookselling business kept them here, and both were always in demand as
-lecturers. Both had pictured themselves for many years as the champions
-of anarchy in the United States, and it is conceivable that they
-did not wish to pass over their sceptres to any less well qualified
-successors. Unlike the ringleaders of the I. W. W., these anarchists
-did not dodge real work. Both had active minds, and were happiest when
-they were busy. Berkman’s writing at times shows a certain cheerful
-tenderness underneath its bombast, and Emma Goldman had a rather
-good-natured sarcasm at times as a speaker.
-
-The two cast their lot in with the pacifists, the
-anti-conscriptionists, and the factions whose chief aim was to
-interfere with America’s going to war. Emma began to lecture on the
-subject. On the night of May 18 she spoke to a meeting in the Harlem
-River Casino. After a preamble advising the audience that government
-agents were present and that violence would be out of order, she drew
-what she probably considered a logical conclusion from this advice and
-shouted:
-
-“And so, friends, we don’t care what people will say about us. We
-only care for one thing, and that is to demonstrate to-night, and to
-demonstrate as long as we can be able to speak, that when America went
-to war ostensibly to fight for democracy, it was a dastardly lie.
-It never went to war for democracy!... It is not a war of economic
-independence, it is a war for conquest. It is a war for military
-power. It is a war for money. It is a war for the purpose of trampling
-underfoot every vestige of liberty that you people have worked for,
-for the last forty or thirty or twenty-five years, and therefore we
-refuse to support such a war....
-
-“We believe in violence and we will use violence.... How many people
-are going to refuse to conscript? I say there are enough. I could count
-fifty thousand, and there will be more.... They will not register! What
-are you going to do if there are 500,000? It will not be such an easy
-job, and it will compel the government to sit up and take notice, and
-therefore we are going to support, with all the money and publicity at
-our hands, all the men who will refuse to register and who will refuse
-to fight.
-
-“I hope this meeting is not going to be the last. As a matter of fact
-we are planning something else.... We will have a demonstration of all
-the people who will not be conscripted, and who will not register. We
-are going to have the largest demonstration this city has ever seen,
-and no power on earth will stop us.... If there is any man in this hall
-that despairs, let him look across at Russia ... and see the wonderful
-thing that revolution has done....
-
-“What is your answer? Your answer to war must be a general strike, and
-then the governing class will have something on its hands....”
-
-She wound up her speech with an appeal for funds, and said that her
-paper, _Mother Earth_, was going to support the rebellion against
-the draft law which had been signed by the president that very day.
-_Mother Earth_ spoke, in her next issue, which appeared shortly before
-registration day, June 5, and spoke in fairly disapproving terms toward
-conscription. But the sun went down into New Jersey on registration day
-without having witnessed the greatest demonstration New York City ever
-saw, or any demonstration whatever save the quiet, cheerful enrollment
-of what later became a heroic national army.
-
-On June 15 Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested in the
-office of _Mother Earth_ at 20 East 125th Street. On June 27 they were
-arraigned for trial. On July 9 the jury pronounced them guilty of
-having attempted to obstruct the draft. Judge Mayer thereupon sentenced
-Berkman to two years in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta, Goldman
-to the state penitentiary at Jefferson City, Missouri for two years,
-and fined each of them $10,000. It was a stiff blow to organized
-anarchy--the maximum sentence possible, and the judge followed it by
-directing the District Attorney, Harold A. Content, to notify the
-Commissioner of Labor of the conviction, in order that when the two
-emerged from prison, they might be deported as aliens convicted of two
-or more crimes to the country from which they came, bringing uplift to
-down-trodden America.
-
-Their work has since been carried on in a more or less desultory way.
-They, too, have become official martyrs to the cause, whose names will
-be inscribed along with those of Brescia, the Haymarket murderers, and
-a score of others, on the anarchist service flag. The undercurrent
-of opposition appeared spasmodically during the war and it became
-necessary for an Alabama Judge, sitting in the District Court of New
-York, on October 25, 1918, to impose maximum sentences under the
-espionage act upon three more advocates of unrest, Jacob Abrams, Samuel
-Lipman and Hyman Lachnowsky, the ringleaders of a group who circulated
-leaflets denouncing armed intervention in Russia and advocating a
-general strike. They were sentenced to twenty years apiece; a fourth
-member got three years and a $1,000 fine. A woman in the group, Mollie
-Steiner, was sentenced to fifteen years.
-
-The efforts at “demonstration” which the imported anarchists in America
-have employed are neither as picturesque nor as popularly received as
-those of their comrades in the old world. Anarchy is out of tune in
-America. Prussianism has already had its answer from the United States.
-Bolshevism is not for a well-educated, deep-breathing nation like ours.
-And anarchy, the poorest wretch of the three, must make terrifying
-faces through some other window than that of a country full of people
-who are going to continue to make this democracy safe for itself.
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
-preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not
-changed. Inconsistent hyphenation was not changed.
-
-Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
-marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
-unbalanced.
-
-Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
-and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
-hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
-the corresponding illustrations.
-
-Transcribers improved readability of some numbers in some
-illustrations, and switched the transcribed sequence of the text of one
-pair of “random pages” (following page 26) to make it easier to follow.
-
-Transcriber corrected the Title page misspelling of “SMALLL, MAYNARD &
-COMPANY” to “SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY”, which is how it appears on the
-Copyright page.
-
-Transcriber removed redundant book title just above the title of the
-first chapter.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Throttled!, by Thomas Tunney
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Throttled!, by Thomas Tunney
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll
-have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
-this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Throttled!
- The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters
-
-Author: Thomas Tunney
-
-Editor: Paul Merrick Hollister
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2020 [EBook #61996]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROTTLED! ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by deaurider, Charlie Howard, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div class="transnote covernote">
-<p class="center larger">Transcriber’s Note</p>
-
-<p>Cover created by Transcriber, using images from
-original book, and placed in the Public Domain.</p>
-</div>
-
-<h1>THROTTLED!</h1>
-
-<div id="i_frontis" class="newpage figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;">
- <img src="images/i_001a.jpg" width="432" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Inspector Thomas J. Tunney</div></div>
-
-<div class="newpage p4 center wspace">
-<p class="xxlarge">
-<span class="larger">THROTTLED!</span></p>
-
-<p class="p1 larger"><i>THE DETECTION OF THE GERMAN<br />
-AND ANARCHIST BOMB PLOTTERS</i></p>
-
-<p class="p2">BY</p>
-
-<p>INSPECTOR THOMAS J. TUNNEY<br />
-
-<span class="smaller">Head of the Bomb Squad of the New York<br />
-Police Department</span></p>
-
-<p class="p1 small">AS TOLD TO</p>
-
-<p><span class="larger">PAUL MERRICK HOLLISTER</span><br />
-
-Author, with John Price Jones, of “The German<br />
-Secret Service in America”</p>
-
-<p class="p2 vspace">ILLUSTRATED<br />
-FROM PHOTOGRAPHS</p>
-
-<div id="i_logo" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 6em;">
- <img src="images/i_002.png" width="96" height="133" alt="" /></div>
-
-<p class="p2 larger vspace">BOSTON<br />
-SMALL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY<br />
-PUBLISHERS
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="newpage p4 center vspace">
-Copyright, 1919<br />
-<span class="larger"><span class="smcap">By</span> SMALL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY</span><br />
-(INCORPORATED)
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="newpage p4 center vspace narrow">
-<p class="larger">TO<br />
-ARTHUR WOODS</p>
-
-<p>Formerly Police Commissioner of the
-City of New York, now colonel in the
-United States Army, whose vision and
-coöperation made the work of the
-Bomb Squad possible, this volume is
-respectfully dedicated</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Inspector Tunney’s Squad was formed early in
-August, 1914, to specialize in organized crimes of
-violence. It did some radically effective work
-against Black Handers, and handled several cases
-against domestic enemies of law and order, but as
-time wore on and war developed, the Squad’s
-energies became directed solely against the nefarious
-activities of Germans among us.</p>
-
-<p>Inspector Tunney is a most skilful detective, resourceful,
-persistent, understanding human nature,
-a good leader. He picked a squad of fearless,
-tireless men, who not only worked long and hard,
-but showed marked skill and tact. They proved
-themselves to be Americans all the way through,
-aggressive, loyal, bound to put the job through, no
-matter what the difficulties might be. They were
-occupied in hunting out Germans who were outraging
-our neutrality; and then—after we finally
-started to make war against those who had so long
-been warring against us, on the high seas and in
-our very midst—they set to work to thwart and
-capture active German enemies. The results they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span>
-got went far toward making it possible to maintain
-order in New York during those months and years
-which were full of such menace to the safety of
-the city, when the national danger seemed so plain—so
-increasingly plain—and the national military
-strength was so woefully weak. In many
-cases the Inspector worked in coöperation with one
-or more of the Federal Secret Service forces. The
-Federal work was seriously hampered, however,
-at first by hopelessly inadequate organization, and,
-later, by the existence of several entirely distinct
-forces, instead of one powerful, unified body.</p>
-
-<p>Inspector Tunney has written a most interesting
-book. Much of what he tells I knew about at the
-time, from conference with him, or with Major
-Scull, Colonel Biddle, or Major Potter, and some
-of the events described I had intimate knowledge
-of because of personal attention to the cases.
-Some, however, I personally know nothing about,
-as they have taken place since I left the Department
-on January 1, 1918. And a vast amount of
-good work, of real public service, was done by Inspector
-Tunney and his men that is not touched
-upon in this book, that probably will never be written,
-since, though of great value to the public
-peace, it lacks some of the dramatic features which
-characterize the tales that are told.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span>
-No one can read the book without seeing how
-brutally active our enemies were here in this country,
-even while we were at peace with them, how
-they flouted our neutrality brazenly and contemptuously,
-how they busied themselves through
-their accredited officials and their many secret
-agents in trying to paralyze our industrial life.
-Their deliberate effort was to prevent the shipment
-of all vital supplies to the Allies, and they
-sought this end by fomenting labor troubles, by
-burning factories, by blowing up ships. It mattered
-not the slightest to them that in this kind of
-activity they destroyed the property of a people at
-peace with them, nor did they give a deterring
-thought to the fact that they were maiming and
-killing human beings with their burnings and blastings.
-It did concern them, however, to keep
-things dark, to work under cover, so that they
-might continue this underhanded war against us
-without being found out. It was the warfare of
-the savage, who knows not fair play, who is guided
-by no rules or customs, who strikes down his enemy
-in the dark, from behind.</p>
-
-<p>The lessons to America are clear as day. We
-must not again be caught napping with no adequate
-national Intelligence organization. The several
-Federal bureaus should be welded into one, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">x</span>
-that one should be eternally and comprehensively
-vigilant. We must be wary of strange doctrine,
-steady in judgment, instinctively repelling those
-who seek to poison public opinion. And our laws
-should be amended so that while they give free
-scope to Americans for untrammeled expression
-of differences of opinion and theory and belief,
-they forbid and prevent the enemy plotter and
-propagandist.</p>
-
-<p>There was another part of the Squad’s work,
-which had to do not with foreign, but with domestic,
-enemies. The industrial condition of unemployment,
-which was so sharp in 1914 and 1915,
-was exploited by those who believed in propaganda
-by violence, hoping to find eager and bitter listeners
-in the thousands who could not get work. To
-ameliorate the hardships of the situation the police
-in New York tried several plans which were at
-that time rather new as police methods. They
-found jobs for people; they afforded relief in cases
-of distress from funds, more than half of which
-were subscribed by policemen. When street meetings
-were held and excitement ran high, they held
-unswervingly to the line of conduct mapped out
-for them. They not merely permitted free assemblage
-but protected meetings so long as they
-kept the laws; and the law was kept if the meeting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span>
-did not incite to violence or obstruct the highways.
-In case of threatened violence, action, prompt and
-strong, was taken to prevent it. Order must be
-maintained. Inspector Tunney’s Squad were actively
-engaged here, not in trying to bottle up the
-preachers of any particular doctrine, but simply in
-finding out who were the plotters of violent deeds
-and bringing them to justice.</p>
-
-<p>I believe the police methods in these times were
-wholesome and effective, and are the right ones to
-follow in times of public excitement and industrial
-disturbances. They make it clear in practice that
-leeway will be given to all for the full exercise of
-their lawful rights; and equally clear that adequate
-means will be taken to prevent recourse to unlawful
-measures. In many places in this country
-where serious disorder and bloodshed have come
-to pass, the trouble seems to have been fostered, at
-least, by the denial to groups of people of some of
-their lawful rights.</p>
-
-<p>I hope this book will help to teach another lesson
-also: the need in our police forces of brains
-and high morale; the need of cultivating the professional
-spirit in them, that shall dignify the work,
-shall banish political influence and all other influences
-that go to break the heart of the policeman
-who tries to do his plain duty; the need of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">xii</span>
-having the public take an intelligent interest in
-police methods and results, doing away with the
-smoke-screens of mystery and concealment which
-are traditionally employed to cover dishonesty or
-incompetency.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-<span class="smcap">Arthur Woods</span>
-</p>
-
-<p class="in0">
-February, 1919.
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table id="toc" summary="Contents">
- <tr class="small">
- <td class="tdl" colspan="2">CHAPTER</td>
- <td class="tdr">PAGE</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">I</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Bomb Squad</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I">1</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">II</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Westphalian Efficiency</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#II">8</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">III</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Playing with Fire</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#III">39</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">IV</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Hindu-Boche Failures</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#IV">69</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">V</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A True Pirate Tale</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#V">108</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">VI</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Along the Waterfront: Sugar and Ships and Robert Fay</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#VI">126</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">VII</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Along the Waterfront (II): “Damn Him, Rintelen!”</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#VII">156</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">VIII</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mr. Holt’s Four Days</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#VIII">183</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">IX</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Nature Faker</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#IX">217</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">X</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Prussian, the Bolshevik, and the Anarchist</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#X">246</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">xv</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table id="loi" summary="Illustrations">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Inspector Thomas J. Tunney</td>
- <td class="tdr w10"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
- <tr class="small">
- <td> </td>
- <td class="tdr">PAGE</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military Intelligence</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_4">4</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Paul Koenig</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_10">10</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_22">22</a>, <a href="#ip_23">23</a>, <a href="#ip_26">26</a>, <a href="#ip_27">27</a>, <a href="#ip_36">36</a>, <a href="#ip_37">37</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Alexander Dietrichens and Frederick Schleindl</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_30">30</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Carmine and Carbone in Court</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_46">46</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Pages from the bomb-thrower’s textbook</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_52">52</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after the arrest of the Anarchists</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_60">60</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Detectives in Disguise—George D. Barnitz, Patrick Walsh, James Sterett, Jerome Murphy</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_64">64</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Threats to Polignani</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_66">66</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Frank Abarno and Carmine Carbone</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_66">66</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">A Handbill, printed in Hindu, used by the Hindu-Boche Conspirators</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_72">72</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">The Hindu-Boche Conspirators</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_76">76</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">The <i>Annie Larsen’s</i> Cash Account</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_80">80</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Gupta’s Code Message</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_80">80</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">How the Hindus used Price Collier’s “Germany and the Germans” as a cryptogram</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_90">90</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for a certificate as able seaman</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_106">106</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_118">118</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">xvi</span></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Robert Fay and Lieut. George D. Barnitz</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_130">130</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Fay, Daeche and Scholz arraigned in Court</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_130b">130</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">The Fay Bomb Materials</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_138">138</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lieutenant Fay’s Motor Boat</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_150">150</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Rudder Bombs</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_154">154</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Franz Rintelen</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_160">160</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Henry Barth, who posed as the German Secret Service Agent</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_164">164</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Ernest Becker</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_168">168</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Captain Charles von Kleist and Captain Otto Wolpert</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_168">168</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who located part of one of the bombs in the German Turn Verein in Brooklyn</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_174">174</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached to the Military Intelligence, who unearthed numerous German intrigues</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_180">180</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Mrs. Holt’s Mysterious Letter</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_208">208</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">The First Word from Texas</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_208">208</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as Captain Claude Stoughton</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_224">224</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">From Fritz Duquesne’s Past</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_230">230</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Papers found in Fritz Duquesne’s effects</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_236">236</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_248">248</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_252">252</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_260">260</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_268">268</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="THROTTLED"><span class="larger">THROTTLED!</span></h2>
-</div>
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="I" class="vspace">I<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE BOMB SQUAD</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>For the past twenty-three years I have been a
-member of the police department of the City of
-New York. It is a long time, in any single job.
-The department is comparable in size to a manufacturing
-establishment of the first magnitude—it
-employs more than ten thousand men—and its occupations
-are varied enough to suit the inclinations
-and ambitions of any man. And so I went
-through the mill, graduating from one duty to another
-until in 1914 I was an acting captain, and
-had been in charge of various branches of the Detective
-Bureau in Brooklyn and Manhattan.</p>
-
-<p>My duty was the detection of crime, my specialty,
-meaning by that the special branch of crime
-with which I had been most often thrown into contact,
-was bomb-explosions. As far back as 1904
-there were a number of mysterious explosions in
-New York which caused considerable property<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span>
-damage, and there I made the acquaintance of the
-bomb itself. It was an interesting subject for
-study, and a wicked weapon in use. I managed
-to pick up information of bomb-manufacture in
-several ways: Black-Handers, in prison, told me
-how they had made their missiles; at the New
-York office of the Du Pont explosives company I
-had an opportunity to study blasting; the publications
-of the Bureau of Mines furnished more information,
-the practice of the Bureau of Combustibles
-of our own department proved interesting
-and instructive, and I found myself before long
-forced to become something of a student of chemistry.</p>
-
-<p>The difference between our work and the work
-of the laboratory chemist, however, was that in
-our case there was no time to make an explosive
-mixture and test it—some criminal usually had
-done that for us, and we were called to the scene
-to find out, from such clues as the wreckage afforded,
-the name and address of the criminal.
-The laboratory chemist mixes ingredients and
-counts his work done at the moment of explosion;
-the detective begins at that moment a stern chase,
-and a long one, back to the ingredients and the
-man who mixed them.</p>
-
-<p>By the early part of 1914 I had seen a good deal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span>
-of experience in tracing bomb outrages to certain
-of the anarchistic and Black Hand elements in the
-population of the city. As the year wore on these
-occurrences became so numerous as to warrant special
-attention, and on August 1, the approximate
-date of the outbreak of war in Europe, Police
-Commissioner Arthur Woods created in the police
-department the Bomb Squad. I was in command,
-and reported direct to the Commissioner. As the
-volume of work increased, and more men were
-taken on, the Commissioner delegated his supervision
-of the Bomb Squad to Guy Scull, who was
-then Fifth Deputy Police Commissioner, and who
-is now a major in the United States Army. That
-supervision was later passed on to Nicholas Biddle,
-a Special Deputy Commissioner, who, as I
-write this, is lieutenant-colonel in the United States
-Army, in charge of the Military Intelligence
-Bureau in New York; and following Mr. Biddle,
-Fuller Potter, another special Deputy Commissioner,
-and now a major in the Military Intelligence,
-directed the policies of the Squad.</p>
-
-<p>Within a few months the personnel of the Bomb
-Squad included the following picked men:
-George D. Barnitz, Amedeo Polignani, Henry
-Barth, George P. Gilbert, Edward Caddell,
-Patrick J. Walsh, Jerome Murphy, James J.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
-Coy, Valentine Corell, James Sterett, Henry
-Senff, Michael Santaniello, Joseph Fenelly,
-Joseph Kiley, Charles Wallace, William Randolph,
-Thomas Jenkins, and Anthony Terra—all
-detective sergeants, and George Busby, a lieutenant.
-To this list were added the names of
-James Murphy, Robert Morris, Thomas J. Ford,
-Walter Culhane, Vincent E. Hastings, Thomas
-J. Cavanagh, Louis B. Snowden, Thomas M.
-Goss, Daniel F. Collins, Frederick Mazer, Edward
-J. Maher, Walter Price, William McCahill,
-and Cornelius J. Sullivan. It made a list
-of fine material for the work which we were called
-upon to do, and no one will begrudge me here a
-word of tribute to their aptitude, their courage—to
-all of the qualities which made them such
-able and vigilant guardians of the neutrality of
-our country during the years preceding our entrance
-into the war. Many of the Bomb Squad
-went to war later: Barnitz became a junior
-lieutenant in the United States Navy, in intelligence
-work of a high order. Barth, Caddell,
-Corell, Fenelly, Jenkins, Walsh, Sterett, Santaniello,
-Randolph, James Murphy, Morris, Ford,
-Culhane, Hastings, Cavanagh, Snowden, Goss,
-Collins, Price, Mazer, Maher, McCahill and Sullivan
-became sergeants in the Corps of Intelligence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
-Police of the National Army. And after
-I became connected with the Military Intelligence
-Branch of the War Department, I had frequent
-occasion to deal during the war in coöperation
-with the men whom I have mentioned in service.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_4" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;">
- <img src="images/i_004a.jpg" width="424" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Biddle, Military Intelligence</div></div>
-
-<p>My first desire in taking charge of the Squad
-was to suppress the activities of persons using
-explosives to destroy life and property. What
-knowledge of the physics and chemistry of explosives
-my experience had accumulated I passed
-on to the men. These periods of instruction went
-into considerable detail. We discussed the kinds
-of explosives used, their relative strength, their
-ingredients, the methods of detonating them, the
-containers into which they were loaded, and the
-use of clockwork, fuses, acids and gas-pressure
-to explode them. Special and explicit instruction
-was given for the handling of unexploded
-bombs—a bomb bearing an electrical attachment
-should not be placed in water, for example, as
-water is a conductor of electricity; it is wise never
-to smoke in the presence of explosives, even if
-you think you know that certain kinds of explosives
-“<em>never</em> explode by fire.” The only thing you
-can depend on explosives to do one hundred times
-out of one hundred, is what you don’t expect them
-to do. The Bomb Squad was told never to—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
-why never to—carry bombs on passenger
-trains, cars or ferries, or anywhere near where
-metals were being shipped. The Bomb Squad
-was instructed not to remove a bomb found in a
-position where its explosion would not endanger
-life and property, but to send for an expert and
-wait until he arrived on the scene, and was told
-which positions were dangerous and which were
-not. Altogether we conducted a rather thorough
-course in explosives.</p>
-
-<p>As the war grew in proportions, and the interest
-of America in the conflict became more
-and more intimate, the activities of the Bomb
-Squad became somewhat diverted from the object
-for which it had been primarily organized,
-and its title was changed to the “Bomb and Neutrality
-Squad.” We had not expected in August
-that the German would try to tip over our neutrality
-with bombs, but that is what he did, and
-that is what kept us grimly busy for three years,
-until our own nation had gone to war with those
-who had so long been waging war upon her.
-And that is how the stories which follow come to
-be told.</p>
-
-<p>Not that the entrance of the United States into
-the war put a stop to the activities of the Squad.
-I have already cited those who entered the national<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
-service. Their presence in the Naval and
-Military Intelligence, their close relations with
-those whom they left behind in headquarters, with
-such men as Commander Spencer Eddy and Lieutenant
-Albert Fish of the Navy, Colonel Biddle
-and Major Potter of the Army, and with the
-Corps of Intelligence Police, made possible a
-degree of coöperation in spy-hunting in New York
-which would have been impossible to develop
-within a short time with any other set of men, and
-which went far towards preserving our domestic
-security.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="II" class="vspace">II<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">WESTPHALIAN EFFICIENCY</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The trend of events in early 1915 made it
-apparent that the Bomb Squad would be called
-upon to handle more and more cases of attempted
-violation of neutrality. Anyone who remembers
-our national mind at that time will recall that
-it was not yet made up and very liable to attacks
-of brainstorm. Every person was seeing events
-of unheard of violence and magnitude pass him
-pell-mell, giving no warning, and not waiting for
-comment, and he was too dazed to watch any
-single event with any high degree of balanced
-judgment or reasoning partisanship. It was a
-troubled hour, and one in which it behooved us
-of the Police Department to keep our heads cool
-and our eyes open. The Bomb Squad had to
-act as a safety valve.</p>
-
-<p>By the summer of 1915 war orders placed by
-the Allied governments in the autumn and winter
-of 1914 were being filled and shipped overseas in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
-great quantities. By this time, too, the German
-navy showed no more sign of coming out of Kiel
-in force than it had shown for a year past. The
-task of delaying, diverting or destroying those
-shipments devolved upon the Germans in America.
-It took no superhuman amount of reasoning
-to combine the abnormal destruction of property
-in New York with the strong suspicion of German
-activity and to arrive at a decision to check up
-wherever it was humanly possible the sources and
-agencies of destruction.</p>
-
-<p>Late in the autumn, in our work on the waterfront,
-we found a man who, we decided, was
-worth watching. We learned gradually that Paul
-Koenig was a pretty well-known figure along both
-banks of the Hudson, and that he carried, as
-chief detective for the Hamburg-American Line,
-a certain amount of authority. That steamship
-line, which within a week of the outbreak of war
-had attempted to send ships to sea under false
-cargo manifests to supply the German naval raiders,
-now had more time than business on its hands
-as its entire fleet was tied up in Hoboken. And
-yet in spite of the dull times which we knew had
-been thrust upon them, their man Koenig was
-curiously busy, and we became busily curious to
-find out why.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
-We were more curious than successful at first.
-We assigned men to follow him and observe his
-habits and haunts. This was not as easy as it
-might have been with another man, for the Department
-of Justice had already tried it and had
-come to the conclusion that he was not worth following.</p>
-
-<p>Now a good shadow is born, not made. The
-moment the man followed realizes or even suspects
-that he is being followed, he becomes a
-problem and either gets away or conducts himself
-in a way which disarms suspicion and sometimes
-embarrasses the pursuit. Koenig, a man of keen
-animal senses, was unusually quick in discovering
-his shadower. It used to confuse certain
-agents considerably to have him disappear around
-a corner, and when the agent quickened his pace
-and swept around the same corner after him, to
-have Koenig pop out of a doorway with a laugh
-for his pursuer which meant that the day’s work
-had gone for nothing. I have known men who
-were excellent detectives and poor shadows.
-Sometimes they were too large and conspicuous,
-sometimes they were over-zealous, sometimes they
-excited suspicion by being over-cautious; rare
-enough was the combination of artlessness and
-skill which made a man a good shadow, told him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
-when to saunter away in the opposite direction,
-when to pass his man, and how to efface himself.
-It is, I think, the instinct of the good fisherman
-who knows just how much line to run out, and
-just when to exert the pressure. For Koenig was
-a slippery fish.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_10" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30em;">
- <img src="images/i_010a.jpg" width="474" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, International Film Service</i></div>
- <div class="caption">
- <p>Paul Koenig, the Hamburg-American employe, who supplied
- and directed agents of German violence in America</p></div></div>
-
-<p>By a new method of “tailing” or shadowing,
-we learned that he frequented several popular
-German places in the city, such as Pabst’s in
-Columbus Circle, the German Club, in Central
-Park West, where Dr. Albert, Boy-Ed and von
-Papen frequently went, Luchow’s restaurant in
-14th Street, as well as the good American hotels
-Belmont and Manhattan. Both of the hotels are
-centrally situated, and have several entrances, including
-direct connection from the basement with
-the Subway—one of the easiest places to lose
-oneself in the city. (A murderer not many
-months ago avoided arrest for two days by riding
-back and forth in Subway trains.) But such
-places as these were no more than the natural
-points towards which any German might gravitate,
-and we could never pick up a scrap of conversation
-to give us a lead in any specific direction.</p>
-
-<p>The fact remained that he was busy, going and
-coming, and that he conducted a good deal of his
-business from his office in the Hamburg-American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
-building at 45 Broadway. We might as well
-have tried to penetrate to Berlin with a brass band
-as to have entered the building for information.
-But there was one advantage we could take: we
-could “listen in” on his telephone wire.</p>
-
-<p>When the men tailing him reported in that he
-was in the Hamburg-American Building, and
-probably in his office, we cut in on his wire, and
-posted an officer at our receiver to take down all
-conversations which passed. The outgoing calls
-were disappointing. Koenig was no fool—or
-rather was a highly specialized fool—and was
-not careless enough to give information of aid
-and comfort to the enemy through such a gregarious
-medium as a public telephone wire. We listened
-for a long while, in vain....</p>
-
-<p>Then came a call which offered possibilities. A
-man’s voice told Paul Koenig that it thought Paul
-Koenig was a “bull-headed Westphalian Dutchman,”
-and added other more lurid remarks. The
-conversation was short, but while it lasted indicated
-that someone was not pleased with Mr.
-Koenig. Within the next few days the same voice
-called “P. K.” again and told him several things
-it had forgotten to mention, all pointing to the
-fact that the owner of the unknown voice had been
-misused.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
-We hunted up the number from which the disgruntled
-calls had been made. It was a public
-telephone pay-station in a saloon. Crucial events
-can almost always be traced to some trivial circumstances—the
-poem “for the want of a nail
-the battle was lost” is an illustration of what I
-mean. We are not dealing here with possibilities
-but with facts, yet I cannot sometimes help speculating
-on the extent to which German atrocities
-might have been carried in New York and Canada,
-if we had not found a bartender with a good
-memory in that saloon. Yes, he remembered a
-fellow who had come in there at certain times to
-telephone. Yes, he came in once in a while.
-Didn’t know his name, but thought he lived around
-the corner at such and such a number. At that
-number we found out the man’s name—the bartender’s
-description had been accurate. The
-name was George Fuchs.</p>
-
-<p>So to George Fuchs we mailed a letter, typed
-on the stationery of a wireless telegraph company,
-suggesting that we had a position for which we
-believed he was the proper man, and that we
-would be pleased to have him call at the office of
-the company, at an appointed hour, to discuss the
-work and wages. Fuchs did not show up at the
-appointed hour, which disturbed the plans momentarily,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
-but when he did arrive, he was greeted
-cordially by an executive of the “company” who
-proceeded to get acquainted with the applicant.
-The manner of the wireless person was so disarming,
-his German was so good, and his certainty
-that Fuchs was the man for the job so taken for
-granted that the two adjourned to a nearby
-restaurant. (Detective Corell had a very good
-working knowledge of German.)</p>
-
-<p>“Who did you say you were working for?”
-Corell asked, across the crater of Fuchs’s glass of
-beer.</p>
-
-<p>“That bull-headed Westphalian Dutchman,”
-Fuchs sputtered. “He is some relative of my
-mother’s. She was a Prussian, though, <i xml:lang="de" lang="de">Gott sei
-dank!</i>”</p>
-
-<p>Corell laughed at the right time, and in the
-conversation which ensued drew out the man’s
-grievance against Koenig. In September Mr. and
-Mrs. Koenig had paid a visit to the Fuchs household
-in Niagara Falls, N. Y., where Fuchs lived
-with his mother in the Lochiel Apartments. The
-wonders of the Falls had received proper attention
-from the strangers, and Koenig showed some interest
-in the Welland Canal, the channel through
-which shipping circumnavigates the Falls. He
-said that the waterway was closely guarded, otherwise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
-he would like to go over and have a look
-at it, and suggested, as a convenient substitute,
-that Fuchs go over to Canada and take some
-snapshots of the locks for him.</p>
-
-<p>“Why don’t you go yourself?” Fuchs asked.</p>
-
-<p>“They would probably pick me up if I did,”
-Koenig replied.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, that’s just why I won’t take any camera
-over there with me,” Fuchs rejoined. “But I’ll
-go if you want a report.”</p>
-
-<p>The bargain was closed. Fuchs, Koenig said,
-was the very man, as he was known on the Canadian
-side as George Fox, was an American by birth,
-and would not excite suspicion. So at 7 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> of
-September 30—slightly more than a year since
-Horst von der Goltz and Captain von Papen had
-made their first abortive attempt to destroy the
-Canal—“Fox” registered at the Welland House
-in Welland, close by the waterway. There he
-spent the night. The next morning he went to
-Port Colborne, the Lake Erie mouth of the Canal,
-and during the balance of the day followed its
-course northward, making mental notes of the
-shipping and the construction and guarding of the
-locks. By night he had reached Thorold, where
-he found a room, jotted down his observations,
-and spent the night. The next day he covered the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
-balance of the 27 miles to Lake Ontario, noting
-the number of locks, and the fact that there were
-two or three armed soldiers on guard at each.
-With his head full of good ideas for bad plans he
-reached Niagara Falls again that night—October
-2.</p>
-
-<p>Koenig was enthusiastic over his report, but
-when Fuchs had written it down he decided that
-it would be hazardous to have such a document
-found on his person. “Mail it to me at Post
-Office Box 840 in New York. Sign it just
-‘George’—nobody would know who that was
-even if they did find it.” He went back to New
-York. Fuchs heard nothing from him for a few
-days, except that action had been deferred. Then
-the country cousin began to importune the city
-cousin, and Koenig suggested that he come down
-to New York to work for him. Which Fuchs did,
-and on October 8 was placed on the payroll of the
-“Bureau of Investigation” at eighteen dollars a
-week. Koenig arranged that Fuchs was to hire
-men who would row a boatload of dynamite across
-the upper Niagara River to smuggle it into Canada,
-and he had meanwhile arranged with two others,
-Richard Emil Leyendecker, his chief assistant, and
-Fred Metzler, his secretary, to carry out a definite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
-plan to sever the main artery of lake traffic by
-blowing it to pieces.</p>
-
-<p>By Sunday, November 7, Fuchs had been occupied
-in several odd jobs for Koenig, such as
-spying on outward-bound cargoes along the waterfront,
-doing special guard duty at Dr. Albert’s
-office, and going over to Hoboken to frighten a
-poor German agent named Franz Schulenberg,
-who had come on from the west to collect money
-from von Papen. On that Sunday he was sick and
-did not report for duty. He asked for his regular
-pay, however, and Koenig refused it, doubting
-that Fuchs had really been too ill to report, and
-holding that illness should never interfere with
-service to the Fatherland. This created bad
-blood between the two. On November 22 Koenig
-discharged him for “constant quarrelling with another
-operative, drinking, and disorderly habits,”
-and announced that he would not be paid for his
-services of the previous day, when he had refused
-to go on duty in a river-launch. That $2.57
-due Fuchs had poisoned his soul against Koenig,
-and he had grown so bitter that the result we already
-know—evidence was at last in our hands
-for an arrest.</p>
-
-<p>It was a case for federal prosecution, obviously,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
-so we called in Captain William Offley and Agent
-Adams, an able operative of the Department of
-Justice. A few hours later Koenig was placed
-under arrest. He resented the intrusion, and
-snapped to Barnitz: “Anyone who interferes
-with Germans or the German Government will be
-punished!” His house up-town was searched
-and that search disclosed, among other matters,
-an item which is unquestionably one of the richest
-prizes of the spy hunt in America.</p>
-
-<p>It was Paul Koenig’s little black memorandum
-book—a loose-leaf affair, scrupulously typewritten,
-and brought down to within a day of his
-arrest. A fanatic on office efficiency might have
-conceived it, but none but a German would have
-kept it posted up. For it told the story of his
-Bureau of Investigation with a devotion to detail
-almost religious.</p>
-
-<p>The Hamburg-American Line probably never
-thought that when they assigned a shrewd ruffian
-named Paul Koenig to investigate an alleged case
-of wharfage graft in Jersey City away back in
-1912 they had established a “Bureau of Investigation.”
-But Paul Koenig knew better. He surrounded
-his lightest activities with an air of mystery
-and efficiency true to the best of amateur-detective
-tradition. He called his first case by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
-mystic number, he conferred the ominous alias of
-“xxx” upon himself, hired a man named Fred
-Metzler as his secretary, and convinced himself
-that he and Metzler were a bureau. In the light
-of the all-absorbing importance which his bureau
-held for him, we are not surprised (and we must
-not smile), when we see chronicled neatly in
-his little black book that on May 13, 1913, he
-rented a room at 45 Broadway for “new offices,”
-on May 24 his first private telephone was installed,
-on Nov. 19 a steel cabinet was purchased for the
-files of the department, on May 28 of 1914 the
-adjoining room was added to Room 82, and
-Room 82 was converted into a <em>private</em> office for
-the chief, and on July 14 a new safe was purchased
-and placed in the office. It may be that the assassination
-of the Archduke Ferdinand had something
-to do with that last item, for it is certain
-that the Hamburg-American Line knew that war
-was coming well in advance of the declaration.
-At any rate, we find that on July 31, 1914, before
-England and Germany had actually gone to
-war, and on the same day that the director of
-the Hamburg-American in New York received instructions
-from Berlin that war was coming and
-that he was expected to supply German naval
-vessels in American waters—on that day Paul<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
-Koenig began his war duties by placing a special
-guard on all the piers and vessels of the Line in
-New York Harbor.</p>
-
-<p>Up to this time the cases Koenig had handled
-were matters of shipping—stowaways, fires,
-steerage rates, charges against ships’ officers. On
-August 22 he became a German military spy. We
-find it entered in his own words:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Aug. 22. German Government, with consent
-of Dr. Buenz, entrusted me with the handling of
-a certain investigation. Military attaché von
-Papen called at my office later and explained the
-nature of the work expected. (Beginning of
-Bureau’s services for Imperial German Government.)”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">The “certain investigation” consisted in sending
-two men to Canada to spy on the Valcartier training
-camp where the first Canadian Expeditionary
-Force was being mobilized, and to report to the
-military attaché their state of readiness, in order
-that he might try some means of keeping them at
-home if it were not already too late. What von
-Papen had in mind was dynamiting the Welland
-Canal; it failed, but the case is of momentary interest
-to us here because it marked the beginning
-of a service on Koenig’s part which grew very fast
-and extended in many and diverse directions.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
-The Bureau was divided into three parts, the
-pier division, the special detail division, and the
-secret service division, or “Geheimdienst.” No
-one was allowed to forget that P. K. was head of
-all three. In his rules and regulations he records,
-among other gems, these:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“#2. In order to safeguard the secrets and
-affairs of the department prior to receiving a
-caller, hereafter my desk must be entirely cleared
-of all papers excepting those pertaining to the
-business in hand.</p>
-
-<p>“#9. All persons related to me, however distant,
-will be barred from employment with the
-Bureau of Investigation. This does not apply to
-my wife.</p>
-
-<p>“#6. It has been found detrimental to the
-discipline of the Office to invite direct employees
-of the Bureau to my residence or other place socially,
-or to accept their invitations, therefore this
-practice must cease. This ruling does not apply
-to agents of the Secret Service Division nor to
-direct employees if engaged with me on an operation
-which requires either social entertainment or
-travelling.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>He had an elaborate and complicated outlay of
-badges, shields and photographic identification
-cards for each operative, for which each operative
-stood the expense. His meticulous attention to
-detail, and the diligent caution which he observed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
-at all times is indicated in a list of aliases which
-he set forth in the memorandum book. In 26
-cases listed he used 26 different names—none of
-them his own. For example, in what he called
-“D-Case 250,” in dealing with an operative
-named “Sjurstadt” Koenig was known to
-Sjurstadt only as “Watson”; in D-Case 316,
-when he negotiated with his agent von Pilis (a
-propagandist who was later interned, by the way)
-Koenig was “Bode.” He devised a new name
-for himself for every new case, and sometimes
-used two or three names in dealing with different
-individuals in the same case. Naturally a man
-of as many identities as Koenig had to keep a
-record of who he was, and so his list of aliases
-furnished the government with an excellent catalogue
-of the pies in which he had his tough fingers.
-Each of his own employees in the Secret Service
-Division was known to him in three ways: by his
-Christian (or rather, his German) name, by a
-number, and by a special pair of initials. Thus
-Richard Emil Leyendecker, the art-woods dealer
-associated with him in the Welland Canal affair,
-was Secret Agent Number 6, known as “B. P.”;
-Otto Mottola, a member of the New York Police
-Department was Secret Agent Number 4, known
-as “A. S. (formerly A. M.).” The connections
-of the bureaus were mentioned in his reports by
-numbers, the Imperial German Embassy being
-5000, von Papen being 7000, Boy-Ed 8000, and
-Dr. Heinrich Albert, the commercial attaché of
-the embassy, 9000.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_22" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_022a.png" width="600" height="506" alt="" />
- <div class="caption floatl in1 smaller">
-
-<p><span class="du">SECRET SERVICE DIVISION.</span></p>
-
-<p class="u">List of Aliases Used by XXX.</p>
-
-<table class="narrow left" summary="List of Aliases Used by XXX">
- <tr>
- <td> </td>
- <td class="tdc"><span class="u">D-Cases.</span></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Sjurstadt</td>
- <td class="tdc">#250</td>
- <td class="tdl">Watson</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Markow</td>
- <td class="tdc">#260</td>
- <td class="tdl">von Wegener</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Horn</td>
- <td class="tdc">#277</td>
- <td class="tdl">Fischer</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Portack</td>
- <td class="tdc">#279</td>
- <td class="tdl">Westerberg</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Berns</td>
- <td class="tdc">#306</td>
- <td class="tdl">Werner</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Scott</td>
- <td class="tdc">#309</td>
- <td class="tdl">Werner</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">McIntyre</td>
- <td class="tdc">#311</td>
- <td class="tdl">Bode</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Miller</td>
- <td class="tdc">#314</td>
- <td class="tdl">Reinhardt</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Harre</td>
- <td class="tdc">#315</td>
- <td class="tdl">Kaufmann</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Kienzle</td>
- <td class="tdc">#316</td>
- <td class="tdl">Wegener</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Wiener</td>
- <td class="tdc">#316</td>
- <td class="tdl">Wegener</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">von Pilis</td>
- <td class="tdc">#316</td>
- <td class="tdl">Bode</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Burns</td>
- <td class="tdc">#325</td>
- <td class="tdl">Reinhardt</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Stahl</td>
- <td class="tdc">#328</td>
- <td class="tdl">Stemmler</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Coleman</td>
- <td class="tdc">#335</td>
- <td class="tdl">Schuster</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Schleindl</td>
- <td class="tdc">#343</td>
- <td class="tdl">Wöhler (Paul)</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Leyendecker</td>
- <td class="tdc">#344</td>
- <td class="tdl">Heyne</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Feldheim</td>
- <td class="tdc">#357</td>
- <td class="tdl">Winters</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Warburg</td>
- <td class="tdc">#362</td>
- <td class="tdl">Blohm</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Van de Bund</td>
- <td class="tdc">#358</td>
- <td class="tdl">Taylor</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lewis</td>
- <td class="tdc">#366</td>
- <td class="tdl">Burg</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Hammond</td>
- <td class="tdc">#357</td>
- <td class="tdl">Decker (W.P.)</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Uffelmann</td>
- <td class="tdc">#370</td>
- <td class="tdl">Schwartz</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Hirschland</td>
- <td class="tdc">#371</td>
- <td class="tdl">Günther</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Neuhaus</td>
- <td class="tdc">#371</td>
- <td class="tdl">Günther</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Ornstein</td>
- <td class="tdc">#371</td>
- <td class="tdl">Günther</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Witzel</td>
- <td class="tdc">#371</td>
- <td class="tdl">Wöhler</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Plochmann</td>
- <td class="tdc">#375</td>
- <td class="tdl">Breitung</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Archer</td>
- <td class="tdc">#289</td>
- <td class="tdl">Mendez</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Bettes</td>
- <td class="tdc">——</td>
- <td class="tdl">Goebels</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Reith</td>
- <td class="tdc">#382</td>
- <td class="tdl">Brandt</td></tr>
-</table>
-</div>
-
- <div class="caption floatr smaller l2">
-<p><span class="du">SECRET SERVICE DIVISION.</span></p>
-
-<p><span class="u">Ciphers Used In<br />
-
-Confidential Reports</span><br />
-
-(Oct. 1914-Sept. 1915)</p>
-
-<p>——oOo——</p>
-
-<table class="narrow right" summary="Ciphers 1914-1916">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">5000</td>
- <td class="tdl">I. G. Embassy</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7000</td>
- <td class="tdl">”  ”   Military Attache</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">8000</td>
- <td class="tdl">”  ”   Naval Attache</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">9000</td>
- <td class="tdl">”  ”   Commercial Attache</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="2">————</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7354</td>
- <td class="tdl">von Knorr</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7371</td>
- <td class="tdl">Tomaseck</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7379</td>
- <td class="tdl">Tokio</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7381</td>
- <td class="tdl">Copenhagen</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">7600</td>
- <td class="tdl">Burns Agency</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">9001</td>
- <td class="tdl">Herbert Boas</td></tr>
-</table>
-</div>
-
-<div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p></div></div>
-
-<div id="ip_23" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_022b.png" width="600" height="511" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl floatl smaller narrow50">
- <div class="caption">
- <p><span class="du">SECRET SERVICE DIVISION.</span></p>
- <p class="p1 u">SAFETY BLOCK SYSTEM</p>
- </div>
-
-<p>Operatives of the S. S. Division,
-when receiving instructions from me or
-through the medium of my secretary as
-to designating meeting places, will understand
-that such instructions must be
-translated as follows:</p>
-
-<div class="caption"><p class="u">For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight)</p></div>
-
-<p>A street number in Manhattan named
-over the telephone means that the meeting
-will take place 5 blocks further
-uptown than the street mentioned.</p>
-
-<p>Pennsylvania R. R. Station means
-Grand Central Depot.</p>
-
-<p>Kaiserhof means General Post Office,
-in front of P. O. Box 840.</p>
-
-<p>Hotel Ansonia means Cafe in Hotel
-Manhattan (basement).</p>
-
-<p>Hotel Belmont means at the Bar in
-Pabst’ Columbus Circle.</p>
-
-<p>Brooklyn Bridge means Bar in Unter
-den Linden.</p>
-
-<div class="caption"><p class="u">For week Dec. 5 to Dec. 12 (midnight)</p></div>
-
-<p>Code to remain the same as previous
-week.</p>
-
-<div class="caption"><p class="u">For week Dec. 12 to Dec. 19 (midnight)</p></div>
-
-<p>A street number in Manhattan named
-over the telephone means that the meeting
-will take place 5 blocks further
-downtown than the street mentioned.</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="captionr floatr narrow50 smaller">
-<div class="caption">
-<p><span class="du">SECRET SERVICE DIVISION.</span><br />
-(Geheimdienst)</p>
-
-<p class="p1"><span class="u">Rules and Regulations.</span><br />
-—1915—</p>
-</div>
-
-<blockquote class="hang wide">
-
-<p>#1. Beginning with November 6th, no blue
-copies are to be made of reports
-submitted in connection with D-Case
-#343, and the original reports will
-be sent to H.M.G. instead of the duplicates,
-as formerly.</p>
-
-<p>#2. In order to accomplish better results
-in connection with D-Case #343, and
-to shorten the stay of the informing
-agent at the place of meeting,
-it has been decided to discontinue
-the former practice of dining with
-this agent prior to receiving his
-report. It will also be made a rule
-to refrain from working on other matters
-until the informant in this case
-has been fully heard; and all data
-taken down in shorthand. (11-11-15)</p>
-
-<p>#3. Beginning with November 28th, 1915,
-all operations designated as D-Cases
-will be handled exclusively by the
-Secret Service Division, the Headquarters
-of which will not be at the
-Central Office, as heretofore. This
-change will result in discontinuing
-utilizing operatives or employees
-attached to the Central Office, Division
-for Special Detail and Pier
-Division. On the other hand, great</p></blockquote>
-</div>
-
-<div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
-In the same way he disguised his meeting places.
-In his instructions to the Secret Service Division
-we find this:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Operatives of the S. S. Division when receiving
-instructions from me or through the medium of
-my secretary as to designating meeting places will
-understand that such instructions must be translated
-as follows:</p>
-
-<p>“<i>For week Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 (midnight).</i></p>
-
-<p>“A street number in Manhattan named over
-the telephone means that the meeting will take
-place 5 blocks further uptown than the street
-mentioned.</p>
-
-<p>“Pennsylvania R. R. Station means Grand Central
-Depot.</p>
-
-<p>“Kaiserhof means General Post Office, in front
-of P. O. Box 840.</p>
-
-<p>“Hotel Ansonia means café in Hotel Manhattan
-(basement).</p>
-
-<p>“Hotel Belmont means at the bar in Pabst’s
-Columbus Circle.</p>
-
-<p>“Brooklyn Bridge means bar in Unter den
-Linden.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Each week he rearranged this code, so that anyone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
-who thought that cutting in on a telephone call
-meant knowing where Koenig was bound was not
-likely to find him there. The man knew his German
-New York, and had numerous convenient
-meeting places where he could meet an agent and
-converse undisturbed, such as a German hotel at
-Third Avenue and 42d Street, or a German bar
-at Broadway and 110th Street, or a lodging house
-at South and Whitehall Streets, near the lower
-tip of the island, or a saloon connected with a
-Turkish bath in Harlem. He not only made it
-almost impossible to trace him by tapping his own
-wire, but his operatives were instructed to call him
-from pay-station telephones in locations where
-there was not one chance in a million of identifying
-the person who had called. Fuchs, of course,
-was the one-millionth chance, but Fuchs was no
-longer obeying Koenig’s orders, was persistent,
-and careless. Altogether Koenig had built up a
-system of caution on paper which almost beat the
-game, and which enabled him to conduct a large
-volume of business.</p>
-
-<p>The functions of his departments were clearly
-defined. The pier division guarded the piers and
-vessels of the Line, and furnished him information
-of sailings from the New York waterfront,
-which he in turn passed on to the naval attaché,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
-Boy-Ed. Through this division he was able to
-keep in touch with the waterfront element for
-whatever service of violence might be necessary,
-and to keep a fairly complete record of shipping.
-The special detail division was assigned to the
-guarding of von Bernstorff’s summer place at
-Cedarhurst, Long Island, Dr. Albert’s office in
-the Hamburg-American building, von Papen’s
-office at 60 Wall Street, and the Austrian consulate
-in New York. This division conducted
-every week a test to determine whether or not
-Dr. Albert was being shadowed. We find entered
-in his notes on his operatives this:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“<i>H. J. Wilkens</i> is commended by me for good
-service rendered thus far as attendant on Dr. Albert.
-This commendation is based on a note received
-from the latter under date of November
-12, reading as follows:</p>
-
-<p>“‘Dear Mr. Koenig:</p>
-
-<p>“‘The service rendered by your bureau’s operative,
-H. J. Wilkens, have proven entirely satisfactory.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-<span class="l4">“‘Yours truly,</span><br />
-(Signed) H. T. <span class="smcap">Albert</span>.’”
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Apparently Koenig’s performance of his duty to
-the German cause encouraged the high officials of
-the German government in the United States to
-rely upon him, for these posts were gradually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
-placed under his direction during the summer of
-1915, the Embassy at Cedarhurst on July 3, Dr.
-Albert’s office on Sept. 1, von Papen’s office on
-Oct. 26, and the Austrian Consulate on December
-15—three days previous to Koenig’s arrest, and
-less than a week after Captain von Papen, who
-was returning to his own country by the request
-of our country, had called P. K. to the German
-Club to “express his thanks for the services this
-Bureau have rendered to him.” “At the same
-time,” the little notebook confides, “he bid me
-Good-Bye.” We find these functions mentioned
-with a suggestion of reverence.</p>
-
-<p>But the autobiography of Paul Koenig resumes
-its dark shroud of mystery when it turns to the
-functions of the division of secret service. There
-he is the dominating figure, a sort of cross between
-a Dr. Moriarity and a gorilla, a slippery conniver
-one minute and a pugnacious bully the next, convicted
-by his own complimentary reports. It was
-in handling the “D-cases” already mentioned
-that he employed his many false names, his secret
-numbers, his elusive places of appointment, and
-his essentially Teutonic discipline. The nature
-of the work of this division may best be suggested
-by citing a case which appears rather often in
-his records—Case D-343.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_26" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_026a.png" width="600" height="511" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl floatl narrow50">
-
-<blockquote class="hang wide">
-
-<p><span class="inhang">may</span> not be in my interest. The stenographer
-of the Central Office, however,
-will continue to write out
-checks as heretofore, but the check-book
-itself, will always be kept
-under lock and key. (11-23-15)</p>
-
-<p>#11. Operatives of the Pier Division in
-future will carry as their means of
-identification only the Bureau’s
-identification card, on the reverse
-side of which a photograph of the
-bearer will be pasted, with my signature
-written above and below the
-photo. The front side of the card
-will also bear my signature. These
-men will not carry any more shields,
-as in the past. Any changes in the
-personnel of the Pier Division, such
-as attachments and detachments, will
-be brought to the attention of the
-Marine Superintendent or other Superintends
-at whose piers they are stationed.
-There will be special operatives
-selected to check up operatives
-of the Pier Division and employees of
-the piers, who will not be named to
-anyone in advance, but who will, at
-Intervals, make their inspections, carrying
-with them as their means of identification,
-a commission consisting
-of a letter on Company’s stationery,
-setting forth their authority, which
-will be duly signed by me and counter-signed
-by one of the Company’s Vice
-Directors. These special operatives</p>
-</blockquote></div>
-
- <div class="captionr floatr narrow50">
-
-<blockquote class="hang wide">
-
-<p><span class="inhang">are</span> to be known as Central Office
-men, and do not come under the
-jurisdiction of the Pier Division.
-(11-23-15)</p>
-
-<p>#12. Beginning with today, specific plans
-have been decided upon as to the
-best manner in which to keep newspapers
-and clippings dealing with the
-war and political subjects. Clippings
-that refer to D-Cases of this
-Bureau will continue to be placed in
-the private files, together with
-their respective reports. An exception
-to this particular rule may be
-made in the event that there are too
-many clippings at hand, in which case
-they may be bound together and kept
-separate, as is being done in the
-case of operation D-#332. Other clippings
-are to be mounted on cardboard,
-and the name of the newspaper and
-date typewritten thereon. Articles
-of interest that cover an entire page
-or more will not be clipped, but will
-be kept whole in a temporary folder
-in view of binding same later. This,
-also applies to copies which deal
-with matters on which reports have
-been rendered. (12-7-15)</p></blockquote>
-</div>
-
-<div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p></div></div>
-
-<div id="ip_27" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_026b.png" width="600" height="505" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl floatl narrow50">
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">covering G. G. Station #3 on Sunday,
-November 21st, from 10 A.M. until 5 P.
-M. Contrary to the list of assignments
-for the Pier Division he did not do
-guard duty at the Hoboken Piers during
-the night of November 20th to 21st. In
-order to be at his new post, G. G. Station
-#3, he was given this night off
-with pay, to be charged to Case #242.
-Wages while on duty at G. G. Station #3
-will be the same as heretofore.</p>
-
-<p class="in0"><span class="u">H. v.Staden</span> on November 22d, at 10 A.
-M., reported to Central Office duty
-as instructed. He will work jointly
-with Opt. W.H.M., his salary to remain
-unchanged.</p>
-
-<p class="in0"><span class="u">H. Pearsall</span>, on Saturday, November 20th
-upon being instructed by Opt. H.J.W.
-that he was to be assigned to the Pier
-Division, declared that he refused to
-accept this post, and tendered his
-resignation. According to a written
-report submitted by Opt. H.J.W., H. P.
-acted insolently, and belittled this
-Bureau’s service. As H. P. did not
-tender his resignation to me personally
-or by mail, I did not take cognizance
-of what he told Opt. H.J.W. regarding
-leaving the department, but
-discharged him at once upon hearing of
-his conduct. His services ended on
-November 21st at 10 A.M. While he has
-been an alert watchman, he has often
-proven to be a cranky, quarrelsome employee,
-who was the cause of a great
-deal of trouble while on the piers.</p>
-</blockquote>
-</div>
-
- <div class="captionr floatr narrow50">
- <blockquote>
-<p class="in0">I congratulate myself on having ridden
-this Bureau of an ignorant, stubborn
-and hot-headed man of the caliber of
-Pearsall, whose last words to stenographer
-F. Metzler were that he would not
-trust me for a dollar. While it is understood
-that this former employee is
-disbarred from reinstatement, he will
-never be given any sort of a recommendation,
-nor will I receive him. He is
-to be kept out of the office entirely.</p>
-
-<p class="in0"><span class="u">George Fuchs</span> was dismissed from the Bureau’s
-services on November 22d at 4.30
-P.M. The reason for his discharge is
-general conduct displayed on Company’s
-piers, constant quarreling with another
-operative, drinking and disorderly habits.
-He will receive no pay for the
-night of November 21st to 22d, during
-which he refused to join Opt. J.P.C. in
-his duties on Company’s Launch #4.</p>
-
-<p class="in0"><span class="u">William McCulley</span>, on November 16th at
-3 A.M., was appointed Chief of the Secret
-Service Division, his duties to
-commence on Sunday, November 28th, at
-9 A.M. Salary $28. per week. Upon his
-word he promised to remain in this capacity
-for at least six months and to be
-at my disposal at all hours. He is to
-take a residence in New York City, and
-will be known as “William MacIntyre” at
-the Headquarters of the Secret Service
-Division to be established on December
-1st, 1915.</p>
-
-<p class="in0"><span class="u">R. E. Leyendecker</span>, on November 23d, at
-11 P.M., was appointed Assistant to the</p></blockquote>
-</div>
-
- <div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
-Rule number 1 of the division stated:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Beginning with Nov. 6 (1915) no blue copies
-are to be made of reports submitted in connection
-with D-Case 343, and the original reports will
-be sent to H. M. G. instead of the duplicates, as
-formerly.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>“H. M. G.” we learned from the key to special
-personages for whom the division was conducting
-investigations, was von Papen himself.
-Rule 2 reads:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“In order to accomplish better results in connection
-with D-Case 343, and to shorten the stay
-of the informing agent at the place of meeting, it
-has been decided to discontinue the former practice
-of dining with this agent prior to receiving
-his report. It will also be a rule to refrain from
-working on other matters until the informant in
-this case has been fully heard, and all data taken
-down in shorthand.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The book revealed that in D-Case 343 Koenig’s
-alias was Woehler, and his agent’s name Schleindl.
-In his notes on operatives Koenig had written that
-“Friedrich Schleindl ... who was first known
-as Operative #51, and later as Agent C. O., beginning
-with October 21st will be called Agent
-B. I.” This enabled us to interpret a further
-regulation of the division, to this effect.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Agent B. I. has been requested not to call
-again at the Central Office, this ruling to take
-effect immediately. Other arrangements will be
-made to meet him elsewhere. Whether or not
-the stenographer of the Central Office will continue
-to write reports covering D-Case 343 will be
-determined later.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Rule 4 read:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Supplementing Rule 2, it has been decided that
-I refrain from drinking beer or liquor with my
-supper prior to receiving Agent B. I., for the reason
-that I wish to be perfectly fresh and well
-prepared to receive his reports.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>And Rule 3 contained this passage:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“... great care is to be taken that operatives
-and agents of the Secret Service Division remain
-entirely unknown to members of the Central Office
-and other divisions. These regulations do
-not apply to D-Case 343, which has been handled
-since the beginning of July (1915) with the knowledge
-of employees not belonging to the Secret
-Service Division. Until more favorable arrangements
-can be made this practice may be continued.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Here clearly was an unusually important case.
-The notes indicated that Koenig was receiving
-frequent reports of great value from this Schleindl,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
-had been receiving them for at least five months,
-was reporting them to von Papen, and intended to
-safeguard his obtaining further information.
-When a German voluntarily forswears his beer,
-something serious is on foot.</p>
-
-<p>Lieut. Barnitz, with Detectives Walsh and Fenelly,
-arrested Schleindl the same day we closed
-in on Koenig. In his pocket was a cablegram
-referring to Russian munitions. He was a German
-reservist, born in Bavaria. At the outbreak
-of war he was a clerk in the National City Bank
-of New York, and lived away up in the Bronx,
-and in the first reaction to war he reported at the
-German Consulate for duty. Months passed, and
-he had not been called upon, when one night he
-met a German who told him to report at the Hotel
-Manhattan to meet another German named
-Wagoner. “You’ll find him in the bar,” added
-his informant.</p>
-
-<p>“Wagoner,” who was Paul Koenig himself,
-met the youth, and playing on his patriotism drew
-from him the information that he had access to
-many cablegrams to and from the Allied governments
-through the bank concerning the purchase
-and shipment of war supplies. Offering Schleindl
-a retainer of $25 a week, Koenig told him to steal
-from the files all such messages he could lay his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
-hands on, together with copies of express-bills
-showing when the goods were delivered to the
-piers for shipment, all data relating to the prices
-paid, detailed descriptions of the purchases, and
-any other particulars which would help the German
-Government to complete its knowledge of
-what supplies America was shipping abroad.
-Schleindl grew quite enthusiastic in the work.
-Starting with light thefts, he gradually grew
-bolder, until he was in a position to steal documents
-night after night, take them to his appointment
-with Koenig, have them copied, and
-arrive at the Bank early enough the following
-morning to put them back where they belonged.
-Friday night was the regular appointment, but
-often messages of big shipments came in and he
-relayed the news at once to his chief. The extra
-$25 a week practically doubled his earning
-power, and made devotion to the Fatherland very
-attractive—so much so that he began to be
-afraid that Koenig, who was merely the receiving
-station for his reports, and who took no risks himself,
-would receive more than his share of credit.
-If there were any iron crosses to be given out,
-or any ribbons for foreign service, Schleindl felt
-that he had earned his, so he forwarded to his
-brother in Austria from time to time stenographic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
-notes written in the Bavarian dialect which would
-be especially difficult of translation. In order to
-evade the censor he tore them into scraps and
-sifted them into the folds of newspapers which
-went unmolested through the British mail censors
-at Kirkwall. These scraps, pieced together and
-translated into reports, were forwarded by his
-brother to German officials.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_30" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_030a.jpg" width="414" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Alexander Dietrichens</div></div>
-
-<div id="ip_31b" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
- <img src="images/i_030b.jpg" width="393" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr in2"><i>International Film Service. Inc.</i></div>
- <div class="caption"><p>Frederick Schleindl</p></div></div>
-
-<div id="ip_31c" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_030c.jpg" width="600" height="375" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Schleindl and Dietrichens at a German party</div></div>
-
-<p>Schleindl’s zeal had led him into other channels
-of German activity. At college in Germany
-he had had a friend named Alexander Dietrichens,
-later known variously as Willish, Sander, Glass,
-and Lizius—one of those Riga Russians of German
-parentage who have served Bolshevism so
-eminently in Russia. In 1915 Dietrichens was in
-America, and the two renewed their friendship.
-He said he was eager to serve the Fatherland, and
-that he only wanted to know who was supplying
-munitions to the Allies to start a campaign of
-destruction against them. He suggested the Du
-Pont factories at Wilmington, and asked the young
-bank clerk to come along. Schleindl, impressionable
-and emotional, had not the courage. He
-confessed to me that he wept at the thought, and
-that he asked Dietrichens whether any harm could
-come to him if the explosion killed anyone.
-“Very likely,” Dietrichens answered cheerfully.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
-Schleindl then declined, but he helped the dynamiter
-to the extent of keeping an occasional bomb
-or a package of dynamite for him during the day
-in his locker or under his desk at the bank. The
-main cache where Dietrichens stored his explosives
-was near Tenafly, New Jersey, but when
-Schleindl and I visited it, in a deserted spot almost
-a mile from the nearest building, the shanty
-was empty.</p>
-
-<p>Schleindl was tried, convicted and sentenced to
-an indeterminate term in the penitentiary, for the
-theft of documents. Koenig pleaded guilty to the
-charge, but sentence was suspended on him owing
-to the greater importance of the Welland charges.</p>
-
-<p>The Schleindl and Dietrichens cases are only
-two examples of many to which the little black
-book gave clues. It suggested investigations into
-many others, for it was a real storehouse of names,
-and knowing Koenig’s close relationship with the
-highest German authorities in the United States,
-it contributed a large number of items to the bill
-of complaint against Germany which provoked
-the President’s Flag Day warning of 1916.
-Koenig’s mere mention of the name of “Horn”
-in D-Case 277 gave evidence of the German sponsorship
-of the attempt of Werner Horn to blow
-up the Vanceboro bridge in February, 1915; the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
-name “Stahl” in D-Case 328 indicated by
-Koenig’s own hand that it was he who paid
-Gustave Stahl for the false affidavits that the
-<i>Lusitania</i> had carried guns; the name “Kienzle”
-in D-Case 316 was the name of a man who was
-involved in trying to blow up vessels sailing for
-France and England; the name “Hammond” in
-D-Case 357 led to the disclosure that the Bureau
-of Investigation, although chiefly engaged in spying
-and destroying plots, sometimes ran other and
-more delicate errands for von Bernstorff.</p>
-
-<p>Posing this time as “W. H. Becker” Koenig
-called on one J. C. Hammond, a writer and publicity
-man who had offices at 34th Street and
-Broadway. To Hammond he stated that from
-the standpoint of the Germans in America two
-newspapers were taking irritating and unfriendly
-attitudes. These were the <i>New York World</i> and
-the <i>Providence Journal</i>. Both papers had taken,
-soon after the outbreak of war, definite stands
-on the American issues involved, and both pursued
-the subject in a typically thorough fashion,
-the Providence paper obtaining much of its information
-from sympathetic British sources, and
-the <i>World</i> having an influential position politically
-which led it across the trail of what the newspaper
-men call “big stories.” The <i>Providence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
-Journal</i> in fact emerged from comparative obscurity
-during the early months of war with startling
-charges against German agents both here and
-abroad, supported by evidence which seemed incredible
-though of sound origin. These stories
-were republished widely through the country. It
-was undoubtedly having a powerful effect upon
-the public, for the country, dazed with the fact
-of war, was ready to take sides against the nation
-which was apparently guilty of the worst
-acts. Some of those charges were true, and although
-they seemed at that time so fantastic as
-to be almost impossible, the members of the German
-Embassy knew they were true and squirmed
-inwardly every time a fresh one burst out. The
-<i>World</i> had a habit of not only spreading exciting
-news articles over its front page, but lending
-color to them by publishing photographs of supporting
-documents to prove their authenticity. So
-von Bernstorff and the attachés, after having tried
-to bring influence to bear in many subtle ways to
-curb the publications, called in Koenig, and he
-made his little pilgrimage to Hammond’s office.</p>
-
-<p>He offered the publicity agent a large sum of
-money to find out what exposures the two papers
-had still in the ice-box, ready to release. Later,
-he increased this to a blanket offer of any sum<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
-which Hammond should name, provided the latter
-could induce the papers to turn over to him
-the articles and affidavits in their possession. The
-offer was not accepted. Hammond did not bite
-at the offer of a later reward of $100,000 which
-Koenig hung up to silence the publication of anti-German
-news in certain other large newspapers in
-the country, nor did he, as Koenig requested, go
-to England to visit Rintelen, to find out where
-Rintelen had left a trunk full of valuable papers
-when he fled the United States.</p>
-
-<p>The name “Lewis” mentioned in the citation
-of another case in the little black book revealed a
-further variation of the services of the Secret
-Service Division. The United States owned a
-large quantity of Krag-Joergensen rifles for which
-in that year of peace it had no use, but which several
-foreign governments would have been glad to
-buy. Commercial bachelors who were looking
-for war brides all took turns paying court to the
-rifles, and all without success. Readers of the
-newspapers may recall a small tempest which
-raged around the alleged sale of the rifles, and the
-charges levelled at one after another German
-of the attempt to purchase. Each new charge was
-denied by its victim, and it finally developed that a
-Mrs. Selma Lewis had been involved in the negotiations,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
-and was willing to pose as the purchaser.
-The “man behind” was Franz Rintelen, acting
-for the German Government, and the name
-“Lewis” here in Koenig’s notes, amplified by
-the full name and address of Mrs. Lewis in a
-small address book which we also captured, indicates
-that Koenig worked for Rintelen as well as
-the abler and more authentic members of the embassy
-of destruction which Germany kept in America.</p>
-
-<p>I think I have made it clear that when the
-United States interned Paul Koenig it made
-prisoner one of the busiest men of the German spy
-system, and one of the strangest. He was
-physically powerful and mentally quick with a
-German sort of quickness. He had the most supreme
-self-confidence it has been my pleasure to
-meet, and that caused his downfall. If he had
-administered his bureau in a manner calculated
-to breed loyalty in his employees he would have
-been more successful, but he conceived his work
-as a one-man job, and made his subordinates goose-step
-to his tune. It is certain that had he not
-set down with such care every item which would
-be useful to the United States in unearthing his
-actions, no one can say how long they would have
-continued. Napoleon had his Waterloo, however,
-and Paul Koenig had his notebook, and with
-the same scrupulous foresight the indomitable
-“xxx” left that notebook where we would be
-most likely to find it.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_36" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_036a.png" width="600" height="521" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl smaller floatl narrow50">
- <div class="caption">
- <p><span class="du">HEALTH RULES.</span></p>
- </div>
- <div class="captionl">
- <div class="hang">
- <p>#1. I have decide to refrain from chewing
- tobacco in the office, as it disagrees
- with my health, thereby interfering
- with my work. (12-1-15)</p>
-
- <p>#2. I shall drink no more whiskey. (12-6)</p>
- </div>
- </div>
- </div>
-
- <div class="captionr smaller floatr narrow50">
- <div class="caption">
- <p><span class="du">HEALTH TABLE #1.</span></p>
- <p>XI.</p>
- </div>
- <div class="captionl">
- <p class="in0">9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-25-28-28-    11</p>
- </div>
- <div class="caption u">
- <p>XII.</p>
- </div>
- <div class="captionl">
- <p class="in0">1-3-5-8-9-11-13-16-</p>
- </div>
- </div>
-
- <div class="caption floatc">
- <p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div id="ip_37" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_036b.png" width="600" height="512" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl smaller floatl narrow50">
-
-<blockquote class="hang2">
-
-<p><span class="inhang4">safeguarding</span> of the Imperial
-German Embassy at Cedarhurst,
-L. I.</p>
-
-<p>Sept. 1. Bureau was entrusted with the
-safeguarding of the offices of
-Commercial Attache Dr. Albert.</p>
-
-<p>Oct. 26. Bureau was entrusted with the
-safeguarding of the offices of
-the Military Attache.</p>
-
-<p>Nov. 12. Began first investigation for
-Austro-Hungarian Government.</p>
-
-<p>Dec. 13. As 6.30 P.M. Captain von Papen,
-German Military Attache, received
-me at the German Club
-to express his thanks for the
-services which this Bureau have
-rendered to him. At the same
-time he bid me Good-Bye.</p>
-
-<p>Dec. 15. Bureau was entrusted with the
-safeguarding of the offices of
-the I. &amp; R. Austro-Hungarian
-Consulate General.</p>
-</blockquote></div>
-
-<div class="captionr smaller floatr narrow50">
-<p class="center"><span class="u">LIST OF<br />
-IMPORTANT CASES HANDLED.</span></p>
-
-<p class="center">- 1913 -</p>
-
-<blockquote class="hang3">
-<p>C.#17. Investigation Re: Jersey City
-Wharfage Graft.</p>
-
-<p>C.#24. Investigation of Baggage Department,
-Hoboken.</p>
-
-<p>C.#32. Chinese Stowaways on S.S. “PRINZ
-JOACHIM”, Voy. 77.</p>
-
-<p>C.#40. Investigation Re: Thefts of Cargo
-on the Atlas Pier, New York City.</p>
-
-<p>C.#41. S.S. “FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE”, Arrival
-at New York July 2, 1913.</p>
-
-<p>C.#49. Charges Made Against W. Barbe,
-Chief Officer, S.S. “CARL SCHURZ”.</p>
-
-<p>C.#54. Investigation Re: S.S. “PRINZ
-FRIEDRICH WILHELM”, Arrived at
-New York on June 3.</p>
-
-<p>C.#67. Fire on Board S.S. “IMPERATOR” on
-August 28.</p>
-
-<p>C.#69. Fire Patrol on S.S. “IMPERATOR”,
-&amp; etc.</p>
-
-<p>C.#70. Max Ludwig Thomsen, Alias Thomspson.</p>
-
-<p>C.#95. Charges Against Paul Koenig.</p></blockquote>
-</div>
-
-<div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Random Pages from “P. K.’s Little Black Book”</p></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
-It is a rare treat, aside from its now past informative
-value. And it contains one real mystery
-which the Westphalian himself can alone clear
-up. The page headed “Health Rules” reads as
-follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“#1. I have decided to refrain from chewing
-tobacco in the office as it disagrees with my health
-thereby interfering with my work. (12-1-15.)</p>
-
-<p>“#2. I shall drink no more whiskey.
-(12-6.)”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">Which leads one to believe that he saw the practical
-value of an exemplary life. But we must
-wait for him to explain the page headed “Health
-Table,” which reads:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="center">“XI</p>
-
-<p>“9-12-14-17-17-21-23-24-28-28.</p>
-
-<p class="center">“XII</p>
-
-<p>“1-3-5-8-9-11-13-16.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The “XI” is evidently November, of 1915, the
-“XII” December. What did he do on those
-dates so accurately mentioned? Did temptation
-lead him twice from the path on the 17th and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
-28th of November? If so, what could this temptation
-have been? Is it possible that the same
-conscience which made him typewrite his rules of
-conduct weakened, and then remorse turned about
-and forced him to set down his lapses from grace?
-Is it further possible that each of the dates cited
-means that Paul Koenig broke his brand new
-health rules ten times in November and eight
-times in December, and <em>chewed tobacco in office
-hours</em>?</p>
-
-<p>We must wait in patience—some day his
-Westphalian conscience may answer.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="III" class="vspace">III<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">PLAYING WITH FIRE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The business of crime prevention and detection
-depends largely on the confidence one man has in
-another. That is one reason why a “stool-pigeon”
-is an uncomfortable ally on a case. You
-can not be sure that a man who associates with
-criminals and is giving them away is not giving
-the case away at the same time. His gang hates
-him for squealing, his evidence is the evidence of
-a traitor, and he is a good person not to depend
-on. I make that point here because I have always
-tried to avoid using stool-pigeons, and because
-the story to follow will illustrate what can
-be accomplished by a dependable man.</p>
-
-<p>The story really starts about twenty years ago.
-In the spring of 1900, an Italian from Paterson,
-N. J., Brescia by name, attended a meeting of
-anarchists in a house in Elizabeth Street, New
-York. The group was composed of two parties,
-one which we may call the progressives, and one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
-the inactives. Brescia assailed the inactives, denounced
-them as cowards, and stirred up so much
-dissension that the meeting broke up for fear of
-a police raid, and several of the members retaliated
-at Brescia by accusing him of being a police spy.
-He sailed for Italy, and on July 29, in the little
-Lombardi town of Monza, murdered King Humbert
-the Good. When the news was cabled to
-America it was hailed with proper grief by the
-public and with great joy by the anarchists who
-had called Brescia a traitor. His execution,
-which followed swiftly, made him a martyr. So
-to do him honor, the group was named the Brescia
-Circle.</p>
-
-<p>By 1914 the membership of the circle was
-nearly 600. A cosmopolitan lot: Italians,
-Russians, Russian Jews, Germans, Austrians,
-Spaniards and Americans, of both sexes. The
-leaders were agitators whose speaking ability had
-lifted them out of the ranks and who found an
-easier living by their wits than by their hands.
-The Bomb Squad knew something of their activities
-and habits, for the past history of anarchist
-cases linked up certain names in a pointed way.
-We knew their fondness for bombs, and the
-records of the police department contain many
-instances of anarchists inspired to violence by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
-inflammatory speeches of such agitators, as their
-idol, Francisco Ferrer, had preached violence in
-Spain. The outbreak of war in Europe, from
-which so many of the group had migrated to
-America, and the promise of social confusion
-which it held for them had stirred the Brescia
-Circle more than a little. The active members
-met regularly in the basement of a building at
-301 East 106th Street, a shabby house in a shabby
-district east of the New York Central tracks.
-These meetings, which occurred usually on a Sunday,
-as many of the members were working during
-the week, were addressed by such notorious
-anarchists as Emma Goldman, Becky Edelson,
-Frank Mandese, Carlo Tresca and Pietro Allegra—names
-probably unfamiliar to the general public,
-but names with which the Police Department
-had “auld acquaintance.” Occasionally an editor
-of an anarchist newspaper in Lynn, Massachusetts,
-Gagliani by name, came to speak in the cellar, and
-Plunkett, Harry Kelly, and Alexander Berkman
-were usually to be found in the group.</p>
-
-<p>The winter of 1913–1914 was one of industrial
-depression. Many of the radical labor element
-rallied to the I. W. W. and the unemployed
-readily joined them. The methods of the anarchists
-and I. W. W.’s were similar, and the advocates<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
-of unrest were enlisted under both standards.
-In the late winter demonstrations began and multiplied
-until in March a youth named Frank Tannenbaum,
-to whom Emma Goldman later took a
-fancy, led a mob of I. W. W.’s into St. Alphonsus’
-Church demanding food. The police waited until
-they had passed inside, then locked the doors,
-and arrested the whole lot. This was but one
-instance of a number which promised more trouble.
-Whatever nice distinctions of creed separated the
-Industrial Workers from the anarchists were
-paper distinctions; the performances of both bodies
-made it fairly plain that if you scratched
-an anarchist you found an I. W. W. underneath.</p>
-
-<p>There may have been some intimation from
-abroad of the impending war, among the anarchists,
-for in July certain of them began to grow
-demonstrative. On Independence Day Mandese
-was arrested in Tarrytown, in uncomfortable
-proximity to the estate and person of John D.
-Rockefeller. Carron, Berg and Hansen, three
-members of the Brescia Circle, were engaged on
-that same day in perfecting a bomb in their rooms
-at Lexington Avenue and 104th Street, when the
-machine exploded prematurely and killed them.
-That bomb had been intended for the Rockefeller<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
-family. Naturally everyone with a shred of respect
-for order who read of these episodes recoiled
-from them, but it was necessary to judge
-them from the anarchist’s own standpoint to see
-that while one of the cases had resulted in death,
-and the Mandese incident in arrest, both had been
-successful in creating a disturbance. The anarchist
-likes disturbance as well as he dislikes order,
-for unrest is contagious, and means new recruits
-to the cause. It became our duty, therefore, to
-make a careful investigation of these disturbances
-at their source, and we insinuated a detective into
-the Brescia Circle itself.</p>
-
-<p>He spoke only English—a good language for
-social intercourse, but not the key to the affairs
-of the group in the 106th Street basement.
-Whenever the more prominent agitators had a
-really important matter to discuss they used the
-Italian tongue, and it was impossible for our
-man to eavesdrop. Perhaps he was over-eager,
-for twice he was brought to trial by the Circle
-charged with spying. Twice he was acquitted.
-But when his enemies had him formally charged
-a third time with treachery, the anarchists decided
-that although they had no evidence against
-him beyond a powerful suspicion, he would be
-better outside. Outside he went.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
-On October 3, the anarchists gave a grand ball
-at the Harlem Casino in honor of Emma Goldman,
-and at that affair announcement was made
-that October 13 would be observed by those of the
-cause with a celebration at Forward Hall, in East
-Broadway, fitting to the anniversary of the “assassination”
-of Francisco Ferrer. The orator,
-Leonard Abbott, also reminded the gathering that
-“the Catholic Church had been responsible for
-Ferrer’s death.” At five o’clock in the afternoon
-of October 12 a vicious explosion occurred in the
-north aisle of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was an
-anarchist’s bomb. The nave of the church held
-numerous worshippers, who were panic-stricken,
-but who fortunately escaped injury with the exception
-of a young man struck in the face by a
-flying splinter from one of the altars. Shortly
-after midnight of the next day a bomb placed in
-the front area of the priests’ house of St. Alphonsus’
-exploded with violence enough to break every
-window in the house and every window in the
-house across the street. Ferrer’s “assassination”
-had evidently been appropriately observed.</p>
-
-<p>The situation was disturbing. We had to put
-a stop to bombing before the anarchists grew
-bolder and began to kill someone beside themselves.
-Of course we wanted all the evidence we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
-could lay hands on, and yet the evidence we had
-been able to obtain had not prevented two outrages.
-We felt that undoubtedly the best place
-to look for it was still the Brescia Circle, as it
-constituted the chief organization and headquarters
-for the element which we believed guilty.
-And we now return to the question of the stool-pigeon.</p>
-
-<p>It would have been possible to employ one of
-the Circle, perhaps. It is certain that I should
-have been uneasy with only his evidence to depend
-upon, for a bomb does not wait to be investigated.
-Planting a man in the Brescia Circle
-had not been successful, but I felt that it could
-be made successful. So out of five or six candidates
-from the department I chose Amedeo
-Polignani for the work.</p>
-
-<p>He was a young Italian detective who kept his
-own counsel, short, strong, mild-mannered and unobtrusive.
-And he knew Italian. “Your name
-from now on is Frank Baldo,” I said. “Forget
-you’re a detective. You can get a job over
-in Long Island City, so as to carry out the bluff.
-You are an anarchist. Join the Brescia Circle
-and any other affiliated group, and report to me
-every day. The older members may be suspicious
-of you, and they’ll probably follow you, so we had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
-better arrange when you are to telephone and
-I’ll let you know whenever and wherever I want
-to see you.” We discussed every possible angle
-of the work in order to anticipate and forestall
-whatever accident either of omission or commission
-might occur to make Polignani’s position
-suspicious. He was instructed to call me by telephone
-at certain hours, using a private number,
-telephoning from a public pay-station in a store in
-which there was not more than one booth, so that
-no one might follow him and hear his conversation
-through the flimsy walls of a booth adjoining.
-He was to deport himself in a retiring manner,
-and to throw himself earnestly into the part
-he was to act. I felt sure that his quiet, agreeable
-nature would disarm any suspicion of him as a
-newcomer, and that complete concentration upon
-the spirit of the masquerade would gradually draw
-out important information. First and foremost,
-he was to be on the watch for evidence of the man
-who had committed the two bomb outrages in
-October; secondly, he was to cover the activities
-and intentions of the anarchists in general; thirdly,
-he was to keep his eyes and ears open and his
-mouth shut, and to deal with any emergency which
-might arise.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_46" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_046a.jpg" width="600" height="471" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by International News Service</i></div>
- <div class="caption">
- <p>Carmine and Carbone in Court</p></div></div>
-
-<p>It often happens in fiction that a man journeys<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
-to a far country and somewhere on the voyage
-sheds his identity like an old suit of clothes to
-proceed through years of adventure as another
-individual; in the movies it is no feat at all for a
-girl to disguise herself as a man and hoodwink
-the rest of the actors through several hundred
-feet of film; but it remained for a New York detective
-to discard his name and his associations
-for six months, and without once stirring outside
-his jurisdiction, without any disguise, and without
-miraculous power, to add to the records—and
-consequently to the efficiency—of his department
-a store of information of one of the most
-troublesome groups of anarchists in the United
-States.</p>
-
-<p>He bade his little family in the Bronx good-by,
-got employment at manual labor in a Long
-Island City factory, and hired a cheap room at
-1907 Third Avenue. Throughout November he
-attended meetings of the Brescia Circle, listening
-to bitter speeches full of wild plans to overthrow
-the government, and the organized church, and
-getting the lay of the land. To such members as
-chose to speak to him he was courteous and
-friendly, but they were not many. The more important
-members had a way of gathering in corners
-and whispering to each other, and the new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
-member was not invited to join the charmed inner
-circle. So he held his peace, and memorized
-names and faces, and presently his opportunity
-came.</p>
-
-<p>Polignani had noticed on November 30 a young
-Italian cobbler, named Carbone, who seemed to
-have influence in the Circle, and he confirmed this
-judgment on the next two Sunday evenings as
-he saw Carbone in whispered conversation with
-Frank Mandese and one Campanielli. The next
-Sunday night the same trio was in star-chamber
-session when a good-natured wrestling match
-started in another part of the room, and Carbone
-turned to watch it. Polignani was tossing various
-members to the floor, and as he was smoothing
-his ruffled hair after a short bout, Carbone
-tapped him on the shoulder and said, “You’re a
-strong fellow—I’m glad to see you a member of
-the Brescia Circle!” The detective smiled, and
-the two fell into conversation, which continued as
-they left the society’s rooms and strolled up Third
-Avenue.</p>
-
-<p>“The trouble with those fellows,” said Carbone,
-“is that they talk too much and don’t act
-enough. They don’t accomplish anything.”</p>
-
-<p>“That’s right,” Polignani agreed.</p>
-
-<p>“What they ought to do is throw a few bombs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
-and show the police something,” Carbone continued.
-“Wake them up! Look—” he held up
-the stumps of five fingers of his right hand—“I
-got that making a bomb. Some day I’ll show you
-how to make ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>That arrangement suited Polignani perfectly.
-He had a lead, after tedious “watchful waiting,”
-which had been punctuated by the explosion of a
-mysterious bomb at the door of the Bronx County
-Court House on November 11. He had listened
-to reams of oratory against the ruling classes,
-law, order and the churches, had heard his fellow
-members chided because the bombs at St. Patrick’s
-and St. Alphonsus’ had been too weak, and had
-heard speakers advise any members who contemplated
-the use of dynamite not to take too
-many people into their confidences. Carbone was
-deliberately confiding in “Baldo,” and the detective
-made up his mind to cultivate him.</p>
-
-<p>This extract from his notebook will illustrate
-how the acquaintance ripened:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“I did not see Carbone again until Sunday the
-27th. On this day he spoke to me of a friend
-named Frank and said that if all anarchists were
-like his friend they would be all right. He
-thinks nothing of making and throwing a bomb.
-On January 1st about 1.45 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> Carbone met
-me as per appointment. We went to where the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
-meeting of the unemployed was being held and
-both of us shook hands with Louise Berg, Mandese,
-and Bianco.... He introduced me to his
-friend Frank....”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Enter the third conspirator, Frank Abarno, 25
-years old, and a native of San Velle, Italy. Almost
-on the heels of his introduction to the promising
-new member, the new member began to take
-a new interest in life, for on January 3 Carbone
-drew Polignani out of the meeting after the
-speeches and said quietly, “Come on up to the
-125th Street Station. It’s warm up there, and
-we won’t be bothered. I’ll tell you something
-about making bombs.” And on the way up Lexington
-Avenue Carbone explained that he needed
-some caps about two inches long. All the dynamite
-he wanted he could get from his uncle, a contractor
-“out in the country.” “We’ll get some
-dynamite, and then you and Frank and me will
-blow up some churches, see?”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure,” the detective answered. “What
-church?”</p>
-
-<p>“St. Patrick’s is the best. This time it’ll be a
-good one too—not like before.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you hear what Mandese was saying the
-other night?” Polignani asked. “He was scrapping
-with another fellow and the fellow says, ‘If<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
-they wouldn’t give me no work I’d throw bombs.’
-And Mandese said to him, ‘The only kind of
-bombs you shoot are the kind you shoot with your
-mouth,’ and he says, ‘What kind of bombs do
-you shoot then?’ And Mandese says, ‘The kind
-that went off at Madison Square and the two
-churches, see!’”</p>
-
-<p>Carbone apparently did not care for the results
-of the previous explosions, for he said:</p>
-
-<p>“Well, they were no good. That bomb that
-killed Carron and Berg and Hansen wasn’t made
-right. It was wound too tight—that’s why it
-went off too soon. I can make a bomb from a
-brass ball off a bed-post that will start something.”</p>
-
-<p>A fortnight passed, and Carbone turned up at
-the Brescia meeting-place in company with Abarno.
-They beckoned to Polignani and the three walked
-down Third Avenue, Abarno mouthing anarchy,
-and suddenly suggesting that he would like to
-go into St. Patrick’s, find Cardinal Farley alone,
-and choke him to death. The gentle soul then
-remarked: “Carbone, you make some bombs!”</p>
-
-<p>“If I can get those caps I’ll make a bomb that
-will destroy the Cathedral clear down to the
-ground, but if I can’t get the caps then I’ll have to
-make the other kind.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
-“Well, you make two bombs,” said Abarno.
-“We’ll set them off on the outside of the church
-about six o’clock some morning and then we can
-get away clean and get to work on time and nobody
-will know the difference.”</p>
-
-<p>Carbone asked Abarno to get him some sulphur,
-and turned to Polignani a slip pencilled, “Collorate
-di Potase, 1 lb.” and “Andimonio.”
-“You get that at a drug store, Baldo,” he said.</p>
-
-<p>“Baldo” complied, and a few weeks later the
-materials were assembled. Carbone instructed
-Polignani to call on Abarno for a booklet on
-bomb manufacture, and about six in the evening of
-February 4 Abarno gave the detective the
-pamphlet to read while he went out to get some
-spaghetti, as the two had an appointment with
-Carbone at 7.30. Polignani was hardly out of
-Abarno’s sight when he sprinted to a telephone
-and called me. I met him at once, at headquarters,
-and turned the booklet over to the photographer,
-who got to work immediately photographing
-the pages. Our time was short, and
-before we had the job done I had to restore the
-book to Polignani. On Lincoln’s Birthday Carbone
-gave the book to our man again, to study, and
-this gave us time to finish the photographic copying.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_52" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;">
- <img src="images/i_052a.png" width="568" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="p1">
- <div class="captionl floatl narrow50">
-
-<table class="wide" summary="Pages from the bomb-thrower's textbook">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc" colspan="3">ISTRUMENTI</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Una bilancia usata</td>
- <td class="tdc w2">L.</td>
- <td class="tdl w3">  8.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Un termometro</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  2.50</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Misure</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  3.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Matracci di vetro</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  6.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Tre imbuti di vetro e tre bacchette di vetro</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  2.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Lampada a spirito</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  1.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Un mastello di legno di 30 o 35 litri</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">  3.—</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Spese varie e impreviste</td>
- <td class="tdc">”</td>
- <td class="tdl">20.50</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr l1"><span class="smcap">Totale</span></td>
- <td class="tdc bt">L.</td>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="bt">46.—</span></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p>Raccomandiamo a coloro che si vogliono
-mettere a questi lavori, di procurarsi prima
-di tutto il denaro necessario; altrimenti arrischiano
-di doversi fermare a mezza strada,
-di tirar le cose in lungo ed esporsi inutilmente.</p>
-
-<p>Raccomandiamo agli stessi di non trascurare
-nessuna delle precauzioni necessarie per
-non attirare l’attenzione della polizia, di non
-mettersi in vista colla propaganda pubblica,
-di non farsi vedere coi compagni conosciuti,
-e di non lavorare mai nelle case soggette ad
-essere perquisite.</p>
-
-<p>Sopratutto raccomandiamo non mettersi a
-fabbricare esplosivi per il gusto di fabbricarli.
-Tutto ciò che si può avere bello e fatto, è
-inutile, è stupido il volerlo fare da sè, quando
-non si ha la pratica ed i mezzi che hanno
-quelli del mestiere. Nei posti in cui si può
-avere la dinamite—e oggi la si può avere
-quasi dappertutto—perchè mettersi a fabbricarla?</p>
-
-<p>Bisogna poi che fra i diversi esplosivi, le
-diverse bombe, ecc., ognuno scelga le cose
-che per lui sono più facili e più pratiche ricordandosi
-sempre che: <b>E’ meglio una cosa
-piccola fatta, che una grande restata in
-proposito.</b></p>
-
-<p class="center">—13—</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="captionr floatr narrow50">
-<p class="in0">stessa: si legano bene con fil di ferro intorno
-alla rotaia, si mette capsula e miccia, si copre
-con terra e la mina è pronta. Questa
-produce una rottura di mezzo metro. Per
-avere rotture più estese non v’è che preparare
-parecchie di queste mine, a debita distanza
-e munirle di miccie di eguali qualità
-e lunghezza; e raccogliere insieme i capi delle
-miccie, in modo che dando fuego alle miccie
-lo scoppio è contemporaneo in tutti i punti.
-Spesso è vantaggioso per far saltare gli scambii,
-cioè i punti dove s’incrociano diverse
-linee. Per mettere fuori d’uso una locomotiva
-o una macchina a vapore qualsiasi, basta
-far scoppiare 3 o 4 petardi in un tubo
-intemo della caldaia.</p>
-
-<p class="p2 center bold">BOMBE</p>
-
-<p>Sono recipienti di metallo pieni di materia
-esplosiva, che scoppiando si rompono in pezzi
-e feriscono i circostanti. Possono avere qualunque
-forma, ma la sferica è più efficace.
-Per farle scoppiare si può adoperare una capsula
-con miccia che brucia rapidissimamente
-tanto da aver giusto il tempo per accenderle
-e lanciarle. Si può anche applicarvi tutto a
-l’intorno dei luminelli con capsule o altri apparati,
-in modo che per l’urto della caduta il
-fulminato scoppi e faccia scoppiare la carica
-della bomba, come in quelle all’Orsini.</p>
-
-<p>La bomba fa tanto più effetto quanto più
-il metallo è resistente, sempre che la carica
-abbia la forza di farla scoppiare. Quindi il
-miglior metallo è il ferro o l’acciaio, poi il
-rame, l’ottone, il bronzo, quindi la ghisa ed
-infine lo zinco solo o legato con stagno; il
-piombo non serve. <span class="smcap">Lo spessore delle pa-</span></p>
-
-<p class="center">—39—</p>
-</div>
-<div class="caption floatc">
-<p>Pages from the bomb-thrower’s textbook</p></div></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
-I realized when I saw the translation how Carbone
-knew so much about making bombs.</p>
-
-<p>“La Salute e’ in voi!” read the cover, or
-“Health is in you!” Evidently a toast to the
-brotherhood for which it was prepared. It was
-a pamphlet of some sixty pages, measuring about
-four by eight inches, and cleanly printed in Italian.
-It was nothing less than a text-book on how
-to go about making bombs—a sort of guide to
-anarchist etiquette. It would be unwise to reproduce
-its instructions here in detail, as they
-were too accurate for the general peace, but the
-index which follows will give a conception of the
-thoroughness with which the anonymous writers
-in far-off Italy covered their subject.</p>
-
-<div class="narrow20 intact in2">
-<p class="in0">“Index—</p>
-<table summary="Index to bomb-making pamphlet">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">First principles</td>
- <td class="tdr">1  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Instruments</td>
- <td class="tdr">7  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Manipulation</td>
- <td class="tdr">8  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Explosive material</td>
- <td class="tdr">11  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Powder</td>
- <td class="tdr">14  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Nitroglycerine</td>
- <td class="tdr">14  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Dynamite</td>
- <td class="tdr">20  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Fulminate of mercury</td>
- <td class="tdr">23  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Gun cotton</td>
- <td class="tdr">27  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Preparation of fuses</td>
- <td class="tdr">31  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Capsule and petard</td>
- <td class="tdr">34  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Application of explosive materials</td>
- <td class="tdr">35  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Bombs</td>
- <td class="tdr">39  <span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">Incendiary materials</td>
- <td class="tdr">44”</td></tr>
-</table>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, it was accurate—and very practical. To
-quote from its advice to struggling anarchists:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“We recommend most earnestly that if you
-wish to engage in this line of work, you procure,
-before all else, a sufficient amount of money,
-otherwise you risk being put out in the middle of
-the street, only to find your long work and trouble
-all in vain. We recommend at the same time
-that you do not omit any precaution necessary
-to avoid attracting the attention of the police,
-and avoid mixing with the public, nor be seen with
-known companions. And do not work at it in
-the house except when necessary....</p>
-
-<p>“The work should be done in a well ventilated
-room provided with a good chimney place and
-furnished in such a way that you can hide things
-if anyone enters, and this room ought to be on the
-top floor of the house on account of the odors
-that are always being produced....</p>
-
-<p>“Above all we recommend that you never make
-explosives for the mere pleasure of making them.
-All you do beyond enough is useless and stupid—especially
-so when you have neither the practice
-nor the proper means for making them. As
-to the place to keep the dynamite, why make it
-until it is needed? Take heed that among the
-various kinds of explosives, bombs, etc., always
-choose the one that will be most easily used and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
-most practical, remembering always that it is
-better to do a little thing well than to leave a big
-thing half done....”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The little booklet contained a list of the necessary
-tools with their estimated costs, and said of
-the chemicals to be used, “The materials to be
-employed should be sufficiently pure. They may
-be had of dealers in chemical and pharmaceutical
-products, and it is well not to buy all the stuff from
-the same merchant, in order that he may not
-know what you wish to make....” It explained
-the relative forces of explosives in this way:
-“The relative force which the various explosives
-have is as follows: Shot-gun powder has a force
-of 1; an equal amount of ‘Panclastite’ has the
-force of 6; of dynamite 7; of dry gun-cotton 9
-(if with 50% of salts of nitre, 5); of nitroglycerine
-9; of fulminate of mercury 10 or 3½; of
-nitromannite 11.... All the other explosives of
-which we speak, such as melenite, etc., have nitroglycerine
-for their bases, therefore have no
-greater force than that of nitroglycerine.”</p>
-
-<p>After an exposition of the method of making
-nitroglycerine—the mere reading of which would
-make your hair bristle—the compilers conclude
-“... it is not very dangerous to use when cold,
-notwithstanding all that has been said. It would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
-be a great work if some American manufacturer
-would devise some means of congealing it so that
-it would be less sensitive to shock, so that it
-might safely be carried on the railways.” Of
-fulminating cotton they remark, “As it ignites
-with instantaneous rapidity it is best to use a fuse
-that burns the most quickly; for example, when
-for use in bombs made to throw at a person, it
-will be enough to twist the cord, etc., etc.” Minute
-directions are given for the home-laboratory
-manufacture of the explosives listed, and the
-experimenter who cared to attempt their manufacture
-was warned in the simplest and most
-emphatic terms of the caprices of the different
-materials. He was told how to make cord-fuses
-that would burn at the rate of 8 hours to the
-yard, and of 6 hours to the yard; paper fuses
-which would reach the explosive two hours after
-a spark had touched the corner of a sheet of
-prepared paper; thread fuses which would sparkle
-fifteen seconds to the metre, or three minutes to
-the metre; and, finally, an instantaneous fuse
-which “Because it will burn with all the speed of
-electricity ... may be made to serve many important
-purposes: to fire a mine under a passing
-train, under gatherings, or troops of cavalry.”</p>
-
-<p>If the bomber wished to blow up a wall, he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
-was told how to compute by simple mathematics
-the quantity of explosive required. A bridge
-“will require twice the charge needed for a wall”—and
-the vulnerable points of the bridge were
-indicated. Telephone and telegraph poles and
-wires, street gratings, street railways, locomotives,
-steam-boilers, all came in for their share
-of attention. “It is very easy to find suitable
-receptacles for bombs,” the writer went on.
-“For example, large inkwells, brass handles such
-as are used on letter-presses.... For certain
-purposes a bottle may be made to serve as a bomb—they
-are suitable for throwing from a window....
-Fragile glass bottles when filled with this
-solution (an incendiary mixture) make handy
-incendiary bombs to hurl among troops, official
-gatherings, etc.; also to pour from windows upon
-troops, or to throw from a drinking glass or
-pail....” I have wondered whether Gavrio
-Prinzip of Sarajevo ever saw this book, and
-whether it may not have been translated into Italian
-from the original German.</p>
-
-<p>Mere possession of this wicked treatise would
-suggest that the owner was up to no good, especially
-if the owner, as in this case, was known to
-be a volatile member of an anarchistic circle who
-had already declared his intentions of wrecking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
-something. It was reasonable to assume that
-there must be such a book of instruction in existence,
-that the bombers had not been handling
-delicate explosives with no better knowledge than
-word-of-mouth, hearsay chemistry, but I am free
-to confess that my first sight of the pamphlet
-brought the plots of the men we were watching
-very close to grim reality. I never knew just
-when we would get an ambulance call and have
-to go and pick Polignani out of the wreck of
-a premature explosion, and I never heard him
-report in on the telephone that I didn’t experience
-a momentary apprehension of his latest news.
-The detective himself was calm enough, and enthusiastic
-over the fact that the trail was growing
-hotter all the time. The question of evidence
-of the previous explosions was in the background
-now, and the activities of the Brescia Circle as a
-political unit did not concern us nearly as much
-as the activities of three of its members with their
-“andimonio, collorate di potase” and their
-pamphlet, and their hatred of the Catholic
-Church.</p>
-
-<p>Polignani had seen this hatred demonstrated
-many times by Carbone. They passed two Sisters
-of Charity one chilly evening near the Harlem
-station, and the anarchist spat, and cursed them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
-So the detective was not surprised by Abarno’s
-proposal on the night of St. Valentine’s Day that
-the three conspirators plant their bombs in St.
-Patrick’s Cathedral. “We’ll go over there some
-day soon and look for a good place to set them.
-And then we’ll plant the bomb on some good
-holiday—say on March 21, eh?”</p>
-
-<p>“What’s that day?” Polignani inquired.</p>
-
-<p>“The Commune!” Abarno answered.</p>
-
-<p>Polignani bought the antimony and the chlorate
-of potash, and at a subsequent meeting watched
-uneasily while Carbone tried to pulverize the antimony
-with a hammer. It was too hard work,
-however, and “Baldo” was directed to buy a
-small quantity of the pulverized substance. This
-he did. The three had meanwhile been trying
-to pick out a good room in an English-speaking
-lodging house in 29th Street, but finally gave it
-up and hired a furnished room at 1341 Third
-Avenue. There they brought their materials, consisting
-of twelve yards of copper wire, a trunk
-full of odds and ends, tools, fuse cord, and various
-ingredients. To this supply they wanted to
-add some hollow iron balls, but the hollow iron
-ball market was sparse, and they finally substituted
-three tin hand-soap cans. On February 27
-Polignani and Abarno made a tour of inspection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
-of St. Patrick’s, and as they were descending the
-steps Abarno remarked that when he had destroyed
-the Cathedral they would turn their attention
-first to the Carnegie residence at 90th
-Street and Fifth Avenue, and then to the Rockefeller
-home. “We won’t wait till March 21,”
-he observed impatiently. “Let’s get this job
-done soon. Say Tuesday morning.”</p>
-
-<div id="ip_60" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_060a.png" width="600" height="363" alt="" />
- <div class="caption"><p>A postcard received by Commissioner Woods after the arrest
-of the Anarchists</p></div>
-
-<div class="captionl">
-<p>The message reads:</p>
-
-<p class="in0">
-“<span class="smcap">Mr. Woods</span><br />
-<span class="in2">My Dear Sir</span>
-</p>
-
-<p class="in0">Your police Espionage may go as far as you like for the promotion of
-your Bankrupt Law &amp; Order of Society. The Anarchists of New York
-have but one Life to give for the Ideal of Humanity and absolute Freedom
-of mankind the world over. yours The Society for the Propagation of
-absolute Liberty and Human Freedom....”</p></div></div>
-
-<p>High noon of the following day saw the three
-plotters cheerfully at work in the furnished room.
-Abarno and Carbone measured carefully the proportions
-of sulphur, sugar, chlorate of potash and
-antimony; Carbone filled the tins with the mixture,
-and led the fuses into the heart of the mass,
-glancing up from time to time to the detective
-with real pride, as if to say: “See, Baldo?
-That’s how an expert works!” “Baldo” had
-contributed his share of the materials—a few
-lengths of iron rod. Carbone bound these to the
-outside of the cans with cord, and added a few
-bolts which he found in a bureau drawer, and a
-coat-hanger, twisted out of shape. Round and
-round this shapeless tangle of metal he wove
-copper wire, and so produced two heavy, compact
-bombs. Polignani had grown almost gray when,
-after boring the fuse holes in the can-tops, Carbone
-casually picked up a hammer and began to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
-tattoo the cans. The detective promptly took
-refuge behind the bed, near the floor.</p>
-
-<p>“No use to hide there, Baldo!” This with a
-laugh from Carbone. “If she goes off she’ll blow
-the whole house down. How’s that, Frank?”
-he added, showing the finished product to Abarno.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll throw that one and you can throw the
-other, Carbone,” Abarno said. “Now listen.
-We will meet here Tuesday morning at six o’clock
-to the minute. We will get to the Cathedral just
-at 6.20. Then we’ll light the bombs, and the fuses
-will burn slow for twenty minutes, so as we can
-get over to the Madison Avenue car and then we
-can all get to work on time, and we will have a
-good alibi all right. Then we’ll get together
-Tuesday night and go some place and have a good
-time to celebrate throwing a scare into Fifth
-Avenue, boys! Tuesday morning, six o’clock
-sharp?”</p>
-
-<p>Carbone and Polignani assented, and Abarno
-left.</p>
-
-<p>Polignani kept in close touch with me from
-that moment forward. Ever since the day when
-Carbone had sent him to the drug store for black
-antimony, with instructions to bribe the drug clerk
-if he could not easily obtain it, we had had a
-double check on the conspirators, for I had assigned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
-two men to shadow them constantly. The
-case was building towards a climax. Polignani
-had shrewdly kept the slip on which Carbone
-wrote the prescription for the explosives, and when
-Carbone asked where it was he said, “I tore it
-up. I didn’t want it to be found on me. It
-would get me into trouble.” The anarchist
-praised the detective for his forethought. The
-two men from the Bomb Squad never let Abarno
-and Carbone out of their sight, so that for a
-month we had not only the direct evidence of
-Polignani of what the conspirators said and did
-in his presence, but evidence from the two shadows
-which accounted for their time more fully, probably,
-than they could have recalled themselves.
-And so when Polignani—who did not know he
-was being observed—told me of the final plans,
-I passed the information on to the two shadows,
-and we formulated a counter-campaign for Tuesday
-morning.</p>
-
-<p>Shortly after sunrise on Tuesday, Polignani
-tumbled out of bed and into his clothes. He ate
-a hasty and nervous breakfast at a cheap lunch-room
-around the corner, and hurried to the sidewalk
-before 1341 Third Avenue, arriving a
-few minutes after six. Abarno joined him at
-6.30.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
-“Where’s Carbone—isn’t he here?” he said
-by way of greeting.</p>
-
-<p>“No,” replied “Baldo.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, we can’t wait for him. We can’t lose
-any time. I got to be at work at 7.30. Come up
-and get the bombs with me. We’ll probably meet
-him on the way down the street. Or maybe he’s
-at the shoe-shop.”</p>
-
-<p>The two men went upstairs and into the third-floor-back.
-“Give me the key,” Abarno muttered.
-Polignani did so. Abarno opened the
-trunk and took out the two bombs. “You take
-one and I’ll take the other,” he whispered.
-“Come on. Put it under your coat.”</p>
-
-<p>When they started down Third Avenue the
-two shadows—who had also risen early—disengaged
-themselves from the doorways where they
-were idling and proceeded at an even pace down
-the Avenue behind the men. A few hundred
-yards or so in the rear of the procession was a
-limousine, and I was in the limousine. I could
-spot the men distinctly, and I had to chuckle when
-I saw them catch sight of a uniformed officer a
-block or so ahead and hastily cross the street.
-The same thing occurred twice again in the course
-of the march. Our parade continued. No one
-but ourselves paid any attention to the two laborers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
-who were carrying lumpy bundles under their
-coats.</p>
-
-<p>At Fifty-third Street my chauffeur turned west
-and slipped into high speed. We were at the
-Cathedral in a minute more, and I jumped out and
-hurried into the vestibule. No one there but three
-or four scrub-women, puttering around in the half-light
-with their mops and pails. Several hundred
-worshippers were already gathered in the front of
-the nave, where Bishop Hayes was conducting
-early mass. As I passed into the body of the
-church there was no one near except an elderly
-usher, with white hair and beard. I stepped into
-a dark corner and waited.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_64" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;">
- <img src="images/i_064a.jpg" width="418" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">1. Detective George D. Barnitz
- <span class="in2">2. Detective Patrick Walsh</span><br />
- 3. Detective James Sterett<br />
- 4. Left to right: Patrick Walsh, Jerome Murphy and James Sterett</div></div>
-
-<p>A matter of two or three minutes passed, though
-it seemed much longer. Then I saw Abarno and
-Polignani enter the vestibule, cross it and enter
-the church itself, taking their cigars out of their
-mouths as they turned towards the north aisle.
-Abarno led the way. At the tenth pew he motioned
-to Polignani to sit there, and Polignani
-obeyed, dropping to his knees in prayer. Abarno
-continued to the sixth pew ahead. Two of the
-scrub-women had deserted their mops, and were
-dusting the pews along the north aisle near the
-newcomers. Abarno rested for a moment in his
-pew, with his head and body bent as if in prayer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
-then rose and rejoined Polignani. Again he rose,
-and this time moved toward the north end of the
-altar, where he crouched for several seconds, placing
-his bomb against a great pillar. With his
-other hand he flicked the ashes from the coal of
-his cigar and touched the glowing end to the
-fuse. He had taken perhaps three steps down
-the aisle again when the scrub-woman stopped
-plying her dust-cloth. She fastened an iron grip
-on Abarno’s arms and hustled him down the
-aisle so swiftly that no one remarked the affair.
-The scrub-woman was Detective Walsh, disguised.
-The elderly usher passed the two and hurried to
-the spot where Abarno had crouched by the pillar.
-He saw the lighted fuse and pinched it out with
-his fingers. The elderly usher, underneath his
-makeup, was Lieutenant Barnitz. Polignani was
-promptly placed under arrest and led to the vestibule
-with Abarno—for the evidence was not yet
-all in.</p>
-
-<p>Abarno immediately suspected Carbone of
-treachery. He protested violently that the
-missing conspirator had instigated the whole affair,
-that it was his idea, that he had made the
-bombs, and that he could be found living with a
-Hungarian-Jewish family on the fourth floor of
-a house at 216 East 67th Street. He was fluent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
-in the accusations he made against Carbone, and
-he grew more fluent as he recovered from the
-fright of his arrest. So while we escorted the
-two bombs and the two prisoners to headquarters,
-other members of the Bomb Squad visited Carbone
-and placed him under arrest.</p>
-
-<p>From them at headquarters we verified the
-story as we already knew it. Each man accused
-the other. Both men exonerated Polignani of
-any part in suggesting the plot or in making the
-bombs for several days after their arrest. But
-Polignani’s true identity could not be unknown to
-them indefinitely, of course, and when they found
-out that they had been confiding in a full-fledged
-detective—ah, then the storm broke! Prompted,
-I suspect, by pseudo-legal advice, they cried
-“Frame-up!” until they grew hoarse, but it was
-too late, for in the possession of Assistant District
-Attorney Arthur Train was already a sworn
-statement which fixed their guilt by their own
-confession.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_66" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
- <img src="images/i_066a.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">1. The Dagger Threat to Polignani<br />
- 2. The Black Hand Threat<span class="in2">
- 3. Frank Abarno</span><br />
- 4. Carmine Carbone</div></div>
-
-<p>The anarchists rushed to their rescue, but their
-efforts were chiefly verbal. At the Brescia Circle,
-and at I. W. W. headquarters at 64 East 4th
-Street, it was common gossip that counsel for the
-defendants were going to supply 45 or 50 witnesses
-to swear that Polignani had invited them to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
-make bombs. This I had enjoined him strictly
-not to do, as a newcomer who talks bombs is a
-suspicious character in anarchist circles. I know
-he obeyed. There was organized a “Carbone ed
-Abarno Defence Committee” with headquarters
-at 2205 Third Avenue, which solicited other neighboring
-Italian clubs with anarchistic tendencies
-for support of the two. Polignani’s photograph
-appeared presently in a New York Italian newspaper
-with this caption:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“The filthy carrion who by order of the Police
-of New York devised the bomb plot which led up
-to the arrest of Abarno and Carbone, now before
-the Courts. All of us comrades will keep this in
-mind.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">He received several threatening anonymous letters,
-some bearing the familiar “black hand,”
-others sketching on newspaper photographs of
-him the point in his anatomy at which he might
-expect to feel the dagger of revenge; others mere
-bombastic defiance. (The anonymous letter-writer
-is very often a courageous soul who spells
-out his messages with letters and words clipped
-from newspapers, so that his handwriting will
-not betray him.)</p>
-
-<p>What was the reward of those five months invested
-in patience? The two prisoners convicted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
-and sentenced to terms of from six to twelve
-years, was one result. But a far greater one was
-a sharp decrease in bomb-throwing in New York,
-and perhaps the most gratifying was the discord
-which grew in the Brescia Circle. The group
-was frightened, and the members began to suspect
-each other of espionage. One former
-anarchist was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t
-even trust himself—he had been dreaming the
-night before that he was a spy. The Brescia
-Circle became disorganized, and several other
-similar groups in the city suffered the same fate.
-Their leaders drifted away—and got into more
-trouble, as we shall see later.</p>
-
-<p>We never found the original of the treatise on
-bombs. Carbone said he had destroyed it. But
-there are probably other copies from the same
-press in the hands of accredited bomb-throwers.
-If not, they may apply to the New York police
-department.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="IV" class="vspace">IV<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE HINDU-BOCHE FAILURES</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Bret Harte said that “the heathen Chinee”
-was peculiar. The British have learned long
-since that the Hindu, being an Oriental, cannot
-help being equally “peculiar,” and it is a great
-tribute to British persistence that it has labored
-so hard and so successfully in the good government
-of a people so temperamentally complex.
-They have studied the Hindu, and have understood
-him as well as may be. Understanding
-him they have watched him. When war broke
-out, this great Oriental empire presented to
-Britain a grave problem, for as a Hindu editor
-in the United States phrased it, “England is
-Germany’s enemy. England is our enemy. Our
-enemy’s enemy is our friend.”</p>
-
-<p>It is not in my intention or power to discuss the
-methods which England employed to maintain
-strict loyalty in the Indian peninsula, but to outline
-here the part we played in uncovering a plot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
-which threatened seriously to complicate her efforts
-around on the other side of the earth.</p>
-
-<p>Scotland Yard told us in February, 1917, that
-Hindus were conspiring in bomb plots with certain
-Germans in the United States. If it was
-true, it was against the laws of our country. They
-supplied us with a few names, but tactfully suggested
-that inasmuch as it was our country and
-our laws which the plotters were attempting to
-disturb, we would prefer to develop the case
-ourselves. Various authorities in this country had
-already had strong suspicions of the British
-claims, but as yet those suspicions had not grown
-to proof of any specific act. So we went to
-work.</p>
-
-<p>Among other names which were furnished us
-was that of one Chakravarty, whose address was
-364 West 120th Street, New York. For more
-than a fortnight men of the Bomb Squad under
-Mr. (now Lieut.-Col.) Nicholas Biddle, as special
-aid to the commissioner, watched that house.
-They hired a room opposite, where through a
-slit in the window shade they could keep the doorway
-under observation. At the hours when working
-New York leaves its home to make money,
-and comes home at night having made it, the
-door was rarely used, but sometimes at mid-forenoon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
-sometimes in the small hours of the
-morning, the men on watch saw several dark-skinned
-individuals pass in and out of the house.
-The building itself gave no sign of suspicious activity.
-We were on the brink of war, and as
-was the case in most of the other houses in the
-block, an American flag hung draped in the front
-window. What went on behind the camouflage
-screen we did not know. Now and then our men,
-hiding in the shadow of the areaway, would go
-quietly up into the dark doorway and listen, but
-the house never gave out a sound. There was
-certainly no indication that these Hindus were
-conspiring with the Imperial German Government
-in dynamite plots.</p>
-
-<p>We knew certain East Indians who could be depended
-upon, and told them to call upon Chakravarty.
-This ruse failed because Chakravarty
-never presented to the callers anything but a guileless
-reception. So far as they could learn his
-occupation was that of manufacturer of pills; he
-and a certain Ernest Sekunna constituted the Omin
-Company, which company packed in aluminum
-boxes and sold to a limited clientele pills which
-like most patent remedies were recommended for
-any ailment from indigestion up or down—if
-the pill sold, then it was a success. This news did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
-not quiet our impatience, and we decided on a
-raid.</p>
-
-<p>On the night of March 7, 1917, Detectives
-Barnitz, Coy, Randolph, Murphy, Jenkins, Walsh,
-Sterett and Fenelly called at the house, Sterett,
-pretending to be a messenger, and carrying a
-dummy package, presenting himself at the front
-door, and the rest of the party covering other
-avenues of escape. The portal was opened by a
-little Hindu who looked up innocently to Sterett
-and said that Dr. Chakravarty was not in—he
-had gone to Boston. The detectives announced
-their intention of searching the house. The little
-man protested, and was given certain short reasons
-why the search was in order. Surprise, injured
-innocence, and irritation crossed his olive-drab
-face, and he announced that he was a patriotic
-American and that he had never done anything
-to break the laws of the United States. If we
-wanted Dr. Chakravarty, he said, we should go
-and get him, and not disturb a peaceful household
-in this way, and he added that Chakravarty had
-left for New England months before, leaving no
-address. In this the little Hindu was borne out
-by the answers which the other occupant of the
-house gave to our questions—this was Sekunna, a
-German of thirty-five or so. We searched the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
-house, and took the two prisoners and considerable
-material to headquarters.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_72" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_072a.jpg" width="600" height="396" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">A Handbill, printed in Hindu, used by the Hindu-Boche Conspirators</div></div>
-
-<p>The search disclosed a supply of literature of
-the Omin Company describing the properties of
-its pills, a photograph of Sekunna and Chakravarty
-as the turbaned benefactors of an unhealthy
-world, and a number of express money-order receipts,
-deeds and a bank book which showed the
-missing Chakravarty to be one who had acquired
-a good deal of money during the past two years.
-The photograph on closer inspection revealed that
-the little prisoner was Dr. Chakravarty himself.
-Sekunna verified this, and Chakravarty, confronted
-by it, admitted it.</p>
-
-<p>We asked the prisoner how he had suddenly
-come by the $60,000 which his books showed.
-He said that it was his inheritance from the
-estate of his grandfather in India, and that no
-less a personage than Rabindranath Tagore, the
-Indian poet, had paid him, in December, 1916,
-$25,000 of the $45,000 due from the estate.
-About $35,000 had been given him, he added, by
-a lawyer named Chatterji, from Pegu, Burma, in
-March, 1916.</p>
-
-<p>So far as he gave us his history, it related
-that he had graduated from the University of
-Calcutta, and had lived for a time in London, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
-later in Paris, before coming to the United States.
-He had heard that there was a warrant out for
-his arrest in India for sedition, probably due, he
-suggested, to his having written several articles
-on the subject of British Rule.</p>
-
-<p>“Have you been to Germany recently?” I
-asked.</p>
-
-<p>“Of course not,” he answered. “How could
-I get there, with the British watching for me?
-They would arrest me if I tried to go. Why do
-you ask that?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because I wanted to know,” I answered. I
-had good reason to believe that he had been there
-because among his effects we found several exhibits
-which pointed toward such a trip. A letter
-from a woman in Florida dated December 13,
-1915, said:</p>
-
-<p>“I would never for one moment try to deter
-you from the effort or achievement of your lofty
-ideals and noble aims, for in this as in many other
-things my spirit accords with yours. Brother
-dear, <em>do</em> nothing, <em>say</em> nothing, <em>trust</em> nobody, without
-extreme caution. God speed you. God
-hasten your return to those who are interested in
-you, and in all in which you are interested. Bless
-you, precious brother.”</p>
-
-<p>This indicated a journey, clearly. A cablegram<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
-dated Bergen, Norway, Dec. 23, 1915, addressed
-to Sekunna, read, “Safe arrival here,” and took
-him as far as the Continent, at least. Three postcards
-supplied the rest of the information; they
-were addressed by Sekunna to himself at a Berlin
-address, and bore the instructions, “Return to
-Sender, E. A. Sekunna, Omin Company, 417 E.
-142nd Street, New York City”; postmarked Berlin
-in December and January, they suggested
-that Chakravarty had used them as part of a
-pre-arranged system of communication with
-America in which he did not wish his own name
-used.</p>
-
-<p>I found among the papers a photographic print
-of Chakravarty wearing a fez, which I knew was
-not an orthodox head-dress for a Bengalese.
-Furthermore, it struck me that the print was of
-the size and finish usually used on passports for
-identification of the bearer. I showed it to him,
-with the remark:</p>
-
-<p>“Why do you tell me you haven’t been in Berlin,
-when you used this photograph so you could
-get a passport as a Persian?”</p>
-
-<p>He bit. “I see you got me,” he replied. “I
-lied to you. I want to tell you a different story—the
-real one. I did go to Germany.”</p>
-
-<p>“Why?”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
-“To see Wesendonck. He is a secretary for
-India of the German foreign office. He wanted
-to make plans for propaganda for the liberation
-of India from British rule.”</p>
-
-<p>Chakravarty sat there and unfolded an amazing
-story. He touched gingerly upon his own
-part in it at first, then evidently sensed the fact
-that there were others in the plot guilty of perhaps
-no less reprehensible but more violent
-crimes, and the little doctor’s capture and confession
-not only gave clues to the authorities
-which enabled them to follow up the outstanding
-German-Hindu plots in America, but developed
-prosecutions of the first magnitude and the keenest
-general interest.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_76" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
- <img src="images/i_076a.jpg" width="398" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">1. Franz Schulenberg<span class="in2">
- 2. Ram Chandra</span><br />
- 3. Ram Singh (on the left)<br />
- 4. Dr. Chandra Chakravarty and Dr. Ernest Sekunna<br />
- 5. Dr. Chandra Chakravarty in his Persian Dress</div></div>
-
-<p>The enterprises must be recounted out of their
-actual sequence. The first he claimed to have had
-little part in—the project of an uprising in India
-which its sponsors hoped would repeat the Mutiny
-of 1857—but with a more successful outcome.
-Captain Hans Tauscher, the New York agent of
-the Krupp steel and munitions works, was in Berlin
-when war broke out. He reported for active
-duty to Captain von Papen, in New York, as soon
-as he could cross the Atlantic, and one of his
-earliest services was the purchase of a large quantity
-of rifles, field guns, swords and cartridges,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
-which he stored in 200 West Houston Street, New
-York. On January 9, 1915, he shipped a trainload
-of arms and ammunition to San Diego, California.
-There it was loaded into a little vessel,
-the <i>Annie Larsen</i>, which had been chartered by
-German interests, and the <i>Annie Larsen</i> put to
-sea, ostensibly for Mexico, where revolutionary
-arms were in demand. Her real destination was
-a rendezvous off Socorro Island with the <i>Maverick</i>,
-a tank-ship which had been bought in San
-Francisco with German money. The <i>Maverick</i>
-was to trans-ship the arms, flood them with oil in
-her cargo tanks in case she might be searched, and
-proceed by way of Batavia and Bangkok to Karachi,
-a seaport in India which is the gateway to
-the Punjab. There she would be met by friendly
-fishing vessels who would land her cargo, and if
-all went well, there would be a massacre of the
-garrison of Karachi, and hell would break loose
-over India. The effect of such an uprising upon
-Great Britain’s sorely tried military condition of
-early 1915 would have been incalculable. The
-native troops in France who were helping to stop
-the breach until England’s great armies could be
-trained would have to be recalled, the semi-loyal
-tribes would have seen their opportunity, Germany
-would hardly have hesitated to throw a Turkish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
-force at the northern passes, and altogether it
-would not have been pleasant for the integrity of
-the British Empire.</p>
-
-<p>The <i>Maverick</i> and the <i>Annie Larsen</i> missed
-connections at Socorro. The <i>Annie Larsen</i> wandered
-about the Pacific for some weeks and eventually
-put into Hoquiam, Washington, where the
-United States seized the arms. The <i>Maverick</i>
-blundered from Socorro to San Diego, to Hilo,
-Hawaii, to Anjer, Java, by way of Johnson Island,
-then to Batavia, Java, where she was received
-with disappointment by a German agent and
-where she was finally sold. The filibuster ended
-in flat and costly failure: the arms cost not less
-than $100,000 and probably $150,000, the freight
-to the Pacific Coast some $12,000, the charter of
-the <i>Annie Larsen</i> $19,000, the purchase of the
-<i>Maverick</i> involved hundreds of thousands, not to
-mention the individual fees of the numerous agents
-employed.</p>
-
-<p>We knew in a general way of this plot, though
-it remained for the tireless efforts of United
-States District Attorney John W. Preston in San
-Francisco to unearth the details. In a raid which
-had been made on the office of Wolf von Igel,
-von Papen’s secretary, at 60 Wall Street, New
-York, agents of the Department of Justice had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
-found von Igel’s memoranda of correspondence in
-arranging the expedition through the San Francisco
-consulate. But Chakravarty said that the
-revolutionary end of the project had been handled
-by another Hindu, Ram Chandra, and denied that
-he was guilty of any part in it. Ram Chandra
-had negotiated with the German consuls in Seattle
-and San Francisco, and through them with
-Tauscher and von Papen. Chakravarty supplied
-the names of Hindus who had sailed on the <i>Annie
-Larsen</i>, said that there had been Filipinos and
-Germans aboard as well, and added that the
-Filipinos had been transferred to a German ship,
-and had later escaped from her in a motorboat
-while she was being pursued by a Japanese cruiser.
-But, he said, he had nothing to do with it—it
-was Ram Chandra who was the real agent.</p>
-
-<p>It was this Ram Chandra who was editor of
-the Hindu revolutionary newspaper <i>Ghadr</i>
-(Mutiny) published at Berkeley, California. He
-succeeded to the editor’s chair in 1914 when his
-predecessor, Har Dayal, out on bail after an arrest
-for ultra-free speech, had fled across the continent
-and the Atlantic Ocean to Berlin. There
-Dayal established the Hindustani Revolutionary
-Committee, collaborating with, taking orders
-from, and financed by the German Government,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
-under the direction of Herr Wesendonck of the
-Foreign Office. Ten million marks had been
-placed to their credit, and German consulates
-throughout the neutral world had instructions
-through their parent-embassies to render all possible
-assistance to the revolutionary project, and
-to spend whatever money might be necessary,
-charging it to the account of the Indian Nationalist
-Party. Three hundred thousand dollars was invested
-in China and Java. Hindus were sent
-through Persia and Afghanistan into India with
-German credit to foster unrest, and Afghanistan
-itself was full of spies trying to break the Amir’s
-promise, given to the British Government at the
-outbreak of war, that he would maintain strict neutrality.
-It was this same Har Dayal who conferred
-with Chakravarty when the latter made
-his visit to Berlin in December, 1915. The reason
-for this visit to Berlin came out very soon, and
-that will lead us in turn to the second of the German-Hindu
-plots hatched in America.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_80" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_080a.png" width="600" height="394" alt="" />
- <div class="caption"><span class="l4">The <i>Annie Larsen’s</i> Cash Account</span><span class="in2">
- Gupta’s Code Message</span></div></div>
-
-<p>Chakravarty got bail from a surety company
-without much trouble. Two or three days after
-his arrest he called me up on the telephone and
-said that a man named Gupta had threatened him.
-“He says I must give him $2,000. And there
-is another man named Wagel. He is a Hindu.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
-He wants $10,000 from me, otherwise he will do
-me harm. He already has had $7,000 from the
-German Government in Mexico. He has demanded
-$20,000,000 of Count von Bernstorff to
-finish up the revolution in India.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wait a minute, now,” I suggested. The figures
-were going to my head. “Where is
-Wagel?”</p>
-
-<p>“I do not know,” Chakravarty answered.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, where is Gupta?”</p>
-
-<p>“He is a student at Columbia,” replied the little
-man.</p>
-
-<p>“All right, doctor,” I said, “we’ll not let any
-harm come to you.”</p>
-
-<p>Detectives Coy and Walsh at once got on the
-trail of Gupta. They found him in his dormitory
-room at 73 Livingston Hall, Columbia, and
-brought him to headquarters. “I saw of Chakravarty’s
-arrest in the paper,” he said, “and I
-thought I might be arrested if he implicated me.”
-Gupta knew full well he would be arrested, for
-there was jealousy between the two, and he went
-on to reveal why.</p>
-
-<p>Heramba Lal Gupta was then thirty-two years
-old. Since his boyhood in Calcutta he had been
-all over the world, and had studied in the United
-States. In the spring of 1915 he had several<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
-conferences with Captain von Papen in the city
-in which the military attaché conceived such confidence
-in the young Hindu that he gave him $15,000
-for expense money and sent him to Chicago
-to confer with Gustav Jacobsen, an ex-German
-consul. With him went Jodh Singh, another
-Hindu who had migrated from Brazil to Berlin
-and thence to Captain von Papen, and an art
-collector named Albert H. Wehde. They were
-joined by George Paul Boehm and a German
-named Sterneck, and two plans were arranged.
-Gupta, Singh and Wehde were to proceed to
-Japan to establish connections and obtain assistance
-for fomenting Indian revolt. Boehm and
-Sterneck were to go to the Philippines, pick up
-a third plotter, Chakravarty’s lawyer-friend
-Chatterji, proceed thence to Java to meet two
-escaped officers of the destroyed German cruiser
-<i>Emden</i>, and thence to the Himalayan hills north
-of India, where Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the
-Arctic romancer, was on an expedition. There
-they were to overpower the Cook party, Boehm
-was to assume the explorer’s identity and travel
-about the hills spreading sedition among the native
-tribes. This wild plan failed completely, as
-the Germans never kept their appointment in Java.
-(Gupta believed in preparedness to the extent of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
-taking Boehm to several shooting galleries in
-Chicago and practising pistol firing with him.)</p>
-
-<p>Gupta, Singh and Wehde set sail from San
-Francisco in the <i>Mongolia</i> and landed in Yokohama,
-September 16, 1915. Gupta immediately
-got in touch with various prominent Hindus. Although
-their conferences were enthusiastic and the
-prospect of obtaining Japanese arms for the revolution
-was good, his work was hampered by the
-discovery on the part of British agents that Gupta
-was in Japan. He was notified within a week of
-his arrival that he must leave by the next steamer:
-the next steamer was bound for Shanghai, a
-British port; the order was equal to delivery into
-the hands of the British, and death. A Japanese
-friend came to his rescue. He took him to his
-house, followed by the police. By a subterfuge
-the police were distracted long enough to allow
-the Hindu to slip out the back door, jump into an
-automobile, and flee to the interior of the country.
-There he was hidden for six months, between
-the flimsy walls of his friend’s house. It
-was May of 1916 before he could escape, smuggled
-out in an eastbound vessel, and it was June
-before he returned to New York. There he
-found that the following order had been issued
-from Berlin:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">“Berlin, February 4, 1916. To the German Embassy, Washington.</p>
-
-<p>“In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively
-handled by the committee to be formed by
-Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar and Herambra
-Lal Gupta, the latter of whom has meanwhile
-been expelled from Japan, thus cease to be
-representatives of the Indian Independence Committee
-existing here.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-“(Signed) <span class="smcap">Zimmermann</span>.”
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Gupta, in short, found himself displaced. His
-expedition had been a failure. Chakravarty had
-had his job for nearly six months. He tried to
-negotiate with Chakravarty for a restoration of
-some of his lost prestige, but the little man would
-not have much to do with him. In January, 1917,
-the French secret service intercepted at the Swiss
-border a letter postmarked New York, November
-16, 1916, and addressed as follows:</p>
-
-<p class="in0 in4">
-“Mr. Albourge<br />
-<span class="in1">“Hotel Des Alpas</span><br />
-<span class="in2">“Territel</span><br />
-<span class="in3">“Montreau, Switzerland.”</span>
-</p>
-
-<p>The letter was in cipher, and was seized and returned
-to French agents in the United States, and
-by them turned over to the American authorities
-for investigation, at about the time when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
-diplomatic relations were broken off with Germany.
-Search here disclosed little. The letter
-was typewritten, and the only clue to its message
-was a hint suggested by a sub-address on the back
-of the envelope:</p>
-
-<p class="p1 b1 center">“Mr. Chatterjee”</p>
-
-<p class="in0">who was apparently a Hindu. (This, by the way,
-was the same Chatterji who persists in cropping
-up in the wings of this story from time to time).
-Now there is no “Hotel Des Alpas” in Montreux;
-the name of the inn referred to is the
-“Hotel des Alpes.” Again, the name “Territel”
-was apparently a misspelling of “Territet,”
-and “Montreau” probably meant “Montreux.”
-When we captured Gupta we found in a memorandum
-book not only the address cited above, but
-the <em>same misspellings</em>—pretty conclusive proof
-that he was the author of the letter. This address
-was later found with the same misspellings,
-in the mailing list of <i>Ghadr</i>, the revolutionary
-paper published in California. Thus little errors
-combined to forge important links.</p>
-
-<p>The code of the Gupta letter was a popular and
-scholarly volume by an American author: Price
-Collier’s “Germany and the Germans,” published
-in New York in 1913. The letter was so written<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
-that the words which contained the meat of each
-sentence were carefully enciphered. The letter
-said, for example:</p>
-
-<div class="cblock"><div class="ilb">
-<p class="in0 in4">
-“... I do<br />
-not believe there<br />
-are very many men<br />
-including<br />
-<span class="in2">98-5-2</span><br />
-<span class="in2">98-1-1</span><br />
-<span class="in2">98-1-9</span><br />
-<span class="in2">98-4-1</span><br />
-<span class="in2">98-5-8</span><br />
-<span class="in2">98-3-3</span><br />
-<span class="in2">———</span><br />
-”Who can show much<br />
-better results a-<br />
-long the line of<br />
-<span class="in2">97-1-3</span><br />
-<span class="in2">97-1-11</span><br />
-<span class="in2">97-6-5</span><br />
-<span class="in2">97-8-4</span><br />
-<span class="in2">———</span><br />
-<span class="in2">132-1-1</span><br />
-<span class="in2">———</span><br />
-<span class="in6">“Undertook”</span>
-</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="in0">Turning to page 98 of “Germany and the Germans,”
-we see that the second letter of the fifth
-line is <i>b</i>; the first letter of the first line is <i>h</i>; the
-ninth letter of the first line is <i>u</i>; the first letter of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
-the fourth line is <i>p</i>; the eighth in the fifth line is <i>e</i>;
-and the third in the third line <i>n</i>. Sum total:
-B-h-u-p-e-n—a Hindu name. On page 97, the
-first few lines read:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="in0">
-“am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor<br />
-has been baptized with the blood of the martyrs,<br />
-and feels himself to be in all sincerity the instrument<br />
-of God; if we are to understand this one, we must<br />
-admit so much.<br />
-
-“In certain ...” etc.
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">Thus 97-1-3 is <i>w</i>, 97-1-11 is <i>o</i>, 97-6-5 is <i>r</i>,
-97-8-4 is <i>K</i>; total w-o-r-k. 132-1-1 is <i>I</i>. Our
-translation reads therefore:</p>
-
-<p class="p1 b1 in0">“<em>I do not believe that there are very many men
-including Bhupen, who can show much better
-results along the line of work I undertook.</em>”</p>
-
-<p>Four columns to the typewritten page it ran on
-over seven sheets of foolscap, and wound up with
-a plea in plain English which showed that Gupta
-was angry:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Seems no action taken yet. If want work,
-change methods completely. I insist the man in
-charge is not only useless but spoiling the work;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
-important workers wasting time for want of coöperation
-and funds while that man is squandering
-money. Do not care what you decide, I inform
-you as it is my duty but you don’t seem to pay any
-attention. This is my last warning for the cause.
-Again I appeal to you to think more seriously and
-not spoil the work by leaving it in the hands of
-irresponsible and insane person. I again tell you
-that no one is willing to work with him because he
-does not understand anything, secondly he spends
-money in a ridiculous way, thirdly he does not do
-any work. Think seriously and reply.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>In order to show why Gupta was upset and also
-in passing to show how innocently he had coded his
-letter, we shall quote it in full, with those words
-in italics which had to be decoded months later:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Dear <em>Chatto</em>: Am back from <em>Japan</em>. Had
-lots <em>trouble</em>. <em>Thakur</em>, real <em>name Rash Behari
-Ghose</em>, splendid worker in <em>India</em> still in <em>Japan</em>.
-Sent report twice, besides messages through <em>German</em>
-sources. Went to <em>Japan</em> as planned. Am
-surprised to hear from <em>Tarak</em> you said I had no
-<em>right</em> to go to Japan. See my reports submitted
-to the committee. Before leaving <em>Berlin Shanghai</em>
-authorities also wanted me for important
-work. This I was told at <em>German Embassy</em> so
-cannot understand why you failed to know anything
-about me. Have sent two reports since
-my return. Hope you got them. <em>Tarak</em> said
-you were not satisfied with <em>my work</em> and <em>Bhupen Dutt</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
-said that such incapable men as <em>I</em> should
-not have been sent to America. <em>Bhupen</em> before
-leaving <em>America</em> said to <em>Chakravarty ‘Gupta</em>
-nothing but <em>adventurer</em>; should not have been
-sent,’ and as usual everybody knew and it naturally
-prejudiced men <em>I</em> had to work with. What
-right had <em>Bhupen</em> to make such remarks? I don’t
-claim to be a very capable man. You remember
-I did not want to <em>come here</em>. But how <em>Bhupen</em>
-measured my abilities? If no report was received
-how could anybody pass an opinion on unknown
-things? You may <em>criticize my</em> reticence. I do
-not believe there are very many men including
-<em>Bhupen</em> who can show much better results along
-the line of <em>work I</em> undertook. Results of such
-work cannot be shown in <em>black and white</em> but I
-challenge anybody who dares ignore the <em>solid work</em>
-done through <em>our agencies</em>. Time alone can
-prove it. You cannot compare the <em>work</em> lately
-undertaken with the <em>program</em> we started with. If
-we <em>failed to start a revolution in Bengal</em> as asked
-by you it has been for the best. If we <em>failed land
-arms</em> it was due more to <em>Germans</em> than anybody
-else. Our <em>men worked, suffered</em>. Still <em>suffering</em>.
-The whole plan under the direct supervision of
-<em>Germans</em> of more capable <em>brains failed</em> too. We
-have succeeded in laying foundation for <em>future
-work</em>. Our <em>work</em> in <em>Japan</em> has been unique.
-Even <em>Lajpat Rai</em> who slights our <em>work</em>, quite often
-admits in three months more <em>solid work</em> done there
-than any other part of the world outside <em>India</em> in
-number of years. I understand <em>Chakravarty</em> has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
-charge of affairs. Met him. <em>Tarak Harish</em> says
-he was given instruction to form a <em>committee</em> of
-five including <em>myself</em>. He did not agree. Said
-all depended on his discretion. Fact is he has
-grudge against me and the fault lies with <em>you</em>.
-Report went to <em>Berlin</em> concerning his <em>relations</em> with
-<em>Mrs. Warren</em>. You told him I did it. I did not.
-Even if I did you had no business to mention my
-name. I like also to know how did the <em>committee</em>
-satisfy itself as to the charge being false.
-From <em>Chakravarty’s letters</em> only? He wanted
-me to <em>apologize</em>. I did not: will not. First
-I did not <em>report</em>; secondly suppose I did, in the interest
-of the <em>cause</em>. I was of opinion he had
-<em>connection with Mrs. Warren</em>. She came to know
-many things about <em>work</em> through <em>him</em>. Am still
-of same opinion. I do not care how many <em>women
-man enjoys</em> but he has no right to talk about serious
-<em>work to women</em>. I do not know what <em>work
-he</em> doing. Does not give me any information.
-The <em>house</em> he took with <em>princely furniture</em> shows
-at once <em>German connection</em>. Some of his
-<em>pamphlets</em> nothing but <em>German propaganda</em>. It
-may be your <em>policy</em>. We have <em>centres in Japan,
-Burmah, Manila</em>; regular <em>communication</em> with
-<em>India</em> through <em>Japanese</em> sources. <em>Working</em> but
-badly <em>in need of funds</em>. Started <em>work</em> with impression
-<em>balance of funds credited</em> to my <em>account</em>
-would be forthcoming but no sign of it. For
-better <em>work</em> need send at least one more <em>man</em> to
-<em>Japan</em>. <em>Tarak</em> going <em>China, Chakravarty</em> told<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
-him his men would <em>watch Tarak</em> for a month. If
-behaves well will be helped, given facilities.
-What <em>grand diplomacy! Chakravarty</em> told me
-<em>committee</em> not sure of <em>Tarak</em> so sent him away.
-<em>Tarak</em> said large <em>funds</em> have been sanctioned.
-He can draw without receipt. Will you blame
-me (if this be true) if I fail to understand the
-policy? <em>Ram Chandra working</em> in his own way.
-I did not interfere for <em>fear</em> of creating divisions.
-Only helped getting <em>funds</em>. Have now influence
-over him but as <em>Chakravarty gone San Francisco</em>
-I consider my duty keep quiet until hear from you.
-Have <em>worked</em> to best abilities and shall work but
-cannot do so at the instance of people who I am
-sure do not know the exact nature of work <em>done
-last year</em> and <em>half</em>. Am surprised at <em>mean jealousies</em>,
-even sacrificing <em>work</em>. Am shocked at
-your <em>faith shaken in me</em> and <em>my work</em>. Hope to
-hear soon all regarding <em>work</em>. Remember me to
-all. Did not mail the first letter as waiting for
-information from <em>Berlin</em>.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<div id="ip_90" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_090a.png" width="413" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">How the Hindus used Price Collier’s “Germany and the
-Germans” as a cryptogram</div></div>
-
-<p>Followed the postscript in English already cited.</p>
-
-<p>The reader will probably be interested, even at
-the cost of interrupting the narrative, in the way
-in which this cipher code was discovered and the
-letter translated. By a partial decipherment by
-common methods of deduction, it was found to
-be almost sure that on a certain page of the code
-book—the name of which was of course not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
-then known—the phrase “foreign legation”
-would appear. The cipher experts deduced, too,
-that the phrase “rush to a newspaper” must appear
-in a certain line of another page of the
-volume, and working further they assembled some
-twenty-five fragmentary words and phrases of
-whose position in the missing volume they were
-certain. The problem was to find the volume.
-The nature of the words and phrases suggested
-that the work was a recent one, probably dealing
-with history—and perhaps with the nature of a
-people. These limitations reduced the field of
-possibility to a minimum of 100,000 volumes, and
-the cipher experts set agents at work searching
-for such books. The caption of the letter, “Hossain’s
-Code,” threw them off the scent and they
-spent some time in scouring Allied Europe and
-America for such a code. There was none, for
-“Houssain” was merely a Hindu agent in Trinidad.
-Then, one of the agents hunting for the
-needle in the haystack found it—Mr. Collier’s
-book.</p>
-
-<p>Gupta, it is evident, was a prejudiced judge
-of Chakravarty’s ability. Even when Gupta was
-arrested Chakravarty wiped out past scores, and
-went bail for the man who had blackmailed and
-traduced him. But Gupta was definitely in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
-trouble this time. The evidence supplied of his
-trip to Japan, its purpose, and his collusion with
-Germans brought him to trial in Chicago with
-Jacobsen, Wehde, and Boehm. (Mr. Chatterji
-was a witness for the prosecution.) The three
-Germans, after a trial in which the State’s case
-had been admirably handled by U. S. District Attorney
-Clyne, were convicted and sentenced to
-serve five years in prison and pay fines of $13,000.
-Gupta was sentenced to two years, fined $200,
-and released on bail, pending an appeal. He
-jumped his bail and escaped to Mexico in May,
-1918, while a number of his countrymen were being
-tried in San Francisco.</p>
-
-<p>His escape was probably due to fear. The
-Hindus are a vengeful lot, and it is no more than
-possible that the “grapevine cable” had informed
-him that friends of the men on trial in San Francisco
-were planning to get even with him for having
-supplied part of the evidence used against
-them. Some of that evidence we found in his
-room at Columbia, and more in his safety deposit
-box in a Columbus Avenue bank. Among other
-items was the list of addresses in Switzerland already
-mentioned, and this was amplified by a letter
-which we found in Chakravarty’s house, from
-Sekunna to the little doctor, which read:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="in0">
-“My dear boy,
-</p>
-
-<p>“Enclosed please find addresses from Wesendonck.
-Send your reports to: Mr. Director Karl
-Hirsch, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Chakravarty, in turn, furnished us with two
-more codes which were used in writing to these
-addresses: One which cited pages and word-numbers
-in a certain German-English dictionary,
-and a second, based on an entirely different principle.
-The second and third were often used in
-the same letter, as this fragment from one of
-Chakravarty’s reports will show. The letter
-reads, in part:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“50337069403847695228, 265-3, 331-6,
-497-2, 337-10-3, 335-14, 77-11.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The first series of figures is written in the third
-code mentioned, and must be deciphered by using
-the following square:</p>
-
-<div class="cblock intact"><div class="ilb">
-<p class="in0 in4 p1 mono">
-     <i>1 2 3 4 5 6 7</i><br />
-<i>1</i>   A B C D E F G<br />
-<i>2</i>   H I J K L M N<br />
-<i>3</i>   O P Q R S T U<br />
-<i>4</i>   V W X Y Z
-</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="in0">Each letter is indicated first by the digit marking
-the horizontal row in which the letter falls, second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
-by the number of the vertical column. Thus
-“A” is 1-1, or 11: “K” 2-4, or 24, and so on.
-But if the Hindu wished to transfer a message in
-cipher, he would not stop with this simple designation
-of the letters, for they would recur too often
-and fall too readily under the “laws of repetition”
-by which most ciphers can be untangled.
-So after he had his word translated by this square
-chart, he added four key numbers to it, those key
-numbers being fixed and permanent, and being
-added in rotation. In order that we may find out
-what this word is, we must therefore subtract the
-key number thus:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0"><i>Message</i>  50337069403847695228 (or divided
-into letters)</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="in4">50 33 70 69 40 38 47 69 52 28</span><br />
-<i>Key numbers</i>  25 11 26 32 25 11 26 32 25 11<br />
-
-<i>Result</i> <span class="in3">25 22 44 37 15 27 21 37 26 17</span>
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Consulting our chart again, we see that 25 is
-“L,” 22 is “I” 44 is “Y,” and that the message
-deciphers thus:</p>
-
-<p class="p1 b1 center">
-<em>L I Y U E N H U N G</em>
-</p>
-
-<p class="in0">The line we quoted above read:</p>
-
-<p class="center">“<em>Li Yuen Hung is now the president of China</em>”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span></p>
-
-<p class="in0">After transmitting the proper-name in the second
-cipher (as the name of course would not have appeared
-in the dictionary code), Chakravarty had
-lapsed back into the first code, as being swifter.</p>
-
-<p>Gupta, we observed, was harshly critical of
-Chakravarty. Let us see whether he was justified.
-Chakravarty said he had been commissioned
-to deal only with the broader propaganda. From
-captured reports which he transmitted through the
-German embassy as well as through the mails to
-Switzerland, he had been delegated to form a committee
-of five, with Ram Chandra as one of the
-other members, to handle Indian affairs here.
-They were to send an agent to the West Indies to
-stir up the Hindu coolies there, of whom there
-were estimated to be 100,000, and to send back to
-India all who would volunteer for revolution.
-The same policy was to be followed in British
-Guiana, Java, and Sumatra. From Ram Chandra’s
-<i>Ghadr</i> press were to be issued reams of
-propaganda in the various Indian dialects for
-circulation throughout the East and West Indies,
-in Hindustan itself, and even for German aviators
-to drop upon Hindu troops in France. Chakravarty
-was to procure letters of introduction to
-parties in Japan which would assure a safe welcome
-to an emissary to be sent there to carry out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
-what Gupta had failed to do, and an envoy was
-to be sent to China for a similar purpose. It was
-a broad program, and the doctor set to work immediately
-upon his return to organize his staff.</p>
-
-<p>In all his work he had the coöperation of von
-Bernstorff and the embassy at Washington. Chakravarty
-organized a Pan-Asiatic League as a
-blind, so that Hindus posing as its members could
-travel without exciting suspicion. His work was
-somewhat handicapped in the early spring by an
-automobile accident which took him to the hospital,
-and by the seizure of the military attaché’s
-papers in von Igel’s office. He hired a Chinaman
-named Chin as the delegate to China, and shipped
-him off on a Greek vessel from New York. Referred
-by Berlin to Houssain, the spy in Trinidad,
-Chakravarty established contact with him, and
-supervised the formation of an organization there.
-In July Chakravarty started for a tour of the
-West, in the course of which he visited two disloyal
-Hindus in Vancouver and determined upon
-a plan of action for that section. Then he swung
-down to San Francisco, where he called upon Ram
-Chandra, the western head of the committee. He
-conferred with friendly agents of Japanese newspapers
-who proposed to attack the Anglo-Japanese
-treaty. He conferred with W. T. Wang,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
-private secretary to the new president of China,
-as the secretary was leaving for Peking, and
-learned that “some of the prominent people are
-quite willing to help India directly and Germany
-indirectly—on three conditions, those conditions
-being a secret treaty with Germany for military
-protection, to last five years after peace had been
-declared, and to be secured by giving China one-tenth
-of all the arms and ammunition which she
-would undertake to smuggle across the Indian
-frontier.” By the late autumn of 1916 Chakravarty
-was acting as the master-wheel in a most
-elaborate and complicated machine for disturbing
-British rule in almost all of her colonial holdings,
-and it is safe to say that if the <i>Maverick</i> affair
-had not roused shipping inspectors to unusual
-vigilance to prevent filibustering, the United
-States might have seen the bloody result of his
-work by March of 1917, when we arrested him.
-Even as it was, he was the general manager of a
-going concern.</p>
-
-<p>It may be wondered how he was able to perfect
-an organization. The answer to that we
-found in Gupta’s safety deposit box—a list of
-two hundred or more members of an Indian society
-in the United States, a large proportion of
-whom were students in American colleges, sent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
-here for education on scholarships, in the hope
-that they would return to their native country and
-uplift it. Some of them were influential agents,
-and they were scattered conveniently about the
-country. Add to this force the coöperation of
-almost innumerable German agents and pay it
-with a share of the $32,000,000 which Chakravarty
-said had been set aside in Berlin for
-anarchistic, race-riot and Hindu propaganda in
-the western world, and you have a real factor
-for trouble. It is perhaps surprising that the
-organization worked undiscovered as long as it
-did, but it is more surprising that having worked
-under cover for more than fourteen months it
-did not break out into a grave demonstration.
-Chakravarty’s arrest, however, came in time, and
-the authorities were on the whole satisfied that
-so much time had elapsed because it gave them
-more clues to work on and a larger group to
-round up.</p>
-
-<p>And Chakravarty himself was pleased, I think.
-When he confessed his trip to Berlin, he was on
-the horns of a dilemma, for he feared the British
-would revenge themselves on him. I assured
-him that he would be protected as an American
-prisoner. He said, “Well, if I tell you about
-what I have done for the Germans, and they hear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
-about it, they will kill me. And in any case my
-own people will kill me. You don’t know them!”
-I again quieted him and suggested that he tell
-me now where he got the money which he said
-had come to him from his estate in India.</p>
-
-<p>“Von Igel gave it to me,” he answered. “I
-could not go to his office downtown, so I sent
-Sekunna. In all I got $60,000. I spoke of the
-poet, Tagore, because he won the Nobel prize,
-and I thought he would be above suspicion.” He
-had bought the house at 364 West 120th Street
-and equipped it comfortably as a residence. He
-bought a house in 77th Street to open a Hindu
-restaurant. He bought a farm at Hopewell Junction
-to use as a rendezvous for the plotters. And
-when he had given us valuable information, and
-had appeared at the trial, and had been himself
-convicted and had served his sentence (a short
-term) in jail, and the smoke had cleared away, he
-was the owner of three nice parcels of real estate
-and a comfortable income. Dr. Chakravarty, although
-a failure as a Prussian agent, fared pretty
-well as an investor of Prussian funds.</p>
-
-<p>After a series of digressions which I hope have
-not led us too far from the path, we may return
-to the third of the Hindu-German projects in
-which we of the Bomb Squad were especially interested.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
-Ever since Captain von Papen’s check-book
-had been captured by the British at Falmouth
-in January, 1916, students of the German
-plots in the United States had wondered why two
-of the stubs bore the entries:</p>
-
-<table summary="stub entries">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">“Feb. 2, 1915, German Consulate, Seattle (Angelegenheit)</td>
- <td class="tdr">$1,300.  </td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl">“May 11, 1915, German Consulate, Seattle (for Schulenberg)</td>
- <td class="tdr">500.”</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p class="in0">In December, 1917, Barnitz, Randolph and I had
-gone to San Francisco to testify in the <i>Annie Larsen-Maverick</i>
-case. It so happened that a German
-who was unable to give a satisfactory account
-of himself had just been picked up at San Jose.
-His name was Franz Schulenberg, and at the invitation
-of the San Francisco authorities we assisted
-in the examination of the prisoner. He
-testified that in the early months of 1915 he had
-met Lieutenant von Brincken, of the San Francisco
-Consulate, who had sent him to the consul
-at Seattle. There von Papen in person paid him
-$4,000 to buy fifty guns, fifty Maxim silencers, a
-ton of dynamite, and deliver it to one Singh, at
-the border between Sumas, Washington, and
-Canada. There Singh was to deliver it to a small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
-army of coolies, who would start a reign of terror
-in the Canadian northwest, dynamiting bridges,
-railways and shipping, and shooting guards.
-Schulenberg had actually bought some of the munitions
-when he received a letter from von Brincken
-telling him to break off relations with the Hindus.
-After some time he tried to get more money from
-von Brincken, but Franz Bopp, the consul, spurned
-him, and von Brincken sent him to New York, to
-get it from von Papen. Von Papen refused to
-pay him further. While Schulenberg was in Hoboken,
-three men from Paul Koenig’s staff approached
-him and posing as United States agents
-offered him $5,000 for any information which
-would incriminate Count von Bernstorff. Von
-Papen had had Koenig send them—although
-Schulenberg did not know this—to test him.
-One of the three was George Fuchs. The air was
-getting thick around von Papen’s head at the moment,
-and he could not afford to have a disgruntled
-and unpaid henchman gabbling about the
-saloons in Hoboken. But Schulenberg believed
-that the three were really American secret service
-men, and refused to divulge what he knew. The
-next morning a German whom he had not seen
-before appeared at his lodging house and gave
-him a railroad ticket to Mexico. “They’re after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
-you—the secret service,” he said. “Here’s a
-ticket. Use it.” Schulenberg was half sick anyway,
-and evidently it did not enter his mind to
-squeal. He fled to Mexico, and von Papen thus
-disposed of a troublesome source of information.
-When we talked to Schulenberg, two years later,
-he was a sorry reminder of another German failure.</p>
-
-<p>Although we three members of the Bomb Squad
-had made the trip to San Francisco to testify to
-the circumstances of Chakravarty’s arrest, and to
-the statements which he and Gupta had made,
-we were not in at the death of the Hindu hunt.
-The trial was a long affair, with more than a
-hundred defendants. Aided by the revelations of
-the little doctor, the Government had presented
-to the Grand Jury a picture of violation of Section
-13 of the Federal Code which caused indictments
-to be returned against the entire German
-consulate of San Francisco, its accomplices among
-the shipping men who chartered the <i>Annie Larsen</i>
-and bought the <i>Maverick</i>, its Hindu agents from
-the nucleus of Berkeley and Ram Chandra’s editorial
-rooms, and a list of other notorious characters
-which included von Papen and von Igel,
-both of whom were by this time safe in Germany.
-We did, however, have opportunity to observe the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
-Indian prisoners, and we noticed that they did
-not seem altogether fond of each other. They
-were forever whispering, wagging their heads,
-stuffing notes down each other’s necks and when
-the testimony of one of their number grew too
-truthful they squirmed and scowled. Chakravarty’s
-life was threatened during the trial. The
-officials in charge of the case all had more than
-their usual share of responsibility to maintain order.
-The trial lasted more than six months.
-The Germans upbraided each other in the court
-room: von Brincken, who had been jealous of
-Bopp, and had accused him of indifference to his
-duties, openly showed his independence of his
-chief, and ill feeling spread among the defendants.
-Its climax came on April 24, 1918, the day when,
-with the testimony all in, Judge Van Fleet ordered
-a recess preparatory to delivering his charge to
-the jury. Ram Singh, one of the defendants, suddenly
-rose in the court room and fired two shots
-at Ram Chandra from a revolver. Ram Chandra
-fell dead, and as he did so, a bullet from the
-revolver of United States Marshal Holohan broke
-Ram Singh’s neck. The jury then received its
-charge, retired, and returned convictions of the
-great majority of the conspirators.</p>
-
-<p>So, just as Holohan’s bullet broke Ram Singh’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
-neck, Chakravarty’s statements had broken the
-neck of the Hindu plot. But there was one more
-incident related to it in store for us; it will conclude
-our story. The men in charge of the <i>Annie
-Larsen</i> were a spy named Alexander V. Kircheisen
-and a Captain Othmer. Kircheisen’s name had
-appeared in several German secret service reports
-as “K-17.” As late as 1917 he was arrested in
-Copenhagen, Denmark, and on his person was
-found a letter addressed to another agent, La
-Nine by name. The letter advised La Nine that
-if he arrived in the United States before Kircheisen,
-he was to call for the former’s mail at “Kotzenberg’s,
-1319 Teller Avenue, in the Bronx.”</p>
-
-<p>When this information reached us, Detectives
-Randolph and Senff called at Mr. Kotzenberg’s
-house. He knew nothing of Kircheisen, he said,
-except that he was a friend of his cousin’s.</p>
-
-<p>“Who is your cousin?” asked Randolph, in
-German.</p>
-
-<p>“His name is Othmer,” Kotzenberg replied.
-“He escaped from San Francisco, and he came
-back across the whole country, half by train and
-half in automobile. He stayed here for a while.
-One morning he put on some overalls and he left
-and he went away on a Norwegian boat, and I
-guess now he is back into Germany.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
-Randolph and Senff searched the house. They
-found among other papers, an application which
-Kircheisen had filled out in New York on January
-9, 1917, for a certificate of service as an able seaman.
-In order to be granted such a certificate he
-had to swear that he was a naturalized citizen of
-the United States, and that he would “support and
-defend the Constitution of the United States
-against all enemies ... and ... bear true faith
-and allegiance to the same,” which he swore without
-any qualms of conscience. Furthermore, his
-character was attested to by one Charles A.
-Martin, who also wanted a seaman’s certificate.
-The records of the office show that Kircheisen
-obligingly turned about and swore to Martin’s
-good character. I have often wondered who
-Martin was.... We found in Kotzenberg’s
-house an expense account which the fugitive
-Othmer had submitted to von Papen after he had
-left the unfortunate <i>Annie</i> at Hoquiam. And
-finally, we found two scraps of a memorandum
-book, which constituted the log of <i>Annie</i> herself.
-It reads:</p>
-
-<p class="in0 in4">
-“Mar. 8. left S.D.<br />
-  Mar. 18. arr Soc.<br />
-  Apr. 5. Start Digg. wells.<br />
-  Apr. 9 boat <i>Emma</i> arrived.<br />
-<span class="in4">2 sailors.</span><br /><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
-Apr. 10. <i>Emma</i> arrived. two crews working on well<br />
-April 16. Well 22 feet struck hard rock bottom no water gave up<br />
-Apr.17. left for Mex. coast<br />
-  ”   22 went ashore in boat look for water<br />
-Apr.24th. arr at Acapulco<br />
-<span class="in4">U. S. S. <i>Yorktown</i> <i>Nansham</i>(?) <i>N. Orleans</i> <i>Annapolis</i></span><br />
-April 27 left Acapulco<br />
-May 19 gave up Socorro<br />
-<span class="in4">made for coast</span><br />
-June 7 (<i>two illegible words</i>)<br />
-<span class="in4">got provisions</span><br />
-June 29 arr. Hoquiam<br />
-July 1 arr. W.<br />
-<span class="in4">1 arr. Investigator</span><br />
-Jul. 4 <i>aus</i>”
-</p>
-
-<p>So, in a word, Othmer summed up all the efforts
-of the Hindus and the Germans to hatch revolution
-in America. All, all “<i>aus</i>”!</p>
-
-<div id="ip_106" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 29em;">
- <img src="images/i_106a.jpg" width="449" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Alexander V. Kircheisen and his application for a certificate
-as able seaman</div></div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="V" class="vspace">V<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">A TRUE PIRATE TALE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Of all the stories of the sea to which the war
-has given rise, here is one that is certainly not the
-least entertaining. It is not a story of hunting a
-criminal. The only part which the Bomb Squad
-played in it was bringing the prisoner back to
-justice. It called for no service on our part save
-that of examining the prisoner, and returning
-him, with his statements and the statements of
-others who had dealings with him, to New York.
-And I think those statements themselves had best
-tell the story.</p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Detective Corell to the Commanding Officer
-of the Bomb Squad, April 1, 1916</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Sir: In compliance with orders received I
-went to Lewes, Delaware, to investigate and if
-possible bring back one Ernest Schiller, an alleged
-German spy....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span></p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From, a statement taken by Corell at Lewes, Del.,
-March 31, 1916</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>My name is Ernest Schiller. I am a native of
-Russia, 23 years of age.... My occupation is
-that of textile engineer. I arrived in New York
-in April, 1915, in the steamship <i>Colorado</i> from
-Hull, England, as a member of the crew, my assignment
-on the ship being greaser. My name on
-the ship was Frank Robertson. When I arrived
-at New York the captain gave me some of my
-money and I left the ship. I worked all told
-about eight or nine months, in Pawtucket, R. I.,
-Lawrence, Mass., Whitinsville, Mass., Newton
-Upper Falls, Mass., and finished erecting a factory
-in Salem, Mass....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the examination of Clarence Reginald
-Hodson, alias Ernest Schiller, Robinson, Robertson,
-A. Henry, New York, April 1, 1916</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><i>Question.</i> What is your full name?</p>
-
-<p><i>Answer.</i> Clarence Reginald Hodson.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> What other names are you known by?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Robinson, Robertson, A. Henry, and
-Ernest Schiller.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Where were you born?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Petrograd, Russia.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Where were your father and mother born?</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
-<i>A.</i> My father in Russia, my mother in Germany.
-We lived in Petrograd until I was about
-10 or 11. Then we went to England. My
-father and mother left me in Chatham House
-College, in Ramsgate. I stayed there three
-years....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> What is the name of the head of that college?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> A. Henry.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Did you graduate?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> No. I was put on a Cadet—a Marine
-ship—named <i>Conway</i>, to train as a marine
-officer. I was on that ship two years. I left
-when I was 17 and went to work in a machine shop
-in Oldham, outside Manchester, and learned the
-trade of machinist there. I left there in August,
-1914, and I joined the English Army.... I
-was asked to leave the job—was told that they
-would not have any young fellows on the job....
-My boss said that sooner or later I should
-have to leave and that it would be better to go
-now, and that there would be a better opportunity.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> At that time were your sympathies with the
-English?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> They were never with England. I just
-wanted to see what it was like to be a soldier. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
-didn’t intend to fight against Germany. I did
-not think the war would last long—only a few
-months—and I knew all the time I could run
-away if I wanted to. So in December I left.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> What was the occasion of your leaving?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> I commenced to discriminate the soldiers
-and make them out as to what they really were,
-and I found them a lot of rats. I saw that I
-was not a Britisher in my ideas, and that I favored
-the cause of Germany. I used to stay away from
-the other soldiers all I could, and go out with a
-newspaper and read in the fields. They were always
-bullyragging me, and one time I almost
-killed two soldiers for it. They chastised me
-for a German spy. I got away, and worked in
-Bath for a week, and then the police caught me
-and brought me back, and I was later discharged
-by my colonel when I explained that I could not
-agree with their theory of the war....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of “Schiller” to Corell</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>A few months ago I received a letter from my
-mother and she wanted me to go back to Russia.
-I came down to New York to get my passport, but
-it did not arrive, so I waited a month. My money
-was gradually going down, so I borrowed some
-money, I won’t say from whom....”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span></p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the examination of Hodson</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> While in Lawrence, Mass., where did you
-stop?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> At the Saxsonia House, with Germans....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> What are the names of any other people
-that you met at the Saxsonia House?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Met a gentleman named Gruenwald at a
-German party. He invited me to come to his
-saloon in Lawrence....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> While up in his saloon was there anybody
-else you were acquainted with there?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Nobody, but I knew a young lady who
-stopped at the same house....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> You were quite friendly with her?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Yes, platonic friendship.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Did she loan you any money?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> She loaned me money from her own
-will. Two hundred dollars.... I only asked
-for $30, but she brought $200 in gold, all in
-gold....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> How long after that before she loaned you
-any more?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> About a month later.... Telegraphed
-to her “Want money immediately.” I received
-by 12 o’clock $40. She said some more money
-coming tonight. Next morning I went to the
-address in Hoboken and there was a letter and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
-there was another $40 in the letter. Then I received
-$10 another time from her.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> That’s $290.</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Yes, all I can think of.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the “Schiller” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>... so I borrowed some money, I won’t say
-from whom. I went to Boston again and was
-looking for work. I could not get the work
-I wanted, so I returned to New York, and in
-Hoboken I ran across a few fellows, I do not
-know their names, and we made a plan to get
-some money....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Hodson examination</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Now where did you meet the Germans?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> When I arrived in New York, in a saloon
-near the Cunard Steamship Company in West
-Street about 12th, I met a man who I thought
-was a German, and I talked to him about blowing
-up ships, and we then went to Hoboken where
-I met the man Haller in a saloon.... Then we
-proposed which ship to blow up. That was the
-Cunard liner <i>Pannonia</i>....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> And how did you come to decide upon
-that boat?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Because I knew perfectly well that all were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
-carrying plenty of ammunition.... I went down
-to the piers, and I saw this boat, and I thought
-that would be the right kind of a boat.... I
-met the three men in the vicinity of Pier 54. I
-bought them their suppers.... I then told the
-unknown man to get some dynamite ... and
-I gave him $6. Becker said that he had a boat,
-and I gave Becker $8 to buy gasolene, then to
-buy two revolvers out of a pawnshop.... I
-bought Haller a revolver and 100 cartridges....</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Did you see them after that?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Yes, I saw them Saturday morning and
-asked Becker about his motorboat and he said
-that he did not expect it would be frozen up,
-and acted as if he would have been willing to go
-into the plot only that the boat was frozen up.
-Becker said that the boat could be launched in
-two hours, and although I do not know anything
-about running a motorboat it is my belief that
-it would have taken six hours to launch this boat—-the
-boat we were supposed to use to go over in
-to blow up the <i>Pannonia</i>—and this would be too
-late to get to the ship before she sailed....
-Since that time I have not seen any of these
-men....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the “Schiller” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span></p><blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">... but the other fellows left me, so I went on
-my own accord. I saw the steamship <i>Mattoppo</i>
-was going to leave, so I stowed away on her, in a
-life boat, where I remained for five days. The
-sixth day we left....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of Captain R. Bergner, of
-the British S. S. “Mattoppo”</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At 3:30 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> on the 29th March, the British
-S. S. <i>Mattoppo</i> sailed from 12th Street pier,
-Hoboken, destined to Vladivostock, Russia.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the “Schiller” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>That night ... I came out from my hiding
-place and walked towards the captain’s cabin....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Captain Bergner’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At about 7:45 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> ... when at a point about
-twenty miles from Sandy Hook Lightship, I was
-talking to the Chief Engineer in his room, and
-at 8:05 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> left and went to my own cabin,
-and as I entered my bedroom, which was adjoining,
-I was held up at the point of two revolvers
-by one Ernest Schiller, who said to me: “Hands
-up! I am a German. I am going to sink your
-ship.” He then made me turn round and gave
-me a frisk. He found nothing on me. He ordered
-me to shut my cabin door; then stood me in
-a corner and kept me covered with the two revolvers.
-Then he said: “Where is the safe?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
-You have two thousand pounds aboard, and I
-want the money!” He told me he had placed
-bombs aboard the ship and was going to blow
-her up.</p>
-
-<p>At 8:20 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> the Second Engineer knocked at
-my door, and receiving no reply opened it. Schiller
-instantly covered him with one of the revolvers
-and ordered him to come into the room, which
-he did. He then locked and bolted the doors on
-the inside and asked me for my keys.... He
-got them and proceeded to go through all the
-ship’s papers and my private effects. He opened
-my cash box and took four pounds in gold and
-five pounds in silver and said it was the first time
-he had ever robbed anyone but he needed the
-money. On seeing from the ship’s papers that she
-had barbed wire in her, he said: “That is contraband,
-and I am going to sink her.” He then
-inquired where I was bound for, and on my telling
-him she was going to Russia he seemed to
-hesitate about sinking her as he said he loved
-Russia. The conversation continued until about
-midnight....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the “Schiller” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>While I was in the Captain’s room the Second
-Engineer came up, and after searching him to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
-see if he had any revolvers on him, I told him to
-sit down and make himself comfortable. I asked
-the Captain if he had any whiskey, as I was cold
-and had not had much to eat for five days, so
-the Captain gave me a bottle of whiskey and
-biscuits. After wishing one another good health
-we sat there for a couple of hours....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Captain Bergner’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At midnight he said that he was going to disable
-the wireless, and on hearing someone in
-the chart room he bound me on my honor not to
-leave the cabin saying that if I did he would shoot
-me on sight....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of the Second Officer Allen
-Maclurcom</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>When I came on watch at midnight I passed
-someone outside the chart room, but it being dark,
-and thinking it was the Captain, I walked on into
-the chart room, where this party followed me,
-and told me to throw my hands up. He told
-me the ship was under German command, and not
-attempt to make any resistance as it would mean
-the sacrifice of the Captain’s and Second Engineer’s
-lives. He said if the ship had been going
-to England he would have destroyed her immediately,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
-but as she was bound for Russia he
-would probably spare her. Then he told me to
-walk ahead of him to the port-after-lifeboat, and
-get the axe, which was in the forward end of it.
-He then took me back to the Marconi room....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of the wireless operator,
-Alexander Dunnett</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>I was on watch in the wireless room when this
-man came along with the Second Officer. He
-held me up with two revolvers, and brought me
-along to the apprentice’s room, together with the
-Second Officer. The latter told the apprentice,
-who acts as second operator, to come out. Schiller
-held him up, and told us both to go up to the
-chart room....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Second Officer’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>He then took me back to the Marconi room, and
-proceeded to demolish the installation, holding
-the revolver against my ribs. From there he went
-to the Chief Engineer’s cabin and demanded his
-rifle, I accompanying him, and after obtaining
-it, threw it overboard. From there he made me
-walk ahead of him to the Chief Officer’s cabin,
-who he disarmed whilst he was asleep. He then
-ordered me to the bridge to steer south-west by
-compass, and as I was going on the bridge the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
-Third Officer came down and he held him up, I
-going on the bridge in the meanwhile.</p></blockquote>
-
-<div id="ip_118" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
- <img src="images/i_118a.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Lieutenant George D. Barnitz, U. S. N.</div></div>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Wireless Operator’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Schiller came back again, and took us into the
-Captain’s room. Some time later he came back
-again and brought me down to the wireless room
-to see if I could repair the wireless installation,
-which he said he had smashed. I told him it
-might be possible to repair one instrument, and he
-said, “We will leave it until morning,” and then
-brought me along the deck to the Fourth and Fifth
-Engineers’ cabins and I opened the door and he
-went in. Both engineers were asleep and he made
-me search all the drawers; he brought out a revolver
-and a box of cartridges, which he made me
-throw over the side. He then took me to the
-Third Engineer’s cabin, and searched all the
-drawers there. He brought out of there a bottle
-of whiskey, and asked me if I had any money.
-Then he marched me up to the Captain’s cabin and
-ordered me to remain there until 6 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span></p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From “Schiller’s” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>I went into the various officers’ rooms and took
-all the revolvers from them. From the Steward
-I took ten dollars, and a two-dollar bill from the
-Second Mate.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span></p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Second Officer’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At 1:30 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span> he returned to the bridge and
-ordered me to steer south by compass.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the “Schiller” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Then I went to the Captain’s cabin again, and
-told him I should sink the ship, but the Captain
-said he has worked since a boy on ships for a few
-shillings a week and he has worked himself up to
-this and surely it has not come to this. He said
-he has a wife and a child—a girl—and showed
-me on the wall the portrait of the child, and I
-asked him suppose the ship went down would he
-get another job, and he said he would have to
-work as a longshoreman. He said it was too
-rough for the boats to be lowered, so I did not
-want to commit murder. And knowing that the
-Captain would lose his position, and as I am a
-young man and can always find work, I asked the
-Captain if he will put me ashore in the morning.
-He gave me his word of honor that he would....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Captain Bergner’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At 5:30 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span> ... he let me take charge of
-the ship, and I made for Delaware Breakwater....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Wireless Operator’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span></p><blockquote>
-
-<p>At 6 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span> he told me I could go below, but
-not to go into the wireless room. I was along
-near the carpenter’s room when he was searching
-it, and he made me bring out an axe and took me
-to the wireless room again; there he told me
-to smash up one of the instruments, and he stood in
-back of me threatening me. I asked him then if
-that would do, after I had partly demolished the
-instruments, and he told me to leave the axe
-and lock the door, which I did. He then left
-me.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From “Schiller’s” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>When we sighted shore the Captain said that
-we would have to go straight towards the lighthouse,
-or else, if we went the other way (the way
-I wanted to) we should run ashore, so I left it
-to the Captain and trusted to his word, as he said
-he would land me....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Captain Bergner’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>On approaching land he ordered one of the
-ship’s boats to be manned, and said that he was
-going to take two of the ship’s officers along as
-hostages to guarantee that I should not run him
-down, and he wanted three Chinese from the crew
-to row him ashore....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span></p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of John S. Wingate, Keeper
-of the Cape Henlopen Coast Guard Station</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At about 11:30 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span> I noticed a steamship
-coming in from off shore. I said to the crew that
-it was a war vessel coming but I didn’t know
-whether it was German or British. At 11:45 the
-lookout reported to me that the steamer was
-headed direct for Hen and Chicken Shoal. I immediately
-ordered the signal “J. D.” hoisted on
-the pole, which means, “You are standing into
-danger.” When we supposed the ship saw our
-signal, he stopped, and laid to for about ten minutes,
-when he hard a-port and went clear of the
-shoal.</p>
-
-<p>A few minutes later he lowered a boat—we
-thought to take soundings, for the boat pulled
-away from the ship and headed direct for the
-beach.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the Second Officer’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>At approximately 11:45 <span class="smcap smaller">A. M.</span>... I got into
-the small boat at his command, with four of the
-crew, and we proceeded toward shore, but were
-stopped by the pilot cutter <i>Philadelphia</i> who told
-us that if we attempted to land we would be
-drowned. The <i>Philadelphia</i> then towed us into
-smooth water....</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span></p>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From Captain Wingate’s statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Meanwhile the pilot boat was heading down on
-the ship, blowing her whistle to warn the ship
-of her danger. By this time the ship hoisted a
-signal “K. T. S.,” which means “<i>Piracy</i>.” I ordered
-my boat made ready at once when I saw the
-“Piracy” signal; five minutes later he started
-for the ship. At 12:20 I had called Keeper
-Lynch of the Lewes station telling him what I
-was going to do, and to meet me off the Point.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From the statement of Captain John S. Lynch of
-the Lewes Coast Guard Station</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>I and my crew launched our power lifeboat and
-started for the steamer. Before I could get to
-the steamer I saw the pilot boat towing in the
-steamer’s skiff. The pilot boat let go of the
-skiff right off the Capes, and the occupants of
-the skiff started to row for shore. I called to
-them and they stopped. We went alongside, and
-I told them I would take the man ashore and
-save them the trouble. So he got into our boat.</p>
-
-<p>I then run off and picked up Captain Wingate,
-whose boat is a rowboat, and we went alongside
-the steamer. I asked for the Captain of the
-steamer, and they told me he was going ashore in
-the sail pilot boat, so we run alongside the sail<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
-pilot boat, and I asked the Captain of the steamer
-to come along with me. He says, “I will not.
-Not with <em>that</em> man in your boat. He’s got five
-guns on him!” I then told him that I did not
-care how many guns he had as I was not afraid
-of him and he requested me to take the man
-ashore myself. Then this man Ernest Schiller
-began to throw his guns overboard: Schiller
-throwed one gun overboard, Captain Wingate,
-who had come aboard my boat throwed two overboard,
-and C. A. Jenkins throwed another one
-overboard, Schiller having thrown them into the
-bottom of the boat. He, Schiller, throwed a lot
-of cartridges overboard, and when we came ashore
-we searched him and took the balance of the cartridges
-which he had on him and throwed them
-overboard. I then brought him up to the Customs
-Office and left him there.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="stmt">(<i>From “Schiller’s” statement</i>)</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>I am willing to go back to New York ... immediately,
-and confess my guilt. I swear on
-oath that there are no bombs placed on the ship, to
-my knowledge. I simply made that statement
-to the Captain as a bluff.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Thus this venturesome Russian, Hodson by
-birth, Schiller by preference, and German by conviction,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
-who single-handed captured a steamship,
-returned to New York, thirty-six hours after he
-had left port. He walked the plank to the United
-States Penitentiary at Atlanta for life, for
-“piracy on the high seas.”</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="VI" class="vspace">VI<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">ALONG THE WATERFRONT</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<h3>I<br />
-
-<span class="subhead"><i>Sugar and Ships and Robert Fay</i></span></h3>
-
-<p>Anyone familiar with the waterfront of a great
-port can appreciate its difficulties as an area to be
-policed. One of the busiest sections of the community
-during the daytime, it is little frequented
-at night. In districts where you find few people
-you will rarely find lights, and where there are
-no lights you may well expect crime. The contours
-of the shoreline are irregular, following
-usually the original margins of solid ground lining
-the natural harbor, and for every thoroughfare
-which can pass as a street there are a dozen
-or two alleys, footpaths, shadowy recesses and
-blind holes. Locks and keys and night watchmen
-will protect the land side of the piers, but from
-the water side entrance to any pier is easy, concealment
-still easier, and flight no trick at all.</p>
-
-<p>If New York harbor in 1914 had presented<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
-the aspect of the same harbor of twenty years before,
-I could hardly estimate the confusion which
-would have resulted from the coming of war.
-But there is probably no port in the world which
-handles New York’s volume of shipping with
-greater orderliness—I speak now from the standpoint
-of “law and order” rather than of the
-terminal facilities of the port. Its waterfront
-was physically clean and its longshore population,
-thanks to a competent police force, manageable.
-And yet, as Shakespeare said, “there are land rats
-and water rats—”</p>
-
-<p>From August, when war was declared and the
-Bomb Squad formed, through the fall of the year
-1914, certain changes came over the waterfront.
-Great German liners of the Hamburg-American
-and North German Lloyd Lines, freighters of
-the Atlas Line, and a miscellany of other vessels
-flying the red-white-and-black lay idle in port when
-England’s fleet blockaded the seaward channels.
-Some eighty German vessels were tied up at their
-piers. They dared not move, for Germany’s only
-available convoys were in southern waters trying
-to dodge the British and prey upon shipping.
-The Hamburg-American Line and Captain
-Boy-Ed made several abortive attempts to supply
-the raiders, but the considerable merchant fleet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
-caught in port by the war stayed in port. This
-dumped on the longshore population some thousands
-of ardent Boches. Meanwhile the great
-steamship lines owned by neutral and allied capital
-entered on a period of activity such as they
-had never seen before. The first ships from
-abroad brought purchasing agents and European
-money to barter for American supplies, for immediate
-delivery. Any man who owned anything
-that bore a speaking likeness to a cargo-boat suddenly
-found himself potentially wealthy. The
-whole United States began to pour into the New
-York waterfront a huge volume of supplies for
-the Allies—and for a time for Germany, via
-neutral Holland and Scandinavia—and out of
-the Hudson and East rivers flowed a steady,
-swelling current of this overseas trade.</p>
-
-<p>By the arrival of the year 1915 the current was
-well under way. The piers were extremely busy
-and the facilities for trouble were multiplying.
-On January 3 there was an explosion on the steamship
-<i>Orton</i> in Erie Basin for which there was no
-apparent explanation. A month later a bomb
-was discovered in the cargo of the <i>Hennington
-Court</i>, but no one could say how it came there.
-Toward the end of February the steamship <i>Carlton</i>
-caught fire at sea—mysteriously. Two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
-months passed, then two bombs were found in
-the cargo of the <i>Lord Erne</i>. We might have had
-a look at them, for that was the business of the
-Bomb Squad, if those who had found the bombs
-had not dumped them overboard rather hastily.
-A week later a bomb was found in the hold of
-the <i>Devon City</i>. Again no explanation. Nor
-any reasonable cause why the <i>Cressington Court</i>
-caught fire at sea on April 29. Our attention
-had been directed to each of these instances, and
-we had investigated, and folders waited in the
-files for the reports which properly developed
-would lead to an arrest, and the sum total of
-those reports was—nothing. Then our luck
-turned for a moment.</p>
-
-<p>The steamship <i>Kirkoswald</i>, out of New York,
-laden with supplies for France, docked at Marseilles,
-and in four sugar-bags in her hold were
-found bombs. The French authorities commandeered
-them, and removed and analyzed the
-explosive charge. The police commissioner
-cabled at once to Marseilles requesting the return
-of one of the bomb-cases, together with the
-bag in which it had been found, and an analysis
-of the contents. No answer. So he cabled again.
-The bomb-case then began a journey back to the
-United States, presented with the compliments of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
-the Republic of France by M. Jusserand to the
-State Department at Washington, and forwarded
-in turn to Mayor Mitchel of New York. Our
-study disclosed that it was of a new type: a
-metal tube some ten inches long, divided into two
-compartments by a thin aluminum disc. One
-compartment had held potassium chlorate, a
-powerful explosive, and the other had contained
-sulphuric acid. The acid had been expected to
-eat through the thin disc separating the compartments,
-and explosion was to have followed, but
-for some reason it had failed. The metals were
-of good quality, and the workmanship was thorough.</p>
-
-<p>Here was our first clue on the case. Many
-policemen work on theory so determinedly that
-they exclude really important facts which do not
-fit comfortably into the theory. I have always
-believed in taking the evidence, building a theory
-upon it, and then trying to confirm or reject that
-theory as new facts appear. It was well that
-we followed such a policy here, for we had nothing
-but the bomb-tube itself to build our theory
-upon. What did it offer? First, we were fortunate
-in having a bomb to study, for usually the
-fire following an explosion leaves no trace of its
-origin. We had its construction and ingredients<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
-as real, if vague, clues. Second, we knew that
-the <i>Kirkoswald</i> had carried supplies to France,
-and that all of the vessels on which bombs had
-been found or fires had broken out, had also been
-carrying supplies to the Allies. The list, by this
-time, had grown, for there were three more ship
-cases of fires or bombs in May, one in June, and
-five in July. Our primary theory was, therefore,
-that the bombs were made and placed on the
-vessels either by Germans or their paid agents.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_130" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_130a.jpg" width="600" height="416" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.</i></div>
- <div class="caption">
- <p>Lieut. Robert Fay (on right) and Lieut. George D. Barnitz
- after Fay’s arrest</p></div></div>
-
-<div id="ip_130b" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_130b.jpg" width="600" height="387" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood</i></div>
- <div class="caption">
- <p>From left to right: Fay, Daeche and Scholz, arraigned
- in Court</p></div></div>
-
-<p>The <i>Kirkoswald</i> carried sugar. By examining
-the cargo-records of the other ships which had
-suffered near or actual mishaps, we found that
-they had also carried sugar, and that in the instances
-when fire broke out, the highly inflammable
-sugar gave a lot of trouble to the fire crew.
-The vigilance of the waterfront and harbor police
-had of course been keyed up to detect anything
-suspicious, but a bomb-planter does not often
-carry his bomb under a policeman’s nose, and
-it seemed not unreasonable to suspect that the
-bombs had gone aboard with the sugar. So I
-went to a sugar refinery to see how sugar was
-made.</p>
-
-<p>I followed the process from the entry of the
-raw sugar to the bagging and shipping of the
-finished product. All of the sugar shipped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
-abroad went in bags, which were sewn tight either
-by hand or by machinery. After considerable
-testing I found that it was fairly easy to open a
-hand-sewn bag and sew it up again without leaving
-evidence of what I had done; the machine
-stitches, however, resisted any intrusion, and were
-hard to duplicate once they had been taken out.
-I put that fact away for future reference and
-looked in on the shipping department, to learn
-there that the only two persons who could know of
-the destination of a consignment of sugar before
-it was actually loaded into a vessel’s hold were
-the shipping clerk of the refinery and the captain of
-the lighter who took the sugar from the refinery to
-the ship.</p>
-
-<p>So we first paid court to the lighter captains
-and their aids. We followed shipments of sugar
-from the refinery doors to the lighters, saw the
-shipping clerk hand over his bill to the captain,
-saw the lighter pull out for a pier somewhere
-about the harbor, followed him to the pier, and
-watched the transfer of the cargo into the vessel’s
-hold. If a lighterman knew that hand-sewn bags
-could be ripped open, and wished to insert a bomb
-and close the bag again, he would have to do it
-on the way from the refinery to the pier—of
-that we were confident, for as soon as the lighter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
-pulled up to the vessel’s side the stevedores rushed
-the cargo into the hold, the hatches were sealed,
-and the cargo-checker, employed by the vessel,
-turned over to the lighter captain his receipt for
-the consignment. There was apparently no other
-time for tampering with the bags.</p>
-
-<p>How to watch the bags themselves from the
-refinery into the vessel was a troublesome problem.
-The river, during the daytime, is in constant traffic,
-and navigation for a cumbersome lighter in
-the river-paths is about as comfortable as crossing
-Fifth Avenue on foot at rush hour. The river
-at night was comparatively free, and it was then
-that most of the lightering was done. A waterman
-can identify the uncouth shapes of queer craft
-on dark waters, a landsman cannot, but we had
-to make the best of a bad bargain and chase the
-lighters in a motorboat, often diligently following
-a blinking light through the mist for hours to
-discover finally that it was on the wrong ship.
-Ships on a dark river are like timid spinsters in a
-dark street—they exhibit, perhaps through fear
-of collision, perhaps because ships are feminine,
-a strong suspicion of anything that approaches.
-Our barking motorboat advertised itself half a
-mile away. If we drifted we lost our quarry.
-We tried to smuggle men aboard the lighters,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
-but there were so many, and they were bound in
-so many different directions, that we were not
-manned for this.</p>
-
-<p>So passed June and July. It was a thankless
-task, and one which had its risks. Detective Senff
-fell into the river one night when he was chasing
-a suspicious character around under a pier at the
-foot of West 44th Street and nearly drowned before
-he could be pulled out. The case seemed
-to be getting no further than abstractions.
-Ashore, however, we learned that most of the
-lighter captains in the harbor were Germans,
-and in an effort to reduce the field we learned the
-names of the captains of the lighters which had
-most frequently visited the vessels on which fires
-had occurred. This took time and an exhaustive
-study of lighterage receipts, but it brought out
-the fact that in every case of a delivery of sugar
-to an outward bound vessel, the captain of the
-lighter had returned a full receipt—which exploded
-the possibility that a lighterman might
-take a bag from one shipment, put a bomb in it,
-and add it to the next.</p>
-
-<p>I am happy now to say that we did not give up.
-We couldn’t, for the ship fires were going right
-on, increasing in frequency, and somebody was
-making bombs, for they continued to be found.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
-On the assumption that a lighter captain who
-would place a bomb in a sugar-bag must first get
-the bomb, we began to shadow the captains, not
-only afloat but ashore, and then suddenly the case
-took a queer twist and our theory of German intrigue
-got badly balled up.</p>
-
-<p>We followed certain lightermen to their homes,
-their drinking haunts, and their other places of
-business, and among their other places of business
-found the residence—on the lower West
-Side of Manhattan—of a man known to be a
-river pirate. That was enough for an arrest,
-and on August 27 we brought Mike Matzet,
-Ferdinand Hahn, Richard Meyerhoffer and Jene
-Storms, Germans, and John Peterson, Swede,
-to headquarters for examination. Matzet confessed
-that he, and “all the rest” of the lighter
-captains, as he expressed it, had been regularly
-stealing sugar from the consignments, and selling
-it to river pirates for ⅙ the market price, which
-allowed the pirates to re-sell it at ⅚ the market for
-400 per cent. clear profit. The pirates in a motorboat
-would steal into the shadow of a lighter as
-she lay at her anchorage, take off a few bags, and
-slip away. We had seen such boats, but had
-never been able to close in and see what they
-were doing. The checkers who were supposed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
-render a true and just account of the number of
-bags which later passed into the hatches of the
-ocean vessels were merely accomplices who shared
-in the profits when the stolen sugar was sold.</p>
-
-<p>There were no bombs on the captains (who
-presently went to jail) but they were all fully
-aware of the conditions along the waterfront, for
-one said to a pirate who was “buying” sugar:
-“Take all you want—the damn ship will never
-get over anyway!” No bombs—and what if
-there had been? We were reasonably certain
-that the ships were being fired, but we did not
-know now whether it was for German reasons, or
-merely to efface the sugar thefts before the cargoes
-reached the other side of the ocean and were
-discovered by the consignees. The conviction of
-the thieves was not much consolation for the slow
-development of the case, and it fixed no guilt for
-bombs.</p>
-
-<p>But when you are bound on a long trip, and
-you have mislaid your ticket, it is second nature
-to go through your pockets one by one, knowing
-full well that it is not in any of them, for you
-“just looked there.” Then you find it in one
-of the pockets where you knew it could not be.
-Acting on a not dissimilar instinct we began to
-retrace our steps from June to September, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
-to follow again the progress of sugar from the
-refinery to the hold of the outward bound steamer.
-Our theory that the bombs had some connection
-with the sugar was either to be proven or destroyed
-this time. It was in this more or less dull
-review that we made the acquaintance of the
-Chenangoes.</p>
-
-<p>They were nothing more romantic than fly-by-night
-stevedores whom the lighter companies
-engaged at the sugar wharves to load cargoes.
-They worked by the day, or by the job, there
-were always plenty loitering around to be hired,
-and they drew their pay and went their way. No
-one ever had to wonder who they were or where
-they came from, for a stout body was all the
-recommendation a Chenango required. They
-were a nondescript type of common labor, the
-same, I suspect, that carried materials for the
-Tower of Babel, and speaking almost as many
-tongues. The same face rarely appeared a second
-time to be hired—not that there was anything
-particularly unpleasant about the work, but
-rather that all work is repulsive to a Chenango.
-He is the hobo of labor and if the same man had
-been re-hired, no one would have noticed or cared.
-We paid such attention to them as their variety
-permitted—followed them to all the points of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
-the compass, and watched them closely while they
-worked, to see whether any of them seemed to
-linger aboard in the cargo, or carried any suspicious
-package. The wickedest thing we found
-was an occasional pint flask on the hip, which was
-no proof of any special criminal affairs.</p>
-
-<p>Ever since we had examined the <i>Kirkoswald</i>
-bomb we had had lines out to follow the sale of
-chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid—the ingredients
-of the bomb. We examined reams of
-sales’ records submitted by explosive and chemical
-manufacturers, traced dozens of reports from
-drug stores, and found nothing of consequence.
-Those two substances are widely and harmlessly
-used, and rarely purchased in small quantities by
-any individual whose intentions might excite suspicion.
-Under our rigid city explosives’ laws investigation
-of purchases was facilitated for us,
-but all the facility in the world could not help the
-case without anything to investigate. So passed
-September and a part of October, and just about
-the time when the bomb case was growing dull
-and the ship fires which were constantly occurring
-had almost found us calloused, the French Government,
-with traditional courtesy, helped us out
-again, and blew our sugar theory into many and
-small pieces.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_138" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_138a.jpg" width="600" height="455" alt="" />
- <div class="caption"><p>The Fay Bomb Materials</p>
-
-<p>Suit cases containing an atlas, two maps of the harbor, drawing instruments,
-tools, a wig and two false mustaches, a telescope
-bomb, and several packages of ingredients</p></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
-Captain Martyn, the French military attaché
-in New York, telephoned to say that he thought we
-would be interested in a man who he believed was
-trying to buy some explosive. What kind?
-Trinitro-toluol, or “TNT,” one of the most
-violent propellants used in modern shell. Yes,
-we would be interested.</p>
-
-<p>A war exporter, Wettig by name, had told Captain
-Martyn that a fellow with whom he shared
-office space had asked him to obtain a quantity of
-TNT—a small quantity, for trial purposes.
-The purchaser, who was known both as Paul Siebs
-and Karl Oppegaarde, and who lived at the Hotel
-Breslin, directed Wettig to deliver the material
-to a Jersey address and said he would then receive
-payment. On the axiom that a bomb in the hand
-is worth two in someone else’s, we were introduced
-to Wettig, and formulated with him a plan to
-follow the explosive. So on Thursday, October
-21, Detective Barnitz accompanied Wettig to a
-“dynamite store” at Perth Amboy, New Jersey,
-where the latter bought some 25 pounds of TNT.
-The two returned to New York with their package.
-We looked up Mr. Oppegaarde and asked
-him what he proposed to do with his purchase.
-He said he really hadn’t the slightest idea: an acquaintance
-of his, a war broker named Max<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
-Breitung, had referred a certain Dr. Herbert
-Kienzle, a German clock-maker, to him as a likely
-person to obtain explosives. Dr. Kienzle had
-placed the order, had wanted it delivered at a
-garage in Main Street, Weehawken, to a man who
-bore the name of Fay, and who had assured
-Siebs that when he had it delivered he would be
-paid for his services. Further than that he knew
-nothing. Nobody seemed to know anything, although
-here was a considerable amount of vicious
-explosive in which five men were very much interested.
-We spent the rest of that day in looking
-up what we could of the players in this little game
-of “passing the TNT”—from Kienzle to Breitung
-to Siebs to Wettig to Fay.</p>
-
-<p>Six men were assigned to the case: Murphy,
-Walsh, Fenelly, Sterett, Coy and Barnitz, and
-they most admirably stayed on the job. On Friday
-Detectives Barnitz and Coy took the explosive
-to the Weehawken garage. Fay was not there,
-but a man who was there told the detectives he
-lived at 28 Fifth Street, so the men from the Bomb
-Squad and their package called at the boarding
-house where Fay lived. Again he was not to be
-found, but our men had a chat with the landlady,
-who told them that Mr. Fay was a real nice gentleman
-who had lived there with his friend Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
-Scholz for a month, always paid his bills, subscribed
-to a magazine, and was working on inventions,
-or at least so she thought, because he used
-a table to draw plans on. Sociable, <span class="locked">too—</span></p>
-
-<p>They left the TNT for him. I ought to remind
-the reader that it is harmless unless confined
-or heated, and cannot be properly exploded without
-a proper detonating charge. It may have
-been a bit rough on the boarding house, but we
-had gone to deliver the goods to Fay; Wettig had
-told him they would be delivered (though not by
-whom) and we had to carry out the plan even
-though Fay was not at home.</p>
-
-<p>At the same hour, across the Hudson Detectives
-Coy, Walsh and Sterett learned why Fay had
-not been receiving visitors, for they found him
-in Siebs’s company in the Hotel Breslin. Effacing
-themselves until the interview was over, they
-tailed Fay to the West 42nd Street ferry, then
-across the river to Weehawken, up the long hill to
-the town, and to his garage at 212 Main Street.
-In the early evening an automobile emerged from
-the garage, driven by Fay and containing another
-passenger, and wound out of town in a northerly
-direction along the Palisades. Behind it was a
-police car. North of Weehawken a few miles
-where the country is inhabited by installment-plan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
-“villas,” moving-picture studios and scrub-oak
-trees, Fay stopped his car at the roadside and disappeared
-with the other man into the underbrush
-and then into the deeper woods. The police car
-waited until they returned, and followed them back
-to their boarding house, where the detectives took
-up a vigil outside.</p>
-
-<p>A New York policeman has not the power of
-arrest in another state, and it began to look as
-though we might have to make an arrest in Jersey,
-so Chief Flynn assigned Secret Service Agents
-Burke and Savage to the case and they joined
-forces with us Saturday morning. Detectives
-Barnitz, Coy, Walsh, Sterett, Fenelly and Murphy
-were watching the house in Weehawken. About
-noon Fay and his companion appeared, and got
-aboard a Grantwood street-car. The Bomb
-Squad followed at a discreet distance to the point
-where the men had dodged into the woods the
-night before. Barnitz, who was in command, sent
-Sterett and Coy in after them. But nature was
-against us, for the fallen leaves carpeting the
-woods crackled under foot, and to snap a twig
-was to shout one’s presence through the clear air.
-Twice Fay turned sharply around and peered
-through the trees. The two detectives were
-nearly discovered on both occasions. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
-finally decided that it would be impossible to approach
-their men without alarming them, so they
-returned to the waiting automobile. The police
-party waited an hour or more, and then realized
-that Fay and his companion had evidently gone
-out the other side of the woods and so worked
-their way back to civilization.</p>
-
-<p>Barnitz thought and acted swiftly. He sent
-Sterett and Coy at once to New York to cover
-Dr. Kienzle, on the chance that Fay might get into
-communication with him—it was a long chance,
-but the only one that offered, for the men were
-now lost to us. Barnitz, Murphy, Fenelly and
-Walsh returned to Weehawken to watch Fay’s
-house. For two hours nothing happened to interest
-them, and Barnitz was beginning to wonder
-whether he would ever see his quarry again
-when an express wagon drove up and stopped at
-28 Fifth Street. The driver presently trundled
-a trunk out of the house, swung it up into his
-wagon and drove off. The police car idled along
-behind him for a mile or so through the Weehawken
-streets, and the wagon stopped at another
-house. While the driver was indoors this time,
-Fenelly, who was roughly dressed and light of
-foot, slipped up behind the wagon, vaulted into
-the back of it, took one look at the trunk and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
-rejoined the others. “There’s a plain calling-card
-on the trunk. It reads ‘Walter Scholz,’”
-he said. Again the expressman headed a small
-parade, which terminated when the detectives saw
-him leave the trunk in a storage warehouse. Barnitz
-dared not follow it there for fear of arousing
-suspicion, and he figured that the trunk would
-probably not be removed during the week-end at
-least. The detectives once more returned to the
-boarding house and resumed their tedious watch.</p>
-
-<p>The evening passed, and there was no word
-either from Coy and Sterett or the lost men.
-Late fall evenings in Weehawken are cold.
-Some time after midnight two figures came up
-the street, and as they turned in to the boarding
-house we saw they were Fay and Scholz. Out
-of the shadows a moment later Sterett and Coy
-slipped up to the car—“I could have kissed ’em
-both,” Barnitz said afterward. They had covered
-the office of the Kienzle Clock Company at
-41 Park Place, picked up Dr. Kienzle as he left
-the office, tailed him until five in the afternoon,
-and then saw him enter the lobby of the Equitable
-Building at 120 Broadway—where he met Fay
-and Scholz! The men conversed for a few moments,
-and Fay excused himself. He went to a
-telephone booth and closed the door. Sterett<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
-went into the next booth. Through the thin partition
-he heard Fay call the garage, ask whether a
-package had been delivered to him there, then
-say “it hasn’t, eh?” and hang up the receiver.
-He rejoined Scholz and Kienzle and the three
-went to a Fulton Street restaurant to dine. The
-detectives went to the restaurant but did not dine,
-and when the Germans left, and Kienzle parted
-from the others, they tailed Fay and Scholz to
-Grand Central Palace, saw them appropriate two
-young women, dance with them, pledge them in a
-few drinks, and finally leave them and return to
-Weehawken.</p>
-
-<p>That trunk episode made us uneasy. It might
-have meant that they had been frightened and were
-going to disappear, and it certainly signified their
-intention of moving. We decided to force the
-issue, and accordingly in the small hours of Sunday
-morning we directed Wettig, of whom, of
-course, Fay had no suspicions, to call at Fay’s
-house later in the forenoon to arrange to test
-the TNT. From the automobile, which was
-parked at the street-corner some distance from the
-house, the detectives saw Wettig enter, and in a
-few moments saw him come out-of-doors with Fay
-and Scholz. They strolled to the street-car line,
-allowed two cars to pass unsignalled, and then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
-suddenly, hailed a third. It had closed doors, and
-when Murphy, Fenelly, and Coy, seeing the men
-climbing aboard, tried to reach the car themselves,
-the doors had slammed in their faces and the car
-was on its way. Somewhere in the shuffle Walsh
-had been mislaid—he had been last seen up the
-block covering an alley which led back of the
-boarding house. There was no time to pick him
-up, and the automobile followed the car to Grantwood
-and the now familiar woods. At times the
-car was out of sight of the pursuers, and they fully
-expected to lose their men again. But from far
-in the rear they saw the car stop opposite the
-woods. The doors snapped open, and the first
-person to set foot on the ground was Walsh. The
-second and third were Fay and Scholz, and the
-last, Wettig. Walsh had seen them climb aboard
-in Weehawken, and had promptly sprinted for the
-next corner ahead, where he caught the car!
-That was good shadowing technique.</p>
-
-<p>The Germans slipped into the protection of the
-underbrush immediately. Barnitz was not disposed
-to let them get away again, so he spread
-out his forces so as to follow the party and finally
-surround it, and the Bomb Squad, the Secret Service
-and two members of the Weehawken police
-entered the wood and wove a circle about their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
-victims. As they closed in they saw Fay enter a
-little shack in the depth of the brush, and bring out
-a package, from which he took a pinch of some
-material and placed it on a rock. With a nice new
-hammer he dealt the rock a sharp blow, there was
-a loud report, and the handle snapped in his
-hand. The detectives closed in at once, and
-Barnitz said, “You’re under arrest!”</p>
-
-<p>“Who is in charge of you all?” Fay asked.</p>
-
-<p>“I am,” Barnitz replied.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I will tell you that I am not going to be
-placed under arrest,” Fay announced. “If I
-am, great people will suffer! You will surely have
-war. It cannot be—it is impossible. I will
-give you any amount of money if you will let me
-go.”</p>
-
-<p>This was good news, not for its financial content
-but because we had no previous evidence
-against this man Fay save that he had TNT in his
-possession. Here he was, trying to confirm our
-suspicions.</p>
-
-<p>“How much will you give me?” Barnitz parleyed.</p>
-
-<p>“All you want—any amount!”</p>
-
-<p>“Fifty thousand?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, fifty thousand, if you want it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Got it with you?” Barnitz asked instantly.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
-“No, I haven’t got it all, but I can get it.
-I’ll pay you a hundred dollars now as a guarantee,
-and I’ll give you the balance at noon to-morrow.”</p>
-
-<p>Barnitz called two of the other men. “Get
-this,” he said, and turning to Fay: “All right,
-where’s your money?” Fay paid him. Then
-they took him to the Weehawken headquarters,
-guilty at least of attempted bribery, and Barnitz
-turned in the cash as Exhibit A.</p>
-
-<p>We suspected that he had something more than
-the possession of explosives to conceal, and so
-he had, for a search of his rooms and the garage
-brought to light the parts for a number of thoroughly
-ingenious mechanical contrivances which,
-although they were of a new type, we immediately
-recognized as bombs. In a packing case at the
-storage warehouse were four bombs finished and
-ready to fill. He had apparently intended to
-manufacture them on a large scale, for in addition
-to his trial quantity of TNT Fay had twenty-five
-sticks of dynamite, 450 pounds of chlorate
-of potash, four hundred percussion caps, and two
-hundred bomb cylinders. Apparently, too, he had
-German sympathies, for we found in his rooms a
-regulation German army pistol, loaded. The discovery
-of a chart of New York harbor, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
-information, which we soon got, that he had a
-motorboat in a slip opposite West 42nd Street,
-pointed the finger of guilt toward the waterfront—which
-after all those months of waiting was the
-direction in which we were most interested.</p>
-
-<p>Fay told his story. He was a lieutenant of
-the German Army, detached for special secret
-service. He ascribed his detachment from his
-command to his own brilliant realization, as he
-was on the fighting front in France, that if all the
-American shells that were being fired at him from
-French seventy-fives and British eighteen-pounders
-could be sunk before they reached France they
-would not cause his countrymen so much annoyance,
-and also that pushed to its capacity that
-idea would probably influence the outcome of the
-war. The fact is that Fay’s career, training, education,
-languages and character were well known
-to the secret service in Berlin, and that when they
-wanted to assign a reliable and desperate man to
-Captain von Papen in New York, they sent him.
-They knew that Fay had spent years in America,
-and that he was trained in mechanics. They gave
-him $4,000 and a plan of campaign, and said:
-“Go west.”</p>
-
-<p>It was natural that when he landed he should
-seek out his brother-in-law, Walter Scholz, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
-was working as gardener on an estate in Connecticut.
-It was natural, too, that when he set
-about getting supplies for his bombs he should
-call on Dr. Kienzle, who made clock machinery,
-for Dr. Kienzle had already written to the German
-secret service in Berlin recommending just
-such work as Fay had come to undertake. When
-he came to require explosives, it was only natural
-that Kienzle should refer him to his friend Max
-Breitung, with the result which we have seen,
-and naturally Paul Daeche, who was a good friend
-of both Kienzle and Breitung (he had tried to
-return to Germany with both of them on the
-<i>Kronprinzessin Cecilie</i> when she put out of New
-York and put in to Bar Harbor in late July, 1914)—naturally
-Daeche was interested in Fay’s projects
-and devices, and helped him with them.
-Daeche was one of those doubtful Germans who
-had come to America to “study business methods”—in
-short a commercial spy, willing to
-make a living.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_150" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_150a.jpg" width="600" height="463" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.</i></div>
- <div class="caption"><p>Lieutenant Fay’s Motor Boat</p></div></div>
-
-<p>Fay was crestfallen after his arrest. He worried,
-first, over what his government would think
-of him when he had left home promising that not
-a single munitions’ ship would leave New York
-and reach the Allies; second, because revealing his
-commission to destroy those ships would place<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
-Germany in a bad light with other neutral nations;
-third, for fear he might implicate the Imperial
-German Embassy at Washington. He protected
-the Embassy for a time, and then admitted
-that his plans had only been waiting a word from
-von Papen and Boy-Ed for consummation. His
-mines were all ready to be set, and the attachés,
-whom he had met, had not given the word. All
-his clever craftsmanship had gone for nothing.</p>
-
-<p>The bombs were so constructed that they might
-be attached under water to the rudder-post of a
-vessel as she lay at her pier. Inside the bomb case
-was a clockwork, so poised as to fire two rifle
-cartridges into a chamber of ninety pounds of
-TNT. Lieut. Robert S. Glasburn, of Fort Wadsworth,
-who testified at Fay’s trial, is my authority
-for the statement that the government requires
-only 100 pounds of TNT, exploded at a depth of
-fifteen feet under water, to destroy a dreadnought;
-Fay’s ninety pounds would have torn the rudder
-out like a toothpick and ripped away the entire
-after part of the vessel. The helmsman of the
-vessel himself was unconsciously to have set the
-bomb off, for the clockwork was geared to a wire
-attached to the rudder itself in such a way that each
-normal swing of the rudder would wind up the
-mechanism until it fired the cartridge. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
-bomb chamber was fitted with rubber gaskets so
-that no water would be admitted before the charge
-had done its work. Fay was a skilful hand, and
-had done the assembling himself. Scholz bought
-the materials at various machine shops about New
-York, Kienzle supplied the mechanisms and approved
-the finished product. Breitung contributed
-400 pounds of chlorate of potash to make
-a German holiday, and Daeche just hung around
-and helped everybody.</p>
-
-<p>Fay knew it was easy to approach a pier from
-the water-side, for he had spent hours fishing idly
-in the river to determine that very fact. Just as
-soon as the military attaché said the word, he and
-Scholz were to put out into the darkness of the
-river in their fast motorboat and visit ten ships
-sailing for England and France, donning a diver’s
-suit, and attaching a bomb to each rudder. He
-would first slip alongside the police patrol boats,
-whose haunts he knew, and steal the guns from
-them, counting on the swiftness of his own craft
-to get away from pursuers. He even entertained
-the possibility of visiting the British patrol cruisers
-outside the harbor to fix bombs to them—though
-hardly seriously, I suspect. He had made
-a different type of bomb, resembling a telescope,
-in which the carefully timed dissolution of a white<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
-powder would release a firing pin on a large quantity
-of potassium chlorate. This type he proposed
-to smuggle into the cargo. When he had
-created such a reign of terror in New York harbor
-that no ship dared leave, he would go to
-Boston and Philadelphia and do likewise, then to
-Chicago and Buffalo to paralyze lake shipping, and
-thence to New Orleans and San Francisco and
-home by way of New York or Mexico. It was a
-great pity, he said, that he had been arrested, for
-this program had been cancelled. He wished he
-had got word to start sooner. He had had a
-few bombs ready for some time. Then there
-came a slack period, and he sent Daeche to Bridgeport
-on a little side mission for Germany: to get
-some dum-dum bullets. These Fay intended to
-forward to Berlin through von Papen to support
-a protest from Germany to the United States that
-we were shipping dum-dum bullets to the Allies.
-We were not, naturally, but that did not prevent
-his bringing back a few bullets with the jackets
-carefully notched by a German agent in Bridgeport.</p>
-
-<p>We had heard enough of what he had intended
-to do, and of his disappointment. What
-had he accomplished? What ships had he blown
-up? Was he responsible for the five fires in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
-hold of the <i>Craigside</i> on July 24? No. Did he
-make the bombs found on the <i>Arabic</i> on July 27?
-Did he cause the fires on the <i>Assuncion de Larrinaga</i>,
-the <i>Rotterdam</i> or the <i>Santa Anna</i>, and
-did he put a bomb aboard the <i>Williston</i>? He did
-not, he assured me.</p>
-
-<p>I showed him the <i>Kirkoswald</i> bomb.</p>
-
-<p>“Did you ever see that?”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” he answered.</p>
-
-<p>“Didn’t you make that?”</p>
-
-<p>“I did not,” he replied, and laughed. “That’s
-a joke. I see now why they sent me over to this
-country—they wanted someone to make bombs
-that would do some damage. That’s crude
-work.”</p>
-
-<div id="ip_154" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_154a.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.</i></div>
- <div class="caption">
- <p><span class="in4">The Rudder Bomb</span><span class="in8">
- A Closer View of the Rudder Bomb</span></p></div></div>
-
-<p>His answer was truthful. We had to admit it
-for there was absolutely no evidence to connect
-him with any specific act outside his confession,
-and we had to find comfort in the fact that he
-was guilty at least of having intended to continue
-the reign of terror along the wharves.
-Bombs had been found or fires had broken out
-on no less than twenty-two vessels bound out of
-New York up to the time we closed on Fay—and
-not one was his prey. He was tried with Scholz
-and Daeche. The only law then applying to
-his case, and the one under which he was tried,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
-charged him with “conspiracy to defraud the insurance
-underwriters” who had insured cargoes
-on certain ships. When the charge was read to
-him, Fay innocently asked: “What are underwriters?”
-He found out. Fay went to Atlanta
-for eight years, Scholz for six, and Daeche for
-four. Kienzle and Breitung were not brought to
-trial and after we went to war were invited to
-join various other Germans in an internment
-camp. Fay had been at Atlanta a month when
-he escaped. German friends gave him clothes
-and helped him to Baltimore, where Paul Koenig
-met him and paid him $450, with injunctions to
-go to San Francisco and get more. For some
-reason the fugitive feared that there was a plot
-against his life in San Francisco, although he had
-protected the “great people,” so instead of going
-west he fled immediately to Mexico. From there
-he fled to Spain, and it was not until the summer
-of 1918 that he was caught there.</p>
-
-<p>He was a bold and important criminal in his
-field, and we were glad to have brought him in.
-He was not the one we wanted most, not if our
-sugar theory was sound. The pursuit of Fay had
-certainly scared that theory up an alley. It was
-high time we got out of the alley and back into
-Main Street.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="VII" class="vspace">VII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">ALONG THE WATERFRONT</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<h3>II<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">“<i>Damn Him, Rintelen!</i>”</span></h3>
-
-<p>The pursuit of Robert Fay unearthed what
-trial lawyers delight in calling “not one scintilla
-of evidence” that he had actually set fire to a
-ship. Fay was punished for what he intended
-to do and not for any real achievement for the
-German cause.</p>
-
-<p>Yet the thought persisted in our minds that
-he knew who was making and placing ship bombs.
-He professed ignorance. “I do know this
-much,” he said, after a long session of futile
-questioning, “I do know that a certain man paid
-another man $10,000 to make those bombs. I
-won’t tell you who he is, because I think he is now
-a prisoner in the Tower of London, and he might
-get into more trouble. You can make what you
-like out of that.”</p>
-
-<p>We made this out of it—that the prisoner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
-then in the Tower to whom Fay referred was
-probably Franz Rintelen. He was a German of
-prominent station who had had a vision quite
-like Fay’s—a vision of interrupting American
-shipping, and so damming the flood of war supplies.
-In early 1915 he had come to America
-equipped with plenty of authority and a bank
-credit limited only by the resources of the German
-Empire, and had spent six months here trying
-to exercise that authority and spend the money
-in numerous ways. He had tried to buy rifles of
-the American government, he had fostered peace
-demonstrations, promoted strikes, lobbied for an
-embargo on munitions and made himself busily
-useless in numerous other ways, only to sail for
-home in the fall of the year—and fall into
-the hands of the British.</p>
-
-<p>But the charges which I have just cited, and
-which are now fully confirmed against this man,
-were not then known to us, and Fay’s tip was
-too ambiguous to help us at the moment. Instead
-of ceasing after his arrest, the fires continued.
-The day after we caught Fay in the
-woods the steamer <i>Rio Lages</i> which had sailed a
-few days previously took fire out at sea. A week
-later a blaze started in the hold of the <i>Euterpe</i>.
-The <i>Rochambeau</i>, of the French line, caught fire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
-at sea on November 6, and the next day there was
-an explosion aboard the <i>Ancona</i>. The <i>Tyningham</i>
-suffered two fires on her voyage east during
-early December. There was a maddening certainty
-about it all that suggested that every ship
-that left port must have nothing in her hold except
-hungry rats, parlor matches, oily waste and
-free kerosene. Never in the history of the port
-had so many marine fires occurred in a single
-year. Marine insurance was away up and our
-patience was away down.</p>
-
-<p>The steamship companies put on special details
-of guards to watch the vessels from the moment
-they entered port until they sailed again.
-We resumed patrolling the river in various disguises.
-Fay’s swift motorboat had disappeared,
-but there were plenty of others, and the men of
-the Bomb Squad suffered real hardship in all
-sorts of inclement weather. It seemed as though
-every item of cargo was watched as it passed
-into the hold, and every stranger about the piers
-carefully followed, but there was absolutely nothing
-to excite suspicion. So we returned to our
-sugar theory and the Chenangoes.</p>
-
-<p>I mentioned the fact that they were a floating
-tribe in more senses than one, and that the same
-man rarely came back twice for employment. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
-few familiar faces, however, could occasionally be
-spotted in the crowd at work loading the lighters.
-We made it our business to study these steady
-workers and found them for the most part a harmless
-lot of Scandinavians.</p>
-
-<p>Those who came, worked once, and vanished,
-were of all nationalities, with a considerable German
-representation. Some of them used to come
-from Hoboken, and by a process of elimination
-we found that certain of the Hoboken delegation
-were sailors from the idle North German
-Lloyd and Hamburg-American ships. We followed
-them and asked enough questions about
-them to learn the entire history of any civilized
-people, but nothing in the form of legal evidence
-resulted. A friend who knew the methods taught
-in the Wilhelmstrasse for destroying property said
-it would be futile for us to follow those men
-anyway, for the destroying agent himself rarely
-knows the men higher up, the real conspirators.
-So it began to look as if even the arrest of a
-guilty Chenango would not supply the background
-necessary to picture the bomb system in its entirety.</p>
-
-<p>On one of the early days of 1916 Detectives
-Barth, Corell and Senff reported for duty and
-were assigned to Hoboken. They were instructed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
-to hang about the restaurants, saloons and
-hotels where the officers and petty-officers from
-the German ships were accustomed to gather, and
-posing as confidential German agents they were to
-fish about for whatever might take their bait. All
-three men are fine Americans of German descent,
-with an excellent command of the German language,
-so they got on well with the longshore
-folk they met in the “stubes” of Hoboken.
-They occasionally suggested in a vague way that
-they Were the picked servants of the Kaiser, and
-aroused some interest and no suspicion among
-their new acquaintances. Every man has more
-or less desire to be a “secret service man” and
-in looking back on the German antics in America
-during the war I think one may attribute as
-much of their activity to the dramatic instinct, as
-to their cupidity or their real patriotic zeal.
-(Paul Koenig is an exaggerated example of what I
-mean.) And so it was with those to whom the
-three Bomb Squad men talked: a nod here, and
-a wink there, a whisper and a wag of the head,
-and they took on some importance.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_160" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_160a.jpg" width="415" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, by International Film Service, Inc.</i></div>
- <div class="caption"><p>Franz Rintelen</p></div></div>
-
-<p>Their reward came when a German whom
-Barth had picked up suggested quietly that he
-knew a man who had been doing work for the
-government (German) and wouldn’t Barth like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
-to meet him? Barth would. So with some ceremony
-Barth was introduced as one of von Bernstorff’s
-special agents to a funny little old man
-who looked like a cartoon of the late Prussian
-eagle. He was Captain Charles von Kleist of
-Hoboken. The three lunched together in Hahn’s
-restaurant, in Park Row, New York, and von
-Kleist found Barth agreeable. He was very glad
-to meet a real agent, for he had a grudge
-against a fellow over in Hoboken who said he
-was a member of the German secret service.</p>
-
-<p>“You can’t be too careful of those fellows,”
-Barth said. “There are a lot of fakes around.
-What’s he done to you?”</p>
-
-<p>“This Scheele, he has a laboratory, where
-he has been doing work, making some things. I
-was his superintendent now for a long time, and
-he owes me several hundred dollars, but he does
-not pay me. I think von Igel ought to know
-about it, and perhaps Captain von Papen himself.”</p>
-
-<p>“So do I,” said Barth. “I’ll see that it gets
-to him. What was it you were doing over
-there?”</p>
-
-<p>Von Kleist was a chemist. Dr. Walter T.
-Scheele had been employing him in his laboratory
-at 1133 Clinton Street, Hoboken, in a factory<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
-which was ostensibly for the manufacture of agricultural
-chemicals. The real business they transacted
-was the manufacture of bombs. Ernest
-Becker, the chief electrician of the North German
-Lloyd liner <i>Friedrich der Grosse</i>, and Carl
-Schmidt, her chief engineer, had made the containers
-out of sheet metal. These Becker had
-delivered to Scheele, and up in the laboratory the
-containers had been filled with explosive. Becker
-would come then and take them away, and the
-bombs had been used to great advantage, von
-Kleist continued, in harassing the shipping. But
-what good did it do him, he asked Barth, if he got
-no pay for it?</p>
-
-<p>“You wait,” returned the “secret agent.”
-“I’ll get you fixed up. I know a man who is
-close to von Igel, and I’ll have him meet you.
-If what you say is true, you certainly have something
-coming to you. Wait till I get this other
-man.”</p>
-
-<p>A few days passed. Then von Kleist came
-again to Hahn’s restaurant, and was introduced to
-“Herr Deane,” who Barth said spoke no German,
-but was a good man in spite of the handicap. A
-trace of suspicion crossed the old chemist’s face,
-and Barth hastened to add: “We have to use
-all kinds of people to fool these stupid Yankees,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
-see?” This bit of heavy satire reassured von
-Kleist, and he found Deane a likable person, who
-seemed interested in his case against Scheele.
-He went over the ground again. “If you want
-any more proof I’ll show you,” he concluded.
-“Come to my house.” “Deane” (who votes
-under the name of George D. Barnitz, of the
-Bomb Squad) joined Barth and accompanied von
-Kleist to his house at 1121 Garden Street, Hoboken,
-and out of the muddy back yard the old
-man dug up an empty bomb container, <em>almost an
-exact duplicate of the “Kirkoswald” bomb</em>!
-“There is one of them—and I have filled dozens
-like that,” he said.</p>
-
-<p>“Let’s go for a ride,” Barth suggested. “We
-can go down to Coney Island and have supper—the
-hotel has opened up—and we’ll talk things
-over.” The old man felt very amiable towards
-his new friends, and was a talkative and appreciative
-guest. They dined at the Shelburne and
-later Barnitz wrote out a statement of von Kleist’s
-services as the latter outlined them. “This is
-just for the sake of regularity, you understand.
-I have to have a written report to give to the
-chief, or else you won’t get yours. You can sign
-this as your formal statement.”</p>
-
-<p>“All right,” von Kleist agreed, and signed.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
-“How long do you think it will be before I could
-get some money?”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, don’t worry about that part of it,” Barth
-said. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll all three
-go up to see the chief now—I want him to meet
-you anyhow, and you can supply any more facts
-that we may not have down.”</p>
-
-<p>So they came up to my office—not von Igel’s.
-Barnitz and Barth said his expression changed
-when he entered headquarters and knew he had
-been betrayed. He said, “I see now why you
-have been so good to me.”</p>
-
-<p>The prisoner was docile. He said he knew he
-was caught and he wanted to help us round up the
-rest. I showed him the <i>Kirkoswald</i> bomb, and
-told him where it had been found. “Yes,” he
-said, “Captain Steinburg and Captain Bode came
-to the laboratory after they saw in the paper
-that the bomb had been found in Marseilles and
-they gave Dr. Scheele the devil because it had
-not gone off. It was supposed to explode within
-four days, but it didn’t explode in twelve.”
-“How many did you make?” I asked. “I don’t
-know how many,” the prisoner answered. The
-ones that were put on the <i>Inchmoor</i> and the <i>Dankdale</i>
-went off all right, and there were two fires
-on the <i>Tyningham</i>. “I gave one box of thirty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
-of them to two Irishmen from New Orleans,
-O’Reilly and O’Leary. They took them down
-there to set fire to ships with them.”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you give the rest to Becker?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes. And he gave them to Captain Wolpert.
-Wolpert is superintendent of the piers of
-the Atlas Line over in Hoboken. Captain Bode,
-he is also a superintendent, for the Hamburg-American
-Line. Captain Steinburg I don’t know
-much about, but he is in Germany now.”</p>
-
-<div id="ip_164" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 27em;">
- <img src="images/i_164a.jpg" width="419" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Henry Barth, U. S. Army, who posed as the German Secret
-Service agent in the von Rintelen ship bomb cases</div></div>
-
-<p>I thanked him for his information, and asked
-him if he would tell me everything about the plot,
-from its beginning up to the moment. He said
-he would; that he was going to help the United
-States now. I excused myself for a moment and
-left the room.</p>
-
-<p>Von Kleist saw an electrician in a rough shirt
-and overalls repairing the lights in the room, and
-struck up a conversation with him. The electrician’s
-English carried a slight German accent,
-and von Kleist said:</p>
-
-<p>“Sie sind deutsch, nicht wahr?” (You’re
-German?)</p>
-
-<p>“Ja,” replied the workman.</p>
-
-<p>Still using the mother tongue the prisoner asked
-the workman to do him a favor. “Deliver these
-notes for me, will you? I can’t go out of here,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
-and I would like to send word to some people.”
-And he wrote on two messages, one addressed
-to Wolpert and Bode, the other to Schmidt and
-Becker. The substance of both was the same:
-“Beat it—I’m pinched.” Detective Senff had
-been disguised as an electrician and stationed in
-the room for the express purpose of getting any
-statement the prisoner made—a practice not
-usually necessary, but this was a serious case.
-Evidently von Kleist’s profession of transferred
-loyalty to the United States was only a scrap of
-paper. We locked him up.</p>
-
-<p>That night Walsh and Murphy watched Captain
-Bode’s house in a New Jersey suburb, while
-Sterett and Fenelly covered Wolpert’s house
-nearby. Both men reported at their respective
-piers for work the next morning, and both were
-invited by the detectives to come over to headquarters
-“to consult with us in a little waterfront
-investigation we were carrying on.” Senff
-went to the North German Lloyd piers to call on
-Becker. The guard at the pier-head put through
-a telephone connection, and Senff told Becker he
-wanted to see him on an urgent matter. Presently
-Becker appeared at the pier gates, and
-through the bars Senff whispered: “Von Kleist
-wants to see you. Trouble—” Becker returned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
-in an instant with his hat and came to headquarters.
-A little later in the day the net caught
-Schmidt, and after a year and a half of waiting
-we had rounded up in twenty-four hours five promising
-prisoners.</p>
-
-<p>Von Kleist, we knew, was not altogether reliable;
-Bode was positively robust in his denial of any
-knowledge of the affair. Becker, a thin blond
-youth, made a complete confession. Yes, he had
-made the bomb containers—several hundred of
-them, under Schmidt’s orders. He had filled
-them with chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid
-at the Scheele laboratory and had seen Captain
-Wolpert take them away. At that moment Wolpert,
-a hulking red figure, who had been conversing
-fairly freely, shut up tight, and refused to answer
-further questions. Becker acknowledged
-that he had made the <i>Kirkoswald</i> bomb, and
-added that the later cases were larger than that.</p>
-
-<p>“Captain Wolpert,” I said, “don’t you think
-you’re doing Germany more harm than good by
-doing this sort of thing?”</p>
-
-<p>“Damn it!” he exploded. “I gave it up June
-first. But you’ve got to do what those bull-headed
-fellows tell you, haven’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>“Did you know Robert Fay, Captain?” I
-asked.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
-“Yes—I met him one time in Schimmel’s office
-with Rintelen,” he replied.</p>
-
-<p>“You mean <em>von</em> Rintelen?” I asked, using the
-aristocratic prefix which Rintelen had assumed.</p>
-
-<p>“No!” bellowed Wolpert. “Not <em>von</em>, damn
-him—<em>Rintelen</em>!”</p>
-
-<div id="ip_168" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_168a.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="" />
- <div class="caption floatl narrow50">
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, International Film Service</i></div>
- <div class="caption"><p class="in4 larger">Ernest Becker</p></div></div>
- <div class="cap168r">
- <div class="caption floatr narrow50">
- <div class="captionl cr"><i>Copyright, International Film Service</i></div>
- <div class="caption"><p class="larger l2 b2">Captain Charles von Kleist (left)
- and Captain Otto Wolpert (right)</p></div></div></div></div>
-
-<p class="p4 clear">The result of our first examination of the four
-was the arrest of Carl Schmidt, chief engineer of
-the <i>Friedrich der Grosse</i>, and three of his assistants,
-Georg Praedel, William Paradies and Friedrich
-Garbade. We covered the laboratory, but
-Dr. Scheele had fled, to Florida. There he received
-a telegram telling him it was safe for him
-to return to New York. He had traveled as far
-as Baltimore when another telegram informed him
-of the arrests, and he fled to Cuba, and it was
-March of 1918 before he was arrested by the
-Havana police and extradited to New York.
-The laboratory was in a secret room on the top
-floor of the factory, accessible only through a
-trap door, and the trap itself was pierced with
-eyeholes so that anyone at work inside could see
-who was outside. We found a rich store of explosive
-and incendiary chemicals—all the ingredients
-of the bombs, which Lieutenant Busby
-brought back as evidence. Scheele was a finished
-chemist, and a German spy of 23 years’ standing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
-It had never occurred to him that von Kleist
-would squeal for want of money. “How good
-a German are you?” he had asked von Kleist
-when he engaged him in March, 1915. (The
-first project of the two was to saturate fertilizer
-with lubricating oil and thus smuggle the oil into
-Germany.) “I’m as good a German as you ever
-pretended to be,” von Kleist answered. “You
-are not,” said Scheele, “or you wouldn’t have
-taken out naturalization papers here. I didn’t
-do that.” “Well, I couldn’t have got my captain’s
-sailing license if I hadn’t,” said von Kleist.</p>
-
-<p>Loyalty to Germany alone had not satisfied the
-appetite of von Kleist, for he had caught a glimpse
-that night of the check for $10,000, signed “Hansen”
-which Scheele proudly waved as evidence of
-what Germany thought of his ship-destroying ability.
-In the Austrian-subsidized Transatlantic
-Trust Company, where von Rintelen had deposited
-a large amount of money on his arrival from
-Germany, he had an account in the name of Hansen.
-Here then was the explanation of Fay’s remark
-about his friend who was a prisoner in England.</p>
-
-<p>So far, so good. We knew that Becker,
-Schmidt and the other engineers had made the
-bombs, and that Becker and Scheele had filled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
-them. On the evidence the four were convicted;
-Becker and von Kleist were sent to Atlanta for
-two years, and the other four to the penitentiary
-for six months. We were satisfied, but could not
-prove, that Wolpert and Bode had disposed of
-the bombs where they would do the most damage.
-They refused naturally to convict themselves, were
-admitted to bail of $25,000, which was provided
-by friendly Germans, and were interned when we
-went to war. The four assistants served their
-terms and then were extended the privileges of
-internment camps as dangerous enemy aliens.</p>
-
-<p>So far, so good, but the snake was not yet
-dead—we had only cut off a section of his tail.
-To be sure, he could not get about with his former
-vigor. The ship fires, which had continued
-through February, stopped, and one can count on
-his fingers the fires that broke out on ships after
-that date. Our theory had served its purpose—but
-who were the men higher up?</p>
-
-<p>When Paul Koenig had been taken into custody
-in late December, 1915, we had found in his house
-in West 94th Street an address book containing
-some hundreds of names of folk with whom he
-apparently did business. The memorandum book
-is mentioned elsewhere in this volume in detail,
-but the present case may show just what specific<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
-use we made of the catalogue of spies which the
-obliging Koenig had left in our hands. Among
-other entries was this:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="in0 in4">
-“Boniface during the day—3396 Worth—ask for<br />
-  Boniface at night 1993 Chelsea—Never
-home until 10:30 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span>”
-</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">We had gone systematically through the book,
-checking up our knowledge of each person mentioned,
-in order to see whether the trail of Koenig,
-von Papen, Boy-Ed and the Hamburg-American
-interests might not lead us to other unexpected
-outrages, and so we were seeking this Boniface
-who was “never home until 10:30 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span>” For
-months he proved elusive, but not long after the
-arrest of the Hoboken bomb-manufacturers we
-located a certain Bonford Boniface.</p>
-
-<p>He had only a single room for lodgings, and
-we called there one day while he was known to
-be elsewhere and made a careful examination of
-its contents. Our first signal that Boniface might
-be off-color was the discovery of a file of clippings
-from newspapers describing the arrest of von
-Kleist and his crew. Apparently he was interested
-in German bombs. There was no evidence
-of the reason for his interest, however, and the detectives<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
-were about to ‘leave the room as they
-had found it when they ran across two letters
-signed “Karl Schimmel,” one postmarked Buenos
-Aires and one from Holland. Both were colorless
-messages asking how fortune was treating
-Boniface.</p>
-
-<p>Now a cat may look at a king, and a man may
-receive friendly notes from the Argentine and
-Holland without molestation, but I recalled something
-of this name Karl Schimmel. He had
-come under suspicion before, first, when the so-called
-“Do-Do Chemical Company” of 395
-Broadway had applied to the fire department for
-permission to store dynamite on the premises of
-its executive, Karl Schimmel, at 127 Concord Avenue,
-the Bronx. The application had been denied,
-and the fire department had asked the Bomb
-Squad to look up the Do-Do Chemical Company
-and its officers. It had no factory, no visible business,
-and as we presently found out no Karl Schimmel,
-for he became alarmed at our investigations
-and fled to Mexico, and South America, and then,
-with the aid of Count Luxburg he made his way
-back to Germany. Again, Wolpert had spoken
-of having met Fay in Schimmel’s office with
-Rintelen—but Wolpert would not talk. There
-was a reasonable margin of doubt in our minds<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
-of Schimmel’s behavior—enough to warrant
-Barth’s going to Boniface and asking him to come
-to headquarters.</p>
-
-<p>Schimmel, Boniface told us, had employed him
-for a time at $25 a week. And what had he done
-in return? Nothing more than provide Schimmel
-with a list of weekly sailings of all steamships
-leaving New York for Europe, together
-with a description of their cargoes. Why had
-Schimmel, a lawyer, been interested in sailings and
-cargoes? Boniface said he did not know. How
-had Boniface compiled the list? At first, he said,
-by scouting along the waterfront, picking up scraps
-of conversation here and there and keeping an
-observant eye on the trucks bound for the piers.
-Pier-guards began to notice him a trifle too attentively,
-the waterfront was too many miles long,
-twenty-five dollars a week was only twenty-five
-dollars a week, and Boniface, it must be remarked,
-was racially thrifty. So he adopted the much
-simpler expedient of buying each morning a copy
-of the <i>New York Herald</i>, a newspaper which pays
-some attention to shipping, net cost in those days
-one cent, copying sailing dates, hours and destinations
-from its columns, and conjuring the cargoes
-out of his imagination.</p>
-
-<p>Where had he delivered his reports? To<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
-Schimmel in his office at 51 Chambers Street.
-Whom had he seen there? Why, Rintelen, once,
-but he didn’t know what his business there was.
-Another time a man named Herman Ebling.
-(Ebling, it developed later, had been directed by
-Wolpert, who had had his orders from á Captain
-Steinburg, to take a tube of glanders germs
-and a dipping stick, seek out the wharves where
-horses were being shipped abroad for artillery
-and transport, and insert the germ-soaked stick
-into the nostrils of every third horse he could
-reach, in order that a serious epidemic might
-presently break out. Ebling claims he threw the
-tube overboard without fulfilling his mission.)
-Where was Ebling? Boniface professed not to
-know. Whom else had he seen? Well, there
-was another German lawyer, Martin Illsen, counsel
-for the <i>New Yorker Herold</i>, a German daily.</p>
-
-<p>We sent for Illsen and questioned him of his
-dealings with Schimmel. He had written an
-article which he sent to the newspapers protesting
-against the shipment of arms and ammunition to
-the Allies, for which Schimmel had paid him $100.
-That he said was the extent of his service.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_174" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_174a.jpg" width="407" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Sergeant Thomas Jenkins, U. S. Army, who successfully
-located a part of one of the bombs in a locker in
-the German Turn Verein in Brooklyn</div></div>
-
-<p>“Did you ever see this man Ebling there?”
-I inquired, feeling that in Ebling we might find
-the missing link between the bomb-makers and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
-fires. “Yes,” Illsen replied. “Where is he
-now?” Illsen did not know. “Do you remember
-meeting anyone else in the office?” “Yes,
-there was a lithographer. His name is Uhde.
-He comes, I think, from Brooklyn but I do not
-know where he is.”</p>
-
-<p>It is our business to find out where people are,
-and as the reader may already have observed,
-to follow a case through from one man to another
-if we have to question a thousand individuals
-on the way to our goal. We took up the search
-for Uhde, and investigated everyone of that name
-in Greater New York. More months had passed
-before we finally found the man we were after—Walter
-Uhde. We pounced on him without the
-formality of an examination, and searched his
-room, to find some correspondence with Schimmel
-and more newspaper accounts of the arrest and
-trial of the Hoboken gang. It was this evidence
-and the pressure which it brought to bear upon
-his conscience that made Uhde give up evidence
-enough to picture the bomb plot in its entirety.</p>
-
-<p>It began, as the outbreak of the ship fires already
-had indicated, in the early months of 1915.
-One winter night there was a secret meeting in
-the restaurant of the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum.
-In a private dining-room sat Dr. Scheele, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
-chemist, Captain Wolpert, the dock-superintendent,
-Karl Schimmel, the lawyer, Uhde, the lithographer,
-Eugene Reistert, the proprietor of the
-restaurant, and a certain Captain Steinburg. This
-man was particularly dangerous to the welfare of
-the United States. His real name was Erich von
-Steinmetz, and he was a captain in the German
-navy. At that time he had just come to America
-by way of Vladivostock, dodging the immigration
-examiners by travelling in woman’s dress, and
-evading the quarantine authorities by concealing
-in the fold of the dress the same tubes of glanders
-germs with which he sent Ebling to inoculate the
-horses for the Allies. Steinmetz was Rintelen’s
-first and ablest assistant, and Schimmel was his
-second. The two men outlined to the dinner
-party a plan to manufacture and plant the bombs.
-The sailors would make the containers, Scheele
-would see that they were filled and would act as
-paymaster for the group, Schimmel and Wolpert
-would keep in touch with the sailings and cargoes,
-and Wolpert, Uhde and Reistert would deliver
-them to the small fry who could be hired to place
-them in sugar-bags and other freight.</p>
-
-<p>How well the plan succeeded we already know.
-Wolpert distributed the bombs to several local
-points of German operation in the greater city,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
-and even Scheele had on one occasion carried a
-box full of bombs packed only in sawdust from the
-laboratory over to the Labor Lyceum. Reistert
-and Uhde tested a few of the infernal machines
-in the rear of the building, and Uhde fancied
-them so much that he kept one as a souvenir,
-stowed away in the toe of an old boot in his
-locker at the Turn Verein, where Detectives Barth
-and Jenkins found it. The conspiracy had originated
-in March; the first day of May, Wolpert
-gave a bomb to a Chenango who smuggled it
-aboard the <i>Kirkoswald</i>, with the result which we
-have followed. On May 7, 1915, the glorious
-<i>Lusitania</i> was torpedoed, and on the following
-morning, Karl Schimmel, coming into his office and
-finding Illsen and Boniface there, exclaimed:</p>
-
-<p>“Ah—that U-boat commander has done well
-enough, but he has stolen all the glory away from
-me. I had nine cigars on the <i>Lusitania</i>.” (For
-“cigars” read “bombs.”) “If they had not
-torpedoed her the cigars would have done the
-work!”</p>
-
-<p>He may have told the truth. His secret is at
-the bottom of the Atlantic now, along with what
-shreds of respect the civilized world might otherwise
-have had for Germany. It is certain that
-Schimmel tried to place his “cigars” aboard the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
-vessel, for Reistert had given Uhde $100 and a
-little man named Klein a package of bombs with
-instructions to go to a saloon in West Street near
-the White Star piers. There they were to meet a
-third man, to whom they would deliver the package,
-and that man would see them safely aboard
-the ship. The man did not appear at the appointed
-hour, so they left the package with the
-bartender, and went to the missing man’s house
-in Harlem, where they paid him his fee. It was
-the same Klein who had been carrying a bomb
-in his pocket one afternoon when Schimmel had
-sent him to South Ferry to place it aboard a ship.
-But the bomb caught fire, and before he could
-rid himself of it it had burned through his clothing,
-so Schimmel magnanimously gave him $20
-for a new suit and his trouble. And it was the
-same Klein whom we found dead of disease in a
-hospital, beyond the law’s reach, when we finally
-were tracing him for arrest.</p>
-
-<p>The stories of the culprits combined to lay at
-their door the origin of most of the ship fires with
-which we had been afflicted for the past two years.
-If nothing else had proved it, the cessation of the
-fires would have been enough. We were anxious,
-after our twisting, winding search, rather to have
-the guilty men convicted and placed in safe-keeping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
-than to fix definitely upon them the guilt for
-all of the fires—that would have been practically
-impossible—but the very fact that the fires
-ceased is sufficient evidence of their complete guilt.
-It was not until October 17, 1917, six months
-after the United States had gone to war, that our
-long hunt came to an end, and we arrested Boniface,
-Reistert, Uhde and one Peter Zeffert. It
-was Zeffert who confessed to having gone to
-Schimmel’s office one afternoon to help him fill
-the bomb containers with chemicals. Reistert was
-there, and the three took the bombs away in a
-taxi-cab to meet a destroying agent in a waterfront
-saloon. The agent did not show up, and Messrs.
-Schimmel, Reistert and Zeffert thereupon returned
-to the Chambers Street office and unloaded the
-tubes.</p>
-
-<p>I am sorry that our laws were not at that time
-drastic enough to punish the men as they deserved.
-James W. Osborne, the assistant United States
-Attorney who tried the case, wove an admirable
-prosecution, and Judge Harland B. Howe turned
-a stern face upon the prisoners. Wolpert had
-been haled from Atlanta to answer to the new
-charge, as had von Kleist and Becker. The
-engineers were brought out of their internment
-camps. And last, and foremost of all, Franz<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
-Rintelen was there—returned to us by the British
-to answer to a series of charges which he had
-tried hard and expensively to conceal. The best
-our laws of the moment could do for these men
-who had defiled our hospitality and destroyed millions
-of dollars’ worth of property on our soil
-was to sentence them to one-and-one-half years
-in Atlanta. It is to the everlasting credit of Judge
-Howe that Rintelen, Wolpert, von Kleist, Becker,
-Praedel, Paradies and Garbade received the maximum
-prison term, and the maximum fine of $2,000
-each. Under the espionage act later adopted each
-of them could be sentenced to twenty years and
-fined $10,000.</p>
-
-<p>Popular consent would have made short work
-of these men’s lives. Justice had to preside over
-their trials, however, and they were punished to
-the full extent of an inadequate law. A more
-drastic criminal code would probably have frightened
-the German spies in the United States, and
-it is equally true that German agents who were
-caught in the net of the law laughed up their
-sleeves as they made use of one after another of
-the law’s technical provisions and privileges to
-avert what would have been certain and swift
-death had they worn the field-gray uniforms of
-their nation. They have not suffered in proportion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
-to their crimes. But their nation is paying
-the price.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_180" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 24em;">
- <img src="images/i_180a.jpg" width="382" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Norman H. White, of Boston, a civilian attached to
-the Military Intelligence, who unearthed
-numerous German intrigues</div></div>
-
-<p>There is something in the spectacle of Rintelen
-serving his sentence at Atlanta—a long sentence,
-which he tried numerous tricks to evade—that
-is peculiarly German, and that comes more nearly
-satisfying our popular desire for retribution than
-the plight of any of his wretched employees. He
-came to America arrogant, rich, defiant, cruel,
-and sly—to wage war upon us. One of his first
-acts was to sign his check for $10,000 to manufacture
-bombs to destroy our shipping. When
-certain Americans crossed his reeking trail he
-ran away in terror. By great good luck he was
-captured, discovered, and returned and by considerable
-persistence and patience on the part of
-the Bomb Squad one of his trails was laid bare.
-(He had many others.) He suffered great indignity,
-as he thought, at being tried with the
-manual laborers whom he had employed and left
-in trouble. He was convicted and sent to prison.
-He pleaded ill-health, though he was a strong
-man, and he tried to be transferred to a more
-lenient prison. He invoked the aid of his crumbling
-government, who informed Washington that
-unless he were surrendered to Germany that nation
-would take the lives of American soldiers captured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
-in battle. Every trick failed, and Franz
-Rintelen, tried not as a prisoner of war for what
-morally were acts of war against the United
-States, but by our peace courts, and under our
-lenient peace laws, must now serve out his term
-in an American prison, although his nation has
-given up the war and begged for clemency.</p>
-
-<p>Rintelen used to suggest that he was an illegitimate
-relative of the late Kaiser. It may be true:
-the two have something in common. The Kaiser
-has become plain Hohenzollern, and the chief
-German bomb-plotter in the United States, is, as
-Wolpert angrily said that day at headquarters,
-“not <em>von</em> Rintelen, damn him—<em>Rintelen</em>!”</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="VIII" class="vspace">VIII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">MR. HOLT’S FOUR DAYS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The facts were apparently unrelated to each
-other. Only a flight of imagination would have
-connected them, and imagination, though it is
-often valuable in speculating on what probably
-happened, is not court evidence of what did happen.
-In the order of their occurrence, the facts
-were these:</p>
-
-<p>1. On April 16, 1906, Leone Krembs Muenter,
-wife of Erich Muenter, an instructor in German in
-Harvard College, died, soon after the birth of
-her second baby. The circumstances of her death
-were suspicious, and the Coroner directed that
-the stomach of the body be taken to the Harvard
-Medical School for examination. Dr. Muenter,
-on the following day, requested that he be allowed
-to escort the remains from Cambridge to Chicago
-for burial, and this permission was granted.
-With the children he made the gloomy pilgrimage
-west. The body of the dead wife was cremated.
-Dr. Muenter wrote at once from Chicago to the
-New York Life Insurance Company directing that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
-the policy on his wife’s life be made payable to her
-sister, instead of to himself. The examination of
-the lining of the stomach had indicated slow
-arsenical poisoning and a warrant was issued at
-once for the husband. But it reached Chicago to
-find him gone—no one knew where.</p>
-
-<p>2. In a corridor of the main floor of the Senate
-wing of the United States Capitol at Washington
-used to stand a telephone switchboard. On the
-night of Friday, July 2, 1915, an explosion near
-it blew fragments of the board through the walls
-of the telephone booths adjoining. No one was
-about, which was lucky, for the wrecked switchboard
-was not the only damage done: plaster
-rained from the walls and ceilings, every door
-nearby was blown open (one was a door into the
-Vice-President’s office which had not been in use
-for forty years), the east reception room was
-wrecked, a gaping hole was torn in the stonework
-of the wall, and fragments of windows, mirrors,
-crystal chandeliers and telephone apparatus flew
-in every direction.</p>
-
-<p>3. In his country home on East Island, where
-Long Island reaches out into the Sound to form
-Glen Cove, John Pierpont Morgan was having
-breakfast on the morning of Saturday, July 3,
-1915. It was nearly half past nine, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
-members of his family, together with several holiday
-guests, were in the breakfast room, which is
-on the eastern side of the house. An automobile
-drove up to the front door, and the butler was
-confronted by a man of dingy appearance who
-asked, in an accent suggesting German, to see Mr.
-Morgan. He presented a card bearing the
-legend “Society Summer Directory: represented
-by Thomas C. Lester.” The butler wanted better
-credentials and asked for them. The stranger
-pulled a revolver from his pocket, covered the
-butler with it and stepping inside the door demanded,
-“Where is Morgan?”</p>
-
-<p>With good presence of mind the butler answered,
-“In the library,”—the library being in
-the west wing of the house, and away from the
-breakfast room—and stepped toward the library
-door. Unfortunately it was open, and the intruder,
-who was following with his gun aimed,
-saw that the room was empty, and that the butler
-had lied. At the same moment Physick, the butler,
-realized that his ruse had not worked. He
-shouted, “Upstairs, Mr. Morgan! Upstairs!”
-hoping by the urgency of his cry to convey to the
-banker a warning that something was distinctly
-wrong and at the same time to get him out of
-range. Mr. Morgan at once hurried up a rear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
-stairway and began to search for the trouble. A
-moment later Mrs. Morgan joined him. They
-proceeded from one room to another, found nothing,
-and asked a nurse what was wrong. As the
-little search party reached the head of the main
-staircase, with Mrs. Morgan in the lead, she
-caught sight of a strange man with a revolver in
-each hand. Lester had come up the front staircase.
-Mr. Morgan saw his wife between himself
-and the guns, brushed her aside, and charged.
-The man fired twice as the two went to the floor,
-grappling, and the hammer of his revolver clicked
-twice more on caps that did not explode. Two
-wounds, one in the front of the abdomen, and
-the other in the left thigh, did not prevent Mr.
-Morgan, from overpowering his assailant: he lay
-with the full weight of his 220 pounds on the
-man’s body, pinning down the revolvers to the
-floor. One of the guns Mrs. Morgan and the
-nurse wrenched from the man’s hand; the other
-Mr. Morgan captured. Physick had meanwhile
-roused the servants, and he stunned the intruder
-with a lump of coal as he lay on the floor. Lester’s
-unconscious form was then trussed up and
-taken to the Glen Cove jail.</p>
-
-<p>There, briefly, were the facts. The Morgan
-shooting I have recounted in some detail to show<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
-the desperation with which the stranger trespassed,
-and attempted murder. It was not an
-affair which suggested a motive of robbery, but
-apparently a cold attempt at assassination. The
-Capitol explosion had been fruitless in its results
-so far as the loss of human life was concerned,
-and its origin was at that time a complete mystery.
-The Muenter affair had long since passed out of
-my memory. How to get evidence to establish
-motives for the crimes, fix the entire responsibility,
-and punish the offenders?</p>
-
-<p>Never, probably, has long-distance communication
-played a swifter or more helpful part in a
-case. In order to show just how a nation which
-has been called to the hunt can enter into the
-pursuit, let us follow the developments in their
-strict chronological order.</p>
-
-<p>At seven o’clock Saturday morning, before
-Lester had appeared at the door of the Morgan
-house, the newspapers in Washington received a
-typewritten form letter, signed “R. Pearce,” protesting
-in excited terms against the shipment of
-munitions to the nations at war. Its second paragraph
-read:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“In connection with the Senate affair would
-it not be well to stop and consider what we are
-doing?”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span></p>
-
-<p class="in0">The writer stated further:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Sorry, I, too, had to use explosives (for the
-last time I trust). It is the export kind, and
-ought to make enough noise to be heard above
-the voices that clamor for war and blood money.
-This explosion is the exclamation point to my
-appeal for peace.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">Again he wrote:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“By the way, don’t put this on the Germans or
-Bryan. I am an old-fashioned American...”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">And he added, in a penned postscript:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“We would, of course, not sell to the Germans
-if they could buy here, and since so far we only
-sold to the Allies, neither side should object if we
-stopped.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>At half-past nine o’clock the shooting occurred
-at Glen Cove. About the same time Dr.
-Charles Munroe, consulting expert of the Bureau
-of Mines, was called to the Capitol to make an
-examination of the wreckage of the explosion.
-He soon arrived at the conclusion that the shock
-had been caused by no spontaneous combustion,
-but by a fair quantity of high explosive.</p>
-
-<p>While he was prying about among the débris,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
-Lester was being lodged in the Glen Cove jail.
-His bonds were loosened, leaving him a very
-sore set of ankles and wrists, his cut forehead
-was bound up, and when he was questioned, he
-gave out the following statement:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“I, Frank Holt, of Ithaca, N. Y., and lately
-professor of German at Cornell, do hereby freely
-make to William E. Luyster, justice of the peace,
-the following statement of the facts concerning
-my visit to the home of J. P. Morgan at East
-Island, Glen Cove, N. Y.</p>
-
-<p>“I have been in New York City about ten
-days and had made a previous trip to the home
-of Mr. Morgan last week. My motive in coming
-here was to try to force Mr. Morgan to use his influence
-with the manufacturers of munitions in
-the United States, and with the millionaires who
-are financing the war loans, to have an embargo
-put on shipments of war munitions, so as to
-relieve the American people from complicity
-in the death of thousands of our European
-brothers.</p>
-
-<p>“If Germany should be able to buy munitions
-here we would of course positively refuse to sell
-to her. The reason that the American people
-have not as yet stopped the shipments seems to
-be that we are getting rich out of this traffic, but
-do we not get enough prosperity out of non-contraband
-shipments? And would it not be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
-better for us to make what money we can without
-causing the slaughter of Europeans?</p>
-
-<p>“I am very sorry that I had to cause the
-Morgan family this unpleasantness, but I believe
-that if Mr. Morgan would put his shoulder to the
-wheel he could accomplish what I have endeavored
-to do. I wanted him to do the work I could not
-do. I hope that he will do his share anyway.
-We must stop our participation in the killing of
-Europeans, and God will take care of the rest.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Lester, then, was not Lester at all, but Frank
-Holt.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile I knew nothing of what had transpired.
-I had risen that Saturday morning looking
-forward to a day of relaxation and pleasure, for
-there was to be a field day for the police at
-Gravesend Bay. On the way down to the track I
-read with some interest of the explosion in the
-Capitol, and then dismissed it from my mind:
-the newspapers, which had been printed about
-one o’clock of that morning, carried no news except
-a description of the effects of the explosion.
-Furthermore, it was a holiday, with another to
-follow, and I proposed to enjoy it.</p>
-
-<p>About noon Police Commissioner Woods called
-me to the telephone, told me hurriedly that Mr.
-Morgan had been “shot by a German,” and
-told me to get down to Glen Cove as fast as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
-possible. “Find out the man’s motives and any
-accomplices he had,” the commissioner said.
-“Keep in touch with me.” And hung up. I
-found Detective Coy of the Bomb Squad, and a
-patrolman who knew German in case we should
-need an interpreter, and after some delay in getting
-a car, we hastened to the little Glen Cove
-jail.</p>
-
-<p>Then, at four o’clock, for the first time, I was
-told the facts as Glen Cove knew them. A search
-of Holt’s person had disclosed two revolvers,
-three sticks of dynamite, a number of loose cartridges,
-a cartoon clipped from a Philadelphia
-newspaper, an express receipt, and a scrap of
-paper bearing the names in pencilled handwriting
-of Mr. Morgan’s children. Frank McCahill,
-the constable in charge, showed me the statement
-Holt had made, and supplied the further information
-that Holt had been identified by some of
-Mr. Morgan’s employees as a man who had been
-seen on the estate two days before—on Thursday.
-Glen Cove had been in a turmoil since
-the shooting. Newspaper reporters and photographers
-had flocked to the jail, had taken photographs
-of the prisoner, and already prints of the
-photographs were on their way to every large
-newspaper in the country. His statement, as well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
-as a description of the man, had been telegraphed
-over the Associated and United Press wires in
-every direction. So I decided to have a talk
-with the prisoner himself.</p>
-
-<p>He was brought out of his cell, and we sat in
-comparative privacy on two camp-stools in the
-corridor. He was a frail, slight fellow, with
-deep eye-sockets, a prominent hook-nose, and a
-retreating chin. His accent was certainly German.
-His name, he said, was Frank Holt, and
-he was born in the United States. He told me
-he was forty years old, that his father and mother
-had been born in America, although they had
-both French and German ancestors, and that his
-wife and two children were in Dallas. For several
-years, he said, he had taught in Vanderbilt
-University, and during the year just past had been
-instructor in German in Cornell University, at
-Ithaca. He had left Ithaca two weeks before,
-and had stopped at a Mills Hotel in New York
-before coming down to Glen Cove.</p>
-
-<p>“What did you try to kill Mr. Morgan for?”
-I asked.</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t intend to kill him. I want to persuade
-him to use his influence to stop the shipment
-of ammunition to Europe.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, you chose a pretty strong means of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
-persuading him, didn’t you? What was the
-dynamite for?”</p>
-
-<p>“I was going to show him what was causing
-all the trouble—explosives.”</p>
-
-<p>He answered frankly, but not completely. The
-scrap of paper bearing the names of the Morgan
-children, he said, was only a memorandum; he
-had intended to hold them hostage until Mr.
-Morgan promised to exert himself to stop the
-export of supplies to the Allies. No amount of
-questioning would bring an answer as to where
-he had bought the dynamite, but he readily volunteered
-the approximate addresses of the shops
-where he had purchased the revolvers and cartridges.
-These facts gave me something to work
-on, and I went outside to a telephone while he was
-locked up again.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile the whole United States had been
-taking a keen interest in the case. Holt’s statement
-had reached Washington on the Associated
-Press wire, and was delivered to Captain Boardman
-of the Washington Police. Captain Boardman
-had been busy all morning throwing out lines
-on the Capitol case, and attempting to trace the
-author of the R. Pearce letters, which had been
-mailed in the city about nine o’clock of the previous
-evening. He read the Pearce letter over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
-several times in search of some clue to the writer.
-Presently the Holt statement came in. From the
-two communications these sentences met the Captain’s
-eyes:</p>
-
-<table class="narrow50" summary="Pearce letter sentences">
- <tr>
- <td class="center"><i>Pearce</i></td>
- <td class="center"><i>Holt</i></td></tr>
-
- <tr>
- <td class="tdp">“We would, of
-course, not sell to the
-Germans if they could
-buy here, and since so
-far we only sold to the
-Allies, neither side
-should object if we
-stopped.”</td>
-
-
- <td class="tdp">“If Germany should
-be able to buy munitions
-here we would, of
-course, positively refuse
-to sell to her.”</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p>Captain Boardman’s next move was to wire to
-his chief, Major Pullman, who happened to be in
-New York to attend that same field day that Coy
-and I had missed. His message, dated 2 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span>
-(while we were on the way to Glen Cove), read:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Ascertain from F. Holt, in custody at Glen
-Cove, N. Y., for shooting J. P. Morgan, his
-whereabouts Thursday and Friday, as he may
-have placed the bomb in the Capitol here Friday
-night.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">This message, sent in care of Inspector Faurot,
-was relayed to us at Glen Cove by Guy Scull,
-deputy commissioner, but not until after the Associated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
-Press man at the jail had had a tip telegraphed
-from his Washington office to ask Holt
-the same question. Holt denied that he had been
-in Washington, flatly. But McCahill knew he
-had been in Glen Cove Thursday, so at 5 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span> he
-telegraphed Captain Boardman:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“F. Holt was in Glen Cove Thursday, July
-1, <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span>”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>I telephoned headquarters the numbers of the
-revolvers, and the neighborhood in which Holt
-said he had bought them. Several members of
-the squad started out from headquarters to identify
-the pawnshops, and to find out what they
-could of the history of three sticks of dynamite
-marked “Keystone National Powder Company.
-60 per cent. Emporium, Pa.”</p>
-
-<p>Holt had proved obstinate to all questions of
-the source of his supply of dynamite. The man
-was getting tired: he had had a hard day, had
-been considerably battered, had been interviewed,
-photographed, harried with questions, his ankles
-and wrists ached, his head throbbed, and his mind,
-which though alert and active, was none too
-stable, was showing signs of exhaustion. His
-condition suggested that he might be in a mood
-to supply some of the further information we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
-needed, so I suggested that we take an automobile
-ride and he could show me where he had been
-the day before. He protested at once.</p>
-
-<p>“No! My head is aching, and you want to
-take me on a ride and make a show of me to the
-morbid crowd. I will not tell you—not until
-later. Later perhaps, but not now!”</p>
-
-<p>“All right,” I answered. “Later.”</p>
-
-<p>Then I decided we had better get our information
-down on paper in a formal examination.</p>
-
-<p>The meeting convened at once, with Coy, McCahill,
-a county detective from Mineola, two
-deputy sheriffs, two patrolmen, a stenographer
-and myself as board of inquiry. It may serve
-to describe the fellow’s manner, as well as to
-bring out what the examination further disclosed,
-if we make use here of extracts from the proceedings:</p>
-
-<p><i>Question.</i> Where were you born?</p>
-
-<p><i>Answer.</i> Somehow my brain is in such a shape
-that I can’t remember—Wisconsin, I know. I
-don’t know what it is that affected me—something
-inside of me—maybe it is the shock I got
-from that.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> You speak with a German accent. Were
-you born in Germany, or in any of the European
-countries—tell me the truth.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
-<i>A.</i> Now listen. That has been said before—that
-I speak with a foreign accent. That is because
-I speak several languages. I speak French,
-German, Spanish, and all that. That is the cause
-of that, you see?</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> We will eliminate the trouble of asking
-you questions if you will tell us the town or city
-in which you were born.</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Yes. Now I am trying to think (a pause)
-I will have to disappoint you.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Your memory is very clear on other things.</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> As I told you, I have been lying there,
-thinking, thinking.</p>
-
-<p>I took up the matter of the express receipt
-found on him:</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> On June 11, 1915, you shipped a box by
-the American Express Company to D. F. Sensabaugh,
-101 South Marsalis Street, Dallas, Texas.
-What did that box contain?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> It evidently must have been a typewriter.
-I would not be sure now, I think it was a typewriter.</p>
-
-<p>And then the cartoon, clipped from the Philadelphia
-paper, brought out a very unexpected
-fact:</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> How many times have you been in Philadelphia?</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
-<i>A.</i> No time.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> You came to New York from Ithaca?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Yes.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Do you mean to truthfully answer my question
-by saying that you have not been to Philadelphia
-at any time since you left Ithaca?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> At no time.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> You have a clipping of a Philadelphia
-newspaper in your possession. Where did you get
-that?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> I think I got that out of a Philadelphia
-paper of course, that I found lying around. I
-think it was a cartoon.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Were you not in Philadelphia when you
-purchased that paper?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> I did not purchase that. I saw that lying
-around somewhere, probably in the Mills Hotel.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> Where did you sleep last night?</p>
-
-<p><i>A.</i> Now, I will tell you. A reporter from the
-Associated Press asked me about this Washington
-business, and he was trying to connect me
-with that. I suppose that is what you are trying
-to do.</p>
-
-<p><i>Q.</i> I am not trying to connect you with anything.
-I want truthful answers. I am very frank
-and honest with you. I will fairly investigate
-every answer that you make.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
-<i>A.</i> Yes, I thought that over since he was here,
-and I think it is just as well to say that I wrote
-that R. Pearce letter. I was in Washington yesterday
-and came back on the train. I think it is
-just as well to say.</p>
-
-<p>Here was news! McCahill slipped out of the
-room, and sent this telegram to Captain Boardman:</p>
-
-<p>“Holt was in Washington Friday. Will wire
-full particulars later,” and returned for the particulars,
-which Holt continued to unfold.</p>
-
-<p>He had gone to Washington early Friday, arriving
-at 2 <span class="smcap smaller">P. M.</span>, hired a furnished room near the
-Union Station, and two hours later walked over
-to the Capitol and found the Senate wing deserted.
-He placed a bomb near the telephone
-booth, timed so as to explode in eight hours.
-He idled away the evening, mailed the R. Pearce
-letters, took a midnight train to New York,
-stopped at the Mills Hotel for mail, and took an
-early train to Glen Cove Saturday morning.
-What his activities had been since then we well
-knew. But while the confession of his responsibility
-for the Washington outrage was a really
-surprising bit, it did not conclude our work, for
-he had pointed out several new alleys of possibility
-which we must search.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
-By seven o’clock we had, first, a sketch of Holt’s
-recent career as a teacher. This we proceeded
-to verify by telephone to New York and by telegraph
-thence to Ithaca, Dallas, Nashville, and
-Philadelphia. His account of the Washington
-bombing Mr. Scull telephoned to Washington, and
-Major Pullman left at once for Long Island to
-secure a more complete confession. We had the
-numbers of his revolvers and were already at
-work upon that clue. We had no information
-except the trade-mark of where he had got his
-dynamite, and knowing the strict city restrictions
-on its sale, I felt confident that he had accomplices
-who supplied it to him. The chances were, too,
-that Holt had more dynamite than the three sticks
-which he said had made up the Capitol bomb, and
-the three on his person. We knew he had called
-at the Mills Hotel, and we sent a man to search
-his room. We had a wholly unsatisfactory statement
-of his birthplace, which he had already contradicted
-once, and which lent color to the Germanic
-origin of his accent. And finally, Holt had
-given a description of the methods he used in making
-his bomb which I cannot detail here for obvious
-reasons, but which from my acquaintance with
-explosives I knew to be untrue. By no means
-all the particulars of his acquaintance with dynamite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
-had been explained, and the fact that this
-remarkable teacher of foreign languages, a man
-apparently of fair intellect, had committed one
-major crime and confessed to another all in the
-same day, made the motive all the more obscure.
-But we had learned that he talked freely, and that
-meant that he would give us more information,
-either consciously or unconsciously.</p>
-
-<p>Holt was moved about half past seven that
-night to safer keeping in the county jail at Mineola,
-and we reconvened there an hour later for
-further examination. Major Pullman joined us
-in the course of the evening and took part in the
-questioning. By that time I had word from New
-York that a telegram had arrived for Holt at
-the Mills Hotel signed by D. F. Sensabaugh, and
-inquiring for particulars. Thinking that this was
-a clue to possible accomplices I tried, taking several
-different angles of attack, to find out whether
-Holt had told Sensabaugh (who he said was his
-father-in-law), what he was going to do, and why
-he had written that evening to his wife. The result
-of this questioning was nil. Then we went
-over his course in Washington, step by step, and
-brought out nothing of significance; then returned
-to the topic of his views on the shipment of munitions,
-and tried to draw out any talks which he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
-might have had with friends on that subject.
-His answer to this was:</p>
-
-<p>“I have not talked to my friends about it, because
-my friends, in my position, they are not the
-kind of people who would talk on such things.
-Do you suppose that a university professor would
-undertake that sort of thing? I think that can
-be easily figured out that I could not have anybody
-else with me.”</p>
-
-<p>That was the conclusion which we were being
-forced to accept. But the mystery of the dynamite
-purchase was still unsolved. Holt said we
-could not guess the reason why he was withholding
-the answer to it. I was inclined to agree
-with him just then. I couldn’t guess. But he
-betrayed in one of his replies the real factor
-which was to solve the mystery. Major Pullman
-asked:</p>
-
-<p>“Why did you decide to go to the Capitol?”</p>
-
-<p>“Merely,” replied the thin figure in the chair,
-“to get the most prominent place in the country.
-You see I wanted to call attention to my appeal.”</p>
-
-<p>In this he had succeeded. The whole country
-was working on the case. If our feeling that
-Holt had bought more explosives was no more
-than a theory at first, it was strengthened when
-he admitted that he had spent nearly $275 in two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
-weeks, had only six sticks of dynamite to show
-for it, and was able to account for only $50. He
-denied that he had ever been in the German Club
-in New York, reiterated that he was born in the
-United States, dodged the exact city, then suggested
-Milwaukee, said that the name of the college
-he had attended in Texas “wouldn’t come,”
-and sidestepped cleverly any admission which
-might allow us to trace the dynamite purchase.
-Thus ended Saturday, July 3, which had started
-out as a holiday. I left two men to watch Holt,
-and went home, tired out, and not at all satisfied.</p>
-
-<p>While we had been busy with the prisoner, the
-wires to Boston and the trains to Chicago had been
-carrying out their routine tasks of syndicating
-news. A police officer in Cambridge in reading
-the description of Holt which had flashed out to
-the newspapers detected a familiar ring to the
-natural phrase “shambling walk” which had been
-used to describe Holt’s gait. Thousands of men
-whom we encounter in daily life have shambling
-walks, but to this officer only one man had a
-shambling walk in which he was interested, and
-that man was Erich Muenter, a Harvard instructor,
-whom he had suspected of wife-murder nine
-years before. Nine years is a long time, and
-the average person cannot recall offhand the gait<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
-of anyone whom he last saw nine years ago, but
-those two words had evidently typified to the
-Cambridge officer the murderer who got away.
-When the news photographs followed the description
-to Boston and the Cambridge police saw
-them, they were not so sure, for Muenter had had
-a beard, and in his Cambridge days his head was
-not bandaged. But suspicion had been aroused,
-and that was enough to issue the news throughout
-the country during the night. Reporters in Ithaca
-tried to verify it from Holt’s associates at Cornell,
-and failed, reporters two thousand miles away in
-Dallas tried to verify it from Holt’s confused
-father-in-law, and failed. Dallas, however, supplied
-the particulars of his previous life so far
-as anyone seemed to know them, and these particulars
-were again relayed, verified, and amplified
-in every city in which Holt had ever been known in
-recent years.</p>
-
-<p>Sunday morning, Independence Day, I went
-early to Mineola and questioned Holt again, with
-little result. Meanwhile the Bomb Squad at work
-in New York had found one of the shops in Jersey
-City where Holt had purchased a revolver. He
-gave his name to the proprietor as “Henderson,”
-and his address as Syosset, Long Island—a little
-station not far from Glen Cove. I asked him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
-why he gave this fictitious name and address; he
-replied he had happened to see Syosset on a timetable,
-and that the name Henderson popped into
-his head. We then returned to my favorite subject,
-dynamite, and Holt finally said that he would
-tell me on the following Wednesday, July 7, where
-he had bought it. Why Wednesday, July 7?
-He would not answer, and no amount of questioning
-served any end except that of further confusion.</p>
-
-<p>The day was not without developments, however.
-During the afternoon District Attorney
-Smith of Nassau County paid a visit to the jail,
-and identified the wretched Holt as a former
-acquaintance in Cambridge, Erich Muenter. At
-almost the same hour the Chicago authorities
-came into possession of the news photograph of
-the man mailed from New York the day before.
-They hurried with it to the home of two spinsters,
-known to be sisters of the missing Muenter, and
-obtained from them an unqualified identification:
-it was their lost brother, and “the news would kill
-their mother.” This Pearce-Lester-Holt-Henderson-Muenter
-was becoming more interesting
-every minute. Wife-poisoner, dynamiter, gunman—what
-next?</p>
-
-<p>“Next” was Monday. The second revolvershop<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
-had been discovered, and again the use of
-the alias Henderson and the address Syosset.
-Holt, when I called on him in the morning, repeated
-only what he had told the day before, and
-reiterated, “Wednesday I will tell you,” until it
-became almost a refrain. He denied that he was
-Muenter, and that he had ever heard the name.
-I returned to New York to spend the rest of the
-daylight in investigation among the explosives’
-manufacturers. From the records of the Ætna
-Company, of which the Keystone was a subsidiary,
-we learned during the afternoon that one Henderson
-had telephoned an order for 200 sticks of
-dynamite to be delivered at Syosset. I was just
-ready to start for Syosset with Commissioner Scull
-when, as if we had not already had enough to interest
-us, our friends the anarchists exploded a
-bomb in Police Headquarters itself. Curiously
-enough, although it was a delay, this did not prove
-the disturbing incident which one might believe.
-We had had anonymous threats of it some weeks
-before; it was one year and a day after the accidental
-death of the anarchist Berg, who was killed
-making a bomb, and it seemed to have no connection
-whatever with the Holt case. No one was injured,
-and after steps had been taken to follow the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
-case, I went home to sleep what was left of the
-night.</p>
-
-<p>Tuesday arrived.</p>
-
-<p>I went to Syosset, and interviewed the station
-agent, George D. Carnes. Carnes said he knew
-a man named Henderson. Henderson had seen
-him first about three weeks before when he came
-to the little station to claim a new trunk which
-had been shipped down from New York, apparently
-empty, as it weighed only thirty-six pounds.
-Henderson had signed for the trunk, and gone
-away. He reappeared some days later and asked
-Carnes whether he had received two boxes of
-dynamite and two boxes of fuses and detonating
-caps—he had to blow up some stumps and he
-expected the explosives. They had not arrived.
-Henderson made inquiries for several days, and
-when the boxes came, claimed them, signed the
-name of Frank Hendrix to the receipt, and drove
-away in a Ford. At last we seemed to be on the
-right trail.</p>
-
-<p>He had received the material, we knew, but
-where was it? In the trunk, perhaps. Had the
-trunk been shipped out of Syosset? No, Carnes
-said. We telephoned several stations in the vicinity,
-and finally at Central Park, a few miles<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
-west, we struck the trail again. The baggage
-records there revealed that a Henderson had
-checked a trunk to the Pennsylvania station, New
-York, on July 2—Friday. That was enough to
-take us to Central Park.</p>
-
-<p>The check number I telephoned to New York
-for detectives to trace from the station if they
-could. Information of a stranger is freely offered
-in a village, and we found shortly that Holt had
-employed a small boy with a wheelbarrow to convey
-his trunk from a shanty in the woods to the
-station, and to the shanty we went. Near it lay
-a charred dynamite-box, and there were a few wax-paper
-wrappers from sticks of dynamite which the
-weather had left for our information. No explosive
-was to be seen, but there was evidence
-that he had burned some of it nearby.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_208" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 50em;">
- <img src="images/i_208a.png" width="800" height="527" alt="" />
- <div class="caption"><p>Mrs. Holt’s Mysterious Letter<span class="in8">
- The First Word from Texas</span></p>
-<p class="p0 htmlonly"><a href="images/i_208alarge.png">(Larger)</a></p></div></div>
-
-<p>If he had not burned it all, the balance of those
-two hundred sticks were in the trunk. The day
-was growing old. Carnes and I sped back to
-Mineola, and the station agent identified Holt
-as the dynamite man. I repeated my questions;
-Holt replied, “I will tell you Wednesday.”</p>
-
-<p>“Look here,” I said. “I have the number
-of that check. That dynamite is in the trunk.
-It’s liable to go off any minute and kill a lot of
-people. I can trace that check, but it will take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
-time, and you better tell me quick where you left
-the trunk.”</p>
-
-<p>“All right,” Holt answered, and said that he
-had sent it to a storage warehouse whose office was
-somewhere near 40th Street and Seventh Avenue.
-Two minutes later Lieut. Barnitz and I were out
-of the jail and in a motor bound for New York.</p>
-
-<p>It took just 28 minutes to cover the 20 miles
-to Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, and we
-turned south to the section around Fortieth Street.
-We found the office of the storage company—empty.
-The warehouse itself was at 342 West
-38th Street, and we hurried over there, arriving
-simultaneously with the detectives who had been
-tracing the check number from the Pennsylvania
-station. An old watchman was in charge who
-knew nothing whatever of the records of the office,
-but who turned bright green when we told him
-what we were after. While Detectives Barnitz,
-Coy, Murphy, Sterett, Walsh and Fenelly went
-up into the recesses of the warehouse to hunt for
-the trunk, I called headquarters.</p>
-
-<p>“Commissioner Woods just called and wants
-you to call him at the Harvard Club,” the office
-said. I did so, and reported our progress.</p>
-
-<p>“Get that trunk as fast you can and find out
-exactly what’s in it,” said the Commissioner.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
-“Washington just called me to say that Governor
-Colquitt down in Dallas just wired them. He
-says Holt’s wife got a letter from Holt dated
-July 2 saying that he’s put dynamite on a ship
-now at sea, and that it will sink on the seventh!”</p>
-
-<p>On the fifth floor of the great dark barn they
-discovered the trunk, with a dozen others on top
-of it. There were no lights, and it was necessary
-to roll it over, haul it out, snake it across other
-piles, and carry it down four flights of steep
-stairs in the dark to the office. Barnitz picked
-up an axe and hacked the lock away. He lifted
-the cover, and there we found one hundred and
-thirty-four sticks of dynamite—one hundred in
-their original box, and the rest packed in small
-spaces between hammers, nails, bolts, and other
-tools, several bottles of sulphuric and nitric acid,
-and 197 detonating caps—a pretty package to
-trundle down four flights of dark stairs and open
-with an axe!</p>
-
-<p>Fifty sticks of the original 200 were unaccounted
-for. I telephoned the report to the Commissioner,
-and followed it to the Harvard Club, in
-44th Street, while Barnitz telephoned for the inspector
-of combustibles to come and take possession
-of the explosives. The Commissioner, with
-Guy Scull, were sitting in the lounge, and I was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
-reporting in greater detail when the Commissioner
-was called to the telephone. He returned a moment
-later, and his first remark was this:</p>
-
-<p>“<em>Holt is dead at Mineola!</em>”</p>
-
-<p>And there went our case.</p>
-
-<p>The first wild report from Mineola had it that
-Holt had been shot by a German. The international
-consequences of the case, which had been
-hovering just out of reach for the past four days,
-now seemed certain. A nation which was still
-bitterly angry over the recent <i>Lusitania</i> sinking
-would certainly not brook the violation of its
-Capitol and the attempted assassination of one
-of its chief figures by a German agent, and if
-Holt had been shot by a German, it was more
-than likely that he had been killed to prevent a
-further confession which would implicate the Imperial
-German Government. These thoughts
-passed through our minds as we motored back
-across the Queensboro Bridge, and retraced the
-route Barnitz and I had just traveled.</p>
-
-<p>Holt was not shot by a German. Holt was not
-shot at all. An aged guard had been left to
-watch him that evening, just after Barnitz and
-I had left, for the prisoner, despairing over the
-Muenter identification, had already made one attempt
-with a bit of tin from a lead pencil to cut<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
-the arteries of his wrists, and we did not want him
-to try again. The old bailiff who sat outside the
-cell cage had not only left the cage door unlocked,
-but had been careless enough to leave Holt’s cell
-door ajar. The prisoner seemed quiet enough,
-and the bailiff fell asleep. He woke to find Holt’s
-body in a twisted heap in the center of the floor
-of the cell corridor. Holt had evidently been
-feigning sleep and while the bailiff dozed had
-crept out, climbed to the top of the cage, and
-dived headforemost to the concrete floor.</p>
-
-<p>There we found him. The man’s skull was
-crushed from the impact of his dive. Rumors
-that he was shot by a mysterious rifle bullet from
-outside notwithstanding, Holt bore no wound except
-the bruise Physick gave him with the lump of
-coal, and the wound which was the result of his
-fall. If Holt was a German agent, he died with
-his secret.</p>
-
-<p>We had no time to analyze the question. We
-knew that Holt had written his wife he had placed
-dynamite aboard a ship which was at sea, and
-that July 7, the date on which he had promised
-an explosion, was less than two hours away. On
-the theory that he might have shipped an express
-parcel containing a bomb overseas from some
-nearby station, Mr. Scull and I spent the night<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
-in an exhaustive canvass by telephone and motor
-of every station in Nassau County. Many of the
-station agents were asleep, but we woke them, and
-searched until dawn. The net result was record
-of two shipments to Europe since the day Holt
-received the dynamite: One from Syosset the
-other from Oyster Bay. Back to New York
-again we raced, and at the office of the Adams
-Express Company found the Syosset package,
-opened it, and found—no dynamite at all. The
-Oyster Bay package had already been shipped to
-Europe; we telephoned the consignor, and learned
-that it contained clothes for a poor relative in
-England.</p>
-
-<p>Apparently Holt had not shipped a bomb.
-While we were opening his trunk at the warehouse
-the night before, the government was issuing
-from Washington a wireless bulletin to all
-ships at sea, warning them to search the cargo
-thoroughly for a bomb. One by one the vessels
-which had sailed during the past week reported
-that they had investigated with no result, and as
-these reports came in we began to rest easier in
-our minds. Yet he had so persistently refused to
-tell us of the dynamite “until Wednesday” that
-we could not ignore the prophecy he had made to
-his wife—“With God’s help, a ship that sailed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
-from New York July 3 will sink on July 7.” At
-noon, of Wednesday, July 7, an explosion occurred
-in the hold of the steamship <i>Minnehaha</i>,
-in mid-ocean, so strong as to blow out a section of
-the upper decks. The <i>Minnehaha</i> had left New
-York on July 3. Happily there was no loss of
-life, and she reached port safely.</p>
-
-<p>Two and two make four, but we must not add
-them for a moment. Holt—or Muenter, as he
-was fully and finally identified—may have placed
-a bomb in the <i>Minnehaha</i>. His promise may
-have been valid, but there is another possible
-origin for that explosion, namely, the activities of
-Paul Koenig’s little group. He may have placed
-a bomb on the <i>Minnehaha</i> which was exploded by
-a bomb placed there by another. He may have
-placed a bomb on quite another ship—which did
-not explode, and which may have traveled harmless
-to its consignee in England. That consignee
-may have been fictitious, or he may have been an
-accomplice; if an accomplice he may have been
-German. We must not add two and two until we
-have gathered up the loose threads as they were
-gathered up during those last active days, and
-begin to sort them out.</p>
-
-<p>If we do, we shall see that the Ithaca police
-found in Holt’s rooms a scrapbook curiously replete<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
-with newspaper reports of crimes, fratricides,
-patricides and plain murders. But no cases of
-wife-murder, nor of arsenical poisoning. And
-no clippings dating back of 1906; for all the evidence
-of the scrapbook, Holt had never existed
-before 1907. His wife, who, by a queer coincidence,
-bore the same maiden name, Leona, as the
-one whom he had poisoned, apparently knew
-nothing of Holt’s life before she met him in Texas
-in 1909, loved him, and married him. She did
-not know that he was born in Germany, and educated
-in Germany or that he had fled from Chicago
-to Mexico in 1906 and had then worked back into
-Texas as a student. He probably wrote to her
-from Ithaca in September, 1914, that he had just
-had the pleasure of meeting Professor Ernest
-Elster, of Marburg, Germany, who was visiting
-Cornell, and that Elster had highly commended
-him for his articles on Goethe—but if he did
-write to her, what then? Perhaps Herr Professor
-Elster had commended Holt for some other
-past or projected service to <i>Kultur</i>. There is a
-queer development of the story in the fact that on
-September 4, 1915, Mrs. Frank Holt, writing
-from Dallas, Texas, to Griffithe’s warehouse, enclosed
-one dollar to pay for storage on a trunk
-left there by her husband July 2, and signed her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
-name: “F. H. Henderson.” Perhaps the
-rumor is true that a woman appeared at the
-offices of J. P. Morgan and Company in New
-York on July 2, 1915, and attempted to warn Mr.
-Morgan of “something that was going to happen
-the next day” and perhaps she was a friend
-of von Rintelen’s. Mr. Morgan never saw her.
-But it is a fact that Rintelen had said to an American
-with whom he was dealing: “Morgan and
-Root ought to be put out of the way!”</p>
-
-<p>Probably—not perhaps—speculation has already
-carried this story too far. The facts are
-that Mr. Morgan recovered from his wounds,
-and that two and two make four.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="IX" class="vspace">IX<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE NATURE FAKER</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Richard Harding Davis could have done justice
-to this story.</p>
-
-<p>In December of 1917 we had been eight months
-at war. We would be an innocent and purposely
-ignorant nation if we did not acknowledge that
-even after we had been eight months at war there
-were German spies in the United States practising
-their quiet trade in order to make our waging of
-war as difficult as possible, just as for three years
-they had practised to keep us out of the war entirely.
-It would be as absurd to assume that there
-are not German spies in America to-day who have
-been here throughout our part in the war, and
-who have done their utmost to cripple us.</p>
-
-<p>But there is one who will not be here indefinitely....</p>
-
-<p>In December, 1917, I received a complaint that
-valuable papers had been stolen from a certain
-Captain Claude Staughton, who lived at 137 West
-75th Street, Manhattan. The Captain himself
-said that the lives of thousands of American soldiers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
-were in jeopardy, and that neither they nor
-he would rest in conscious security until those
-papers were found. So two other Thomases of
-the Bomb Squad, Sergeant Thomas J. Ford and
-Detective Thomas J. Cavanagh, were sent to investigate
-the theft.</p>
-
-<p>They found that Captain Staughton lived in an
-apartment on the second floor of the premises at
-137 West 75th Street and that his rooms were
-shared by a Captain Horace D. Ashton. Staughton,
-they learned, was a captain of West Australia
-Light Horse—or was supposed to be—and a
-photograph they found of the captain in his uniform
-revealed four gold wound-stripes on his
-sleeve, which suggested an interesting and heroic
-experience overseas. The detectives’ first assumption
-was that the missing papers had had to do with
-British war work on which the captain was detailed
-to the United States. Then they found several
-photographic prints in which he was dressed
-in the uniforms of other nations than Great Britain,
-and their second assumption was that he
-might be another of the nervy little band of counterfeit
-officers which had done all its fighting in
-the restaurants and sympathetic check-books of
-New York during the war.</p>
-
-<p>The detectives learned that Ashton had his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
-mail forwarded to the “Argus Laboratories”
-at 220 West 42d Street. They called upon Ashton,
-and inquired about his room-mate. Duquesne
-was all right, Ashton said—was employed by an
-engineering company downtown as an inspector of
-airplanes, was in Pittsburg at the moment, but was
-expected shortly to return. Duquesne returned,
-and was placed under arrest on the charge (we
-had no better one at the moment) of unlawfully
-masquerading in the uniform of one of our allies,
-a uniform to which he had no title. A thousand
-questions sprang up in our minds about the man:
-why was he in disguise, how long had he been
-posing, how could he carry out the bluff without
-being discovered, especially by the highly reputable
-firm which employed him?—those were a few.
-We began to investigate, and from Ashton and
-other sources we pieced together the checkered
-pattern of his career. Many of the fragments are
-missing, and some of them are probably in the
-wrong places, but this is the picture we found.</p>
-
-<p>He had applied for work at the J. G. White
-Engineering Company on September 18, 1917,
-and in his rather detailed application for employment
-set forth that his name was Fred du Quesne.
-He stated further that he was 39 years old, married,
-and a United States citizen, though born in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
-a British colony. His nearest relative was “A.
-Jocelyn du Quesne,” in Los Angeles, and he had
-evidently had some trouble in parting the name
-in the middle, for it was written over an erasure.
-His next nearest relative was set down as “Viscount
-François de Rancogne, Prisoner of War,
-Germany,”—an address safe enough from prompt
-investigation. Last of all his relatives was cited
-Edward Wortley, “Colonial Secretary, Jamaica,
-B. W. I.” The three names were impressive,
-and with the possible exception of Los Angeles,
-the addresses were too remote to enable the J. G.
-White Company to find out quickly what sort of
-man this du Quesne might be.</p>
-
-<p>He described himself as a graduate of St. Cyr,
-the French West Point, as master of French and
-English (not German or Portuguese or Spanish),
-and as having lived in England, France, Africa,
-Australia, Central America, Brazil, Argentine,
-and the United States (but not Germany). Present
-position he had none, but he would like one as
-“Inspector of military devices, purchasing agent
-for same, or army supplies transportation.” You
-or I, were we working for the Kaiser, would have
-liked just such a position. He gave as references
-the name of Thomas O’Connell, a relative
-employed by the J. G. White Company in Nicaragua;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
-Ashton, Senator Robert Broussard of
-Washington, and the Marquis (not “viscount”
-this time) de Rancogne, “Lieutenant General of
-Cavalry, France.”</p>
-
-<p>He then set forth his previous experience, which
-I may quote direct in the light of later events:</p>
-
-<p>“1898 to 1899. Secretary to board of selection
-on military devices and contracts. South
-Africa reporting Genr. de Villiers. (salary) £10
-weekly.</p>
-
-<p>“1899 to 1902. South African War. Was
-inspector of military communication and reported
-secretary of war.” (<em>He does not state which secretary
-of war</em>) £12.2.6 weekly.</p>
-
-<p>“1902 to 1903. Lived in United States to
-start residence. Had an experience job in the
-subway looking on. $25.00.</p>
-
-<p>“1903 to 1904. Went on tour of Congo Free
-State in the interests of making favorable publicity
-in this country for King Leopold. Gerard
-Harry in charge of campaign for the King. Received
-$10,000 for the job, with expenses.</p>
-
-<p>“1904–5–6. Headed Eldu expedition and industrial
-research party in Australia. Sir Arthur
-Jones financed me. Received £2,000 yearly.</p>
-
-<p>“1907–8. Toured Russia for <i>Petit Bleu</i>.
-Publicity. 1,000 florins weekly.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
-“1908–9–10. Organized and built string of
-theatres in British West Indies. Financed and
-erected hydro-electric plant for S. S. Wortley &amp;
-Co., Kingston, Jamaica. Made percentages.</p>
-
-<p>“1911–12. Lived in Nicaragua and Guatemala.
-Was with Mr. Thomas O’Connell in
-Nicaragua for one year. Made industrial and
-investment investigations, especially ore, fibre, rubber.
-$5,000 and expenses yearly. Mr. Hite
-financed. Address New Rochelle.</p>
-
-<p>“1913–14–15–16. Explored and travelled in
-South America, Brazil, Argentine, Peru, and
-Bolivia, on own account. Also conducted special
-expedition for Horace Ashton of 220 W. 42d St.,
-New York.”</p>
-
-<p>An eventful record, certainly. We asked Ashton
-to cast a little light on it. Captain Fritz
-Joubert Duquesne, he said, was a scout in the
-Boer war—“the leading scout” were his exact
-words—but not for the British, but the Boers.
-There may have been a touch of irony in Duquesne’s
-description of himself as “inspector of
-military communications” for he had been captured
-eight or nine times in his migrations through
-the British lines and had escaped each time—until
-the last, when he was made a prisoner of war
-at Cape Town, and according to an entry in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
-records of Scotland Yard, “was sent to Bermuda,
-whence he escaped after the declaration of Peace.”
-The same records say: “The man Duquesne
-was acting as correspondent for a Belgian paper,
-the <i>Petit Bleu</i>; he was however in reality working
-for the Boers....” Duquesne fancied photographs
-of himself, as he made up rather dashingly,
-and an old print which the Bomb Squad
-men found in his effects bore out the fact of his
-imprisonment, for there he stood in his Bermuda
-jail with the shackles on his ankles and a grim,
-martyred expression on his face.</p>
-
-<p>The lure of Africa called to him, evidently,
-and he went back. We need not take too seriously
-his statement that he made a junket for
-King Leopold through the Belgian Congo, but
-anyone who remembers the uproar over the slavery
-by which the depraved old monarch was turning
-his colony into gold to pay for his excesses
-will also recall the international complications
-which the Congo threatened. It was a likely spot
-for an international spy. During his survey of
-the publicity possibilities of the jungle Duquesne
-conceived a few publicity possibilities for himself,
-and he came to America as a mighty hunter of
-big game.</p>
-
-<p>“I ran across him first,” said Ashton, “in 1909.—At<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
-that time he was writing an article for
-<i>Hampton’s Magazine</i> called ‘Hunting Big Game
-in Africa.’ In publishing his articles he needed
-photographs, and he came to me. I was interested
-in his conversation and I said to him:
-‘Why don’t you lecture?’ So he went down to
-the Pond Lyceum Bureau. He went on a lecture
-tour for the Lyceum and later on a tour of the
-Keith circuit....”</p>
-
-<p>We found in his effects a program of the lectures
-he gave, its cover decorated with a small
-round photograph of Colonel Roosevelt in hunting
-costume and a large studio photograph of
-Duquesne in khaki, wearing boots and a revolver,
-and looking sternly out of the picture as tradition
-says a lion-hunter should look. Page two
-carried a synopsis of his lecture, of which one
-topic was “Hunting with Roosevelt,” and a reproduction
-of a number of newspapers which were
-then publishing his “Hunting Ahead of Roosevelt,”
-an article written for <i>Hampton’s Magazine</i>.
-On page three Captain Duquesne figured again
-in effigy, this time standing beside the prostrate
-form of “A Rare Specimen—the ‘White Rhinoceros,’”
-and we are to believe that he killed
-the beast. Page four (and last), reproduced a
-cartoon from the <i>Washington Star</i> of January 26,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
-1909, which portrayed President Roosevelt pointing
-to a picture of an elephant, and enthusiastically
-inquiring of a hairy hunter labelled “Duquesne”:
-“I want to know his vital spot!”</p>
-
-<div id="ip_224" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_224a.jpg" width="410" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Fritz Duquesne prepared for a Lecture Tour as Captain
-Claude Stoughton</div></div>
-
-<p>A quotation from <i>Hampton’s Magazine</i>, also
-printed in this program, gives a new vision of
-the man’s life from 1900 to 1909. It is probably
-as truthful as any—here it is:</p>
-
-<p>“When the British succeeded in cutting cable
-communications between the Boer Republic and
-the rest of the world, Duquesne carried the news
-of the Boer victories over the Mozambique border,
-and from there he wrote his despatches to the
-<i>Petit Bleu</i>, the official European organ of the Boer
-Government. He was once captured by the
-Portuguese and thrown into prison at Lorenzo
-Marques. Later he was taken a prisoner to
-Europe at the request of the British Government.
-When the ship that conveyed him and
-his guard touched at Naples, he was suffering
-from a fever and in consequence was placed in an
-Italian hospital. On his recovery he was allowed
-to go free. He went to Brussels and was sent
-back to the front by Doctor Leyds, with plans
-for the seizure of Cape Town by the Boer commandos
-then mobilized in Cape Colony.</p>
-
-<p>“Everything was ready for the taking of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
-city when, a traitor having revealed the plot,
-Duquesne and a number of others were captured
-in Cape Town inside the British defenses. This
-was the climax of what has come to be known
-as the ‘Cape Town Plot.’ Some of the prisoners
-were shot and some sentenced to death who
-later had their sentences changed to life imprisonment.
-Captain Duquesne was among the latter.
-Ten months later he escaped from the Bermuda
-prisons, got aboard the American yacht <i>Margaret</i>
-of New York while she was coaling at the dock,
-and was conveyed to Baltimore.</p>
-
-<p>“Back to Europe he went again, as war correspondent
-and military writer on the <i>Petit Bleu</i>;
-thence to Africa, where he took a commission on
-the Congo. In East Africa he hunted big game
-for sport and profit, and finally he came to New
-York to do newspaper and magazine work.”</p>
-
-<p>He cut a figure in America as a hunter. Back
-in 1910, when Congress amused itself with light
-diversions, when President Taft was in the White
-House and when President Roosevelt was in
-Africa, the eyes of the nation were turned perforce
-toward that great preserve of wild game.
-On March 24, 1910, the House of Representatives’
-Committee on Agriculture went into session
-with the Honorable Charles F. Scott in the chair.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
-Late March in Washington has a hint of spring,
-and that Thursday was probably an off-day, with
-nothing much to do, for the committee’s business
-was the consideration of H. R. 23261—a bill “to
-import into the United States wild and domestic
-animals whose habitat is similar to government
-reservations and lands at present unoccupied and
-unused.... <em>Provided</em>, that such animals will
-thrive and propagate and prove useful either as
-food or as beasts of burden, and that two hundred
-and fifty thousand dollars ... be appropriated
-for this purpose.” The bill was Representative
-Broussard’s, of Louisiana; he had in
-mind the re-population of the unyielding backwaters
-of his constituency with happy families of—what?
-Foreign sheep, or parrots, or egrets,
-or fish? Not at all. Families of hippopotamuses.</p>
-
-<p>The Gentleman from Louisiana addressed the
-meeting briefly, saying that he had brought to
-the hearing three distinguished specialists in the
-matter of wild beasts, Dr. Irwin of the Bureau of
-Plant Industry, Major Frederic Russell Burnham,
-a fine old pioneer whom Richard Harding Davis
-did describe in his “Real Soldiers of Fortune,”
-and “Captain Fritz Duquesne, formerly in the
-Boer army, who is lecturing and writing on this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
-subject....” Dr. Irwin spoke earnestly for the
-introduction of the hippo, Major Burnham made
-an absorbing address on the habits of wild animals
-he had known—and a herd of camels he
-once pursued in Texas—and our bright and
-voluble Captain Fritz then told the committee
-extraordinary things of the home of the hippopotamus,
-the delicacy of its flesh, the amiability of
-its temperament, and the carelessness of its appetite.
-“During my boyhood,” he said at one
-stage of the proceedings, “the French soap manufacturers
-used to come down there and pay us all
-sorts of prices, competing with one another, to
-get the fat of the hippopotamus; and we made a
-considerable amount of money from saving the
-fat when we killed a hippo. The Boers were in
-the habit of going down to the river and killing a
-hippo and bringing it in and dividing it among the
-different families in the district. It is pretty hard
-to get rid of four and a half tons of meat. In
-the case of the bones of the animal, we would take
-an ordinary wood saw and saw them in halves, and
-make a great big pot of soup for a large number
-of the people, including the Kaffir servants on
-the ranch, or the farm, as we call it.” Again:
-“My father was instrumental in sending the camel
-to Australia from Africa, and also in introducing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
-it into the Kalahari desert. The German Government
-now uses the camel exclusively for its
-cavalry in the Kalahari desert, which is practically
-the counterpart of the deserts in this country.
-My father had the contract to take them over to
-Australia for the West Australian Government
-and I took them over there. To-day camels and
-ostriches from Africa are being raised in Australia.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Chapman asked: “Do you think animals
-such as you have mentioned would become acclimated
-here without difficulty?” Duquesne replied:
-“Yes, I was over there recently in one
-place where Colonel Roosevelt passed through,
-and the frost was that thick (indicating about one
-inch). That is where he went to get some of his
-best animals....” In discussing the zebra he
-said: “There is nothing wrong with the animal.
-The English in Africa want to get percentage,
-you know. They put an animal out and they
-want to break it in right away, and they want to
-get some money for it right on the spot. That
-is what they are in Africa for. They want to
-take on the animals and break them in at once.
-The Germans are more scientific than the English.
-In German East Africa they are making
-a great success of domesticating these animals I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
-have spoken of, and crossing the zebra....
-The Germans in Germany, France, and Belgium,
-not to mention those in the United States, tried
-scientifically to make the leopard change his spots,
-too.”</p>
-
-<p>The man really exhibited an unusual acquaintance
-with wild beasts, and he summed up the
-picturesque argument for the bill when he said:
-“If there is vegetation in a river, the hippopotamus
-will never leave the river. If you had
-the hippopotamus in Louisiana and it ate up all
-your water plants you would be quite willing to
-let the hippo live down there. You see the water
-plants have to live on a certain amount of air,
-and the fish live on a certain amount of air.
-Neither the plant nor the fish can live on air that
-is not there. As the plant is the stronger, and is
-able to take the air from above, it will draw it
-at the bottom and draw it from the top, and the
-fish is suffocated in the water. Then when a storm
-comes and blows the water plants, which are
-floating, all to one side, the fish are netted up
-against them and kept in one place until they die.
-These plants exhaust the air in the water that is
-passing through the fishes’ gills and that destroys
-the fish.” I wish there were space here to reproduce
-all the proceedings of that hearing—it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>
-is historic vaudeville: a German spy teaching a
-class of American congressmen about the hippo,
-and suggesting subtly that when they purchase a
-fleet of the great beasts for the Louisiana bayous,
-they let him round them up. He would have
-done it if there had been American money in it.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_230" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 38em;">
- <img src="images/i_230a.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">1. Fritz Duquesne as a War Correspondent<span class="in4">
- 2. Duquesne as a Boer Soldier</span><br />
- 3. From Duquesne’s Press Notices<span class="in6"><span class="in1">
- 4. As a British Prisoner of War</span></span><br />
- 5. A Prisoner’s Bank Note Found in Duquesne’s Effects</div></div>
-
-<p>American money appeared from another
-source, however, in 1911. Duquesne had been
-working in a desultory way for the moving pictures,
-and he interested one Hite, a functionary
-in the Thanhouser Film Company, in a plan to
-explore Central America with a moving-picture
-camera. Ashton said he also obtained financial
-support from Frank Seiberling of the Goodyear
-Rubber Company of Akron, a great patron of
-sports, and the financier of the ill-fated balloon
-“Akron” in which Walter Wellman once tried
-to cross the Atlantic. He set sail in 1911 for
-Jamaica, where he enlisted the finances of his
-father-in-law, Wortley, in the project, and then
-moved on to Guatemala. There he was suspected
-of revolutionary activities, and after cabling
-Washington and receiving a satisfactory report
-from the state department, he was released, and
-made his way through Honduras to Nicaragua.
-There he spent some time, and saw something of
-O’Connell, the railroad man—enough to receive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
-a pass over all lines of the Nicaraguan railroad.</p>
-
-<p>In 1913 he returned to the United States.
-Among the papers which we discovered was a
-record of an insurance policy for a maximum of
-$80,000 worth of moving picture film at $4 a
-foot, which Duquesne took out with the Mannheim
-Insurance Company in New York on December
-17. He was setting out on another expedition,
-and he wished to insure his reels of
-film on shipboard from</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">“seas, fires, pirates, rovers, assailing thieves,
-jettison, barratry of the master and mariners,
-and all other perils, losses and misfortunes
-that have or shall come to the hurt, detriment
-or damage of the said goods and merchandise
-or any part thereof.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">By a separate certificate the company also insured
-Duquesne against further risk, thus:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">“It is agreed that this insurance covers only
-the risk of capture, seizure or destruction by
-men-of-war, by letters of marque, by taking
-at sea, arrests, restraints, detainments or acts
-of kings, princes and people authorized by
-and in prosecution of hostilities between belligerent
-nations....”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
-and off to the Spanish Main and the pirates and
-the assailing thieves sailed Fritz Duquesne.</p>
-
-<p>His migrations during the years of 1914 and
-1915 are not clear. This much is certain: that
-on June 16, 1915, Sir C. Mallet, the British minister
-at Panama, wrote to the foreign office in
-London the following note, setting forth an observation
-he had made that day in the Zone:</p>
-
-<p>“Through a Canal Zone detective I learnt
-confidentially that a passenger named Captain F.
-Duquesne, travelling with a passport issued by the
-United States Consul at Mañaos, Brazil, had embarked
-for Trinidad on the R. M. S. <i>Panama</i> on
-the 14th instant.</p>
-
-<p>“My informant stated that Captain Duquesne
-poses as an American officer but in reality is an
-intelligence officer in the service of the German
-Government.</p>
-
-<p>“I have warned the Governor of Trinidad by
-telegraph so that a watch may be kept on Captain
-Duquesne’s movements.”</p>
-
-<p>The wily captain had been cruising rather busily
-through the Caribbean, over the Isthmus, and into
-South America. His passport connected him with
-Mañaos, the British message established his presence
-at Panama and Trinidad, a German war communiqué<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
-dated “December 20,” and signed by
-the German consul, Lehmann, in Guatemala,
-showed that he was an acceptable guest at the outposts
-of the German Empire. And he had visited
-Nicaragua before he entered Panama in 1915,
-for we found in his possession this letter:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="sigright">
-“Managua, May 5, 1915.</p>
-
-<p class="in0">“Imperial German Consulate<br />
-<span class="in2">for Nicaragua:</span>
-</p>
-
-<p>“It is a pleasure for me to recommend to you,
-my countrymen, the bearer of this, Mr. Fritz
-Duquesne, Captain of Engineers to the Boer
-army, very warmly.</p>
-
-<p>“The same gentleman has on many occasions
-given many notable services to our good German
-cause.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-<span class="l2">“The Imperial German Consul,</span><br />
-“<span class="smcap">Uebersexig</span>.”
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">Enclosed in the envelope was Uebersexig’s personal
-card, reinforcing his recommendation of
-Duquesne as an accredited German agent.</p>
-
-<p>Trinidad is a good jumping-off place into the
-far tropics, and it is quite possible that as Ashton
-said Duquesne disappeared into the interior of
-Brazil, and “explored the unknown regions of
-Brazil and the Amazon.” It is not hard to find
-unknown regions of Brazil within a few miles of
-the coast. He probably did not penetrate far into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
-the interior, for in January of 1916, he showed up
-in lower Brazil.</p>
-
-<p>He emerged from the interior as a valiant explorer,
-preceded by native carriers whom he had
-hired to transport his precious movie-film. As
-he approached the port of Bahia Duquesne’s personality
-underwent a perceptible change. Duquesne
-suddenly became George Fordham.
-Among his papers we found an application for
-shipment by a Brazilian broker which read as
-follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">“Honorable Superintendent.</p>
-
-<p>“Francisco Figuerado requests a permit to ship
-for New York via steamer <i>Verdi</i> to sail on January
-28, 1916, a case as described below:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="in2">“Bahia, January 27, 1916.</p>
-
-<p class="in2">“Raul E. de Oliveira, Custom House Broker.</p>
-
-<p class="in2">
-“1 case weighing 80 kilos <span class="in4">00$500</span>
-</p>
-
-<p class="in2">“One case of potter’s earth in dust (samples)”</p>
-</blockquote></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">Potter’s earth may have been included in the
-materials in the case, but that is doubtful, for on
-October 4, 1916, “Mrs. Alice Duquesne being
-duly sworn deposes and says that she accompanied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
-her husband, Captain Fritz Duquesne, during
-his trip through Central America in the Spring
-and Summer of 1914. That in the baggage was
-an iron trunk used to carry moving picture films
-and negatives which she presumes to be the same
-trunk that was subsequently shipped by Capt.
-Duquesne per the S. S. <i>Tennyson</i> from Bahia to
-New York sailing in January, 1916. That the
-said trunk was about ½ inch thick, and made of
-iron about 45 inches in length by 30 inches in
-height by 26 inches in depth ... had a hinged
-cover that overlapped the sides of same, and
-fastened down with two thumb screws and a lock.
-That two iron bands went around the trunk and
-were riveted to same. That the cover was lined
-with packing where it overlapped the sides of the
-trunk. That the said trunk was of very solid construction,
-painted a dark green, almost black, and
-that two men were required to lift same.”
-Hardly a suitable receptacle for potter’s earth.
-Furthermore, George Fordham, whose handwriting
-is identical with that of Fritz Duquesne for the
-simple reason that the two men were the same,
-on February 11 signed an invoice at the American
-consulate in Bahia stating that he solemnly and
-truly declared that the 28,000 feet of moving picture
-film and the 4100 negatives which he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
-shipping back to the United States were to the
-best of his knowledge and belief of the manufacture
-of the United States and had been exported
-from the United States in 1913.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_236" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 33em;">
- <img src="images/i_236a.png" width="526" height="800" alt="" />
- <div class="captionl">
-
-<blockquote class="hang largerx b0">
-
-<p class="b0">1. A significant clipping found in Duquesne’s effects</p>
-
-<p class="p0 b0">2. A German Communique found on Duquesne</p>
-
-<p class="p0 b0">3. The United States Customs invoice by which Duquesne,
-as “George Fordham,” shipped his “Films”</p></blockquote></div>
-<div class="caption htmlonly">
-<a href="images/i_236alarge.png">(Larger)</a></div></div>
-
-<p>The <i>Tennyson</i> sailed quietly out of the river-mouth
-into the Atlantic and Duquesne vanished
-just as quietly. On February 26, when the ship
-was coasting along the Brazilian forest toward
-the Equator, a terrific explosion occurred in her
-hold, and three sailors were killed. The iron
-trunk never reached New York. The news of
-the catastrophe set fire to the British in South
-America and the English press seethed with such
-paragraphs as this—which we found in Duquesne’s
-papers, clipped from an Argentine newspaper:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="sigright">
-“Rio de Janeiro.
-</p>
-
-<p>“The confession of the clerk Bauer, arrested
-in connection with the <i>Tennyson</i> outrage, which
-led to the discovery of the papers and funds of
-the band of German bombers in an English safe
-deposit institution reveals a plot of far-reaching
-consequences fraught with danger to the neutrality
-of a number of South American republics,
-as well as peril to the lives of their citizens.</p>
-
-<p>“Besides a number of important documents,
-the police seized $6,740 in American bills, which
-were in an envelope marked ‘On His Majesty’s
-Service’ and addressed: ‘Piet Naciud.’ When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
-this name was published it caused quite a shock in
-the Allied circles here, as this man always cultivated
-their society and even recited at their
-benefits. He was ever loud in his denunciations
-of the Germans, and as he was a Boer, or pretended
-to be one, was doubly liked for his seemingly
-praiseworthy attitude. Little did the English
-dream that they were harbouring a black-hearted
-spy in their midst whom they now know
-as one of the leading plotters whose audacity is
-beyond belief. The safe deposit was in his own
-name, and he gave his home address as Cape
-Town. Neither he nor the agent Niewirth and
-his fellow conspirators have yet been arrested.
-It is believed that they left with Naciud in a
-powerful motorboat that he owned.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>How Captain Fritz Duquesne, alias Fordham,
-alias Naciud, must have chuckled as he sat safely
-in the neutral Argentine and read this flattering
-tribute to his audacity. For he did turn up presently
-in Buenos Aires, and embarked on a new
-audacity—nothing less than collecting the insurance
-of $80,000 for the loss of the film which
-he claimed to have shipped in the iron box!</p>
-
-<p>Let Ashton take up the story:</p>
-
-<p>“... his wife ... tried to collect the insurance,
-but was advised that she would have better
-chances ... if he would disappear. He then
-assumed the name of Fredericks. In 1916 a report<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
-was published in the New York <i>Evening Post</i>
-and the New York <i>Times</i> that he had been assassinated
-by Indians in the interior of Bolivia, and
-being interested I called at the office of the N. Y.
-<i>Post</i> and asked Mr. A. D. H. Smith, editor, to
-look this report up, and he found that the report
-came from the Associated Press, the same being
-signed ‘Fredericks.’ They also had a cablegram
-signed, ‘Captain Duquesne,’ and it said: ‘I am
-still alive.’ The report also said that he was
-the sole survivor of an attack from the Indians
-and that he was somewhere in Bolivia recovering
-in a hospital, the location being unknown. He
-sent the message signed ‘Fredericks’ himself from
-Buenos Aires.</p>
-
-<p>“He then became connected with the Board
-of Education of the Argentine, supplying films for
-the schools, and a certain politician in Buenos
-Aires claims he gave him $24,000 with which to
-purchase films (certain educational films). He
-claims to have come to New York with a man
-named Williamson and purchased the films, paying
-$24,000 in cash.”</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duquesne was already in New York, having
-a hard time collecting her claim against the
-German-owned Mannheim Insurance Company
-for the “sympathy verdict” for damage to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
-films. He stored the new films he claims to have
-purchased in the Fulton and Flatbush Warehouse,
-437 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn—stored them
-as “statuary,” and used to visit the warehouse
-frequently. On one occasion he arrived after
-hours, and tried unsuccessfully to bribe the watchman
-to admit him. He moved to a small hotel in
-Elizabeth, New Jersey, and about two weeks after
-the storage of the cases of “statuary” in the
-Brooklyn warehouse, the warehouse mysteriously
-caught fire.</p>
-
-<p>By a queer coincidence the “films”—Duquesne
-has never proved that he did buy them—which
-of course were destroyed in this fire too, had been
-insured by their purchaser, “Mr. Frederick
-Fredericks,” for $33,000 by the Stuyvesant Insurance
-Company, and he set out to collect the
-$33,000 for the total loss of his property. If
-both claims proved successful, he and his wife
-would have gathered in some $113,000. But they
-found it one thing to be insured and another thing
-entirely to get the money. Times were not treating
-Duquesne well.</p>
-
-<p>Along in July, 1917, when the United States
-was in the throes of buckling down to the business
-of war, and Washington was sweltering under
-its increased load of war-time population and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
-business, Ashton, Duquesne’s old friend, happened
-to have business in the capital. He
-dropped in to call on Robert F. Broussard, of New
-Iberia, Louisiana, who in 1915 had been elected
-senator from this state ... the same Broussard
-who had been the author of the hippopotamus
-bill. Ashton asked the United States Senator
-from Louisiana if he had heard from Captain
-Duquesne. Ashton continues: “his secretary
-overheard the conversation (his secretary is a
-charming young lady) and I took her out to dinner,
-and about five days later she wrote me and
-said, ‘You may be interested to know that Captain
-Duquesne is in Washington, but does not
-want it known.’ I immediately became interested
-and concluded that if Captain Duquesne was in
-Washington and did not want it known, especially
-to me, I ... would investigate. So I went to
-Washington ...” and learned something of
-Duquesne’s whereabouts and circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>“After hearing this story in Washington,”
-Ashton continues, “I learned that this man was
-in desperate need of assistance and I offered to
-help him in any way that I could.... Senator
-Broussard was trying to secure a position for him
-with General Goethals,... also at this time he
-had plans on file with the Secretary of the Navy,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
-of an invention to destroy mines in harbors, and
-was hoping that he might secure a position with
-the Navy Department. I had been offered a position
-with George Creel, and I also introduced
-Duquesne to him, and I then got in touch with
-Major Kendall Barnelli. I advised him to listen
-to Duquesne and to give him a position. I also
-advised Barnelli that I was investigating Duquesne’s
-story.”</p>
-
-<p>Damon Ashton then brought Pythias Duquesne
-back to New York and put him up in the apartment
-in which the Bomb Squad men had first been
-called to investigate the theft of papers. Duquesne
-begged his friend not to make him known
-under his own name, as the insurance case for the
-warehouse fire was still pending. So Duquesne
-continued to masquerade as “Fredericks.” His
-health was poor, and he did not go to work at
-once. At times Ashton’s charity seemed to irk
-Duquesne, and he even went to the telephone and
-called up an agency to discuss a lecture tour. The
-lecture agents told him that only war lectures
-were making money. There was a real inspiration,
-and after working for several days to assemble
-a uniform of the West Australia Light
-Horse, correct in every detail, he dressed up in
-it and called at the lecture bureau as Captain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
-Claude Staughton. His Australian experience as
-chaperone to the camels stood him in good stead,
-and he went about town mixing with British Army
-officers without arousing suspicion. He even got
-on famously with the late Sir George Reed, prime
-minister of Australia, whom he met one night at
-the Hotel Astor.</p>
-
-<p>The Pond lecture folk took him up and arranged
-a tour for him. Consciously or unconsciously,
-they swallowed Duquesne whole. They
-had him photographed in his new uniform, with
-the ribbons of three decorations over his heart,
-and they reproduced the natty figure on the cover
-of a publicity folder announcing the subjects on
-which Captain Claude Staughton was prepared to
-talk. “Captain Staughton,” read the folder,
-“has perhaps seen more of the war than any man
-at present before the public.... He wears ribbons
-showing that he has received five medals: two
-of these the King’s and Queen’s for service in the
-Boer war, carrying seven clasps; one is for service
-in Natal, and two for bravery in saving lives. A
-sixth French medal for which he has been cited
-is yet to be awarded. At the outbreak of the Boer
-war, Captain, then Lieutenant, Staughton, was an
-officer in one of Australia’s crack horse regiments,
-the Mounted Rifles. He went with his regiment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
-to Africa, and served in Cape Colony, Orange
-Free State, Transvaal, Natal and Basuto Land.
-He was with Kitchener at the Battle of Paardeburg
-when General Cronje was captured; was
-with Lord Roberts at the Capture of Bloemfontein;
-at the fall of Johannesburg and the seizure
-of Pretoria. Later, in pursuit of DeWet’s army,
-he was attached to General Knox’s flying column
-as intelligence officer and commandeering officer
-for the Australian Bushmen. He later entered
-the Cape forces and took active part in the clearing
-up of Basuto Land, and in the last Natal insurrection
-he fought with the Natal forces.”</p>
-
-<p>That is a mere fragment of the fighting in which
-this eulogy proceeded to sketch Captain Staughton’s
-modest part. New Guinea, Gallipoli,
-Flanders, the Somme, Arras (illustrated by motion
-pictures), four times gassed, three times bayoneted,
-once pronged by a German trench-hook—those
-were the high lights of the career which, the
-folder assured the public, had finally brought him
-face to face with the most fearless lecture audience
-in the world—the United States. He would be
-pleased to lecture on the story of the Anzacs,
-underground warfare—or, on “German Spy
-Methods,” of which “he had learned much in
-Egypt.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
-One of the sub-topics in this lecture on German
-spy methods was this: “Germany pays nothing
-for its spying on us.—We pay it all.—How long
-will we stand it?”</p>
-
-<p>Well, we stood it for a long time—too long
-a time by half. But not long enough to permit
-Captain Staughton to lecture before many audiences,
-nor to ask this question too frequently. He
-gulled a few suburban Sunday schools, but his arrest
-put an end at least to his attempt to pick up a
-bit of odd change by collecting insurance.</p>
-
-<p>For the steamship <i>Tennyson</i> was British territory,
-and, as this is written, the report comes that
-this picturesque charlatan is going back across the
-Atlantic, to be tried for the murder of a British
-sailor. So begins the last chapter in the story of
-Fritz Duquesne.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 id="X" class="vspace">X<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE PRUSSIAN, THE BOLSHEVIK, AND THE
-ANARCHIST</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>We caught a glimpse, in the chapter describing
-the attempt to wreck St. Patrick’s Cathedral, of
-the peace-time game of the anarchist group; we
-looked into their meeting places and their disorderly
-minds; and those of us who are familiar
-with the localities which were their haunts in New
-York City will have been enabled to visualize with
-some clearness the squalid surroundings in which
-they worked. War gave them new opportunities,
-and possibly a few high-lights which the Bomb
-Squad caught of the anarchist, I. W. W., and
-Russian activities since 1914 may prove to be
-readable. If they are readable the author should
-be content, but he will not be unless he has put
-before his people something which may serve as a
-warning for the period of readjustment which
-the end of war has opened.</p>
-
-<p>An anarchist publication appeared in New York,
-dated November 15, 1918, four days after Germany<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
-had signed the armistice, with this legend
-on its front page, in large type:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“The War Is Dead: Long Live the Revolution!”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">It reflects the joyful frame of mind with which
-orthodox anarchists received the news of peace,
-and hailed the beginning of what they thought
-would be unrestrained guerilla warfare on law and
-class. They had done very little to help the war,
-and their two chief figures, Emma Goldman and
-Alexander Berkman, were in prison for obstructing
-the draft of America’s army. Yet the anarchists
-as a class were extremely happy. Let us review
-some of the reasons why.</p>
-
-<p>On October 25, 1915, Har Dayal, who had
-fled at the outbreak of war to the protection of
-Berlin, where he was placed in charge of the Indian
-Nationalist Committee, wrote from Amsterdam,
-Holland, to Alexander Berkman in New
-York. The letter follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="in0">
-“Dear Comrade:
-</p>
-
-<p>“I am well and busy and sad. Can you send
-me some earnest and sincere comrades, men and
-women, who would like to help our Indian revolutionary
-movement in some way or other? I need
-the coöperation of very earnest comrades. Perhaps
-you can find them in New York or at Paterson.
-They should be real fighters, I. W. W.’s or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
-anarchists. Our Indian party will make all necessary
-arrangements.</p>
-
-<p>“If some comrades wish to come, they should
-come to Holland. We have a centre in Amsterdam,
-and Dutch comrades are working with us.
-If some comrades are ready to come, please telegraph
-me from New York to the following address:</p>
-
-<p class="in0 in2">
-<span class="in1">“‘Israel Aaronson, c/o Madame Kercher,</span><br />
-<span class="in2">“‘116 Oude Scheveningerweg,</span><br />
-<span class="in3">“‘Scheveningen, Holland.’</span>
-</p>
-
-<p>“My assumed name is ‘Israel Aaronson.’
-Kindly don’t telegraph in your own name. The
-word ‘yes’ will suffice. The Rotterdam-Amerika
-Line will receive instructions from us here to
-give tickets, etc., to as many persons as you recommend.
-All financial arrangements will be made
-by our party.</p>
-
-<p>“News from India is good. We have lost (?)
-some very brave comrades in the recent skirmishes.</p>
-
-<p>“It would be better if you could intimate in
-your telegram how many comrades wish to come.
-For instance, put the number in some sentence.
-I shall understand, e. g., Five months’ holiday
-coming. Etc., etc.</p>
-
-<p>“The need for the services of comrades is
-urgent. Please do come to our help. We are
-fighting against heavy odds.</p>
-
-<p>“With love and respect.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright"><span class="l4">“Your for the Fight,</span><br />
-“<span class="smcap">Har Dayal</span>.”
-</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span></p>
-
-<p class="in0">“P. S. Kindly be very careful in keeping everything
-secret and confidential. When comrades
-arrive they should go and see Domela Nieuwenhuis,
-20 Burgmestre Schooklaan, Hilversum (near
-Amsterdam). He will tell them where to meet
-me. Please also write a letter to the above address
-in Scheveningen, in addition to the telegram.
-Telegram may be intercepted.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-“H. D.”
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<div id="ip_248" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 16em;">
- <img src="images/i_248a.jpg" width="250" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Lieutenant Commander Spencer Eddy</div></div>
-
-<p>Not satisfied apparently that this letter would
-reach Berkman, Har Dayal wrote another a week
-later, which read as follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-<p class="sigright">
-<span class="l3">“Address: Israel Aaronson,</span><br />
-<span class="l2">“c/o Madame Kercher,</span><br />
-<span class="l1">“116 Oude Scheveningerweg,</span><br />
-“Scheveningen.
-</p>
-
-<p class="in0">
-“Dear Comrade:
-</p>
-
-<p>“I am well and busy. Can you send me some
-earnest and sincere comrades men and women, to
-help our Indian revolutionary party at this juncture?
-They should be persons of good character.
-If Tannenbaum is free, would he like to come?</p>
-
-<p>“Please keep this matter strictly <em>secret</em> and <em>confidential</em>.
-Kindly don’t discuss it with too many
-people.</p>
-
-<p>“This is a great opportunity for our party. I
-need the coöperation of earnest comrades for very
-important work. Several of our comrades have
-come from India with encouraging news and messages.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
-“If some comrades can come, please <em>wire</em> and
-<em>write</em> to the above address to my assumed name,
-‘Israel Aaronson.’ I shall send you money immediately
-to the name which you telegraph. Let
-it be a name beginning with a B. I shall understand.
-Please don’t telegraph in your own name.</p>
-
-<p>“Kindly also word the telegram in such a way
-that I can understand how many comrades are
-coming. If five comrades wish to come, please
-wire:</p>
-
-<p class="center">“‘Five hundred dollars job vacant come.’</p>
-
-<p class="in0">Just put the number of comrades before the ‘<em>hundred</em>.’
-Or use any other device.</p>
-
-<p>“Kindly also send me names and addresses of
-the prominent anarchist comrades in Denmark,
-France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Germany,
-Austria, and other European countries.
-Please also send letters of introduction for me
-to them from Emma or yourself, if you know
-them.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>And so on. There is enough to show the company
-the Hindu-German intriguers kept, and to
-show that the Hindu committee in Berlin had
-enough money to buy mercenaries from the American
-anarchist group, for which the American
-brokers would hardly go unrewarded. Rintelen,
-within a week of his arrival in the United States
-in May, 1915, had tried to hire anarchists to blow
-up shipping and start strikes in munitions plants.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
-It further shows that during that week in October
-of 1915, Har Dayal had a bright thought that if
-he could only get letters from Emma Goldman or
-Berkman introducing him to the anarchists of
-Europe, and could perhaps introduce to them in
-turn his lieutenant, Frank Tannenbaum, from
-America—the same who stormed St. Alphonsus’
-church with a gang of I. W. W.’s in 1914, demanding
-food—he could hoodwink the anarchists
-into believing that he was playing their game,
-and really make good use of them in playing his
-game—which of course was Berlin’s.</p>
-
-<p>As it happened, Tannenbaum was busy. So
-was Emma. So was Berkman, who received the
-letter. He was just formulating plans to go to
-San Francisco and become an editor—not a new
-avocation, for he had for ten years helped Emma
-Goldman issue a publication known as “Mother
-Earth”—and to carry out certain radical and
-novel ideas. Before we sketch the way in which
-he put those ideas on paper, it may be well to see
-what experiences he had had to generate ideas,
-and just what promise his career contained that he
-would be of guiding benefit to these United States.</p>
-
-<p>Alexander Berkman was a Russian by birth, and
-was then about 44 years old. When he was
-a youth of 20 he became involved in the famous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
-Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, and on July 22,
-1892, he burst into the office of Henry Frick, a
-steel manufacturer, in the Carnegie Building in
-Pittsburg and shot that gentleman in the neck.
-He then went to the Western Penitentiary and
-served fourteen years. This qualified him as a
-rare martyr among anarchists. After he got out
-of prison he was occasionally arrested in various
-cities, for wherever he appeared among advocates
-of violence there was pretty certain to be trouble.
-The long prison term had given him a chance to
-develop his mind, and he had written 512 pages
-on “The Prison Life of an Anarchist,” which the
-“Mother Earth Publishing Company” brought
-out, and which sold for $1.15—a very interesting
-book indeed.</p>
-
-<p>So he went to San Francisco in the fall of 1915.
-A short time before he left New York his friend
-Bill Shatoff gave him a farewell dinner. As the
-evening wore on the diners adjourned to the
-neighborhood of Second Avenue and Fifth Street
-for a frolic, and Berkman and Shatoff playfully
-mauled a policeman, and took his club away, for
-which both men were arrested. But that did not
-interfere long with Berkman’s departure for the
-Coast, and the purpose and fruit of his journey
-appeared within a short time.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_252" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 28em;">
- <img src="images/i_252a.jpg" width="444" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Major Fuller Potter, Military Intelligence</div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
-It was called <i>The Blast</i>. According to its own
-description <i>The Blast</i> was a revolutionary labor
-weekly, which meant that it preached revolution
-every so often to those who had a grievance
-against their employers and to those who had
-no employers but who had a deep contempt for
-anything of the sort. Alexander Berkman appeared
-as editor and publisher, E. B. Morton
-as associate editor, and M. E. Fitzgerald as manager.
-It sold for five cents a copy, unless you
-bought it in bundles, in which case you paid half
-that price.</p>
-
-<p>In the first issue, dated January 15, 1916, the
-title of the paper is explained by the editor. “Do
-you mean to destroy?” he asks. “Do you mean
-to build? These are the questions we have been
-asked from many quarters by inquirers sympathetic
-and otherwise. Our reply is frank and
-bold: We mean both: to destroy and to build.
-For socially speaking, Destruction is the beginning
-of Construction.... The time is NOW.
-The breath of discontent is heavy upon this wide
-land. It permeates mill and mine, field and factory.
-Blind rebellion stalks upon highway and
-byway. To fire it with the spark of Hope, to kindle
-it with the light of Vision, and turn pale discontent
-into conscious social action—that is the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
-crying problem of the hour. It is the great work
-calling to be done. To work, then, and blasted
-be every obstacle in the way of the Regeneration!”
-In a congratulatory telegram in the same
-issue, Emma wrote to Alexander: “Let <i>The
-Blast</i> re-echo from coast to coast, inspiring
-strength and courage into the disinherited, and
-striking terror into the hearts of the craven enemy,
-now that one more of our brothers has fallen a
-victim to the insatiable Moloch. May <i>The Blast</i>
-tear up the solidified ignorance and cruelty of our
-social structure. Blast away! To the daring belongs
-the future.”</p>
-
-<p>A sample of the methods by which <i>The Blast</i>
-proposed to begin its regeneration of the disinherited
-is this delicate editorial paragraph:</p>
-
-<p>“<i>Judas Made Respectable.</i></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>“Judas Iscariot delivered the Nazarene agitator
-into the hands of the Roman District Attorney.
-This base betrayal incensed the people
-against the mercenary stool-pigeon. Judas had
-enough decency to go and hang himself.”</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">A slap evidently at the person whom Emma referred
-to in her telegram, who had just sold out to
-Moloch.</p>
-
-<p>It was a cardinal principle of the paper to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
-scurrilous and direct in its attacks upon the enemies
-of anarchy. General Harrison Grey Otis, a Los
-Angeles publisher whose newspaper building was
-bombed in 1912 after labor trouble, was referred
-to as “General Hungry Growl Otis,” Colonel
-Roosevelt as “The Human Blowout.” The
-leading cartoon of the second issue, drawn—and
-well drawn—by Robert Minor, showed a huge
-figure of a laborer bearing on a tray the figure
-of a tiny though corpulent judge, its mouth open
-in speech, and its chair guarded by three stolid
-elephantine policemen. The laborer is bearing
-the dish to a feast of anarchists, the title of
-Minor’s contribution is “The Court Orders—.”
-The court had evidently ordered in the direction
-of <i>The Blast</i>, and Berkman did not like the order.
-In the same issue he wrote editorials against conscription
-in England, against the convention of
-the American Federation of Labor which had just
-been held in San Francisco, against its president,
-Samuel Gompers, and against national preparedness.</p>
-
-<p>I have quoted these extracts not because they
-are specially interesting or readable, but because
-they will give one who is not wholly familiar with
-the practical platform of anarchy a suggestion of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
-anarchy’s tone of voice. It is not friendly, but is
-on the contrary quite snobbish. Selig Schulberg,
-in an article on Mexico, gently suggested: “Toilers
-of America, if the Hearsts, Otises and Rockefellers
-have property, for which they want protection,
-in Mexico, let <em>them</em> protect it!” The editor
-says: “The Fords, the Bryans, the Jane Addams
-may be sincere. If so they are blind leaders
-of the blind.” A writer signing himself “L.
-E. Claypool,” wrote, under the title “Preparedness
-is Hell,” this tribute to our tortured Ally in
-Europe: “Most of you gents that yell (i. e., yell,
-‘What about Belgium?’) never heard of Belgium
-till this war broke out. A lot of you probably
-don’t know that the language of the Belgians is
-French. Further, you don’t know that Belgium
-had a treaty with England and France which
-placed the little nation in the war before the German
-invasion. You may not know that French
-and English engineers and military experts had
-surveyed the land and were preparing to make it
-a battle ground long before the Germans did so.”
-That statement was typical German propaganda
-of a very crude sort, calculated to appeal by its insinuation
-to the class of readers who affected <i>The
-Blast</i>. The platform of the paper, in a word, was
-Against.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
-Berkman was in a rich field for labor unrest.
-California is a strong labor state. The whole
-country, outside as well as inside California, had
-been excited over the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> bomb
-affair in 1912, and it revived that excitement
-when two of the culprits were prosecuted three
-years later. One finds constant reference to the
-case in the files of <i>The Blast</i>, and to the strikes
-at Lawrence, Mass., and Ludlow, Colorado, and
-Youngstown, Ohio. Anti-capitalistic rough-house
-in any corner of the continent was good copy for
-Berkman. If it flagged for a moment he took
-up the cudgels for his friend Emma, who had
-just been arrested in New York and sentenced to
-the workhouse for distributing birth-control literature.
-Or he dove into international relations,
-comparing in one instance Villa and President Wilson,
-with little mercy for the latter. The issue
-of April Fool’s Day, 1916, carried a leading editorial
-directed against the Pacific Coast Defense
-League, just organized to bring the national guard
-of the Pacific and Mountain states into a condition
-of higher efficiency and to start a program
-of “healthy physical and military training” in the
-public schools. This editorial was signed by Tom
-Mooney, who soon appeared in the columns of
-the paper in another capacity.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
-The publication did not go unheeded by the
-Post Office department. On May 1 Berkman
-burst out with an article headed, “To Hell With
-The Government,” in which he used language that
-would make any ordinary head of hair curl up.
-He was angry because the Government had issued
-an order holding up all succeeding issues of the
-paper. In an editorial he said he welcomed the
-uprising in Ireland—the Easter Day affair in
-Dublin which cost several Sinn Feiners their lives.
-Other anarchistic publications in the country were
-meeting the same fate. <i>The Alarm</i>, in Chicago,
-<i>Revolt</i> of New York, <i>Regeneracion</i>, a Mexican
-revolutionary sheet issued in Los Angeles, and
-<i>Voluntad</i>, a Spanish paper in New York, were
-closed up. But Berkman went on publishing, and
-howling about the constitutional freedom of the
-press. Back in New York other friends of his
-had been making more trouble: Mrs. Max Eastman
-and Bolton Hall were arrested for circulating
-birth-control pamphlets, and Bouck White was
-jailed for distributing an effigy of the American
-flag bearing a dollar-mark. Berkman took up
-their cases and howled. He sent appeals for help
-in his fight against the Post Office department, and
-raised a little money. One of his liberal contributors
-was a writer named John Reed, who sent him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
-five dollars from New York. Then a strike broke
-out, fostered by the I. W. W., on the iron ranges
-in Northern Minnesota, and William M. Haywood
-wrote Berkman an appeal for help which
-the latter published in <i>The Blast</i> with a eulogy.
-He found no dearth of subjects to fill his pages,
-and then suddenly came an interruption.</p>
-
-<p>San Francisco turned out in a great preparedness
-parade on July 22. Someone threw a bomb
-into the ranks of the marchers. Nine people were
-killed. The next issue of <i>The Blast</i> said substantially:
-“Well, they might have expected
-it,” and said actually: “To try to connect the
-Anarchists, the I. W. W., the Labor elements or
-the participants in the peace meeting with the
-bomb tragedy is stupid. The act was obviously
-the work of an individual who evidently sought
-to express his opposition to Preparedness for
-Slaughter by using the ammunition of Preparedness.
-Terrible as it is, it is merely a foretaste
-in miniature of what the people may expect multiplied
-a million times, from the Preparedness
-insanity.” When two men, Nolan and Tom
-Mooney, were arrested and charged with the
-crime, <i>The Blast</i> rushed to their defense. When
-Warren Billings and Israel Weinberg were added
-to the list of accused, <i>The Blast</i> ran sketches of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
-the defendants by Minor, the staff artist. The
-case was of consuming interest to the anarchist
-group, and they rubbed their hands, in <i>The Blast</i>
-office, over their good luck that it had happened
-right in their own little circle. <i>The Blast</i> ceased
-firing random shots and focussed on the bomb
-case in salvos, followed the course of the trials,
-drew a parallel between the condition of the San
-Francisco suspects and that of Fielden, Neebe and
-Schwab, three of the anarchists who were implicated
-in the Haymarket bomb outrage in Chicago
-in 1886 and pardoned.</p>
-
-<p>The business of being an anarchist became surrounded
-with more and more difficulty as the year
-drew toward a close. Caplan, the fourth Los
-Angeles bomb suspect to be tried, was convicted
-and sentenced to ten years; a group of laborers
-who had engaged in violence in strikes against the
-United States Steel Corporation were under sentence
-in a Pittsburg prison; Carlo Tresca (whom
-we recall as a speaker at the Brescia Circle in
-1915), and ten others were in jail in Duluth
-charged with murder in the I. W. W. strike on the
-Mesaba Iron range; the Magon brothers, two
-Mexican revolutionary anarchists, were in prison,
-and the days of <i>The Blast</i> were numbered. Berkman
-came back to New York in the fall. While<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
-he was absent, <i>The Blast</i> sputtered once more in its
-issue of January, 1917, with a venomous cartoon
-by Minor, and went out, for want of funds.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_260" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 26em;">
- <img src="images/i_260a.jpg" width="413" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Lieutenant A. R. Fish, Naval Intelligence</div></div>
-
-<p>Berkman found Emma Goldman well and prosperous.
-She had visited him in March in San
-Francisco, and again in June and July had delivered
-two series of birth-control lectures there.
-After her first visit, <i>The Blast</i> had blossomed
-out with a book advertisement, which included the
-list of volumes sold by the Mother Earth Publishing
-Company in New York. There were the
-usual texts on anarchy, revolution, and syndicalism,
-and it is interesting to note among the books sent
-to Berkman for review the following titles: “A
-Few Facts About British Rule In India. Published
-by the Hindustani Gadar, San Francisco,”
-“India’s ‘Loyalty’ to England. Published by
-The Indian Nationalist Party,” and “The Methods
-of the Indian Police in the Twentieth Century.
-Published by the Hindustan Gadar.” Har Dayal
-had been the editor of <i>Ghadr</i> until 1914; apparently
-his acquaintanceship with Berkman was
-being kept fresh by his successors at the nest of
-Hindu intrigue in Berkeley.</p>
-
-<p>But when Berkman got back to New York he
-found that birth-control was no longer the thing.
-A new development had taken place, half-way<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
-around the earth, and it looked promising for the
-anarchistic interests. So we must leave the two
-for a moment.</p>
-
-<p>On January 9, 1917, the Russian premier resigned.
-A fortnight later the newspapers announced
-that the Germans had recaptured considerable
-important ground on the Riga front.
-On February 3, the United States severed diplomatic
-relations with Germany, gave Bernstorff his
-papers, and sent him home two weeks later. On
-March 11 a revolutionary demonstration broke
-out in Petrograd, and the next day the Czar of
-All the Russias abdicated his throne. A new
-cabinet was formed, its foreign minister told the
-Allies that Russia would continue to fight, and
-the United States recognized the new régime.
-The news was hailed with a good deal of fraternal
-spirit in America, and with special cordiality in
-New York, where there were great numbers of
-Russians who had left Europe to escape the persecution
-of the old régime.</p>
-
-<p>Many of the New York Russians knew what
-was going to happen in Petrograd. The Bomb
-Squad made friends with an anarchist as early
-as February 1, 1917. On that day at a spot
-not far from where Shatoff and Berkman had
-attacked the policeman a year before, a certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
-Mr. Plotkin met a Mr. Bogdanovitch. Plotkin
-urged Bogdanovitch to call a special conference
-of all the revolutionary organizations in the
-city to protest against militarism. “No,” said
-the conservative Bogdanovitch. “Our group will
-either have to pass a resolution as a single unit, or
-else go over to Group 2 and see what they are
-doing about this news that we are going to have
-war. Don’t be too ready to jump to conclusions.”
-So the two went to call on Group 2, which was in
-session—some 50 Russians and Russian Jews,
-who spent the evening harmlessly reading the war
-prospects from American newspapers. No resolution
-was passed.</p>
-
-<p>The next night, however, there was a lecture at
-Beethoven Hall, at 210 East 5th Street. The
-speaker was introduced as “Mr. Bornstein,” who
-had just returned from Russia. “Mr. Bornstein”
-was Leon Trotzky.</p>
-
-<p>Trotzky, using the Russian language, told of
-the plans that were being developed for revolution.
-“You anarchists here,” he said, “don’t want any
-militarism or any government which is of no help
-to the working class, and is always ready to fire
-on the workman. It’s time you did away with
-such a government once and forever!” After his
-speech, the chairman, Comrade G. Chudnofsky,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
-rose and addressed the crowd of 300 in the hall,
-to this effect:</p>
-
-<p>“Comrades, some of you can’t read English.
-You don’t know what is going on until you see it
-in the Russian papers. Only to-day I noticed that
-the Police Commissioner is going to call out all the
-reserves he can get to handle the situation, since
-Germany notified America what she would do.
-The capitalistic government is <em>afraid of us</em>!
-They are afraid of the working class. Remember
-that, for in case of war, we can protest against
-militarism and start our own war. Here is a
-resolution which I propose to prevent any of our
-loyal number joining the army. I will read it.”
-And he read it.</p>
-
-<p>The next day Bill Shatoff was scheduled to
-speak at a meeting at Number 9 Second Avenue,
-but he was suddenly called to Boston, and a substitute
-took the platform. He was howled down
-because he made a speech which reflected loyalty
-to the United States. The audience consisted of
-75 Russians, of whom some 30 were anarchists
-known to the Bomb Squad. The United States
-severed diplomatic relations with Germany that
-night.</p>
-
-<p>On February 4 the representatives of several
-of the Russian anarchist groups were to meet at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
-534 East 5th Street and pass the resolution against
-militarism, but they could not agree upon it, and
-the session ended by postponing the matter.
-Most of the delegates present adjourned to 64
-East 7th Street (almost within earshot of the
-Washington Arch), to hear Chudnofsky rave
-against enlistment, the police, the government and
-the war.</p>
-
-<p>Those little meetings were typical of the eruptions
-which occurred throughout the poorer districts
-of the great city during the remainder of
-the month of February. Such propagandists as
-Chudnofsky and Trotzky, uttering their exhortations
-to a multiplication of such groups as gathered
-in the Fifth Street house, spread among the
-gossipy East Siders and into the remotest slums
-the news that great things were about to happen
-in Russia, and rumor and expectancy set the stage
-for the arrival of the news of the revolution on
-March 12. The leaders then began to mobilize
-their forces and act quickly. Under Shatoff,
-Schnabel and Rodes the revolutionary fire was
-passed along from one to another. The story
-was that Russia was free, reclaimed from Czardom
-and all that it had meant of oppression.</p>
-
-<p>The lid was off, and it was a case of first come,
-first served. The Provisional Government was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
-no better than any other, these men said. “Russia
-shall be ours.” “How?” asked the eager
-disciples. “By helping yourselves,” answered
-Shatoff and Schnabel and Rodes. “That’s all
-very well,” said the proletariat, “but we haven’t
-the price.” “Oh, in that case, come to the farewell
-meeting on March 26 for Leon Trotzky, at
-Harlem River Casino, and all will be made clear
-to you.”</p>
-
-<p>Some 800 people were at Trotzky’s farewell
-party, which was held under the auspices of the
-German Socialist Federation. Alexander Berkman
-and Emma Goldman were among those present.
-A blond Russian made a speech in which he
-said: “Comrades, some of us are going back to
-Russia to push the revolution as we think it ought
-to be pushed, and those who remain here must get
-ready to do their share of the work as it ought to
-be done.” Trotzky then rose and speaking first
-in German, then in Russian, repeated the advice
-the previous speaker had given, and added:
-“You who stay here must work hand in hand with
-the revolution in Russia, for only in that way
-can you accomplish revolution in the United
-States.” He was cheered to the echo.</p>
-
-<p>(There are still those who wonder why we have
-not recognized the Bolsheviki.)</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
-The pier of the Norwegian-American line the
-next morning was a strange sight. Trotzky, with
-his wife, Chudnofsky, Plotkin, and a group of
-fifty more Russians, including such names as Muhin,
-Rapaport, Dnieprofsky, Yaroshefsky and
-Rashkofsky, sailed for Norway. An undersized,
-wild-eyed, fanatic little plucked-bantam of a Russian
-expatriate literally set out from Hoboken
-to upset the Provisional Government of Russia,
-prevent the formation of a republic, stop the war
-with Germany and prevent interference from
-other governments—that was his open boast.
-And, if such a mission can be crowned with success,
-he succeeded.</p>
-
-<p>The leaders of the groups left behind began
-that very afternoon to examine recruits for the
-return to Russia. They met at 534 East 5th
-Street and elected a committee of five to serve as
-examining board for applicants for the $20 to
-$50 free passage money extended by the Provisional
-Government to help Russians who had fled
-the persecutions of the old days to repatriate themselves.
-It is unnecessary to state that the Provisional
-Government hardly knew how thoroughly
-these homing pigeons were going to re-establish
-themselves. All those who passed muster were
-put down for a sailing date.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
-The Norwegian ship bearing Trotzky and his
-party put into Halifax and the British detained
-the entire passenger list. On April 15 a mass
-meeting of anarchists, socialists, and Industrial
-Workers of the World was held at Manhattan
-Lyceum to make a formal protest to the British
-government against their detention. Kerensky
-asked for their release, and they were allowed
-to go on. By this time a second consignment
-had left, but by a different route. On April
-3 George Brewer, H. Gurin, Mr. and Mrs. David
-Rohlis, one Kotz, one Schmidt, one Nemiroff and
-27 others left the Pennsylvania Station for Chicago,
-Vancouver, Japan and Siberia. On April
-23 Comrades Bogdanovitch, Bendetsky, Albert
-Greenfield, John (or Ivan) Stepanoff, Michael
-Smirnoff, Henry Shklar and 89 more left on the
-Erie Railroad for Seattle, Japan and Siberia. On
-the 12th day of May, “Dynamite Louise” Berg,
-sister of the anarchist who was killed July 4,
-1914, by the accidental explosion of a bomb,
-boarded the steamship <i>United States</i> of the Scandinavian-American
-Line in Hoboken for Christiania
-and Russia. On that ship sailed nearly
-a hundred others of the anarchist and revolutionary
-element. Ninety more, including Sokoloff,
-a prominent I. W. W., left for San Francisco<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
-and Japan two days later. On May 26 Mrs. Bill
-Shatoff, with Alexander Broide, J. Wishniefsky,
-and 18 more members of the Coöperative Anarchist
-Organization sailed from Hoboken on
-the <i>Oskar II</i>. Two days passed and Meyer Bell,
-an anarchist who had seen the inside of many an
-American jail for revolutionary agitation, and
-Mrs. Meyer Bell, with 110 others took their departure
-for San Francisco and the Orient. The
-last consignment but one, a group of 90 more potential
-Bolsheviki, followed them on June 24.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_268" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
- <img src="images/i_268a.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">Captain John B. Trevor, Military Intelligence</div></div>
-
-<p>Shatoff and Wolin waited until their flock had
-been herded out of the country, and then vanished
-themselves. No one knew their route, but they
-were heard from in Seattle. Altogether some
-600 anarchists made the pilgrimage. Some never
-reached Russia. Others who did get back found
-that conditions offered slim picking, and the Chinese
-and Manchurian ports are sprinkled with
-them to-day—men without a country, who cannot
-live in Russia, and who may not return to the
-United States.</p>
-
-<p>Those who did get through to the capital of
-Russia straightway joined the organization.
-Trotzky had found Lenine there with plans already
-well advanced. The Provisional Government
-superficially was adequate to handle the situation,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
-and during June it gave some slight promise
-of being able to prosecute its share of the war, but
-a breach was coming. A Council of Workmen
-and Soldiers had sprung up to oppose the Duma
-and the government when the Duma voted for
-an immediate offensive in Galicia, the Council
-voted for a separate peace. Kerensky swung himself
-back into balance for a month, and led a
-military offensive. It turned into a retreat, the
-retreat into a rout. Korniloff took command of
-the army on August 2, and the following day the
-military governor of Petrograd was assassinated.
-The deposed Czar was taken to Siberia. On
-September 2 Kerensky tried the expedient of arrest
-against his rising enemies in Moscow. On
-September 16 he proclaimed a new republic, but
-political structures could not keep out the terrifying
-German military advance that already was
-threatening Petrograd nor the German propaganda
-which was already there. Mid-October
-saw the government in flight to Moscow. On the
-21st of October Leon Trotzky, at the head of
-the Bolsheviki in the Council, declared his party
-for an immediate democratic peace, and left the
-hall at their head, cheering. Municipal elections
-on November 1 rejected the Bolsheviki, but they
-would not be rejected, and on November 7 the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
-Maximalists deposed Kerensky and took possession
-of the Government. Lenine became premier,
-Trotzky minister of foreign affairs.</p>
-
-<p>The New York delegation won influential positions
-under the new régime. A United States
-senator has described the current Russian government
-as nothing but “Lenine and a gang of anarchists
-from New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.”
-Wolin took charge of a branch of the press—a
-sort of commissioner of public misinformation.
-Shatoff, in America a humble syndicalist and
-I. W. W., rose to the eminence of chairman of
-the “Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle
-Against Speculators and the Counter Revolution”
-in Petrograd, a commission whose activities
-are perhaps better described by its common
-title in the capital. It is called the “Blood and
-Murder” or the “To the Wall” committee. He
-has filled in his spare time as Commissioner of
-Railroads, and has been commonly credited in
-Petrograd with the murder of the Czar and his
-family. Ouritzky, Shatoff’s predecessor at the
-head of the Committee, had amassed a fortune
-of some four million roubles during his tenure
-of office. He died a violent death. Shatoff, in
-October of 1918, had not followed suit. The
-same John Reed who contributed to the support<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
-of the <i>Blast</i> appeared in Petrograd as a sympathetic
-correspondent, and was made consul to
-New York—a portfolio which he was unable
-to use when he returned to New York because
-of his indictment, along with Max Eastman and
-several other editors of a paper known as <i>The
-Masses</i>, for attempting to obstruct the draft.
-The balance of the New York anarchists who
-made up the expeditionary force of 1917 found
-their way, such of them as escaped the rigors
-of Petrograd life, into positions of influence in
-the government of one hundred or more millions
-of Russian people. To be sure, their hold
-is not too secure, but they are enjoying for the
-moment a sense of power which is intoxicating.
-Nothing seems to please a Bolshevik of the New
-York City group more than power—the same
-thing he tried to overthrow. I suppose it makes
-a difference whose power it happens to be.</p>
-
-<p>Neither Goldman nor Berkman returned to
-Russia. Their publishing and bookselling business
-kept them here, and both were always in demand
-as lecturers. Both had pictured themselves
-for many years as the champions of anarchy in
-the United States, and it is conceivable that they
-did not wish to pass over their sceptres to any less
-well qualified successors. Unlike the ringleaders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
-of the I. W. W., these anarchists did not dodge
-real work. Both had active minds, and were happiest
-when they were busy. Berkman’s writing
-at times shows a certain cheerful tenderness underneath
-its bombast, and Emma Goldman had a
-rather good-natured sarcasm at times as a speaker.</p>
-
-<p>The two cast their lot in with the pacifists, the
-anti-conscriptionists, and the factions whose chief
-aim was to interfere with America’s going to war.
-Emma began to lecture on the subject. On the
-night of May 18 she spoke to a meeting in the
-Harlem River Casino. After a preamble advising
-the audience that government agents were
-present and that violence would be out of order,
-she drew what she probably considered a logical
-conclusion from this advice and shouted:</p>
-
-<p>“And so, friends, we don’t care what people
-will say about us. We only care for one thing,
-and that is to demonstrate to-night, and to demonstrate
-as long as we can be able to speak, that
-when America went to war ostensibly to fight for
-democracy, it was a dastardly lie. It never went
-to war for democracy!... It is not a war of
-economic independence, it is a war for conquest.
-It is a war for military power. It is a war for
-money. It is a war for the purpose of trampling
-underfoot every vestige of liberty that you people<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span>
-have worked for, for the last forty or thirty or
-twenty-five years, and therefore we refuse to support
-such a war....</p>
-
-<p>“We believe in violence and we will use violence....
-How many people are going to refuse
-to conscript? I say there are enough. I could
-count fifty thousand, and there will be more....
-They will not register! What are you going to
-do if there are 500,000? It will not be such an
-easy job, and it will compel the government to
-sit up and take notice, and therefore we are going
-to support, with all the money and publicity at our
-hands, all the men who will refuse to register and
-who will refuse to fight.</p>
-
-<p>“I hope this meeting is not going to be the last.
-As a matter of fact we are planning something
-else.... We will have a demonstration of all
-the people who will not be conscripted, and who
-will not register. We are going to have the largest
-demonstration this city has ever seen, and no
-power on earth will stop us.... If there is any
-man in this hall that despairs, let him look across
-at Russia ... and see the wonderful thing that
-revolution has done....</p>
-
-<p>“What is your answer? Your answer to war
-must be a general strike, and then the governing
-class will have something on its hands....”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
-She wound up her speech with an appeal for
-funds, and said that her paper, <i>Mother Earth</i>,
-was going to support the rebellion against the
-draft law which had been signed by the president
-that very day. <i>Mother Earth</i> spoke, in her next
-issue, which appeared shortly before registration
-day, June 5, and spoke in fairly disapproving
-terms toward conscription. But the sun went
-down into New Jersey on registration day without
-having witnessed the greatest demonstration
-New York City ever saw, or any demonstration
-whatever save the quiet, cheerful enrollment of
-what later became a heroic national army.</p>
-
-<p>On June 15 Emma Goldman and Alexander
-Berkman were arrested in the office of <i>Mother
-Earth</i> at 20 East 125th Street. On June 27 they
-were arraigned for trial. On July 9 the jury
-pronounced them guilty of having attempted to
-obstruct the draft. Judge Mayer thereupon sentenced
-Berkman to two years in the Federal penitentiary
-at Atlanta, Goldman to the state penitentiary
-at Jefferson City, Missouri for two years,
-and fined each of them $10,000. It was a stiff
-blow to organized anarchy—the maximum sentence
-possible, and the judge followed it by directing
-the District Attorney, Harold A. Content, to
-notify the Commissioner of Labor of the conviction,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
-in order that when the two emerged from
-prison, they might be deported as aliens convicted
-of two or more crimes to the country from which
-they came, bringing uplift to down-trodden America.</p>
-
-<p>Their work has since been carried on in a more
-or less desultory way. They, too, have become
-official martyrs to the cause, whose names will be
-inscribed along with those of Brescia, the Haymarket
-murderers, and a score of others, on the
-anarchist service flag. The undercurrent of opposition
-appeared spasmodically during the war
-and it became necessary for an Alabama Judge, sitting
-in the District Court of New York, on October
-25, 1918, to impose maximum sentences
-under the espionage act upon three more advocates
-of unrest, Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lipman
-and Hyman Lachnowsky, the ringleaders of
-a group who circulated leaflets denouncing armed
-intervention in Russia and advocating a general
-strike. They were sentenced to twenty years
-apiece; a fourth member got three years and a
-$1,000 fine. A woman in the group, Mollie
-Steiner, was sentenced to fifteen years.</p>
-
-<p>The efforts at “demonstration” which the imported
-anarchists in America have employed are
-neither as picturesque nor as popularly received<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
-as those of their comrades in the old world.
-Anarchy is out of tune in America. Prussianism
-has already had its answer from the United
-States. Bolshevism is not for a well-educated,
-deep-breathing nation like ours. And anarchy,
-the poorest wretch of the three, must make terrifying
-faces through some other window than that
-of a country full of people who are going to continue
-to make this democracy safe for itself.</p>
-
-<p class="p4 center wspace">THE END</p>
-
-<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote">
-<h2 class="nobreak p1" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
-
-<p>Punctuation and spelling were made
-consistent when a predominant preference was found
-in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.
-Inconsistent hyphenation was not changed.</p>
-
-<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
-quotation marks were remedied when the change was
-obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p>
-
-<p>Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned
-between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions
-of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page
-references in the List of Illustrations lead to the
-corresponding illustrations.</p>
-
-<p>Transcribers improved readability of some numbers
-in some illustrations, and switched the transcribed
-sequence of the text of one pair of “random pages”
-(following page 26) to make it easier to follow.</p>
-
-<p>Transcriber corrected the Title page misspelling of
-“SMALLL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY” to
-“SMALL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY”, which is how it appears
-on the Copyright page.
-
-Transcriber removed redundant book title just
-above the title of the first chapter.
-</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
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