The year and a half between the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the severance of diplomatic relations was a period of terror for most Americans in Germany. Only those who were so sympathetic with Germany that they were anti-American found it pleasant to live there. One day one of the American girls employed in the confidential file room of the American Embassy was slapped in the face until she cried, by a German in civilian clothes, because she was speaking English in the subway. At another time the wife of a prominent American business man was spit upon and chased out of a public bus because she was speaking English. Then a group of women chased her down the street. Another American woman was stabbed by a soldier when she was walking on Friedrichstrasse with a friend because she was speaking English. When the State Department instructed Ambassador Gerard to bring the matter to the attention of the Foreign Office and to demand an apology Wilhelmstrasse referred the matter to the General Staff for investigation. The soldier was arrested and secretly examined. After many weeks had elapsed the Foreign Office explained that the man who had stabbed the woman was really not a soldier but a red cross worker. It was explained that he had been wounded and was not responsible for what he did. The testimony of the woman, however, and of other witnesses, showed that the man at the time he attacked the American was dressed in a soldier's uniform, which is grey, and which could not he mistaken for the black uniform of a red cross worker. It was often said in Berlin, "Germany hates England, fights France, fears Russia but loathes America." No one, not even American officials, questioned it. The hate campaign was bearing fruit. In January, 1916, there appeared in Berlin a publication called _Light and Truth_. It was a twelve-page circular in English and German attacking President Wilson and the United States. Copies were sent by mail to all Americans and to hundreds of thousands of Germans. It was edited and distributed by "The League of Truth." It was the most sensational document printed in Germany since the beginning of the war against a power with which Germany was supposed to be at peace. Page 6 contained two illustrations under the legend: WILSON AND HIS PRESS IS NOT AMERICA Underneath was this paragraph: