These German societies and other agencies were used not merely to promote sympathy for the German cause, but also to influence public opinion in matters of purely American interest. On January 21, 1916, Henry Weismann, president of the Brooklyn branch of the German-American National Alliance sent a report to headquarters in Chicago, regarding the activities of his organization in the recent elections. In the Twenty-third Congressional District of New York, Ellsworth J. Healy had been a candidate for Congress. Both he and another man, John J. Fitzgerald, candidate for Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, were regarded by German interests as “unneutral.” They were defeated, and Weismann in commenting upon the matter, wrote: “_The election returns prove that Deutschtum is armed and able, when the word is given, to seat its men._” Even in the campaign for preparedness Germany took a hand. Berlin was appealed to in some cases as to the attitude that American citizens of German descent should adopt toward this policy. Professor Appelmann of the University of Vermont wrote to Dr. Paul Rohrbach, one of the advisers of the Wilhelmstrasse, requesting his advice upon the subject. Dr. Rohrbach replied that American _Deutschtum_ should not be in favor of preparedness, because “_it is quite conceivable that in the event of an American-Japanese war, Germany might adopt an attitude of very benevolent neutrality toward Japan and so make it easier for Japan to defeat the United States_.” And not long ago the _Herold des Glaubens_ of St. Louis, made this statement: “When we found that the agitation for preparedness was in the interest of the munition makers and that its aim was a war with Germany, we certainly turned against it and we have agitated against it for the last three months.” But this anti-militaristic spirit was a rather sudden development on the part of the German societies. In 1911, when a new treaty of arbitration with Great Britain was under consideration, a group of roughs, _led and organized by a German_, violently broke up a meeting held under the auspices of the New York Peace Society to support that treaty. The man who broke that meeting up was Alphonse G. Koelble. It was this same Koelble who in 1915, when Germany’s attack upon America was most bitter, organized a meeting of “The Friends of Peace,” in order to protest against militarism! Strange, is it not, this inconsistency? _Or was it that Mr. Koelble was acting under orders?_