By assuming the censorship of the Spanish, West Indian, and Latin American mails, the American authorities were able to break up the trade relations which up to that time had existed between German sympathizers in the United States and German forwarding agents in South America. In the latter months of the war Germany found herself in desperate need of rubber in any form for use in electrical devices, particularly for the construction of electrical apparatus to be used in torpedoes and submarines. Hence we find the censorship intercepting suspicious orders for such goods as dental rubber, tobacco-pouches, rubber soles and heels. The censorship also intercepted and confiscated hundreds of tons of German propaganda literature prepared by German agents in Spain and intended for distribution in Latin America. Had this propaganda reached the German agents in South and Central America to whom it was addressed and had it been distributed in accordance with their plans, it would unquestionably have resulted in great social unrest, political demonstrations, and revolutions, if not, indeed, in actual war between certain Latin American countries, thus interrupting our supply of certain products essential to the manufacture of munitions. Had the Germans, for example, succeeded in starting a war between Chile and Bolivia over the Tacna-Arica question, our supply of Chilean nitrates, which we imported in enormous quantities, in all probability would have been cut off. In fact, it was the likelihood of just such an occurrence which led us to spend millions of dollars in the erection of nitrate plants in the United States, thus making us independent of the Chilean nitrate beds. The censorship was likewise largely responsible for preventing revolutions which were planned to take place simultaneously in Cuba and Mexico. German agents had planned to launch a revolution in the Oriente province of Cuba with a view to burning the cane-fields, while at the same time an insurrection was to break out in the Tampico district of Mexico, thus providing an excuse for the destruction of the oil-wells. Had this plan been successful—and it came much nearer being successful than most persons realize—our main sources of supply for oil and sugar would have disappeared. But the plotters in Cuba were indiscreet enough to discuss their plans in letters sent to their representatives in the United States; these letters were intercepted by the postal censors, and a few days later a transport, loaded to the gunwales with American Marines, set sail for Guantanamo. The commander of the Marines had orders to prevent the peace of the island republic from being disturbed. And he did. For which we—and the Cubans—have to thank the postal censors.