Produced by ellinora, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE GERMAN SECRET SERVICE IN AMERICA 1914-1918 [Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_ Count Johann von Bernstorff, the responsible director of Germany's secret policies in America] THE GERMAN SECRET SERVICE IN AMERICA 1914-1918 BY JOHN PRICE JONES AUTHOR OF "AMERICA ENTANGLED" AND PAUL MERRICK HOLLISTER [Illustration: Logo] BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) "It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial German Government left us no self-respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign government. The military masters of Germany denied us the right to be neutral. They filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf. When they found they could not do that, their agents diligently spread sedition amongst us and sought to draw our own citizens from their allegiance--and some of these agents were men connected with the official embassy of the German Government itself here in our own capital. They sought by violence to destroy our industries and arrest our commerce. They tried to incite Mexico to take up arms against us and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance with her--and that, not by indirection but by direct suggestion from the Foreign Office in Berlin. They impudently denied us the use of the high seas and repeatedly executed their threat that they would send to their death any of our people who ventured to approach the coasts of Europe. And many of our own people were corrupted. Men began to look upon their neighbors with suspicion and to wonder in their hot resentment and surprise whether there was any community in which hostile intrigue did not lurk. What great nation in such circumstances would not have taken up arms? Much as we have desired peace, it was denied us, and not of our own choice. This flag under which we serve would have been dishonored had we withheld our hand." --WOODROW WILSON, Flag Day Address June 14, 1917 INTRODUCTION