Perhaps Dr. Albert would have accompanied the attachés had not the submarine situation been so acute. For while the Government had in its possession sufficient provocation for his dismissal, and that of Count von Bernstorff as well, the Government's desire at that time was peace, and stubbornly, patiently, it clung to its ideal in a dogged attempt to preserve its neutrality. Dr. Albert had run the British blockade with his supplies for Germany, and had roared protest when Great Britain seized cargoes of meat intended for Germany, although she paid the packers for them in full. He had floated a German loan through Chandler & Company, a New York house of which Rudolph Hecht, one of his agents, was a member; he had sold $500,000,000 worth of German securities; to sum up his financial activities, he had played every trick he knew, and his last year in America was unfruitful of result, for he was watched. He returned to Germany personally enriched, for time and again, prompted by stock tips from his German friends on stocks or "September lard," and by diplomatic information which he knew would influence the stock market, he made handsome winnings for von Bernstorff and himself. FOOTNOTE: [4] The captain added: "The sinking of the _Adriatic_" (by which he meant the _Arabic_, which had been sunk without warning on August 19, with a loss of sixteen lives, two of them American), "may be the last straw for the sake of our cause. I hope the matter will blow over." On October 5 the German Government, consistent with its assurance of September 1 that no more ships would be sunk without warning, disavowed the sinking of the _Arabic_, and offered to pay indemnities. So the matter "blew over." CHAPTER XV THE PUBLIC MIND Dr. Bertling--The _Staats-Zeitung_--George Sylvester Viereck and _The Fatherland_--Efforts to buy a press association--Bernhardi's articles--Marcus Braun and _Fair Play_--Plans for a German news syndicate--Sander, Wunnenberg, Bacon and motion pictures--The German-American Alliance--Its purposes--Political activities--Colquitt of Texas--The "Wisconsin Plan"--Lobbying--Misappropriation of German Red Cross funds--Friends of Peace--The American Truth Society. Some one has said that America will emerge from this war a gigantic national entity, a colossus wrought of the fused metal of her scores of mixed nationalities. That is naturally desirable, and historically probable. If such is the result, Germany will have lost for all time one of her most powerful allies--the German population in the United States. Nearly one-tenth of the population of the United States in 1914 was of either German birth or parentage. Ethnic lines are not erased in a generation except by some great emergency, such as war affords. Germany is doomed to a deserved disappointment in the loss of her American stock--deserved because she tried so hard to Germanize America.