All these activities cost money. The German Embassy through Dr. Albert furnished the headquarters of the Alliance with sufficient funds for its many purposes. Count von Bernstorff is alleged to have handled a large fund for bribery of American legislators, but the fact has never been established, beyond his request in January, 1917, for $50,000, for such purposes. It is a fact, however, that the National German-American Alliance collected a sum of $886,670 during the years 1914-1917 for the German Red Cross; this was turned over to von Bernstorff for transmission to Germany, and officers of the Alliance have admitted that of this sum about $700,000 was probably employed in propaganda by Dr. Dernburg and Dr. Meyer-Gerhardt, who posed as the head of the German Red Cross in America. Contributions to the German and Austrian relief funds came in as late as October, 1917, although no part of them were forwarded to Europe after the entrance of America into the war. This last event occasioned further activity on the part of the Alliance; during the period which followed the break in diplomatic relaxations, and while Congress was debating the question of war, members of Congress were deluged with an extraordinary flood of telegrams from German-Americans cautioning them against taking such a step. These telegrams were prepared by the Alliance and the "American Neutrality League" and circulated among their members and sympathizers, to be sent to Washington. The Alliance then issued to its branches throughout the states a resolution of loyalty to be adopted in case war was declared. This resolution, after making a hearty declaration of loyalty to the United States, went on to belie its promise with such pacifist utterances as this: "Our duty before the war was to keep out of it. Our duty now is to get out of it." So earnest were the efforts of the Alliance to keep out of war that some ten months after its declaration of loyalty was promulgated, Congress decided to investigate the organization, with a view to revoking its charter. The investigation wrote into the archives certain characteristics of the Alliance which had long been obvious to the truly American public; its deep-rooted Teutonism, its persistent zeal, and its dangerous scope of activity. The courageous legislators who initiated and pursued the investigation, in the face of constant opposition of the most tortuous variety, had their reward, for on April 11, 1918, the executive committee of the National Alliance met in Philadelphia and dissolved the organization, turned the $30,000 in its coffers over to the American Red Cross, and uttered a swan song of loyalty to the United States. The body of the octopus was dead. One by one, first in Brooklyn, then in San Francisco, then elsewhere, its tentacles sloughed away.