So with their newspapers, rumor-mongers, lecturers, peace societies, alliances, bunds, vereins, lobbyists, war relief workers, motion picture operators and syndicates, the Germans wrought hard to avert war. For two years they nearly succeeded. America was under the narcotic influence of generally comfortable neutrality, and a comfortable nation likes to wag its head and say "there are two sides to every question." But whatever these German agents might have accomplished in the public mind--and certainly they were sowing their seed in fertile ground--was nullified by acts of violence, ruthlessness at sea, and impudence in diplomacy. The left hand found out what the right hand was about. CHAPTER XVI HINDU-GERMAN CONSPIRACIES The Society for Advancement in India--"Gaekwar Scholarships"--Har Dyal and _Gadhr_--India in 1914--Papen's report--German and Hindu agents sent to the Orient--Gupta in Japan--The raid on von Igel's office--Chakravarty replaces Gupta--The _Annie Larsen_ and _Maverick_ filibuster--Von Igel's memoranda--Har Dyal in Berlin--A request for anarchist agents--Ram Chandra--Plots against the East and West Indies--Correspondence between Bernstorff and Berlin, 1916--Designs on China, Japan and Africa--Chakravarty arrested--The conspirators indicted. As far back as 1907 a plot was hatched in the United States to promote sedition and unrest in British India. The chief agitators had the effrontery in the following year to make their headquarters in rooms in the New York Bar Association, and to issue from that address numerous circulars asking for money. The late John L. Cadwallader, of the distinguished law firm of Cadwallader, Wickersham and Taft, was then president of the Bar Association, and when he learned of the Hindu activities under the roof of the association he swiftly evicted the ringleaders. Their organization, chartered in November, 1907, was called The Society for the Advancement of India. One of its officers was a New York man to whom the British have since refused permission to visit India. Its members included several college professors.