American industry had become one with the Allies. Our greatest banking and industrial institutions had become dependent upon an Allied victory and an Allied victory was dependent upon them. American industry became pro-Ally because the British blockade cut off our trade with Germany. German and Austrian agents such as Dumba, Karl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen were expelled from the country because of their un-neutral activities on behalf of the Central Powers. "Patriotic" societies such as "The Navy League," "The American Defense Society," and the "National Security League" were all tied up financially with munition plants. These societies were propaganda bureaus for "preparedness" and later for our entrance into the conflict. The nineteen men who founded the Navy League had among their number representatives of the three manufacturers of armor plate in America,--the Midvale, Bethlehem, and Carnegie Companies. The Navy League was in practice the propaganda bureau of the three companies working together to sell armor plate. Modern warfare has become even more than a conflict of armies and of economic resources. Propaganda to secure popular support, has become more and more necessary. Both sides in the European conflict made great efforts to present their propaganda before America, but the Central Powers failed primarily because of the British blockade. The Allies, on their side, had the co-operation of American business, and easily accomplished their purpose. Professor Hayes in his "Brief History of the Great War" says: "The British resorted to every known device of propaganda from employing secret service agents in New York to maintaining at Washington the great journalist, Lord Northcliffe, with a host of assistants, as a publicity director." These propagandists had the co-operation of the bankers who had made loans to the Allies or had acted as purchasing agents. All this happened in 1916, but the American people never knew the source of their "war news" until the conflict was over. Mr. Rathom, of the Providence _Journal_, of Providence, R.I., was notorious for his accounts of German "crimes." The Boston _Herald_ of December 30, 1923, in an editorial comment, says: "It is, of course, true, as most well informed people now understand, that the Rathom disclosures which made the Providence _Journal_ famous during the war were fiction--but Rathom did this for the praiseworthy purpose of arousing his countrymen to a war fury. He took one of the practical ways of doing so." Captain Ferdinand Tuohy of the British Secret Service in "The Secret Corps" says: "All the trickery and subterfuge and war-wisdom of the ages brought up-to-date, intensified and harnessed to every modern invention and device, ... a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or some other master schemer of the ages come back to earth, would have thrilled at the amazing cunning and corruption of it all." The Belgium authorities themselves have denied the truth of the crimes