The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective LeagueHough, Emerson
History
The Web : $b The Authorized History of the American Protective League
Hough, Emerson
American Protective League; Propaganda, German; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- United States
There was a certain gentleman by the name of Dr. Frederick August von
Strensch, who was arrested by the Department of Justice on testimony
furnished by operatives. The worthy doctor might have been regarded
as practically innocent—all he planned was the invasion of Canada and
Mexico by German reservists located in the United States. This man had
long made America his home. He was arrested on a presidential warrant.
Along with him, there was arrested a certain dazzling stage celebrity
represented to have been a countess in her more private life in Europe.
A mass of correspondence was taken with these people, revealing the
fact that 150,000 German reservists were to be sent to Canada, about
the same number into Mexico. Definite plans were mentioned referring
to the assemblage of 25,000 men on the Canadian border. This one plot
alone, if mentioned here in detail, would give all the data necessary
for a sensational thriller in detective fiction. But it is not fiction.
This sort of work actually went on within our country. Not only in this
instance, but in many others, a deliberate and extremely dangerous
attempt was made to embroil us with other countries.
When the merchant submarine “Deutschland” arrived in this country on
its celebrated voyage, a part of its cargo consisted of thirty-three
thousand pounds of tungsten, scarce in this country, but of value in
making certain high grades of steel. After considerable sleuthing
on the part of operatives, this tungsten was traced to a concern
ostensibly American, but really owned altogether by Germans. The way in
which the identity of these steel manufacturers was concealed is proof
of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the master criminal minds of
the world. As showing the thoroughness with which Germany works, one
of the accused stated that when he came out of Germany to confer with
his associates, the German censors destroyed all his papers, examined
all his clothing, and stripped him and washed him with a solution of
alcohol to eradicate any message which he might have painted on his
skin! They were not above a suspicion on their own part. The Alien
Property Custodian took over, as a result of these investigations, the
Becker Steel Company, whose plant was located at Charleston, W. Va. The
details of this case are extremely voluminous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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