Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1917 — Gerard Declares Germany Planned An Invasion of America. [ARTICLE]

Gerard Declares Germany Planned An Invasion of America.

Boston, April 17.—:T0 show the deep hatred “which he asserted Germany has held against the United States,” former Ambassador James W. Gerard tonight disclosed facts which he said had been kept from the American people during the past two and a half years. He was the principal speaker at a national defense dinner -given by the PilgrimPublicity association. Mr. Gerard said that Admiral von Tirpitz, in thinly veiled statements and the German reichstag and Prussian parliament in open discussions, proposed the institution of unrestricted submarine warfare against England with the intention, “when England should have been subdued by •hunger, to come over to the United States and collect the price of the war from usr” “I want to tell you," Mr. Gerard added, "that if we had not gone into this war, Germany vould have fulfilled its intention to come over here afterwards and attack us, and would have done so almost with the applause of the rest of the -world, I can tell you also that everything consistent with honor was done to keep us out of the war. Beyond that, I am sure, none would have us go.” The former ambassador expressed his Jjelief that citizens of German descent would prove loyal, but, he added, “if they do not stand with us, I -think we know where to festoon them.”