Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1917 — AMAZING STORY OF HOW PROVIDENCE JOURNAL UNCOVERED GERMAN PLOTS [ARTICLE]

AMAZING STORY OF HOW PROVIDENCE JOURNAL UNCOVERED GERMAN PLOTS

Met Guile With Guile and Spy With Spy, and for Almost Three Years Kept the Government Informed of Teutonic Intrigue and Treachery in This Country—Editor Tells How It Was Done. \ ■ . 1 .. , «- r- ■■ ~■■ ■'V '

New York.—How the Providence Journal met guile with guile, and spy with spy, how It had Its man in Bernstorff’s own household and its two wireless stations ’‘listening in” on the German Sayville “line” to Berlin—how, in fact, this one New England newspaper for almost three years kept the United States government informed of the GennanAustrian plots in America —has at last been revealed. John R. Rathorn, in a speech made at the convention of the Canadian Press association in Toronto, and reported in the Editor, and Publisher from the Toronto Star, weaves a story of plot and counter-plot as remarkable as any that have come from the pen of E. Phillips Oppenhelin. And Mr. Rathom says that he has a safe full of documents yet unused which he will pull out if the situation ever again requires It. k The story bristles with dramatic little scenes almost unbelievable in humdrum America. There is Bernstorff’s confidential secretary at the last moment at Halifax revealing himself as an American. There is the pretty stenographer who sat on the packing box with Captain von Papen and made him write' the evidence of his own guilt. And through it all runs the trail of the “green blubber,” which is Mr. Rathom’s word for the strange “air holes” in German brains which make them overlook the most obvious things. We see t%e “green blubber” when Van Horne, the spy, dressed up like a workman and then rode in a Pullman. Follows, too, the Incident of the foolish little street car fight that cost Doctor Albert his famous portfolio of treacherous secrets. It's a Great Story. It’s a great story, and greater still In its hints of what it might be. Here it ilt “The Providence Journal,” begins the Editor and Publisher, “happened upon its course of exposure through having had for ten years before the war what other papers described as a •bug’ on wireless telegraphy. The paper had maintained two powerful wifeless plants at Point Judith and at Block Island. When war broke out they had decided to ‘listen in’ on the messages crossing the Atlantic. For five months they kept record of these messages, and then they set outrto find the codes and make revelations. Of the material they secured they used only a fractional part. “One of the newspaper’s stenographers was sent and secured an appointment in the Austrian consulate In New York. Other of its workers were constantly engaged in shadowing Captain Boy-Ed, Captain von Papen, former Austrian Ambassador Dumha, the German Ambassador Bernstorff and other German and Austrian officials. The two wireless plants unceasingly listened in, two shifts of operators at work day and night, on Sayville and Nantucket, the two wireless stations which were being used mostly by the Germans to keep in touch with Berlin, from where they received instructions for every detail of their plotting policy. “For the United States government the Brooklyn navy yard had had instructions to keep a close watch on the Sayville and Nantucket stations, but nothing suspicious was ever reported until Mr. Rathom took some of the messages which he had received from his operators to the state department. It was then learned that the navy yard operators had been in the pay of German agents in America, and had been told not to hear too much. Ingenious Codes Used. . . “The codes used by the Germans -were of the most ingenious nature. Many of them pretended to be stock quotations, and some were even done up as funeral directions. In some cases, however, the codes showed evidence of the “green blubber,” referred to by the speaker, as on one occasion when Mr. Rathom was able to go to President Wilson and show him cojffts of eight separate messages sent by the wireless plant within nine days, all relating that “little Emily” had died #f such and such an illness, in a certain part of a room, hack been buried in a rertaln cemetery beside such and such K previously deceased relative. In every one of these messages the illness, the part of the room, the name of the relative, the cemetery, and .so on, varied, and a clear code was detected in each of the messages. Green Blubber in Brain. “The first revelation which Mr. Rathom told Illustrated the German capacity for blundering. It was the «tory*nf Werner .Horne —the man who 'was responsible for the attempt to blow up the Vanceboro bridge. Horne had been detected as a German spy by one of the Journal reporters in New York. In an effort to disguiie himself Home allowed his beard to grow for three days, put on an old suit which he purchased for three dollars (even this detail was reported) and packed his personal effects in an old carpet bag. Having carried out these elaborate precautions he took passage for the point where the “job" was to be done, on one of the finest and most luxurious trains in the United States. As is well known bow, he was caught. When asked later • ,

by Mr. Rathom why he had been foolish enough to travel first-class in such shabby dress, Horne replied that he was a German officer and a gentleman and always traveled in the best style. Passport Fraud Outlined. “Another German scheme in which the Journal reporters outwitted the Teutons occurred soon after in New York also. A fraudulent passport bureau, operated by German officials, was discovered doing a land-office business in an office building oil Broadway. The Journal —faking as a public accountant on the one side and a manufacturers’ agent on the other —sandwiched the passport forgers between them. Every word that passed in this office was recorded by means of the instruments used for that purpose, and reported to the Providence Journal. When sufficient evidence was gathered the United States secret service was notified and the three forgers were taken away. As soon as they had been removed three of the Journal’s employees were allowed to take charge of the office to receive the patrons. It was not long after that Von Papen and the German military attache at Tokyo came in with a list of names of men for whom they desired passports. The name at the top of the list was that of Werner Horne. Journal Man Bernstorff’s Secretary. “ ‘A friend of mine,’ said Mr. Rathom, ‘thinking himself very friendly, but in a thing which I objected to, went to Paris and while there bought a lot of war relics. Among them was. one of the first Iron crosses that had Been given by the German emperor to a major of a German regiment, who died on the field and whose cross had been taken from him and taken to Paris. It was sold to my friend, with statements as to whom it had belonged, and my friend sent it to me. I sent it to Bernstorff with a letter, saying that that mark of honorable distinction of a man who had done his duty for his country belongs to his family. I gave the name of the man and the name of the family, and begged him to take care of the cross so that it could be sent bqck after the war or at some time to the man’s people. Tears Note to Pieces. “ ‘TJj*-,ambassador tore the note to pieces, threw the note in the face of the man I sent, and threw the cross on the floor, saying that, after having been defiled by the hands of American dogs, that cross was of no use to anybody in Germany. I knew my man was telling the truth, because the man I had in there reported the incident to me exactly the way he did. Incidentally I might say that the individual to whom I refer was in the German embassy 17 months as one of the ambassador’s secretaries, and the ambassador had n<- knowledge that he was not what he pretended to be until the Frederik VHI left New York for Halifax. He said to my man, “You had better get aboard of you will lose your boat,” and he replied: “I am safer on this side.” Mr. Bernstorff had no idea of that man’s® identity or whom he was serving until he left New' York. And he wrote a letter from Halifax to a friend in New York, which he attempted to get sent back, but which was intercepted, telling some of his friends what he thought of this individual. When Huerta Met Boy-Ed. “ ‘The famous Huerta case, the attempt of the German government to embroil us with Mexico, an attempt that the recent Zimmermann letter proved beyond any doubt to be true, was already proved by u.s a long time before. Early in the war my man in the embassy—l say my man; you must pardon me for that; I mean our man, because I am not the Providence Journal —was ordered by Captain Boy-Ed to go to New York and get a suite of six quiet robins in a hotel where BoyEd and his people could meet Huerta. Naturally enough, my man, being loyal, could do nothing else than select the rooms we selected for him, so lie went to the Manhattan hotel and got a suite of rooms which he rigged up with the apparatus I spoke of ;-and, to make assurance doubly sure, I got another man to act as chauffeur on the auto that brought Huerta, " '• .*•: “ ’They had their conference, and at the conclusion of that conference every w-ord that was uttered —uttered through an interpreter, because Boy-Ed did not speak Spanish —was sent down to the department of state the next morning. They had the entire facts before them and knew everything, and for several months later, when Boy-Ed and Bernstorff were frothing at the mouth and uttering denials, the state department had the very words that were uttered. Romance Among Spies. ‘“Another incident,’ he continued, ‘that is 6f great interest came when one of our valued and keenest stenographers in our own office, a girl that came to us seven years ago from about twenty miles optside of Providence, was given a position in the office of the Austrian Consul general in Ne>v York city. She had never been in New York before, bat she was ahead of a number of people; in competition, and the man choosing the stenographer they wanted (a capable girl able to do his work’ and* to keep her mouth shot) had been informed that she was A ...

the party to choose —by other friends of ours. One day about five or six weeks after she got there she informed us that a great packing case was being filled up with propaganda documents and'with bills of expense in connection with explosions In mbnitlon plants and other vital and valuable things, and was to be shipped off the following week right straight to England on a Swedish ship and from there to Germany. ... Von Papen Flirts. “The only thing we could possibly do was to identify the package. One day when they were about to close the package up this girl, under Instructions—and I may say incidentally she Is now back at work getting her sl6 a week —sat on this box eating her lunch. Nearly everybody else had gone, but Von Papen, rather debonair and fond of ladles, wandered in and sat on the packing box and asked if he could share her lunch with her. She said certainly, and while they were sharing the sandwiches he made some sentimental advances and she in rather a dreamy way took out a large red pencil and drew two big red hearts on this packing case. It was Captain Von Papen himself who put an arrow through them. And, ladies and gentlemen, when the ship Austrlas II reached Falmouth they picked that package otlt of the hold from about a hundred and fifty others and identified it by the two big red hearts. And yet they say there are no brilliant buL the Germans.’ Sep “Another incident, the loss of a portfolio belonging to Dr. Heinrich Albert, an Austrian official, which contained papers relating to Ambassador Dumba’s efforts to incite labor troubles in the United States, created quite a stir among the diplomats. Mr. Rathom told of how a Journal reporter got the papers as the result of which Dumba w’as sent back to Austria by the president ‘“One of the Journal reporters had been shadowing Doctor Albert in New York, but for months nothing seemed wrong. One day he went into a leather goods store, where he ordered a portfolio and gave the salesman instructions to put his initials on it. The reporter, as soon as Albert had gone out, walked up to the salesman and ordered another portfolio of the same kind, but With no" initials, saying he would Yather first see how the other gentleman’s initials looked. When he came back and saw the initials he said he didn’t like them ami departed to go to another shop and have the same initials put on his portfolio. His work was becoming less tiresome and less fruitless than it had been.

“ ‘A day or two later Albert, carrying the new portfolio, was followed from-the front of his apartments by the Journal man. Albert boarded an elevated train. He placed his bag containing papers on the seat beside him. Suddenly he was stirred by a fight in, the front of the car. As he stood up to see what the trouble was, as did nearly everybody else in the car, the portfolios were changed. This happened on a Saturday morning. Albert, in a statement later, said that he discovered the trick the same day, but we know for a fact that he did not discover the difference until Monday morning. Needless to say, the men who were fighting on the street car were also in the employ of the Journal. “It was through the Journal, Mr. Rathom said, that a great quantity of important papers were secured from Wolf von Igel. These papers revealed the Casement plot for the Irish uprising. When the papers were taken, Mr. Rathom said, in illustrating his point that there Is a certain amount of stupidity in all German diplomatists, Von Bernstorff made application to the state department to have them returned. He was told that any paper he could identify would be returned to him, and then realized how he had cohimitted himself In asking that the papers be returned. Asked Journal Suppression. “Three days before Bernstorff was ordered to return to Germany, Mr. Rathom declared, he demanded that the American government suppress the Providence Journal. “ ‘Every statement that we have made in regard to Germun plots in the United States has been proven to be positively true.’ declared Mr. Rathom. ‘For the first nine or ten months no one believed what we were saying. We were shouting against the wind. The dismissal of Doctor Dumba was the first result of our months of effort. “ ‘We have not printed one-fiftieth of what we secured, hut we were verjt glad, when events turned, to turn the key on the safe in which It is deposited and forget the balance, because the work we tried to do has been accom« pushed.’ ”