Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 199, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1917 — Claim Germans Spread Disease By Hand Contact. [ARTICLE]

Claim Germans Spread Disease By Hand Contact.

An alleged scheme of German atrocity that has got the poisoned court plaster method backed clear off the boards has been reported to the Department of Justice by a member of congress from an Ohio valley district and A. Bruce Bielaski, who has charge of criminal invsetigations for the department, is looking into the matter with a view to making early arrests if facts are to be found as represented. It is claimed German sympathizers are painting their hands with shellac to make themsleves immune and then covering their hands with germs of tetanus and a loathsome disease. Having done this the next step is to go out and shake hands with those whom it is planned to inoculate with the dread disease. Thus, while the pro-German is giving the “glad hand”, he is also conveying to the unsuspecting victim germs of the most deadly nature. The coat of shellac with which the hand and forearm are painted serves as a complete protection to himself. The member of congress who tipped off the department of justice to this latest supposed atrocity said he himself would have been slow to believe that a’human being on this side of the Atlantic could be guilty of such an outrage, but he asserted that he was impressed when a constituent came to him with a badly swollen hand and told a story of how he had shaken hands with a German who had evidently passed the germs to him during the hand clasp. The members of congress declined to give any details for publication, until the department of justice has had a chance to make arrests.