Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1917 — SWEDISH ENVOY IS GERMAN SPY [ARTICLE]

SWEDISH ENVOY IS GERMAN SPY

Kaiser Asked to Decorate Minister Who Performed Service. LANSING HAS THE LETTER Make* New Revelation Showing Argentine Wasn’t Only Country in Which Neutrals Were Used. : ffr Washington, Sent. 14.—The mgteiM aid given Germany by Sweden was not confined to transmission of naval secrets by code from Argentina to Berlin. A copy of an official letter from Herr von Eckhardt, German minister in to his home office, givep out by Secretory Lansing, makes the startling revelation that Fojke Cronholm, Swedish charge d’affaires In Mexico City, was an active agent of the German government. Decorated by the Kaiser? So extensive were his services that he was recommended to the kaiser as being worthy of a special decoration as reward for his services. It is showp that Folke Cronholm not only gave military and diplomatic information to Minister von Eckhardt at least up to March, 1910, but that he followed the example of his colleague In Buenos Aires by transmitting official messages from the German embassy In the official Swedish code to the foreign office at Stockholm and thence to Berlin. Morris Ordered to Use French. At the same time the secretary of state made .public a report from Ira Nelson Morris, American minister at Stockholm, declaring that while the Swedish foreign office was transmitting German messages in German code for the German diplomats, it was requiring Mr. Aforris to file his messages to Constantinople via the Swedisli foreign office in French. Swedish Envoy Pleads Ignorance. The revelation In the letter from Mexico City giving further proof oi Sweden’s pro-German uttitude can be met, according to opinion here, only by dismissal from Swedisli services of the guilty parties, a break in relations between Sweden and Germany und a profound upology to the United States and other allies. Secretary Lansing’s disclosure drew from Baron Akerhlelm the following statement: “Baron Akerhlelm knows nothing about this matter thut Is referred to him, but he wants it to be shown that Mr. Cronholm was dismissed from the Swedish diplomatic service by the Swedish government in January, 1917.” A few hours prior to the official revelation of further use of Swedish diplomatic channels by German diplomats, Baron Akerhlelm called at the state department to tell Secretary Lansing be had received from the Swedish foreign office such a badly mntilated text of his government’s explanation of the transmission of German messages through Swedish legation at Buenos Aires, that he desired to delay reading It to Secretary Lansing until he could obtain a version in English. The copy he brought with him was in French. - The deportment’s reply to the baron —and to Sweden —took the form of a disclosure of Herr von Eckhardt’s intercepted note to former Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg. Sends Enemy News Over U. S. Wires. Secret German messages were transmitted over the cable and telegraph lines of the United States from Mexico City to Europe, under guarantee of the Swedish diplomats, just as the Luxburg dispatches were sent over the British cables. What Mexico may care to do about the expose is another matter. , The exposure may result in a break between Mexico and Germany.