The Outlook 1916-01-26

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~The Outlook JANUARY 26, 1916 Offices, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York THE STORY OF THE WAR: GERMAN ACTIVITY IN THE. UNITED STATES Voluminous explanations and denials have’ come day by day from Germany as regards the newly discovered evidence of the activi- ties in the United States of Captain von Papen, the recalled military attaché of the German Embassy at Washington. The peo- ple of the United States were already pretty thoroughly convinced that some of these activities were altogether outside the limits of the proper duty of a military attaché, and that the threads of connection between Captain von Papen and those accused of plotting against munitions factories and against the neutrality laws and criminal faws of this country were too many and too strong to be ignored. The papers which were taken from Captain von Papen when he reached England may be capable of explanation—anything seems to be capable of explanation diplomatically—but they certainly are more than suspicious on their face. Photographic facsimiles of the correspondence are on the way to Washing- ton; up to this time we have only the reports and quotations coming by cable from London. These deal with Captain von Papen’s check-book, bank-books, and letters. They show, according to the cablegrams, that Captain von Papen paid $700 to Horn, the man who attempted to blow up the Canadian Pacific Railway bridge at Vanceboro; that $500 went to the German Consul at Seattle not long before an explosion occurred there, and that previous payments had gone in the same direction; that other money was paid to an admitted German spy who later com- mitted suicide in England ; that money was paid to Paul Koenig, the head of the Secret Service of the Hamburg-American Line in New York, believed also to be engaged in secret service work in the German Govern- ment; and that the money paid out by Captain von Papen was much of it admit- tedly for “secret service work,’’ and came to him from the Germany Embassy; the German Ambassador says as to the last that every one knows that Germany has a secret service in this country, and that he simply acted as financial intermediary between Cap- tain von Papen and the German Govern- ment. The German Government strenuously in. sists that all these and other payments were proper. The disavowals, however, are some- times contradictory ; for instance, one des- patch affirms positively that no money was paid to Horn; a second says that any money paid to Horn was for counsel fees and protection after the attempt to blow up the bridge ; and a third says that Horn was a German military officer, and that the attempt to blow up the Canadian bridge was a proper act of war—the last ignoring the fact that Horn violated the American law by operating at the American end of the bridge and is now in prison in Massachusetts for offenses against the American law. This. interesting exposure will, or should, be sifted to the bottom. Meanwhile the facts, even as now known, cast a singular light on the recent semi-official declaration of the German Government that “ the German Government, naturally, has never knowingly accepted the support of any person, group of persons, society, or organization seeking to promote the cause of Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by counsels of violence, by contravention of law, or by any means whatever that could offend the American people in the pride of their own authority.” THE BARALONG INCIDENT AGAIN We spoke last week of the statements made on behalf of Germany and Great Britain in regard to the claim of Germany that the crew of a German submarine were murdered by the crew of the Baralong, a British ship under naval commission. We said then, and we repeat, that if it were true that the crew of the submarine were shot while in the water and after their submarine had been destroyed the act would be murder and 159