great deal of League activity had to do with running down rumors against persons declared to be pro-German. Sometimes these things were found baseless; and again enough pro-Germanism was found to warrant a stern rebuke.
Sometimes, public speakers, well trained in their tasks, put out propaganda which at the time seemed an innocent statement of facts. To the Lake Placid Club of New York came a certain "Belgian officer" who spoke very good English, and who purported to be able to tell all about the war. He made a long speech, regarding which many members of the local Red Cross complained bitterly to the American Protective League. This man's talk, while purporting to be that of an ally of this country, was really German propaganda. He denied or justified German atrocities, deplored Red Cross knitting, declared it would take ten million Americans to beat the Germans; that they were going into a hell of vermin, dirt and disease; that our army as yet was difficult to find. There was a German orchestra at the Club, supposed to have come from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They all applauded vociferously when the speaker made such statements as, "After the war there will be a day of reckoning." Further details, which proved that this speaker really was spreading German propaganda, led to his being traced to New York. He was found to have worked at different times in Iowa, Kansas, and elsewhere. The last report was that he was supposed to have sailed for his native country.
There was no way, shape nor manner in which Germany did not endeavor to embarrass us. She had, besides her carefully trained public speakers, her secret workers who had assigned to them definite objectives. For instance, it was known that the negro race would furnish a considerable number of soldiers for our army. A very wide German propaganda existed among the negroes in Georgia and Carolina, and in such northern cities as Indianapolis, where large numbers of that race were located. A certain German was indicted under seven counts for this manner of activity. It was proved that he had told a great many negro privates in the army that they would be mutilated if captured, and that they were going to starve to death in France if they ever got across. The horrors of war with the American
