Page:The web (1919).djvu/94

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been done. I investigated a case in New York where the clergyman admitted to me he had received instructions to preach such a sermon. From August, 1914, to April, 1917, in hundreds of Lutheran churches, the continuous preaching was in favor and hope of German victory."

It transpired that British Military Intelligence had in possession a great mass of documents taken by General Allenby in the capture of Nazareth. These were found among the effects of that Major Franz von Papen who once had been military attache in Washington, and whose name has become more or less familiar through some of the disclosures regarding von Bernstorff and his activities.

These papers, added to those taken by our own Intelligence officers from prominent Germans this side the water, go to build up the tremendous and tragic story of a nation's shame. Germany had a widely spread and elaborate plan to ruin this country. She failed. The proofs of her failure are now before the public, and they run very wide. They do not leave us feeling any too comfortable or any too sure regarding our own country. It is not pleasant to have listed, as part with the German records, those of our great newspapers which, in the German belief, might be classed as "neutral or favorable to Germany." It is not pleasant to see the names of newspaper men once held honorable and loyal, but now condemned to have had the itching palm and to have received German gold. There is nothing pleasant about the whole sordid, abominable story, nothing clean, nothing satisfying, nothing honorable. But it shows that when we had this sort of work to do, we did it thoroughly and accomplished the mission on which our men were sent out.

Some of the most sensational testimony was that brought out by Alfred L. Becker, Deputy Attorney General of New York, who had in charge a great many of the big espionage and treason investigations in that city, which was the American home and headquarters of the German spy army.

Mr. Becker told of his own investigations, at the instance of the French Government, in the case of Bolo Pacha. The latter was executed as a French traitor, but was shown to have gotten Germany money in this country to the extent of $1,683,000. As is well known, Bolo had raised