The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-10-07
THE KAIsER's PROGRAM.

The public has probably not forgot
ten the expose in these columns OF the
real mission of certain German army
officers en-route from China to Berlin,
via the United States. While they were
crossing the Pacific between Hongkong
or Yokohama and Honolulu, an Ameri-
can passenger, a graduate of a German
university, overheard them laying plans
to collect data of military value in the
United States, among other things
about the position of German-Ameri-
cans towards both the Fatherland and
their adopted country. The story as
told in one issue of the Advertiser was
received with some incredibly; but
when this journal, in it's next impress
sion, reported that the officers had hir-
! ed Capt. Harry Evans to take them out
in the harbor and offfng, where they
made systematic soundings, and scratch
charts and took panoramic photographs
Of Honolulu and its approaches, the dis
position to doubt gave way to astonish-
ment that German officers, detailed as
spies. should have doneaso raw a piece
of work Such a thing might have been
expected of "'wanderburschen,' but not
of the first soldiery of Europe. 1t was
hardly strange when leading Germans
of Honolulu, after sharply catechising
Capt. Harry Evans, looked at each
other anxiousIy while one made the re-
mark: My God. If the Emperor
should hear of this!"
We recur to the matter because of the
evidence, which the letter of "Ex-At-
tache' in the New York Tribune affords,
that it is part of the Imperial policy to
sound German American citizens of the
United States as to their political at
titude towards the interests of the
Fatherland. We quote:
The kaiser has frequently expressed
the opinion that among the hitherto I'M
used factors in German politics are the
Germans established in foreign lands.
While he does not in any way expect
or imagine that Germans who have emf
grated to America will render themselves
guilty of dsloyalty to the land of their
adoption, yet he believes that by keep
ing alive their memories OF the old coun-
try and their affection for its reigning
house they may help the Fatherland by
using their political influence in their
new home for the benefit Of Germany.
William, in spite of all that has been
4
ton an eventual understanding, if not an
actual alliance with the United States,
this result to be brought about largely
through the influence of the immense
and prosperous German population in
America. and he is convinced that the
project is likely to be promoted and fos-
tered by a visit of his eldest son to the
United States, for the purpose Of making
himself acquainted, not only with the
country, but. above all, with its German
inhabitants, and of keeping alive their
affection for the house of Tohenzollern,
without detriment to their allegiance to
Uncle Sam.
It is certainly more than coincidence
when the reported mission of German
officers to America corresponds to the
letter with subsequent declarations of
the Kaiser as to what he would like to
have done AS to the Kaiser's eXplana-
ton of his purpose that, of course, must
be received with diplomatic gravity;
but he Is a very simple observer indeed
who credits for a moment the prospect
of q combination of rival commercial
powers and a common basis of political
action for governments having so little
in common in the world as those OF Ger
many and the United States.