The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-10-08
AMERICAN YOUTH FACES DEATH AS SPY OF GERMANS

New York, oct. 8-Kenneth G. Triest, a 19-year-o1d freshman at Princeton, disappeared from college early in last January. No trace of him was found. though private detec- tives were employed to search, until recently a. dispatch came to Wolfgang Gustav Triest at his home. 970 Park avenue, from the state department in Washington. It told the father that his lost boy was prisoner in Lon don, accused, a. spy, of having en- 1 listed in Great Britain's navy, to learn secrets which he might send to Ger many. the birthplace of his father.
 Practically day and night since then the father has worked to save his son I from death, the fate of a spy. He has employed legal aid, has become his own private detective seeking evidence i to help his son, and last night he said he had done what he thought was his l utmost. He had presented evidence. the testimony of many of the boys acquaintances, to show that his son was mentally unbalanced. to Secretary Lansing of the department of state, and had asked that his boy be dis charged and deported to the United States as unbalanced minor. Now he was waiting fer a reply from MT. Lansing. What more he could do he l did not know. I MT. Triest is a member of the en- gineering contracting firm of SnaSe & Triesty with offices in the Woolworth building. He is German by birth, but a naturaIizedl citizen of this country. His wife was Miss Li1lie P. MacDon- aId, a daughter of Charles Macdonald the bridge builder. and Kenneth G. Triest is their only child Left College on Now Years Day. The boy entered Princeton in the fall of last year, and his father heard from him regularly until about last
 
 left college and did not return. Neither did he visit the home of his parents nor communicate with them, I and when his absence became suff1- 1 cient1y extended to be noted by the college authorities they notified his parents.
 Mr. Triest made inquiries among ] his friends. None had seen nor heard | from the boy. He was a member of F the Sleepy Hollow Country club, the | Rumson Country club in New Jersey, i where his parents had summer home at Seabright, and of the Deutseher Verein hefe. He had been at none of these places, and, fearful l that some misfortune had overtaken F the boy, MT. Priest employed the X Burns Detective Agency to search for | him. l.
 This hunt by detectives was contin- | ued from day to day and from week \ to week, but no trace of the boy was found until last June. Then a letter was received from him by the boy |. with whom he had roomed in the few months he was, at Princeton. This youth communicated at once with MT. Triest t The letter told how my. son had gone to England and had enlisted in the navy there.'' said Mfr. Triest last I, night. How he got. there L haven't E the slightest idea. I didn't supply him with funds. | never even saw nor k heard from him to do so and. as a fact, h I haven't heard from him directly yet. f He has never communicated with his |. mother or with me. T applied at once to the State De- partment, going. to Washington my this I failed. but I saw others and asked that my boy be sent home. At that time, you understand I did not know he was<in trouble, but only that he had performed a foolish boys trick, : and. being still a minor, might be dis k charged from the navy and returned to me at my request.
 Youth Was Unbalanced.
 ''I had no word from the State De- r partment until the first of last month i Then received the notice that my boy K was under arrest and was to be tried i as spy. I hurried to Washington at lc once, taking my lawyer with me- This Ii time I saw MT. Lansing. told him c