New Britain herald., 1917-11-13
REPORTERS THWART
 V SECRET SERVICE
John Rathom Tells All About It
 in New York Speech

New York, Nov 13.-An evening of candid. serious discussion of the war kept the largeset group ever gathered at a dinner of the Canadian club cus- tered about the tables at the Hotel Biltmore until late last night, cheering the term cohesion" oft applied by the speakers to program of more in- tense cooperation among the Allies; listening with close attention as John 1 R. Rathom of the Providence Journal l narrated the whole history of Ger
 man plots In America and told fas- cinating modern detective story of how American newspaper reporters 1 had time and again outwitted tho 1 costly and elaborate German Secret Service.
 The diners gave rousing pledges of better things in the future to Lieu- tenant Bruno Roselli of the Italian army when he frankly accused the Allies in general of having left Italy too long unsupported and the United States in particular of having sent the Italian commission away empty handed when it came here begging unseldshly for coal and for steel.
 A boundary-less America was the theme of other speakers, notably of Melville E. Stone, general manager of the Associated Press, who paid his re- spects to "a certain Bolsheviki editor who, he said. had 1abored hard to keep the American people from unit ing and to whom he passed tho direct lie for asserting that this was Eng lands war. Canada, without financial or political obligations, he said. had herself been among the first to prove that it was war of civilization. and he begged the Canadians in this coun- try to aid in the task of teaching "this country. not yet awake, that this war, though now 5000 miles away. will be at their door if the Germans win.
 Oscar s. Straus told of medal struck by the Germans to commence rate the sinking of the Lusitania, which was inscribed upon one side with 8 pretended American motto, Business over a11.", He asserted i've will show her that America is ready to dedicate her, last dollar and her last man that she may hand down to her ohildren's children the liberties bequeathed to us by the fathers of the Republic"
 Other speakers who stressed the patriotic note to the intense approval of their hearers were Major Ian Hay Beith, soldier, and author, and Sir George Reid, ex-premier of Australia. MT. Rathom's recital began with tribute to the unfiinching honesty and the persistent keenness of the Ameri- can reporters who had fought the long battle against tremendous odds in tho form of an organized and .elaborately financed Gerne nSecret service in this country. His hearers seemed amazed at times and at others they laughed and applauded uproariously as the speaker told how again and again the Teutons had been outplayed at their own game and again and again off, cial de1ia1s of spy revelations had been replaced sooner or later by ofn- cial confirmation of the disclosures. Time and again he tried to sit down, 1 but from all came cries for more.
 The part of his recital that won the greatest applause was the tale of how the Providence Journal got a man into the offices of the Hamburg American steamship offices in New York City when those offices were 1 teeming with unneutral activities and 1 were guarded with the utmost cun- ming the Prussian sleuths could de- vise He told how the newspaper i; sent one of it's young men to Lima, Ohio, and how from there the re- porter wrote to the steamship com ! pany, saying he was the son of Ger 1 man parents, true to the FatherIand, l and therefore wished to send warning 1 that he had learned the Providence l Journal was plotting to put . man