New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-07

"Wanv complaints will come from
business men as to detention OF the,r
messages. but business men OF stand
| ing can easily satisfy the cable au-
/ thorities. and in any case the nam
! business at the present time IS val
and lives are more important IMAM
/ business losses.
! "We in England were loath 10 believe
i IN +bc existence of ar extensive Ger
man spv system in our midst until
strange happenings by land and sea
proved that their spy preparations
/ firmly established in England years be-
/ fore the war, were just as eihcient as
all their other preparations.
"The German spies are DIVIDED mo
| FIVE or six classes working Independent
I lv of each other. There is the busl-
ness spy. whose work is the gathering
Of information, personal and other-
wise. An establishment called Schlm
melpfennigs opened out In England,
purporting TO be something like your
/ Bradstreets' or Dun's, but really win
the object Of ascertaining the capacIg
FOR making guns. munitions and whaO
not Of every plant in England, togetner
with any other information That mlght
be useful TO Germany when she went
to war
a second form of spying was or
panized by the German consu!s IN
Great Britain, who collected informa-
ton by means of hotel walters, bar
bers, governesses and domestic SER
wants to whom they paid comparative
~ small sums monthly.
"In naval and military towns the
German government provided Germans
with capital with which TO open shops
and purchase supplies. All this was
done through the consuls.
Then there was a series OF spies
organized by the famous department
which had its headquarters in Brussels.
There were spies who moved about IN
good social circle as a rule, picking
up any information they could get
When il came 20 picking up informa-
ton as to British psychology, they got
ID all wrong. for it has been notorious
that, almost without exception, they
reported to Berlin that Great Britain
would not 90 TO war. Members OF TINS
class Of spy were entirely unknown TO
each other and only known TO head,
quarters by numbers. They were PAID
"a minimum of $4,000, and maximum
of $4,000 a year, and were usually en-
gagged in some other kind Of work
very often insurance work. Out OF
| respect for their sex, among the spies
we have shot at the Tower OF london,
the women have been exempted and
sent to long terms OF Imprisonment
Further, there were the military
and naval spies. This kind of spying
/ is regarded as legitimate among all ma
/ tions. Carl Lody, whom / saw tried by
court martial and who had an American
passport and spoke American with the
, slightest German accent, was a legiti-
mate naval spy and was so regarded by
our authorities, who treated him as
we'll as he could be treated in the cir
cumstances and finally, very properly,
/ shot him. He was captured owing 20
/ clumsiness on his part. Among other
/ foOlishnesses, he kept his code IN his
/ pocket. and therefore knew at the mo-
ment he was arrested that he was a
dead man. One of the things that led
10 his detection was the cable censor
/ ship.
I'VE had been warned for years that
/ the country was full Of German spies,
but did not believe il. Germans were
/ admitted to our clubs, went about
among us and seemed very friendly.
| At the outbreak Of the war we found
/ that we had been entertaining several
/ battalions of spies. I remember the
/ sight that went on, day after day, in
/ London. just before the outbreak of
war, when they swarmed TO the Ger
man Consulate 10 get their passports
vis6d Many Of them obviously had
/ information that war was coming
and that they might have difficulty in
\ getting out.
Big Firms Spy Agents
Large organizations, such as insur-
ance companies. electrical concerns and
pianoforte makers, who required large
numbers of men to go about tuning
/ pianos. were in effect central depots for
gathering information for the German
government. The Hamburg America
/ Steamship Company also had its own
spies, and had to do with the subven
tions of Germanized newspapers in
/ London and of certain notorious Eng
. lsh writers. In their hurry to clear
out Of England the Hamburg-America
Steamship Company left behind valu-
able discriminating documents, one of
which was damning evidence of Ger
many's war intentions.
81 can now relate with safety, mas
much as more than two years have
passed and both the British and Ger
man codes have been changed, an incl
dent told to me by Lord Fisher in the
early days of the war, when he was at
| the head of our navy. He had given
| instruct ns that eight ships should be
coaled at a port which ! will call Bris-
tol. That same afternoon one of our
destroyers picked up a wireless from
one enemy submarine to another, max
ing rendezvous at this very port for
the following day and naming the eight
ships.
The coaling order was. of course. al
once cancelled. but the incident showed
that information must have come from
some one in close touch with the gov.
eminent department concerned. i
sounds, indeed, almost too mysteriou.
TO be true, but it was true
Compared with the leakage Of new
into newspapers, the daily leakage o
secrets by cable is as Niagara com
pared with a mountain stream. | an
a pretty close student of the war, anC
have read number of your news
papers in the last month, but on only
two occasions have | seen anything
likely TO be of assistance to the enemy
That does not mean that there SHOULD
not be a newspaper censorship. Oui
newspaper people from the outset rec
ognized the need for official technica
, military and naval action in such mat
ters. The danger Of a censorship il
that II may be used to exalt incompe
! tence, TO impair efficiency by hidin,
mismanagement, TO weaken resolution
By exaggerated optimism.
Urges "Grain of Salt"
"If | may make a suggestion, il Il
that the American people should TAX,
stories about the sinking of subms
rines with grain of salt Your news