Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-12-20

WdSHlHSLOH, Dec. lJ.-PfOpdSanua machinery set up by the German gov ernment in Berlin and throughout the world. to spread German1c ideas and the methods of financing this in the United States, were described today to the Senate Investigating committee by Alfred l.. Becker. deputy attorney general of New York
 The witness also told of his investi- gation for the French government of the success of Bolo Pasha, executed as French traitor, in getting $1,683,- 900 of German money in this country for purchase of The Paris Journal, but added that since apparently the Paris Journal did not change it's atti- transaction was pure swindle" of the German government.
 'Mr. Becker read documents gather ed partly by the British secret ser vice, showing that the German foreign office and other government depart ments at Berlin, maintained elabor. ate systems, both before and after the European war began, to influence thought all over the world, worKlns mainly through the press. Branches of German banks and commercial houses co-operated to promote friend ly relations toward Germany Journa- lists, college professors, banKerk business men and commercial consular attaches-rnany of them being citi- zens of the country in which they worked-were employed, Mir. Becker said. Usually the propaganda was in- siduous with an attempt to conceal it's real nature or purpose.
 As early as 1909, said MT. Becxer. George Won Skal, ft ,mer German reserve officer and later auditor of accounts of New York City, wa stold on visit to Berlin by a representa- tive, of the foreign offices press bur eau, that he would be valuable in case of future war, to keep in touch with the press in the United States. There was no evidence, howeved, that he acted in this capacity after the Uni ted States entered the war, the wit ness said.
 The German government in May, 1914, three months before the war opened, tried in vain to buy the Otto- man Photographic News Agency, with headquarters in Bagdad, to spread German propaganda. The publication of German edition of Current Litera- ture, magazine of which Geo. Sylves- ter Viereck, in the United tSates, and his father, Louis Viereck, in Berlin, were promoters, was mentioned by the witness, together with the Ger manic museum at Harvard and the movements to exchange professors with American Universities as Ger man propaganda moves.
 One example of eI.t,.ny propaganda said MT. Becker, consisted of the sys- tematic effort late in 1917, to spread throughout the world, the idea that Germany was on the verge of internal revolt. and that the kaiser would soon be overthrown. The fact that the dis semination of these reports was en- cOuraged by tlle chief German govern ment censor, was convincing evidence that the efforts were propaganda, in- tended to paralyze the prosecution of the war, in MT. Becker's opinion. He said these reports had been sent o1, of Germany by George T. Odell, cor respondent of the New York Evening Mail, after the United States had en- tered the war, and were circulated widely by the Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate. described as subsidiary oi the Mail
 Senator Reed, who Is n ,t a member of the committee, interrupted to ash whether similar articles, had been published by other newspapers then and even down to the present and that developments had not borne them out I' MT. Becker said this was true, but insisted that the reports were inspired by the German foreign office late 1T 1917.
 Mr. Becker said the Trans-Ocear News Agency maintained wireless service intended to influence mainly South American peoples. while the German South American institute an( the German nNews Service, for Portu gal and Spain, subsidized by the Ger
 man government had similar func Itions
 MT. Becker told the committee tha enemy propaganda in the United States was disclosed incidentally dur ing his investigation of the activities Iof the Bolo Pasha in promoting tho financing of the Paris Journal and ir what was described as m attempt tc form news alliance between the Journal and William Randolph |Hearst's newspapers.