Bisbee daily review., 1918-09-05
SHIP LINE BI
 SEIZED AS HUN
 OWNED PROPERTY
fRy Review Leased Wlrel

N0g ANCNAOW A@OaoC0 6ANJ
 NEW YORK, Sept. 4.-On the ground of German ownership. the Am erican transatlantic company. whicn until its ships were eOmmandeered by the shipping board last October, op- erated fleet of eleven steamships flying the Stars and Stripes, has been taken over by the alien property GUS todiaD.
 Richard G. Wagner, the American born head of the concern, for three years deceived the American govern ment with truly Prussian arrogance" according to Francis P. Garvan, in yestigator for the custodian. Mir. Gar van said Wagner deceived, British and French prie courts for three years as to the real ownership of the property.
 Mir Garvan. who made public sum- mary of Wagner's activities, said the ships were bought with German gold and the company was organized eight months before the outbreak of hos tilities with funds which Count Von Bernstorff caused to be transmitted here for Wagner's benefit, Wagner under the examination of MT. Garvan protested the ships were American owned. but finally confessed that the backing of this venture to keep Ger man commerce on the high seas came from German shipping interests.
 Suspicious were entertained by this government from the time Wagner sought to have his eleven ships, then flufnU rrnFrtv-o1 4s-urcfarrn1 fO American registry. At the time the ships of the company were comman- deered by the,shipping board as were other ships flying the American fig, the navy department, 1t is known. refused to deliver to the commanders confidential instructions and other naval secrets because they were not American citiens. The American tras-Atlantic company declined to re- move the commanders and the navy department, it is said. was obliged to place naval officer aboard each ship from whom the alien skipper received his sailing directions. T
 Wagner's ships were reported at various times to have been supplying German raiders with provisions and to have conveyed German gold from the United States for use in South America. but these charges Wagner indignantly denied. always protesting his Americanism. In citing these re- ports Mir. Garvan recalled that Wag- ner had published a half page adveT- tisement offering a reward of $50.000 to anyone who could produce evidence that his ships had been supplying Ger man raiders and at another time of- fered S10.000 to anyone who could prove the American transatlantic cOmpahy was German owned.
 Three of WaRner's ships were seied by the British and one by the French during 1915. and in the prize courts testimony indicated German backing for the American transatlantic com .pany was aired.
 These seizures" said MT. Garvan, were made the basis of master eff fort of BernstoUff's German propagan- dists in the United States. Resort was had to every device to arouse hatred and III feeling in this country against Great Britain. Under the di- rectiOn of Won Bernstorff the agita- tion assumed nationwide proportions.
 Wagner insisted the ships were purchased with American money and claimed that the American investors in the company were entitled to pro lection" and left nothing undone to