Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-03-04
GERMANS SEEK
Letter news
Persons Writing Letters to Soldiers
Urged Not to Say Anything They
Wouldn't Want Kaiser to
See.
BOClIE SPIES WELL TRAINED.
Germany Buys Expensive Information
Regarding American Troops in
BOClIE SPIES WELL TRAINED.
BY J. w. PEGLER.

MAKE the ola Boone pay lot all MS III
formation. Make him pay with the
lives of his soldiers and with thous-
ands of shells and days of work.
You are safeguarding a soldiers
life when you put no more in the
address Of your letters to him than
is necessary to indentify him to the
postal forces. You may be giving a
convincing piece Of information to
the Boche if you write to Sammy in
France that the boy next door IS
training in the 24Sth division at
Camp Meade.
The Boche is SEEMING this whole
army for Information all the time. 1t
is vitality important to him to know
how many divisions of troops We
have in France, where each division
has its headquarters, who commands
the divisions and regiments, when
each expects to go into the line.
Perhaps the Boche thinks the 24Sth
is in France. He has been misin-
formed through some spy. If another
spy carefully unseals your letter to
Sammy and sees that the 24Sth is in
Camp Meade and not in France, that
piece Of information fits in perfectly
in the jig-saw puzzle of patch work
military intelligence.
Don't put anything on paper that
you wouldn't want the Kaiser to see"
is the advice of one military censor
to his men. Think it over and put
this question to yourself: Would it
do the Kaiser any good to know
this?" If it would help the Kaiser,
don't write it-don't even talk about
it where strangers may hear YOU"
Many bits of Information, each
absolutely harmless in itself, are
capable of serious harm to Sammy in
France if pieced together by the
Boche intelligence officers. An in
nocent stray fact may be the COM
plete link in a chain of information.
Boche spies are trained and
valuable men. They are constantly
disappearing from the Huns intelli-
gence organization and new ones
must be furnished to take their
places. Thus, if the Hun is COM
PEELED to send spy to root out
certain information he risks losing
that trained cog in his machine. If
a talker with loose tongue and too
much information talks too much the
Boche gets his information free, risk
ing nothing.
Spotted American Front.
Last fall Fritz heard that Amrican
troops might be expected in the line
at a certain time. His aeroplanes
spotted khaki-clad soldiers in Il
French sector. So Fritz planned a
raid to identify those Americans-to
take few captives and try to pump
them for important facts concerning
the whole expedition.
The raid cost Fritz about 10000
expensive shells, at least one soldier
and perhaps more. He had to train
his raiders in the particulars of that
raid and it may have cost him the
lives of some transport troops to
bring UP the shells which raincd on
the Sammies during the action.
Whatever Information the Bochc
obtained was bought and paid for in
soldiers and material.
So close was the American secrecy
when the troops withdrew from that
sector that Fritz wasn't sure wheth-
er they were still there. Some weeks
later it became necessary to his in
telligence department to make alb
solutely sure whether the Sammies
were still opposite him at that point
There was another raid. on even a
more ambitious scale than the first.
Again Fritz caught some troops.
Again the information was bought
and paid for-dearly.
w SIS
The J. H. Yanney family are to-
day moving from the 1000 block on
west First street to their farm east
of town. The c. r. Hunter family,
who have been living in the A. A.
Cook house in the 900 block on First
street, are moving into the property
vacated by the Yanneys.
w, SIS
The Levi Olmstead family have