The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-12-18


"The phrase in my letter Of Feb
ruary 10, 1918, written from Miami,
Fla:
My friends would be willing to
take a one-fourth interest provided
some arrangement could be made
giving them the option to acquire
the majority interest, say, after the
lapse of one or two years from the
close of the war, which would af-
ford every opportunity that could
possibly be wanted.
has been torn from its context and
an Interpretation put upon the clause
that will not bear analysis, although
the whole matter is in itself OF no
significance. It is now sought to con-
tort the phrase into an invitation to
DIR. Albert to use the paper into
which we were to put S750,0O0 Of our
money for a quarter interest and In
which he was invited to acquire only a
minority interest to promote German
propaganda, although there II nowhere
q suggestion that there was to be any
secrecy about the transaction and
there could not. have been any
minority interest to promote German
propaganda, although without violat-
ing the law.
Would Have Profted.
II am sure that a moments thought
will convince you that this Is, however,
an impossible construction and that
It could not have meant anything of
the sort. 1t was intended to persuade
him that the requirement that we be
given an option on sufficient of his
five-twelfths to give US with our
then holdings a majority, without
reference to the one-third retained
by the then owners, would sttl
leave Albert q substantial inter-
est in the property and ample op.
portunity for profit, for we would, Of
course, have had to take back the op-
toned stock at a substantial advance
IL we exercised the option, and IL we
failed to do SO our $750,o00 in cash
would be indefinitely tied up in a
minority holding unless our other
American coowners pooled the control
with us. Meantime. he would have had
an opportunity for the profits on his
holdings. As events proved II would
have been a magnificent venture for
him.
But all this is beside the question.
No such thing happened. What an
asinine performance 1t would have
been, from a business viewpoint, for
my friends to put up or for me TO
have permitted them to invest $3.50
600 in good money, which would have
been their initial investment for our
one-quarter, in order to enable Albert
to use the paper for unpopular propa-
ganda? For after the Lusitania muir
ders all their propaganda, open as
well as secret, was not only upopu-
lar, but intolerable, and would have
ruined any paper that championed It.
DR.. Dernburg's speeches. for instance,
that were delivered In universities and
elsewhere. and his newspaper and
magazine articles, that received re-
spectful attention before the Lusltania
was sunk, could thereafter get no
hearing, until he was finally virtually
| forced to leave the country.
|; ut is apparent from the letter that
no detailed financial plan had been
worked out. The time for that had
not arrived and never did arrive. On
the one hand. we did not know
whether we could get the paper on
proper ter>ns and the event proved
that we could not have got it..
On the other hand, we did not know
whether DR.. Albert or his friends
cared for a minority interest purely
as a project with big possibilities for
money making, and the event proved
that this did not interest them.