New-York tribune., 1918-07-12
The Invisible Enemy

There is predisposition to be divert
ed by the thought that Germany was
swi0dled in her efforts to buy public
opinion in this country. She bought
The Euening Mail and goodness knows
what else, and spent millions for propa-
garda, and what good did it do her?
Dill it keep us from going to war with
autccracy?
That is what many people are saying.
It is the moral that some are accepting.
even The Ne1o York World, which fore
tells that in the next edition of a well
known book on popular delusions there
will be chapter on the gullibility of
the German propagandist who thought
by the liberal use of money to persuade
the American people against their own
interests.
Which all goes to show how little peo-
pie know about propaganda, especially
German propaganda, and how like vir-
gin field to the first wheat sewers this
country full Of innocent newspapers
must have seemed to the Kaiser's agents
--Dernburg, Won Bernstorff, Albert, and
other Huns.
The public mind to the trained propa-
gandist is a pool into which phrases and
thoughts are dropped like acids, with
foreknowledge of the reactions that will
take place, just as Professor Loeb at the
Rockefeller Institute can make thou
sand crustaceans stop swimming aim
lessly about in the bowl and rush with
one headlong impulse to the side where
the light comes from, merely by intro
ducing into the water little drop of
chemical.
We do not know how successful Ger
man propaganda has been in this coun-
try We shall never know But it is
notorious that the German governments
agents have shrewdly exploited internal
distractions and disaffections. They have
famed the Irish question. They prob
ably helped to finance the Sim Fein
row, which, by the way, stopped very
abruptly when criminal prosecutions
started. They have sought to inhame
the negro in his grievance. They have
helped revive the ancient feud between
the A. P. A. and the Catholic Church.
They have procured to be printed in
American papers editorials that could be
quoted in Mexico to prove the Americans
perfidious in their intentions toward
that country They have widely and
very adroitly suggested Japan to the
American imagination in an extremely
sinister light. They have sown dark
thoughts against our allies, especially
Great Britain and Italy. They have as
sisted to spread the capitaistic idea Of
war among the radicals. They have
most efficiently sustained a large body
of paciist opinion in the country. dis
guised latterly as opinion for diplo-
matte peace.
This is not to say that the German
proNagandist ever positively originated
anything. He is not so stupid His bust
ness is to work with the elements, ma
terials and conditions already existing
and to shape and develop them scien-
titically. He did not invent the negro
problem. He has only exploited it. So
witn everything.
and if by all these means together
the sum of this country's war activities
could be, or has been, retarded as much
as one week. that achievement alone
might have seemed to the German gov
ernment worth any amount of money.
Who will say that our war programme
is not three months behind what it
might be? Who will say how much of
the delay has been owing, directly or
Indirectly, to the work of German agents
in this country?
Rut that is only the obvious aspect
The most difficult part of the war is yet
to come--at the very end, when peace
terms are on the table. What would
an organized power of suggestion in
this country be worth to the German
government at that time?