The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-16

3gRasSS$#*&S#S$$SS3E ES$$$$& tEUGENEA AX.-pEs sG Eugene V. Debs, several times S has been on trial in Cleveland for al Pastor Stokes, almost as prominen Debs, has already been convicted b charges of similar nature She cause she applauded in the courtr the Kaiser shortly afterwards, | repeat ed her remark to see what he would say.
 T am convinced that the count lived long enough to see all that the Zeppellns were capable of accomplishing was his only comment. It recalled the answer he had given me some years before when both Zeppelins and airplanes were in their infancy and had asked him which held the greater promise. We do not know. Time alone will tell" was his reply.
 The last time I conversed with the Kaiser was on November 26, 19l7 Up to that time we had sent over 169000 troops according to the figures which have since been revealed by Secretary Baker. According to the Kaiser's in formation, however, we had only 5000 men in France at that time and he was of the opinion that we would never have
 many more.
 America is having fine time trying to raise an army" he declared satirical- ty T hear that 1600 mutinied the other
 day in New York and refused to get on transport, and a town in the north
 west composed principally of citizens of
 Swedish birth refused to register at all! We are getting excellent information
 about all conditions in America"
 Shortly before this had come the reve-
 xx-- l. rE tl,N atYtcr 1n
 of Count yon Luxburg, the German
 minister to Argentina, and I knew where
 the Kaiser was getting the information
 he referred to. In nearly every case, Il
 appeared, the Kaiser's informants were misleading him.
 SMALL OPINION OF AMERICA Both before and after we entered the
 war the Kaiser was thoroughly con yinced that we could play only noml- nal part in it so far as man power was concerned and his assurance on that point undoubtedly accounted for his de' cislon to carry through his submarine programme even though II resnltsd lh bringing us into the war | DO you realize how many tons or shipping it takes to ship single sol dier?', he asked me on one occasion. I confessed my ignorance on that poulI "weII, if it takes six tons to the man! To send over an army or 5OO,OOO men, therefore. your coun- try would require 3.00O,OOO tons or xhiupfnc in addition to the t0n- mage required for regular traffic. Where is it coming from, with my submarines sinking the allied ves- sels faster than they can De re- uIaced My U-bonts are doing wonderful work and we are pre- pared to take care of all the troops America may try 10 iand HI France"
 How foolish for America to have come into the war" he went on. "If she could succeed in landing real army | in France, what good would 1t do! America can now see how easy IL was l for me to break through and to capture 10000 of the Italians, and they must realize that can breah through on the western front and do the same thing there. If America had kept out of the war she would have gone on making untold profits and when peace was fin- ally declared she would have been in ! A most enviable position among the na- l lions of the world As 1t is, Wilson will never have a seat at the peace ta- ble, if can help it and now America 1 will have to pay all the costs of the
 war;! Evidently he imagined that his /, triumph would be so complete that there 1 would be no peace table but that the warning nations would be compelled to l accent the terms he offered them, in which event, knowing the magnanimity l of the German makeup, 1 should say l the world at large would have to be content with very little.
 1 How the Kaiser feels now that the failure of the U-boats to intercept | American troop ships must he painfully apparent to him, and America has so loverwhe elmingly overcome the shortage | of shinnfng. | don't know. but it is more | than probable that for sometime to come l the real situation will at any rate, be succe ssfully concealed from the German people. l know that the failure of the l U-boat campaign was unknown to the Germans up to the time ieIt Berlin l. fin January, 1918
 l LOSSES OF U-BOATS l I.osses of U-boats were never accu- rately announced, while the destruction | of allied vessels was always reported in terms of carrying capacity rather than | in the disnlacement of the vessels, which was one of the factors accounting for | the discrepancy between the German estimates of our shipping losses and our own figures and which disposes or the lconcealed the true extent of our pun ishment at the hands of the u-boats. ! The fact that the Germans magnified ! their U-boat activity was brought out {! by socialist members of the Reichstag. | They declared that U-boat commanders treturning from their trips invariably gave false reports to make themselves l heroes They declared that these com manders were like the imaginative fish l ermen who. no matter what poor luck I they might encounter. were apt to come I back with exaggerated stores of huge catches.
 l In this connection. may mention that 1 an Enelishman who had been interned at Ruhletori camp told me that an English sailor there had kept an accurate list from day to day of all the boats sunk as | published in the German papers. An analysis revealed that one ship had been sunk no less than five times! He had been skipper on another boat reported sunk. According to the German papers i, if was a 5Oo-ton vessel. In point of fact, 1 he declared, it was only 90 tons.
 | "How many submarines do you think | we have really lost to date?' I was asked. l around Christmas 1917. by German who was personal friend of Maximilian Har- l den.
 1 replied that I had heard that many months ago England had celebrated the | sinking of the tooth U-boat.
 ! sThat's ridiculousi' he calculated. "i Ihave inside information which is not pub