New-York tribune., 1918-05-12

Ambassador Count Won Bern
storff was not the only inter-
esting person who left the United
States for the country's good on the
Scandinavian liner Frederik VIII on
February Is, 1917. There were
others, among them the Herr Cap
tain Hans Tauscher, husband of the
opera singer, Johanna Gadski, and
Krupp agent in the United States.
Captain Tauscher had recently
been tried in New York, charged
with being a participant in an at
tempt to blow up the Welland Canal,
and had given an exhibition of
patriotism with a yellow band
around ito quote Assistant Dis
trict Attorney Wood.
The chief witness against him was
a self-styled German agent, boast
ing of the historic name of "Horst
Won der Goltz," brought from a
British prison for the purpose.
Gifted with vivid imagination,
talent for intrigue and a passion for
notoriety, there are no limits to the
political tangles persevering
boaster can get himself into, the per-
sons he can involve and the trouble
he can make for everybody, includ
ing the Secret Service men and
their governments. 1t is much easier
for him to start talking than it soon
becomes for him to stop. Take won
der Goltz" for an instance.
A cable dispatch in the newspa-
pers Of February 3, 1916, conveyed
the interesting information that a
man calling himself Bridgman Tay-
lor, arrested in London and for some
time confined in a British prison,
had made a confession regarding
Won Papen's dynamiting plots in the
United States and would be brought
here to testify. The public mind had
been pretty we'll worked up over the
plots of Won Papen, Boy-Ed and 9TH
ers, Won Papen, military attache,
ard Boy-Ed, naval attache of the
German government to the United
States, having been dismissed by
President Wilson for their lawless
activities. So that the arrival of
this Bridgman Taylor, alias Won der
Goltz, was looked forward to as an
event of much Importance.
Captain Tauscher
Held as Participant
He arrived in these waters on
board the Finland on March 29,
1916, accompanied by Detective Ser
geant Brust, of Scotland Yard. AL
most coincident with his arrival
came the arrest of Captain Tauscher,
charged with being a participant in
the plot of August, 1914.
Almost from the moment of his ar
rival in this country "von der Goltz"
talked. His talk as reported would
fill several large volumes.
In appearance he was tall, about
s feet 10 in height, fair-haired and
attired in picturesque suit Of
brown corduroy, brightly lined.
He wore a monocle!
Singularly enough, Germans have
a perfect passion for initiating the
English. The feminine manifestation
is chiefly tea and the masculine the
"monocle." They are bad actors at
both, but they will stick at neither.
"Von der Goltz," as / had better
call him, said he was an emissary of
the German government and that he
had agreed to come over to America
this time to save his life, as other
wise the British would have taken
him to the Tower and shot him!
You you'd have been charmed to
have heard the story of his life-as
he told it. You would have hung ir
breathless interest on his words
and thrilled with excitement as he
recounted his adventures. He was
the hero of a tale that WOULD have
put Charles Levers Con Cregan te
the blush, discounted the intrigue.
Of Maurice Tierney and sent poo1
Arthur O'Leary and his imagination
to find a hole to hide In.
He May Have Believed
His Tale of Adventure
1t is possible he has told his ad
ventures so often that he has com,
to believe in them himself. Their,
gre men Of that kind. and not a few
Of them. But they are not al
gifted with the dramatic instinct O
the true raconteur, which Won de-
Goltz possessed in measure whicl
ought to make his tales classics i,
a fiction library.
When visited him in his room
in West Twenty-third Street, afte
the Tauscher trial, he was in ba,
Way financially. and 7 nronosod tha