The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-30

| speeches it has been the privilege
 of a Birming gham audience to hear
 in many months United States Att .
 tcrney General X. Mitchell Palmer, at the Jefferson theatre last night,
 related a number of hitherto un- l disclosed secrets of German in- l friCue and espionage in this cOun- l try.
 l As custodian of alien property during the war, Mir. Palmer had the | opportunity of discovering the many notifications of the Ger man system whereby all the trade and military plans of the United States were placed in the hands of the German government. Some of the facts revealed by Mir. Palmer had not been given to the public before and the story of perfidy and treaehery as related by him was g startling disclosure to his hearers.
 SPEAKER IS PRESENTED | Lee C. Bradley, who was MT. Pal
 mer's chief counsel as custodian of alien property, presided as chairman.
 In calling the meeting to order he | stated that America had reached the l end of the greatest undertaking any nation had ever engaged in and had won a glorious victory; but that the people back here" had yet a little to do, must lend money to the government to pay the bills.
 Mir. Bradley gave way to United States Senator Oscar w. Underwood, who, introducing MT Palmer, paid him high compliment, saying that he had at all times upheld the hands of President Wilson and had often been consulted by the President. MT. Palmer said this was his first uos, -I,., l,t,f h bod Q r so much about the city from his two friends Senator Underwood, with whom he served on the ways and means com- mittee in the national House of Repre- sentatives for several years, and MT.
 BradIey) that he believed he could find
 his way about blindfolded and he felt at home here.
 q am not here to sell bonds,' he
 said "It is not necessary for me 10
 come to you to sell bonds. But l be- lieve I can qualify as a bond sales
 man for l have been the biggest buyer of Liberty Bonds in the United States. I paid for them with the KaiSer's own money"
 USED GERMAN GOODS He told of the St. Louis school teach- CT who bequeathed $10,000 to General Hindenburg, saying that her property came into his hands and that he bought
  government used this money to pay for guns and munitions to fight linden , burg.
 "We made every item of German property into materials with which | to fight the Germans" he said He told of taking over seven wooden mills at Passaic, N. J., every one of them German-owned, and in which German was the official language. These mills made enormous profits, one one of them he referred to as having made $11 1,000,000 profits on $3,000,0OG investment These mills, he said, re- fused to make goods for the American
 army, but made big profits on civilian trade at war prices.
 We made English the official tongue in the mills, threw out the ci- william contracts and put the looms to making clothes for the army and navy" he stated, and the audience roundly applauded.
 MUCH GERMAN WEALTH
 He told of Florida land-200,0 900 acres-around St. Andrews bay, owned by a Hohenzollern prince, which for years blocked railways from touching the harbor, said to be the best harbor on the gulf coast and the nearest to the Panama canal; of magneto com- pany, German owned, in Massachusetts, that refused to make materials for the United States or the allies, and which had 25,000 capital stock and $6,- 100000 of assets; of the Sayville wire less station, where his agents seized 30 900 messages which decoded and translated, revealed a story of German perfdy that. he said. would astound the world if it heard it.
 "The people have wondered how We found all this German property" he said Those wireless messages helped" For 40 years Germany had been building a commercial army through which it hoped so to paralyze Ameri- ca that when time for starting it's war of world conquest America would be unable to take part in it. It was the irony of fate, he said, that Germany should find that this part of her army had been enlisted in the cause of Amer iea, and that it had been used against Germany.
 ATTITUDE OF GOVERNMENT
 "The government is not asking you to lend money to celebrate a victory, but to enable it to pay it's debt of honor," had had the naming of this loan I don't think 1 would have called it a Victory Loan. I would have called it the Honor Loan."
 He told of his fathers saying that he put a note in bank in the fall so that winter WOuld pass QulcKiy, ana Salu tidl buying a Victory bond is putting motley
 in the bank Of civilization. "The American people will meet their obligation. They never quit until the job is finished. We are as much part of the army as are the boys in khaki and our job is not finished. Four million young men donned the khaki, but that was only one division. Labor. the farm. the shop, the factory, were the support ing forces and all these and the khaki and blue-clad lads made the grand army of the republic 1O0,000,000 strong. Did the men in khaki quit? They did not. Will you quit? You will not Would New York have welcomed the
 27th on it's return if it had stopped at
 the Hindenburg line? Would Philadel
 phia welcome the 18th tomorrow if they
 had stopped at the Ourcq? Would you
 welcome the gallant old Fourth Alabama
 if they had stopped before the job was finished?'
 THE RETREAT UNKNOWN
 He told of a conversation he had with
 a relative upon the latters return from
 France. decorated with three wound
 Strioes and the French cross of war. who,