davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
The Third
Phase

The third phase of the battle was the
extension of the German attack to the
left bank Of the Meuse. Halted at Dou-
aumont, Won Falkenhayn decided to try
to reach Verdun from the west Tacti-
cally an advance on the west bank had
been made necessary from the fact that
the French batteries on that side could
enflade the more advanced German line
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
Requiem for q Probable occasion
By Amy Lowell

Once there was fine Kaiser,
Tricked out like a peacock,
Struttcd up on a great horse
Before a million little painted sold,.rs
Parading to and fro
Like a Christmas toy.
&c dressed up in a uniform, and a uniform
and uniform,
And they were all brand new
ana as gorgeous as the tailors could make
them.
Well, that is fortunate, for good cloth lasts
quite q while.
Now which will you choose to sit on the
piazza in?
But, really, the negroes who pass the gate
Observe you very little now;
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13

They are busy shouting, gigging, kissing,
Arranging for the next generaton
Only the pickanlnnes stare,
Digging their toes into the dust
Hoo! Hoo! They say he eat men.r
DO they so?
And did you?
All those dead men, Kaiser
with wheat growing out of their mouths
Millions and half of dead men.
You had appetite
Deaths Head Hussars,"
with skeleton on their caps
But think they should have worn vour
portrait instead
n' any ratc' caution your servant to be
careful when he brushes that coat;
IL is getting bit shaky in the seams.
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
Hitherto
Ignored

In fact, German strategy in France,
both before and after Won Falkenhayn's
offensive, completely ignored the threat
of Verdun. After Won Falkenhayn's dis
mlssal Won Hindenburg TRANQUILITY went
ahead completing the vast fortified zone
which bears his name. From that zone
Ludendorff launched the great offensive
of 1918, regardless of the existence of
the Verdun sally port. He probably could
have made a successful drive south from
the Argonne or cast from the St. Mihiel
salient and surrounded Verdun if he had
thought it necessary to do so in order to
solidify the German defensive position in
France.
Won Falkcnhayn undoubtedly ex-
pected to repeat Won Mackensens ex-
ploits on the Dunajcc. He employed
the same means and the same tactics
But he met foe vastly better pre-
pared for defence than the Russians
we're in 1915, and far superior in lead
ership and morale.
All records were broken by the Ger
man artillery concentration against the
arc of the advanced French line north
of Verdun and east of the Meuse. Won
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13

German possession until the armistice
was signed. So did the Briey coal and
iron fields. 1t was extremely improbable
that France ever would undertake an
offensive from the Meuse, SO long as the
German armies remained on the Aisne,
the Disc and the Somme. In Picardy the
Germans we're only sixty miles from
Paris. In 1915, 1916 and 1917 the French
never we're strong enough to risk an Of
fensive on the Lorraine or Alsace border
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
The Aladdin Who Rubbed a Nickel-W00lW0rth

even after this testimony Of his incompe-
tence sickencd him to such an extent
he was obliged TO retire to his farm for
year to regain his health
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13

articles exclusively occurred to Wool
worth it also dawned on number of
business men in Watcrtown and some
Of the surrounding stores. They had
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13

Though sick at heart and weak physi-
cally, ne went on--as a dreamer kept on
going.
When the idea of store selling cent
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
<("\HE EPIC OF NERDUN."
80 This French phrase will stick
because of its felicity The

<f"NHE EPIC OF NERDUN."
80 This French phrase will stick
because of it's felicity. The
defence of the ancient fort
rcss on the Meuse was Homeric in quail
ity. There France met the rudest test
of the war with epical devotion and
fortitude.
Germany, near the peak Of her mill
tary development, flushed by the ex-
traordinary success of her Eastern cam
paigns, challenged France in February,
1915, to an ordeal of endurance. 1T was
to be a competition in sheer staying
power, both physical and moral. Won
Hindenburg had said that the Russians
were not equal to a contest in which
victory would go to the belligerent with
"the stronger nerves." His theory had
justified itself in the East The Ger
mans now sought to experiment with 1t
in the West.
The campaign for Verdun involved no
subtleties of strategy. Won Falkenhayn
set out to eject the French by brute
force from one of the strongest positions
they held between the Swiss border and
Arras. And the strength of their posi-
tions didn't save the French. What
stopped Germany was not the rampant
of hills, forts and trenches about Verdun,
but an ever renewed rampant of living
men.
France, still somewhat inferior to Ger
many in weight of artillery, but fully
equal in the discipline and valor of her
infantry, didn't shrink from the ordeal
At times it seemed as if the lines around
Verdun would break under the stupen-
dous German pounding. They saggcd,
but they were never broken. After
hand to hand struggle, which lasted
many months, FRENCH dcggcauysg tri-
umphed
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
The POiIu
At His Best

The superb military quality Of the
French soldier never stood out more con-
spcuously than it did at Verdun For
Nerdun was a battle of units, of squads,
Of individuals--for inches of ground,
scraps of wood-footholds on hill slopes,
before had enormous armies grappled so
ferociously for weeks and weeks in so
restricted an area.
That fact enhanced Nerduns signif-
passing moral value. French nerves
proved equal to the fierccst strain that
could be put upon them by the new Ger
man tactics of assault, based on un-
precedented artillery concentration, the
use of special shock formations and the
lavish employment of gas waves, fame
throwers and shells charged with asphyx-
lating and tear-producing gases.
No other German attack on the West
front was as sustained and vicious as
that at Verdun. When it failed France
breathed more freely. The indefnable
prestige of German arms was shaken
Sedan and Gravelotte we're forgotten.
The French knew that, so far as their
armies were concerned, the German on
slaught could be stayed. Frances future
was reasonably secured, barring collapse
of civilian morale, due to defeatist in
trlgues or war WEAKNESS.
On the German side Nerdun was the
completcst military failure of the war.
1t had no value except as an experiment
In attrition And attrition pure and
simple, was a policy which Germany
could not afford to pursue. The German
strategic reserve which was used up on
the Meuse would haze sufficed many
times over to deal the final blow to Rus
sla. Won Hindenburg saw this clearly,
and from the beginning he opposed the
Nerdun campaign. His appointment, late
IN the summer, to succeed Won Falken-
hayn as Chief of Staff was a tardy ad
mission by the controlling military
Clique that German strength had been
oapped to no purpose.
New-York tribune., 1919-04-13
By Harold Horne

N IMAGINARY Aladdin built =
a palace by rubbing a magic
N lamp. f. W. Woolworth rubbed
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Our Enemies Euen
In Days Before War

But long before there was any
war the German chemical invaders
were our enemies. On dyes and coal
tar drugs the Germans had q prac-
tical monopoly held by driving
every American effort along these
lines out Of business. On heavy
chemicals the situation was not quite
80 bad, though serious enough.
This situation was used to derive
enormous profits, the dyes In par
ticular often being sold here at
four or five times their cost. The
Bayer Company, for instance, after
paying enormous prices to the Ger
man cartels for it's goods, in 1914
made $2,702, 1891 profit on sales Of
$s,4sb,820, while the Synthetic
Patents Company, owned by it and
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Germans Get Inside
american Development

The Germans did not long keep
out of the American development,
and there are now prominent in it
several men who have been Ger
man agents. The Alien Property
Custodian has seized and sold most
of the big German companies here.
but their brains remain, and in
some cases the evasion has been
such that he could not get the
concern.
Several small companies are also
imperfectly cleaned out, and there
are few the stock of which Is ap-
parently in the hands of neutrals,
but which are decidedly under sus-
picion. Altogether the chemical
trade was in a far from satisfactory
condition. Mr.. Palmer in his re-
port could say Of it nothing better
than this:
"This, it is to be hoped, NAV
interpose some difficulties in the
way of any attempt on the part
OF the latter to reestablish them
selves in this countrv."
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Cern,any's Chemicals
Her Greatest ASSET

Germany's estimate Of the value
to her, for after-war uses of the
chemical industry to force Allied
business to meet her demands, il
voiced by Herzog:
"Those of raw products which
are obtained by the use of chemi-
calls, however, will be Of especial
Importance. Thanks to the mar
vellous development Of Ger
man science, they assure
monopoly TO German industry
d monopoly the use of which is
of great Importance. The ex-
perlenceg of the war thus far
have given in this very connec-
ton an incontrovertible proof of
the absolute dependence Of the
foreign countries upon Germany.
With few exceptions
me dependency Of foreign coun-
tfies III not easy to prove. In
onese exceptions are included GER
fain dyestuffs and chemical pro-
ductg. Products Of
Ierfnan origin are considered for
purposes OF protecting the cx-
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Industry Busy in
War Plots Here

In spite Of the facts that have
become known as to the war activi-
ties of the German chemical inter
ests, few people have yet realized
how tremendously useful they were
to the Kaiser in his war against
America on American soil. DR..
Hugo Schweitzer and his propa-
ganda plots are known, as are DR..
Scheele's bomb manufactures. At
least two of the chemical compan-
les, the Bayer and the Geisenheimer,
were suspected of transmitting code
messages under the guise Of bust
ness. Officers Of the latter con-
Germ were deep In the councils Of
Boy-Ed, Won Papen, Albert, ct al.
Even more important were the
chemical pots engineered with the
idea Of preventing the manufac-
ture in this country of munitions.
One aimed at the manufacture of
toluol and benzol-products essen
tial to many industries-so that
there would be no impetus for the
establishment Of an American plant
which could provide them for ex-
plosives, for which they are indis-
pensible. A plant for this purpose
was built, financed by the Deutsche
Bank, through Hugo Schmidt, and
did supply America-under con-
tracts preventing the use Of the
products for explosives. Thus the
war found America dependent on a
German plant for her powder!
Another anti-explosive scheme
was the so-called "Chemical Ex-
change Associated, of which
Thomas A. Edison was the target.
Early in the war there was great
shortage of phenol (carbolic acid)
and Mr.. Edison, who needed much
in his business, invented q new pro-
cess for it's production and started
manufacture on a scale that left
him a big surplus, which easily
could have gone into the making
Of valuable explosives. The Ger
man ring got contract for all this
phenol, and to prevent it's reaching
the powder factories had it con-
verted into other non-explosive
products. This prolonged the car
bolic acid famine, to the great dis
tress Of the country. incidentally
the plot paid a profit of $4,000.
There were many others. These
show the German kultur.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
First Anaericar, Dyes
Like q Brides Biscuits

At the start the American indus
try was practically without re-
sources. Something of the situation
they had to meet is shown by few
figures. There were more than ten
thousand dyes patented in Germany,
of which some 900 had an ex-
tensive sale In America. There
were more than 5000 patents in
America on German dye manufac-
ture. Of course all these patents
very shortly were put at the dis
posal of the American manufac-
turers, but producing the dyes was
a very different matter.
Some Of the American makers
did, and there were many justifi-
able complaints of the dyes pro.
duced-of which the German prop
agandists took full advantage.
But to-day the American indus.
try is nearly out of the woods. Il
is actually making some dyes bet
ter and cheaper than Germany ever
did. N has produced practically all
the staple colors. And within two
or three weeks the great du Pont
laboratories will begin turning out
vat" dyes, the last and most com
plicated of the lot. Also, America
now has small army of splendid
chemists at work inventing new
dyes Of her own. This process.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

Of those Of the KuttroR contract
In addition are the following, sum.
married because Of the great length
of the original contract:
The name of Farbwerke is not
to appear on the books Of these
corporations nor be known to any
but the parties to the agreement,
and the transfer of shares to be
made by Endorsement and delivery
Of the certificates thereof. On
demand, however, the Farbwerke
will at any time be entered on
the books Of the respective cor
porations.
Should Metz die or withdraw
from active management of said
three corporations all of his
shares in all three companies
must be rendered to Farbwerke
at prices fixed in agreement, who
will have the right to preemption.
The option is to purchase shares
of all three corporations and not
of one or two such corporations.
Metz agrees to continue in
active control and management
of these three companies unless
Farbwerke should acquire control
of all stock of such corporations,
and in turn Farbwerke agrees
to give the exclusive sale of
their products to H. A. Metz
& Co. at their lowest market
price. This agreement for five
years and to go on unless a writ
ten notice Of the intention to let
the same expire is given by
either party year in advance.
Metz agrees not to enter into
a competing business nor permit
the use of his name in such bust
ness as long as either he or Farb-
werke remains stockholders in the
three corporations or he is mana
ger and so long as Farbwerke
faithfully observes his agreement.
In turn Metz promises not to sell
any of his stock without giving
an option on it at prices given in
Paragraph Is to Farbwerke, and
for three years thereafter not to
go into a competing business nor
lend his name to one.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Var Also Centre
OF Spy System

In another sense the chemical
trade served the war god, as well
as the commercial needs. It was
the centre of German espionage,
managed for twenty years by Hugo
Schweitzer, a consulting chemist"
of the Bayer Company, but with
power which in many things ex-
ceeded that Of an ambassador. He
handled funds running into the
millions which never showed on the
books. He paid the chemical and
dye men throughout the country
salaries three and four times their
business income. He managed the
German propaganda.
The work done by A. Mitchell
Palmer and Francis p Garvan, his
successor as Alien Property Custo-
dian, and by the War Trade Board,
has smashed that beautifully built
chemical machine. Thanks to Mr..
Carvan and the men who worked
with him, it has been thoroughly
exposed. The story Of their in
vestigation and success is one Of
the most dramatic chapters Of the
secret history of the war, but it
may not yet be told.
The facts they have revealed
have amazed even those most
familiar with the situation, for they
show an enemy whether in peace
or war; that was firmly established
in position Of great strategic
power, holding up American busi-
ness for an enormous profit, crush
ing competition by every available
method, centre Of espionage and
propaganda and Of crime when need
arose, lodging our taxes, evading
our law and hiding under American
name and citizenship through all
manner of deceit and camoufage.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

started, but absolutely forbidden by
the home companies. Herzog, it
will be remembered, emphasizes in
his book the principle that under
no circumstances shall valuable
trade secrets concerning the indus
tries which Germany intends to use
to bludgeon the world be permitted
to leave Germany.
With what supplies were on hand
the German concerns mixed cheaper
or more available substitutes to
string them out. Those that could
be obtained they bought at almost
any price and sent them out as their
own undertrademarks and labels
that closely initiated the German
and with legends that emphasized
the German origin of the goods.
They sought longtime contracts as
the price of parting with what they
had Of the more precious materials
Finally they organized an American
edition of the great German dye
cartel, the Republic Trading Corpo-
ration, which included all the princi-
pal agents and which was intended
to guard their mutual interests, fight
American competition and, as is
stated in a letter from the Bayer
company to DR.. Christian Hess, one
of the German owners:
1T was interesting to note in
our last conversation with Mr..
Metz that he was specially
anxious that the organization
should aim later at placing in the
pillory all dealers who would not
publicly agree to run the business
according to the fixed principles
Of sale laid down by US. You
will understand what l mean, and
l think Mr.. Kuttroff also will
enlist under the flag later"
This precious corporation lam
guished for lack Of having any dyes
to sell, though it got little when
che Deutschland came over, and was
doing little when it came under the
control of the Alien Property Gus
todian, through his seizure Of most
of the member companies.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

condemned. The most used scheme
was the corruption of the boss dy-
ers, mostly Germans, who by manip-
ulation could make the best dyes re-
suit poorly, end would get good ef-
fects only from the product of the
man who paid them. There are
charges that in some cases these
boss dyers took pains to do poor
work on goods that were to meet
German competition in the market.
Dumping was the accepted way Of
killing American competition, wher-
ever it showed it's head, and it was
almost completely successful This
was done mostly in branches other
than dyes, because the dye industry
never needed the German killers
expert attention. When the Benzol
Products Company was organized in
1910 the Germans cut the price on
aniline oil, which it manufactured.
from II Il cents, normal, under
~. When there was competition
in salicylic acid they sold it here,
after paying duty of cents a
pound, for 25 cents, the home
price at that time being 26A to
3Oh cents. In 1910 they sold
oxalic acid at 6 cents. An Ameri-
can factory opened and the price
was cut to At cents. In 1907 the
American factory shut down and the
price went to cents; it reopened
after some months and At cents
again became the figure. In 1908
the American failed and the price
went to Z II and stayed there.
Of course there was tax lodging.
In the Bayer Company, for instance,
Mr.. Palmer reports the organiza-
ton Of a subsidiary company "to
conceal the profits for the purposes
of taxation,' and he adds "the in
vestigation also covered number Of
less legitimate evasions of the tax
laws and resulted in the recovery of
large sum by the Treasury; and
at least part of the concealed
ownerships of the German agen-
cies, which helped make it hard for
the Alien Property Custodian to
seize them after we entered the
war, were unearthed at this time.
Elaborate arrangements also were
taken to avoid the law against sell
ing pools, and these seem to have
worked.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
By Stanley Frost
Copyright, 1919, Menu York Tribune ync.)

port trade primarily if they are
absolutely Indispensable"
That is the theory-here is the
plan to put 1t into practice, as ex-
pressed by the "Farber-Zeitung, /"
the dye trade paper of Germany:
EThe German coal tar dye
stuff industry ought, after the
conclusion Of peace, to be per-
mitted to sell dyestuffs only in
Germany, Austria, Turkey and
Bulgaria until the German tex
tile factories are again fully
occupied and all warehouses and
stores and all concerns are again
fully supplied with good white,
dyed and printed goods. Only
then would 1t be permissible to
furnish German coal tar dyestuffs
to neutral or hostile foreign coun-
tries. If foreign
countries begin again too oe1i1 soon to
receive good German coal tar
dyestuffs they might easily ruin
the business Of the German ex-
port trade in finished products.
1t would be permis-
sible to furnish dyestuffs to
America only if the American
government should consent to
bury for long time the unjusti-
fable so-called antitrust uues-
tlon in connection with the ami
line dye interests"
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04
Many Schemes
10 AuOid Seizure

When the United States entered
the war and it became evident that
German property was to be seized
Teutonic evasion reached it's highest
point. Every conceivable scheme
was resorted to in the efforts to
conceal the actual German owner
ship, and some Of these schemes
were so smooth that the courts still
are untangling the messes, with a
fair chance that the government
may get lien on the companies, but
will not get control of them. Less
than half of the German owned COM
panles found themselves in a posi-
tlon where they thought it safer to
make reports to the Alien Property
Custodian. The schemes of evasion
were all different and each was
pretty puzzle in itself.
One of the first unravelled, and
the simplest, was that of the Baver
Company. This company, which
was exceedingly profitable, report
ed that its stock was held by one
of its officers, on behalf Of Germans
who held for the parent company.
1t also reported the stock, similarly
held, of the Synthetic Patents Com
pany, which owned the patents and
other rights under which Baver
operated, was used as a mixer to
conceal profits.
The readiness with which such an
important concern surrendered
aroused suspicion, and after a pro-
longed investigation the joker was
unearthed. This was the Williams &
Crowell Company, a concern in Con-
necticut, to which had quietly been
transferred much of the most valu-
able rights of the Bayer. 1t finally
was possible to prove that, though
the stock Of this concern was held
by American citizens, the money to
pay for 1t came from Germans.
New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

not till the contract printed above
was unearthed that it was plain
they had no real control. In
fact, the New York concern asked
permission of the Badische for
every raise of salary to an en-
ploye, and paid it sums running
into hundreds Of thousands for
which no reason appeared.
A trick that failed was that of
the Bauer Chemical Company,
much smaller concern, which owned
the rights to Formaint and Sanato-
gen. This concern, by the way,
raised a pretty problem for the
Alien Property Custodian when he
seized it. 1t became his duty to
protect the interests Of the prop
erty, and one of the interests lay
in the sale of Sanatogen. Mr.. Gar
van, who was in charge, remem-
bered The Tribune's exposure of
the fake involved in this scheme of
selling few cents worth of stuff
chiefly cheese-for dollar, and re-
fused to continue the advertising.
The stock Of this concern ap-
peared to have passed into the
hands of T. Elicit Hodgkin, its
lawyer, who now is under indict-
ment on another matter, also con-
nected with German interests in
this country. Hodgkin bought 744
of the 750 shares in May, 1915,
borrowing the money for the deal
from Richard Kny, father-in-law
of George Simon. president of
the corporation, who held the stock
himself, in escrow for the debt,
leaving Mr.. Hodgkin's ownership
rather thin. Mr.. Kny appears in
another place on the records of the
Alien Property Office, in connec-
tion with the Kny-Scheerer Corpo-
ration, which held the monopoly of
German surgical instruments in
this country.