Rintelen to use his ample funds to draw the United States into
conflict with its southern neighbor as a means of diverting munition
supplies from the Allies for American use. He and other German agents
were suspected of being in league with General Huerta with a view to
promoting a new revolution in Mexico.

The New York Grand Jury's investigations of Von Rintelen's activities
became directed to his endeavors to "buy strikes." The outcome was the
indictment of officials of a German organization known under the
misleading name of the National Labor Peace Council. The persons
accused were Von Rintelen himself, though a prisoner in England; Frank
Buchanan, a member of Congress; H. Robert Fowler, a former
representative; Jacob C. Taylor, president of the organization; David
Lamar, who previously had gained notoriety for impersonating a
congressman in order to obtain money and known as the "Wolf of Wall
Street," and two others, named Martin and Schulties, active in the
Labor Peace Council and connected with a body called the Antitrust
League. They were charged with having, in an attempt to effect an
embargo (which would be in the interest of Germany) on the shipment of
war supplies, conspired to restrain foreign trade by instigating
strikes, intimidating employees, bribing and distributing money among
officers of labor organizations. Von Rintelen was said to have
supplied funds to Lamar wherewith the Labor Peace Council was enabled
to pursue these objects. One sum named was $300,000, received by Lamar
from Von Rintelen for the organization of this body; of that sum Lamar
was said to have paid $170,000 to men connected with the council.

The Labor Peace Council was organized in the summer of 1915, and met
first in Washington, when resolutions were passed embracing proposals
for international peace, but were viewed as really disguising a
propaganda on behalf of German interests. The Government sought to
show that the organization was financed by German agents and that its
crusade was part and parcel of pro-German movements whose
ramifications throughout the country had caused national concern.

Von Rintelen's manifold activities as chronicled acquired a tinge of
romance and not a little of fiction, but the revelations concerning
him were deemed sufficiently serious by Germany to produce a
repudiation of him by the German embassy on direct instructions from
Berlin, i. e.:

"The German Government entirely disavows Franz Rin