at
the _Rathaus_ feast, they were informed that there was no room for
them. An overflow banquet had been arranged in their special
honour in a neighbouring tavern. This was too much even for some
of the War Press Bureau's best American friends, and the overflow
dinner party was served at a table which contained many vacant
chairs. Their intended occupiers had taken the first train back to
Berlin, thoroughly disgusted.

It is fair to say that several of the principal American
correspondents in Berlin are making a serious effort to practise
independent journalism, _but it is a difficult and hopeless
struggle_. They are shackled and controlled from one end of the
week to the other. They could not if they wished send the
unadorned truth to the United States. _All they are permitted to
report is that portion of the truth which reflects Germany in the
light in which it is useful for Germany to appear from time to
time_.

Germany has organised news for neutrals in the most intricate
fashion. A certain kind of news is doled out for the United
States, a totally different kind for Spain, and still a different
brand, when emergency demands, for Switzerland, Brazil, or China.
There is a Chinese correspondent among the other "neutrals" in
Germany. The "news" prepared for him by Major Nicolai's department
would be very amusing reading in the columns of Mr. von Wiegand's
or Dr. Hale's papers.

There is a celebrated and pro-Ally newspaper in New York whose
motto is "All the news that's fit to print." The motto of the
German War Press Bureau is "All the news that's safe to print."

CHAPTER IX

ANTON LANG OF OBERAMMERGAU

While I was at home on a few weeks' visit in October, 1915, I read
in the newspapers a simple announcement cabled from Europe that
Anton Lang of Oberammergau had been killed in the great French
offensive in Champagne. This came as a shock to many Americans,
for the name of this wonderful character who had inspired people of
all shades of opinion and religious belief in his masterful
impersonation of Christ in the decennial Passion Play was almost as
well known in the United States and in England as in his native
Bavaria, and better, I found than in Prussia.

British and American tourist agencies had put Oberammergau on the
map of the world. The interest in America after the Passion Play
of 1910 was so great, in fact, that some newspapers ran extensive
series of illustrated articles describin