2,622 tons), and the _Kronprinzessin
Cecile_ (19,503 tons). Others were held in the Philippines and Hawaii.
Seven Austrian vessels were seized, but subject to payment, the United
States not being at war with the Dual Monarchy.

All the German officers and crews were taken in charge by the
immigration authorities and held in the status of intending immigrants
whose eligibility for entering the country was in question until the
end of the war. This decision meant internment.

The machinery of most of the German ships was found to be damaged to
prevent the Government making immediate use of them as transports, for
which the larger ones were admirably fitted. The damage dated from the
severance of relations on February 3, 1917, and was a preconcerted
movement undertaken by the various captains and officers upon
instructions from Berlin to cripple the machinery when war seemed
imminent. Captain Polack of the North German Lloyd liner
_Kronprinzessin Cecile_, held in Boston, admitted that he had received
orders to make his vessel unseaworthy from the German Embassy at
Washington three days before the rupture with Germany took place.

Congress later authorized the President to take title to the German
ships for the United States and to put them into service in the
conduct of the war. Payment or any other method of return for their
seizure was to wait until the war ended. In a short time more than
half of the seized vessels had been repaired and put upon the seas
under the American flag with new names. Fifteen were fitted for
transports. The Stars and Stripes was duly hoisted on the great German
liner _Vaterland_.

Simultaneous with the seizure of these vessels came wholesale arrests
of Germans suspected of being spies. Federal officers swooped down on
them in various parts of the country as soon as war was declared. They
could not now safely be at large. Several had already been convicted
of violating American neutrality by hatching German plots and were at
liberty under bond pending the result of court appeals; others were
under indictment for similar offenses and waiting trial; the remainder
were suspects who had long been under Federal surveillance. It was a
war measure taken without regard to the civil law to circumvent
further machinations of German conspirators, who had now become alien
enemies.

Bearing upon these precautions was a proclamation issued by the
President warning citizens and aliens against the commiss