background of great economic measures, which placed the cost
out of all proportion to the chances of success. The whole cost,
as in the "_Wilhelmina_ case" would have to be guaranteed from
Germany, and would of course have been lost if the English secret
service succeeded in establishing the German connection.

The propaganda for preventing and hampering the supply of war material
to our enemies turned at first on the question of principle whether
such supplies were reconcilable with neutrality. The attempt was
made--as has been briefly mentioned already--with the special support
of the German-American circles, to impress upon the American people
the immorality and essentially unneutral nature of the supplies,
especially in view of the vast scale they were assuming. It is
well known that these attempts, which extended to a strictly legal
exertion of influence on Congress, failed. The lack of unity and
limited political experience of the German-Americans contributed
to this result, but the economic interest of the nation in the
supplies, in which the whole American Administration and industry
were finally concerned, formed the decisive factor.

Attempts too were very soon made to hamper the supplies in a practical
way. In August, 1914, it might perhaps have been possible to buy up
the Bethlehem Steel Works, if the outlay of the necessary capital
had been promptly decided upon. At that time the Americans themselves
did not foresee what a gigantic proportion these supplies were
to assume. The purchase of these works would have deprived the
whole munition industry of its main support. Similar proposals have
repeatedly been worked out by us, as, for example, the proposal
to amalgamate the whole shrapnel industry of the United States.
The fear, well grounded in itself, that such an arrangement was
scarcely within the bounds of practical politics and could have
been got round, could be ignored. In case of disputes as to the
validity of such a step we should have gained more by the publicity
than we stood to lose. At that time, however, the Berlin Government
took up a negative attitude, and did not interest itself in the
question until the beginning of 1915, when the vast supplies of
material from America began to make themselves felt and the
concentration of German industry on the production of munitions
was not yet complete. The Military Attache received instructions
to do everything possible to hamper the fulfilment of th