had acted in exactly the same way,
when ships were dispatched from the neutral harbor of Hong Kong
to coal Admiral Dewey's fleet before Manila and their cargo was
declared as being scrap-iron consigned to Macao. An indication of
the state of public opinion in the Eastern States of America at
the end of 1915 may be found in the fact that the heavy sentence
on this "German Conspirator" met with general approval apart from
a few emphatic protests on the part of the German-American papers.

A number of German Reserve officers domiciled in America succeeded,
despite the close watch maintained by England on the seas, in effecting
their return to the Fatherland, thanks to a secret bureau in New
York, organized by German-Americans, which provided them with false
or forged American passports. This bureau was closed by the American
police consequent on the discovery in January, 1915, of four German
Reservists, with such papers in their possession, on board a Norwegian
ship in New York harbor. The organizer had apparently fled from
New York some time before, but finally fell into the hands of the
British, and was drowned in a torpedoed transport. The Reservists
were discharged on payment of heavy fines. One, however, was sentenced
to three years' penal servitude. In estimating this affair, it
must be remembered that according to the recognized conventions
of international law, British men-of-war were not justified in
making prisoners of individual unarmed Germans returning to their
homes in neutral vessels. The American Government itself explicitly
affirmed as much when a ship flying the Stars and Stripes was held
up in mid-ocean for examination. As a rule, however, neutral Powers
were too weak to stand up for their rights against British violations
of international law, and so all Germans who were discovered by the
British on their homeward voyage were made prisoners of war. Our
countrymen, therefore, if they wished to do their duty by going to the
defence of their Fatherland, were compelled, in face of this flagrant
violation of the Law of Nations, to provide themselves with false
passports. They had thus to choose between two conflicting duties,
a dilemma all too common in life and one which the individual must
solve according to his lights. The bearers of such false passports
certainly risked heavy penalties, but shrank still more from incurring
any suspicion of skulking or cowardice.

It would seem, moreover, that there is