nformation" has flooded America and Europe. And I have been openly
accused of having instigated and furthered, or at the very least
been privy to, all manner of criminal activities. In interviews with
American journalists I have more than once refuted these calumnies,
which can be supported by no evidence, and were solely intended
to arouse popular feeling against Germany; but I must now refer
again to the more definite of these accusations.

It must be left to the impartial historian of the future to establish
the full truth concerning the German conspiracies in the United
States; any evidence given under the influence of the passions
arising out of the war can, of course, possess only a limited value.
It is obvious from the proceedings concerning the constitution of
the Senate Committee that much of the evidence was prejudiced and
unreliable, probably because it was based solely on information
given by Germans or former Germans, whose identities were kept
strictly secret, and who told deliberate lies, either because,
like Judas, they had received a reward for their treachery, or
because, having severed all ties with their old country, they wished
to secure their footing in the new.

In any case I myself was never a partner to any proceedings which
contravened the laws of the United States. I never instigated such
proceedings, nor did I consciously afford their authors assistance,
whether financially or otherwise. I was in no single instance privy
to any illegal acts, or to any preparations for such acts. Indeed,
as a rule I heard of them first through the papers, and even then
scarcely believed in the very existence of most of the conspiracies
for which I was afterwards held accountable. I shall hardly be
blamed for this by anyone who remembered the number of projects
which we were all duly accused of entertaining, such as the various
alleged plans for the invasion of Canada with a force recruited
from the German-American rifle clubs, and many another wild-cat
scheme attributed to us in the first months of the war.

Such offences against the laws of America as were actually committed
were certainly reprobated by none more sincerely than by myself,
if only because nothing could be imagined more certain to militate
against my policy, as I have here described it, than these outrages
and the popular indignation aroused by them. I fully realized that
these individual acts, in defiance of the law of the land and the
res