o write and circulate articles
of this kind, but were not financially in a position to do so. The
leaders of German propaganda would surely have been neglectful
of their duty if in such cases they had not provided the necessary
funds. All Governments in the world have always proceeded in a
similar way, and in particular that of the United States since
their entry into the war, as is shown by the case of the _Freie
Zeitung_ of Bern--therefore equally in a neutral country. These
facts must throw a strange light on the inquiry of the American
Senate into German propaganda, delayed as it was until last winter
and carried through with such elaborate machinery. It is obvious
that beneath it all there lay--what irony!--a purely propagandist
purpose, namely, that of humiliating Germany in the person of her
late official representative accredited to the United States, and to
make her appear contemptible in the eyes of the uncritical public!

Whereas in the first months of the war no one in America had thought
of connecting "German Propaganda" with anything shocking, our opponents
afterwards succeeded in disseminating the idea that a few offences
against the law committed by Imperial and American Germans represented
an important, even the most important, part of the German propaganda
work. So it was brought about that even in the time before America's
entry into the war, everyone who openly stood up for Germany's
cause was stamped by the expression "German Propagandist" as a
person of doubtful integrity. The gradual official perpetuation
of this admittedly misleading identification of our absolutely
unexceptionable propaganda with a few regrettable offences against
the American penal code--this and no other was the object of that
inquiry by the Senate. The prejudicial headlines under which the
published articles were printed, such as "Brewery and Brandy Interests"
and "German-Bolshevist Propaganda," themselves sufficed to indicate
that our propaganda was to be crucified between two "malefactors";
for to the average American citizen there is nothing more horrifying
than the distillery on the one hand and Bolshevism on the other. In
this connection I must not omit to mention that the great majority
of the documents laid before the Commission had been secured by
means of bribery or theft. It is also worth while to remind the
reader of the significant words of Senator Reed, a member of the
Commission, who said at one point in the ex