believed war inevitable and won. A few days before
Sielcken's death the old firm was dissolved under the Trading with the
Enemy Act, being succeeded by the firm of Sorenson & Nielsen. The former
had been with the business thirty-four years, and the latter thirty-two
years. The alien property custodian took over Sielcken's interest for
the duration of the war.

Rumors in 1915 that the German government was extorting large sums of
money from Sielcken brought denials from his associates here. After the
war, it was confirmed that no such extortions took place.

Sielcken always claimed American citizenship. There was a widely
circulated story, never proved, that he tore up his citizenship papers
in 1912 when the United States government began its suit to force the
sale of coffee stocks held here under the valorization agreement. The
Supreme Court of California in 1921 decided that he _was_ a citizen, and
his interests and those of his widow, amounting to $4,000,000, held by
the alien property custodian, were thereupon released to his heirs. It
appeared in evidence that he took out his citizenship papers in San
Francisco in 1873-74, but lost them in a shipwreck off the coast of
Brazil in 1876. The San Francisco fire destroyed the other records; but
under act of legislature re-establishing them, the citizenship claim was
declared valid.

Hermann Sielcken never liked the title of "coffee king." He was once
asked about this appellation, and turned smartly upon the interviewer.

"Nonsense," he said. "I am no king. I don't like the term, because I
never heard of a 'king' who did not fail."

Sielcken had no use for titles. T.S.B. Nielsen says that at a dinner
party in Germany in 1915 he heard Sielcken explain to a large number of
guests that the United States was the best country because there a man
was appraised at his real value. What he did, and how he lived,
counted--not birth or titles.

While his greatest achievement was, of course, the valorization
enterprise, he played a not unimportant role in the Havemeyer-Arbuckle
sugar-trust fight. He aided the late Henry O. Havemeyer to secure
control of the Woolson Spice Co. of Toledo in 1896, so as to enable the
Havemeyer's to retaliate with Lion brand coffee for the Arbuckles'
entrance into the sugar business. The Woolson Spice Co. sold the Lion
brand in the middle west, and the American Coffee Co. sold it in the
east. That was the beginning of a losing price-war that lasted t