Chapter XIII: Section 5: of a resolution adopted nine months later, at a meeting of (3)

=Schell, Johann Christian and His Wife.=--One of the most inspiring stories of the Revolutionary war centers around this brave Palatine couple and their six sons, who tenanted a lonely cabin three miles northeast of the town of Herkimer, N. Y., and who in August, 1781, while at work in the fields were attacked by 16 Tories and 48 Indians. The marauders captured two of the younger boys, the remainder of the family gaining the shelter of the cabin. Here they successfully defended their home all day. With dusk the chief of the raiders, Capt. McDonald, succeeded in evading the vigilance of the defenders and to reach the door, which he tried to pry open with a lever. A shot struck him in the leg, and before he could effect his escape Schell opened the door and dragged the wounded man inside, where he held him as a hostage against the attempt to fire the house. The defenders now awaited the next move of the enemy and burst into singing Luther’s famous battle hymn of the Reformation, “Eine Feste Burg ist unser Gott.” In the midst of the song the attacking party rushed toward the house, gained the walls so that they were able to thrust their guns through the loopholes to fire at those within. Quick as thought Mrs. Schell seized an axe and beat upon the gun barrels until they were useless, while the men directed their fire so well that the miscreants were driven to flight, leaving eleven dead and twelve seriously wounded on the field.

=Schley, Winfield Scott.=--American admiral who conquered Cervera’s Spanish Squadron in Santiago Bay during the Spanish-American war, was descended from Thomas Schley, who immigrated into Maryland in 1735 at the head of 100 German Palatines and German Swiss families. Founded Friedrichstadt, afterwards Frederickstown, Md. Thomas Schley was a schoolmaster, and Pastor Schlatter of St. Gall, in the story of his travels (1746-51), wrote: “It is a great advantage of this congregation that it has the best schoolmaster whom I have met in America.” Admiral Schley graduated from the Naval Academy and participated immediately upon his leaving the Academy in numerous naval engagements during the Civil War. He was then attached to various squadrons and distinguished himself during the Corean Revolution in the bombardment of the forts.

When the Greeley North Pole expedition was practically given up for lost Captain Schley one day modestly presented himself to Secretary of the Navy Chandler and said: “Mr. Secretary, I realize that by rank I am not entitled to the honor of commanding a relief expedition, but, seeing that no volunteers have offered themselves for such command, I want to offer my services in order that it may not be said that the navy was found wanting.” Schley’s manner made a strong impression on the Secretary, and in a short time he received orders to head an expedition. The relief of Lieutenant Greeley by Schley when the exploring expedition was practically down to a few starving survivors forms one of the heroic chapters in the history of the American navy. Schley’s rapid rise and success at Santiago, together with his popularity with the rank and file of the navy, raised a cabal against him among the bureaucrats, and he was brought to trial for his manouvering of the Brooklyn in the Santiago battle. Cervera, the Spanish commander, when taken prisoner, attributed the failure of the Spanish squadron to escape to the famous “loop” of the Brooklyn, but a court martial found a contrary verdict. Admiral Dewey dissented. The verdict had no perceptible effect on Schley’s popularity, and the American people give him unqualified credit for the battle.

=Steinmetz, Charles P.=--One of the greatest scholars and scientists in the electrical field of today, Chief Consulting Engineer of the General Electric Company, and professor of electro-physics at Union College; Socialist president of the City Council and president Board of Education of Schenectady. Intimate associate and collaborator of Thomas A. Edison, and to whose genius many of the most important developments in electrical science are due. A native of Breslau, Germany; born April 9, 1865.

The New York “Times” of March 12, 1916, says: “Everybody knows that applied industrial chemistry would be a comparatively barren thing if everything that had come to it as the result of this man’s research should be taken away.” Fled Germany to escape prosecution for his Socialist writings. Came over in the steerage and worked as a draughtsman at $2 a day. In the “Times” he was quoted as having buried all resentment for his experience of thirty years ago. “Germany,” he said, “is so different now. I would not know the country if I went back to it. When I left it was merely an agricultural country. Now it is the greatest industrial country in the world.”

=Sauer, Christopher.=--The first to print a book (the Bible) in a foreign tongue (German) on American soil; famous printer and publisher of German and American books. Born in Germany, arrived in the Colonies in the fall of 1724, settling in Germantown. Published the first newspaper in the German language, “Der Hochdeutsche Pennsylvanische Geschichts Schreiber, oder Sammlung Wichitiger Nachrichten aus dem Natur und Kirchen Reich.” His magnificent quarto edition of the Bible, issued in 1743, after three years of endless toil, has never, in completeness and execution, been excelled in this country. He died in September, 1758, leaving an only son, also named Christopher, who continued his father’s business but gave it additional importance by employing two or three mills in manufacturing paper, casting his own type, making his own printers’ ink and engraving his own woodcuts as well as binding his own books, many of which passed through five or six editions. (Simpson’s “Lives of Eminent Philadelphians.”)

=Starving Germany.=--(Lord Courtney in Manchester “Guardian”)--“The attempt of England to starve Germany is a violation of the Declaration of London and a brutal offense against humanity. For these two reasons--if not for many others--it is a dishonorable proceeding.” (Dispatch of March 21, 1915.)

The silent policy of starving people into subjection is eloquently shown in the history of Ireland, of India, of the South African republics and of the Central Powers, and, strangely, the one country that has achieved this distinction is England.

We said that the blockade of Germany was “illegal, ineffective and indefensible,” but Sir Robert Cecil about the same time declared that England and the United States had an understanding, and he boasted that “we have our hands at the throat of Germany” and scorned the suggestion to relax a grip that meant the starvation of women, children and the aged. Germany was told to give up her U-boat sinking of merchant ships and answered that she had no other weapon to make England take her grip off the German throat, and when she was forced to surrender, the full magnitude of the policy of starving non-combatants was revealed. The picture is presented in the uncolored official statements of unprejudiced observers. The Stockholm “Tidningen” of March 29, 1919:

The Swedish Red Cross delegates sent to Germany in order
to make arrangements for getting over to Sweden underfed
German children have now returned to Stockholm. The first
transport will contain 500 Berlin children.

The delegates describe the want in Germany as appalling.
During the revolution days =nothing at all could be got for
the babies in some places except hot water, and many died,
but this was nothing unusual in Berlin=. The children were
underfed, feeble and rachitic everywhere. Often children
four or five years old were unable to walk. In many places
the schools had had to be closed because of the general
want. =Tuberculosis has increased by 60 per cent.= Because
of this older children than at first proposed must be
sent to Sweden.... There are also negotiations going on
regarding children from the other famishing countries. The
German Government has promised to transport the Belgian
children free of charge from Belgium to Sassnitz.

The interest in Sweden for the war children is immense.
One thousand five hundred invitations have already been
made from single peasants’ homes, and about £3,000 has been
collected, mostly in small contributions from the poorer
classes. Thus willingness to sacrifice is great, but, of
course, much more money is still needed.

Henry Nevison, an eminent journalist, recently presented in the London “Daily News” a tragic description of what he saw in the hospitals of Cologne: “Although I have seen many horrible things,” he writes, “I have seen nothing so pitiful as these rows of babies, feverish from want of food, exhausted by privations to the point that their little limbs were slender wands, their expressions hopeless and their eyes full of pain.”--“The Nation.”

Prof. Johansson, of the Neutral Commission, who visited
Germany in January, reports: “About 1,600,000 people were
killed in the war, but almost half this number, or rather
=700,000, fell victims to the food shortage produced by the
blockade=. The population has decreased in an unprecedented
degree by reason of the declining birth-rate. At the
present moment Germany has 4,000,000 fewer children than in
normal pre-war times.”--“Dagens Nyheter,” Stockholm, Lib.,
March 30, 1919.

Dr. Rubner writes in the “German Medical Weekly” on the
effects of the blockade. He gives the figures of deaths of
army and civil population since 1914 as:

Army, all causes, 1,621,000.

Civil population, through blockade, 763,000, of which
260,000 is for 1917 and 294,000 to the end of 1918. He
comes to the conclusion that even now any improvement in
the condition, as regards nourishment of the German people,
will be possible only in a very partial degree; above
all, capacity for work will not increase to the needed
extent.--“Vorwaerts,” April 11, 1919.

In a report made by five doctors of neutral lands, Swedish,
Norwegian and Dutch, dated April 11, 1919, after they had
collected information in Berlin, Halle and Dresden, they
say: “The food concessions under the Brussels agreement are
altogether inadequate. The most they do is to maintain the
present necessitous food conditions.... Immediate help is
necessary. Every day of delay risks immeasurable injury not
only to the whole of Europe, but to the whole world.”

Evidence of the same import is furnished by Jane Adams and charitable English persons, and the liberal periodicals, as distinct from the daily newspapers, have printed columns showing the terrible ravages of an illegal and indefensible blockade which inflicted the horrors of war upon the feeble and helpless, those recognized by the laws of nations and humanity as entitled to protection when not within the sphere of military operations and in no way responsible for or contributing to them.

The armistice was signed November 11, 1918, but so relentless was the English policy of crushing the German people that Winston Churchill, on March 3, 1919, declared in the House of Commons: “We are enforcing the blockade with rigor.... This weapon of starvation falls mainly upon the women and children, upon the old, the weak, and the poor, after all the fighting has stopped.” (“The Nation,” June 21, 1919; p. 980.)

The appalling heartlessness which, not content with inflicting starvation on a whole nation--for we will not mention Austria in this connection--designed to add to its horrors still added injuries, is exposed in the terms of the treaty, by which the German people were required to give up 140,000 milch cows and other livestock. Witness the following Associated Press dispatch:

Paris, July 24 (Associated Press).--Germany will have to
surrender to France 500 stallions, 3,000 fillies, =90,000
milch cows=, 100,000 sheep and 10,000 goats, according to a
report made yesterday before the French Peace Commission,
sitting under the presidency of Rene Viviani, by M. Dubois,
economic expert for the commission, in commenting on the
peace treaty clauses.

Two hundred stallions, 5,000 mares, 5,000 fillies, =50,000
cows, and 40,000 heifers=, also are to go to Belgium from
Germany. The deliveries are to be made monthly during a
period of three months until completed.

A total of 140,000 milch cows! Forty thousand heifers! To be surrendered by a country in which little children were dying for lack of milk, and babies were brought into the world blind because of the starved conditions of the mothers!

=Steuben, Baron Frederick William von.=--Major General in the Revolutionary army. Descended from an old noble and military family of Prussia. Entered the service of Frederick the Great as a youth, and fought with distinction in the bloodiest engagements of the Seven Years War, being latterly attached to the personal staff of the great King. After the war, was persuaded by friends of the American Colonies and admirers of his ability in France to offer his services to Congress, and on September 26, 1777, set sail aboard the twenty-four gun ship “l’Heureaux” at Marseilles, arriving at Portsmouth, N. H., December 1, 1777.

Found the American army full of spirit and patriotism, but badly disciplined, and was appointed Inspector General. Wrote the first book of military instruction in America, which was approved by General Washington, authorized by Congress and used in the drilling of the troops. Distinguished himself especially in perfecting the light infantry, his method being subsequently copied by several European armies and by Lord Cornwallis himself during the Revolution.

With General DeKalb and other foreign-born officers he encountered much opposition and annoyance from native officers on account of jealousy and prejudice, and though supported by General Washington, Hamilton and other influential men, had difficulty in obtaining from Congress what he was legally entitled to claim, not as a reward for his conspicuous services, but to enable him to support life. When threatening to take his discharge, Washington sought to dissuade him on the ground that his service was well-nigh indispensable to the cause of the colonists, and in justifying a memorandum of sums advanced to Steuben in excess of the $2,000 per annum promised him, the commander-in-chief wrote to Congress:

“It is reasonable that a man devoting his time and service to the public--and by general consent a very useful one--should at least have his expenses borne. His established pay is certainly altogether inadequate to this,” showing that Steuben was not actuated by mercenary motives in serving the Colonists.

“Your intention of quitting us,” wrote Col. Benjamin Walker, March 10, 1780, to Steuben, “cannot but give me much concern, both as an individual and as a member of the Commonwealth, convinced as I am of the necessity of your presence to the existence of order and discipline in the army. I cannot but dread the moment when such event shall take place, for much am I afraid we should again fall into that state of absolute negligence and disorder from which you have in some manner drawn us.”

It was Steuben who taught the Americans the value of bayonet fighting. The engagement at Stony Point proved the value of the bayonet as an arm. Previous to this time Steuben preached in vain on the usefulness of this weapon. The soldiers had no faith in it. But when Stony Point Fort was captured without firing a shot and when, the next day, Steuben with General Washington appeared on the scene, “Steuben was surrounded by all his young soldiers and they assured him unanimously that they would take care for the future not to lose their bayonets, nor roast beefsteaks with them, as they used to do.”

By his personal kindness and popularity Steuben was able to bring about marked reforms, and to convert the forces from untrained volunteers with no sense of order into a well-disciplined army which enabled Washington to win some of his chief battles. Speaking on a resolution before Congress to pay Steuben the sum of $2,700 due him, a member, Mr. Page, cited as proof of the efficiency which had been inculcated into the army by the distinguished German-American, an interesting incident in the following words:

“I was told that when the Marquis de Lafayette, with a detachment under his command, was in danger of being cut off on his return to the army, and the commander-in-chief was determined to support that valuable officer, the whole army was under arms and ready to march in less than fifteen minutes from the time the signal was given.” In the end Steuben was presented by Congress with a gold-hilted sword as a high expression of its sense of his military talents, services and character, and a large tract of land in New York State was given him on which to live in his old age.

At the battle of Yorktown Steuben was so fortunate as to receive the first overtures of Lord Cornwallis. “At the relieving hour next morning,” relates North, “the Marquis de Lafayette approached with his division; the baron refused to be relieved, assigning as a reason the etiquette in Europe; that the offer to capitulate had been made during his guard, and that it was a point of honor, of which he would not deprive his troops, to remain in the trenches till the capitulation was signed, or hostilities recommenced. The dispute was referred by Lafayette to the commander-in-chief; but Steuben remained until the British flag was struck.”

Illustration: GENERAL VON STEUBEN
Drillmaster of the American Revolutionary Armies.

Steuben died in the night of November 25, 1794, on his farm, highly respected throughout the State and reverenced by the distinguished men of his time as well as by the German population, having served as president of the German Society of New York. When in 1824 Lafayette visited the United States the inhabitants of Oneida County collected money for erecting a monument over Steuben’s grave. They invited Lafayette to dedicate the monument, but he refused to accede to their request, excusing himself under some shallow pretext. (“Life of Steuben,” by Friedrich Kapp.)

That Steuben had no mercenary motives in coming to America, is proved by his letter to Congress. He wrote:

“The honor of serving a nation engaged in defending its rights and liberties was the only motive that brought me to this continent. I asked neither riches nor titles. I came here from the remotest end of Germany at my own expense and have given up honorable and lucrative rank. I have made no condition with your deputies in France, nor shall I make any with you. My own ambition is to serve you as a volunteer, to deserve the confidence of your general-in-chief, and to follow him in all his operations, as I have done during the seven campaigns with the King of Prussia.... I should willingly purchase at the expense of my blood the honor of having my name enrolled among those of the defenders of your liberty.”

Washington’s appreciation of Steuben is finally and irrevocably attested in the following letter dated Annapolis, December 23, 1783:

“My dear Baron! Although I have taken frequent
opportunities, both in public and private, of acknowledging
your zeal, attention and abilities in performing the duties
of your office, yet I wish to make use of this last moment
of my public life to signify in the strongest terms my
entire approbation of your conduct, and to express my sense
of the obligations the public is under to you for your
faithful and meritorious service.

“I beg you will be convinced, my dear Sir, that I should
rejoice if it could ever be in my power to serve you
more essentially than by expressions of regard and
affection. But in the meantime I am persuaded you will
not be displeased with this farewell token of my sincere
friendship and esteem for you.

“This is the last letter I shall ever write while I
continue in the service of my country. The hour of my
resignation is fixed at twelve this day, after which I
shall become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac,
where I shall be glad to embrace you, and testify the great
esteem and consideration, with which I am, my dear Baron,
your most obedient and affectionate servant.

“GEORGE WASHINGTON.”

A superb monument of General von Steuben by Albert Jaegers now occupies one of the corners of the square opposite the White House in Washington.

Along with the splendid tribute to the American spirit of patriotism and unselfish devotion of Steuben, it seems fit and timely to add here the “creed” which was adopted by the officers of the American army at Verplanck’s Point, in 1782:

We believe that there is a great First Cause, by whose
almighty fiat we were formed; and that our business here is
to obey the orders of our superiors. We believe that every
soldier who does his duty will be happy here, and that
every such one who dies in battle, will be happy hereafter.
We believe that General Washington is the only fit man
in the world to head the American army. We believe that
Nathaniel Green was born a general. We believe that the
evacuation of Ticonderoga was one of those strokes which
stamp the man who dares to strike them, with everlasting
fame. =We believe that Baron Steuben has made us soldiers,
and that he is capable of forming the whole world into
a solid column, and displaying it from the center.= We
believe in his blue book. We believe in General Knox and
his artillery. And we believe in our bayonets. Amen.

The gratitude of the American people, many years after Steuben’s death, was solemnly attested by Congress in dedicating a monument to his memory at Pottsdam, with the inscription:

To the German Emperor and the German People:
This replica of the monument to the Memory of
General Friedrich Wilhelm August von Steuben.

Born in Magdeburg, 1730; died in the State of New York, 1794.
Is dedicated by the Congress of the United States as a Token
of Uninterrupted Friendship.

Erected in Washington in Grateful Appreciation of his Services
in the War of Independence of the American People.

=Sulphur King, Herman Frasch.=--Inventor of the method of pumping up sulphur from its deposits, known as the water process, patented in 1891, which made available the large sulphur deposits in southern Louisiana and other places, which had puzzled engineers for years. Frasch came originally from Germany in the steerage, obtained work sweeping out a retail drug store, became a clerk and finally was graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. He joined the Standard Oil Company, and in prospecting for oil came upon abandoned sulphur workings. The deposits were covered with quicksands which had caused the death of several men, they exhaled noxious gases and the attempts to mine them were called a failure. Frasch bought them for a song on his own account, and began sinking his own perforated pipes through which he forced steam and hot water from a battery of boilers which he had rigged up. Frasch became a millionaire and revolutionized sulphur mining in Sicily.

=Sutter, the Romance of the California Pioneer.=--The romance of American colonization contains no chapter more absorbing than that of the winning of the West. A poetic veil has been cast about the California gold excitement and the rugged pioneers of the gulch, by Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and Mark Twain; but few historians have thought it worth their pain to uncover the romance of the original pioneer of California on whose land was found the first gold that formed the lodestone of attraction for the millions that swept westward on the tide of empire.

Against the historic background of the settlement of the Pacific Coast stands out in luminous outlines the figure of Capt. John August Sutter. Where another German, John Jacob Astor, had failed--that of founding an American colony on the Pacific--he succeeded, even before California, taken from Mexico as a result of the war of 1846, became a State of the Union in 1850. His career is an inspiration to his fellow racials wherever German veins tingle to the thrill of American achievement.

Born 1803 at Kandern, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Sutter received an excellent education, graduated from the cadet school at Thun and, after serving as an officer in the Swiss army and acquiring Swiss citizenship, he came to the United States in 1834. He first wandered to St. Louis, then the outfitting point for the Santa Fe trail and center of the fur trade. Here Sutter joined an expedition to Santa Fe and returned to St. Louis with a substantial profit. His next trip was undertaken with an American fur expedition and, crossing the Rocky Mountains, he reached Vancouver, the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Fur Company on the Pacific, in September, 1838. After a visit to the Sandwich Islands and to Sitka, Alaska, he arrived in Monterey, California, in 1839, and determined to put into execution a long-cherished plan of founding a colony on the Sacramento River. Selecting a spot 120 miles northeast of San Francisco, which had been highly recommended to him by trappers, he formed the settlement, New Switzerland, upon a strip of land which he had acquired on favorable terms from the Spanish governor, Alvarado. Here, of strong walls and bastions, he built Fort Sutter and armed it with twelve cannon. He then offered inducements to settlers to join him, broke several hundred acres of land, built a tannery, a mill and a distillery, fenced in a large area of grazing land between the Sacramento and Feather rivers, employed Indians as herders and laborers and placed them under Mexican, American and German overseers. About 1840 his livestock consisted of 20,000 head of horses, cattle and sheep.

Fort Sutter soon attracted a desirable class of settlers, many of them mechanics, who found ready employment here, as well as hunters and trappers, who came to exchange furs for supplies of food, of clothes and of powder and lead. Having complied with the terms of his agreement, he was given title to the Alvarado grant and was appointed by the governor the official representative of the Mexican government for the northern part of California.

In the Mexican civil war between Santa Anna and the constitutional president, Bustamento, he cast his lot with Santa Anna’s governor, Manuel Micheltorena, and in 1845 received from the latter for his services the Sobranta grant. There was almost a daily increase of his land and pastures. His fort became too small. In 1844 he laid out the town of Sutterville on the Sacramento River, which latterly took the name of Sacramento. In 1848 he established vineyards on his property, the first north of Sonoma. His wheat crop is estimated at 40,000 bushels for various years, while his large commercial and industrial enterprises promised him a steady increase of a fortune, even then estimated at millions. His fortune seems to have reached its apex in 1846.

Immigration into California was steadily increasing; the old antipathy of the Spaniards and Indians against Mexico was stimulated into new life; Major Fremont, the Pathfinder, visited Fort Sutter, and encouraged by him, Sutter in the spring of 1846 declared his independence and on July 11 of that year hoisted the Stars and Stripes over his fort.

Once before the flag had been raised by a German on the Pacific Coast, at Astoria by Astor in 1811. It was not suffered to remain there permanently, but this time it was destined not to be hauled down again. The war between Mexico and the United States broke out. Commodore Stockton appeared with an American squadron, soldiers of the Union began their invasion (see “Quitman,” elsewhere), and California became a territory of the United States. Sutter was now destined to experience that life is uncertain and fortune is fickle.

In January, 1848, Sutter was about to build a mill on the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento, and, in digging the foundation, J. W. Marshall, an agent of Sutter’s, discovered gold. Despite the efforts of Sutter to keep the discovery secret for a while until his mill was completed and his fields were put in order, the news circulated with the speed of the wind. The magic word had been spoken, and thence on no man thought of anything but gold. The irresistible rush was on; a tide of humanity swept on to wash gold and dig up the mountain sides farther up. Wages rose beyond all reason, so that it was impossible to continue farming and industry, since there were no hands to do the work. Titles were worthless. Thousands of adventurers squatted on Sutter’s land. Countless law suits had to be instituted, and Sutter’s property was soon covered with mortgages. In the end the supreme court confirmed his title to the Alvarado grant while declaring null and void that of the much larger grant from Micheltorena. Other misfortunes came apace and presently Sutter saw his great fortune swept away. The State of California granted him an annuity of $3,000 for seven years in lieu of taxes paid by him on American federal-owned property which was immune from tax.

In the year 1865 Sutter turned his back upon California and went to Pennsylvania, where he died poor at Litiz. But he was not forgotten. His name was given to rivers, towns and counties and the room of the legislative assembly was decorated with his portrait. He had been elected major general of the State militia and in 1849 he was made a member of the convention to adopt a constitution. In this capacity he was active in securing the passage of measures declaring for the abolition of slavery.

Sutter was naturally generous, hospitable and broad-minded, with a strong adjunct of courage, shrewdness and enterprise in great conceptions. A memorial speech delivered by Edward J. Kewen on the occasion of a banquet of the Society of California Pioneers, September 9, 1854, concludes with the following tribute:

In the cycle of the coming years historians will write of
the founding and settlement of this western State, and
when they shall dwell upon the virtues, the hardships, the
sufferings and courage, the fearlessness which has brought
all this about; when they describe the mighty impulse
which this commonwealth has exercised upon the progress of
free government and the development of the principles of
liberty, and when they shall adorn the annals with the name
of the founders of its fame, no name will illuminate their
records with more brilliant light than that of the immortal
Sutter--the noble example of the California pioneers.

“=Swordmaker of the Confederacy.=”--Louis Haiman, born in Colmar, Prussia, who came to the United States at a tender age with his family and was brought to Columbus, Georgia, then a small village. At the outbreak of the Civil War Haiman was following the trade of a tinner. “His work,” according to the Atlanta “Constitution,” was successful, “and in 1861 he opened a sword factory to supply the Confederacy a weapon that the South at the time had poor facilities for making. Such was Haiman’s success that in a year’s time his factory covered a block in the town of Columbus and was the most extensive business in the place. The first sword made by Haiman was presented to Col. Peyton H. Colquitt, and was one of the handsomest in all the Southern army. It was inlaid with gold, and was constantly used by Colonel Colquitt up to the time of his death. After that Haiman made swords for the officers of the Confederate army, and his first order came from Captain Wagner, in charge of the arsenal at Montgomery, Ala. Later on, to supply the needs of the troops in Southern Georgia and Alabama, he added a manufactory of firearms and accoutrements to his establishment. When the Federal army occupied Georgia Haiman’s property was confiscated and turned into a federal arsenal. General Wilson, commander of the army of occupation, proposed to restore to Haiman his property if he would take the oath of allegiance to the Federal authority, but Haiman’s unswerving loyalty to the cause of the South would not for a moment allow him to brook such a suggestion, and with the departure of the troops his factory was razed to the ground. His swords came to be famous in the ranks of the Confederacy, and their temper and durability have often called to mind the supreme test of swords related in ‘Ivanhoe’ between the leaders of Christendom and heathendom, Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin. After the war, with the resources left him, he entered business at Columbus, that of manufacturing plows.”

=Tolstoy on American Liberty.=--Although Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, New York City, never surrendered the decoration bestowed upon him by the Kaiser, and though he had delivered sundry sound scoldings to England for her professed fears of German aggression, in the days before the war, his name stands out conspicuously among a considerable number of heads of colleges for the suppression of free speech and liberty of conscience in regard to the war. A number of the professors, several of international fame, were compelled to resign under the pressure exercised from above, and Columbia became known for its spirit of intolerance. Among those who felt this was Count Ilya Tolstoy, son of the famous Russian author and philosopher, himself a man of distinction in those fields.

In February, 1917, even before we entered the war, Tolstoy’s engagement to deliver a lecture at a meeting of the International Club in the assembly room of Philosophy Hall, Columbia University, was summarily cancelled, although he had delivered the same lecture without molestation at Princeton a few days before. In an interview the distinguished savant said:

“The action of Columbia University was no insult to me. It was an insult to the vaunted institution of free speech in this country. I shall go back to Russia and tell them the story. I shall tell them how New York prevented me from giving the lecture I gave before thousands in Moscow. They will be astonished. My countrymen have made your heralded freedom of speech a shibboleth of liberty--in our land.... It matters little. I am surprised, but not hurt. Only I have learned that Russia has much more freedom from personal prejudice, in many ways, than this country has.”--New York “American,” February 12, 1917.

=Commercial Treaty with Germany and How it Was Observed.=--One of the most humane and liberal treaties in the history of nations was that entered into between the United States and Prussia in 1799. It was renewed in 1828 and became the treaty governing the relations between Germany and ourselves in 1871 on the establishment of the German Empire.

This treaty was in force in 1917 when we entered the war. Some high eulogiums have been passed upon this treaty, which was signed by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Quincy Adams, and, in 1828, by Henry Clay, on the part of the United States, and by the authorized representative of Frederick the Great, on the other. In his comments on this treaty, Theodore Lyman, Jr., a writer with a strong Tory tendency and chary of praise as regards Prussia, makes the following observations in his “The Diplomacy of the United States” (1828):

This treaty, which has been called a beautiful abstraction,
is remarkable for the provisions which it contains:
Blockades of every description were abolished--the flag
covered the property--contrabands were exempted from
confiscation, though they might be employed for the use
of the captor on payment of their full value. This, we
believe, is the only treaty ever made by America in which
contrabands were not subject to confiscation, nor are we
aware that any other modern treaty contains this remarkable
provision. We are probably indebted to Dr. Franklin for the
articles.

It received an even higher endorsement in a message to Congress, dated March 15, 1826, by President John Quincy Adams, who said:

They (the three American commissioners) met and resided for
that purpose about one year in Paris and the only result
of their negotiations at that time was the first treaty
between the United States and Prussia--memorable in the
diplomatic history of the world and precious as a monument
of the principles, in relation to commerce and maritime
warfare with which our country entered upon her career as
a member of the great family of independent nations....
At that time in the infancy of their political existence,
under the influence of those principles of liberty and
of right so congenial to the cause in which they had
just fought and triumphed, =they were able to obtain the
sanction of but one great and philosophical though absolute
sovereign in Europe (Frederick the Great) to their liberal
and enlightened principles. They could obtain no more.=

The two principal provisions of the treaty of 1799-1828 follow:

Article XII:

And it is declared, that neither the pretense that war
dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be
considered as annulling or suspending this and the next
preceding article; but, on the contrary, that the state
of war is precisely that for which they are provided, and
during which they are to be as sacredly observed as the
most acknowledged articles in the law of nature and nations.

Article XXIII provides as follows:

If war should arise between the two contracting parties,
the merchants of either country then residing in the other
shall be allowed to remain nine months to collect their
debts and settle their affairs, and may depart freely,
carrying off all their effects without molestation or
hindrance; and all women and children, scholars of every
faculty, cultivators of the earth, artisans, manufacturers,
and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns,
villages, or places, and in general all others whose
occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of
mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective
employments and shall not be molested in their persons,
nor shall their houses or goods be burnt or otherwise
destroyed, nor their fields wasted by the armed force of
the enemy, into whose power by the event of war they may
happen to fall; but if anything is necessary to be taken
from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall
be paid for at a reasonable price.

Under the foregoing, German citizens, merchants, corporations, companies, etc., would have the right for the period of nine months after the declaration of war to collect their debts, settle their affairs, and, if possible, to depart safely, carrying all their effects with them without any hindrance whatsoever. This would mean, for instance, that the owners of the German vessels interned in our harbors would be privileged to have full control over their property.

Under date of February 8, 1917, the State Department issued the following statement:

It having been reported to him that there is anxiety in
some quarters on the part of persons residing in this
country who are the subjects of foreign states lest their
bank deposits or other property should be seized in the
event of war between the United States and a foreign
nation, the President authorizes the statement that all
such fears are entirely unfounded.

The Government of the United States will under no
circumstances take advantage of a state of war to take
possession of property to which under international
understandings and the recognized law of the land give it
no just claim or title. It will scrupulously respect all
private rights, alike of its own citizens and the subjects
of foreign states.

This was made public two months before we found ourselves in a state of war with Germany. Soon after, A. Mitchell Palmer was appointed Custodian of Alien Property and began to seize about one thousand million dollars’ worth of German property and securities--not the property of the Imperial German Government, with which we were at war, but the property of German private persons.

Using the language of an editorial in one of the leading newspapers in America of August 29, 1919, a treaty between the United States and Germany, which had never been denounced and was in full force, provided that in case of war between Germany and the United States, Germany should permit American owners of property in Germany, or Americans doing business in Germany, to have nine months in which to wind up their business affairs, to dispose of their property and to take themselves unhindered out of Germany. And the United States bound itself, of course, to give the same treatment to German aliens doing business or owning property in America. This treaty agreement was deliberately broken by the Custodian of Alien Property. Under international law the duty of such a custodian is to take possession of the property of alien citizens of an enemy country, administer that property carefully, preserve it in good faith, and hold the earnings of the property and the property itself ready for return to the owners whenever peace shall come. “We want,” declares the paper, “to keep the name and reputation of the American people so clean and honorable that no American shall ever need to apologize either to friend or foe.” (New York “American.”)

As a result of the confiscation of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of alien property, a sensational scandal developed, which was aired in the House and Senate and had a perceptible bearing on the defeat of the League of Nations treaty in the Senate. Among other things, Palmer, ultimately appointed Attorney General, was charged with having sold the great Bosch magneto works, valued at $16,000,000, for $4,000,000, giving the preference to friends; and Representative J. Hampton Moore, referring to Francis P. Garvan, Mr. Palmer’s successor as Custodian, demanded to know: “Why the same Frank P. Garvan, the distinguished criminal lawyer of New York, had recently been elected to and accepted the presidency of the Chemical Foundation, which has taken over all the German patents in the United States for the manufacture of dye stuffs through an arrangement with the Alien Property Custodian, A. Mitchell Palmer, now Attorney General?”

In his speech of June 21, 1919, in the House, Mr. Moore named a number of big trust operators and financiers, including Cleveland H. Dodge, as having formed the Chemical Foundation and taking over “4,500 patents which Mr. Palmer and Mr. Garvan, this distinguished criminal lawyer from New York, the successor of Mr. Palmer as Alien Property Custodian, found on file in the Patent Office, and which they seized on the ground that they belonged to certain German patentees.” (New York “Times,” June 22, 1919.)

Hardly a pretence is made by the administration that the seizure was legal, and the death-blow to all such pretensions was delivered when, in urging the ratification of the Versailles treaty by the Senate, Senator Hitchcock, the administration’s Senate leader, declared:

Through the treaty we will get very much of importance....
In violation of all international law and treaties, we
have made disposition of a billion dollars of German-owned
property here. The treaty validates all that.

It is important that Americans should know the facts in the case, however unpopular the narrative may be, in order that they may set themselves right before the world, or at least be prepared for the wave of prejudice which is bound to be excited by the remarkable proceedings. Quoting Walter T. Rose, a prominent Chicago exporter just returned from a tour of Europe, the New York “Sun” of November 28, 1919, said: “It is an unfortunate fact that hardly anywhere in Europe does one hear good opinions of America and Americans.” Mr. Rose gathered his opinions in France and England as well as in central Europe. The course of the Custodian of Alien Property establishes a precedent that, of course, will be heeded by those associated with us in the war no less than by our late enemies. It is a warning that the filing of patents and patented processes insures no immunity from confiscation in the event of war, and a warning to foreign investors to go slow in investing their money in industries in the United States. To counteract this policy imposes a moral task upon every citizen of the United States who holds the honor of his country above a dollar. For we shall have flaunted in our faces this passage from President Wilson’s address to Congress, April 2, 1917:

We shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as
belligerents without passion, and ourselves observe with
proud punctilio the principles of right and fair play we
profess to be fighting for.... It will be easier for us
to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of
right and fairness because we act, not in enmity of a
people or with a desire to bring any injury or disadvantage
upon them, but only in opposition to an irresponsible
government. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends
of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as
the early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual
advantage between us--however hard it may be for them, for
the time being, to believe this is spoken from our hearts.

In a hearing before a Senate committee investigating his acts as Custodian, Mr. Palmer named as his advisory committee, Otto Barnard, Cleveland H. Dodge, George L. Ingraham and Alex Griswold, Jr. He asserted that he had seized 40,000 German properties. Upon his list were the names of 32 Germans and Austrian-Hungarians interned as enemy aliens, whose property was taken over by him. Their names and the value of their property follows:

Carl Heynan, $487,748; Adolf Pavenstedt, $1,661,408; E. K. Victor, $274,092; Edward Lutz, $117,865; Hugo Schmidt, $89,434; F. Stallforth, $540,408; Ad. Fischer, $477,396; F. Rosenberg, $228,484; Max Breitung, $46,006; Isaac Straus, $36,688; Franz Bopp, $31,782; Adolf Kessler, $205,165; Robert Tumler, $48,655; Dr. Ernst Kunwald, $26,456; Fritz Bergmeier, $28,651; Dr. Karl Muck, $82,181; Hans Cron, $54,436; J. H. Beckmann, $120,360; Paul Lubeke, $30,930; Johannes Schlenzig, $58,967; Max Reinhard, $52,433; Gunther Weiske, $138,255; M. S. Barnet, $42,766; Heinrich Beckisch, $25,811; Frank H. Meyer, $60,928; Arthur Richter, $50,012; Herbert Clemens, $53,813; Fritz Materna, $40,000; William H. Steinmann, $32,768; Julius Pirnitzer, $84,656; Desider W. B. de Waray, $200,166; C. F. Banning, $44,000.

Among the amounts confiscated was $3,000 left in the will of Mrs. Louisa Manada, of Wyoming, for the care of blind soldiers in Berlin, her home going to a hospital in this country.

Among those mentioned as placed in charge of enemy property by the Custodian, in his report to the Senate, March 1, 1919, appear the names of several prominent newspaper men and politicians: Don C. Seitz, publisher of the New York “World,” and George McAneny, publisher of the New York “Times,” two strong administration papers, both of whom were trustees of the Bridgeport Projectile Company. Mr. McAneny and Henry Morgenthau, former ambassador to Turkey, were made trustees of the American Metal Company, another enemy concern. Gavin McNab, of San Francisco, a leading Democratic politician of California, was made a trustee of the Charles E. Houson Estate Company, the Marvin Estate Company and the J. H. von Schroeder Investment Company.

In the investigation Mr. Palmer denied the various charges, and others referred to, as well as the allegation, aired in the New York “World,” that his name corresponded with the initials of a certain M. P. mentioned in the captured notes of Dr. Albert, the German agent, who was referred to as friendly to Germany. He stated that “no other course than the seizure was compatible with the safety of American institutions,” to which reply was made from Germany that the $700,000,000 investments by Germans in this country did not reach “one-half of the total value, for instance, of a single American industrial company like the United States Steel Corporation, and not even approximately one per cent. of the total value of American industrial enterprises.” The immense business built up here by the Germans was, Mr. Palmer said, lost to the Germans forever, and there was absolutely no hope for the development of American chemical industries under the old conditions. He defended the Bosch seizure on the ground of a plot by the manager to promise special apparatus to the British for their aeroplanes without intending to deliver them.

Millions of dollars’ worth of property belonging to women of American birth, married to German and Austrian subjects, was taken over by the Custodian. Many prominent women are in the list, including Countess Gladys Vanderbilt-Szechenyi, whose property as taken over amounts to nearly $4,000,000 in securities in addition to the income from a $5,000,000 trust fund created under the will of her father.

The list includes:

Baroness Augusta Louise von Alten, Budapest, Hungary, formerly Augusta L. De Haven, and Sarah E. von Camps Hanover, Welfel, Germany, formerly Sarah E. De Haven, granddaughters of the late Louisa G. Bigelow, formerly of Chicago. Estate valued at about $1,460,000.

Baroness Clara Erhart von Truchsess, Dusseldorf, Germany, formerly Clara Erhart, of New York. Life estate in trust fund of $500,000; securities valued at $600,000.

Gertrude, Baroness von Bocklin, Baden, Germany, formerly Gertrude Berwind, of Philadelphia. Under the will of Charles F. Berwind, her father, she received more than $300,000 in property, which was put in trust with property received by the other heirs.

Baroness Olivia Louise von Rothkirch, Schlesien, Germany, formerly Olivia Louise Brown, daughter of William John Brown, of New York. Life interest in trust, approximating $1,000,000.

Baroness Matilda L. Bornemissa, Budapest, Austria; Baroness Margaret von Wucherer and Anna von Dory Johahaza, both of Steiermark, Austria, daughters of the late James Price, of Philadelphia, and Baroness Manon Dumreicher, Baron Tibor von Berg, Baron Tassilo von Berg and Baron Max von Berg, children of the deceased daughter, Baroness Sallie Mae Berg. The above enemies share an income of the trust under the will of Sarah Maria Price, valued at $275,000, and also in a trust created under the will of Samuel Harlan, Jr., valued at $75,000.

Baroness Cornelia C. Zedlitz, Berlin, Germany, formerly Cornelia Carnochan Roosevelt, daughter of the late Charles Y. Roosevelt, of New York. Under a trust agreement made in 1889 in contemplation of marriage, her property, valued at about $1,000,000, was put in trust, reserving to her a life interest. Personal property valued at $200,000 was also taken over.

Countess Marguerite Isabelle Eugenie Victorine de Stuers Obendorff, wife of the former German Ambassador to Austria, and grandniece of the late Henry Astor, grandson of the original John Jacob Astor, and inheritor of a share in his estate. Her mother was Countess Margaret Laura Zhorowski, daughter of Alida Astor, a sister of Henry Astor, and daughter of William Astor. Trust fund $60,000, created by deed of trust by her father; cash, $949,225 and eight-fifteenths interest in New York city property.

Countess von Francken, Sierstorpff, Zyrowa Leschnitz, Prussia, formerly Mary Knowlton, daughter of Edwin F. Knowlton, of New York. Life interest trust fund $1,200,000, left under the will of her father; Countess Alice Grote, Schloss Varechentin, Mecklenburg, Germany, formerly Alice von Bergen, daughter of Anthony von Bergen of New York. Life interest, $250,000.

Countess Gladys Vanderbilt Szechenyi, Budapest, Hungary, daughter of the late Cornelius Vanderbilt and Alice G. Vanderbilt. Nearly $4,000,000 in securities taken over; also income from $5,000,000 trust fund created under the will of her father.

Countess Harriet Sigray, Ivancz Nagycsakny, Hungary, daughter of the late Marcus Daly, of Montana, a sister of Mrs. James Gerard, wife of the former Ambassador to Germany. Securities taken over, $1,000,000.

Countess Gladys McMillan Cornet, Brussels, Belgium, formerly Gladys McMillan, daughter of the late James H. McMillan, of Detroit. Life interest in one-tenth of trust of $4,500,000; life interest in two-thirds of trust of $450,000; life estate one-tenth trust of $600,000 and securities valued at $149,725.

Countess Elizabeth T. P. de Gasquet-James, Krain, Austria, formerly Elizabeth T. Pratt James, of Esopus, N. Y. Life estate in $135,000 and bonds, $59,000.

Lily Freifrau Treusch von Buttlar Brandenfees, Stettin, Germany, formerly Lilly G. Stetson, daughter of the late Isaiah Stetson, of Bangor, Me. Securities taken over valued at $250,000.

Jayta Humphreys von Wolf, Munich, Germany, daughter of the late Frederic Humphreys, of New York. Life interest in a trust valued about $50,000.

Rosa K. Schertel von Burtenbach, daughter of the late Frederick Schaefer, of New York. Under trust created in will of father, she has life interest of $200,000.

Clara von Gontard, Berlin, Germany, daughter of the late Adolphus Busch and Lilly Busch, of St. Louis. Life interest in trust fund created under the will of Adolphus Busch, securities valued at $900,000, including stock holdings in Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company of St. Louis.

Mary Trowbridge von Zepplin, Germany, formerly Mary Wilkens, Detroit, wife of Conrad von Zepplin and daughter of the late Lizzie C. Wilkens, of Detroit. Life estate trust fund, $40,000.

Clara Bauer von Rosenthal, Frankfort-am-Main, Germany, formerly Clara Bauer, daughter of the late Augustus Bauer, Chicago. Life interest in trust of $35,000.

Mary Grace von der Hellan, Hamburg, Germany, formerly Mary Grace Meissner, Garden City, New York. Life interest in trust created by herself just prior to her marriage, $65,000, and bank balance, $304,472.

Charlotte von Gorrisen, Hamburg, Germany, formerly Charlotte Anderson, daughter of the late Elbert J. Anderson, of Newport, R. I. Small interest in the estate of her father.

Alice von Buchwaldt, Bremen, Germany, and Anna Maria von Bose, Dresden, Germany, daughters of William Wilkens, deceased, of Baltimore. Each has a life interest in a trust fund under the will of her father of about $180,000.

Natalie Burleigh von Ohnesorge, Provinz Posen, Germany, daughter of Sarah B. Conklin, of New York. Life estate in a trust under will of her father, $140,000.

Florence Grafin von Schwerin, Munich, Germany, formerly Florence Wann, of St. Paul, Minn. Daughter of the late John Wann, deceased. Property taken over, $20,000; life interest in trust created under the will of her father, $40,000. Interest in the trust created by deed of trust of her brother, Thomas Leslie Wann, consisting of valuable real estate in St. Paul.