February 7, igi8 
Land & Water 
1 1 
John Rathom's Revelations 
An outline of the methods adopted by Mr. John R. Rathom 
who discovered the network of German plots in America 
The revelations by Mr. John R. Rathom 0] the secret plots of the German Government in America, 
at the time when the United States was a neutral nation, is possibly from first to last the most thrilling 
story of shrewdness, pertinacity, and courage ivhich the war has provided outside the heroism of the 
battlefields. Three instances of the cool daring of Mr. Rathom and his agei.ti cr ' related in this 
article, each amusingly simple <« its manner of working, but each demaniing wonder] ul nerve. 
The time has long p.issed to express any swprise at the absolute lack 0/ principle and of all sense of 
honesty and honour u'hich his characterised the German Government in its dealings with neutral 
nations. None the less one is astounded at the cold-blooded treachery which Count von Bernstorff 
systematically practise t at Washington which is fully disclosed in these articles— treachery to which 
he would never have dared to lend his hand, had he not been laell assured of the Kaiser's sanction. These 
revelations will appear from u^eek to x&eek in Land "& Water. Next week, Mr. Rathom ivill tell the 
full story of the connection of the Get man Embassy in Washington with the sinking oj the " Lusita.Aa." 
JOHN R. RATHOM, Editor of the Providence Journal. 
is the man who discovered and exposed the Germ m plots 
in the United S;ates. He is the man 'who forced there- 
call of the precious von Papen and the notorious Boy-Ed. 
He is the man who unearthed Dr. Heinrich Albert and his 
/|S,ooo,ooo corruption fund and sent him back to Germany. 
He is the man who dis- 
covered and revealed the 
plot to restore Hue ta to 
a German-made dictator- 
ship in Mexico. He is 
the man who proved that 
the Lusitania warning 
was sent out by the 
German Embassy on 
orders direct from Berlin. 
He is the man who ex- 
posed William Jenftings 
Bryan's "peace at any 
price " interview with 
Dumba. He is the man 
who sent Consul-General 
Boff , at San Francisco, to 
prison for two years for 
conspiracy. He is the 
man who warned the 
Government that the 
Canadian Parliament 
Building at Ottawa was 
to be fired three weeks 
before it was burned by 
German agents. In brief, ^ 
he is the man who (with- 
out official authority) 
was for three years the 
eyes of America, guarding 
it against the treachery 
of the German Govern- 
ment. He has been a 
patriot of the highest 
order in the face, first, of 
early unbelief and ridi- 
cule on the part of Wa;h- 
in.^ton officials ; then of 
slander and abuse on the 
part of the whole pro- 
German element in the 
United States ; and, fin- 
ally, of attempts upon his 
life by hired assassins. 
'.' The Providence Journal this morning will say : " — that 
phrase, familiar to every newspaper reader in the United 
States, has been the preface to the exposure of nearly every 
German plot that has bee.i tol 1 to the American public since 
the World War began. Merely to m ntion all these exposures, 
with the barest outlines of names, dates, aud places involved, 
would require ten or twelve pages of type like this in 
Land & Water. To reprint , all the thousands of original 
cablegrams, letters, cheques, photographs and codes on which 
they are based would fill a five-foot shelf of books. 
This mass of data, accumulated in three years of ceaseless 
search, is stored in triplicate in vaults in Providence, New 
Mr. John R. Rathom 
The Editor of the Providence Journa 
Plots in the United States has 
York, and Washington. Copies of every item of it have been 
supplied, as discovered, to the Stale Department in Washing- 
ton or to some other branch of the An. eric an government. It 
is the foundation upon which has been erected the whole 
structure of .A.:neica'3 enormous secret service, and it is 
the cause of the awakening of the Americ; n p >ople to the 
hideous m nace of Ger- 
many's cold - blooded 
assaults upon its very 
existence as an indepen- 
dent nation. 
How has it happened 
that a provincial news- 
paper (it is called " the 
Rhode Island Bible " in 
its own territory) has 
been the means of dis- 
closing facts that usually 
are procured only by 
the secret agents of 
governments and kept 
guarded like jewels in the 
most sacred archives of 
ihe State depart ments ? 
It lias happened because : 
1. John R. Rathom, 
editor of the Journal, 
scented from the first 
hour of the war that 
the United States was 
a world power w ith world 
wide interests ; that one 
of the objects of Ger- 
many's mad ambition 
was to destroy democracy 
the world over, and that 
the cataclysm in Europe 
was no less for America 
than for Great Britain 
and France the crucial 
test of all history. 
2. Because Mr. Rotham, 
encouraged and financed 
by the owners of his con- 
servative old New Eng- 
land paper, and working 
with the loyal aid of 
a dozen newspaper re- 
porters, beat the German 
secret service at their 
own game a hundred 
times since the war 
began. 
3. Because he had the foresight to have taken down in 
writing and kept on file eve^y wireless dispatch sent by the 
great Sayville and Tuckerton Stations since the day war was 
declared in August, 1914, and the ingenuity to decipher masses 
of these dispatches in code, including thousands of damning 
messages from von Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, Dumba, 
von Nuber, and scores of nameless others, to the German 
and Austrian Governments. 
4. Because, in his efforts to serve his country, he succeeded 
in getting his own reporters into confidential positions in the 
twelve most important Teutonic headquarters in the United 
States, and received from them almost daily reports and original 
documents covering every phase of German plots and German 
i whose success in unearthing German 
made him an International figure 
