February 14, 191 8 
Land & Water 
II ' 
John Rathom's Revelations 
The spy' system that radiated from the German Embassy 
and the full details ol the plot for sinking the " Lusitania ' 
FROM— Berlin Foreign Office. 
TO— Botschaft, Washington 
/ 
669. (44— W)— Welt nineteen-f if teen warne 175 29 1 stop 
175 1 2 stop 
durch 622 2 4 stop 19 7 18 stop IIX 11 3 4 5 6 . 
This is a copy of the wireless message sent from the Foreign Of&ce in Berlin to the German Embassy in Washington, which 
was intercepted at Sayville, the wireless station in America, by the Providence Journal's wireless opera ors. It created the 
greatest interest in the Journal ofi5ce, because it followed none of the known codes and, in form, was unlike any other 
message that had been received at Sayville up to that time. It was interesting also because static conditions were unfavour- 
able that morning, and the fact that four attempts were made before it was successfully put through indicated its unusua,! 
importance. The method by which it was deciphered is illustrated on the next page. 
In the. following article Mr. John R. Rathom explains the 
reasons which led to his formation of a private secret service to 
counteract tfie German plots in America. A facsimile of the 
secret wireless message from Berlin regarding the sinking of the 
" Lusitania " is given above, and the ingenious manner in 
which it was decoded is carefully and fttUy explained. 
^ O properly understand the story of Gennan intrigue 
in America it is necessary to realise that the work of 
propaganda opened 
T 
■ up through the Ger 
' man Embassy in 
Washington at the beginning of 
the European war was not con- 
ceived in a night, and did not 
spring full-grown out of the 
emergency then created. 
The United States, the only 
great nation in the world with- 
out any political secret service 
or espionage system, with no 
knowledge of secret diplomacy, 
no machinery with which to 
guard its military, naval, or 
governmental secrets, the ranks 
of employees in every govern- 
ment office freely open at all 
times to men and women of 
every nationality, and con- 
taining within its borders the 
most polyglot population ever 
brought together under a civi- 
lised form of government, had 
been for thirty years before 
the outbreak of the European 
war a fertile field for German 
propaganda. 
Germany's sources of in- 
formation with regard to every 
condition about which she de- 
sired to secure information in 
the United States were prac- 
tically limitless. A large num- 
ber of willing and subservient 
Germans, working without hin- 
drance or any suggestion of espionage, had been enabled during 
a long period of years to lay before the German Foreign Office 
very complete information which might be useful to the 
fatherland in any future emergency on that continent. Even 
in the ranks of the army and navy, there were hundreds of 
men, citizens only in name and owing their first allegiance 
to Germany, keen and eager to do at any time whatever 
Prussia called on them to do. .The secrets of American mills 
and factories, the methods and scope of American banking 
interests, the operation of American railroads and American 
shipping — all of these facts had been for years the very 
alphabet of Germany's knowledge of American daily life, a 
knowledge secured not by outside spies working under immense 
difficulties, as would have been the case in any country of 
Europe, but from the very heart of America's economic and 
Captain 
Military Attach^ at 
social movement by an organisation of men^actually engaged 
in the work itself. 
Thus it was that when the German Foreign Office, through 
the Embassy in Washington, began what appeared to be the 
easy task of moulding American sentiment to its will, all the 
necessary machinery was ready at hand. 
This condition, coupled with the firm belief on the part of 
Germany that the millions of her subjects who had become 
citizens of the United States would not hesitate for a moment 
in any choice that might be laid before them between adher- 
ence to the fortunes of Germany 
or to the land of their adoption, 
seemed in the minds of the men 
responsible for German foreign 
jwlicy to make it certain that 
in whatever channel they de- 
sired to direct American senti- 
ment their will would be prac- 
tically law. 
For nearly a generation Ger- 
man influence on American 
school boards had been in- 
sidiously shaping public senti- 
ment through school books and 
histories. Exchange professors, 
liberally sprinkled with Im- 
perial decorations, had main- 
tained and increased a con- 
stant propaganda of reverence 
for German institutions through 
many of the educational cen- 
tres of the United States. And 
the great German commercial 
houses which had secured a 
foothold in the United States, 
and which were virtually out- 
posts of the German Foreign 
Office, had gained strong posi- 
tions in many vitally important 
elements in the German com- 
mercial life. It was, therefore, 
on known ground that von 
Bernstorff and his numerous 
associates began their work of 
intensive cultivation of Prus- 
sianised doctrines in America. 
With every path apparently wide open to their feet, they 
proceeded at first without any thought of serious opposition, 
to mould the United States to their will, to stultify its national 
ideals, and so drug its national conscience that, regardless of 
what might happen in Europe, it would stand by, a dis- 
interested spectator, except for the growth of a keen desire 
to see Germany triumphant. 
It is well, to begin with, to know something of the per- 
sonality of the men into whose hands was entrusted this new 
and crowning movement which was to lead to a glorious 
success for German diplomatic methods. For purposes of this 
analysis it is not necessary to dwell on the personality or 
character of Dumba, the Austrian Ambassador, or any of his 
fellow-officials representing that Government in America. 
None of them, from the day war began, was ever anything 
von Papen 
the German Embassy 
