THE SPY MENACE IN AMERICA

Evening Star, Issue 16677, 8 March 1918, Page 7

THE SPY MENACE IN AMERICA

STAB-IX-THE-BACK METHODS. Recent American newspapers show the grim determination of the people of the Untied States to leave nothing undone which can help to win the war, and tho growing sentiment in favor of taking further measures of self-protection against German sympathisers. Already German subjects over 14 arc forbidden— To approach any place of military importance ; To reside in the capital or in the Panama Canal zone; , 1 ’ change their residence without permission ; To take per age in any steamboat, except public ferries; To aeccnd in any balloon, airplane, or air-ship; To stir out without their registration cards, which they must produce upon demand. This, it is reckoned, affects about 600,000 men—l3o,ooo in New York alone—but manyeditorial articles consider it does not go far enough to stop “ the carnival of incendiarism.” It appears that 600 persons have been convicted of crimes in the German intercet on or near tho Great Lakes, through which millions of tons of war material pass every week. Food supplies, valued :u £3.600,000, have Seen destroyed by fires attributed to German sympathisers. Clearly, tho ‘New York Tribune’ thinks, there is "a widespread organisation at work. The cry goes up, therefore, for the internment of all alien enemies. Tide, the ‘ New York World ’ admits, would be hard upon those who are innocent of criminal designs, but for it they will have to blame Germany and the “ German propaganda of crime and treachery throughout the -world. Every German who suffers, as he thinks, unjustly maybe assured that his punishment is the direct result of teachings for which the ruling class' of his country accepts full responsibility.” Mr Curtis Roth, who was a United States Vice-Consul in Germany, drives this homo in the _ ‘ Saturday Evening Root.’ “ The world is _ literally a-craw-1,” ho declares, “ with the spies of Central Europe. They are recruited from all nationalities, and are paid mostly according to the value of each piece of work. Some are ‘ patriots ’; some hope for commercial and political support after the war; a few derive social advantages and orders in the gift of the Kaiser.”

_ > solemn warning has been given to the disaffected by Mr T. W. Gregory, a high legal officer of tho Department of Justice. " .Ninety-live per cent, cf ihe people of the United States,” he said, “would die as willingly for their beliefs as tho men of 1776. It is for the other 5 per cent, to show not the slightest manifestation of disloyalty. Our message to them will be delivered through the criminal courts all over the land. And may God have mercy on them, for they need expect none from an outraged people aud an avenging Government.”