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Using Talk to Support Writing First Edition Ros Fisher
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Ros Fisher, Susan J. Jones, Shirley Larkin, Debra Myhill
ISBN(s): 9781849201445, 1849201447
Edition: First Edition
File Details: PDF, 2.03 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page i

Using Talk to
Support Writing
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page ii

Education at SAGE
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals,
books, and electronic media for academic, educational,
and professional markets.
Our education publishing includes:
u accessible and comprehensive texts for aspiring
education professionals and practitioners looking to
further their careers through continuing professional
development
u inspirational advice and guidance for the classroom
u authoritative state of the art reference from the leading
authors in the field

Find out more at: www.sagepub.co.uk/education

00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page iii

Using Talk to Support

Writing

Ros Fisher, Susan Jones, Shirley Larkin and

Debra Myhill
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 24/03/2010 5:34 PM Page iv

All chapters excluding the following © Ros Fisher,

Susan Jones, Shirley Larkin and Debra Myhill 2010

Interlude 1 © Frances Dunkin

Interlude 2 © Rachael Milsom
Interlude 3 © Corinne Bishop
Interlude 4 © Linda Bateman
Activity sheets © Anita Wood

© First published 2010

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or

private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may
be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any
means, only with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in
accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside
those terms should be sent to the publishers.

SAGE Publications Ltd

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London EC1Y 1SP

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Thousand Oaks, California 91320

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84920-143-8
ISBN 978-1-84920-144-5 (pbk)

Typeset by C&M Digitals, Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed in Great Britain by MPG Group, Bodmin, Cornwall
Printed on paper from sustainable resources
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page v

Contents
About the authors vii
Introduction viii
Classroom poster xii

1 Learning to write 1
Debra Myhill

2 Exploring classroom talk through action research 20

Susan Jones
Interlude 1 Being involved in research – the view from
a school Frances Dunkin 34

3 Talk to generate ideas 38

Ros Fisher
Lesson plans for idea generation 56
Conscience alley 56
Forum theatre 58
Freeze-frame 60
Using music 62

4 Writing aloud – the role of oral rehearsal 64

Debra Myhill
Interlude 2 Using write aloud in the classroom Rachael Milsom 80

5 Talk into writing 82

Susan Jones
Lesson plans for write aloud 100
Invisible writing 100
Magic pencil 102
Paired writing 104
Talking to a toy 106

6 Talk for reflecting on writing 108

Shirley Larkin
Interlude 3 The art of reflection Corinne Bishop 126

v
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vi USING TALK TO SUPPORT WRITING

7 Talking about writing – what the children told us 128

Ros Fisher
Lesson plans for reflection 144
Evaluating writing 144
A step-by-step writing guide 146
Thinking cap 148
Two ticks and a wish 150

8 Managing talk for writing in the classroom 152

Ros Fisher
Interlude 4 My favourite lesson Linda Bateman 166

Appendix 1 The research report – talk to text: using talk to

support writing 168
Appendix 2 Child interview schedule 179

References 181

Index 184
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page vii

About the authors

Ros Fisher has taught in primary schools in the north-west of England and
the USA. She is now Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at
the University of Exeter. She writes widely about the teaching of literacy and has
researched the role of the teacher, and teacher change in current large-scale initia-
tives to change the teaching of literacy in England. Recent books include Inside the
Literacy Hour (Routledge, 2002) and an edited collection of papers from an ESRC-
funded research seminar series, Raising Standards in Literacy (Falmer, 2002). She is
currently researching the impact of dialogic talk on young children’s understand-
ing of arithmetic.

Susan Jones is a lecturer in education at the University of Exeter, United

Kingdom. Her research interests include gender and achievement, classroom inter-
action and the developing writer. She is the co-author of Talking, Listening, Learning:
Effective Talk in the Primary Classroom (Open University Press, 2005).

Shirley Larkin has a background in teaching English Literature and in Psychology.

She has researched the area of metacognition in young children since 1999.
Originally working with Philip Adey on a cognitive acceleration programme in
early years science education, she has since explored the role of metacognition in
learning to write and in religious education. She has published a number of aca-
demic papers in this field and a single-authored book entitled Metacognition in
Young Children (Routledge, 2010). She currently lectures at the Graduate School of
Education, University of Exeter.

Debra Myhill is Professor of Education at the University of Exeter, and is Head

of the Graduate School of Education. Her research interests focus principally on
aspects of language and literacy teaching, particularly writing and grammar, and
talk in the classroom. She is the author of Better Writers (Courseware Publications,
2001), co-author of Talking, Listening, Learning: Effective Talk in the Primary
Classroom (Open University Press, 2005), and co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of
Writing Development (Sage, 2009).

Anita Wood began her career as a primary school teacher in the London
Borough of Tower Hamlets. She now teaches on the Primary PGCE course at the
Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter. Her interests include
EAL, drama and children’s literature.

vii
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page viii

Introduction

The talk to text project

The Talk to Text Project developed from an earlier research project in which
some members of our current team worked with a group of first schools in West
Sussex on classroom talk (see Myhill, Jones and Hopper, 2005). At the end of that
project, the headteachers asked if we could continue to work with them on talk
but, this time, to focus on talk for writing. Although we knew that a great deal had
been written about the importance of using talk to support writing, we also felt
that much of this was insufficiently specific. Everyone knew that talk was ‘a good
thing’ when it came to writing but there was very little known about the differ-
ent ways in which talk supports writing and what happens when children use talk
before, during and after writing.
We approached the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and they agreed to fund the
project. Mainly this funding gave us two excellent research fellows who worked
closely with the schools. The research was greatly enhanced by the fact that we
had one full year as a pilot with the schools that we knew well and then added two
more schools from elsewhere in the south of England for the second year when
the main study took place. In all, over the period of the project, six schools were
involved, with eight teachers, although they were not all with us for the whole
project. For the main project we worked with five schools and with six class teachers
and their classes of 5, 6 and 7 year-olds.
The project had two main aims. One was to work with the teachers to develop
activities that would use talk to support writing and the other was to learn more
about what happens when children and teachers talk in this way. We did not want
this project to be an ‘us and them’ project so the teachers were involved through-
out. The head teachers helped with writing the research bid. The head teachers
and class teachers were involved with the planning and analysis at every stage.
Teachers as well as research follows videoed lessons. We held research days when
those of us who worked at the university met with those of us who worked in the
schools to share ideas. We got together for some of the analysis, and some of the
teachers have contributed to this book. The funding from Esmée Fairbairn was
particularly helpful in providing supply cover for these meetings to take place.
From the background of previous research and our own knowledge of children
and schools, we identified three specific uses for talk to support writing: talk to
generate ideas; talk for oral rehearsal; and talk for metacognitive purposes. We felt
that each of these purposes required different planning on the part of the teacher
and different activities for the children.
In order to clarify these purposes for talk to ourselves, the teachers and the
children involved we worked carefully to define exactly what we meant by idea
generation, oral rehearsal and metacognition. Following discussions with the

viii
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page ix

INTRODUCTION ix

Table I.1 Framework for using talk to support writing

Element Definition Example Child speak

Idea generation This provides Role play of a scene Getting Ideas

children with the from a story, draw a
opportunity to talk in picture and explain
groups, pairs or with it to a partner,
puppets/small world talking about own
play, etc. about the experiences, using
topic of the writing. artefacts
It is about the con-
tent of their writing.

Write aloud This gives children Trying out sentences Say it – write it
the chance to put or phrases with a
what they want to talk partner.
say into words
before they write it. Reading invisible
This also means writing.
reading their writing
aloud after writing to
help them ‘hear’
what their writing
sounds like. It is to
help with the form of
their writing.

Reflection This has two The ending was Thinking about

elements: reflection difficult because I writing
on the process of didn’t know what to
writing and write. I didn’t know
reflection on the what to write next
product of writing. and then I remem-
bered my Red
Riding Hood story

This is a good piece

of writing because it
is funny.

teachers, we changed the terms oral rehearsal to write aloud and metacognition to
reflection. In the case of the former this was to distinguish what we wanted to
focus on from other forms of oral rehearsal. In the case of the latter it was to use
a more easily recognisable term. These definitions and examples can be seen in
Table I.1. We also produced a classroom poster depicting a simplified version for
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page x

x USING TALK TO SUPPORT WRITING

children of these Talk to Text elements to be used in the project classrooms. This
poster can be seen at the end of the Introduction.

The book
The book is not intended to be merely a research report, although it does contain
some discussion of how the project unfolded. Nor is it intended to be just a class-
room teaching manual, although it does contain lots of ideas and advice for class
teachers. Some chapters contain more of the research and some contain more of
the activities but the research and the activities go closely together and support
each other. We draw heavily on our data from videos and interviews with children
and teachers. This means that both the activities and the theory are illustrated by
glimpses from real classrooms and real children.
We are four authors, all of whom were involved in the research project. We have
planned the book together and worked together on it. However, we have each
taken responsibility for different chapters. So, as is the way with writing, our dif-
ferent voices can be distinguished in the different chapters. But this is not an
edited collection with different contributors. It is a self-contained volume with an
inner coherence supported by the research that we did together.
In between chapters we also provide various ‘interludes’. These are either
reflections on the Talk to Text project by teachers who were involved or they are
sample lesson plans linked to the three uses of talk described above and set out in
Table I.1. These lessons have been planned and written by Anita Wood from the
activities developed by the teachers on the project.

The chapters
In the first chapter we provide a theoretical overview of what is currently known
about writing and the teaching of writing. This chapter considers research from
a variety of perspectives and is the only chapter that is solely theory without any
discussion of the classroom practice that is threaded throughout the rest of this
book. The poster used in the project classrooms can be found at the end of this
Introduction.
In Chapter 2, we give more details about the research project and how it devel-
oped. We also give advice and ideas on how you might go about undertaking
research in your own classroom. We discuss some of the advantages and pitfalls
in conducting research in classrooms. At the end of this chapter, Frances Dunkin,
who was head teacher of one of the project schools at the time of the research,
reflects on the value she found in being a research active school.
Chapter 3 describes some of the idea generation activities that were used on the
project. This is a very practical chapter. Talk to generate ideas is widely used and
plenty has already been written about this aspect of talk to support writing. Here
we look at the ways in which these children and teachers used talk to help develop
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page xi

INTRODUCTION xi

the ideas needed for the content of the writing. There is included a lengthy
transcript of children talking as they develop their ideas for their writing. This
chapter is followed by some sample lesson plans for idea generation.
Chapter 4 explores the idea of ‘write aloud’. This use of talk to support writing
is new so we explore the theory that underpins this idea as well as its practical
implications. This chapter is followed by Rachael Milsom, a teacher on the
project, who describes a lesson where she used ‘write aloud’.
In Chapter 5 we consider how the talk to generate ideas and write aloud fed into
the writing that children produced. We take two lessons and track closely the
teacher talk and child talk involved before and during the writing to show in detail
the process of composition. This chapter is followed by lesson plans using write
aloud.
Chapter 6 examines how children use talk to reflect on their writing. We
explore the meaning and value of metacognition and look at how this was
developed by children and teachers in the project. This chapter is followed
by one of the teachers, Corinne Bishop, describing how she helped children
in her class to reflect on the process of writing.
Chapter 7 departs from classroom talk and draws on data from the project to
listen to the voices of the children in the project classes. We interviewed six
focus children in each of the six classes at the beginning and the end of the year
of the main project. These children give us insight into what they think and
understand about writing and learning to write. This chapter is followed by the
lesson plans for reflection.
The final chapter, Chapter 8, focuses on classroom management for using talk
to support writing. Here we draw on what teachers told us and our examination
of the video data to bring together ideas about how best to manage the talk. We
look closely at some teacher–child interaction and discuss how some forms of
interaction support the talk and the writing better than others. This chapter is fol-
lowed by a final reflection from Linda Bateman, another of the project teachers.
We have also included some more details of the research project in an appendix
for those who would like to know more about how we went about data collection
and analysis.
Each chapter can be read on its own or as part of the whole. There is some logic
to the order but you don’t have to read it in the order we chose. We invite you to
read the whole book and think about how theory and practice are linked. But we
don’t mind if you pick and choose the chapters you read. Use the book for your
own purposes and we hope you enjoy it.
00-Fisher-4012-Prelims:Nutbrown-Prelims.qxd 23/03/2010 5:55 PM Page xii

MY WRITING
Getting
ideas

What ideas have I Say it, write

got for my writing? it.

What does my writing

Thinking sound like?
about my
writing

What do I think about my writing?

01-Fisher-4012-Ch-01:Fisher-4012-Ch-01 23/03/2010 5:01 PM Page 1

1 Learning To Write
Debra Myhill

Introduction
Learning to write is one of the most challenging endeavours we offer a young
child. We learn to talk naturally and effortlessly through our interactions with
others and no child, other than one with specific learning difficulties, does not
learn to talk. But learning to write is a taught process and we only learn to write
the full repertoire of conventions of our language if we are taught to write,
whether that be the demands of shaping letters and spacing words or the
demands of conveying meaning through written language. Kress (1994) reminds
us that writing is more difficult than reading, because reading is a process of
making meaning from text, whereas writing is a process of encoding meaning
through text: reading is a receptive process, whereas writing is a productive
process. Kellogg (2008) argues that writing is one of the most difficult and
demanding intellectual tasks we engage in, and he suggests that it is as intellec-
tually effortful as playing chess. So it is no surprise that children sometimes
struggle with writing.
But at the same time, writing is everywhere. In terms of learning to write, it is
impossible to separate children’s world experiences of reading text from their
attempts at writing. As novice writers, they don’t enter the writing classroom with
no knowledge – they bring a wide understanding of how texts are shaped: under-
standing of labelling and design on sweet packets; knowing about directions and
signposting; being able to discriminate between adverts and stories; knowing
the social function of thank you letters, shopping lists, and name labels on property ….
These are the foundations upon which learning to write is built. And in the
twenty-first-century world of digital natives, young children’s experiences of
writing are likely to include electronic written forms – emails, text messages, eBay
adverts, web pages. Indeed, it would be very easy to argue that, as technology has
flourished and children are growing up comfortable with the affordances of
technology, young people write more than ever. Certainly, communication that
was once oral such as a phone call is increasingly being replaced by texting or
emailing, and the accessibility of the internet creates new spaces and provides ease of

1
01-Fisher-4012-Ch-01:Fisher-4012-Ch-01 23/03/2010 5:01 PM Page 2

2 USING TALK TO SUPPORT WRITING

publishing writing through blogs or wikis, for example. Being able to communicate
effectively through writing remains an essential skill for children to learn, not
simply because of the role it plays in academic development and assessment, but
because of its significance in social development and social networking.
So what can recent research tell us about how children learn to write?

The writing process

Perhaps surprisingly, research in writing is a young and relatively immature field
of research, particularly compared with the extensive and well-developed body of
research on learning to read. This is particularly true in cognitive psychology
where the research has really only developed in the past 30 years or so. But this
research has advanced our understanding of the process of writing and of the
kinds of demands that writing makes upon our cognitive resources, our ‘brain
power’, you could say.
In the early 1980s, Hayes and Flower (1980) first proposed a model of writing.
This was an attempt to explain the mental processes that are involved in moving
from ideas in the head to a completed written text on the page or screen. They
saw writing as drawing on three important and inter-related components:

• the writing environment: this covers everything ‘outside the writer’s skin that
influences the performance of the task’ (Hayes and Flower, 1980: 12). So this
includes the nature and purpose of the writing task, the writer’s motivation to write,
and whether it is individual or collaborative writing. You could think of this as the
context for writing.
• the writer’s long-term memory: long-term memory is the permanent store of
knowledge and experience that we all draw on when we write. This includes
our knowledge of texts and text types, our knowledge about writing, and our
linguistic knowledge of words and syntax. You could think of this as the principal
resource bank for writing.
• the writing process: this addresses the activities that occur in the period of
writing, from the stage of starting to write to the completion of the piece of writing.

Hayes and Flower suggested that the writing process was essentially composed of
three different kinds of writing activity. Generating ideas for the writing and
working out how you are going to approach the writing task is a Planning activity.
This might include writing a formal plan but equally it is also simply the thinking
and mental planning that often occurs before we attempt to set words on the page.
The activity of producing written text, of transforming thoughts or spoken ideas
into written language is a Creating Text activity. Hayes and Flower called this activ-
ity ‘translating’ but this is perhaps not such a helpful term because of its associa-
tion with translating from one language to another, and because it suggests that
getting words on the page is a simple linear act of translating thoughts into words.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Von Rintelen also took a flier at the most elusive and puzzling
diversions of war-brokers, namely the purchase of the 350,000 Krag-
Jorgensen rifles which the United States Government had
condemned just prior to the outbreak of the war. Around those rifles
was centred more intrigue and deceitful scheming than was incited
by almost any other single article connected with the war. Even after
the Government had announced emphatically that they were not for
sale, and President Wilson had told one banker: “You will get those
rifles only over my dead body,” every belligerent tried to get them.
Von Rintelen heard that by bribing Government officials he could
obtain the guns. He was stirred; for if an official would accept money
for one thing, he could be influenced to do other things to help
Germany. Sending out agents, he offered to purchase the rifles. He
encountered a man who put a price of $17,826,000 on them, part of
the amount being intended, von Rintelen was told, as bribes of
several millions of dollars for Government officials.
Things looked bright to von Rintelen. “So close am I to the
President,” said the agent who promised to deliver them, “that two
days after you deposit the money in the bank you can dangle his
grandchild on your knee.” But von Rintelen apparently came to
realize that he was dealing with the secret agent of another
government, who was laying a trap for him, and he quickly
withdrew.
 THE “LUSITANIA” GOES DOWN
Then the Lusitania was torpedoed. Americans who were connected
with von Rintelen’s schemes to ship supplies to Denmark and to buy
the Krags, became alarmed over the prospect of war with Germany.
They cut off negotiations with him and fearing possible government
investigations, they began to talk. Part of the activities of a
mysterious German of the name of Meyer and Hansen reached both
the Government officials and newspapers. A reporter on the New
York Tribune who got a “tip” of the real facts and who hunted for
von Rintelen, frightened the German agents from the office of the E.
V. Gibbon Company. Steinberg skipped back to Germany disguised as
a woman carrying a trunk full of reports showing the necessity of
concerted action to prevent the Allies from getting American war
materials.
Von Rintelen slipped away to an office in the Woolworth Building. On
disclosing something of his schemes to men there, he was quickly
ordered out. He moved to the offices, in the Liberty Tower, of
Andrew M. Meloy, who had gone to Germany hoping to interest the
German authorities in a scheme having the same purpose as von
Rintelen’s. In Meloy’s office he posed as E. V. Gates—still retaining
the initials of E. V. G. So effective was von Rintelen’s “getaway,” that
he was reported to have gone abroad as a secretary. Those
newspaper stories again gave von Rintelen cause to chuckle over his
cleverness and his elusiveness, and encouraged him to still more
reckless projects. He was reporting meantime to Berlin by means of
apparently innocuous commercial messages sent by wireless, and
also by cablegrams via England and Holland.
Von Rintelen, always scheming to prevent arms and ammunition
from going to the Allies, reached into Mexico to use that country as
another angle from which to harass the United States. He planned—
and this project was a part of his vast campaign—to embroil Mexico
and this country in war, or to cause such a jumble of revolutions
within the Mexican borders that the United States would be
compelled to intervene. He pictured this country in war with Mexico,
a mobilization of the regular army and the militia, an assembling of
the American fleet. That would require a large part of the output of
the munition factories. The horses that were being shipped to the
Allies, the arms, the clothing for soldiers, the shoes and the
hundreds of other things which American factories were busily
turning out, would be required for a large American army moving
south of the Rio Grande.
 STIRRING UP MEXICO
He seized, therefore, upon President Wilson’s opposition to General
Huerta, and he planned to start a revolution in Mexico with the aim
of returning Huerta to power and thus placing the United States in a
position where it would be compelled to go into Mexico and restore
order. The United States would not be in a position then to dictate
terms for the settlement of the Lusitania controversy, would seize
the war supplies going to the Allies, and, incidentally, would be
hampered for the remainder of the European war.
Ensconced in Meloy’s office, von Rintelen had as his daily associate a
man of his own age and of much the same appearance, tall, slender,
splendidly dressed, namely, a Mexican of German ancestry and a
banker of Parral. These two, who had known each other for years,
met in New York. The banker was versed in Mexican affairs, and the
young German-Mexican knew some of von Rintelen’s plans which
had been set in operation before the latter’s arrival in America.
German agents had been sent to Barcelona, Spain, to confer with
General Victoriano Huerta, former dictator of Mexico, and dazzle him
with the prospect of returning to power. Von Rintelen appreciated
keenly the fact that Huerta in Mexico virtually meant a declaration of
war by the United States, and, therefore, he wanted to put him
there.
Having coaxed the old warrior to the United States, von Rintelen got
Boy-Ed and von Papen to map out Huerta’s plans. The two attachés,
with von Rintelen standing, invisible, far in the background and
pulling the strings, had many secret conferences in New York hotels,
overheard by Federal agents. They developed the plans for Huerta’s
dash into Mexico, and the uprising of Mexicans to support him. Von
Rintelen, Boy-Ed and von Papen made trips along the Mexican
border, arranged for the mobilization of Mexicans, for the storing of
supplies and ammunition and for furnishing funds. Von Rintelen
deposited in Cuban banks and in banks in Mexico City more than
$800,000 for Huerta’s use. When the aged general, stealing away
from New York, reached Texas, he was nipped, while attempting to
jump the international border.
While the Huertista faction was amply financed, it was only one of
seven groups, five of which were in Mexico, to which von Rintelen
passed out money. Striving to stir up trouble and still more trouble
for the United States, he poured gold upon gold into Mexico, hoping
that President Wilson, nervous and harassed, would raise a big army
for a march.
Next, as an English banker making a special study of Mexican
railway securities, he called one day upon Villa’s representative in
New York, and discussed the Mexican situation with him, and
afterwards he sent money to Villa. He gave support to Carranza. He
financed Zapata, and he started two other small revolutions in
Mexico. He gave $350,000 to one agent who hurriedly left the
country carrying the cash with him. He sent $400,000 travelling
through devious channels to help one of the revolutionary parties;
but that money was recovered by von Rintelen’s superiors after a
most exciting scramble. The reckless agent is reported to have
expended $10,000,000 in his Mexican enterprises, and airily he said
he would spend $50,000,000 if necessary.
 CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN
ARCH-PLOTTER

B ut von Rintelen had still bigger projects afoot. While his precise,
swiftly moving mind supervised the Mexican conspiracy, and
carefully watched over shipments of supplies to the Fatherland, he
was launching a series of concerted conspiracies designed to cut off
this country almost entirely from Europe. His vivid imagination had
led him to picture a Utopian fantasy wherein Americans who
believed so absolutely in universal peace—despite the war raging
abroad—that the labourers would refuse to make munitions of war,
the farmers would decline to sell food to warring nations, and the
Government would take over all the war factories. Von Rintelen,
accordingly, determined to bring such a dream into real life, not for
altruistic purposes, but to help Germany conquer the Allies.
He had made his plans before he left Germany, and he had sent
ahead for information concerning Americans as his aids, who were
skilled in finesse and underground work. He wanted men who, while
men of brains, might be led by lust for gold or hatred of England to
espouse the criminal schemes which he had originated. He sought
leaders whose logic and oratory could sway the rank and file. The
man of whom he had heard while in Berlin as a likely assistant was
David Lamar, now serving a term of imprisonment for having
impersonated a Congressman, whose craftiness and ingenious
methods in using politicians in his stock operations had won him the
title of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The two men were brought
together.
One can see von Rintelen, enthusiastically speaking in millions of
dollars, as he outlined his schemes to Lamar, his equal in grace of
manner and deceit, and Lamar cloaking his avarice with smiles and
sophistry.
 BEFUDDLING THE PACIFISTS
Von Rintelen’s first step, as he outlined it to Lamar, was to use the
horrors of the European War as an appeal for universal peace, and
to enlist the labouring men and the farmers of America in raising
their united voice against the exports of arms and ammunition. And
thus a great labour peace propaganda was originated by a German
whose patriotism had driven away his scruples, and an American
who had gone money-mad. The details of the organization were set
forth, and soon von Rintelen had a staff of workers at his command,
though they all may not have known he was paying their salaries.
His agents, in secret interviews with labour leaders, were soliciting
their aid, flashing rolls of gold-tinted certificates. The men who
guiltily handled the money which von Rintelen drew from the bank
had only one complaint, namely, that the denominations of the bills
were entirely too large.
Two of von Rintelen’s agents following Samuel Gompers, president
of the National Federation of Labour, to Atlantic City one day, offered
him $500,000 for his services in endorsing the peace propaganda
and participating in the work. Mr. Gompers scorned the offer. Other
big labour leaders, whose aid was solicited, began immediately to
warn their associates against the anti-American activities of German
agents.
By June, 1915, von Rintelen’s schemes were moving apace. A big
advertising campaign had been started in the early spring with von
Rintelen’s cash. Newspaper propaganda picturing the glories of
universal peace began to appear.
By the aid of Lamar, who kept von Rintelen in the background, the
German soon had many persons working and talking in the interest
of universal peace. It has been stated that the services of Frank
Buchanan, Representative in Congress and former labour leader, and
of H. Robert Fowler, ex-Congressman, were obtained. Whether they
were aware of von Rintelen and his motives is a question for a jury
to answer, for they have been indicted in connection with the alleged
activities of the Labour’s National Peace Council.
Within a short time, thousands of invitations were scattering
throughout the country to labour leaders, small and large, and to
heads of farmers’ granges, to attend the national convention of the
peace propaganda at the expense of the organization. All railroad
fares, hotel expenses and a liberal allowance for spending money
were promised.
Under the fostering financial auspices of von Rintelen, who hovered
conveniently near the New Willard Hotel, the members of a peace
movement gathered in Washington, expenses paid. They adopted
resolutions saying they desired “to promote peace.” The resolutions
demanded the enactment of laws that would enable the Government
to take over as exclusive government business the manufacture of
all arms, instruments and munitions of war; demanded an
immediate embargo upon shipments of war supplies to the
belligerents; denounced the maintenance of military and naval
forces, and called for a special session of Congress to promote
“peace universal.” The executive board went immediately into
executive session.
 PAYING THE HIRELINGS
“How is this movement to be financed?” one of the newly-elected
executive board asked another. He and one of the vice-presidents
waited for an answer. They got none, he says, and the question was
repeated by another. Then one of the officers answered:
“This thing is big enough, so that I do not care where the money
comes from to finance it.”
Another member asked:
“What, after all, does this council want to do?”
“We want,” was the answer, “to stop the exportation of munitions to
the Allies. Germany can manufacture all the munitions she wants.”
Von Rintelen’s deposit in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company meantime
was growing smaller by jumps of $100,000. It was drawn by
cheques payable to cash, placed in another bank, quickly withdrawn,
and on one occasion the money in bills was taken to the
headquarters of a peace organization in a suit-case. Bank accounts
of von Rintelen’s peace propagandists began to jump.
The executive board was busy. One of the first moves was a
statement filed with Secretary of State Lansing alleging that nine
ships in various American ports were taking on cargoes of
ammunition in violation of the neutrality laws. That charge,
undoubtedly prepared with von Rintelen’s aid upon information
gathered by German spies, showed an accurate knowledge of the
merchantmen loading with supplies for the Allies. There was,
however, no violation of law, because the vessels were officered and
manned by ordinary seamen who had no connection with the Allied
governments.
The second step was the preparation of a complaint charging as a
violation of law the issuance of Federal Reserve notes by national
banks on the ground that the New York banks had lent money to the
Allies which was being used in payment for war supplies, and that
some of those banks had rediscounted notes with the Federal
Reserve Bank. Here again was displayed a remarkably detailed
knowledge of the business of the Federal Reserve Banks. This
charge also fell flat.
A third move was against Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port
of New York. Resolutions were adopted accusing him of exceeding
his authority in having granted clearance papers to the steamship
Lusitania when that vessel was ladened with munitions, and
authorizing an action to be started against him. No suit, however,
was begun. In this connection, it may be mentioned that one
member of the peace committee was attorney for a woman of
Chicago, who, months afterwards, started suit for $40,000 against
Collector Malone and Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, on the ground
that the ship illegally carried explosives.
 CONSPIRACY GROWS BOLDER
These public acts mentioned above, however, are stated by the
Federal Government to have been merely a cloak, covering a more
extensive conspiracy financed by von Rintelen. By a series of strikes
in munition factories, humming with the Allies’ war orders; on
railroads carrying the articles to the seaboard, and on steamships,
von Rintelen, it is alleged, sought to cut off commerce among the
United States and the Allied countries. Von Rintelen and several
others are accused in the Federal indictment of doing six different
acts in a conspiracy in restraint of foreign commerce. They are
charged with conspiring to use “solicitation, persuasion and
exhortation” to influence the workers to go on strike or to quit work,
to bribe officers of labour unions to get the men to strike, and “by
divers other means and methods not specifically determined upon by
the defendants, but to be decided as the occasion arose.”
Von Rintelen was busy now jumping from town to town, sending
orders under one name, then another, and paying out money. There
took place in June and July, 1915, many strikes which, the national
labour leaders of the respective trades said, were absolutely
unauthorized by the national bodies. The German agent was
delighted to read in the newspapers of strikes at the Standard Oil
plant in Bayonne, N. J.; of strikes at the Remington Arms Company
in Bridgeport, Conn., and in the General Electric Plant in
Schenectady, N. Y. His agents would approach him gleefully with the
newspapers containing these accounts, and immediately would
receive another bundle of bills with the exhortation, “That is fine. Go
out and start some more.”
Another projected strike in connection with which Germans were
mentioned in correspondence, but in which von Rintelen is not
named, is presented here because it fits in the general scheme of
the German plotting. That is the conspiracy on part of moneyed
representatives of Germany in May and June, 1915, to start a strike
simultaneously among the 23,000 ‘longshoremen on the Pacific and
Atlantic coasts. Such a walkout would absolutely have paralysed
American shipping, completely stopped the movement of explosives
to the Allies at a most critical moment. A leader of the big
‘Longshoremen’s Union told Chief William J. Flynn, of the United
States Secret Service, that $1,035,000, or $45 for every man, was
offered to keep the men out on strike for four weeks. After the
sinking of the Lusitania, the man who approached the
‘longshoremen wrote under the name of “Mike Foley,” asking if an
“S.” (strike) was to be called, that because of the “L. (Lusitania)
affair,” his people were not going to do anything at present, and
because the “Big Man” (who preceded von Rintelen) was going
away. It will be recalled that after the sinking of the Lusitania,
Dernburg was dismissed from the country because of his comments
concerning the attitude of Germany towards submarine warfare.
 CRIMINALS SET TO WORK
While von Rintelen was reaching out in so many directions in his
frantic endeavour to build a barrier between the United States and
the Entente Powers, he did not hesitate to resort to criminals.
Keeping his quick eyes on the progress of the peace propaganda, he
had schemes which, while distinctly separated from that
organization, were designed to work in harmony with the
developments in the strike propaganda. Von Rintelen planned by aid
of reservists and crooks to take other measures in munition factories
to stop, delay, injure the production of materials destined for the
Allies’ battle fronts.
He sent trained German reservists to get employment in factories
with orders to collect information and do what they could to cause
trouble. Resorting again to the well-developed system of German
secret agents in New York, under new aliases, he got in touch with
organized bands of criminals in New York, and, the authorities say,
hired them to start depredations on the ships being loaded with
supplies for the Allies in New York harbour. To von Rintelen or some
other person associated with him is attributed the origin of a plot for
widespread attacks by thieves on cargoes being lightered from
railroad piers to merchantmen. These thefts of sugar, automobile
tyres and magnetos have amounted to millions of dollars. For
instance, one of the sugar thieves stealing bags of sugar from a
lighter said to a comrade:
“Take some more bags. The ship won’t ever reach the other side,
anyway, and nobody will know.”
To the persons who doubt these varied, reckless and extensive
activities of von Rintelen, it may be suggested that von Rintelen
asserted frequently to his associates that he had come to America to
take every step, including peaceful or violent measures, to stop the
shipment of munitions.
The doubter must not overlook the supervision which von Rintelen
exercised over the manufacturer of fire bombs which German
reservists are accused of hiding on the Allies’ merchantmen, and the
fact that von Rintelen’s aid visited a bomb man in his Hoboken
laboratory frequently; that on one occasion he scored him roughly
because the fire bombs were not proving effective. Furthermore,
Fay, after his arrest, and long before the indictment of the bomb
plotters, told Captain Tunney of a wealthy German, then a prisoner
of war in England, who had paid $10,000 to a Hoboken chemist to
make fire bombs.
Though von Rintelen, during the months of June and July, was
exuberant over the reports—most of them false—which were carried
to him concerning the progress of peace, the strikes and other
schemes, and though he was kept drawing money from the bank
until the $800,000 in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company was reduced
to $40,000, he began to have doubts about Lamar and about the
effectiveness of the latter’s management of some of the projects. He
knew that Lamar and his associates were planning for a second
rousing meeting in Washington, but, becoming suspicious, he
suddenly cut off the money. He had received estimates of activities
that required more money. After deliberation he finally decided to
slip away to Berlin, get away from Lamar entirely and after making a
report to the War Office return to America to broaden his scope of
work.
All told, von Rintelen had failed to perceive any falling off in the
exports to the Allies. They were, in fact, rapidly increasing, and von
Rintelen’s schemes thus far had proved ineffective, though he still
was optimistic that eventually he would have all his forces working in
unison and thus accomplish his aims.
He did not go to Washington when a second peace convention was
in session, and the word had slipped out to some of the workers that
von Rintelen was about to sail. Still, the meeting with the members
claiming a representation of 8,000,000 voters, was more
denunciatory and enthusiastic over its aims, than ever. There were
attacks on President Wilson and demands for an embargo on war
munitions. There was an intense pro-German feeling.
Differences, meantime, began to arise among the members of the
executive board. One of the vice-presidents resigned just before the
second session convened, saying emphatically that the financing of
the organization was under suspicion. Another quietly quit, not
making the fact public until weeks afterwards. Lamar flitted away to
a magnificent country home which he had bought in Pittsfield, Mass.
There was no money left. The propaganda died.
 EXIT VON RINTELEN
Von Rintelen was on the high seas. He had left $40,000 in the bank
in charge of his friends, and some of the plotters tried to get that on
the strength of a promise to stop the Anglo-French bond sale of
$500,000,000. Before sailing he had applied for a passport as an
American citizen named Edward V. Gates, of Millersville,
Pennsylvania. But whisperings concerning von Rintelen’s activities
had reached the White House from society folk who had heard von
Rintelen’s rash talk and who knew of some of the unscrupulous
things he had attempted. The State Department ordered an
investigation and finally sent his passport on to New York the day
before the sailing of the Noordam, in care of Federal agents; but von
Rintelen did not claim it. Though he had bought a ticket on the boat
under the name of Gates, and had obtained drafts payable on that
name, he did not occupy the Gates cabin but at the last minute
engaged passage under the name of Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen.
On board ship, he set to work preparing for the close scrutiny of
British naval officers when the ship neared Falmouth. He handed
over many of his documents to Andrew D. Meloy, his travelling
companion, and Meloy’s secretary. He dictated a long document
about financial conditions of Mexican railways purporting to be the
report of himself as commissioner for a group of English
bondholders. He sought to make it appear that he had been sent to
the United States as a representative of the bondholders’ committee
of Mexican railways. When the British officers came on board and
searched him, von Rintelen put up a skilful bluff, but finally
surrendered as a prisoner of war. Meloy, who had aided von Rintelen
in his application for the American passport, was sent back to this
country by the British authorities.
 A VALUABLE PRISONER
While von Rintelen, after his strenuous days in America, was resting
comfortably in a luxurious prison camp at Donington Hall, England,
the American authorities were busily delving into his record. Mr.
Sarfaty presented witness after witness and thousands of documents
to the Federal Grand Jury. Von Rintelen and Meloy were indicted,
first, for the fraudulent passport conspiracy; and Meloy finally made
a confession to the Government authorities. Von Rintelen’s agent,
called before the Grand Jury and refusing to answer, was adjudged
in contempt of court and spent a night in the Tombs prison. Another
agent, summoned before the Grand Jury and asked about his
dealings with von Rintelen, refused to answer on the ground that it
might tend to degrade and incriminate him, but he afterwards was
arrested on a firebomb charge.
Von Rintelen was indicted on the charge of forgery on the passport
application, and upon that as a basis, application was made to the
English authorities for his extradition. After months of investigation,
indictments finally were filed against von Rintelen, Lamar, and his
associates on a charge of conspiring to restrain foreign trade.
The moment a United States District-Attorney, equipped with a mass
of documentary evidence, telegrams, letters, minutes of secret
meetings, and the statements of hundreds of witnesses, laid facts
before the Grand Jury who brought an indictment against a
Congressman, the House of Representatives, without waiting for the
trial of the defendant, immediately ordered an inquiry which in
substance amounted to a fishing expedition by the sub-committee to
ascertain just what evidence Mr. Marshall and Mr. Sarfaty had dug up
against one of their members. Congress did not take any action, and
finally, after a spectacular play, decided to let the matter drop.
 A COSTLY FAILURE
From the viewpoint of picturesqueness, fantastic conceptions,
recklessness, extravagance, and a remarkable mastery of detail, von
Rintelen stands forth as the most extraordinary German agent sent
to America. Boy-Ed and von Papen are now telling their friends in
Berlin that their recall was due not to what they did but to what von
Rintelen did and said.
The energetic nobleman had hoped to cause an absolute cessation
of exports from this country to the Allies and to create a political
situation where the United States would be powerless to make any
protest on Germany’s submarine warfare. To bring these conditions
about he had not hesitated to try to foment war between the United
States and Mexico, to violate various American neutrality laws, to
attack American institutions and American ideals with the aim of
causing an industrial stagnation. Yet how little he actually
accomplished!
His Mexican plans were a failure. His schemes to influence legislation
came to naught. While a few strikes were started and quickly
settled, the activity of the Germans proved hurtful to the working
men. Von Rintelen did get a few supplies over to Germany; but
many of his ships were seized by the English. His enterprises are
said to have cost many millions of dollars, and the supplies which he
shipped are about the only thing that Germany got out of his
gigantic schemes. U. S. Attorney Marshall has a passport issued to
Edward V. Gates which von Rintelen can have any time he wishes to
come and get it. Should he ever step upon American shores, he will
face charges which upon conviction furnish a total sentence of
anywhere from fifty to sixty years. Never did Germany aim through
one man to accomplish so much yet effect so little as through Franz
von Rintelen, the Crown Prince’s friend.
 CHAPTER VIII
THE STORY OF THE LUSITANIA

T he Lusitania was, in the eyes of the German Admiralty, the

symbol of Great Britain’s supremacy on the seas. The big,
graceful vessel, unsurpassed in speed, had defied the German
raiders that lurked in the Atlantic hoping to capture her and had
eluded the submarines that tried to find her course. Time and time
again, the Germans had planned and plotted to “get” the Lusitania,
and every time the ocean greyhound had slipped away from them—
every time save when the plot was developed on American territory.
To sink the Lusitania, the German Admiralty had argued, was to
lower England’s prestige and to hoist the black eagle of the
Hohenzollerns above the Union Jack. Her destruction, they fondly
hoped, would strike terror to the hearts of the British, for it would
prove the inability of the English navy to protect her merchantmen.
It would prove to the world that von Tirpitz was on a fair way of
carrying out his threat to isolate the British Isles and starve the
British people into submission to Germany. It would be a last
warning to neutrals to keep off the Allies’ merchantmen and would
help stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies from
America. It would—as a certain royal personage boasted—shake the
world’s foundations.
Gloating over their project and forgetting the rights of neutrals, the
mad war lords did not think of the innocent persons on board, the
men, the women and babies. The lives of these neutrals were as
nothing compared with the shouts of triumph that would resound
through Germany at the announcement of the torpedoing of the big
British ship, symbol of sea power. The attitude was truly expressed
by Captain von Papen, who on receiving news of the sinking of the
Lusitania remarked: “Well, your General Sherman said it: ‘War is
Hell.’”
So the war lords schemed and the plots which resulted in the sinking
of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, bringing death to 113 American
citizens, were developed and executed in America, through orders
from Berlin.
The agents in America put their heads together in a room in the
German Club, New York, or in a high-powered limousine tearing
through the dark. These men, who had worked out the plot, on the
night of the successful execution had assembled in a club and in
high glee touched their glasses and shouted their devotion to the
Kaiser. One boasted afterwards that he received an Iron Cross for his
share in the work.
On the night of the tragedy, one of the conspirators remarked to a
family where he was dining—a family whose son was on the
Lusitania—when word came of the many deaths on the ship: “I did
not think she would sink so quickly. I had two good men on board.”
 WARRIORS AT WORK IN AMERICA
In their secret conferences the conspirators worked their way round
obstacles and set their scheme in operation. Hired spies had made
numerous trips on the Lusitania, and had carefully studied her
course to and from England, and her convoy through the dangerous
zone where submarines might be lurking. These spies had observed
the precautions taken against a submarine attack. They knew the
fearful speed by which the big ship had eluded pursuers in February.
They also had considered the feasibility of sending a wireless
message to a friend in England—a message apparently of greeting
that might be picked up by the wireless on a German submarine and
give its commander a hint as to the ship’s course. In fact, they did
attempt this plan. Spies were on board early in the year when the
Lusitania ran dangerously near a submarine, dodged a torpedo and
then quickly eclipsed her German pursuer.
Spies also had brought reports concerning persons connected with
the Lusitania, and had given suggestions as to how to place men on
board in spite of the scrutiny of British agents. All these reports were
considered carefully and the conclusion was that no submarine was
fast enough to chase and get the Lusitania; that it was practically
impossible to have the U-boats stationed along every half mile of the
British coast, but that the simplest problem was to send the
Lusitania on a course where the U-boats would be in waiting and
could torpedo her. The scheme was, in substance, as follows:
“Captain Turner, approaching the English coast, sends a wireless to
the British Admiralty asking for instructions as to his course and
convoy. He gets a reply in code telling him in what direction to steer
and where his convoy will meet him. First, we must get a copy of the
Admiralty Code and we must prepare a message in cipher, giving
directions as to his course. This message will go to him by wireless
as though from the Admiralty. We must make arrangements to see
that the genuine message from the British Admiralty never reaches
Captain Turner.”
That was the plan which the conspirators, aided and directed by
Berlin, chose. Upon it the shrewdest minds in the German secret
service were set to work. As for the British Admiralty Code, the
Germans had that at the outbreak of the war and were using it at
advantageous moments. How they got it has not been made known;
but they got it and they used it, just as the Germans have obtained
copies of the codes used by the American State Department and
have had copies of the codes used in our Army and Navy. While the
codes used by the British officials change almost daily, such is not
the case with merchant vessels on long voyages.
The next step of the conspirators was to arrange for the substitution
of the fake message for the genuine one. Germany’s spy machine
has a wonderful faculty for seeking out the weak characters holding
responsible positions among the enemy or for sending agents to get
and hold positions among their foes. It is now believed that a man
on the Lusitania was deceived or duped. Whether he was a German
sympathizer sent out by the Fatherland to get the position and be
ready for the task, or whether he was induced for pay to play the
part he did—has not been told. Neither is his fate known.
Communication between New York and the German capital,
ingenious, intricate and superbly arranged, was almost as easy as
telephoning from the Battery to Harlem. Berlin was kept informed of
every move in New York and, in fact, selected the ill-fated course for
the Lusitania’s last voyage in English waters. Berlin picked out the
place where the Lusitania was to sink.
Berlin chose the deep-sea graves for more than one hundred
Americans. Berlin assigned two submarines to a point ten miles
south by west off Old Head of Kinsale, near the entrance of St.
George’s Channel. Berlin chose the commander of the U-boats for
the most damnable sea-crime in history.
Just here there is a rumour among U-boat men in Europe that the
man for the crime was sent from Kiel with sealed instructions not to
be opened till at the spot chosen. With him went “a shadow” armed
with a death warrant if the U-boat commander “baulked” at the last
moment.
 BERLIN GIVES WARNING
The German officials in Berlin looking ahead, sought to prearrange a
palliative for their crime. Their plan, which in itself shows clearly how
carefully the Germans plotted the destruction of the Lusitania, was
to warn Americans not to sail on the vessel.
While the German Embassy in Washington was kept clear of the plot
and Ambassador von Bernstorff had argued and fought with all his
strength against the designs of the Berlin authorities, he,
nevertheless, received orders to publish an advertisement warning
neutrals not to sail on the Allies’ merchantmen. Acting under
instructions, this advertisement was inserted in newspapers in a
column adjoining the Cunard’s advertisement of the sailing of the
Lusitania:

NOTICE!

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage

are reminded that a state of war exists between
Germany and her Allies and Great Britain and her
Allies; that the zone of war includes the waters
adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with
formal notice given by the Imperial German
Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or
any of her Allies are liable to destruction in these
waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on
ships of Great Britain or her Allies, do so at their own
risk.
Imperial German Embassy.
Washington, D.C., April 22nd, 1915.
Germans in New York, who had knowledge that German submarines
were lying in wait off the Irish coast to “get” the Lusitania, sent
intimations to friends before the sailing of the ship.
The New York Sun was told of the plot and warned Captain Turner
by wireless after the ship sailed. The German secret service in New
York also sent warnings to Americans booked on the Lusitania. One
of the persons to receive such a message signed “morte” was Alfred
Gwynne Vanderbilt. Many other passengers got the same warning
that the ship was to be torpedoed; but they all laughed at it. They
knew she had outrun submarines on a previous voyage and tricked
them on another voyage. Besides, before the horrors of this war,
optimistic Americans firmly believed the world was a civilized place.
It was only after the destruction of the Lusitania that many neutral
Americans could credit the atrocity stories of Belgium.
 FATEFUL MAY 1, 1915
So when the Lusitania backed from her pier in the North River on
the morning of May 1, 1915, there was more than the average levity
that makes the sailing of an ocean liner so absorbing. On the pier
were anxious friends somewhat perturbed by the mysterious
whisperings of impending danger. Mingling among them also were
men who knew what that danger was, and who had just delivered
final instructions to German hirelings on board. On the deck of the
great vessel, as she swung her nose down-stream toward Sandy
Hook, was not only the man who had promised to see that the false
message in code reached Captain Turner, but there also were those
two friends, good and true, of von Rintelen’s—men who, in the event
that the Lusitania should run into the appointed place at night,
would flash lights from port holes to give a clear aim to the
commanders of the stealthy submarines.
On board the vessel swinging out past Sandy Hook into the ocean
lane were a notable group of passengers, many of them
representative Americans of inestimable value to this country.
Besides Mr. Vanderbilt, there was Charles Frohman, a talented
theatrical producer, who had furnished by his artistic shows genuine
amusement to millions; Elbert Hubbard, talented and inspiring
writer; Charles Klein, writer of absorbing plays; Justus Miles Forman,
novelist, and Lindon W. Bates, Jr., whose family had befriended von
Rintelen. Merchants, clergymen, lawyers, society women, a large list
of useful men and women in the 1,254 passengers.
These, added to the crew of 800, made more than 2,000 lives under
the care of the staunch, blue-eyed captain. Of that number, 1,214
were being rushed over the waves to doom. And as the ship sped
eastward, submarines leaving their bases at Cuxhaven and
Heligoland clipped their prows under the waves, and made for Old
Head of Kinsale on the south coast of Ireland, where they were
instructed to pause, upon sealed instructions, and obey them to the
letter.
Meantime, Berlin, counting almost to the hour when the Lusitania
would near the British Isles, prepared the exact wording for the false
instructions to Captain Turner. This was sent to New York by
wireless, where it was put into British code. The next step was to
have this message substituted for the British Admiralty’s instructions
to the Lusitania. The inside details of how this substitution was
effected—can only be surmised. This secret is buried with the British
Admiralty and with the Bureau in Berlin.
 BERLIN’S DELIBERATIONS
For such intricate action Germany had been preparing with infinite
patience both before and after the war began. Prior to the outbreak,
representatives of Germany had started the building of the wireless
plant at Sayville, Long Island, by which aerial communication was
established with Berlin. After the war began, the equipment of the
station was increased, and instead of 35 kilowatt transmitters, 100
kilowatt transmitters were installed, the machinery for tripling the
efficiency of the plant having been shipped from Germany via
Holland to this country. Wireless experts, members of the German
navy, also slipped away from Germany to direct the work of handling
messages between the two countries.
Everything was in readiness at Sayville, consequently, to catch the
directions that were flashed through the air. There was an operator
specially trained to take the message coded for the deception of
Captain Turner, and send it crackling fatefully through the air.
Everything was ready and only the request of the operator on the
Lusitania for directions south of Ireland was needed. All this was in
violation not only of our neutrality laws, but also in disregard of
American statutes governing wireless stations.
Meantime, the vessel had reached the edge of the war zone decreed
by Germany in violation of international law, and Captain Turner sent
out his call for instructions. Presently the order came. It was hurried
to Captain Turner’s state-room.
Captain Turner, carefully decoding the message by means of a cipher
book which he had guarded so jealously, read orders to proceed to a
point ten miles south of Old Head of Kinsale, and run into St.
George’s Channel, making the bar at Liverpool at midnight. He
carefully calculated the distance and his running time, and adjusted
his speed accordingly. He felt assured, because he relied on the
assumption that the waters over which he was sailing were being
thoroughly scoured by English cruisers and swift torpedo boats in
search of German submarines.
 THE EXPLOSION THAT ROCKED THE WORLD
The British Admiralty also received his wireless message—just as the
Sayville operator had snatched it from the air, and despatched an
answer. The order from the head of the Admiralty directed the
English captain to proceed to a point some seventy or eighty miles
south of Old Head of Kinsale and there meet his convoy, which
would guard him on the way to port. But Captain Turner never got
that message, and the British convoy waited in vain for the Lusitania
to appear on the horizon.
The Lusitania headed north-east, going far away from the vessels
that would have protected her. Swiftly she slipped through the waves
on the afternoon of May 7. Unsuspecting, the ship moved directly
toward certain death. The proud, swift liner steered straight between
two submarines, lying in wait.
The details of what happened after the torpedo blew out the side of
the great ship have been told—told so fully, vividly, so terribly that
they need not be repeated here. As Captain Turner heard the
explosion of the torpedo he instantly knew that there had been
treachery. He knew he had been decoyed away from the warships
that were to escort him to his pier.
The manner in which the captain had been lured to the waiting
submarines was made clear at the secret session of the Board of
Inquiry that investigated the sinking of the ship. Captain Turner told
at the Coroner’s inquest how he had been warned, supposedly by
the British Admiralty, of submarines off the Irish coast, and that he
had received special instructions as to course. Asked if he made
application for a convoy, he said:
“No, I left that to them. It is their business, not mine. I simply had
to carry out my orders to go, and I would do it again.”
At the official inquiry, the captain produced the orders which he had
received, directing him to proceed south-west of Old Head of
Kinsale. The British Admiralty produced its message which had
directed Captain Turner to go by an utterly different course. It
produced also orders which had been issued to the convoy to meet
the Lusitania. The orders did not jibe. They showed treachery, and
further investigation pointed to Sayville.
 AMERICA REVOLTED AND APPALLED
The indignation and the revulsion of Americans against Germany
because of the destruction of the Lusitania with the appalling loss of
life was a surprise to the Kaiser and his war staff. They apparently
had believed that the warning contained in the official
announcement of Germany, declaring the waters about the British
Islands a war zone, and the advertisement published would be
sufficient excuse, and that their act would be accepted calmly by
America. They were not prepared for Colonel Roosevelt’s invective
stigmatizing the act as piracy, or the editorial denunciation
throughout the country. Their effrontery was displayed by one of
their agents, who announced that American ships also would be
sunk. But this agent’s removal from the country and mob violence
threatened other agents was emphatic proof of America’s state of
mind.
Immediately Germany turned as a defence to the argument that the
Lusitania carried munitions of war and other contraband in violation
of the United States Federal statute. But the American laws were
quoted to Ambassador von Bernstorff to prove to him that cartridges
could be transported in a passenger ship. That argument proved of
no avail.
Secretary Bryan’s note, written by President Wilson, and forwarded
to Berlin, demanded a disavowal of the sinking of the Lusitania, an
apology and reparation for the lives lost. But Germany sought to
parley with a reply that would lay the blame on Great Britain, and
asserting that the Lusitania had been an armed auxiliary cruiser,
requested an investigation of these alleged facts, and refused to
stop her submarine warfare until England changed her trade policy.
But this note again aroused the wrath of Americans.
 LIES AND DECEIT
German secret agents began to manufacture evidence to support
the Kaiser’s contentions. Here a hireling of Boy-Ed looms as an
obedient servant of the naval attaché, whether he knew all the facts
or not. It was Koenig, who, using the alias of Stemler, obtained from
Gustave Stahl an affidavit to the effect that he had seen four fifteen-
centimetre guns on the decks of the Lusitania before she left port on
her ill-fated voyage. There were three other supporting affidavits. All
these documents were handed to Boy-Ed on June 1, 1915, and the
following day were in the hands of von Bernstorff, who turned them
over to the State Department in Washington.
It required but little work on the part of Federal agents to establish
the untruth of Stahl’s affidavit. Stahl, a German reservist, appeared
before the Federal Grand Jury, where he again repeated his lies. He
was indicted for perjury and upon a plea of guilty was sent to the
Federal prison at Atlanta.
It was Koenig who had hidden Stahl away after the latter had made
his affidavit, and it was Koenig who, at the command of the Federal
authorities, produced him.
So here again Germany’s efforts to deceive and to justify her
piratical act came to naught, and left her even more damned before
the world. Time came within a few days for President Wilson to
reject forcibly the flimsy defence made by Germany, but before that
note was drafted, the United States authorities by a thorough
investigation of Sayville, and a scrutiny of the German naval officers
employed there, discovered that the fake code message that drove
the Lusitania to her grave in the sea had been flashed out from
neutral territory; that the conspiracy had been developed in America,
though the details were not obtainable at that time as they are
presented here.
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