The following incident, which is one of the many I might cite, throws interesting light on one method of procedure.  The head of the special bureau asked one of the best known woman newspaper reporters of Norway if she would like to do some easy work which would take up very little of her time and for which she would be well paid.

The Norwegian reporter was interested and asked for particulars.

“Germany wishes to educate other countries to a true appreciation of things German.  Within a year, or at most within two years, we shall be doing this by sending to foreign newspapers articles which will instruct the world about Germany.  Of course, it is not advisable to send them directly from our own bureau; it is much better to have them appear to come from the correspondents of the various foreign newspapers.  Thus, we shall send you articles which you need only copy or translate and sign.”

This has been the practice in German journalism for years, and its extension to other countries was merely a chain in the link of Germany’s deliberate and thorough preparations for the war.

With a few exceptions, German reporters and correspondents are underpaid sycophants, mere putty in the hands of the Government.  Therefore, the chagrin of the officials over the independence and ability of the majority of the American correspondents is easy to understand.  The Wilhelmstrasse determined to control them, and through them to influence the American Press.  Hence the rules given above.

When a man signs an agreement that he will not leave Germany until the end of the war, without special dispensation, he has bound himself to earn his livelihood in that country.  He cannot do this without the consent of the Government, for if he does not write in a manner to please them they can slash his copy, delay it, and prevent him from going on trips to such an extent that he will be a failure with his newspaper at home.  His whole success depends therefore upon his being “good” much after the manner in which a German editor must be “good.”  If he expresses a wish to leave Germany before the end of the war and the wish is granted, he feels that a great favour has been conferred upon him and he is supposed to feel himself morally bound to be “good” to Germany in the future.

The American journalistic colony in Germany is an entirely different thing from what it used to be in pre-war days.  Before 1914 it consisted, merely of the representatives of the Associated Press and United Press, half a dozen New York papers (including the notorious New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung), and the well-known and important Western journal, the Chicago Daily News.  To-day many papers published in the United States are represented in Berlin by special correspondents.  The influx of newcomers has been mostly from German-language papers, printed in such Teutonic centres as Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, etc.  Journals like the Illinoiser Staats-zeitung, of Chicago, which for years past has barely been able to keep its head above water, have suddenly found themselves affluent enough to maintain correspondents in Europe who, for their part, scorn lodgings less pretentious than those of the de luxe Hotel Adlon in Unter den Linden.