Readers who are familiar with Germany know that if a man does not instantly defend himself against Beleidigung society judges him guilty.  Thus this and countless other printed circulations of falsehood against Mr. Gerard have cruelly hurt him throughout Germany, as I know from personal investigation.  Next to Mr. Wilson and a few men in England he is the most hated man among the German people.  He finally felt obliged to deny in the German Press some of the absurd stories circulated about him, such as that of Mrs. Gerard putting a German decoration he received on her dog.

Mueller, however, was not content with mere printed attacks, but has made threats against the life of the American Ambassador.  A prominent American has sworn an affidavit to this effect, but Mueller still pursues his easy way.  On the night that the farewell dinner was being given to a departing secretary at our Embassy, Mueller and a German officer went about Berlin seeking Mr. Gerard for the professed purpose of picking a fight with him.  They went to Richards’ Restaurant, where the dinner was being given, but fortunately missed the Ambassador.

The trickery of the League would fill a volume, for Marten especially is particularly clever.  He leapt into fame in Berlin by going to Belgium “at his own risk,” as he says, to refute the charges of German cruelty there.  His book on Belgium, and a later one claiming to refute the Bryce report, are unimpressive since they fail to introduce facts, and the writer contents himself for the main part with soliloquies on Belgian battlefields, in which he attacks Russian aggression and Britain’s perfidy in entering the war.  The Belgians, we gather, are more or less delighted with the change from Albert to Wilhelm.

Marten prints testimonials of the book from leading Germans, most of whom, such as General Falkenhayn, content themselves with acknowledgment of receipt with thanks and statement of having read the work.  Count Zeppelin goes further, and hopes that the volume will find a wide circulation, particularly in neutral countries.

And now for the vice-president of this anti-American organisation.  He is St. John Gaffney, former American Consul-General to Munich.  He belongs to the modern martyr series of the German of to-day.  All over Germany I was told that he was dismissed by Mr. Wilson because he sympathised with Germany.  The Germans as a mass know nothing further, but I can state from unimpeachable authority that he used rooms of the American Hospital in Munich, while a member of the board of that hospital and an officer in the consular service of the United States, for propaganda purposes.  His presence became so objectionable to the heads of the hospital, excellent people whose sole aim is to aid suffering humanity, that he was ousted.

He returned from his American trip after his dismissal last year and gave a widely quoted interview upon arrival in Germany which sought to discredit America—­through hitting Mr. Wilson and the Press—­in the most tense point of our last altercation in February with Germany over the Lusitania.  Such men as Gaffney are greatly to blame for many German delusions.