Page:Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.djvu/201

Rh At this time the German Embassy controlled the Ikdam, and was conducting it entirely in the interest of German propaganda. A statement of this sort, instilled into the minds of impressionable and fanatical Turks, might have the most deplorable consequences. I therefore took the matter up immediately with the man whom I regarded as chiefly responsible for the attack—the German Ambassador.

At first Wangenheim asserted his innocence; he was as bland as a child in protesting his ignorance of the whole affair. I called his attention to the fact that the statements in the Ikdam were almost identically the same as those which he had made to me a few days before; that the language in certain spots, indeed, was almost a repetition of his own conversation.

"Either you wrote that article yourself," I said, "or you called in the reporter and gave him the leading ideas."

Wangenheim saw that there was no use in further denying the authorship. "Well," he said, throwing back his head, "what are you going to do about it?"

This Tweed-like attitude rather nettled me and I resented it on the spot.

"I'll tell you what I am going to do about it," I replied, "and you know that I will be able to carry out my threats. Either you stop stirring up anti-American feeling in Turkey or I shall start a campaign of anti-German sentiment here.

"You know. Baron," I added, "that you Germans are skating on very thin ice in this country. You know that the Turks don't love you any too well. In fact, you know that Americans are more popular here