Page:The web (1919).djvu/113

 the head of a bolt which had, pressing upon its top, a strong spring. When the cap was loose the bolt would drop and it would act like a firing pin in a rifle, its point striking upon the cap of a rifle cartridge which was adjusted just above a small charge of chloride of potash. Below the potash there was a charge of dynamite, and below that again a charge of the tremendous explosive trinitrotoluol—the explosive known as "T. N. T."

Suppose the device adjusted to the rudder of a steamship on some dark night in New York harbor. The cargo is loaded on the ship; inch by inch the ship sinks down, and this contrivance, spiked on the rudder post, is lost to sight. The ship steams out to sea. Every time she swings to change her course, every time the rudder is adjusted gently, a notch in the leisurely clock trained below her stern slips with a little, unheard click. Far out at sea—for what reason no one can tell—without any warning, the whole stern of the ship heaves up in the air. The water rushes in; the boilers explode. The ship, her cargo, her crew, her passengers, are gone.

Well, it cost but little. A few dollars would make such a bomb. Von Papen looked it over. He did not object to the cost; indeed, Germany did not scruple to spend any sum of money of the millions she sent to America, provided it would produce results. But von Papen was not sure of this; he did not think much of it. He declined it. As to the immorality of it, the frightfulness of it—that never came into his mind at all.

One recalls reading the other day that Great Britain had shot only fourteen spies. We did not shoot one in America.

The Federal grand jury in New York on December 6, 1918, returned indictments charging treason against two men who already were in the Tombs awaiting trial on an earlier charge of conspiracy. This was the first actual treason trial since we entered the war. The men were Paul Fricke of Mt. Vernon and Hermann Wessells, an Imperial German Government spy, former officer of the German navy, then domiciled in America. Their co-defendants in the conspiracy trial were Jeremiah A. O'Leary, the Sinn Fein agitator; John T. Ryan, a Buffalo lawyer; Mme. Vic