THE "MASTER SPY IN AMERICA"

Taihape Daily Times, 27 June 1919, Page 3

THE "MASTER SPY IN AMERICA"

.....'._..—-lo)-——-SAN FRANCISCO, May 6. Under “the master spy,” Dr. Hugo Schweitzw, German agent in the United States, reported to Berlin by code every detail of America’s business life. kept from the _Allies -1,5500,‘000 pounds of explosives, and sent overseas the formula for the dead. 1y mustard gas which laid low thousands of American soldiers, according to Francis P. -Grarvan, alien property custodian, who spoke at the annual banquet of the National Cotton Manufacturers’ Association of America in New York. “True it is that the HJ:lnl.burg—Anlerican Line and the North" German Lloyd kept faithful tab for Berlin on a thousand details of Uncle Sam’s business life \vh‘ich' came under tlieir observation; that not a ship left an American harbour, not a cargo was loaded or unloaded that some member of its organisation watched and reported every detail to be sent by code to the German Government,” said Mr Garvan. “But greater than all. and forming the foundation of her entire espionage and propaganda system, stood the dye industry. Ae long as you were supplied by the “Big Six” your business had no secret unknown to Berlin. In Berlin you will find :2. - index system which recites every fact connected with each rand every one of your concerns that can be of any pos.sible value to your rivals over there_ The head of that system in American territory for years before the war was Dr. Hugo Schweitzer, president of the Bayer Company. “He was given his secret service number by the imperial Minister of W!2r—~963.19'2..637. He came to the United States, became a ei_tizell on the instructions of the German Government, and eventually was made the head of the Bayer Company mnd led the espionage and propaganda movements in A'merica and down to the day of his death in November, 1917. “At Bogota, New Jersey, in the New Jersey Agricultural Chemical Company, Dr. Schweitzer‘ employed Dr. Walter Scheele, who there invented mustard gas, the fornlulua far which

he transmitted tiirough Captain von Papen to Germany as soon as the war broke out. This is the Inusfpard gas which laid low your brothers and the plains of France.”