763.72/2800½
The Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 5.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: Great Admiral von Koester made a speech implying that reckless submarine war should be taken up and England thus defeated. He is retired but is head of the Navy League, a concern backed by the Government, possessing a million members and much political influence.
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The U. boat question will probably come up again, say in three months, unless we get in serious trouble in Mexico, when it will come up sooner.
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Letters, codes etc. for Bernstorff and individuals are sent to America as follows. The letters are photographed on a reduced scale so that a letter a foot square appears as an inch and a half square. These little prints are put in layers of a shoe heel of a travelling American or elsewhere, book cover, hat band, etc., and then rephotographed and enlarged in America. Also messengers travel steerage and put things in the mattress of a fellow passenger and go back to the ship after landing in New York and collect the stuff.
A German friend just returned from Austria says the feeling there against America very strong on account of the Dumba incident. Yesterday I was told by a German that the German army already had aeroplanes which develop 300 H. P., and would soon have some of 1000 H. P.
Serious riots in Munich, Leipzig & Dresden.
Yours ever