Paul M. Hollister

“ German knows that an army must depend upon the hearts of its people, and he reasons: "I shall attack the hearts of the people, and I believe that if it is a good principle to attack my enemy from the rear through his people, it is also a good principle to attack his people from the rear. The heart is as near the back as it is the front, nicht wahr?" The plot will seem, in its early stages, part and parcel of our daily life and concern; we shall not see the German hand in it; the hand will be so concealed as not even to excite the enthusiasm of the German-American, often a good danger-signal. ”

“ Fancy a shaggy Bolshevik, his mouth full of broken English, his head full of sophistry, and his heart full of greed for the possessions of others, being led up Mount Vernon, Monticello or Doughoregan Manor! Could any contrast make a picture more grotesque? Could there be conceived a background more serenely sane, more perfectly American, against which to display the distortion of this foreign madness? Every stone and brick and timber of such houses preaches a sermon on Americanism. ”

“ He had never realized that Charles Town, in the Carolinas, was the richest city south of Philadelphia, nor that here he was to find a spirit of resentment against British injustice as acute as that of his own people. “This town,” he wrote, “makes a beautiful appearance as you come up to it and in many respects a magnificent one. I can only say in general that in grandeur, splendor of building, decorations, equipages, numbers,161 commerce, shipping, and indeed everything it far surpasses all I ever saw or ever expect to see in America.” ”

“ If you could have gone with me through the space of the last two years and could have felt the subtle impact of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with me that those to whom you have intrusted authority are trustees not only of the power but also of the very spirit and purpose of the United States, you would realize with me the solemnity with which I look upon the sublime symbol of our unity and power. ”

“ And when the spreading chestnut tree over Dexter Pratt’s smithy fell, the children of Cambridge gave their pennies to fashion him an armchair of its wood, and used to traipse fearlessly into the Longfellow house from time to time to call on the poet and see that the chair gave him good service. Without question it is one of the homeliest chairs in the world—and one of the finest.
One cannot leave the house without a glance at his other friends, his closer intimates, nor enter the house without remarking them. ”

“ The German spy in America continues to attack our armies in the rear. He is here in force. A word to him may mean that within twenty-four hours Kiel will know of another transport embarking with certain forces for France. He is here to take the lives of Americans just as certainly as his kinsman is firing across a parapet in Lorraine for the same purpose. Whatever provision will save those lives must be made swiftly. The Departments, already overtaxed with the magnitude of their task, ask simply that they be given the weapons to make their splendid battle on the American front successful. ”

“ You may be mildly thrilled by the Indian-proof shutters, mystified by the secret staircase which follows the course of the chimney, and delighted with the kitchen William Coddington built, with its eight-inch beams, Dutch oven, churn, spinning-wheel, and a musket over the mantel for inviting Indians to dinner.
There are ever so many things in the house today to call up a Quincy tradition, for if you scratch almost any chapter of New England history you will find a Quincy tradition underneath. ”

“ There are touches of vermilion and lavender in the sharp green of the shutters at the second-floor windows.
The architecture is Italo-American, and so are the urchins popping from the doors to stare at you as you wait for admittance. Their faces are soiled, and so is the black-and-white marble floor behind the heavy spiked gates. Note, above you, the coffered and embossed ceiling, appraise the graceful fan-light over the door, examine the elaborate carving of the door itself, for these are relics which indicate the grand manner in which this house once welcomed its guests. ”

“ Captain von Papen had not only full details of all points of military importance in the United States, but had made practical efforts to utilize [Pg 61] them. He knew where his reservists could be found in America. When the Government, shortly after the outbreak of war, forbade the recruiting of belligerents within its boundaries, and then refused to issue American passports for the protection of soldiers on the way to their commands, Captain von Papen planned to mobilize and employ a German army on American soil in no less pretentious an enterprise than a military invasion of the Dominion. ”

“ Few realize how wide and bustling was the world surveyed from Mount Vernon, nor to what extent he exerted himself to make use of the talents he had been given. Remember that there were no neighboring shops, no groceries, no service stations—not one, in fact, of the multitude of helping hands which science reaches out today to perform every conceivable task; and remember too that in his custody were, and upon his wise management depended, not only the happiness of his wife and her two children, but that of a company of several hundred others on the estate. ”

“ The Alliance, to quote Professor John William Scholl, of the University of Michigan, (in the New York Times of March 2, 1918) , "strives to awaken a sense of unity among the people of German origin in America; to 'centralize' their powers for the 'energetic defense of such justified wishes and interests' as are not contrary to the rights and duties of good citizens; to defend its class against 'nativistic encroachments'; to 'foster and assure good, friendly relations of America to the old German fatherland.' Such are its declared objects. ”

“ As a poet he gave the lie to the precious though fashionable complaint that nothing real in art need be expected from America until she had had a century or two of sandpapering. His enthusiasm of race drew occasional outbursts of a greater quality—the thing that made him a great citizen as well as a great national artist—the immortal spirit which went into such majestic songs as The Building of the Ship. ”

“ So he impressed diplomatic Washington in 1911 as a polished cosmopolite. Polished he was, measured by the standards of diplomatic Washington, for rare was the young American of Boy-Ed's age who had his cultivation, his wide experience, and his brilliant charm. He was sought after by admiring mothers long before he was sought after by the Secret Service; he moved among the clubs of Washington and New York making intimates of men whose friendship [Pg 16] and confidence would serve the Fatherland, cloaking his real designs by frivolity and frequent attendances at social functions. ”

“ That April-day crowd returned to Hospital and Royal Streets and sacked the house from hall to belvedere, ripped down silk curtains, slashed paintings, wrenched out chandeliers, dug up two skeletons from the courtyard, pitched Madame Lalaurie’s precious possessions out of windows and made bonfire of the wreckage in the street. Nor when inside the stout old walls a new and finer residence was built in cheerful defiance of the ghost, could the spirit of tragedy be banished. ”

“ Across the span of the years we can still hear the echo of an outraged protest—the hymn of hate of the daughters of William Chew, sung with all the cordial detestation that could be uttered by a group of sisters who came out to Germantown under British escort and found their lovely home in ruins at the hands of the army that had already made their father a prisoner. None can blame them for the gayety with which they entered into the social life of that winter in the occupied city, with never a thought for Washington’s men shivering in the snow at Valley Forge. ”

“ Although his sojourn in New York covered a period which was the peak of the curve of German atrocities in the United States, Rintelen was a fifth wheel. No man came to America to accomplish more, and no man accomplished less. [Pg 152] No German agent had his boldness of project, and no German executive met a more ignominious fate. Whatever he touched with his golden wand turned to dross. He was hoodwinked here and there by his own agents, and frustrated by the vigilance of the Allied and the United States governments. ”

“ There are three ghosts at Doughoregan Manor. One is the shade of an ancient housekeeper, whose quiet tread may be heard in the corridors, and whose keys tinkle faintly when the house is still. Another is the spectral coach—its wheels grind on the driveway when death rides to claim a member of the household.... The third is no gruesome phantom, but the warm lively pervading spirit of the Signer himself, Charles Carroll “of Carrollton.” ”