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Show H 1 S 51 II HOW pies Four foreign spy systems, employing hundreds of men and women, constantly at work in this country trying to learn its diplomatic and defense de-fense secrets; spying on the president to discover dis-cover his attitude on the canal tolls question; frustrating the work of a highly-placed woman spy at time of the Vera Cruz incident; foreign spies continually after Uncle Sam's secret of fire control for his warships; a type of spy successful suc-cessful abroad that is a failure here; head spies and their confederates. i By P. X. (Editorial note. ror reasons perfectly obvious the real name of P. X. will not be divulged. He la a man who has done creditable work for the secret service of the United States and who has been at various times engaged en-gaged by European ajid Asiatic governments to do work of a similar nature which would not conflict with the interests of the United States. He is above all an American and, could his achievements be made known, he would be highly honored by every department of the government. To do this, however, how-ever, would render him useless for any further service). IP THE United States wore to be plunged into war tomorrow with any one of four European nations, the hostile government would have at least au approximate knowledge of all our coast defences, our navy yards, our arsenals, and the disposition and equipment of our land and sea, forces. Every corner of the country is infested in-fested by these agents in time of peace, but now that Europe is at war thrir activity has been multiplied. Xo department de-partment of the government ie safe, from them. And, by the .Mine token, were war to be declared with any one of these governments, gov-ernments, the Initetl States secret service ser-vice would be authorised at once to throw into prison some hundred spies who are known to them, but wiio cannot now be deprived of their liberty on any possible charge. A state of war would alter all this. Jt must not be imagined that the secret service is remiss. It is an excellent organization, well direrr?yl and efficient, but its powers are unwisely unwise-ly limited. How this came about I will show in a later article. There exists in the United states a system or, rather, four svstems of espionage es-pionage by which these European governments gov-ernments that maintain them seek to learn innermost secrets of the state, navy and war departments and to learn in advance .just what is going to be done about certain matters of foreign policy. So far as the state department is concerned, con-cerned, its secrets are practically safe, but that is about, as far as one can go. The worst of it is that there are no . federal or state laws which afford the national government an opportunity to -combat the machinations of spies, and thore is no adequately authorized secret sen-ice to render their efforts futile. The secret 'service existing is admirable for its purposes, which congress has limited to the detection of crimes against the treasury department and the protection of the person of the president, but it ban rfot the power it should have to combat; com-bat; the clever spies employed by European Euro-pean governments. All that can be done under present conditions is for every officer or employee em-ployee of the government, secret service or otherwise, to be on his guard, and when he detects a person who is spving or attempting to gain information of a confidential character, warn all those interested in-terested against him. 3nch a person cannot can-not be arrested except perhaps on a charge of disorderly conduct, which, nine times out of ten, will be dismissed in court or will mean only a sentence of a few days. If an attempt is made at deportation de-portation the country is aroused and a cry of ''oppression" goes up. HOW THE SPY SYSTEM OPERATES .lust at present Washington is full of spies in the employ of European governments govern-ments all watching one another as well as prying into the'secrets of the United States. In genera! the svstem is something some-thing like this: There is one man yr woman in charge of the work. Vuder t his head are any number of minor spies or agents, some of whom do not even realize what they are about. A certain government official is supposed sup-posed to have information which the chief spy desires. It is arranged to have one man act as a waiter in the restaurant restau-rant or hotel where the government employee em-ployee generally dines. nothor man ma v succeed in getting employment in a barber simp p,here the official is shaved. Still another .-drives to get close to the victim in n social wnv, enoi-neering enoi-neering acq u a in tanc.es hip and club memberships to accomplish this end. $ nrapon e els o follow? the e m p 1 o vee .wherever he goes to as grejjt an extent ua seems possible without attracting at-- at-- Acntion. Xow, no one of thevp spies I'inds out ' cry much, as a :ule, but if each one! overhears a few wort's and reports them to his chief, it is frequently possible to arrive at a pretty accurate conclusion as to what the government is going to do iu certain circumstances. None of the petty sides are know n to one another, an-other, but all are known to the chief. The chief is always a person who is in seme established line of business. lie is seldom, if ever, on a salary, and is very seldom one who poses as living on ;n income. This is for the reason 'that the spy, to be effective, mut be long cstablihed in one place. Were he employed em-ployed at a salary, he might at auv lime be laid; Aft', 'and if lie gave too much time to his clandestine'duties his employers might investigate. So the chief is almost alwnvs a man who Is set up in business and .who appears ap-pears s::tVi-Mnr tly prosperous ,t account for his .-pending the amount, of monev necef-ary in order to move in'. the circles which his work make? desirable. Tn view of the recent de "(dnpiren t of iuicruatijra! importance and the pres ent unfinished state of the investigation of the T3oy-Kd-.Rint.elen propaganda, it would be unwise to disclose the names of the persons involved in tho following follow-ing example of the work of spies in the I'nited States. Many persons aro unaware of the real import of the interest that Germany has howu in our attitude toward Mexico. They think that Germany, or her agents, who, when discovered, are repudiated bv the German government, tried to back revolutions in Mexico in order to procure pro-cure big oil or mining concessions and to practically gain control over the government gov-ernment of the republic to the south. HUERTA AND THE GERMAN AG-ENTS 1 This is not primarily so. Here is the real reason wnv German agents in the United States have been working night and day to keep alive revolution and anarchy in Mexico. They wanted the United States to intervene. They knew that armed intervention in 'Mexico would mean that the United States would keep on this side of the Atlantic every cartridge and every grain of explosive ex-plosive that could be manufactured, for use, or possible use, in Mexico. Germany knew that war in Europe was inevitable and long before the assassination as-sassination of the Austrian archduke and his wife in Sarajevo German agents and spies were backing any party opposed to the established government 'in Mexico not, as many supposed, in order to establish es-tablish a government which would be friendly to the kaiserj but to keep alive chaotic, conditions which would force intervention in-tervention by the United States. Supposedly, the United States did not know how big a task the subjection of Mexico might be. At anv rate, wo would hold nil the ammunition and war supplies sup-plies we could manufacture for at least a number of months until it might become be-come apparent that we would not require re-quire our total output or until facilities for manufacture were developed so that we could spare some from our own cam- 1 paigns. During these months Germanv's superior supply of ammunition ruiMit crush the allies. Jt was for this reason that German agents hacked lluerta in his attempt to re-enter Mexico recently. One of tho men who v now under investigation by the federal grand jury maintained an agent in a banking house in Mexico City. When Carrauza and Villa split, this agent informed his chief in Washington Wash-ington that conditions were such that lluerta would be acceptable to a sufficiently suf-ficiently powerful section of the country coun-try to make it highly probable that he could regain the presidency. . lluerta meanwhile had taken a house in Forest Hills, Long Island, as a blind, liig shipments of ammunition and supplies sup-plies wore seut to Cuba and. another vast amount of ammunition wa.s sent to the Mexican border, where-.it is still hidden somewhere along the Rio Grande, despite the efforts of the Unit, ed States government to locate it. lluerta left the vicinity of New York for El l'aso, where military plans were to be completed. His ' -junket was supplied with shout half a million mil-lion dollars in gold with which to corrupt cor-rupt the garrison of Juarez, which was to be the first move in the campaign. As there were only about 500 soldiers in the garrison, it is plain that IT aorta and his backers had plentv of gold to spend. lluerta. kept to his stateroom on the train, but agents of the bureau of investigation in-vestigation of the department of justice, jus-tice, under A. Bruce Kiclaski, had dictagraphs dic-tagraphs scattered all over the cars. Spanish stenographers were stationed where thov -onid transcribe everv word that the dictagraphs recorded, and. as a result, when the ex-dictator of Mexico Mex-ico arrived in F.I Paso he was arrested j and held on the charge of violating j t he neutrali tv laws. I All tile documents pertaining to this j case are in the archives of the state department, wh"re they are guarded with the utmost care. Tt inav be desirable de-sirable to use them beforo very long. I All I can sav now is watch the federal grand jury. PRESIDENT WILSON IS SPIED UPON Before it was detinitely known what stand the United States would take on the Panama canal tolls controversy, Great Hritain, Germany and France exerted every means at their disposal to learn jut exactly what tan.l President Presi-dent Wil.on would take. Tt was generally gen-erally believed that he would advocate the repeal of the tolls act, but nonp knew definitely just how strong he would make his light. It im the president's custom to play guif" almost every day and frequently fre-quently hU opponent was a member of the cabinet or one of the house committee com-mittee on the cantLl or foreign rela-ti.in-. Aucuts of lb.; throe Uuropeaa gov- ernmr.- knew that the canal toll question was ni -i listed during thee j vol)' g;nne and thov trie.i to learn what wa .-aid, but this wa prnctb-n 1 1 c impossible, as se.-ret service men woi--always on the alert. The person ef the president -was too well guarded, ac.l thov fea.-d :-.o arouse suspicion. There was ..ne man -who frequented the club whf.re the president played; who was the object of secret service surveillance. Heeause it ig not really his name, we will call him Mr. Brown, tie always played around the course alone and stayed at the club almo.-t ; ail day long. He was in business in Washington and socially was in excel-' lent standing. One day two member- of the foreign ' relations committee plaved around the golf course just ahead of Mr. Brown. He returned to the dub house a few minutes after thev did. and a secret service man, ostensibly in the employ of the club, saw him talking for a foni? time to the hoys who had caddied for the congressmen. Apparently Mr. Brown was demonstrating to them some' Sue points of play, and as the caddies' tournament was 'to be played off the following week or thereabouts. tliU seemed natural enough. But as Mr. Brown turned awav the secret service operative collared' the youngsters. His questioning frightened th em thorough 1 v and they a d mi 1 1 ed that the gentleman had asked them whether tho congressmen had discussed the canal tolls question. , They told him that if they repeated conversation heard on the links they would be discharged. : Mr. Brown had then told them that he was interested in a certain sto'-k transaction which would be affected by action on the tolls question, and that he merely wanted want-ed to know on this account. The boys were bright fellows, however, and insisted in-sisted that they had heard nothing on the question. ft was evident that the man under suspicion figured that perhaps per-haps the congressmen, thinking the caddies cad-dies would uot compreheud what they were talking about, might have discussed dis-cussed the question.'. THE MESSAGE SEEN IN THE WINDOW Of course, there wa,s nothing to do', for Mr. Brown had not violated any law. He had merely been guilty ,of a. discourteous and ,'un-club-like "ct.. There was nothing, to indicate that JVe' was not telling the - truth about the stock transaction. , Nevertheless, a special agent, of thd-government thd-government followed .his every move and another man continually "watched his place of business. It soon became apparent that a clerk in the employ j of a foreign embassv was mightily interested in-terested in the display window of the store operated by Mr. Brown." .Two or three times a day the clerk stopped to look in this window and then returned re-turned to the offices of the embassy. Two davs after the incident at the country club the embassy clerk approached ap-proached this display window in the leisurely manner he invariably affected. affect-ed. The government agent, as usual, watched him closely. In the window was a picture of the Gatim locks in the Panama canal bearing bear-ing the placard : Tins PTTTUKK FREE TODAY WITH EVERY 5 PURCHASE No sooner had tho clerk read this placard than his phlegmatic manner do-;'-serted hiin. He called a taxieab and' rode to his embassy. Twenty minutes later a cable was sent from the embassy. em-bassy. How its contents fell into the hands of the state department I cannot tell. To do so would be of vast harm to the. government in future operations of this character. The cable read, after it was decoded: '"Information W. -will fight to limit obtain free passnge foreign ships. " ; "W." meant President Wilson. A few days Inter "Mr. Brown resigned re-signed from the country (dub. There is little doubt that he obtained the in- formation which was communicated to j the embassy by m.oans of the placard,! but how he obtained it I do not know. This is certain, however he will never be of any further use to his government, govern-ment, and he at present spends most of his time traveling. I predict that he will never again make his permanent residence in Washington, D. C. THE NOTABLE CASE OF "MRS. T." Just before the American fleet was sent to Vera Cruz spies in the employ of Mexico and others in the employ of Germany were extremely active, as mav well be imagined. The French and the British were also interested in tho movements of the United States, but not to so great an extent as were the Germans, for the reasons I have described. For some days before orders were issued to the fleet it was apparent to any person in close touch with naval affairs that something was afoot. Supplies Sup-plies were being hurried to the navy yards and loaded aboard vessels. Coal was .being stored to the utmost capacity ca-pacity of ships and shore leaves were suspended. All this was reported to the nicn in charge of the Mexican and German spy systems in Washington. How this information is picked, up in tho navy yards .1 will tell later.. There was at that tipie moving in the highest social circles in the capital n woman of foreign birth, who has since dropped completely out of sight. We will call- her Mrs." F. She Was frequently entertained by the wife of a navy department official whom she in turn en tertaiued, with the member himself, at her home at Chevy (.'base. It was easy guesswork that the activity ac-tivity of various warships meant a move of some kind against' Mexico, but none could say with certainty, and the government threw out semi-official hints that there was nothing more serious se-rious contemplated than a war game ! in American waters which won hi be ' an object lesson to Mexico. However, to Mexican agents in Washington it was merely a. question as to whether a demonstration would be made against Vera. Ouz or Tampico. Now, the secret service had reason to believe that Mrs. F. was giving information in-formation to -agents of the Huerta government in -.' Washington. An opeiy , ative intimated as much to the official who was-" on . friendly terms with the woman ; whereupon he became very angry and . threatened to make trouble ( for his informant. So certain was the' Operative, -however, that he was right that he persuaded the official who, with his wife, was to' hi 'the guest of Mrs. K. at dinner in one'" of the fashionable hotels that night, to attempt to trick her. Before the mnl was ordered, the n a v y o ffi c ia 1 sa i d to his w i f e : ''You remember 'young Gilson, do you not?''' 'Yerv well, indeed." said' his wife. "He rias been assigned to one of the ships that is going to Tampi to battle practice off the Capes," he finished fin-ished in feigned eonfusioo. HOW THE WOMAN'S CONFEDERATE WORKED When the waiter took the order for dlnnor Mrs. F. aid. ' And when you serve mv salad 1 want plenty ot'oil i in the dressing. Thev spy. ' ' she re-i re-i marked to the ,if"e of tin- navv depart-j depart-j merit official, lo-id enough for-the er to hear her, "that oil makes one stout. It is not the truth. I use a great deal of oil. I like plenty of oil in mv salad dressing.'' Thou tho talk ran on general topics, but tho waiter, who was being watched by a secret service operative, as soon as he had served the first -dishes of the dinner, asked permission of-, the captain to go out to telejmone''bh .a very ' important mission. The ( r'aptain, under the impression that tere, -was illness in the man's family, congested. dust outside the hotel the operative, accosted the waiter, and, -by thoroughly frightening him, lea rned that he had been induced for money to act as a petty spy and was about to telephone to riuerta's Washington agent that the fleet would go to Tampico. The man was a foreigner and. had a. family, and it was fairly certain that this was his first offense. However, he was discharged dis-charged from the hotel and told that if ever he was found in Washington again he would be .arrested on some charge or another. He is Tinown to the' secret service and so is the woman who had hired him. Since that night she has not been seen iu V ashington. This is how she conveyed what she thought to be information of the destination desti-nation of the fleet to the waiter, who, in turu, was to telephone it to the Huerta agents: Tampico is the chief oil port of! Mexico. Her repetition of the word "oil" and the emphasis she laid on it. meant to the waiter that Tampico was the port for which the ships would steam. To emphasize the fact, ?he saidi "Thev say that oil makes one stout. It is not "the truth." Of course, the word "vera" is the Spanish for, truth, and this meant that Yera Cnfz,' was not the destination of "the fleet. Had she believed en Cruz totbe- rhe objective, she would merely cave made some remark ' embodying the words. "It is tho truth." There was nothing for which either of these persons could be prosecuted. There is no law 'forbidding anyone tn gain any information at his disposal nor forbidding him to transmit information. infor-mation. That is just an example which shows what is' needet-- in the I'nited States. There ,1s a crying necessity for a branch o-lhc secret service which will devote all its ehegies to uncovering uncov-ering .such "machination?, and, by discovering dis-covering the men and women cohduct-' cohduct-' ing them, rendering their efforts useless, use-less, I spoke of f hp manner in which spies, yet information at navy yaxd? and a rmy pnts. T ere is an r a amide of the method employed. A man with some heavy suit cases drops into a .barracks and displays to the enlisted men a line of speks, neckties, handkerchiefs, hand-kerchiefs, etc., at very reasonable figures. fig-ures. He sells what -he can, and a couple of weeks later- returns and does more business. Being keen, be observes au orderly, who . seems above the average enlisted mart- in intelligence'' auI manner, and suggests to him that" -if opportunity occurs he might speak to his lieutenant about the fine line of silk socks and .ties he (the drummer) also' Carries . The drummer promises the orderly- - a commission on whatever goods he sells to commissioned officers. Xow. commissioned officers are, as a. general thiug, quite as desirous of spending their money economically as are the enlisted men. and, of- course, their needs for smart clothing are .greater. .great-er. So the otderly'B information about the drummer is taken in goot"part. The next time the itinerant merchant visits the barracks hef js asked to go to the lieutenant 's quarters. There he meets several other officers, who buy.-, from him and send him to friends who: they aro sure will welcome a ha rgaiu-! in such silk socks, ties and other ac-i cessories as the drummer carries. ' . In this way he establishes a regular custom. Not only is he able to gather a great deal of information about the activities in the navy yard or army post from general observations, but he is also a bio "to pick up considerable knowledge from the technical talk of I the efheers with whom he deals. ! Being himself trained, he" learns more from thtr enlisted men than they know themsel ves. Tha t is. they state i'a-"ts which mean nothing to them, but which to' him have a military significance. When he has become enough of a fixture at the post po one w become suspicious if some day he mistakes his way and is found in some part of the post where a man of high training might pick up valuable secrets. Neither Nei-ther our navy yards nor our army posts were adequately go a rded until the last year and a half, and t h e y are not guarded anything to brag of even now. I know that, theie have been just such, cases of espionage, and the only way to prevent them -in the United States, under existing Inwo, is f0 fight such methods ' with similar ones to maintain a , ecrt Fervb e which will have the power to r-upe with I he European Eu-ropean system. Di scn erv nf a spy renders him useless even though y.ou cannot put him in prison. Yon cannot Men publish hi1 name or hi picture, for he could sue for libel, his go eru- ment would repudiate him, and no end of trouble would follow. But you can fight spying methods with like methods meth-ods and' checkmate the systems that European governments employ. There is no doubt in my mind that there are spies on many of our war-' ships. One of the points which f or-j eigu governments are most anxious to learn about our navv is our system I of tire control, which is superior to that . employed jn any other navy of the wor!d. . 1 'am absolutely certain that three governments of Vhirope are working hard to obi ain this information. Of course, there is no known spy in the navy, for such a man in the service could be punished heavily for conveying convey-ing information lo au alien government. govern-ment. Before the battleship New York was completed the fact was made public that, certain plans had been lost from thq navv department. These plans were stolen. That is certain, but we have never .been able to discover who .stole then). ,1 have a prettv clear idea how it was done.., however. Hero is a hvpothctical constrint ion of the case: . H Son'e draftsman ist approached bv a man who has cultivated bis friendship friend-ship -and probably, played c.-uds "with him and become ' his creditor. The spy has made Awe to selecta Jium of 1 not too 2rat intelligence. I am sorry to say that there are a ' fovy of these iu almost all the, government departments. depart-ments. The spy oilers to cancel the draff smaii 's debt and pay him 'a bonus besides if he will get for him' certain vplans which are accessible. ' ' "You needn't be afraid that yon nre , betraying the government, 1 ' he says, 'for they have plentv of copies and, besides, all 1 want to know is whether or not J am being cheated. I offered an invention to the government gov-ernment recently and they told me it was not practical for their purposes, but now I have information that thy have used it on this ship. If you will get me the plans 1 .can return them tomorrow, and if thev lw not stolen m v i nven tion no h:;rin v. ill have been done.'' This seems reasonable to the draftsman. drafts-man. He himself des not realize what f he pla us are for, his task is merelv to draw the scale from erta.in rough I v m ft which ore given to him. On his plans, numbers and lettering arc-omitted arc-omitted purposely so that he will not he able to acquire knowledge which might be inveigled from him. Now. as n general thing, the plans are only taken lor the night, ami re- l turned earlyi" in the mornrng. This undoubtedly would have been" the cae with the plans of the New Vork, but it is my theory that the theft was discovered before the culprits coidd .return .re-turn them. Of course, measures were at once taken to detect the thief should he attempt to return the drawings and guards in the navy department building build-ing were doubled. It is my belief that; the thieves were a fraid to return tho plans under 'these conditions. No one was ever discharged from . g, the navy department as a result of the theft, and it is more than likely that the draftsman, if draftsman it was who took them, is still employed there, but I do not think he will over steal anything tdse. He has been thoroughly thor-oughly frightened, and the chances are ten to one that he is more than ashamed of himself. This theory as to the theft of the. plans of the fire control of the New York iff not mere- vaporing on , '.my part. It is based on knowledge of many similar cases. In this particul instance the fire control . system bafv to be completelv changed at great expense ex-pense and consijjorabh'. jjroublc. In a later article I Aviil tell how the navy, and state depJitmenla are guarding their secrets rvl how .the ammunition plants are protected.' ITn-cle ITn-cle 8am has not been .-asleep in thH respect. " . " , European governments have employed many women o -a certain class as p in the I'nited States, but their work has not been vory . successful. Tn the first place, these women are invariably of a foreign cast, because you cannot get American women to act as spic agnins.t their own government. 4 In the. next f lufe. officials of the United States' govern m cut who are in a position to -know anything of value ; are. as a rule, beyond the reach of such womeu. Standards of conduct here are sb high that a man. in public life is either averse to such 'intrigue? or is af ra id to engage in them be cause his enemie will use hi weakness weak-ness as polili -al capital. At ihe pre-ent frc-ion of congre- an attempt will be made to appropriate appropri-ate a sum of money for the main-i- tenance of a new branch of the se-rei service to combat European spies. I am firmly convinced that this is much a necessity as is a big navy or an efticient mmy. Next week 1 v'! tell how a whole .naal campaign ni our war with Si tain was changed by secret service work v. (Copyright. 101.). hy tlie Wh yl.-r yn.lirato, Inc.) |