“Please do not trouble yourself further.

“Respectfully,

“JAMES W. GERARD.”

The Ambassador called the Embassy messenger and sent the note to the Chancellor’s palace.  Three hours later he was told that von Bethmann-Hollweg had gone to Great Headquarters to arrange for the meeting.

Sometimes in dealing with the Foreign Office the Ambassador used the same rough-shod methods which made the Big Stick effective during the Roosevelt Administration.  At one time, Alexander Cochran, of New York, acted as special courier from the Embassy in London to Berlin.  At the frontier he was arrested and imprisoned.  The Ambassador heard of it, went to the Foreign Office and demanded Cochran’s immediate release.  The Ambassador had obtained Mr. Cochran’s passports, and showed them to the Secretary of State.  When Herr von Jagow asked permission to retain one of the passports so the matter could be investigated, the Ambassador said: 

“All right, but first let me tear Lansing’s signature off the bottom, or some one may use the passport for other purposes.”

The Ambassador was not willing to take chances after it was learned and proved by the State Department that Germany was using American passports for spy purposes.

In one day alone, last fall, the American Embassy sent 92 notes to the Foreign Office, some authorised by Washington and some unauthorised, protesting against unlawful treatment of Americans, asking for reforms in prison camps, transmitting money and letters about German affairs in Entente countries, and other matters which were under discussion between Berlin and Washington.  At one time an American woman instructor in Roberts’ College was arrested at Warnemuende and kept for weeks from communicating with the Ambassador.  When he heard of it he went to the Foreign Office daily, demanding her release, which he finally secured.

Mr. Gerard’s work in bettering conditions in prison camps, especially at Ruhleben, will be long remembered.  When conditions were at their worst he went out daily to keep himself informed, and then daily went to the Foreign Office or wrote to the Ministry of War in an effort to get better accommodations for the men.  One day he discovered eleven prominent English civilians, former respected residents in Berlin, living in a box stall similar to one which his riding horse had occupied in peace times.  This so aroused the Ambassador that he volunteered to furnish funds for the construction of a new barracks in case the Government was not willing to do it.  But the Foreign Office and the War Ministry and other officials shifted authority so often that it was impossible to get changes made.  The Ambassador decided to have his reports published in a drastic effort to gain relief for the prisoners.  The State Department granted the necessary authority and his descriptions of Ruhleben were published in the United States and England, arousing such a world-wide storm of indignation that the German Government changed the prison conditions and made Ruhleben fit for men for the first time since the beginning of the war.