The foregoing episode reveals the nature of Dr. Albert's chief problem--the financial blocking of supplies for the Allies. Let Boy-Ed destroy the ships, von Papen dynamite the factories and railways, Rintelen run his mad course of indiscriminate violence--the smooth financial agent would undertake only those great business ventures in which his shrewdness and experience could have play. He was receiving reports constantly on the economic status, and the following extract from a report from G. D. Waetzoldt, a trade investigator in the Consulate in New York, will illustrate the German frame of mind about midsummer of 1915:
"The large war orders, as the professional journals also print, have become the great means of saving American business institutions from idleness and financial ruin.
"The fact that institutions of the size and international influence of those mentioned could not find sufficient regular business to keep them to some extent occupied, half at least, throws a harsh light upon the sad condition in which American business would have found itself had it not been for the war orders. The ground which induced these large interests to accept war orders rests entirely upon an economical basis and can be explained by the above-mentioned conditions which were produced by the lack of regular business. These difficulties, resulting from the dividing up of the contracts, are held to have been augmented, as stated in business circles, by the fact that certain agents working in the German interest succeeded in further delaying and disturbing American deliveries....
"So many contracts for the production of picric acid have been placed that they can only be filled to a very small part."
Dr. Albert also received a report from another trade expert, who had had a long conference with ex-Senator John C. Spooner of Wisconsin as to whether or not there could be prosecutions under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law against British representatives because of the restrictions placed by the British Government upon dealings by Americans in certain copper, cotton and rubber.
Naturally one of the most vital problems that stirred Dr. Albert was the British Orders in Council blockading Germany, from which resulted the seizure of meat and food supplies and cotton by British war vessels. He was always on the alert for information of the attitude of the Administration and the people of the United States toward the blockade. In another report dated June 3, 1915, Waetzoldt said:
