We have witnessed the cumulative influence of newspaper reports in surrounding Labor's National Peace Council with an almost genuine atmosphere of national interest; we have been able to picture the hostility which the publication of the longshoremen's strike story aroused in legitimately organized labor; and although as a typical instance of newspaper influence we should postpone the following incident, it is a temptation too great to resist. It is the story of The Story That Cost an Ambassador, and if any further plea for its introduction be needed, let it be that it is another subtle attempt upon labor in the summer of 1915.
[Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_
Dr. Constantin Dumba, Austrian ambassador to the United States, recalled after the disclosures of the correspondence captured on the war correspondent, Archibald]
James F. J. Archibald, an American correspondent who had seen most of the wars of recent years, and who wanted to see more, set sail from New York on August 21, 1915, for Amsterdam, with his wife, his campaign clothes, and a portfolio. At Falmouth, England, the usual search party came aboard, and inspected the papers in the portfolio. Archibald proved to be an unofficial despatch-bearer, upon whom his German and Austrian acquaintances in the United States placed great reliance--such men as Papen, Bernstorff, and Dr. Constantine Dumba sent reports to their governments in his care.
On September 5 the _New York World_ burst forth with the text of one of the letters--one from Dr. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador at Washington, to his chief in the foreign office at Vienna, Baron Burian. It is worth reproducing here intact:
"Yesterday evening Consul-General von Nuber received the enclosed aide memoire from the chief editor of the local influential paper _Szabadsag_, after a previous conversation with me in pursuance of his verbal proposals to arrange for strikes at Bethlehem in Schwab's steel and munitions factory and also in the middle West.
"Archibald, who is well known to your Excellency, leaves today at 12 o'clock on board the _Rotterdam_ for Berlin and Vienna. I take this rare and safe opportunity of warmly recommending these proposals to your Excellency's favorable consideration. It is my impression that we can disorganize and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions in Bethlehem and the middle West, which, in the opinion of the German military attaché, is of great importance and amply outweighs the comparatively small expenditure of money involved.