The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918. John Price Jones
to a loyal German named Schumacher, whose ambiguous address was "Eden Bower Farm, Oregon." He outlined in detail to von Papen the feasibility of obtaining a number of powerful motor-boats, to be manned by German-American crews, and loaded with German-American rifles and machine guns. From the ports on the shores of the Great Lakes he considered it practicable to journey under cover of darkness to positions which would command the waterfronts of Toronto, Sarnia, Windsor and Kingston, Ontario, find the cities defenseless, and precipitate upon them a fair storm of bullets. A few Canadian lives might be lost, which did not matter; an enormous hue and cry would be raised to keep the Canadian troops at home to guard the back door.
Von Papen entertained the plan seriously, and submitted it to Count von Bernstorff, who for obvious diplomatic reasons did not care to sponsor open violence when its proponent's references were unreliable, its actual reward was at best doubtful, and when subtle violence was equally practicable. Von Papen then produced an alternative project.
Cutting through the promontory which separates Lake Erie from the western end of Lake Ontario runs the Welland Canal, through which all shipping must pass to avoid Niagara Falls. This waterway is one of Canada's dearest properties, and is no mean artery of supply from the great grain country of the Northwest.
Its economic importance, however, was secondary in the German mind to the psychological effect upon Canada which a dynamite calamity to the Canal would certainly cause. The first expeditionary force of Canadian troops was training frantically at Valcartier, Quebec. They must be kept at home. Whether or not the idea originated with Captain von Papen is of little consequence (it may be safely assumed that Berlin had long had plans for such an enterprise); the fact is that it devolved upon him as military commander to crystallize thought in action. The plot is ascribed to "two Irishmen, prominent members of Irish associations, who had both fought during the Irish rebellion," and was to include destruction of the main railway junctions and the grain elevators in the vicinity of Toronto.
The picturesque renegade German spy commonly known as Horst von der Goltz is responsible for the generally accepted version of incidents which followed his first interview with von Papen on August 22 at the German Consulate in New York. He was sent to Baltimore under the assumed name of Bridgeman H. Taylor, with a letter to the German Consul there, Karl Luederitz, calling for whatever coöperation Goltz might need. He was to recruit accomplices from the crew of a German ship then lying at the North German Lloyd docks in the Patapsco River. With a man whom he had hired in New York, Charles Tucker, alias "Tuchhaendler," he visited the ship and selected his men. He then returned to New York, where Papen placed three more men at his disposal, one of them being A. A. Fritzen, of Brooklyn, a discharged purser on a Russian liner; another Frederick Busse, an "importer," with offices in the World Building, New York; and the third man Constantine Covani, a private detective, of New York. After a few days the sailors from Baltimore reported for duty, but were sent back, as Goltz noticed that his movements were being watched.
Papen sent Goltz to Captain Tauscher's office at 320 Broadway for explosives. On September 5, Captain Tauscher ordered 300 pounds of 60 per cent. dynamite to be delivered by the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company to Mr. Bridgeman Taylor. In a motor-boat Goltz applied at a du Pont barge near Black Tom Island and the Statue of Liberty and took away his three hundred pounds of dynamite in suitcases. The little craft made its way up the river to 146th Street. The conspirators then carried their burden to the German Club in Central Park South and later in a taxicab to Goltz's home, where it was stored with a supply of revolvers and electrical apparatus for exploding the charges.
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