zation of
war's awful facts, were being driven with might and main, all over the
land; and all was going well.

Within three days, before even the Associated Press discovered the
fraud, these outrageous German lies had taken effect. Subscriptions to
the loan began to slacken, alarmingly. Interest in the battle news began
to fade. People were telling each other the war was over.

PRINCE MAX WRITES A NOTE

Then on October 6th, 1918, came the note of the German Chancellor, Prince
Maximilian of Baden, asking an armistice and a peace conference--in
essence, an astounding request for time to reconsolidate the German
armies and bring up fresh guns and munitions. America might have been
fooled into a frightful error if the great war-organizations had not
come forward with a roaring counterblast. The peace offensive failed.
More than that, the people resented it in a prompt and highly practical
way. They oversubscribed the six billion loan. Most of them, especially
the smaller subscribers, doubled their subscriptions in the last two
days of the time allotted for the flotation. October 7th, President
Wilson answered Prince Max's request with a refusal.

But it was a fortunate thing for the allied cause that the peace
offensive was made, for its one effect was to create a profound distrust
of all war news coming out of Amsterdam or Copenhagen. It revealed the
fact that Berlin had been closely censoring all news dispatches that
assumed to disclose the state of affairs in the central empires;
censoring them rigorously, and inventing most of them. Germany had not
yet learned that lies would not win the war; but the rest of the world
had learned that Germany, as a liar, was so supernally endowed that
her feeblest efforts in that domain would have made Ananias, Baron
Munchausen, and Joe Mulhatton look like a trio of supersaints, choking
with truth.

FIRST HUN CRY FOR PEACE

Germany's definite turn toward peace came in October, 1918, in the form
of further and very awkward notes written by Prince Maximilian of Baden,
the German Chancellor, and Doctor Solf, German Minister of foreign
affairs. While the first of these notes was coming along, the Leinster
was sunk by a German submarine on the Irish coast. The Leinster was a
passenger ship, employed in regular service on a long ferriage. She had
a full passenger list, nearly 400 people, peaceable folk all, just about
such as may be found any day aboard a Staten Island ferry boat. It