fore recorded, was the German who attempted to blow
up a railroad bridge at Vanceboro, Maine. Other payments shown by the
Von Papen check book were to Paul Koenig, of the Hamburg-American
line. Koenig was arrested in New York in December, 1915, on a charge
of conspiracy with others to set on foot a military expedition from
the United States to destroy the locks of the Welland Canal for the
purpose of cutting off traffic from the Great Lakes to the St.
Lawrence River.

The German consul at Seattle was shown to have received $500 from
Captain von Papen shortly before an explosion occurred there in May,
1915, and $1,500 three months earlier. Another payment was to a
German, who, while under arrest in England on a charge of being a spy,
committed suicide.

CHAPTER IV

GREAT BRITAIN'S DEFENSE OF BLOCKADE--AMERICAN METHODS IN CIVIL WAR
CITED

Issues with Great Britain interposed to engage the Administration's
attention, in the brief intervals when Germany's behavior was not
doing so, to the exclusion of all other international controversies
produced by the war. In endeavoring to balance the scales between the
contending belligerents, the United States had to weigh judicially the
fact that their offenses differed greatly in degree. Germany's crimes
were the wanton slaughter of American and other neutral noncombatants,
Great Britain's the wholesale infringements of American and neutral
property rights. Protests menacing a rupture of relations had to be
made in Germany's case; but those directed to Great Britain, though
not less forceful in tone, could not equitably be accompanied by a
hint of the same alternative. Arbitration by an international court
was the final recourse on the British issues. Arbitration could not be
resorted to, in the American view, for adjusting the issues with
Germany.

The Anglo-American trade dispute over freedom of maritime commerce by
neutrals during a war occupied an interlude in the crisis with
Germany. The dispatch of the third _Lusitania_ note of July 21, 1915,
promised a breathing spell in the arduous diplomatic labors of the
Administration, pending Germany's response. But a few days later the
Administration became immersed in Great Britain's further defense of
her blockade methods, contained in a group of three communications,
one dated July 24, and two July 31, 1915, in answer to the American
protests of March 31, July 14, and July 15, 1915. The main document,
dated July 24, 1