Today -100: February 26, 1915: Of spies, mines, human shields, and aliens

Richard Stegler, a member of the Germany Navy’s reserves, is under arrest in New York for fraudulently obtaining a US passport. He has implicated the German naval attaché in Washington, Capt. Karl Boy-Ed, as head of the German secret service/sabotage operation in the US. Which he is. Stegler says Boy-Ed (who is half German, half Turkish) supplied Carl Lody, the spy executed by the British a few months ago, with his false US passport.

Woodrow Wilson politely asks Britain and Germany to remove all their mines from the high seas.

A Prof. Walker, an expert on international law at Cambridge, suggests putting interned German - not even POWs, just people who happened to be German who were in Britain when the war started – on commercial ships to prevent Germany sinking them. “If election must be between the discomfort of belligerents and the lives of non-combatants and peaceful neutrals, it is true humanity will have no hesitation as to a decision.”

The Scandinavian countries give up their plan of convoys for their merchant ships, because Britain opposes the scheme.

Italy and Austria are negotiating how big a bribe Italy would require to remain neutral.

Britain says it’s destroyed all the Turkish forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles and the no doubt successful invasion of Turkey can now commence.

New York’s highest court upholds the state’s ban on aliens being employed on public works. The opinion, written by future Supreme Court justice Benjamin Cardozo, says “The moneys of the State belong to the people of the State. They do not belong to aliens.” Good luck getting those subways built, New York City.

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