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Wolf of Wall Street. For defense of the German Government, Dr. Karl von Lewinski opened his rebuttal by crying: "We cannot allow the American nation to get the impression that the German Government, before America entered the war, carried on a campaign of frightfulness against America!"
He denounced Agent Bonynge's charges of wholesale German arson and sabotage as "based on flimsy circumstantial evidence." He explained ingeniously what happened to Secret Agent von Rintelen and his $500,000 of alleged sabotage money:
"Von Rintelen did great damage to the German cause—there is no doubt about it! He went to America on a purely economic mission, but preferred to foment strikes—and spent a great deal of money doing so. The rest of the money von Rintelen took with him was taken from him by David Lamar, known as 'the Wolf of Wall Street,* who emptied his pockets in short order. Bombs were manufactured and placed on allied ships, but only one ever exploded as far as is known."
In his concluding speech Dr. von Lewinski also waxed hot about anthrax germs. Admitting freely and officially that a German agent did hire Negroes to jab animals with anthrax, he asked in effect: "What of it?" He stressed the point that "only animals" were jabbed. "It is fantastic," cried Dr. von Lewinski, "for the Americans to assert that 'human life was endangered.' We all know that anthrax germs are not harmful to human beings!"
Rat-Hole-Man & Kitchener. As the Commission last week pondered testimony and considered the U. S. claim that Germany ought to pay $40,000,000 compensation for Black Tom and Kingsland, cables told that Death had come to a London youth, whose trade was repairing holes gnawed by wharf rats.
Rats are occasionally anthrax carriers. The coroner in this case, after inspecting the corpse, certified that he died of anthrax.
Another British side issue of the Mixed Claims Commission's labors last week concerned the late, great Lord Kitchener. Lawyer Bonynge, apropos nothing in particular, fished out his portfolio of German confessions one made by a certain Fred Hermann. This alleged "secret service agent" declared that he worked with other German hush-hush men in London early in the War, positively asserted that they learned of Earl Kitchener's projected visit to Russia on a British cruiser, radioed to Berlin information which enabled Germans to lay the mine which sunk it.
*"Wolf of Wall Street," as previously set forth is a term applied to any successful operator who may even have been suspected of tricky doings applicable to bear or bull side alike.