A year as a government agent

Front matter

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. My appointment i

II. Diplomatic methods 22

Chapter I

AT the time our country went into the great -*^ war Switzerland had become known as the center of international war intrigue. Wild stories were heard about the activities there of German spies and of the plots and propaganda with which they were busy. The general situation in Switzerland was recognized in diplomatic circles as complicated and difficult, because of that coimtry's geographical and political position. There it was, a little neutral state in the very middle of Europe, surrounded by warring countries, the meeting-place of the representatives of all those countries. It was not strange that it was nervous about its security and jealous of its neutrality.

When I was appointed to direct the work of the Committee on Public Information in that particular country many people were undoubtedly surprised. What experience could a woman have had to fit her for such work in so delicate a situation? The mere fact that a woman was chosen was in itself enough to cause comment. Of course, sex had really nothing to do with the fitness of the choice. The time had come when liberal men recognized that there is no sex in ability, and when conscientious men wanted their country's work done by the people they thought most capable to do it. Whether I was the most capable person is quite another question, and that question was one for George Creel, the Chairman of the Committee on Public Information, to decide. Mr. Creel is a liberal man and free from the usual prejudice against placing women in positions of responsibility. He knew my ability to work hard, because he had worked with me in the 191 5 New York State Women Suffrage campaign. In fact, when he asked me to go he said it was because he remembered how hard I had made him work. I had slave-driven him, he said. On my part, when the position was offered me I accepted it without hesitation, and I should have done so even if I could have foreseen the loneliness, the difficulties, and the strange obstacles I was to meet. I had learned in the suffrage campaigns in which I had worked that one of the great stimibling-blocks to the advance of women is our very general reluctance to accept responsibility. Since the beginning of the world we have been hypnotized and have hypnotized ourselves into a doubt of our ability. I had talked to other women so often about the necessity of assuming responsibility, and accepting other people's judgment as to our own ability, that I could not hesitate on that score. I had also taken the war very seriously from the beginning. Every phase of suffering for which it was responsible had pictured itself vividly to my imagination. I had longed to join the women who were doing their share directly to help toward the final victory, although I had never had any dreams of being a heroine, of nursing at the very front imder shell-fire, or of inspiring others to deeds of bravery. I knew that my part at best would be only hard, unpicturesque work at an office desk in safety. But I wanted to do what I could. During the first years of the war there was no question of it. I was working with every ounce of energy I possessed for democracy at home — to pass the stiffrage amendment in New York State.

I felt comparatively free when the amendment was adopted in November, 191 7. The following month, after having finished a thousand and one details left over from the campaign, having helped make and put into operation plans for educational and patriotic work for the suffrage organization, I went to a National American Women Suffrage convention in^Washington, and while there I saw George Creel,

I told him I wanted to do some war-work. He said it was a strange coincidence that he was about to write to me to ask me to go as representative of the Committee on PubHc Information to South America or to Switzerland. I at once refused the first suggestion, because I believed that the general attitude toward women in South America would make such work on the part of a woman impracticable. The suggestion that I should go to Switzerland interested me immensely, although I knew little about that country. I had been there several times as a tourist. I had a vague idea of its general outline and position in the middle of Europe. I knew a large proportion of it was mountains — high, bare, and beautiful. Of course, I knew that all Switzerland is divided into three parts which speak respectively Italian, French, and German. But I eagerly looked in the encyclopedia to see what proportion there is of each and was surprised to find that of the twenty-two cantons all but seven have a majority of German-speaking population, and most of these are entirely German-speaking, and that Italian is spoken in only one or two. Its size and the number of its inhabitants interested me immensely, because I had just been chairman of a victorious campaign in a state of about 50,000 square miles, with about 10,000,000 inhabitants. I wanted to compare the two territories. I was pleased to find that Switzerland is about one-third the size in area of New York State, and has a population about two-thirds that of New York City. This latter statement would probably be contradicted by a Swiss, if it should be brought to his attention, as not being accurate. Once, in Switzerland, I spoke of its population as being, roughly speaking, about 4,000,000. ''Oh no," I was told, ''not at all!" I wondered. Hadn't I seen not once, but many times, the population put at 3,800,000? Had my memory begun to fail me? I said, "I've seen it put at 3,800,000." "Yes," they said, "about 3,800,000, but not about 4,000,000!"

I knew it was the oldest republic, but when I went there I was constantly surprised at the differences between our form of government and theirs. They have two federal houses, as we have, but their President is not a president as ours is, elected by the whole people at a national election. Their President is really a committee of seven, the Federal Council, chosen by the two houses. The raan who is called President is the chairman of the Federal Council of seven, with a one-year term. Later, I was to learn how in some ways they are more progressive than we, and in others very much more conservative.

This was as little as I knew of the Republic of Switzerland, although I had worked for several years in a cause that had aroused my interest particularly in governmental forms.

The arrangements for my departure at first proceeded smoothly and qiiickly. I made two conditions — ^that I should be expected to do only such work as would be legitimate and friendly in the eyes of the Swiss, and that I should have a recognized official position with the title of representative or director for Switzerland of the Committee on Public Information. These conditions Mr. Creel readily accepted.^ My duties were to be the handling and distribution to news agencies and the press in Switzerland of cable and wireless news dealing with events in America, the preparation of special articles and pamphlets, the showing of motion-picture reels, etc.; in fact, such activities as would put before the people of a neutral country the aims and ideals of America at war, and the manner in which she was putting them into effect, and, also, the sending, in return, to America of articles about Switzerland and Swiss affairs from Swiss writers. There were no detailed instructions as to how I was to do this work. I had not sought them — I i wanted to be as unhampered as possible in working out conditions as I should find them in a strange coimtry.

I was ready to go at a day's notice. Mr. Creel and I agreed that we should seek to avoid publicity as to my going, but he prepared a statement for me to give out in case it seemed wise. He gave me a letter of appointment,^ as

* Appendix I, 'Appendix II.

representative of the Committee on Public Information, and in this letter he said that the State Department was cabling both the American embassy in Paris and the legation in Berne, informing them of my departure, so that they would be prepared for my arrival. He assured me that I should have a diplomatic passport. It all seemed simple and easy, and I thought I was about to sail without a hitch, when one night I was awakened by a reporter at the telephone, who said that Mr. Creel had made a public statement of my appointment. I was surprised, in view of our agreement, and, not understanding the situation, I refused to comment. The next day there were long and inaccurate accounts in some of the New York daily papers. These were followed by an announcement in one paper that Mr. Lansing, Secretary of State, objected to the appointment of a woman to such a position and, in fact, that there was general opposition on the part of the State Department to] the foreign activities which the Committee on Public Information was about to organize. There was a prompt denial by Mr. Lansing.

My passport, when it came, was not a diplomatic passport. Mr. Creel imdertook to set the matter straight and assured me again that a diplomatic passport would be forwarded to me by >special messenger and reach me before I sailed. I expected it up to the very minute of leaving, but finally went without it. And that is the way my troubles began.

In the mean time, my friends, having heard of the difficult living conditions abroad, had looked after my comfort. They gave me sweaters and woolly jackets and warm lined gloves, canned heat, boxes of sugar, and everything one was supposed to need and not be able to obtain when one went across the sea. Among my husband's contributions was a big box of chocolates which he himself had carefully chosen, because every one knew that there was no candy to be had in France, through which country I was going. After a number of delays in sailing, a day came when the ship was really ready. My husband and little girl went with me to the dock. It was cold and windy. We parted at the gang-plank. I boarded the ship alone and waved them good-by from the deck. I saw them walk down the dock arm in arm, my little girl's skirts a trifle too short, my husband's overcoat a little too big in the back, and my large box of chocolates being carried away, held tightly under his arm.

All afternoon I watched the loading of the ship with coal from scows. The coal was hardly more than black dust and over the heaps and hollows made by the huge swinging scoops two little long-tailed dogs played happily. One was a very dirty little dog, but the other had the shiniest black satin coat in the world. It grew dark and I went supperless to my bunk. About midnight we sailed, and I was off to work for my country.

The trip seemed unreal, because it was so exactly like the stories I had read of ocean crossings in war-time. It made me think especially of The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me. There were the Red Cross workers, there was the large contingent of Y. M. C. A. men and women. There were the dark decks, the closed port-holes — everything just as in the stories. To give our particular crossing a little individuality, there were six hundred Polish troops in the Steerage, and in our cabin a group of yoimg Polish officers, who, like story-book Poles, were filled with the wrongs of Poland and the most patriotic determination to right them. There was a man who had been on one of the steamers sunk by a German submarine before we went into the war, who had been rescued unconscious after being in the water for hours. There were others who had crossed when there were alarms and who themselves had seen submarines. There was a great deal of nervous talk about the danger of submarines.

The first night in the danger zone I must confess to going to bed with a delightful sensation of excitement, as on Christmas Eve when I was a child. The next morning, when I waked up after a sound sleep, I was a little disappointed that nothing thrilling had happened. I took myself to task. A pacifist who hates wars and hopes lo A Year as a Government Agent

that they will be abolished from the face of the earth had no right to feel as I did.

We had no sooner left New York than there were rumors on board that I was some kind of a spy, going abroad to work for our country. The very name of the Committee on Public Information, which was at that time a new department of the government and not generally known, seemed to suggest to everyone (by the principle of contraries, I suppose) that its work was secret intelligence. I always resented very intensely such suspicions, but it was no use. They cropped up to the very end. When I was in London, on my way to sail from Liverpool for America, after my work was done, the correspondent of the Associated Press greeted me with, ''You have been working as a spy in Switzerland, haven't you?*' And, as always, I made a scene. Spies may be a necessary part of war machinery. Undoubtedly their work is often dangerous and calls for the highest degree of discretion and courage and patriotism, and, of course, must be of value in saving many lives. I have been asked why I so particularly resent being thought a spy. It is partly because I dislike secret and devious ways and the false relations with people which cannot be avoided in the effort to obtain secret information, but especially I hate the whole system of spying, because I believe it is one of the old, wrong methods which the world is about to outgrow.

II

On the steamer from the beginning the passengers fell into groups. The Red Cross people drew together and talked over their plans. The Y. M. C. A. held meetings, and the near-sighted yotmg society man who was going over with them merely for an experience grew intimate with the clergyman who said that "no member of the association whose middle name is Christian" should smoke or coimtenance smoking. The Polish officers talked together of the wrongs of Poland. I foimd that I, alone, with my vague problems of publicity in a foreign country tinder imknown conditions, had no one with whom to share them. At night, in my bunk, the job looked very big and nebulous.

We landed in Bordeaux early one morning, and a little later I left for Paris. In the few hours there in Bordeaux I saw the first of the war conditions that we had all been reading about. There, too, things were just as the war stories described them. There were the women conductors on the street-cars with stem, business-like faces; they were the first I had seen. There was the heavy brown bread, the coffee without sugar, and, worst of all, the war cripples on the streets. On the trip to Paris, which I was later to know so well, I sat in a dilapidated railroad carriage and was impressed chiefly by the cutting down of the trees all along the line.

We arrived in Paris late at night. Two yoimg men, who had crossed on the steamer and who were going to drive arabulances for the Red Cross, went with me in a red taxicab such as we were all familiar with before the war, and left me at a hotel near the Place Venddme, where I had often stayed before. We had been told that the hotels in Paris were crowded. But here there was room for me, one flight up on the comer. I went to bed tired, but satisfied that the first stage of my journey was over.

If one tells the story of one's experiences to others for any profit or interest there may be in it, I suppose it is necessary to be frank about all one's weaknesses. So I must tell you that I am shy — that I have always been shy. I hate to ask the way or buy the tickets. When I was a child I must have been a constant mortification to my parents. I wouldn't show off. When I was exhibited to strangers along with my rosy-cheeked, curly-haired, friendly sister the best I could do was to cry. I was even abnormally shy.

I have overcome it in many directions. I have learned to go to social fimctions of all kinds without a catch of the breath. I have learned to make suffrage speeches even on street comers with less than the first agony. But overcoming shyness in one direction does not help very much when it comes to activities of a new sort.

When I waked the first morning in Paris I felt busy and interested enough, but desperately shy. I had letters from the French Mission in Washington to the Maison de la Presse in Paris.

From them I was to find out everything I could about Switzerland, especially what our friends and enemies were doing there in the way of publicity and propaganda. I was also to obtain information about various matters for Mr. Creel's committee, there being then no representative of the Committee on Public Information in France. All this I was to do in my halting French, which had not seen the light of day for four long preoccupied years. I went straight to the Maison de la Presse. I saw one busy but polite gentleman after another. My hands perspired freely and my French halted more and more. Appointments were made for me to see other gentlemen, who would be at my disposal later. I was passed on with letters to other departments. I was vastly impressed by the politeness and desire of each gentleman to assist and co-operate, but it all went with a slowness and deliberation that appalled me, especially as, in my ignorance of war-time formalities, I had planned to leave Paris for Switzerland the following day. According to my instructions, I went to the American embassy to call upon Ambassador Sharpe, and showed him my letter of appointment, which said so plainly that he would be notified of my arrival and appointment. He had not been notified, but was polite and helpful in every way^ giving me letters to the French authorities to facilitate my passport formalities. These formalities I went at with real American vigor.

They meant visits to the American consulate, to the French Prefecture of PoHce, and to the Swiss consulate, which had to be visited in the order given. The consulates were not open before ten o'clock in the morning, all three were closed between twelve and two and on Simdays and holidays. They were as far apart as the confines of Paris allowed, and at all of them you had to wait in a line. Especially at the French Prefecture of Police the waiting was long and tedious and the red-tape of unbelievable proportions, even with a letter from the American ambassador to vouch for my respectability and to ask for special courtesy and consideration. I have not read any adequate accoimts of these dreary, fatiguing, time-consuming formalities, which were so much a part of traveling in wartimes, but no literary skill could exaggerate their difficulties. With a diplomatic passport they were all avoided, or were looked after by embassy or legation employees and time was saved for a busy worker.

The energy which took me through it all in record time came from the desire, which had been v/axing strong for many months, to work for my country. Switzerland was my goal, and no red-tape, even French red-tape, was going to delay me long. In three days I was ready to start and actually started ! I had had my passport visaed in regular form, I had seen the courteous French officials of the Maison de la Presse, and had run to earth the information Mr. Creel wanted, though it had meant many interviews. But passport formahties and foreign business methods were not the only difficulties I had had to face.

The newspaper announcements of opposition in the State Department to my appointment and the failiire of the diplomatic passport to arrive should have put me on my guard. Perhaps they had, but I was surprised when, the day after I reached Paris, I received a note from our embassy inclosing a copy of a cable ^ which had been sent from Washington to be given to me. This was the second stage of my troubles, and if you are going to follow my efforts to work for our coimtry, I suppose, although it is very tiresome, it must be explained to you. The cable began by quoting from a communication which had been sent some days before from Switzerland by Mr. Hugh Wilson, charge d'affaires of the American legation there, to the vState Department in Washington. Mr. Hugh Wilson said that an annoimcement had been made in the Swiss press that Norman Whitehouse had been appointed to a mission in Switzerland for propaganda purposes. He said that the pro-German press of Switzerland was discussing this appointment unfavorably, saying that Switzerland wanted wheat, not words, from the United States. I learned later that the opposition,

* Appendix III.

which appeared very considerable in the cable, consisted of a paragraph published in La Feuilhy a paper printed in Geneva, strongly pro-German and commonly believed to be owned or financed by the Germans and reprinted in some of the smaller pro-German papers. Because of this opposition on the part of the hostile press, Mr. Hugh Wilson cabled that he considered it of extreme importance that he should be authorized to make a formal statement denying the intention of the American government to establish a propaganda bureau in Switzerland, and, since Whitehouse*s name had been mentioned, it was important that he should not come. Thus would diplomats let our enemies' objections shape our plans. Why should any one have expected our enemy to welcome an effort to put the truth before the world? No suffrage campaigner would have ! The Washington cable continued setting forth for my information the answer which had been sent from there to Mr. Hugh Wilson in Berne, evidently to give him the official announcement for which he had asked. It was that the untrue statements in regard to Norman Whitehouse's mission were doubtless based upon the fact that Mrs. Norman Whitehouse had been selected by a department of the United States government to visit France, Switzerland, and England for the purpose of studying conditions relating to women and children. The cable was signed, ''Polk, Acting' '

Secretary of State. Can you imagine how I felt? I was not sure at first what it meant. Could the object of my appointment have been changed without a word to me? No, it did not seem possible. On the other hand, the cable might mean that I was to do my work secretly under the pretense of studying the conditions of women and children. I did not like either solution! I had been so careful to provide that I should do only legitimate work of a certain kind in an official manner. It was strange that I should have made that particular provision, as if I had foreseen this very complication; and yet, in spite of it, here I was being publicly introduced as a student of the conditions of women and children, when I had started off to organize and direct simple government publicity.

Away in Paris I could not believe that Mr. Creel knew anything of this communication. I cabled immediately to him,^ asking him to see the message which Mr. Hugh Wilson had sent from Berne to the State Department, and also the answer from Mr. Polk to Mr. Hugh Wilson, misstating the object of my appointment. I said I was confident that he, Mr. Creel, would insist that the State Department should cable corrections to the Berne legation and to the Paris embassy of the purpose of my appointment. I said my work was legitimate and that I refused to work under false pretenses. I ex-

* Appendix IV. 2 plained also in this cable that no previous announcement of my appointment had been sent to Ambassador Sharpe, as stated in my letter of appointment.

I learned later from both Mr. Polk and Mr. Creel that the latter had known of the message before it was sent. But he had other troubles to worry him by that time.

My memory of those few days in Paris is all a jumble of effort, discouragement, and homesickness. I saw no one I had ever seen before. There was no one with whom I could talk over my difficulties. In the suffrage campaigns there had been the vice-chairmen, the secretaries, and the treasurer and the chairmen of sections, and six thousand other officers! There was always some one of them with whom to consult and the talking over made ever3rthing seem easier. I haven't a doubt that if I had had a companion to discuss it with, the mere mention of the condition of women and children would have brought a laugh. As it was, I was as solemn as an owl about it all, and I felt very far away from home and friends. Quite late one night I remember lying in bed and tviming over in my mind every homesick thought that a lonely person could conjiu*e up, when along the street walked a man whistling, quite beautifvilly, ''Home, Sweet Home." I turned my face to the wall and wanted to die!

But, instead, next night I went to Switzerland.

The hotel porter put me on the train, with my bags, gave me my tickets and instructions, and off I went. If you are an orderly person and had to travel in Etirope in January, 191 8, undoubtedly you could have done so more or less comfortably by making your plans several weeks in advance and obtaining a place in one of the rare couchettes, or wagon-lits. But I sat up that night with five other persons in a first-class French railway compartment. I had a comer seat, and, as it was before I had had one of my feet frost-bitten, I spent the night in comparative comfort.

Later, traveling in the French compartments was agony to me, because there is a piece of metal that runs down the middle of the compartments between the two rows of seats and that is the heating apparatus! You cannot sit on your foot very comfortably, because the seats are not wide enough, and you soon begin to feel cramped. The foot you are not sitting on has to rest on the heating apparatus. If you wear the kind of highheeled, thin-soled American slippers that I have always worn and still wear, it becomes plain torture. I have talked about the method of heating to fellow-travelers, who sat with both feet firmly planted on the metal strip, and they generally seemed to think it satisfactory, although they said sometimes their leather soles were burned and then they didn't wear so long.

On this first night trip there were three men and three women. But on my many subsequent journeys between Paris and Geneva and vice versa (I made about fifteen in all) I rarely met a woman. I was generally the only woman who sat in a crowded compartment with five men. Whatever the dangers are that lurk about women traveling alone at night, they do not exist in a French railroad carriage. Of course, I am a middle-aged woman, but I met only the greatest impersonal kindness and courtesy. I have been thrown with officers on their way back to the front after leave and on their way to leave. I have seen civilians on every sort of errand, and I have learned to love a Frenchman when he travels.

Each of my fifteen trips had a little different atmosphere, but in every one there was something of kindly human interest. There was the one when all the occupants were French officers going back to their particular sectors. One was an aviator. He was yoimg and handsome and very merry, and insisted that we could each lie down if some of us would crawl into the luggage brackets. He wanted to talk all night. There was also a yoimg artillery officer both of whose hands were bandaged. He was in plain agony and had little patience with the merry aviator. Every little while he would wake us all up and step over our feet to go into the passage to walk up and down. Then back he would come for a few minutes. He gnmibled quite a lot to himself. I could sympathize with him because it was very hot on that trip, and my frost-bitten foot gave me an idea of what he must have been suffering with his hands.

On all the trips there was one similarity — there was the excessive heat and no air, and no Frenchman could be persuaded to let in any air. A draught was a thing to be forever dreaded. With few exceptions, all the men I met, even those who must have been living for years in the trenches, seemed to cling to their hereditary dread of a draught.