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OCR
THE FATHERLAND
Ono Tool Concern Fits 200 Plants to Make Munitions
The Iron Trade Review reports that one machine tool house has
been negotiating on equipping more than two hundred plants in dif-
ferent parts of the country, which are, in their turn, tiguring on
shrapnel and other war material contracts.
Most of the new ammunition factories in Russia, England and
France are being fitted with machinery shipped from the United
States. The extent to which this war and the greed for blood money
has turned industry from its peaceful pursuits, perverted the skill
of scientists, engineers and laborers, and dulled the conscience of
American business men, is no better illustrated than by the inven-
tion of new and hideous missiles, shrapnel, deadly shells, rifles of a
velocity unknown before, and explosives of fiendishly devastating
power. Many large machine industries have turned their entire at-
tention to the perfection of highly specialized machinery for the
making of extraordinarily destructive missiles.
The Cleveland Automatic Machine Company is a case in point.
It is well not to forget the conscienceless scheme of this concern to
spread unexampled misery and suffering in the already devastated
battlefields of Europe. When the heinousness of this concern’s en-
terprise was first made public, the exposure was at once described
to “the perhdious lies of the German propaganda." The officials of -
the concern piously proclaimed their innocence and offered hypo-
critical extenuations and evasions. Among the pro-Ally press that
came to the defense of this ignoble concern was Mr. Ochs's New
York Tiriicr, which possibly includes its attacks upon Germany as
being in the class of “News That’s Fit to Print." The integrity, the
soundness, the unimpeachable fairness and sense of right, CV3“-ed i“
the editorials of the New York Times, were strikingly revealed in
the spotlight of a subsequent oliicial investigation by President Wil-
son’s cabinet into the Cleveland Automatic Machine Company's en-
terprise.
This is Not German “Frightfulness”
It will be remembered that the Cleveland Automatic Machine
Company, desiring to attract the attention of the purchasing 385015
of the Allies and the American manufacturers intending to enter
the war business, placed an advertisement in the American Ma-
chinist, exploiting a machine for the manufacture of an extraordi-
narily deadly shell. 1 . .
The advertisement told temptingly of the great numb“ 9‘ "3‘55‘1es
that could be turned out in a short Period of ‘lme“" lhmeem
Dound shell from tough steel in twenty-four minutes and from or-
dinary machine steel in seventeen minutes; an C-i8l'1l5C“‘P0““d 5119“
in thirty minutes and-from regular machine steel in twenty-two
minutes. Then followed-in this advertisement, designed to appeal
to the enemies of Germany-this exc-l‘1i5llv‘3 bit 0‘ f‘e"d'5h“e5S:
“The timing of the fuse for this shell is similar ‘to the
shrapnel shell, but it differs in that two 9XP105“’e 3C‘d5.are
used to explode the shell in the large CaV1t)’; The ?0mbma'
lion of these two acids causes terrific explosion. hiwmg mo”
POWCI” than anything of its kind yet used.‘ Fragments be-
come coated with these acids in exploding and 75101111113
Caused by them mean death in terrible 090%’ “'”h"’ four
7'0"’-Y. if not attended to iinniediately. g . .
“From what we are able to learn ‘of C0nt‘ll‘il0nS in the
trenches, it is not possible to get medical assistance to any
one in time to prevent fatal results. It is necessary to ‘mme'
diately cauterize the wound if in the body 01' head’ .0’ to am-
Pufate if in the limbs, as there seems to be no antidote H10’
will counteract the poison. . .
“It can be seen from this that this shell is more effective
than the regular shrapnel, since the wounds caused b)’ 5h‘"aP'
1161 balls and fragments in the muscles are not as d3“ge1’0,“5i
as they have no poisonous element making Prompt ammhon
necessary.” . f
This advertisement was brought to the attention. of the press o
Amelia by the German Information Service in its daily bulletil:
and to the American public in the pages of the Chrt.r!ian'Hera d
and THE FATHERLAND. It provoked ividespfead “’"dem"amm fad
Criticism, xvhe,-cupon promptly what outrage there was was
10 the Machiavellian Germans.
239
Springing with alaerity at an opportunity to attack Germany the
New York Times in its issue of July 1 published an editorial under
the heading “Mendacious Propaganda," in which the Times said:
“In the American .’lIaL'hini.rt on May sixth last, the Cleveland Auto-
matic Machine Company advertised a machine for producing high
explosive shells. . . The Cleveland Automatic Machine Com-
pany has said that the matter about poisonous shells was included
in their advertising copy by a mistake. .
“The thing was a hoax," continued the Times, proceeding to
insinuate that the advertisement itself had been diabolically placed
for purposes of propaganda by Germans themselves, “that is to say,
with intent beforehand to create the prejudice among the unintel-
ligent here and in Germany, that American tool makers were adver-
tising in the trade papers to sell war machine makers tools for
producing an utterly abominable shell. One can be abso-
liitely certain that the propagandists, who invented this piece of
subtle mendacity and gave it a start, which the truth may be unable
to overcome, knew the immoral nature of their work. It gives us
a better understanding of the German propaganda. That is some-
thing gained.”
“lVIendacious Propaganda” of New York Times
Three days after this amazing twisting of facts in order to cast
aspersions on the friends of Germany, the Times printed an article
in which it was admitted that a protest had been ‘made to the
editor of the American Ilvlachirtist against the publication of the
advertisement before it appeared by a well known German; that as’
a result the editor of the A meritan Machinist wrote to J. P. Brophy,
Vice President and General Manager of the Cleveland Automatic
Machine Company, suggesting that the horrors described as being
caused by these shells might be toned down; and that under date
of April 26th, Mr. Brophy implied that he would make no change.
Various equivocations and excuses for the “ad" were made. The
President of the Cleveland Automatic Machine Company said that
the objectionable matter had gotten in the advertisement in some
ambiguous way by mistake. The advertisement had, however, been
called to the attention of President Vt]ilson’s cabinet and a special
investigation was made. .
In a report to Edwin F. Sweet, Assistant Secretary of Commerce,
Edward T. Quigley, Assistant Solicitor of the Department of Com-
merce, who conducted the investigation for the Government, re-
ported that he had obtained an acknowledgement from the Cleve-
land concern that the advertisement appeared as it was written by
that concern. This was in direct contradiction to the information
received by the Department of Commerce from Arthur L. Garford.
President of the Company, and Progressive nominee for Governor
of Ohio at the last election. In connection with the New York
Tinies’ attack upon the Germans as having themselves, with ulterior
motives, planned the advertisement, the verdict of Government‘
officials is significant. .
On the suggestion of Mr. Wilson himself, Secretary of Com-
merce Redfield rebuked the Cleveland Automatic Machine Com-
pany for its poison-acid shell advertisement, declaring in a letter
addressed to Mr. Brophy: “I accept without difficultyyour sug-
gestion that had you realized the normal resentment that this ad-
vertisement would cause, you would not have insisted upon it after
your attention was called to the fact before it appeared that protest
was made against it. It is, I confess, difficult for me to understand
how any one who was not callous in a high degree could have
drafted such a statement for publication with a view to selling his
own wares.
“You urge the cruel and agonizing nature of death caused by
certain missiles as an evidence of their effectiveness and suggest
this as the basis of a sale for the machines which make these hide-
ous things. At a time when every instinct of patriotism calls for
calm and self-restraint, when sobriety of statement is almost a
supreme duty, yoii, as you admit, to gain notice to an advertise-
ment, draw a picture of human misery as ameans of earning a
profit through the sales of machines to produce it." -
In reproving the American Machinist for printing the advertise-
ment, Mr. Redheld said that publication "made a “serious” error,
verging, to say the least, upon unpatriotic conduct.”