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Crushing the German Advance in American Industry 19concerns in the United States were merespy centres before we entered the war,and would have been centres of seditionif we had not promptly taken them intoour possession. It was earnestly urgedupon me in the early days of my administrationas Alien Property Custodian, bymany persons of prominence whom Iafterward came to suspect of some ulteriormotive in the suggestion, that thelaw intended the Alien Property Custodianonly to take the enemy-owned stockin corporations into his possession, withoutexercising any rights as a stockholderby the election of directors, the installationof managers, or the actual operationof the business. I should have been veryunhappy if I could not have made myselfbelieve the law intended something morethan this, and by acting upon my beliefwas able, I think, to rid the country ofsome very virulent pest spots, with whichwe would otherwise have been compelledto contend through all the days of thewar.When we took over the Bayer Company,a well-known corporation withoffices and warehouses in New York Cityand up-State, all of whose stock wasowned by great German chemical interests,if I had been satisfied simply to takethe stock and allow the old managers tooperate the property, I would have failedto discover the attempt which was madeby some persons connected with the companysecretly to conceal its assets. Anew corporation had been formed by theBayer managers for the purpose of starting,under a camouflage of American ownership,a new business of the same character,to continue the German invasion ofthe American markets when peace shouldcome. As it was, however, that attemptwas still-born; the purloined assets ofthe company were returned to it; thebusiness which its managers had soughtto start was made a mere subsidiary of areal American corporation, sold by theAlien Property Custodian to real Americancitizens, who are now operating it assuch. Our representatives in the BayerCompany inquisitively turned their attentionto every nook and corner of thecompany's business. We turned upmore than a million dollars of concealedgovernment taxes, and paid them out ofthe company's treasury; thus, in onestroke, defraying the entire cost of sixteenmonths of my administration of theoffice of Alien Property Custodian. Onesimple illustration is fairly indicative ofthe general character of these corporationswhich were entirely German-owned.Agents of the government found in thecellar of the Bayer Company's warehousetwenty-three trunks, which were said bytrusted German employees to containcast-off clothing of certain officials connectedwith the company, but which uponexamination proved to contain letters anddocuments from private files of Bernstorff,Dernberg, and other leaders of theGerman spy system in America. Theyhad abused the American hospitalitywhich permitted the German money tobe invested in the American corporationby making that corporation's property averitable repository for the informationcollected by individuals, who were likewiseabusing our hospitality.The Orenstein - Arthur Koppel Company,a German corporation, owned alarge plant at Koppel, near Pittsburgh,where it had built up a very efficient industrialorganization with a half dozencorporations engaged in various lines ofbusiness, all acting under and throughtwo German subjects who were attorneysin-factfor the original German investors.The chief business of the company wasthe manufacture and installation of whatis known as "inside transportation";that is, narrow-gauge railways, dumpcars,travelling cranes and machinery ofa similar sort used in large industrialplants. It was the American branch ofa great German business which hasbranches in all the great countries of theworld. It was never naturalized by becomingan American corporation, and itsmanagers never showed any desire to becomeAmerican citizens. For nearlytwenty years it had been operating undera system which required its managers tosubmit to the home office-the plans andspecifications of every industrial planton which it made bids for materials to befurnished. Its product has gone intomost of the great industrial plants of theUnited States, and specifications, floorplans, and elevations of these plants havelikewise gone to the home office of the