On May 14, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson directed the secretary of the treasury to have the Secret Service investigate espionage in this country in regard to alleged violations of the president’s Neutrality Proclamation, which noted in part that, “No person within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States shall take part, directly or indirectly, in the said war, but shall remain at peace with all the said belligerents and shall maintain strict and impartial neutrality.” As a result, before and after the U.S entered the war, the Secret Service investigated sabotage plots, food hoarding, illegal food monopolies, and individuals or businesses that traded food or commodities with the enemy.
President Wilson wanted the Secret Service to break up a German sabotage network that was plotting against France, England, and the United States. As a result, Secret Service Chief William J. Flynn established an 11-man counter-espionage unit in New York City. Their most publicized investigation concerned the activities of a Dr. Albert and his infamous briefcase.
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| The Notorious Dr. Albert |
In July 1915, Secret Service agents placed a German sympathizer and his acquaintance, Dr. Heinrich Friedrich Albert, under surveillance. Dr. Albert, officially in America as commercial attaché and financial adviser to the Kaiser’s ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, had diplomatic immunity. On 24 July, as the two targets parted company, Dr. Albert boarded a train in New York City and in his haste to get off at his stop, momentarily forgot his briefcase. An agent seized the brown case and managed to elude the panic-stricken Dr. Albert, who, realizing what had occurred, chased after him. Two days later an advertisement appeared in the newspaper offering a $20 reward for the case. Unfortunately for Dr. Albert, the evidence in the briefcase was the breakthrough that the Secret Service was seeking. The contents exposed intricate, organized plots to undermine the Allied cause.
Dr. Albert was found to be the principal financial agent of the German empire in the United States. His account books revealed that he had received more than $27 million from the German government to use in carrying out espionage-related activities. This included bombing munitions areas and factories manufacturing supplies for the allies, monopolizing the supply of liquid chlorine used for poison gas, and a plan to invade New York City.
Heinrich Albert’s debut as a New York headline personality came on Sunday, August 15, when the World pieced together the nature of his business at 45 Broadway. Starting on page 1, the paper ran three pages of stories and documents bathing the German subversives in the light of publicity. Albert was portrayed as a meticulous, bookkeeping master spy through whom all chicanery cleared and who was principally concerned about getting value for his Kaiser’s money and maybe even making a profit. The United States took no official action against him, and when America entered the war he was returned to Berlin, where he was placed in charge of foreign assets in Germany. Albert was later an important official in the Weimar Republic.
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| Two Agents Guarding President Wilson in 1918 |
The Secret Service also continued to thwart counterfeiting and remained vigilant with its existing protective mission. That mission expanded in 1917 when Congress authorized protection for the president’s immediate family and enacted legislation that made it a crime to threaten the president by mail or any other manner.
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| Food Administration Poster from the War |
World War I brought other duties to the Secret Service. President Wilson established the U.S. Food Administration to prevent food hoarding and illegal food monopoly activity during the war years. On 15 September, 1917, President Wilson authorized the Secret Service to investigate any related violations. Thousands of violations were uncovered, some of which were sufficiently aggravated to be the subject of criminal prosecutions. In addition, the Secret Service assisted the War Trade Board in investigating more than 1,800 individuals and corporations to ensure that there was no trading of food or commodities with the enemy.
Sources: U.S. Secret Service publications; "The Thrifty Spy on the Sixth Avenue El," American Heritage, December 1965
For detailed and well researched narratives into German sabotage and espionage in the United States during the early days of World War I, including that of Dr. Heinrich Friedrich Albert, I recommend the works of Heribert von Feilitzsch, "The Mexican Front In The Great War", "The Secret War Council", "The Secret War On The United States In 1915", and "federal Bureau of Investigation Before Hoover, Vol. I: The fBI and Mexican Revolutionists 1908-1914". Reviews of some of these have been featured in Roads To The Great War.
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