The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

October, 1918 the 16 this morning, but I realize now that you had not sufficient explana- tion in the matter and that you 'are therefore laboring under a misappre- hension as to the real status of the re- quest I made and to show you that it was entirely legitimate, I will ex- plain as follows: The original understanding I had with the Danish interests was that for any moneys advanced by them for the purchase of ships, they were to re- 'ceive stock in the company. They were willing to furnish by far the greatest portion of the capital, but because I did not want to hold only ime stnall end of the' bag, 'I: was privileged to subscribe for my friends and myself not to exceed 50 per cent of the capital. Ships were scarce and opportunities to buy them had to be promptly em- braced, and accordingly the Danish people purchased and paid for in the name of the American Transatlantic Co. eleven steamers that cost ap- proximately $2,500,000. I did not pro- ceed to interest American capital, be- cause American registry was denied these ships for a long time and I did not want to induce Americans to in- vest until I was sure of the American flag. Will Still Shake the Dice American registry was denied .be- cause the Danish gentleman, Mr. Albert Jensen, who advanced the money for the purchase of the ships in Denmark, attempted to smuggle copper from Denmark to Germany after I had left and was arrested, be- cause the Danish government had an 'embargo on exporting copper. There was, of course, all kinds of smuggling going on because it was profitable, but because this man was prominent politically, his case was widely pub- lished and became: known in England and also. in Washington and when the ship registry question came up, it was claimed by England that Mr. Jensen had secured part of the money with which he paid for the ships from German interests and that was the reason American registry was tempor- arily denied. . In the meantime the ships were idle and I had incurred considerable per- sonal expense and was losing valuable time. I finally decided, on advice of my attorney, that I would not issue any stock to Mr. Jensen, or in fact to any foreign interests, and as the matter was entirely in my power I compelled the Danish interests to ac- cept my notes, running from one to five years, for all moneys they had advanced. I thereupon issued the stock to myself and am, therefore, the ona fide owner of same. All of this has been explained by me to the au- thorities at Washington. With this -explanation, I trust you will understand that I did not request you to lend your support to any scheme that was anything but strictly legitimate. I wanted you interested €cause of my friends at home, who ave taken an interest, have German names and I wanted some other lames to help overcome the suspicion pat this is a German owned corpora- a ce ; _, While the above explanation un- doubtedly will change your views con- -erning my enterprise, I do not wish © Press you in the matter, but I still THE MARINE REVIEW would very much like to have you re- consider your decision, accept the cer- tificate and execute the affidavit sent you in my previous letter. However, if there are other reasons, Private to yourself, that may be an objection to accommodating me in this mater, then do not mention them but just forget the request. I made and I will drop in at Memlers just the same at the first opportunity and throw the dice with: you for lunch. Sincerely yours, R. G.. Wagner. Elcock refused to be snared. Wag- mer succeeded, however, in persuad- ing' other persons to allow the use of their names as directors and stock- holders. He testified before Mr. Gar- van that the shares so issued were Cousin Jensen in Jail Lae had some ships in his own name under the Danish flag. Some of these he transferred to the American. Transatlantic Co. and was preparing to purchase and transfer others when he was caught by the Danish government in an attempt to smuggle copper into Ger- many. The copper was listed on the ship's manifest as sugar. For this offense, Jensen was sentenced to a term of 60 days on ordinary prison fare. Following Jensen's arrest, he and Wagner found it necessary to ob- tain another representative, and curiously enough, Theodor Lahr of Lenders & Co., Rotterdam, who was also an agent for Hugo Stinnes, was selected. The change in agents, however, made no change in opera- tions. held by him and that substantially no money was paid by any of the stock- holders whose names had been given to our governmental departments. De- spite his attempted showing of Amer- ican stockholders and American moneys invested he was unsuccessful before the British prize court and his three ships were condemned. It was shown in the prize court record that in the case of one of the steamers purchased by Jensen, the company known as Hugo Stinnes, Ltd., of London, not only supplied the original deposit money, but also the balance of the purchase price of the ship; and as respects a second of the ships purchased by Jensen for the American Transatlantic Co, Hugo Stinnes, Ltd. also paid the deposit money and arranged to have the bal- "ance of the purchase paid by the Copenhagen Coal & Coke Co., of which Jensen was the manager, and the stock of which was wholly owned 447 by Hugo Stinnes, according to the testimony of Stinnes' London man- ager. Mr. Garvan's investigations showed that the same plan of pur- chasing neutral ships, and in case of war transferring them to another flag, had been discussed between the man- ager of Stinnes' London house and a firm of attorneys prior to the out- break of the war. For the purpose of separating the Ownership of the seven remaining ships of his fleet from the four which had been seized by the British and French, Wagner organized in 1917 a new company known as the Foreign Transport & Mercantile Co. This company was organized with a capital of $2,500,000 and the. old shares in the American Transatlantic Co. were turned in in 'consideration of the issue of the same proportions of shares in the new company. Offers Large Reward One of the interesting side lights in the investigation was the disclosure that after rumors had been current in shipping circles of the United States that a fleet of American steamers was supplying German raiders and sub- marines in mid-seas with food and fuel, Wagner inserted a_ half page advertisement offering $50,000 reward to any one who could produce evi- dence to show any ships of the Amer- ican Transatlantic Co. had been used for that purpose. He also at one time offered a reward of $10,000 if any one could show that there was any Ger- man ownership- in the American Transatlantic Co. In May, 1917, Wagner induced Representative Cary of Wisconsin to introduce a resolution in congress which read, in part, as follows: "WHEREAS the majority of the stockholders of the American Trans- atlantic Co. are American citizens and have invested their money in Amer- ican ships with the expectation that 'their property rights would be pro- tected by the government of the United States at all times, and under all circumstances, against aggression, real or fancied by any foreign goy- ernment; therefore be it "RESOLVED by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America in congress as- sembled, that the secretary of state is hereby requested and directed to re-' port to the congress within a reason- able time what steps have been taken by the government of the United States to protect the ships of the American Transatlantic Co. from the aggression and the interference of any foreign government, either at sea or at any foreign port, while engaged in legitimate trade." ee