by Theo Emery
The offensive was: Peter Hart, The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 154.
Britain’s dreadnoughts had: Cyril Falls, The Great War: 1914–1918 (New York: Capricorn Books, 1959), 153.
Two months after the Lusitania: The suspect, Frank Holt, was arrested the next day, after he later shot banker J. P. Morgan Jr. Holt was believed to be an alias for Erich Muenter, a Harvard professor who had disappeared after killing his wife in 1905.
In July 1916: “Munition Explosions Cause Loss of $20,000,000,” New York Times, July 31, 1916, 1.
However remote the possibility: Letter from George E. Hale to William Welch, July 3, 1915, NAS-NRC Central File, 1914–1918, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, 1917, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
He kept the country: David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 33.
The result was: Rexmond C. Cochrane, The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863–1963 (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1978), 212.
On August 5: Ibid., 213.
Given the divergence: “Bureau of Mines Formed,” New York Times, July 3, 1910, 6.
“Many of the things”: “Van H. Manning,” The Black Diamond 55, no. 6 (1915): 110.
Manning wrote Holmes’s obituary: Van H. Manning, “Joseph A. Holmes,” Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 7, no. 8 (Aug. 1915): 712.
“We can build”: “Dinner to Director Van H. Manning of the Bureau of Mines,” Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering 8, no. 16 (Dec. 15, 1915): 979.
As Manning rose: Transcript of Manning banquet, Nov. 20, 1915, courtesy of Petrie M. Wilson.
“peace without victory”: “Text of President’s Address to the Senate,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 1917, 1.
A German newspaper: “Germans Criticize Wilson’s Proposal,” New York Times, Jan. 26, 1917, 1.
“This means war”: Joseph Patrick Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921), 256.
A German submarine: “Relations with German Are Broken Off; American Ship Housatonic Sunk, Crew Safe,” New York Times, Feb. 4, 1917, 1.
On February 6: “14 More Ships Sunk by Germany in a Day,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 1917, 1; “U-Boats Sink Ten More Ships,” New York Times, Feb. 9, 1917, 1.
As Wilson went: “President Asks Broad Powers to Meet U-Boat Warfare,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1917, 1.
a new outrage: “Germany Seeks an Alliance Against Us,” New York Times, Mar. 1, 1917, 1.
Manning summoned his chiefs: Van H. Manning, “War Gas Investigations,” advance chapter of War Work of the Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 178-A, BOM, Department of the Interior (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919).
The bureau headquarters: Historic American Buildings Survey, Busch Building, 710 E Street, Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC (Washington, DC: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, documentation compiled after 1933).
Manning maintained a tidy office: Photo of Van H. Manning at desk, Nov. 1918, RG 111, Signal Corps, photo 56573, box 456, NACP. Though the photo is dated Nov. 1918, which would have been after the Department of the Interior moved from its E Street location, I presume that details from the photo, such as furnishings and orderliness, would have applied equally to the earlier office.
“a simple cloth mask”: George S. Rice, Chief Mining Engineer, Department of the Interior, BOM, Washington, DC, Memorandum by GS Rice regarding Early History of Mask and Gas Investigations for the Army, Jan. 9, 1918, War Gas Investigations, Reports and Other Records, Records of the BOM, RG 70, finding aid A-1, entry 46, box 110, NACP.
While Parson’s skepticism: Charles L. Parsons, “The American Chemist in Warfare,” Science 48, no. 1242 (1918): 377.
The next day: Manning, “War Gas Investigations,” 2.
At the end of March: “Cabinet Weighs War Plans,” New York Times, Mar. 24, 1917, 1.
Because explosives were: Letter from Van H. Manning to the National Research Council, Apr. 6, 1917, Administration, Executive Committee, Committee on Noxious Gases, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
a nationwide census: “War List of Experts,” Washington Post, Mar. 31, 1917, 4.
Wilson’s second term: “President Takes the Oath,” New York Times, Mar. 5, 1917, 1.
The next day: Until the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, Inauguration Day was Mar. 4, an arbitrary date that the Continental Congress chose for the nation’s first inauguration in 1789. The Twentieth Amendment fixed the inauguration as Jan. 20 in perpetuity.
His war address: “50,000 See Inauguration,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 1917, 1.
On the day: “War Congress Is Besieged by Pacifists,” Washington Times, Apr. 2, 1917, 1.
When demonstrators tried: “Pacifists in Riots; Lodge is Assaulted,” Washington Post, Apr. 3, 1917, 3.
Wilson waited all day: Arthur Walworth, American Prophet, rev. ed., vol. 2 of Woodrow Wilson (Cambridge, MA: Boston Riverside Press, 1965), 97.
“I have called the Congress”: “President Calls for War Declaration,” New York Times, Apr. 3, 1917, 1.
At the Washington headquarters: “Pacifists Enraged over Yellow Paint,” Washington Times, Apr. 3, 1917, 2.
After the band: “Hiss Senator Who Sat as Hotel Band Played the National Anthem,” Washington Post, Apr. 4, 1917, 2.
The Bureau of Mines: Robert A. Millikan, The Autobiography of Robert A. Millikan (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950), 140.
Part of the committee’s business: Meeting of the NRC Military Committee, Apr. 3, 1917, NAS-NRC Central File, 1914–1918, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, 1917, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
Burrell had come: James Terry White, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. 46 (New York: James T. White and Co., 1963), 228.
The U.S. Geological Survey: Mary C. Rabbitt, The United States Geological Survey: 1879–1989, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989). The document is available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1050/second.htm.
The previous October: “Movements of the Geologists,” Oil Trade Journal, Dec. 1916, 98.
Rounding out: John B. West, Yandell Henderson 1873–1944, vol. 74 of Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1998), 145. The memoir can be found online at http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/henderson-yandell.pdf.
Accused of being: Memorandum from file, In re: Prof. Yandell Henderson, Mar. 11, 1918, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-75606, roll 443, NACP.
Lean and commanding: “Gen. J. E. Kuhn Dies; Army Engineer, 71,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1935.
It would call: “Chance to Aid Your Country in the Quartermaster Corps,” Evening Star, Apr. 21, 1917, 9.
“The President has signed”: “President Proclaims War; Warns Enemy Aliens Here; 91 German Ships Seized and Spies Put Under Arrest,” New York Times, Apr. 7, 1917, 1.
At port cities: “German Ships All Damaged,” Washington Times, Apr. 6, 1917, 1.
Shortly after Wilson signed: “Cuba to Be US Ally,” Washington Times, Apr. 7, 1917, 3.
On the day: Van H. Manning letter to Charles Walcott, Apr. 6, 1917, NAS-NRC Central File, 1914–1918, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, 1917. National Academy of Sciences Archives.
“The entrance of the United States”: Letter from George E. Hale to overseas academies, Apr. 6, 1917, NAS-NRC Central File, 1914–1918, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, 1917. National Academy of Sciences Archives.
Chapter Two: An American University
Minutes after the explosions: “Two Trolley Poles Wrecked,” Evening Star, Apr. 7, 1917, 2.
When residents opened: “Ger
mans Blow Up Ship,” Washington Post, Apr. 8, 1917, 6.
The president’s war proclamation: “President Wilson’s War Proclamation,” Washington Times, Apr. 6, 1917, 1.
the attorney general ordered: “Germans Warned to Keep Mouths Shut,” Washington Times, Apr. 6, 1917, 1.
While it wasn’t yet clear: “Gas in Warfare: Considered from the Medical Standpoint,” Apr. 6, 1917, Frank P. Underhill Papers, numbered folders, 80–106, group no. 514, box 6, Yale University Library Manuscript Collections, New Haven, CT.
The men agreed: Minutes of Apr. 7, 1917, meeting of the Committee on Noxious Gases, BOM, War Gas Investigations and Other Records, BOM, finding aid A-1, entry 46, box 110, NACP.
The northern French city: “Town Hall, Belfry and Squares of Arras,” The Remembrance Trails of the Great War, Comité Régional de Tourisme Nord-Pas de Calais, accessed Apr. 7, 2017, http://www.remembrancetrails-northernfrance .com/visit-the-sites/post-war-reconstruction/town-hall-belfry-and -squares-of-arras.html.
Buildings ringing the city: Richard Harding Davis, “Arras an Unburied City,” New York Times Magazine, Dec. 12, 1915.
three thousand projectors: Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1990), 13.
The dense clouds: Haber, Poisonous Cloud, 182.
Even if they had time: Kleber and Birdsell, Chemical Warfare Service, 13.
Celebrants sang a Benediction hymn: Frank Fox, The Battles of the Ridges: Arras–Messines, Mar.–June, 1917 (London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1918), 28.
By early afternoon: Kleber and Birdsell, Chemical Warfare Service.
Manning told Interior Secretary Franklin Lane: Letter from Van Manning to Franklin Lane, Apr. 9, 1917. NAS-NRC, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
He had a brilliant: E. C. Sullivan, George Augustus Hulett, 1867–1955, vol. 34 of Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1960). Available online at http://www.nasonline .org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/hulett-george.pdf.
His skills included: Charles P. Smyth, draft of biographical sketch of George A. Hulett, George A. Hulett Papers, 1909–1962, call no. C0460, box 2, folder 3, Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
He was also: “George Augustus Hulett,” compiled by E.C.S., box 2, folder 3, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
The professor in charge: Letter from J. S. Ames to George Hulett, Apr. 6, 1917, box 2, folder 3, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
Hulett boarded the steamship Chicago: One postwar profile of Hulett describes his passage as being aboard the steamship Rochambeau, but other records strongly suggest that he sailed on the Chicago.
He scanned the wharf: Letter from George Hulett to family, May 4, 1917, box 2, folder 10, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
For his part: Ibid., Apr. 19, 1917, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
The beauty meant little: Ibid., May 1, 1917, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
“Everything is open”: Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 15.
“The use of these gases”: Letter from George Hulett to Manning, May 5, 1917, Hulett Papers, Princeton University Library.
“The tremendous scale”: Report of Noxious Gas Investigations, prepared for meeting of Subcommittee of National Research Council, Apr. 21, 1917, NAS-NRC Central File, 1914–1918, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, 1917, National Academy of Sciences.
The only man: “Henry Drysdale Dakin, 1880−1952,” Journal of Biological Chemistry 198 (1952): 491–94.
The men had discussed: Minutes of Apr. 21, 1917, meeting of the Committee on Noxious Gases, 14, Central Correspondence, 1918–1941, War Department, CWS, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 1, box 166, NACP.
to seal a military pact: “Wilson Seals French Pact,” Washington Times, Apr. 26, 1917, 1.
French and American flags: “With Gen. Joffre, M. Viviani Calls on President,” Evening Star, Apr. 26, 1917, 1.
Before the pageantry: E-mail from American University archivist Susan McElrath.
The idea had: Letter from George Washington to Virginia Governor Robert Brooke, March 16, 1795. University Archives and Special Collections, American University Library.
Bishop Hurst found: Rev. Albert T. Osborn, “The Genesis of the American University,” Methodist Magazine 2, no. 1 (July–Aug. 1899): 153.
But despite Hurst’s optimism: Untitled brief, American University Courier (Dec. 1900); “Open the Doors for Work, American University Courier (Dec. 1901); “Why Not Open for Work?,” American University Courier (Apr. 1904); “The University of the White Deer Grotto,” American University Courier 15, no. 4 (Mar. 1909): 3.
American finally opened: “President Wilson Opens the American University,” American University Courier 21, no. 1 (June 1914): 1–7, University Archives and Special Collections, American University Library.
“On motion”: Albert Osborn, “Chronology of Events 1907–1940,” Apr. 26, 1917, University Archives and Special Collections, American University Library.
The university newspaper: “The American University in the Service of the Nation,” American University Courier 23, no. 3 (Apr. 1917): 3.
Leighton sent an official letter: “Judge Leighton’s Letter to President Wilson and the Reply,” American University Courier 13, no. 3 (Apr. 1917): 1; Memorandum from Major General Henry Jervey to Assistant Secretary of War, Subject: Purchase of American University Property, Washington, DC, Nov. 4, 1918, 1, Spring Valley–Baltimore District, Records for Project C03DC091801 (Spring Valley—Military Munitions Response Program), USACE.
On the warm: Osborn, “Chronology of Events 1907–1940,” May 17, 1917.
The day after: Ibid., May 18, 1917.
After Manning’s meeting: Yandell Henderson, History of Research at Yale University, Nov. 20, 1918, USACE.
“A patriotic offer”: Letter from Van H. Manning to George S. Hale, May 26, 1917, NAS-NRC, Executive Committee: Projects, Helium Production, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
Chapter Three: Diabolical Instruments
“Oh! What damn lies!”: “Court Says Spies Pleas Shield Others,” New-York Tribune, Mar. 23, 1917, 5.
When the government: “Bomb Chemicals Shown in Court,” New York Sun, Mar. 27, 1917, 11.
“Sulfuric acid”: “250 Bombs to Fire Ships of Allies Made on German Liner Here in Twelve Days,” Evening World, Mar. 27, 1917, 2.
In his closing arguments: “German Plotters Soon Found Guilty,” New York Sun, Apr. 3, 1917, 9.
Before the war: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918, 4, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
Barrel chested and balding: BOI report on surveillance of Walter and Marie Scheele, July 17–19, 1915, 2, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
Every morning: BOI report from Agent L. M. Cantrell, Apr. 18, 1916, and BOI report from Agent Ralph H. Daughton, Apr. 27, 1916, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
Scheele had come: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918, 1, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
the scars on his face: “When Student Swords Ring in Germany,” New York Times, July 23, 1933.
Born in Cologne: Letter from Richmond Levering to A. Bruce Bielaski, Naval Station, Key West, Fla., March 15, 1918, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
Naturally, Walter Scheele studied: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918.
He reached the rank: Richmond M. Levering to A. Bruce Bielaski, First Section Report of Dr. Walter T. Scheele, Mar. 25, 1918, 2, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
Their job was: Walter T.
Scheele interview, Mar. 23, 1918, BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
The men were also instructed: French Strother, Fighting Germany’s Spies (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1918), 262. Strother’s somewhat breathless account of Scheele and his tasks in the United States is not reflected in the primary documents from the case files of the BOI.
In 1913: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918, 2, BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
He instructed Scheele: Scheele statement, 3, BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
As Europe teetered: Levering to Bielaski, First Section Report of Dr. Walter T. Scheele, 2.
When the Continent: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918, 41.
Scheele quickly sold: Ibid., 5.
On von Papen’s orders: Ibid., 18.
Scheele began paying: Second Section Report of Walter T. Scheele, Schedule B, 5, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
On April 10, 1915: Scheele statement, Mar. 23, 1918, 15.
Bode said von Papen: Ibid., 14–16. There are conflicting accounts about how the order to make the incendiary bombs reached Scheele. Von Rintelen claimed decades later in his unreliable memoir, Dark Invader, that he directly instructed Scheele to make the bomb under very different circumstances. Scheele’s account appears more credible.
Scheele hired new employees: Levering to A. Bruce Bielaski, Mar. 28, 1918, and “Information Given by Dr. Scheele concerning List of Names and Incidents Submitted by Mr. Offley,” 4, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
von Kleist kept: Agent report on Scheele, “Capt. Kleist,” New York, July 17–23, 1915, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
To demonstrate, Scheele gathered: Statement of Ernst Becker, Apr. 13, 1916, 9, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.