CRIME: Black Fritz

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When 1, 066 tons of munitions exploded at Black Tom Terminal near Jersey City in 1916, the U. S. was at war with Germany only to the extent of peddling supplies to the Allies. War for the U. S. was still three months away when in 1917 a munitions plant blew up near Kingsland, N. J., eight miles from the ruins of Black Tom.

Whether Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany was then waging an undeclared war of sabotage on the U. S. was the issue in the famed, long-lived Black Tom and Kingsland Cases. Last week no less an adjudicator than Supreme Court Justice Owen Josephus Roberts found that Germany 1) did indeed war by sabotage on the U. S. and other neutrals; 2) caused the Black Tom and Kingsland disasters (killing three men and a child) ; and 3) by continuously presenting perjured testimony, through its Foreign Office officials tried to hide the proof of its guilt. Therefore, said he, Germany must pay some $50,000,000 in accrued damages and interest (principally to Lehigh Valley Railroad, which owned Black Tom, Canadian Car & Foundry Co., which owned the Kingsland plant, and Bethlehem Steel Corp., maker of some of the sabotaged shells).

Nazi Germany promptly declined to pay, holding that since its member of the German-American Mixed Claims Commission recently withdrew, Justice Roberts as umpire had no right to make a decision.

After twelve years of bickering, with or without Adolf Hitler's consent, Germany will at last have to pay about 40¢ on the dollar. In custody of the U. S. Treasury is some $20,000,000, including property seized from German nationals during the War and income from bonds which Ger many posted as collateral, later defaulted.