This payment was made by my drawing a draft for the amount stated
on the State Department, the recipient selling this draft at a
fixed rate to the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. This business assumed
great proportions, and after the Americans who were in a hurry to
go home had disappeared, the ones remaining were kept in funds
by their friends and relatives through this sort of bank under
our management.
On August twenty-third, Assistant Secretary of War Breckenridge,
who had come from America on the warship _Tennessee_, bringing
gold with him, and a certain number of army officers, arrived
in Berlin and took over our relief organisation in so far as it
applied to the repatriation of Americans, housing it in rooms
hired in a nearby hotel, the Kaiserhoff. This commission: was
composed of Majors J. A. Ryan, J. H. Ford and G. W. Martin and
Captains Miller and Fenton, but the relief committee and the
banking office were still continued in the Embassy ballroom.
A bulletin was published under the auspices of the American
Association of Commerce and Trade and the advice there given was
that all Americans having the means to leave should do so when
the opportunity for leaving by special trains was presented, and
proceed direct to London whence they could obtain transportation
to the United States.
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