Kayser Case Is Revenge.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 19, 1912:
Real Reason for Action Against American Firm Now Plain.
Cable to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, Aug. 18.— The Saxon Government desires to evict the Kayser Company from Germany simply in retaliation for America's protective tariff. That was made plain in an elaborate statement of the case against the New York concern furnished to a correspondent of The New York Times to-day, by Privy Councillor Gulden, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Chemnitz, which is leading the campaign for the expulsion of the New Yorkers. The statement leaves no doubt that the Chemnitz glove trade is smarting under American competition, and employed a technicality of the Saxon Corporations law as a means of forcing the Government to drive the New Yorkers out of the country. No misdemeanor is alleged against the Kaysers, except that, through operating their factory on a higher wage scale and a more expensive basis in general than their German competitors the latter are unable to compete with them for American business.
    It is alleged that the Kaysers, by consigning Saxon made products to the parent house in New York, are enabled to invoice them lower than goods imported by other American houses. The real ground for the opposition to the Kaysers, however, appears to be exposed in this closing paragraph of the statement:
    It is, of course, unfortunate for the firm to have to close up its business in obeyance of the legal requirements, but when one considers that America is accustomed to proceed in the most ruthless manner whenever questions of protecting its own tariff interests and home markets are concerned, then the appropriateness of the considerate treatment of the Kayser case is obvious. The wise legal powers which Saxony and other German States possess must be employed under all circumstances against high protection in a country like America, especially where, in a case like the Kayser affair, there is such overwhelming proof of the injury to local industrial interests."