Unfriendly operators could have interfered with messages to warships.  Although the thirty German employees of the German-owned wireless station at Sayville, L.I. were suddenly forced to leave the plant without operators or mechanics when the United States broke with Germany on Saturdays,    officers and enlisted men of the American Navy have already filled their places, so that the    transatlantic  communication  has been interrupted only for a few hours.  Only because of poor static conditions has the station not been able to handle, with its new staff of workers, a normal amount of business.  It sends to Berlin now about 3,000 words a day, mostly press dispatches, and receives about  4,000 words.

Because it had been demonstrated earlier      in the war, when the German squadron under Admiral von Spee defeated Sir Christopher Cradock off Coronel, Chili, that wireless      stations in neutral territory could furnish valuable information upon the movements of enemy ships, it was decided to seize the Sayville wireless.  Nor was the desire to prevent the sending of information to the ships of any belligerent  the  only  reason

the wireless may be used to communicate  with  warships.   

If German operators had remained at the Sayville keys, they might have prevented American vessels on the seas from  communication with one another.  Wireless operators are able to tell by the "note" of a  call  whether a warship of the British Navy is sending.  By altering their spark frequencies and pounding on the keys, they might be able to prevent communication, just as von Spee's  operators had prevented the British ships from giving their positions to one another.

No code messages are accepted by the censors at the Sayville station now, and the station is not used at all for diplomatic business. Most of the matter sent and received is for newspapers and press associations.  The officers there      believe most of the Germany Embassy        messages are sent to Hamburg through the transatlantic  station  at  Tuckerton, N.J.

Extra guards have not been put around the seventy-five acre station, and it is not difficult to approach the wireless masts, the dynamos and sending apparatus without    challenge by a sentry.

Most of the thirty Germans who worked for the Atlantic Communication Company, have left Sayville after being thrust from their    quarters at the station with no time to gather their belongings.