Rumely felt that most American newspapers were taking a pro British side threatening neutrality.

It was 66 by 25 by 211 feet, ten stories, and was built by Carrère & Hastings (architects of the New York Public Library[13]).

The building's dimensions were challenging based on the land purchased, and thus the Buffalo Morning Express wrote that it "looks for all the world like an upright lead pencil".

The building became an architectural landmark, such that after a fire in 1900, the Troy Daily Times wrote that it was "such an ornament to Broadway that its destruction would be a calamity".

The charge grew out of a statement filed with A. Mitchell Palmer, the Alien Property Custodian, in which Rumely asserted that The Evening Mail was an American-owned newspaper.

The Government is in possession of evidence which, it is held, shows that instead of being owned by Americans, the paper is in fact owned by the Imperial German Government, which on June 1, 1915, paid to Rumely, through Walter Lyon, of the former Wall Street house of Renskorf.

Rumely however denied the allegations, claiming, instead, he had received money to buy the paper from an American citizen in Germany.