■ 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 VOL. Ill 
 
 CONTAINING THE LETTERS 
 TO WOODROW WILSON 
 
855-1918) 
 
 ■ E COURT 
 918 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 BY 
 BURTON J. HENDRIGK 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 CONTAINING THE LETTERS 
 TO WOODROW WILSON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1926 
 

 
 COPYRIGHT, IWi. BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 
 fc COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
 PRINT] I> IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE 
 COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 VOLUME III 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Introductory 1 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 II. An American Democrat at the Court of 
 
 St. James's 21 
 
 III. Vexations of an American Amrassador 70 
 
 IV. The President and the Amrassador . 92 
 
 V. "The Clash of Systems" 123 
 
 VI. How Page Would Have Ended the War 
 
 —in 1914 148 
 
 VII. Colonel Squier Visits the Western 
 
 Front 192 
 
 VIII. The "Dacia" and the German-Ameri- 
 cans . . . 222 
 
 IX. The "Lusitania" 238 
 
 X. Page and the "House Memorandum" . 272 
 
 XI. On the Eve of War 309 
 
 XII. The Zimmermann Telegram .... 331 
 
 XIII. President Wilson's Attempt to Detach 
 
 Austria from Germany 365 
 
 XIV. "On the Brink of the Precipice" . . 375 
 XV. The Last Letters 406 
 
 Epilogue 425 
 
 Index 433 
 
 v 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Walter H. Page Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Woodrow Wilson in 1896 24 
 
 His Majesty George V 25 
 
 The Rt. Hon. Viscount Morley of Blackburn . . 40 
 
 The Rt. Hon. Viscount Bryce 41 
 
 Drawing Room at 6 Grosvenor Square . . . 152 
 
 Sir William Tyrrell 153 
 
 Field Marshal Lord French 168 
 
 Major General George 0. Squier 169 
 
 Earl Kitchener of Khartoum 312 
 
 Rear Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall . . . 313 
 
 Staff of American Embassy in London, 1918 . . 328 
 
 The Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law 329 
 
 Vll 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 VOL. Ill 
 
 CONTAINING THE LETTERS 
 TO WOODROW WILSON 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THE original two volumes of "The Life and Letters 
 of Walter H. Page," published in 1922, were incom- 
 plete in one important respect. They contained only a 
 very few of the Ambassador's letters to President Wilson. 
 Page was a careful correspondent in that his writings 
 represented his completely reasoned views on the great 
 events that comprised his daily life, but he was a careless 
 one in failing to preserve the record he had so conscien- 
 tiously made. Sometimes he would finish a letter at a 
 single sitting; more frequently he would work indus- 
 triously until mailing time and hurriedly thrust the prod- 
 uct into the diplomatic bag — no eyes having seen it 
 except his own. In preparing his biography, therefore, 
 it was necessary to assemble the letters from many sources. 
 With the exception of the few of which copies had been 
 made, Page's correspondence with the President was not 
 placed at the disposal of his biographer. 
 
 Mr. Wilson's death has removed the prohibition upon 
 the publication of these letters. At the same time the 
 State Department has consented to a selection from 
 Page's war-time telegrams. These Presidential letters and 
 telegrams— omitting, of course, those already published 
 — form the basis of the present volume. 
 
 But Wilson and Page were correspondents long before 
 
2 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the Ambassadorship. The two men first met in 1881, at 
 Atlanta, Georgia ; at that time Wilson was making a half- 
 hearted attempt to start a law practice, and Page was 
 serving his apprenticeship in journalism. It was inevita- 
 ble that the two men should be drawn together, for their 
 ideas and their enthusiasms followed similar lines. Both 
 were Southern born; both had received their early educa- 
 tion in Southern schools and denominational colleges — 
 Page at Trinity and Randolph-Macon, Wilson at Davidson 
 in North Carolina. Both men had capped this somewhat 
 primitive instruction with a course in a more comprehen- 
 sive institution — Page at Johns Hopkins, Wilson at 
 Princeton, and afterward at Johns Hopkins. Naturally, 
 this experience, much broader than came to most Southern 
 boys of the period, had produced a similar effect on the 
 mind of each. Loyal as they were to the section of their 
 birth, deeply as they loved its people and its traditions, 
 Page and Wilson had passed far beyond the emotions and 
 the convictions that had caused the Civil War, and both 
 had long become reconciled to its termination as the one 
 that promised most for the future of their country and 
 of mankind. The state of national feeling they had 
 reached was finely described by Wilson a few years after- 
 ward, when he said, in an article contributed to Page's 
 Atlantic Monthly, that "Lincoln is the supreme American 
 of our history." In these early days in Atlanta both men 
 were feeling their somewhat uncertain course toward a 
 career, and their studies at that time followed congenial 
 lines. These studies fell in two fields that might seem at 
 first not to have much in common — "mere literature," 
 as Wilson afterward expressed it, and politics. Two men 
 who could discuss almost simultaneously Wordsworth's 
 poetry and Bagehot's "literary theory " of the British Con- 
 stitution necessarily had the basis of a lasting friendship. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ?, 
 
 In this Atlanta period Wilson was twenty-five and 
 Page twenty-six; Page's interest in the practical and 
 vital matters of life was probably much keener than 
 Wilson's and it is therefore not surprising that their paths 
 presently changed — one into a life exclusively academic, 
 the other into the more stimulating if less contemplative 
 world of periodical literature. The two men did not 
 ever become intimate, yet their ways, divergent as they 
 were, occasionally brought them together. By the time 
 that Page had reached a position of first rank as editor, 
 Wilson had become a magazine contributor whose offer- 
 ings were always eagerly received. "I have a feeling," 
 Page wrote in 1896, to Professor Paul Shorey, of the 
 University of Chicago, 'that the group of specially 
 trained historical men, now just coming to maturity, will 
 be likely to contain in it a few at least who will show the 
 artistic faculty. For one, there is Woodrow Wilson, who 
 has a style." Wilson was at this time forty years old, 
 and as professor at Princeton was already established as 
 one of the two or three leading historical writers of the 
 country. He possessed that one supreme gift without 
 which, in Page's view, mere erudition and philosophy 
 counted for little — the man "had a style"; he could 
 actually write. Impatience at the rarity of this particular 
 gift, scorn for the innumerable pretenders who poured 
 forth an exhaustless but uninspiring stream of articles 
 and books, were feelings Page never attempted to conceal, 
 and his greatest joy as editor was to discover a man 
 or a woman who had what he regarded as almost the 
 divine talent of expression. And one of his earliest dis- 
 coveries was his old Atlanta friend, Woodrow Wilson. 
 Many of Wilson's most telling essays thus owe their 
 origin to Walter Page. Correspondence between the 
 two men naturally concerned magazine contributions; 
 
4 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 most of Page's letters have disappeared, yet the old files 
 of the Atlantic Monthly, dragged from the dusty repose 
 of thirty years, aid one in reconstructing this period of 
 his association with Wilson. They disclose Page's interest 
 in certain vital aspects of American life and history; they 
 portray him also in a phase for which he long enjoyed a 
 particular fame — as a writer of editorial letters. Wilson 
 himself used to say that he could never resist one of 
 Page's written requests for a contribution. "I always 
 found him compelling on paper," he once remarked. Page 
 not only put his wishes in irresistible form, but he al- 
 ways had definite ideas about subjects — not an invariable 
 editorial quality. Sometimes he would outline the desired 
 article; occasionally, when his interest grew especially 
 keen, he would himself almost write the paper in the letter 
 asking for it! 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 June 22, 1896. 
 My dear Mr. Wilson: 
 
 Wicked as you may be, I am sure that you are not 
 wicked enough to deserve bombardment by me when you 
 have gone away on purpose to escape just such things. 
 Take assurance, for I do not come, as I have too often 
 done, seeking an article at once. I wish only to make a 
 request that I meant to make before you went away — 
 viz.: 
 
 It will be greatly to your advantage and to ours if we 
 have an Atlantic paper by you about the time that your 
 book of essays 1 is published. There is one subject that I 
 tried to formulate in the old Forum days which has come 
 to me more clearly since I have had the labouring oar on 
 the Atlantic — to get at, from different points of view, just 
 
 ll 'Mere Literature and Other Essays," by Woodrow Wilson, 1896. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 what constitutes American nationality: what is a present- 
 day justification of our national existence? This is 
 large and vague; but the particular approach to it that I 
 wish to call your attention to while you are abroad is 
 
 this : 
 
 There is a passage in Jefferson's Letters (indeed, I 
 think that he frequently wrote about the subject) wherein 
 he draws a strong contrast between the advantages of 
 European residence and American citizenship. With the 
 fervid patriotism of his time and especially of his nature, 
 he makes the advantages and duties of citizenship in I he 
 Republic stand out in very noble lines. I recall (ms 
 Jefferson is not in my summer quarters where 1 write) 
 one passage that seemed to me years ago particularly 
 stirring. That for a starting point, or something like 
 
 that. 
 
 Now, your own observations as the basis of a corre- 
 sponding statement for the present. Since Jefferson "s 
 time life in the United States has become very much 
 fuller and richer in many ways. Per contra the disad- 
 vantages (as he reckoned them) of European residence 
 have become less: government has become more liberal 
 almost everywhere and the individual (unless he be \er\ 
 low-born or very poor-born) has chances such as onl\ 
 noblemen had in Jefferson's day. But these changes on 
 either side only add to the fascination of the study. 
 Have we kept the promise of the early time to make an 
 incomparable home for men? 
 
 Do not interpret what I write as asking for a paper 
 during your holiday or even as a request that you con- 
 sciously think of it while you are abroad; and this does 
 not call for any reply till your return. I mean merel\ to 
 say that the Atlantic must have a characteristic and 
 significant paper by you in the early autumn when your 
 
6 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 book appears, and I submit this only as a suggestion. 
 And you will, perhaps, tell me what you think of it when 
 you come home. 
 A pleasant holiday! 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 November 21, 1896. 
 My dear Mr. Wilson: 
 
 With the connivance of Mr. Scudder 1 I take the liberty 
 to remind you of two entries that we made on the engage- 
 ment book of the Atlantic Monthly before you went abroad 
 last summer. Although it takes two to make an engage- 
 ment, and you, I believe, have never definitely given your 
 assent, these things are so desirable and so excellent that 
 we have been unable to look upon them in any other way 
 than as engagements. 
 
 One request, you will recall, was that you would write 
 an article after you came home about American residents 
 abroad, the aim being to formulate the desirability of 
 residence in the United States as compared with residence 
 in Europe, but more especially to point out the obligations 
 that American citizenship and its opportunities impose 
 upon a citizen of the republic to five and work at home; 
 all this tending toward the formulation of what constitutes 
 the highest type of the American citizen. 
 
 The other request, you will remember, was akin to this 
 — that you would make an historical statement of the 
 growth of American national feeling, showing its stages 
 at the several periods of our history — aiming at a state- 
 ment of what constitutes American nationality. 
 
 *At this time Mr. Horace E. Scudder was titular editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 
 though the "labouring oar," as Page says in the previous letter, fell upon himself. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 We hope that you will be able to send us these things 
 sometime during the winter, when the pressure of your 
 lecture engagements permits; and in order that you may 
 be perfectly sure that we are not unmindful of you I add 
 a third request. 
 
 We very much desire for the March Atlantic a review 
 of President Cleveland's public career and an estimate of 
 his influence as a public character. We cannot turn to 
 men who are active in political life for such an article, 
 because we should receive from such men either a mere 
 catalogue of political events which they consider of im- 
 portance, or a eulogy of Mr. Cleveland. Of course what 
 we want is a piece of literature which shall interpret 
 the effect upon our history and upon our national life 
 of his career and of his personality. Mr. Scudder and I 
 have talked over this subject very thoroughly, and we 
 each, independently, reached the conclusion that in your 
 hands the subject would receive much more satisfactory 
 treatment than in the hands of any one else. 
 
 Concerning the other essays which we hope to receive 
 we do not venture to set any date, but we do hope that 
 we may look for this paper on Cleveland in time for the 
 March number, that is to say by the middle of January, 
 and you must not say us nay. 
 
 I do not think that the article will require much prepara- 
 tion in the way of research or of a review of our recent po- 
 litical history, because in the space of a single article you 
 could do nothing more than sketch a large subject in out- 
 line and point out the greater events and larger tendencies. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Page's interest in the English race had its inspiration 
 not only in that race's achievements in statesmanship, 
 
8 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER II. PAGE 
 
 colonization, and individual development: above all, he 
 cherished it for its literature. Trained though he was 
 in the classics, and indispensable as he regarded the an- 
 cients as part of a modern education, he still looked upon 
 the great English writers and the English language as 
 more important. The following letter, written to Wilson 
 in 1897, sufficiently indicates that his interest in England 
 was no quickly acquired emotion of his Ambassadorship, 
 but that it was a life-long conviction and rested upon the 
 deepest and most substantial foundation. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 March 10, 1897. 
 Dear Mr. Wilson: 
 
 In some quiet half hour when you have nothing better 
 to do, will you not send me a little paper for "Men and 
 Letters" in the Atlantic? The short articles (from 1,000 
 to 2,000 words) that we group under this general heading 
 are really signed editorials on literary subjects. Any 
 subject, therefore, that has to do with literature comes 
 within the range of this tittle "Department"— to give it 
 a big name — for example: 
 
 How comes it that although there are multitudes of 
 special students of history in the United States who 
 know more facts and have a wider range of information 
 than any great historical writer in the world had down to 
 twenty-five years ago, the amount of historical writing 
 (properly so-called) is really very small, and most of it so 
 dull as to be almost unreadable? 
 
 Again : 
 
 The forgotten necessity that a man who proposes to 
 write anything worth while should steep himself in the 
 great English literature in order to have the genius of the 
 race as a basis of his style and a corrective of his thought. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 No foreign literature, not even the classics, will answer quite 
 the same purpose. If a man do not have his own race be- 
 hind him he will not write truly for his race; he cannot 
 say a lasting word nor take hold on a permanent tendency. 
 
 These subjects happen to come into my mind at the 
 moment. You may not care for either of them. I men- 
 tion them only to show the kind of subjects that I hope 
 to have taken up in "Men and Letters." 
 
 I am hoping for your article on the Growth of American 
 National Feeling for the July number (copy by the middle 
 of May), although I remember that your promise to have 
 it ready was conditional. 
 
 In October the Atlantic Monthly will be forty years old, 
 and we wish to celebrate that anniversary with a number 
 that will be noteworthy. I am now making engagements 
 for it with some of our best writers. We reckon on an 
 article by you for that — may we not? You shall be in 
 most excellent company; and we need your help. 
 
 All sorts of pleasant things come to us about your 
 article on Cleveland. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Wilson wrote two articles on Walter Bagehot for the 
 Atlantic under Page's editorship. Bagehot was evidently 
 one of Wilson's favourites at this time, for his name con- 
 stantly occurs in other of his writings. Page's request in 
 the following letter was therefore not unnatural. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 June 8, 1898. 
 My dear Mr. Wilson: 
 
 I take the liberty to trouble you to give me your opin- 
 ion, if you will, whether an edition of Bagehot would, 
 
10 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 as you look at it, be a practicable publishing enterprise. 
 I have said nothing about it officially to our people here, 
 but the subject has been coming up at times to my mind. 
 My recollection is that no edition of him has ever been 
 published in the United States except the edition that 
 was put forth some years ago by an insurance company 
 in Hartford, 1 and I do not know that this was ever put 
 upon the market or whether it was merely a sort of private 
 enterprise. How much is Bagehot read or likely to be 
 read in future, and how large a part of him may fairly 
 be considered live literature? I have no right to take 
 your time to answer such professional questions as these, 
 but in view of the disappointments that you have given 
 me concerning Atlantic articles, I feel a certain necessity 
 to get even with you in other ways. 
 
 And I will trouble you with one other question, if I 
 may. Where are you going to spend the summer? Of 
 course you will plan for your own discomfiture by answer- 
 ing such a question, but I will put it and see how generous 
 and self-sacrificing you really are. 
 
 With all good wishes, 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 June 20, 1898. 
 My dear Mr. Wilson: 
 
 It was a great pleasure to receive your letter in which 
 
 you were kind enough to tell me about Bagehot. One 
 
 of the many pleasures that I am promising myself this 
 
 J The reference is to an edition of Bagehot published by the Traveller's Insur- 
 ance Company, of Hartford, Conn. It was the personal enterprise of the 
 scholarly president of that Company, Mr. James G. Batterson, who was a great 
 admirer of the famous English economist and man of letters. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 11 
 
 summer is to take up these books and see if there be any 
 practical way to further his fame. 
 
 I am still more interested in what you say about your 
 purpose to spend August and a part of September in this 
 neighbourhood, and one of the penalties that you will have 
 to pay will be to give at least a few hours to me. 
 By all means send along "A Lawyer with a Style." 1 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Few remember that Wilson's first 'boom" for the 
 Presidency, although not a particularly resounding one, 
 was launched in 1908 — another year the Democratic 
 Party turned to Bryan and to inevitable defeat. At that 
 time Wilson was without practical political experience, 
 yet Page regarded the mere discussion of his name as a 
 hopeful sign of better tilings. In the ten years since the 
 Atlantic days, he had closely followed Wilson's career as 
 writer and educator, and with increasing interest and 
 regard. There are many letters from Wilson during 
 this period, though Page's have disappeared. As in the 
 earlier days it was Wilson's literary charm that held 
 first place in his admiration; in the intervening period the 
 man's progress as historian, essayist, and political phi- 
 losopher had justified all his early predictions. Yet the 
 Wilsonian ideas on practical politics also seemed entirely 
 sound. The nation had made tremendous strides in the 
 ten preceding years; the rugged Cleveland had given way 
 to the robustious Roosevelt ; yet honesty in administration, 
 and the use of the Government for public advantage rather 
 than for private pelf were the outstanding questions of 
 1907, as of Cleveland's time. To the party " shibboleths," 
 
 2 The lawyer was Sir Henry Maine. The article was published in the Atlantic, 
 September, 1898. 
 
12 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 as they were called in the early 'nineties, a new and strange 
 galaxy of public issues had succeeded. The Rooseveltian 
 democracy, expressing itself through the medium of the 
 Republican Party, was founded on such policies and 
 devices as trust regulation, railroad control, direct primar- 
 ies, the income tax, popular election of United States Sena- 
 tors, the Initiative and Referendum and the Recall. 
 Yet the need that dominated all others was ability and 
 honesty in high office. Page vastly admired Roosevelt's 
 work, especially the new vitality he had given the popular 
 conscience. Who could succeed him? In this connection 
 Wilson's name as a Presidential possibility first appears. 
 "A good deal of gossip," Page wrote in January, 1907, 
 "certainly not authorized and probably irresponsible, 
 continues to find its way into the newspapers, touching 
 the possible entrance into high politics of President 
 Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, in New Jersey. 
 First, he was suggested as a Democratic candidate for the 
 United States Senate, and later as a possible Presidential 
 candidate— as an antidote proposed to the party for both 
 Bryanism and Hearstism. 
 
 "The suggestion will hardly bear fruit, it is feared; for 
 President Wilson is not a politician, and he is a right- 
 minded man of a safe and conservative political faith. 
 He would not have the Government own the railroads; 
 he would not stir up discontent; he has no fortune; he 
 does not speak the language either of Utopia or of riot. 
 But, if the Democratic Party should come to its senses 
 again next year and assert its old doctrines and take on 
 its old dignity, and seek real leadership (and pray Heaven, 
 it may!) leaving its Bryans and its Hearsts alone, this 
 suggestion of President Wilson is logical, sound, dignified, 
 and decent. Here is a man of high character, and of the 
 best political ideals, a man who knows our history, our 
 
INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 laws, and the genius of our people, American to the core 
 and linked by inheritance and by training to the best 
 traditions of the past, a man who has had such executive 
 experience as a University presidency demands (and that 
 is a good deal), a man of a wide acquaintance, and of a 
 mind of his own. He comes of a Southern family — was 
 reared and chiefly educated in the South — but has lived 
 the wider life of a citizen of the Republic. His venerated 
 father was as staunch and beautiful a character as ever 
 adorned and made strong the Presbyterian pulpit. Al- 
 though his life has been spent in academic pursuits, he is 
 a man of a practical mind and he knows men as well as 
 books. He uses our language with both strength and 
 charm; he has a sense of humour; and he is a Democrat 
 of the best traditions. What if a political miracle should 
 happen and the long-lost old party should find itself by 
 nominating such a man?" 
 
 Four more years saw Wilson, after a preliminary term 
 as Governor of New Jersey, a conspicuous candidate for 
 the Democratic nomination. Into the Wilson campaign 
 no one entered with a greater zest than Walter Page. 
 In the preliminary stages of that proceeding Page played 
 an important part, though there is no vivid record of his 
 activities in the shape of letters. In one stirring episode, 
 however, his views brought reassurance to Wilson— the 
 famous Harvey incident of January, 1912. Mr. George 
 Harvey had been one of the first detectors of Mr. Wilson's 
 availability as a Presidental candidate; his name, indeed, 
 had become closely associated with the Wilson movement. 
 Mr. Harvey's identification with Wall Street millionaires 
 inevitably caused misgivings in certain "progressive" 
 quarters; the Bryan wing of the party particularly was 
 asking questions concerning it. Did it mean that 
 Mr. Wilson himself willingly accepted support from such 
 
14 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 suspicious sources? The newspapers were giving so much 
 space to this phase of the new candidacy that Mr. Harvey, 
 in the course of a discussion with Mr. Wilson, asked him 
 point-blank whether his support were proving an embar- 
 rassment. The answer came frankly that it was. Mr. 
 Harvey at once withdrew Mr. Wilson's name from the 
 masthead of Harper's Weekly, of which he was the editor, 
 and betook himself to a position outside the breastworks. 
 In the public discussion that followed Col. Henry Watter- 
 son, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, took a some- 
 what boisterous part. In the view of an old-fashioned 
 Democratic politician, as Colonel Watterson was, the Gov- 
 ernor of New Jersey was simply an "ingrate," who readily 
 enough used men to climb to power, and then despatched 
 them as soon as they had ceased to be useful. To which 
 Mr. Wilson's obvious reply was that Mr. Harvey had asked 
 a frank question and had received a frank answer. That 
 the answer was a true one was apparent to all who had 
 followed the Wilson campaign. Mr. Harvey, closely iden- 
 tified with big financial interests, was clearly an impedi- 
 ment to a man who was seeking the presidency exclusively 
 on popular lines. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 January 22, 1912. 
 My dear Wilson: 
 
 As I read the public mind the Harvey incident is having 
 a good effect and will continue to have. Harvey enabled 
 you to speak out on Wall Street without making an 
 attack on Wall Street. Everybody by this time is asking 
 himself, "Well, ought Governor Wilson have lied to 
 Harvey by evading the question or by softening his 
 answer?" Then, too, it's pretty generally understood, 
 except in boss and poker circles, that it is necessary to 
 
INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 incur Marse Henry's rhetoric if you have any positive 
 value or character. You've put him precisely where he 
 belongs — "a fine old gentleman." That is friendly. 
 Yet, to those who know, the area of inference is large. 
 Leave him there. Nothing can vanquish him like silence. 
 It's the one thing he can't understand or tilt with. 
 
 And, of course, the main matter, which Colonel Watter- 
 son has tried to obscure, hasn't been forgotten — the popu- 
 lar inference about Harvey's backing. You've answered 
 that suspicion or fear — of having the support of Wall 
 Street — without making any attack on anybody in Wall 
 Street. 
 
 I think the incident is working good results. And, so 
 far as I can see, it is a positive asset. You are even saved 
 the trouble of making any explanation ! 
 
 Again, as often, the right sort of enemies turn out to be 
 more valuable than the wrong sort of friends. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 "As for Mr. Wilson's personal qualities," wrote Page 
 after the Presidential election of 1912, "he is dignified 
 simplicity itself. He cannot do a merely spectacular thing. 
 For instance, no newspaper correspondent during the six 
 months of their inquisitive attention to details thought to 
 say how he was dressed. He has manners and, therefore, 
 few mannerisms. A quiet, modest gentleman with a spirit 
 of good comradery when he is in congenial company, his 
 prime interests are intellectual. He is a good story-teller 
 and many of his stories come from unusual sources— good 
 old books of English literature, and especially from Bage- 
 hot. No other man in America has Bagehot so well in 
 mind. He plays a fair game of golf, he has a fondness for 
 baseball— now, of course, as a spectator— he can ride a 
 
16 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 horse when he must, he is a good walker, he eats sparingly 
 and carefully, he sleeps well and long, and thus finds com- 
 plete physical restoration. The charm of the man is his 
 well-balanced, cheerful philosophy, for he takes life with a 
 keen relish but with quiet dignity and genuine reverence, 
 tempered with humour; and in his talk as in his public 
 speeches his clear-cut mastery of good speech is notable. 
 We have never had a president who expressed himself in 
 such vigorous, pure English, nor a man with a better 
 mental furnishing. It will be no small incident, therefore, 
 of Mr. Wilson's Administration that the political philoso- 
 phy which he holds will find adequate expression. We 
 shall have state papers better written than any preceding 
 modern examples of this rather heavy form of literature. 
 We shall have public utterances without boasting and 
 without commonplace." 
 
 In writing these sentences, Page was not thinking of 
 world wars, of America as the participant in a great Euro- 
 pean conflict, of Anglo-American friendship, of the tre- 
 mendous scene on which the Wilson Administration was to 
 play its part. He looked upon the new President as a 
 man who would reform the tariff, curb the selfish exactions 
 of wealth, regulate the railroads and the trusts, use the 
 powers of government for enlarging the lives of the masses, 
 and introduce new standards into American public life. 
 He sent Mr. Wilson, at the latter's request, plans for 
 improving country life and benefiting the farmers and 
 their families. On only one point of more extended view 
 did Page attempt to arouse the new President's interest. 
 The American occupation of the Philippines he looked 
 upon as presenting special duties. So far that occupation 
 had been a great success — perhaps the most successful 
 colonial experiment in history, for it had concentrated on 
 the administration and development of the islands ex- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 clusively for the benefit of the natives. New ideas were 
 afloat, chiefly advanced by Democratic leaders, which 
 Page regarded as unwholesome. The time had not come, 
 he believed, for independence, or indeed for any larger 
 measure of self-government than the Filipinos already 
 enjoyed. This apprehension that the new President, as a 
 stalwart upholder of democracy and freedom, might listen 
 to the advocates of these proposals — as, in fact, he ulti- 
 mately did, much to the damage of the Filipinos them- 
 selves — was probably the reason Page wrote the following 
 letter. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 Garden City, N. Y., 
 
 New Year's Day, 1913. 
 My dear Wilson: 
 
 A suggestion: Commission the man in whose judgment 
 you'd have the most confidence, to master, digest, con- 
 dense, classify, and index all the literature of our occupa- 
 tion of the Philippines; then to go there and make as 
 thorough an examination as possible — to study the peo- 
 ple; let him have two or three or more most competent 
 secretaries; and let him bring you late next summer 
 not only his opinion but the opinion of every man who 
 knows. 
 
 Then, by the opening of the regular session of Congress 
 in December, you would have all the information that 
 can be got in the world — of every class of men. 
 
 Set such a man at work now on the literature — silently 
 — and let him sail March 5th. 
 
 This, for reasons that I do not know, may be of no 
 value, but it is offered in the spirit of humble helpfulness. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Walter II. Page. 
 
18 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 The President-elect replied that he was much interested 
 in the proposal but saw no way of carrying it out. Where 
 was the money to come from? 
 
 The confidence that Page felt in the new Administration 
 is evident from the letter written to his old friend, Mr. 
 David F. Houston, on the latter's appointment as Secre- 
 tary of Agriculture — a post to which many had urged 
 the President to appoint Page himself. 
 
 To David F. Houston 
 
 Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C, 
 Sunday, March 2, 1913. 
 My dear Houston: 
 
 How fast our big, good dreams come true ! I have never 
 before felt such confidence in government as a means of 
 human progress. Every good thing that we care most 
 about now seems possible — things that we have talked 
 about to men who did not understand, tilings that we 
 have dreamed of and hardly dared hope for. With my 
 congratulations, I must express a certain elation. I have 
 hardly been able to keep the secret of your appointment 
 since Wilson told me. 
 
 God bless us, life gets better and better worth while. 
 When you need a friendly lamp-post (when red tape 
 hinders and the wolves howl) climb up and lean on me! 
 
 I have an invitation for you, which I'll send to your 
 office. It was given a week ago and it's interesting and 
 important. 
 
 Always heartily yours, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 On March 28th, President Wilson, in a brief but cordial 
 letter, offered Page the Ambassadorship to Great Britain. 
 On the margin of his letter accepting the post Page wrote: 
 
INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 "Even things never dreamed of come true — in this glad 
 year." It was characteristic that his decision once made, 
 Page's mind should turn to one of his closest friends and 
 his fellow worker in many educational battles, then re- 
 cuperating from a serious illness at Saranac, New York. 
 
 To Edwin A. Alderman 
 
 Garden City, New York, 
 
 March 27, 1913. 
 My dear Ed. Alderman: 
 
 You, I will tell in advance, and no other man at a 
 distance. Our friend in the White House pays me the 
 high compliment and imposes on me the high duty of 
 going as Ambassador to England. After wrestling with 
 my fears of my ability to do such a task with distinction, 
 I have let the spirit of adventure, which, I find, still 
 stirs in me, lead me on. That may be a kindly light 
 or an unkindly. But I have this morning given my con- 
 sent. 
 
 Wilson and Houston are doing their new high tasks with 
 joy and with promise of effective distinction. How we 
 all wish you were out to join in the game. An old South- 
 ern friend of mine, who has sporting blood in his old 
 veins, said yesterday : ' ' By God ! You fellows are playing 
 the game with all blue chips." 
 
 These, however, are mere items of the passing day. 
 The much more important thing is— are you making 
 continued real progress? I so gather. Ask Mrs. Alder- 
 man to write me; and with all my love, old friend, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 Of course, absolute secrecy is necessary till the President 
 chooses to give it out. 
 
20 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Thus the "spirit of adventure" led Page on. And the 
 parting advice of the President— the only thing resembling 
 instructions Page ever received when he left for England- 
 has a particular interest in view of subsequent events 
 and the relations between the two men. 
 
 "Go," said Mr. Wilson, "and be yourself!" 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 an american democrat at the court of 
 
 st. james's 
 
 PAGE arrived in London in the latter part of May, 
 1913. The events of the next ten years have made 
 this period seem rather uninspiring, yet Page, had he gone 
 about the matter deliberately, could have selected no 
 more congenial time for his introduction into British 
 politics and British society. The causes to which he had 
 devoted the most active energies of forty years had now 
 apparently gained the upper hand in England. The 
 rapidly unfolding scene was, as Page described it in his 
 letters to President Wilson, little less than a "revolution." 
 A crisis was approaching which, in its effect upon popular 
 government, could be compared only with Magna Charta, 
 the Puritan rebellion of Cromwell's time, and the Revo- 
 lution of 1688. In political proposals, in Parliament, 
 in the press, and in general conversation, the ideas thai 
 held the popular mind were democracy, Home Rule, in- 
 dustrial and educational reform, and the wholesale trans- 
 formation of the British political and social structure in 
 the interest of the masses. Page, one of the most Amer- 
 ican of Americans, reached London at the very moment 
 when American conceptions were exerting a strong in- 
 fluence on the country which, next to his own, claimed 
 first place in his affections. The man who was chiefly 
 responsible for embodying these ideas in action, Mr. David 
 
 21 
 
22 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Lloyd George, had drawn more inspiration from the 
 statesmen of America than any man who had risen to 
 great position in British public life. 
 
 The new era dawning in Great Britain was the era 
 of Page's old familiar figure, " The Forgotten Man." Not 
 democracy merely in its political sense, — the sense of popu- 
 lar suffrage, representative parliaments, and responsible 
 cabinets ; in these things Page was far less interested than 
 in democracy as a social force,— as a method of improving 
 the fives and enlarging the material and spiritual horizon 
 of the daily workers. That was the phase of democracy 
 which had filled Page's thoughts from his earliest days, 
 and the emergence of the neglected millions in England as 
 participants in all the best that England provided was 
 the ambition now dominant in the minds of the leading 
 British statesmen. The most successful nation was not 
 necessarily the one that had the largest army, the finest 
 navy, the oldest aristocracy, the most ancient established 
 church, the most successful foreign policy, the greatest 
 merchants, and the most profitable foreign trade, but 
 the one that had the greatest proportion of its masses 
 industrious, intelligent, well fed, comfortably clad and 
 sheltered, healthful, and economically self-sufficient. 
 Page looked upon such things as caste, privilege, idleness, 
 and luxury, as, in Burke's famous phrase, "The solemn 
 plausibilities of the world," and as having no reality in 
 modern life. What chance had the average boy and girl 
 for education? What opportunities were placed in his 
 way for the development of his character and abilities? 
 Was the product of his own efforts his own reward, 
 or was the larger part of it devoted to supporting 
 an infinitely small minority of the nation in idleness? 
 The great duty of the state was not the extension of 
 empire, but the more enlightened business of "freeing 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 23 
 
 men," and freeing them not only from the trammels of 
 tradition but from their own ignorance. For the few 
 years preceding Page's ambassadorship this conception 
 of a nation had been gaining favour in this ancient country 
 and by 1913 progress had become so rapid that, in the eyes 
 of the conservative classes, England was about to fall in 
 ruins. 
 
 No more profound admirer of England had ever lived 
 than this new American ambassador; for twenty-five 
 years, as editor and public speaker, he had advocated 
 the intimate association of Great Britain and the United 
 States as the one thing that would best promote human 
 advancement; and English literature, from his boyhood, 
 had been his main intellectual pursuit. For British 
 democracy also, in its political aspects, he had a great 
 respect. The debt of his own country to the political 
 institutions of Great Britain he never wearied of portray- 
 ing. Freedom, equality before the law, popular control of 
 law-making, a government perhaps even more immediately 
 in the hands of the voters than was that of the United 
 States — all these things he definitely realized./ Page's con- 
 ception of democracy, however, was primarily Jeffersonian. 
 This conception he had absorbed as a young man while por- 
 ing over Randall's now antiquated but still indispensable 
 life of the great Virginian. For Jefferson as Governor of 
 Virginia, as a frequently timid and vacillating president, 
 and as a not over-scrupulous political manager, Page had 
 abundant criticism, but he found the world's foremost 
 political philosopher in the Jefferson who split up the great 
 estates of Virginia and caused their division among the 
 men who cultivated the soil, who abolished the union of 
 Church and State, and who insisted on the free education 
 of every boy and girl as the first duty of the commonwealth. 
 The extent to which these and similar purposes inspired 
 
24 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 a nation measured the extent, in Page's view, to which 
 a nation had become democratic. It was because the 
 England of 1913 was undergoing this transformation, 
 was attempting, with infinite difficulty, to break with 
 its past and strike out on fundamentally new lines, 
 that the scene to which Page had now been so unex- 
 pectedly transported, filled him with interest and en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 For those who are inclined to hold Great Britain re- 
 sponsible for the World War a study of this England of 
 1913 and 1914, as unfolded in Page's letters, should be an 
 enlightening experience. The note that will become so 
 dominant after July, 1914 — the endless resonance of war — 
 is at first faintly heard. The topics are Home Rule, 
 Land Reform, the advantages and the disadvantages of the 
 aristocracy. The prevailing excitement was the struggle 
 that was taking place between the old and the new, the 
 rich and the poor. The subject that aroused practically 
 no interest was the European situation. Not a world war, 
 but a class war — and the threat of a civil war over Ire- 
 land — was the kind of a conflict that threatened the peace 
 of Britain. The demonstrations of the suffragettes 
 caused far more apprehension than the manoeuvres of 
 the German fleet. The man who was making the great- 
 est noise was not the Kaiser, but Lloyd George. This 
 ferocious spectre, as the Tory mind regarded him, had 
 now attained high ascendancy over the British populace. 
 Like most imaginative and earnest and impulsive states- 
 men, Lloyd George easily furnished points of criticism 
 and attack, but one quality at least had remained con- 
 stant for more than thirty years of public life ; and it was 
 a quality which, in the eyes of a sturdy democrat like 
 Page, redeemed a multitude of errors. This was the de- 
 termination to make Great Britain a happier and more 
 
Wood row Wilson in 1896 
 
His Majesty George V. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES S 2o 
 
 fruitful country for the masses. Of the sincerity of this 
 passion, for it was nothing less, no one who has followed 
 this great political career can have the slightest question. 
 A blazing indignation for the injustices heaped upon the 
 poor; a sympathy for the misery and the straitened daily 
 routine of the workers ; a determination to give every man 
 a fair chance; a hatred of the artificialities that have 
 caused, through the ages, such an infinity of bleak and 
 wasted lives, — these were the convictions that have made 
 Lloyd George such a sincere and effective man. In this, 
 his great side, there was much in common between Page 
 and the fiery Welshman. Many of the speeches in which 
 the British statesman assailed the historic system remind 
 one of the strictures which Page had so frequently laid 
 upon conditions in his own Southern States. When Lloyd 
 George announced that "the day of the cottage man has 
 dawned" he was merely expressing the main idea of 
 Page's speech on the "Forgotten Man." The "implac- 
 able warfare" which, as the Chancellor said in present- 
 ing his famous Budget of 1909, he proposed to wage "on 
 poverty and squalidness," was precisely the warfare in 
 which Page had been engaged since boyhood. Even the 
 language of picturesque and uncompromising violence 
 which Lloyd George found essential for expressing his 
 programme aroused the same rage in propertied circles as 
 had Page's fierce denunciations in the previously placid 
 atmosphere of North Carolina and Virginia. 
 
 More important still, the changes which the democratic 
 movement was bringing about in England were mainly 
 the things which, as Page believed, were responsible for 
 the prosperity of his own country. The accession of 
 the Asquith ministry had heralded Great Britain's final 
 break with medievalism. The Budget of 1909 was merely 
 the beginning of a comprehensive system of land reform, 
 
26 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 a system that meant the ultimate splitting up of the old 
 estates and the division of the soil among the cultivators. 
 The act of the House of Lords in rejecting this Budget 
 had brought about the greatest constitutional change of 
 eight hundred years, for it had resulted in reforms which 
 had practically meant the end of that body as a legislative 
 force and had lodged all political power in the popularly 
 elected House of Commons. Though the most exciting 
 topic of 1913 was Home Rule, the fact was well known 
 that the disturbance over this proposal was merely obscur- 
 ing legislation that the Cabinet regarded as far more 
 important — legislation whose purpose was the emancipa- 
 tion of the masses. The creation of a great system of 
 popular education was a leading item in this programme. 
 The separation of Church and State was another; the 
 disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Wales— a 
 change since accomplished — was generally regarded as 
 only preliminary to its disestablishment in England 
 itself. The abolition of primogeniture and entail, the 
 very basis of the landed aristocracy, was another idea 
 that was winning favour. Perhaps the chief value of 
 Page's correspondence of this period is that it gives a 
 picture of the aristocratic mind in face of these impending 
 changes. An Ambassador is necessarily attached to the 
 Court; even though he deliberately seek other more demo- 
 cratic scenes and friends — as Page constantly did — a 
 large part of his time is spent in the official and diplo- 
 matic circles and with the " upper " classes. The spectacle 
 of this American democrat in London writing to another 
 democrat in the White House, giving his impressions of 
 a social order naturally alien to both, and describing 
 the attitude of country houses and May fair toward those 
 causes of democratic progress in which the sympathies 
 of both were keen, is an almost unprecedented phenome- 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 27 
 
 non. To both also it was a profitable revelation. The 
 violent transformation of an ancient social order was 
 quite a different process from the creation of Jeffersonian 
 conditions in a new country. In England of the twentict 1 1 
 century there were obstacles, physical and spiritual — 
 the almost sacred accumulation of many centuries of 
 history — which had not impeded progress in the new 
 America. Not only did Page recognize their existence, 
 but he appreciated their meaning, and even, as his letters 
 show, entertained for them a sympathetic understanding 
 and a definite respect. It is a particularly refreshing 
 revelation, and in itself a striking evidence of the respon- 
 sive quality of his mind, that he quickly perceived these 
 differences. Obviously a lifetime spent in preaching 
 democracy had not obscured, in his eyes, the virtues of 
 the English upper class. His honest recognition of the 
 many high qualities of the British nobility is a note which 
 is at once heard in his early correspondence, and which 
 becomes more emphasized in war time. His distinction 
 between the plutocracy that has nothing but wealth- 
 too much the case in his own country — and the plutocracy 
 that has not only wealth, but culture, traditions, an 
 elevated patriotism, and a highly developed sense of 
 social responsibility, is perhaps one of the most stimulating 
 comparisons Page drew between American and British 
 life. He made the same discovery, too, that Emerson 
 had made nearly seventy years before: that the real 
 strength of the British nobility consisted in a certain 
 democratic principle; that it did not rest exclusively 
 upon birth and antiquity, but that it had for centu- 
 ries appropriated talent and character, wherever these 
 qualities might be found. "There was this advantage 
 of western over oriental nobility," says Emerson in his 
 English Traits, "that this was recruited from below. 
 
28 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 English history is aristocracy with the doors open. 
 Who has courage and faculty, let him enter." True 
 as this was in 1847, it was immeasurably truer in 1914, 
 when Page saw many almost startling instances of that 
 system of "eugenics" that explains so much of English 
 history. 
 
 Page, always a free-trader, regarded the protective 
 tariff as one of the obstacles to the economic predominance 
 of the United States. Free trade in itself he looked upon 
 as almost essential to democracy. He therefore charac- 
 teristically read his own meaning in the new Underwood 
 tariff act of 1913. There is a certain appropriateness in 
 the fact that he sent his congratulations to President 
 Wilson from Mr. Andrew Carnegie's Scottish home. 
 
 To the President 
 
 Skibo Castle, 
 Dornoch, Sutherland, 
 Scotland, September 12, 1913. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Score one! You have done a great historic deed and 
 demonstrated and abundantly justified your leadership. 
 
 I have been telling Bagehot's successor in the editorship 
 of the Economist that the passing of commercial supremacy 
 to the United States will be dated in the economic his- 
 tories from the Tariff act of 1913 just as so many things 
 in this realm are dated from the Reform bill; and that, 
 although nothing sudden and nothing spectacular is 
 going to happen, the freeing of great forces will work this 
 inevitable change by the time he can adjust the thought 
 of his readers to it. The change will come so quietly 
 that it will be here before they are aware. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 29 
 
 A large section of British opinion understands this. 
 For example, there are here in this castle of help 1 the 
 heads of the Scotch universities, and even they for- 
 get their quest of succour long enough to assent to this 
 view. We can still more easily command British capital 
 now — the best proof that we compel their proper 
 envy. 
 
 It is so good to be alive at such a time that I have driven 
 
 my golf ball clean over the greens and lost the game from 
 
 excitement. 
 
 My congratulations! 
 
 Most heartily yours, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Page's letters, already published, 2 have described his 
 attempts to explain, to the Prime Minister and the 
 Foreign Office, the purpose that directed Mr. Wilson's 
 intricate Mexican policy. The President believed that 
 the prompt recognition of political adventurers who, by 
 blood and iron, had seized the headship of state, simply 
 encouraged the revolutionary habit in the unstable re- 
 publics of Central and South America. The one way to 
 discourage this practice and to introduce something re- 
 sembling democratic order, was to withhold recognition 
 from such unworthy aspirants. That this new policy 
 in Washington involved many difficulties the results 
 sufficiently show, and the Ambassador's efforts to make 
 even so enlightened a statesman as Sir Edward Grey 
 accept this point of view had not been too successful. 
 Yet Page never missed an opportunity to set forth 
 the new Wilsonian ideas. He was constantly mingl- 
 
 ^r. Andrew Carnegie had always been generous to the educational institu- 
 tions of his own country. 
 "See Volume I, Chapters VI and VII. 
 
30 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ing with representatives of all classes of British life- 
 statesmen, writers, university professors, and journ- 
 alists—and on all occasions he freely discoursed on the 
 principles that inspired a policy that at first had 
 much confused them. An especially interested and ap- 
 preciative listener was the King himself. The idea that 
 the President's intention was to give the Mexican people, 
 and all other peoples of Latin America, a chance for 
 self-government, and to lay the basis of stability in 
 lands where there had previously been only revolution, 
 much impressed His Majesty. " I think he really under- 
 stands," wrote Page, "but I suspect that he puts an Eng- 
 lish rather than a democratic value on it." The one 
 thing about the Mexican situation that caused King 
 George some apprehension was the possibility that it 
 might strain Anglo-American relations. 'I don't want 
 anything done," His Majesty told Page, "that may 
 cause us to be misunderstood by your people. Our 
 friendship and good understanding shall not be broken, 
 impatient investors and yellow journals to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 "He is frank, friendly, and well informed," Page wrote 
 to the President, reporting this interview. "I confess to 
 a keen enjoyment of the conversation." 
 
 rMany phases of the aristocracy depressed Page— its 
 luxury, its jewels, its gold plate, and the servility of the 
 lower classes — and he could never quite persuade himself 
 that the world in which he moved was a real one. 4 This 
 play world," he wrote, describing a visit to a famous 
 country house, "this make-believe enjoyment of things 
 that no longer exist, this left-over backwater in the stream 
 that has run by." He never hesitated to discuss, in 
 public and private, the contrasting qualities of American 
 and English life. When the Royal Institution invited 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 31 
 
 him to lecture, he took as his subject, "Some Aspects of 
 the American Democracy." The Duke of Northumber- 
 land, a Tory of particularly ancient lineage, presided, and 
 was compelled to listen — and not with especially good 
 grace, if the truth may be told — to Page's vivid insistence 
 on the rights of the "millions who dwell on the soil" as 
 superior to those who occupy the manor house. It is easy 
 to imagine that other facts and phrases scattered through 
 this address may not have fallen any too gently on ducal 
 ears. "There is something better than good government 
 and that is government in which all the people have a 
 part." In America "we have neither entail nor primogeni- 
 ture." 'What shall our children do?' not 'What were 
 our fore-fathers?' is the insistent question." While this 
 lecture may have produced a slight ripple of discontent 
 in certain quarters, in the main Page found that the 
 discussion of these topics was a fair field in Great Britain. 
 His answer to a noble lady gave an eloquent and 
 comprehensive picture of the benefits of American 
 life. 
 
 "As we talked in the drawing room to-night," he writes, 
 "a marchioness — a clever woman — said: 
 
 "'I still hope to go to the States. Now what shall I 
 see there as the visible fruits of your democracy? ' 
 
 'The visible fruits, Madam, will be more millions of men 
 than live in your kingdom, whose homes fill the vast valley 
 which is more than a thousand fertile miles wide, every 
 one of whom lives in plenty, most of them on their own 
 land, under a blue sky and a beneficent Deity and a 
 government of their own making. It's subtle — the 
 difference — but believe me, it's real." 
 
 '"You all believe in it,' said she, 'and I wish to see it.' 
 
 Never did Page display that bumptious attitude toward 
 royalty which many Americans — mainly of a past genera- 
 
32 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 tion— seemed to regard as an essential ingredient of free- 
 born democracy. The development of a nation, he realized, 
 was a complicated natural process; the institutions that 
 prevailed as a result of the social and political inter- 
 actions of a thousand years must be taken seriously even 
 when they differed from one's own; and, as he looked 
 deeply into the foundations of British life he saw, more 
 clearly than most of his countrymen, the material and 
 even the spiritual purposes they served. "The royalty 
 in this Kingdom," he wrote to the President, "is an inter- 
 esting thing. This couple are immensely popular. Kip- 
 ling talks about 'my sovereign' as Moses talked of the 
 ark of the covenant. Royalty will not go out till some 
 revolution of some sort put it out — put out some profli- 
 gate monarch, if another come. They know too much 
 to stand in Lloyd George's way; and, since Cromwell, 
 nobody has dared take the risk of questioning their right 
 to exist. Socially, they are impregnable, and the shrewd- 
 ness with which the whole social structure is built is 
 equalled only by the excellence of the organization of the 
 Roman Church. Donald Smith was a poor boy in a 
 Scotch village. He put thro' the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway and became Baron Strathcona and Mt. Royal, 
 of Glencoe, K. C. M. G., etc. He lies dead in London 
 and they will bury him from the great Abbey to-morrow 
 morning, and nearly the whole party now here will go to 
 the funeral, the Duke of Argyll as one of the pall bearers. 
 And they offered to bury him in the Abbey. This is 
 what royalty and its sequences and surroundings denote. 
 His daughter is now Baroness Strathcona and her son will 
 sit in the House of Lords. James J. Hill was an early 
 friend of Donald Smith's — a Canadian, too. He also built 
 a transcontinental railway. But his son is only 'Louis' 
 to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the Northwest." 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 33 
 
 To the President 
 
 6 Grosvenor Square, W. 
 22 Feb., 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The feeling is strong here (I encounter it in London, in 
 Leeds, in Newcastle) that our government wishes to 
 prohibit European financial adventurers from exploiting 
 Central and South America because we wish to exploit 
 them ourselves ! I had the hardihood to attack this error 
 in speeches before important bodies in Leeds and New- 
 castle. Those who heard me seemed to accept my ex- 
 planation, but I continually hear of others who smile at 
 our pious pretensions. Men who have looked on at the 
 parcelling out of the world and have taken part in it 
 don't all at once think of the people that dwell on a land 
 before they think of the land itself. This is one interest- 
 ing test of the great distance that Old World thought 
 is behind our thought in all matters of popular government 
 and popular welfare. I am constantly surprised to dis- 
 cover how far ahead of them we have travelled. I told 
 the German Ambassador 1 here the other night that we 
 wished no more territory and didn't want Mexico as a 
 free gift of the gods. He looked at me— a mere glimpse 
 of one one hundredth of a second— and I saw this flit 
 across his mind: "You are a consummate liar or an irre- 
 sponsible idiot." Then our conversation went on on a level 
 of proper dignity. I'm sure such a proposition is simply 
 incomprehensible to him. In this Kingdom the Tories do 
 not understand the vocabulary that the Liberals use, and 
 the Liberals wouldn't understand our democratic vocabu- 
 lary. They have no idea of our notion of freeing men. 
 
 Another revelation that I constantly get is the depth 
 
 Prince Lichnowsky, afterward famous for his denunciations of the Kaiser. 
 
34 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of their feeling about the Panama tolls. 1 A journalist 
 of good character and a shrewd fellow has been getting 
 signatures of members of the House of Commons to a peti- 
 tion to the Government to reconsider its decision about 
 the San Francisco Fair. 2 Nearly every man who refuses 
 him remarks, "Let 'em first keep their treaty." He tells 
 me that it is the first time in his lifetime that he has en- 
 countered a definite anti- American feeling among any con- 
 siderable number of Englishmen. Correspondingly, of 
 course, they applaud you for your present effort and hope 
 and expect success. But they resent the act — even bitterly. 
 
 Still, deeper down than these symptoms, they like us, 
 envy us, admire us, and in the coming years, as economic 
 changes give us an even clearer lead, they will follow us. 
 I was never so sure that the command is ours and will 
 fall into our hands more and more. Their great power 
 is the accumulated capital of three exploiting centuries, 
 and chiefly that — with the machinery of trade and of 
 authority that they have set up with it. 
 
 Another fact I've learned is — they make as many 
 mistakes as we do, and as silly ; for example Ulster, Carden. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 "I venture to say," wrote Page to the President in 
 March, 1914, "that no man is more eager to serve you or 
 to help toward the building of a foreign policy worthy 
 of the country than I am; I've got immensely interested 
 in it, and I even believe that I see ways to do it. . . . 
 
 : See Volume I, Chapter VIII. 
 
 2 ln 1914 the American Government invited Great Britain to participate in the 
 San Francisco Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. The 
 British declination for a time produced a certain irritation in the United States. 
 Though the suggestion was repudiated that it was caused by the American policy 
 on Canal Tolls, the conviction was prevalent that the British refusal was not 
 unrelated to it. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 35 
 
 The wretched thing is that there is so much honest 
 ignorance— downright ignorance. Why doesn't some 
 man who knows tell the whole truth, if it can be told 
 without boasting— that we are so big and strong and rich, 
 that the economic and political future of the world so 
 clearly belongs to us, that it is impossible for any American 
 man who sees the nations in their proper proportions and 
 relations to fear or tremble or imitate or 'truckle to' 1 
 or to ask any improper favours of any nation on earth- 
 that the 'trucklers' are those that kick up all this dust 
 —they and only they? So far as this government is con- 
 cerned and this nation, if we keep faith with it, we can do 
 with it whatever we like. They will go any honourable 
 length to please us. Wherever I go— as a few days ago 
 to Aberdeen — this is made obvious in a hundred ways. 
 The whole Liberal fight here is confessedly to bring this 
 Kingdom, as far as they know how and dare try, up to the 
 economic level and practice of the United States: that's 
 their standard and aim. If it were said that they are 
 'truckling' to us, that would be near the truth." 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 London, May 1, '14. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Every body here hopes us well with this trouble- 
 some problem of Mexico. As I have telegraphed you, 
 I am sure a definite word was sent all along the fine that 
 this government will help us in every way it can. I have 
 happened within the last few days to talk with men of 
 such other differences as John Burns, the Archbishop of 
 Canter bury, Brig. Gen'l Fowke, of the Army, Lord Mor- 
 
 ^.ike most American Ambassadors to Great Britain, Page had been accused 
 of "truckling" to the British. 
 
36 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ley, and the Attorney General (Sir John Simon) ; and they 
 all say the same thing about our bad job in Mexico and 
 how they wish us well and stand with us. The news- 
 papers, too, in spite of a lot of foolish stuff they print and 
 in spite of criticism of our refusing to recognize Huerta, 
 are friendly in their comment. We constantly receive 
 letters from men here who wish to volunteer in our army. 
 
 The passage of the repeal of the discriminating clause 
 in the Panama Canal tolls act is taken for granted; but, 
 when the Senate does it, it will be received here with 
 hearty praise and appreciation. But I have heard several 
 notes of depression about the volume and the violence of 
 Anglophobia in the United States. I told one member 
 of the Government that I was surprised that he should 
 remark this, since they had unsuccessfully dealt with the 
 Irish for three centuries: was it graceful to hold us re- 
 sponsible for so much of their failure as went over the sea? 
 Of course, this is by no means the whole answer and they 
 know it. 
 
 On the other hand, while there is no organized anti- 
 American feeling here corresponding to the Irish in the 
 United States, there are two kinds of dislike of America 
 and of the Americans. The old aristocratic Tory argument 
 of a generation or two ago — that a republic was sure to 
 fail because, of course, they wished it to fail and therefore 
 vindicate their order of things — you run across that feeling 
 in curious ways, or survivals of it. I sat by a remarkable 
 old lady at dinner the other night, the daughter of one 
 earl and the wife of another, and of course the mother of 
 a third who now holds the title — this old dowager has no 
 active animosities, but she is full of the naif notions that 
 were more or less active when she was young — that a 
 democracy is necessarily vulgar and venal. She confessed 
 surprise that our government had survived so long. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAiMES's 37 
 
 "My father used to prove that a republic is necessarily 
 short-lived." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "that's easy to do now. But the im- 
 portant fact is that it does exist, stronger and better than 
 
 ever." 
 
 This old Tory notion of the corruption of the United 
 States crops up oftener than you would think, and there 
 lurks in it a sort of aristocratic hope that it will yet fail. 
 But this is not an active anti-American feeling. It is 
 rather a social resentment of the success of a democratic 
 order of society. It is, I am sure, becoming more and 
 more merely a subject of historical interest— a curious 
 survival that has no very important meaning now. 
 
 The other anti-American feeling is really more impor- 
 tant for it has its root in something like economic envy. 
 I hear this in "the City"— in financial circles. If we 
 begin seriously to supply capital to the outlying world and 
 especially if we ever again begin to contest the shipping 
 of the world with them, this feeling will become active. 
 It cropped up the other day in a small way in my conver- 
 sation with a book publisher. He was criticizing my 
 partners because, in selling him the right to publish a 
 book in England, they themselves kept the right in 
 Canada — "as if," said he, "Canada were a part of the 
 United States and not a British colony." 
 
 "See here," said I, "we can deliver books in Canada in 
 twelve hours: it takes you ten days. Let's talk common 
 
 sense." 
 
 Then he went off about the rapacity of Americans. 
 I've heard the same kind of things said about the new 
 Currency act, and about the efforts of Americans to do 
 trade even in South America, where the British are al- 
 ready trading. The dense self-satisfaction of the Briton 
 who feels that the world belongs to him is as real as it is 
 
38 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 amusing. This explains Carden and his kind, and the 
 kind is multitudinous. Sir Edward Grey knows no more 
 about trade than I know about the Upanishads. Yet 
 when I corrected a memorandum of a conversation with 
 me which he wrote out for Spring Rice and made it 
 emphasize the moral and political issue in Mexico rather 
 than the commercial, he said: "But I am sure you do not 
 forget the commercial? They will not let me forget it." 
 He has several times so spoken about the canal tolls. 
 He has to use this formula in all his dealings! Economic 
 envy may in the future play some real part in our dealings. 
 
 But this is not yet very active and is not at all organized. 
 The only kind of action or event that could stir up any 
 feeling against us is something that they regard as bad 
 faith, like the Panama tolls discrimination, or something 
 that offends their national pride, like our taking up with 
 Villa, whom they regard as responsible for Benton's death. 
 
 And as for the old Tory feeling against any form of 
 democracy, that's now hard put- to in their own Kingdom. 
 Ulster has a case, I have no doubt. If I were an Ulster- 
 man, I fear I, too, should object to being bound to the 
 body of Dublin. Yet that doesn't touch the real question 
 of the late stages of their controversy. The Conserva- 
 tives have used Ulster and its army as a club to drive the 
 Liberals out of power; and they have gone to the very 
 brink of civil war. They don't really care about Ulster. 
 I doubt whether they care much about Home Rule. 
 They'd ship Ireland out to sea without much worry — 
 except their own financial loss. It's the Lloyd George 
 programme that infuriates them; and Ulster and anti- 
 Home Rule are mere weapons to stop the general Liberal 
 revolution, if they can. No man who has watched this 
 ferocious fight can ever forget the danger of permitting 
 any sort of privilege fastening itself on a community, 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 39 
 
 for presently it comes to be regarded as a right and it w ill 
 fight with all the airs of righteousness. They call these 
 old Tories "Die Hards." It's a good name. They use 
 military power, social power, financial power, eloquence, 
 learning, boundless impudence, blackguardism— every- 
 thing— to hold what they have; and they fight— fight like 
 tigers and tire not; and sometimes they almost convince 
 you. For instance, there's nothing more absurd or unfair 
 or economically unreligious than the continuance of the 
 Established Church in Wales, where by far the larger 
 part of the people are Nonconformists, who are now 
 forced to support their own churches and the Established 
 Church as well. But the other evening I dined with the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury; and when after dinner \\<> 
 went into the Lambeth Palace chapel for prayers (where 
 the Archbishop's family has gone every night for TOO 
 years), and a bishop of some diocese in Wales was telling 
 me of the bishops that had been consecrated in that 
 chapel all these centuries and had gone to the ends of the 
 world, and he spoke of Laud and his execution as if Laud 
 had been a personal friend of his — then, when in these 
 surroundings, curtained off from the world of living men 
 and women, he spoke with shame and grief and horror of 
 the wicked effort to disestablish "God's Holy Church" 
 in Wales and thus strike the first blow toward even the de- 
 thronement of His Most Gracious Majesty himself— I 
 swear he almost persuaded me to be a Tory. When the 
 appeal is made in the name of English history and of your 
 vision of this conquering race sending its soldiers and 
 sailors and bishops and adventurers to blaze ways for 
 civilization on all seas and continents, it was that sort of 
 an appeal that almost persuaded me to be a Tory — till I 
 got out in the open air and drove over the bridge to West- 
 minster Hall, where at 11:30 at night, the political 
 
40 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 partners of the Bishops were hectoring and insulting the 
 Government in a way that ought to have put the Tower 
 in commission again. They use this historic appeal — 
 they use everything — to cling to their privileges, some- 
 times you think with all sincerity. They are English 
 history ; they are England ; ihey are the Empire ; and they 
 point to all the strength and glory of the past to prove it 
 — for all the world exactly as our own tariff nabobs used 
 to point to every good thing in our land as of their bringing 
 and as Wall Street used to prove that the prosperity of 
 Yuba Dam in Arizona was of Wall Street's creation. Very 
 many of the evils of tins Old World come from the holding 
 of all these special privileges : that seems to me an incon- 
 trovertible economic fact. And the genius of the race is 
 showing itself in this steady struggle to abolish them 
 gradually. But the struggle suffers from the oratorical 
 temperament and the habit of inaccuracy of the chief 
 agitator — curiously parallel to a chapter in our own his- 
 tory! 
 
 In our country, however, there is nothing noble or 
 convincing in the beneficiaries of privilege : as a rule they 
 are mere sponges with no more moral quality than sponges. 
 Here they are in many respects the finest flower of British 
 civilization. Physically they are remarkable. The noble 
 families of this Kingdom have practised eugenics pretty 
 well for centuries. Now and then there's a dirty duke 
 (I know one who is the biggest liar in England); now 
 and then a noble lord marries a rotter or gambles away 
 his ancestral portraits. But, after all, they are few. 
 The race isn't degenerating. I imagine that the noblemen 
 of this generation on this island include more first-class 
 men than those of any preceding generation. The error 
 they make is to conclude that they owe their vitality to 
 their special privileges. If you look at the House of 
 
John Morley (1838-1923) the Rt. Hon. Viscount Morley 
 of Blackburn, O. M. 
 
The Rt. Hon. Viscount Bryce, O. M., (1838-1922) British 
 Ambassador to the United States, 1907 1913 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 41 
 
 Commons, the Opposition benches show more men of 
 ability, of good mettle, of individual power than the 
 government benches. They have every advantage except 
 economic righteousness. They are fine old cocks in the 
 House of Lords, too— with the same reservation. The 
 idea, more or less popular in the United States, that they 
 are playing out, is wholly wrong. What the future has in 
 store is something like this— with the gradual conquest 
 of liberal ideas over privilege, they gradually move for- 
 ward — many younger sons move forward very fast, and 
 they'll remain the rulers of the world till we accumulate 
 money enough to take our turn at the wheel. There 
 isn't going to be any such New Zealander as Macaulay 
 predicted, and London Bridge will be open to traffic, I 
 imagine, when Gabriel blows his trumpet. Good family 
 stocks, kept good through centuries — that's the trick that 
 has made English history. 
 
 . . . If you detect any note of sadness in this letter, 
 you must not forget that we are in mourning for the 
 Dowager Empress of Japan, following close upon our 
 recent grief over the death of some Swedish royal person. 
 These events make a strong pull on our emotions and on- 
 my purse! My daughter fervently prays for the complete 
 recovery of the Emperor of Austria. ' For Dad," says she, 
 "that'll mean more black dresses for both Mother and 
 me." In spite of our grief I cannot help smiling at the 
 way in which the news of our sorrow would be received in 
 the rural parts of North Carolina, where our simple lives 
 are known, and at the possible comment in the journalistic 
 mouthpiece of our good friend of the Navy, who is so 
 temperate in all things that excessive grief might seem a 
 trifle forced! 
 
 But there are worlds within worlds that we never dream 
 of. I had a dinner arranged to the German Ambassador, 
 
42 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the cock-sure princeling who says to me every time I see 
 him, "But you must do someding in Mexico," when the 
 King came along and "commanded" us to attend the 
 state ball on that evening in honour of the King and 
 Queen of Denmark. My dinner — postponed and half 
 broken up. And now the Duke of Argyll seems likely to 
 die; and the King's Master of the Ceremonies, who called 
 an hour ago, informs me that his death, if it occur, will 
 knock out both the King's ball and my dinner for good, 
 seeing that the Duchess is the King's aunt. The Duke is 
 quite a man and his death will cause very genuine sorrow. 1 
 
 In spite of all these mournful interruptions, I have to 
 continue all the other parts of the game — at Stratford 
 last week, for instance, by replying to the toast "to the 
 immortal memory of Shakespeare " on the poet's birthday; 
 and I led the procession of (I suppose) 10,000 persons, 
 from all the world, to the grave, on which every one of us 
 placed flowers — tons of them; and on the plaza in the 
 village I unfurled the stars and stripes — all which may be 
 duly witnessed daily this week in a moving picture show 
 in London, admission sixpence, children fourpence. In 
 my speech I said bluntly that Shakespeare was the great- 
 est poet of all the world — this Englishman — in the hope 
 that Chamberlain 2 might see it and ask in the Senate, 
 "What's the matter with N. P. Willis? " But it seems to 
 have escaped him, in spite of the promise of the Hearst 
 correspondents to telegraph that paragraph to their 
 papers. A very pretty and impressive thing, this annual 
 Shakespeare celebration. 
 
 Uohn Douglas Sutherland Campbell, ninth Duke of Argyll, who married 
 Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, died May 3, 1914. 
 
 2 Senator George E. Chamberlain, of Oregon, had been particularly active in his 
 criticisms of Page as a "truckler" to Great Britain. N. P. Willis, it may be neces- 
 sary to explain, was one of the prominent figures in American literature for the 
 first half of the 19th Century. His travel sketches were not without their charm, 
 and his Biblical poems still have some vogue. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 43 
 
 1 hope that Laughlin 1 has gone over with you every- 
 thing (if there be any especial thing) that you wish to 
 know about here. I am sure that both he and Mrs. 
 Laughlin will prove frank and veracious reporters. 
 
 And, most pleasant of all, we are looking forward with 
 keen anticipations to the coming of McAdoo and his 
 bride, tho' we have not yet heard the date of their ex- 
 pected arrival in England. If they come at the right 
 time, we shall, of course, take them to Court — which 
 Jessie and Frank missed by being married at the wrong 
 time of the vear. 
 
 Forgive so long a letter that contains so little that is 
 worth while. 
 
 Yours always heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 ii 
 
 Page's remarks on Shakespeare were a more serious 
 matter than his bantering reference would indicate. The 
 grace and substance of his appraisement made a deep 
 impression on his audience as it did in all parts of the 
 British Isles when published afterward as a special pam- 
 phlet. The value of Shakespeare as a link between the 
 American and English peoples was one of Page's favourite 
 topics. The fact that the Ambassador's ancestors, and 
 the ancestors of practically all Americans of British stock, 
 were living in England when Shakespeare did his greatest 
 writing, inevitably made the poet as much an American 
 as an English inheritance. Afterward Page took an 
 important part in one of the most touching occasions of 
 the war; on April 23, 1918, the anniversary of Shake- 
 speare's birth — this anniversary representing one of the 
 
 J Mr. Irwin Laughlin, Secretary of the American Embassy in London, was at 
 that time in the United States. 
 
44 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 darkest days of the conflict — the school children of Amer- 
 ica and England joined in a common celebration, exchang- 
 ing messages which were read in the schoolhouses of the 
 two countries. The great importance Page attached to 
 the usefulness of Shakespeare as a spiritual link between 
 America and Britain was shown by the fact that almost 
 the last letter he wrote in England — dated September 
 23, 1918 — was addressed to Professor Israel Gollancz, 
 of the University of London, who was especially interested 
 in this aspect of Shakespeare's fame. Page's speech at 
 Stratford is worth while also as an expression of an atti- 
 tude toward literature which he had held from youth. 
 He always insisted that great literature, first of all, must 
 have the quality of sanity and healthy-mindedness. 
 
 'In the course of his intellectual development," Page 
 said, "every man of independent spirit comes into a state 
 of mind which compels him to say to himself: ' So far I 
 have followed authority and I have shaped my opinions 
 by the opinions of others. Now I must form judgments 
 of my own.' Very soon in this progress he must ask: 
 'What is Shakespeare to me?' 
 
 'Then he reads the dramas from a new point of view. 
 The scholars and the historians of literature and the com- 
 mentators are forgotten except as they have become parts 
 of his unconscious thought ; the schoolmen are put out of 
 doors ; and the mood of merely literary study is laid aside. 
 Such a man is now in search of life and of his own proper 
 measure. That is a proud day for any man to reach; 
 for he sets out on the most interesting journey of discovery 
 that a man can take — the discovery of himself. He will 
 presently find out whether his mental tastes be normal, 
 his attitude to his fellows tolerant and rational, and 
 whether he have a good intellectual grip and wind. 
 
 " It is in this way that every man who ever really prof- 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 45 
 
 its by the great dramatist at last approaches him; and, 
 if he thus approach him, he finds the whole world of action 
 and emotion mirrored in these plays and all varieties of 
 human experience. Especially does he find all his own 
 moods and potentialities, his own dangers, audacities, 
 escapes, failures, and triumphs. Any such man could 
 write his own innermost autobiography in moods and in 
 passages from Shakespeare. For the poet is as fresh and 
 human in his boundless, cloudless human view as if 
 he had written only for your own particular instruction 
 and revelation of yourself. 
 
 "It is this quality that sets him in a class by himself. 
 His subject-matter is unchanging. It is fairly startling 
 to think that nothing has happened these three centuries 
 that has made a single character in these plays stale. 
 Most governments have changed. Great populations 
 have grown up on continents that were wastes; science 
 has applied itself to many practical revolutions and it has 
 infinitely widened men's vision. Systems of philosophy 
 have come and gone; thinking men have completely 
 readjusted themselves to the universe and to one another. 
 None of these great events, which have changed almost 
 everything else, has changed the infinite variety or staled 
 the charm of these stories of human action and emotion. 
 Nor has any other man ever used so prodigious or far- 
 reaching a vocabulary or forged so many phrases of im- 
 mortal finality. 
 
 "By the joy we get out of Shakespeare, then, we may 
 measure ourselves accurately. Have you morbid moods? 
 They cannot survive your communion with his vast, 
 healthful mind, and your relation to life will swing back 
 to sanity and cheerfulness by his help. Have you a taste 
 for degeneracy in literature? He will not please you till 
 he cure you. Then you will be well again, in fact. There 
 
46 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 is no other measure so good of our intellectual health 
 and balance and toleration as the degree to which we 
 enjoy this master's great craftsmanship. 
 
 "Mr. Gollancz has reminded us that, for these reasons, 
 there is more nearly a unanimity of opinion and feeling 
 among all nations about Shakespeare's dramas than 
 about anything else in the world ; and more nearly all the 
 world will unite in celebrating the three hundredth anni- 
 versary of his death than would unite in celebrating any- 
 thing else. No other literature makes so wide an appeal. 
 No religion or philosophy or social or economic or poli- 
 tical creed and no hero commands such unhesitating 
 admiration of men of all nations and all races. The 
 educated class in all languages know him; and in all 
 English- and German-speaking lands he is a part of the 
 common speech of all men, learned and unlearned. No 
 other writer has so broken over the barriers of language 
 and race and nationality and philosophy and religion as 
 this most nearly universal of all the sons of men. 
 
 "But it would be mere pendantry even for a scholar to 
 undertake to appraise Shakespeare, and for a layman it 
 would be an impertinence. Yet every man has the 
 privilege of enjoying him and of paying him the tribute 
 of a boundless gratitude. It is with a boundless gratitude 
 that, as the spokesman of the largest community of the 
 English-speaking world, I ask you to fill your glasses 
 — you who bring the homage of so many great nations — ■ 
 and, in this village and on this day, both made sacred 
 by his birth and by his death, drink to the Immortal 
 Memory of William Shakespeare." 
 
 Soon after Page returned from Stratford the London 
 "season" began in earnest. Its social activities furnished 
 more opportunities for this transplanted Jeffersonian. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMESES 17 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy London, 
 
 ™ r, May 21, 1914. 
 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 At this season, as you know, everybody comes to 
 London; the King gives his levees and his courts and his 
 balls and the rich and the high and the climbing exercise 
 on the social ladder and trapeze ; the ambassadors dine one 
 another and other great folk; American ladies come over 
 to be presented; hundreds of people drink Mrs. Page's 
 tea every Thursday afternoon (on July 4th they come 
 3,000 strong) and we are supposed to have lots of fun; and 
 the funny part of it is, we do! I hear more gossip, get 
 more points of view, see more people, get closer to my 
 colleagues than at any other time of year. I dine with 
 everybody, from the King down— this whole Babylon 
 goes on a tear! Mrs. House and Mrs. Hugh Wallace, 
 for examples, forgetting republican simplicity, will be 
 here to go with us to the Palace. Seriously, it's a fine 
 show — to see once or twice. I am very, very sorry that 
 McAdoo couldn't come. I had a place for your daughter 
 in "the diplomatic circle," and she would have enjoyed 
 it. I told Jessie 1 that she made a bad mistake in marrying 
 at the wrong time of year ! I let the oldish ladies go hang : 
 I like young ones about me. 
 
 Old cocks like Bryce and Morley go about in gaudy 
 uniforms. I said to Lord Bryce the other night as I 
 surveyed his elaborate gold lace: "You're fine enough to 
 take an LL.D. from the University of Nevada." He 
 told me that Oxford is about to give him a D.Litt. I 
 didn't tell him that on the same occasion Oxford is to give 
 me a D. C. L! (Everybody gets gay, you see.) But 
 
 'Mrs. Francis Bowe Sayre, the President's recently married daughter. 
 
48 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the old fellow did say something really worth while when 
 he took luncheon with me yesterday: 
 
 "I want to say to you — I don't think I've ever said so 
 to you— Wilson did a most brave thing most eloquently 
 and moved up the standard of international courage when 
 he asked for the repeal of the Panama tolls clause. That 
 was noble." 
 
 And, after a pause— "What an escape we all had from 
 that unspeakable man, Clark." 1 
 
 "You mean from T. R.," I said: "Clark could never 
 have been elected." 
 
 And now we go back into mourning for the Duke of 
 Argyll — mourning that was intermitted for five days 
 during the Danish festivities. We mourn and riot by 
 court order; and, if Champ Clark knew this, you wouldn't 
 blame him for thinking that Ambassadors had better be 
 abolished. 
 
 Yet, in spite of our "seasonable" gaiety, I do assure 
 you (and it never leaves me) that there's a sadness in this 
 Old-World life that in certain moods weighs heavily on a 
 man who has been bred to a hopeful outlook on the 
 future, and on a sympathetic man whatever his outlook. 
 I have given you glimpses of what the aristocratic 
 dowagers tell me: you'd expect this from old women of 
 pampered families. But it tinges all English life. The 
 Dowager Lady T. sat in a garden where I was spending 
 Sunday twenty miles out of London — she's a vigorous, 
 handsome, perfectly sincere fine lady of sixty, younger 
 than many women at forty — and she said: 
 
 "What would you do and what would you wish your 
 son to do if you were me? My husband's family has had 
 a seat in the House of Lords for 600 years. My son 
 
 'Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House and Mr. Wilson's most formidable 
 competitor for the Democratic nomination in 1912. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 49 
 
 sits there now — literally 'sits,' for a peer can now do 
 nothing else. All their power has been taken away. 
 They are robbing us of our property. When they 
 can they will abolish the monarchy itself. The King 
 knows that his house is doomed. England and the Em- 
 pire of which we have been so proud — their glory is in the 
 past." Tears came into the old lady's eyes and she said, 
 
 " Let's walk and talk of something else." 
 
 The Duchess of S. told me last night again that if there 
 should be a fight in Ulster she was ready in three hours to 
 have nurses on the way and that the Duke would at once 
 go and fight. (He's six feet four inches.) 
 
 "They are robbing us, these devils," and her great 
 diamond necklace seemed to spit fire. 
 
 The Liberals, too, are sad. A real victory is so hard to 
 win. Sir Edward Grey carries a philosophic sadness in 
 his manner. The Prime Minister talks like a man who 
 would be glad to be relieved of the whole struggle and 
 to get a little rest before he dies. Donald, 1 the editor of the 
 really only Liberal morning paper in London, complains 
 to me : "We can't get the fighting help we need. If a man 
 puts up money for any of our causes, damn him, he wants 
 a title in return." A member of Parliament brought in 
 a bill the other day to abolish hereditary titles— amid 
 general laughter: and a Conservative twitted him thus: 
 "You're tired of making Liberal peers and have them 
 become Conservative — eh?" 
 
 They're all sad— both sides. The machine that confers 
 titles, gives social distinctions, confers orders, gives out 
 sinecures, appoints men to livings and doles out many 
 other such alms and uniforms, captures the ambitious 
 women and the rich men; and the poor devil who can get 
 none of these things pays the bill. If he knows that he is 
 
 Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle. 
 
50 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 "worked," he can hardly hope for relief in his lifetime, 
 and he goes sadly on, doing the best he can and drinking 
 the King's health as an expression of pride in the Empire. 
 Yet they are all a vigorous race. Else they'd be in real 
 despair permanently. The mills of the gods and of Lloyd 
 George grind slowly. 
 
 Yet all this sadness is hilarity in comparison with the 
 note of weary resignation that I think I detect in such 
 men as the very cultivated Greek Minister, 1 the Rumanian 
 Minister, 2 the Austrian Ambassador, 3 and especially the 
 foxy but melancholy old Benckendorff of Russia. They, 
 I think, having got some glimpses of the free world, carry 
 with them a real hopelessness. But even this English 
 life would depress me if I had to adjust myself to it per- 
 manently. 
 
 I was talking about this the other night to Lady X. I 
 said frankly that I thought the Englishmen ought to leave 
 our American ladies alone— we need them ourselves! 
 
 "And what nationality do you suppose I am?" she 
 
 asked. 
 
 "Great Heavens! are you, too, an American?" 
 
 "Certainly. 
 
 "And you wouldn't have your children marry here?" 
 
 she asked. 
 
 I told her, "No," because of the underlying sadness of 
 it. The wife of the Argentine Minister (herself from 
 Kentucky!) said to me afterward, "You are very, very 
 right: all the sunlight falls on the New World." 
 
 It is weighted— heavily, all this Old World. 
 
 "Do you look at us through economic glasses?" asked 
 Lord Milner. 
 
 1 M. Jean Gennadius. 
 2 M. Nicolas Misu. 
 3 Count Albert Mensdorff. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 51 
 
 "I do and — am sad." 
 
 "Well, you may be," said he. "My friend, keep your 
 hopeful mood and pray that your country may never get 
 old — as it will." 
 
 Heaven forgive me (and I hope you will, too) for so long 
 a letter. But 'tis true, the sunlight falls on our New 
 World. Here we are very gay but— in the shadow. 
 
 Always faithfully yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To Hie President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 9 June, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Just now it has been Their Majesties' 
 Courts," two of them on two successive evenings. Since 
 this is the last such splendid mediaeval thing left in the 
 world, it has an historical interest in addition to being a 
 first-class show; and I'm glad to find myself young and 
 simple enough really to enjoy it. It's the crowning act of 
 the royal social system — most admirably staged and man- 
 aged. You walk a mile along halls and across picture 
 galleries and drawing rooms and through the throne 
 room till you come to your waiting place, the diplomatic 
 corps in one room and the common herd (of hundreds 
 of ladies) in another, passing on your way gaudy pike- 
 men of pre-Elizabethan England by every door and 
 stairway, and greeted by gentlemen-and-ladies-in- 
 waiting at every turn — beautiful women and inexpressibly 
 gaudy men in white silk stockings and breeches and gold- 
 laced coats. The King and Queen are so punctual that 
 you might set your watch by them. The Lancers and the 
 Indian bodyguard take their places in front; at exactly 
 
 <t 
 
52 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 9:30 you hear the fanfare, the orchestra plays "God Save 
 the King," and their royalties enter, the gold-stick, 
 the silver-stick, and the rest backing before them. A 
 dozen of the royal family follow, all taking their places 
 on the raised dais, a gold-embroidered and gold-fringed 
 rug on it, and the great canopy over them that was 
 brought from the Durbar. When all the attendants 
 have taken their places, the ladies of the diplomatic corps 
 go in, one by one, the ambassadorial ladies first. The 
 mediaeval attendants straighten out their trains, and 
 with feathers in their hair, — the North American Indians 
 wore Eagle feathers, these ladies, ostrich feathers, allee 
 samee at the bottom! — they march in, in due order, of 
 course, according to the period of their service. 
 
 It made no matter last night that Mrs. Page and the 
 German ambassadress were discussing the proper bringing- 
 up of babies. When the bugles sounded they had to fall 
 into fine and to sit with the Spanish ambassadress between 
 them to the postponement of baby-lore. Each curtseys 
 to the King, then to the Queen, and goes to her proper 
 place. Then follow the Ambassadors, each with a secre- 
 tary (once a year with his full staff), each bows to the 
 King and to the Queen and marches to his place. The 
 diplomatic corps all in, their royalties sit and the great 
 ladies all sit — the diplomatic ladies on one side the throne 
 in rows according to rank and the duchesses on the other 
 side. All the men and the ladies of no high rank stand 
 for two mortal hours while the stream of presentees flows 
 by — in trains and with feathers and jewels, every one 
 making her obeisance. The King and the Queen nod — 
 that's all. But everyone has been admitted to the royal 
 presence; that's the game, you see, and when you've 
 done that you've won — won over the 38,000,000 other 
 persons who are not on that evening so admitted. The 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 53 
 
 orchestra plays softly. The uniforms and the jewels 
 make any opera-scene pale into sheer make-believe; the 
 tiaras and the coronets sparkle everywhere, and the "cre- 
 ations" of all the great frock-makers flow along— "The 
 liquefaction of her clothes." The Ambassadors, all 
 gaudier than gold and colours ever before made men— 
 all but me in my distinguished waiter-black— stand a 
 little to the left of the throne and carry on whispered 
 conversations with one another and the gentlemen-in- 
 attendance and the princes. The long procession goes 
 on for nearly two hours. Meantime you can pick up 
 a lot of knowledge that, but for this experience, you would 
 have died without gaining. For instance, no two women 
 curtsey alike, and most of them do it very badly. And 
 you couldn't ever know how many pounds of silver and 
 gold and pearls and diamonds a woman can carry till you 
 have seen these. Now and then one trips. Now and 
 then the lady behind steps on the train of the one before 
 her — three and a half yards long, you know. 
 
 The music and the procession continue. Meantime the 
 ladies in the diplomatic corps who were born Americans 
 — she of Holland, she of the Argentine, and of the King's 
 attendants, the wife of the Master-of-the-Horse and sev- 
 eral others, have all managed to whisper to me their pride 
 in "our compatriots." The Spanish Ambassador keeps 
 reminding me that I must point out the American ladies 
 to him as they pass. Old John Burns 1 stands just across 
 the way in more gilt than any but a strong working man 
 could carry. The American wife of a member of the 
 Cabinet and two American duchesses have as glaring 
 coronets as anybody. 
 
 And the procession goes on. The Master-of-the-Horse 
 
 x Labour member for Battersea, 1892-1918; President of the Local Government 
 Board, 1905-1914; President of the Board of Trade, 1914. 
 
54 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 wants to make a wager with me that the American polo 
 team will beat the English. That's too much for the 
 Queen's brother, who overhears him, and I egg them on 
 to bet with one another. A retired soldier — about eighty- 
 five — who is Master-of-Something, being stiff in one knee 
 himself, calls my attention to an old lady in the line who 
 can't curtsey, evidently because she has a cork leg. Pres- 
 ently a comely woman in the line kneels before the King 
 and with outstretched hands begins her suffragette plea: 
 
 "Your Majesty, for God's sake " She got no further 
 
 for two of the gentlemen-in-waiting grasped her, one on 
 either side, and marched her out. The King gave no sign 
 of even having seen her, but the Queen became very red. 
 But the procession moved on without interruption. There 
 were people in the room who didn't know that anything 
 had happened. This show is perhaps the best managed, 
 best mannered show in the whole world. 
 
 The Master of Ceremonies asks me to take out to supper 
 the handsome Belgian countess who presides over the 
 Belgian Legation ; and about this time the last lady in the 
 line comes along. The orchestra God-Saves-the-King 
 again; the King takes the Queen's hand and the pages 
 take her train, and the gold-stick and the silver-stick 
 back off; their Majesties bow to the Ambassadors and the 
 ambassadorial ladies, the Queen curtseying, then to the 
 duchesses, then to the Ministers ; we all bow back. Every 
 other royal person follows their example ; and thus, after 
 we have all limbered up ourselves with much bowing we 
 ourselves proceed to the stand-up diplomatic supper room, 
 in due order, of course. Her Belgian Excellency's train 
 caught on the bench and for half a minute the whole com- 
 pany stood in respectful immobility till we passed along in 
 our proper order — along half a mile (so it always seems) 
 of gazing ladies who all wait till we have gone by. Then 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 55 
 
 near the supper-room door are the gentlemen-and-ladies- 
 in-waiting, who again bow to us. We do not see the royal 
 folk again — except at a ball. Then they come into supper 
 with us and go around and talk. I look across the room 
 and see Mrs. Page with the old Turk I 1 Neither commands 
 a language that the other speaks, and here's a comedy 
 to make a dog laugh. But they've been through this 
 before. The wily old Moslem is not easily outdone. 
 They both talk at once in any scrap of any language 
 they happen to hit on and they each laugh at the other 
 and have a good time. 
 
 " I'm getting really fond of old Tewfik," Mrs. Page says; 
 and old Tewfik says to me that she's — I think he says- 
 "very gracious," for one word's French and the other 
 Tartar, so far as I know. 
 
 Thus it goes in this polyglot, international lottery. 
 Meantime we are eating the King's sandwiches or quail 
 or peaches or what-not and (if you wish to) drinking his 
 champagne (not being in the United States Navy). And 
 it's a pretty interesting company that lingers there — men 
 and women from all the earth and members of the Govern- 
 ment and army men and navy men. The new Governor 
 of South Africa wants us to spend Sunday with him before 
 he sails; the Norwegian Minister hopes we'll come to his 
 daughter's wedding; the Cuban Minister bows low and 
 swears his island is doing finely ; the Chinese Minister has a 
 compliment for my speech on Shakespeare ! The German 
 Ambassador says, "You're just putting off the efil day 
 in Mexico." 
 
 "Well," say I, "what better can you do with an evil day 
 than to put it off?" 
 
 Then he delivers to me that elementary barbarity of 
 the survival of the fittest. The Earl of X. apologizes for 
 
 H^ewiik Pasha, Turkish Ambassador to Great Britain. 
 
56 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the clerk who put my party at the Derby race in the 
 wrong box — I wouldn't give a fig for any horse-race ever 
 run (one horse can run faster than another: everybody 
 knows that, and I don't care at all which is the faster) — 
 but I use my privilege of a box to send a lot of Americans 
 who come here just to see it. An American's horse, you 
 know, won the race this year, and American stock went 
 up. Well, I forgive the Earl and tell him how I enjoyed 
 his great ball whither I went with my daughter and took 
 the dowager Duchess of X. down to supper and wept over 
 the decline of the British Empire — till we forgot it in our 
 mutual detestation of the tango. It's sometimes amazing 
 how your emotions run the whole scale in one short half- 
 hour. I encounter another maid-of-honour, but Mrs. 
 Page says it's time to go home. As I walk down the long 
 picture gallery I encounter an American woman who 
 brought a fortune here and married a high title, and she 
 tells me confidentially that she's trying to marry the 
 rich American girl that we see in front of us to the young 
 
 Duke of . I venture to advise her to let the young 
 
 lady alone : she can find a husband for herself. 
 
 "My dear compatriot," she says to me, "it is delicious 
 to see how touchingly simple you yet are." 
 
 That "yet" rather got my tag, as the old hussy meant 
 it should. Further down the hall I bow to one of the 
 American duchesses — the Americans are everywhere, 
 Americans of all sorts, from twenty-four karat to tinsel; 
 and when I reach the door the Mexican Minister is getting 
 in his car. The red-coated door-man yells, "The Ameri- 
 can Ambassador," and presently we are driving home. 
 
 My son, who is a North Carolina farmer, having for one 
 night exchanged his ploughman's corduroy for dark green 
 velvet and hose and silver-buckled slippers, draws a long 
 breath as we pass out the palace gate at midnight and 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 57 
 
 breaks forth: "Mother, it comes high on Daddy, but 
 that show's worth all it costs!" 
 
 And next week a court ball! Royalty, ambassadors 
 and their wives, and persons as low down as dukes are 
 permitted to dance in the royal quadrille. That done. 
 anybody can dance, except when the Queen takes a spin 
 or two. Everybody stops when she dances. Well, we 
 dance and talk and look on and mix up in good country 
 fashion till supper-time. House — solemn House — will 
 have none of this; but I'm going to take Mrs. House, to 
 her keen enjoyment. The very next morning I put on my 
 dress suit, eat breakfast, and go to St. James's to a levee, 
 where the King receives gentlemen only. I shake hands 
 with him and stand near by, my opera hat under my arm 
 while to the music of the Coldstream band about si\ 
 hundred and thirty-seven gentlemen are introduced, 
 each bowing and passing along — dukes, earls, viscounts, 
 baronets, bishops, judges with big wigs, generals, admirals, 
 lower officers, rajahs, colonials come for the purpose from 
 New Zealand or Canada or the Soudan — every man in a 
 uniform or a gown or a blue-velvet suit and a tin sword, 
 every one, too, with his hat or cap in his hand. Some- 
 times a lame old soldier or a bishop loses his way and 
 whirls about till he bumps into me. A lord-in-waiting 
 pulls him off and begs my pardon and hopes that I am 
 not hurt. The King smiles, and nods to the next-comer. 
 And so that show goes. Again we are bowed to and 
 bow r , and find our way out, discussing the fate of Albania 
 on our way. As each man-jack of us gets in his car he 
 bids an effusive good-bye to those that are waiting for 
 their slower chauffeurs. The King drives back to Buck- 
 ingham Palace in his gilt carriage-and-four attended by 
 a helmeted troop of cavalry. 
 
 Do you know that all tins is an amazingly interesting 
 
58 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 study — how far it is all done consciously, as a method of 
 drawing fresh recruits to the royal-aristocratic point-of- 
 view — how far it is consciously staged and managed so as 
 to appeal to the national and historical imagination? 
 Of course, if the Liberal programme is ever carried out — 
 as, of course, it will be in time — there will come a day when 
 royalty will appear superfluous. If in the meantime 
 royalty links itself to all the splendour of English history 
 and continues its spectacular appeal to every woman 
 of social ambition, the evil day may be postponed — 
 especially for royalty that lead decent lives, as these do. 
 Lloyd George and John Burns go to Court. Practically 
 every woman in the Kingdom wants to be "presented." 
 Most men want titles. I heard a good story the other 
 day: a man who has Conservative leanings but is not a 
 violent partisan offered to give $150,000 to the Committee 
 on the Hundred Years' Peace 1 if the man on the Com- 
 mittee whom he approached would induce the Govern- 
 ment to give him a title. Objection was made to his 
 Conservative leaning. "Well, " said he, " I've looked into 
 that. I can never hope for anything from my own party 
 — I'll not live long enough. They already have promised 
 as many titles as they can give for five years after they 
 come into power again." 
 
 There's no organization ever devised by man for its own 
 perpetuity so admirably unless it be the Roman Church. 
 The King works hard for more than half the year — 
 amazingly hard; he leads a regular life. He grinds away 
 at his job with an appearance of toil. The Conservatives 
 openly accuse the Liberals of such an ultimate purpose 
 as the abolition of royalty. Everybody agrees that an 
 indiscreet or openly dissolute King would come to grief. 
 
 x The proposed plan — rudely interrupted by the World War — to celebrate the 
 century of peace between Great Britain and the United States. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 59 
 
 The Bishops know that the State Church will one day 
 pass. Hence they fight like tigers to keep it in Wales. 
 But all these things yet rest on a pretty solid foundation, 
 so long as everything goes well — namely the vanity of 
 women and the haughtiness of privileged men. It's a 
 most interesting game. And isn't it funny that I must 
 now end this letter in order to go and put on my knee- 
 breeches for the Court Ball at Buckingham Palace to- 
 night? 
 
 Yours most heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 For the President 
 
 American Embassy, 
 
 London. 
 
 Notes on the English Bevolution 
 
 . . . At dinner to-night (only Conservative guests 
 besides Mrs. Page and me) I sat next the Countess of 
 
 H , a good-natured, cultivated woman who has seen 
 
 much of the world. 
 
 I've dropped all my friends in that crew," 1 she said. 
 Not one would I invite to my house." 
 
 Even the King dallies with the democracy," said a 
 noble lord to me the other day, "instead of standing 
 erect and using his prerogative and vetoing the Home 
 Rule bill when it is passed. His Peers stand by him and 
 he ought to stand by them." If he were to dare veto 
 the bill, from all that I hear, that would be the beginning 
 of the end. 
 
 The ferocity of this contest passes belief. The priv- 
 ileged classes know that they are fighting for their lives 
 
 'Meaning members of the Liberal Government. 
 
 «< 
 
 << 
 « 
 
60 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 and they are scornful and desperate to the last de- 
 gree. 
 
 This same Countess of H said, "We've soon got to 
 
 have a general election, you know." 
 
 "Well," said I, "suppose the Liberals carry the elec- 
 tion?" 
 
 "God would not so punish our great Empire," shouted 
 the Marquis across the table; "do you think He would?" 
 
 They tallied of the pride they had all felt in the Empire 
 and bewailed its discrediting in the world and its poor 
 plight if this thing goes on. Old Lord Halsbury, the great 
 law-Lord (aged 88), said to me the other day, "When 
 you release a dull, heavy body down a steep incline, 
 nothing can stop it till it reach the bottom. His Majesty 
 himself will be abolished if this thing keeps on." 
 
 On the other side there is the same determined spirit. 
 Lloyd George insults them nearly every day. The Prime 
 Minister, now in sore straits, means and sees revolution — 
 peaceful, of course, but progressive; and in private con- 
 versation talks with great frankness. These are the two 
 most popular men in the kingdom. It is war — so far 
 without bloodshed, but they shed everything else! Of 
 course, it's folly to make predictions, but this much seems 
 clear: they ever come nearer to the American point of 
 view. If this kingdom ever become a Republic, of course 
 ours will remain the foremost Republic in the world. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 In June Congress passed the Panama Canal bill repeal- 
 ing the clause exempting American coastwise shipping 
 from the payment of tolls. This reversal of national 
 policy was a great triumph for President Wilson and for 
 Page, who had been advocating it for months purely as a 
 question of national honour. Congress, however, added 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 61 
 
 an amendment to the new bill that for a brief period caused 
 much dismay. In this amendment the announcement 
 was made that the United States did not relinquish its 
 rights to exempt American ships from the payment of 
 tolls. President Wilson had contended that, because of 
 existing treaties with Great Britain, we possessed no such 
 right. The amendment, therefore, clearly asserting such 
 a right, and repealing the exemption rather as an act 
 of grace, produced an unfortunate impression in England. 
 This amendment seemed to contain an intimation or 
 even a threat, that at some future time the unpopular 
 measure might be restored to the statute book. Page, 
 however, took the view that it was not practically im- 
 portant. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 5 July, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I'm sometimes driven almost to despair of the news- 
 papers, even of those that we think of as the most careful. 
 For instance, here comes this great triumph of the repeal 
 of the offensive Panama tolls discrimination, which, so 
 far as I know, is an unparalleled achievement — to make 
 a big legislative body reverse itself. That perfectly 
 meaningless, asinine amendment receives a degree of 
 attention in the Washington dispatches to the London 
 papers that is discouraging. They pretend that it some- 
 how weakens the repeal and that it shows (somehow, 
 God knows how) that the President's power is weakening. 
 It seems to me to be the very strongest evidence of the 
 President's personal power, and incidentally it filled the 
 floors of the Capitol with corpses: Clark— he's as dead 
 as Hector. And consider the mortality in the Senate! 
 
62 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 The enemies of the President and the professional en- 
 emies of Great Britain all ranged themselves bravely 
 and — fell. Yet they call it a grudging victory. 
 
 Well, I drove down to Northcliffe's country house to- 
 day (he owns the Times, the Daily Mail, etc., etc., etc.) ; 
 and after I had admired Lady Northcliffe's seven gardens 
 and we had finished luncheon, I took Northcliffe off into 
 his library. I pictured this drawn battle to him and 
 pointed out the slaughter and reminded him that nobody 
 before had ever dared all these anti-British influences to 
 assemble themselves and have it out, and I showed him the 
 dead on the field. 
 
 "In God's name, Northcliffe, if this isn't victory, what 
 would your Washington correspondent call a victory? 
 Tell me frankly, what's the matter?" 
 
 He didn't know, really hadn't noticed it, would look it 
 up, etc. Queer lot, these fellows. Yet they do see the 
 victory; they are impressed; they are grateful; they do 
 admire you — all in their slow, dumb way, but they stick 
 at that amendment. Why was it put there if it means 
 nothing? They constantly do precisely such tricks in 
 Parliament; but when somebody else does such a 
 trick, they suspect some nigger in the woodpile. But 
 this will pass 1 — will probably be buried in next week's 
 Speclator. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey (I think I wrote you) said some time 
 ago that he had it in mind to make an important speech 
 in the House of Commons, when the repeal had passed 
 the Senate, on "How Great Governments Should Behave 
 to One Another," using this repeal as his text. I'll see 
 him to-morrow and I'll say to him: "Isn't it time we were 
 getting our big speech ready?" Alas! it's a sad day 
 in Parliament for anything but Ireland and Ulster and the 
 
 1 In fact, it is already passed. (W. H. P.'s note.) 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 63 
 
 militant suffragettes. It's a dog-fight from day to day, 
 with only grimness to commend it. It was once interest- 
 ing: it's now only gloomy and tiresome. I dined with the 
 Prime Minister a few nights ago and I brought away 
 from a long talk with him the feeling that he doesn't 
 know what a week or a month may bring forth. Nor did 
 Mrs. Asquith illumine the situation greatly when she 
 whispered to me: "We have too many damned fools"— 
 a perfectly safe if not a perfectly ladylike generalization. 
 If there's a street brawl in Belfast, they'll call it civil 
 war and the whole world will be shocked— Germans 
 shocked with joy. And, of course, that may happen an\ 
 day. Hence they think less of tolls and Mexico than 
 usual, which makes it a good time for me to try to correct 
 them. But don't let me leave an unfair impression 
 on your mind about their appreciation of the tolls repeal. 
 They do appreciate it, but that amendment for the mo- 
 ment confuses them. The common Englishman is a 
 grave beast. He takes things so solemnly! 
 
 I'm trying to help House 1 and I'm going to make him 
 help me in these matters. Sir Edward Grey is coming in 
 two days to lunch with me; he, House, Tyrrell, and I. 2 
 Then his series of conferences will begin. Sir Edward is 
 wholly sympathetic; he will be even enthusiastic. I 
 know my man. But how powerful he will be— we'll 
 see. He's a sad man these days: after eight years of hard 
 and lonely toil in his present office, the crow's feet 1>\ his 
 eyes, he sees the Liberal Party in a most difficult nock 
 and shoal of time, all its old enemies at its throat. A 
 lonely idealist, Sir Edward; sometimes I think him as 
 grim as a Puritan; sometimes I think him half afraid of 
 
 J At this time Colonel House was in Europe in the interest of general arhitration 
 and peace. See Volume I, Chapter IX. 
 
 *This luncheon is described in Volume I, Page 299. 
 
64 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 his own intellectual processes. The revolution comes 
 so hard and must be so desperately fought for, and it is 
 so slow, and the tools it must be won with so dull. I'm 
 glad we haven't that particular job. 
 
 The Die Hards do die hard; and the Liberals lack, not 
 courage, but buoyancy. They seem hacked, weary, worn 
 to a frazzle; and I'm beginning to see how hard and slow 
 their task is. These people are set. They naturally shrink 
 from changing anything; they instinctively resent change. 
 A naval man told me that after breech-loading guns were 
 invented, they kept the muzzle-loaders ten years ; arguing 
 meantime that no breech-loading gun could possibly be 
 accurate. 
 
 Since I started this letter, the Spectator has done what 
 I heard it would do. See the enclosed article, which no 
 doubt was telegraphed. See also the Pall Mall clipping. 
 I enclose, too, Sir Edward's speech — the part of it about 
 the Panama tolls. I promptly thanked him and, as I 
 telegraphed you, he seemed pleased that it pleased you. 
 
 He told me this : that, when the repeal of the tolls clause 
 passed the Senate, he wished to send instructions to his 
 Embassy at Washington to thank you, but he feared that 
 if news of such an act on his part should get out it might 
 embarrass you. I told him that I would convey his 
 appreciation to you. 
 
 I hear talk about it wherever I go. Bryce made a good 
 speech about it last night at the Fourth of July dinner of 
 the American Society. I dined with the London County 
 Council: it was praised there. It has cleared the atmos- 
 phere here wonderfully and made it possible for you to 
 make any demands that you would make on this govern- 
 ment. — And there's nothing now on the docket. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 65 
 
 To the President 
 
 Sunday, July 12, 1914, 
 
 Panshanger, Hertford, 
 
 England. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 It may please you to learn that the approach of Mexican 
 affairs toward a solution along the lines of your thought 
 and effort is perceived even here, in spite of the hitherto 
 prevalent British opinion that your "idealistic" pro- 
 gramme was bound to fail. A few days ago one of the 
 "City "(as we should say, Wall Street) men who has big 
 investments in Mexico — a man, not of the Cowdray 
 group— informed me that he had authentic information 
 that a solution was at hand. He undoubtedly receives 
 accurate commercial information from Mexico constantly 
 by cable. How trustworthy his political information 
 and judgment are I can only guess. But he surely did 
 not expect what he now hears has taken place — that 
 Huerta's elimination and the setting up of a government 
 to which both factions agree are imminent. I promptly 
 informed Sir Edward Grey of what this man had told me, 
 and Sir Edward read me a telegram that he had just re- 
 ceived from Carden which looked in the same direction, 
 tho' it didn't look so far. Meantime, I notice a subsidence 
 of apprehension in the atmosphere of London political 
 life. A little while ago Carden had this government 
 scared about what was sure to happen in Mexico City— 
 the cutting of the water supply and the light wire, the 
 murder of foreigners, the sacking of the city, etc., etc. 
 These things were going to happen overnight. I manage 
 to get Sir Edward to tell me more or less of what Carden 
 telegraphs; and in the last week or two his dispatches 
 have become far less panicky. If he keep cooling down 
 
66 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 for a few weeks more, he will reach a normal tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 House is happy, having sent his letter to the Kaiser, 1 
 and he is now enjoying himself. I told Sir Edward 
 Grey what House had written and he was pleased. 
 
 "Good as far as it goes," said he, "and I don't see how 
 he could have gone further." 
 
 But Grey is greatly disturbed over the danger that 
 comes of the Servian unrest against Austria. Both 
 Russia and Germany are mobilizing on the South. The 
 infernal near-Eastern country is worse than Mexico. 
 I have heard no more gossip about our sale of ships to 
 Greece. 2 The Greek Minister smiles and bows every 
 time I see him, with a peculiar unctuousness. 
 
 It's a long way from these troubled subjects to this quiet 
 great house of the Cowper family, where with the Speaker 
 of the House and Lord Rayleigh and divers other lords 
 and ladies, we are spending Sunday. A dozen Lord 
 Cowpers hang in the library, and every one has added 
 to the famous pictures in the gallery and to the books in 
 the library, till both are famous for their riches. They 
 thought they built forever, these old nobles, and I'm not 
 sure but they did build for at least a very long time to 
 come. Wherever any branch of the family may live, 
 and they live all over the world, they never forget the 
 ancestral seat and the sons of younger sons of many 
 generations come back to visit it and to be entertained. 
 This, I think, is the strongest force that binds the colonies 
 to the mother country. Of such a house comes one of the 
 greatest physicists in the world 3 (who is a sort of politician 
 
 ^ee Volume I, Chapter IX. 
 
 2 In July, 1914, the American Government sold the battleships Idaho and Missis- 
 sippi to Greece. For the details, see "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," Chapter 
 III. 
 
 3 Lord Rayleigh, O. M. 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 67 
 
 too) ; and of such houses come great admirals and generals 
 and administrators. The aristocracy is here and it isn't 
 effete by a long shot. If it prove to be teachable, it will 
 rule for many a long year. On some sides it seems dense. 
 But if you take a peer to be a fool, you'll find out your 
 mistake in a day or two's talk at the short range you get 
 in a country-house party. He'll tell you more than you 
 know about artists and cows and foreign lands and chem- 
 istry and rainfall in India, and he'll beat you riding, 
 shooting, golfing, or at tennis and— in the evening at 
 poker, if you wish; and after intelligent talk about 
 theology, he'll swear at Lloyd George in a way that a 
 cowboy would admire. His lady wears too many dia- 
 monds for the simple taste of a democrat, but she wouldn't 
 hesitate a moment to sell every- one of them to help Ulster 
 if she thought Ulster needed such help ; and her sons and 
 brothers are in all English-speaking lands, never forgetful 
 of the old home. 
 
 Great human societies are the most interesting sub- 
 jects of study in the world— aren't they? We speak 
 about hospitality: we don't know the A B C of this fine 
 art. These great Englishmen practise it on their fellows 
 till it takes rank with painting, architecture, and litera- 
 ture. They had a pageant the other day at the sleepy 
 old town of Hertford, whence Hartford, Connecticut . 
 was settled, a pageant that showed 1,000 years of the 
 history of the town. Men from Connecticut were invited. 
 Lady Salisbury invited Mrs. Page and me to Hatfield, 
 the Salisburys' country home, itself nearly half a 
 thousand years old. There we found the Connecticut 
 folk. Then we went to Hertford, to the town hall, for 
 luncheon. Lord Salisbury is "Lord Steward' of the 
 town — an hereditary honorary office. As Lord Steward 
 he spoke. His cousin, Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, began his 
 
68 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 public career forty years ago as member of the House for 
 Hertford, and they presented him with the freedom of 
 the town in a handsome silver casket; and so on. Then, 
 two nights later Lord and Lady Salisbury entertained in 
 their London house (read 'palace") the hundreds of 
 delegates from thirty or more countries to a Congress of 
 Home and Town Planners and Builders; and in a little 
 speech of welcome Lord Salisbury showed that he knew 
 what every country was doing in this new movement. 
 
 On the intervening night he gave a great ball in honour 
 of his daughter's "coming out." Such were three days 
 of one nobleman's activities that I happened to witness. 
 He's as nice and modest a fellow in his manner as if he 
 were a simple country squire. If you think that this sort 
 of a man is done for because he's a Tory, you don't know 
 the breed. Two of his brothers sit in the House while he 
 sits in the Lords, and their sister, Lady Selborne, holds 
 meetings in favour of woman suffrage ! There's no airy- 
 fairy fluffiness about her; and her husband, who has been 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, stirs all England by his 
 speeches for an efficient navy. Of course, the other side's 
 interesting, too, and eternally right and untactful. I 
 enjoyed an amusing momentary prominence the other 
 night by reason of their lack of tact. When the House 
 met at nine, the Opposition haughtily inquired where the 
 Prime Minister was "at this important juncture." One 
 of the Cabinet explained that he had an imperative engage- 
 ment with the Ambassador of a foreign country. 
 
 "What important engagement can keep him from the 
 House when this critical measure is up for discussion?" 
 one asked. And then another: "I understand that the 
 Prime Minister is dining with the American Ambassador — 
 that is his 'imperative engagement.' For the American 
 Ambassador I have the greatest respect. I should feel 
 
A DEMOCRAT AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S 69 
 
 greatly honoured to dine with him myself, but the seduc- 
 tions of His Excellency's hospitality should not detain 
 the Rt. Hon. gentleman at this critical hour in the House."' 
 [Laughter.] And the House adjourned because Mr. As- 
 quith was dining with me ! My dinner list will have to be 
 enlarged because I invited the Prime Minister to come and 
 talk with House. Don't you see how these Special En- 
 voys get the Regular Force into trouble? 
 
 Special envoys are now numerous from San Francisco. 
 One wants the British Navy to patrol the sea from Iceland 
 to Scotland when the aviators from the Fair fly around 
 the world; another wants me to go with him to see the 
 King to persuade His Majesty to send a bull from his 
 herd to the Fair; and they all bring enigmatical vague 
 credentials from the State Department asking my 
 "cooperation." When I telegraph to the Department 
 asking if I am authorized by it to ask for this service from 
 the British Navy, I am told No, but that I may use my 
 "personal good offices." My personal good offices don't 
 move the British Navy, and I think I won't try them on 
 the King's bull. But one of these days I pray Heaven I 
 may have time to describe the comedies of this ambassa- 
 dorial life. The sheer juxtaposition of events makes one 
 smile. To-morrow I must unveil a picture of McKinle\ , 
 and the next day a church window to Pocahontas and I 
 have just received news that Booker Washington is com- 
 ing, none of which is as good a show as a Buffalo-Bill 
 kind of exhibition now given here as showing "the real 
 life of the United States." At least we'll not die from 
 ennui. 
 
 Yours heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN 
 AMBASSADOR 
 
 IT MUST not be assumed, from the foregoing com- 
 ments on the British social and political system, that 
 the life of the American Ambassador was exclusively de- 
 voted to agreeable living, congenial labour, and philosophi- 
 cal observation. It had distinctly its unpleasant side. 
 Much as Page admired democratic institutions, there was 
 one expression of democracy with which he could not 
 sympathize. One illusion disappeared in the first few 
 months of his English sojourn. Like most Americans he 
 had heard much of the great regard which Great Britain 
 entertained for the American ambassadorial service. He 
 soon discovered that only in a personal sense was this 
 impression well founded. Certain American Ambassa- 
 dors — though by no means all — had made great reputa- 
 tions. The American Ambassador occupied an excep- 
 tional position amid the representatives of foreign powers, 
 due to the fact that he spoke the English language and 
 represented a country that found its institutional and 
 racial roots in Britain. The long-settled British policy 
 of maintaining the friendliest relations with the United 
 States likewise gave the American representative some- 
 thing of a favoured position. His country also was de- 
 tached from Europe and its political intrigues and jealous- 
 ies; causes of violent controversy between Great Britain 
 and the United States seldom arose in peace times; and 
 so an American Ambassador, endowed — as practically all 
 
 70 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 71 
 
 of them for at least half a century have been — with amia- 
 bility, culture, intelligence, and tact, almost never had 
 unpleasant experiences at the Foreign Office. Not un- 
 naturally, therefore, the American Ambassador in London 
 was a man apart, the special object of general attention and 
 regard. Yet, from the professional standpoint, the Ameri- 
 can diplomatic service was hardly looked upon seriously. 
 For generations this country had selected Ministers and 
 Ambassadors too frequently on political grounds; it had 
 developed no consistent foreign policy and no diplomatic 
 traditions; it had made the most niggardly financial 
 provision for the support of embassies and had not given 
 its representatives permanent and dignified habitations. 
 The evidences that the American people had little interest 
 in this phase of American activity were abimdant; reports 
 even came across the ocean that certain Presidential 
 candidates and other conspicuous statesmen were ad- 
 vocating the abolition of Ambassadors as useless and 
 outworn remnants of medievalism. A survey of the 
 conditions under which Ambassadors performed their 
 work might make one reasonably ask whether the views 
 of Mr. Champ Clark did not represent the nation's atti- 
 tude. 
 
 Page was an especially well-informed American; his 
 interest in American diplomacy had always been keen; 
 yet he was himself surprised at the barren circumstances 
 of his arrival in London. For thirtv years the "Chan- 
 eery" of the American Embassy had been a dingy little 
 flat in Victoria Slreet. That was the only permanent 
 American diplomatic establishment in the British capital. 
 There was no dignified building, in a respectable location, 
 known as the "American Embassy." Since the days of 
 Thomas Pinckney, our first Minister to Great Britain, 
 our representatives had lived in a succession of houses. 
 
72 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 The very variety — some extremely plain and simple, 
 others fairly gorgeous — was in itself hardly in keeping with 
 the democratic idea. Why should one Ambassador of a 
 great democracy, where all men were supposedly equal, 
 live in an unpretentious house in an obscure square, and 
 his successor occupy what was virtually a palace? The ma- 
 jority of American Ambassadors, it is true, have lived with 
 dignity and even elegance — most of them, indeed, have 
 been rich men; but that likewise was a violation of the 
 democratic principle, for it apparently meant that only 
 rich men could aspire to these posts. This, however, 
 was not its most serious aspect. The lack of a fixed 
 home was a distinct diplomatic handicap. Of all desira- 
 ble qualities the indefinite thing known as "prestige" 
 is perhaps the most important in foreign relations. The 
 fact that the American Ambassador, as soon as he reached 
 London, became a house-hunter, hardly added to his 
 impressiveness. This absence of a permanent headquar- 
 ters seemed a clear indication that Americans knew noth- 
 ing about foreign affairs and cared nothing about them. 
 "Till we have such an established building," wrote Page, 
 "they'll regard us as mean and stingy and given to queer 
 freaks; they like us [that is, the American people] but 
 they don't know what to think of our government. . . . 
 Our government they don't trust or admire." The 
 English people had another explanation, also not espe- 
 cially flattering to our national pride. That the American 
 Government could not afford a respectable diplomatic 
 establishment was preposterous ; from a money standpoint, 
 the thing was trifling. The failure to provide one therefore 
 must be the political fear of the Irish vote ! In other words, 
 the indifference was a studied insult. The mere reflection 
 that the Government had no embassies in Paris or Berlin 
 or Rome or Madrid — indeed, in few capitals — shows the 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 73 
 
 absurdity of this notion, yet Page was constantly called 
 upon to repudiate it. "It's too bad you're not allowed 
 to have a residence in London," or "I suppose the Irish 
 would object" — such were the sympathetic remarks 
 frequently dropped in his ear. "Is no administration 
 strong enough to do itP" was another question he records. 
 A part of the same difficulty was the failure of Washing- 
 ton to make a proper allowance for ambassadorial ex- 
 penses. Only two types of men could perform the duties 
 even on a modest scale : men of wealth, or men, who thougl 1 
 not wealthy had, in the course of a busy life, placed aside 
 a modest competence which would suffice for a brief Btay. 
 The average American in the United States cannot under- 
 stand why an Ambassador to Great Britain must spend 
 at least $50,000 a year. Page himself did not understand 
 it until he had lived a few weeks in London. He believed, 
 with most enlightened Americans, that the man was 
 the important thing, not his surroundings ; that the Amer- 
 ican Ambassador could live in the utmost simplicity and 
 still creditably perform his duties. He expressed himself 
 on this subject in February, 1913, two months before 
 President Wilson summoned him to this post. "The 
 wish for a change from merely rich men as Ambassadors 
 and Ministers," he wrote, "has been made in all quarters 
 since the election; and a very proper wish it is. A 
 facetious view of the subject would suggest that most of 
 the democratic gentlemen who wish to represent their 
 country at foreign capitals are poor men. But there is a 
 serious side to it. Of late years it has become almost the 
 rule that the most important ambassadorships should be 
 given to rich men, in some cases because they made big 
 campaign contributions (if not for this reason, for what 
 reason?). In other cases, the expense of maintaining 
 establishments on a level with other nations far outrims 
 
74 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the salaries that we pay ; and, for this reason, of the men 
 eligible, the rich man has had the preference. 
 
 "But, whatever the reason, the gradual and continuous 
 tendency toward richly kept embassies is out of keeping 
 with the American idea. The American idea may, in 
 this matter, properly be called simplicity and efficiency. 
 A plain, dignified house, with a real man in it, is better 
 than a palace with a mere official. Reverdy Johnson, 
 Charles Francis Adams, John Lothrop Motley, James 
 Russell Lowell, Thomas F. Bayard — these are the types 
 of men who have properly and with great distinction 
 represented the United States in European capitals; 
 and they did it right well. The very simplicity of their 
 ways of life — their very poverty, if you choose so to call 
 it — was one important element of their success. It was 
 as much as to say that the United States sent abroad men 
 who were scholars and gentlemen and men-of-letters: it 
 was the man who counted, not the house he lived in, or the 
 servants he hired, or his entertainments. There have, 
 of course, been rich men who were scholars and men of 
 personal charm. But the great old-time distinction of 
 American diplomacy was not the distinction that wealth 
 gave or helped to give. 
 
 "There was a movement several years ago to persuade 
 Congress to buy suitable residences for our Ambassadors 
 at the chief European capitals — a worthy move that ought 
 to succeed. The best posts, too, might very well carry 
 larger salaries. We are parsimonious in small matters. 
 But the lack of proper governmental provision is not a 
 sufficient reason for the appointment of men only or 
 mainly because they are rich men. It is a bad day when 
 this shall be true about any public position. No rich 
 man has been elected President since Washington, and 
 no rich man could be. This may not be fair to the rich, 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 75 
 
 but beneath it there runs a rather wholesome quality of 
 American character. Why should any rich man hold a 
 lesser governmental post merely because of riches?" 
 
 It is a curious fact that Page himself was almost precisely 
 the type of man he described, with not the slightesl 
 consciousness of his impending appointment — scholarly, 
 dignified, with a deep interest and understanding of 
 public questions and his country's position in the world, 
 and, above all, simple in his personal tastes and li\ in- 
 habits. He presently had an opportunity for testing liis 
 theory that such a man, without a large income, could 
 easily fulfil the ambassadorial post and he quickly dis- 
 covered that his preconception was wrong. The first 
 four of the distinguished diplomats he mentions — Reverdy 
 Johnson, Charles Francis Adams, Jolin Lothrop Motle\ , 
 and James Russell Lowell — were not Ambassadors: they 
 were Ministers. Though the traditional distinction be- 
 tween an Ambassador and a Minister has lost much of its 
 force, it is still true that on the ceremonial side the posi- 
 tion of an Ambassador is far the more exalted one. He 
 represents his sovereign to the sovereign of the nation 
 to which he is accredited ; he ranks in precedence next to 
 the princes of the blood; he is entertained by the King 
 and he also entertains the King, and in all circles he is 
 treated with the same deference that would be shown the 
 ruler of his own country. Possibly this type of function- 
 ary is not becoming to a Republic organized on democratic 
 lines. For more than a hundred years the United States 
 maintained this point of view. It refused to appoint 
 Ambassadors, placing its diplomatic interest in the hands 
 of Ministers Resident. These diplomatic agents of the 
 "second rank" had practically the same official powers as 
 Ambassadors; their social position, however, was very 
 different. Page himself, in his entertaining description 
 
76 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of a Court at Buckingham Palace, makes it clear that 
 Ambassadors receive far more distinguished treatment 
 than mere Ministers. "The Ambassadors come in first 
 and bow and the King shakes hands with them. Then 
 come the forty or more Ministers — no shake for them." 1 
 This latter group included men of the eminence of Charles 
 Francis Adams, James Russell Lowell, and John Lothrop 
 Motley, in the days of Queen Victoria. There were many 
 other disadvantages to which Ministers were forced to 
 submit. The consequence was that a Minister could live 
 on a comparatively modest expenditure. As he had no 
 particular position at Court, his outside life was precisely 
 what he chose to make it. A failure to entertain exten- 
 sively brought no criticism upon himself or his country. 
 But he likewise had to pay the penalty for his inconspicu- 
 ous manner of life. He did not make the "contacts" 
 that were valuable in the transaction of his country's 
 business. He was forced to sit in the anteroom of the 
 Foreign Secretary while the Ambassadors of nations far 
 less important than his own received preferential treat- 
 ment. If he dined with the Sovereign it was a special 
 favour due to his personal eminence and not the estab- 
 lished right of his position. Naturally the time came when 
 the United States could no longer endure this system, and, 
 in 1893, Congress passed a law permitting the President 
 to raise certain legations to the rank of embassies. 
 
 The nation applauded the change, though there was 
 apparently no general appreciation of its meaning. Cer- 
 tainly Congress, when it passed the new ambassadorial 
 act, did not understand its significance. Otherwise it 
 would have adequately provided for the financial obliga- 
 tions of the changed status. An American Minister 
 could live simply, for no great social duties were inevita- 
 
 ^olume I, Page 156. 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 77 
 
 bly laid upon him. James Russell Lowell, for example, 
 maintained a modest establishment in Lowndes Square, 
 and performed the comparatively simple duties of his 
 post, achieving by virtue of his talents and charm a 
 high position in British social and intellectual life. Rut 
 an Ambassador cannot live with the simplicity of a dip- 
 lomat of lower rank. Page thought so before he reached 
 London; why such living was impossible his letters show . 
 If the matter were purely one of social display, the criti- 
 cisms frequently heard in Congress and elsewhere would be 
 justified. But the constant round of dinner parties and 
 country visits are not merely pleasure expeditions; indeed, 
 that is not their prime purpose. That quick transporta- 
 tion and communication have made unnecessary certain 
 functions of an Ambassador is true ; he does not constantly 
 have to make decisions on his own responsibility, as in 
 the old days, for the State Department can send immediate 
 instructions ; so much basis there is for the theory that the 
 cable and the fast steamship have made the service 
 obsolete. Transmitting documents and discussing prob- 
 lems in the Foreign Office, however, are not the most 
 important of his duties. His value consists in the infor- 
 mation he can send of the officials who are conducting tin • 
 Government with which he is dealing, the state of public 
 opinion, as mirrored not only in the daily and periodical 
 press, but in the minds of influential men. It is his duty 
 to meet these men — and women too, for women play a 
 far more important part in Rritish public life than they 
 do in this country — obtain their views, and report the 
 resultant judgment and observations to Washington. No 
 one has yet discovered any satisfactory method of getting 
 acquainted with human beings except by associating with 
 them. In a great capital like London most important 
 diplomatic business is really transacted over the dinner 
 
78 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 table. In former times an Ambassador needed to be on good 
 terms only with the Court ; now he must know the leaders 
 in all walks of life. He must also know the masses. In 
 this work an Ambassador's wife can be almost as useful 
 as the Ambassador himself; a clever woman, through hef 
 friendships, can easily pick up information that may 
 determine national policy. Page's career in London 
 illustrates abundantly the practical value of this social 
 side. "You can't talk with them," he writes, "except 
 at luncheon or dinner — food with talk every time." "I 
 meet the Argentine and Chilean Ministers everywhere, 
 any day — the last time at a big dinner, where we sat in 
 a corner and settled the South and Central American 
 troubles." "This easy way of doing things comes of 
 their having attractive wives who are sought at big 
 social functions." The innumerable occasions when 
 Page discussed Mexico, Panama, and the issues of the 
 war at big houses come out in his letters. How much 
 world history was made by Page's friendship for Sir 
 Edward Grey, based largely upon a community of literary 
 enthusiasms and common conceptions of statecraft, can 
 only be faintly imagined. Many instances could be 
 cited. This is the reason why the maintenance of 
 an embassy in London requires a much greater outlay 
 than the $17,500 salary which the position receives. It 
 is only when this sum is compared with the $85,000 
 allowed the British Ambassador in Washington that 
 the parsimony of the American Government is apparent. 
 Page explains the situation in his letters to the Presi- 
 dent, and there need now be no delicacy about printing 
 them, for a public question of vast importance is in- 
 volved. Mr. John W. Davis, his successor, after Ins 
 return explained before the House Committee on For- 
 eign Affairs the utter impossibility of mamtaining the 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 79 
 
 office, even in unostentatious times, on less than $30,000 
 a year. 1 In making this public revelation, Mr. Davis 
 has done only what Page himself intended to do. After 
 a year in London, largely at his own expense. Page in- 
 formed President Wilson that unless a different financial 
 arrangement were made he should resign and come home. 
 "If I have to leave in the fall or in December," he wrote 
 at the same time to Colonel House, "it will be said and 
 thought that I've failed, unless there be some reason thai 
 can be made public. I should be perfectly willing to 
 tell the reason — the failure of the Government to make it 
 financially possible." 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London. 
 June 5, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . I wrote you a letter on Sunday giving m\ res- 
 ignation and asking you to have a letter of recall sen I to 
 me. But I have decided first to send you this tiresome 
 letter instead — to see, since you are kind enough to wish 
 me to remain here and since I have just reached a place 
 in my adjustment to this task that will, I hope, enable 
 me to be of some real service in the future — to sec if 
 some way cannot be found for you to have at least one 
 representative in a great capital who need not be a rich 
 man. 
 
 At the risk of wearying you (rather, it is a dead cer- 
 tainty that I shall weary you) I shall try to explain the 
 whole situation. For, looked at from the United States, 
 it seems preposterous that an American Ambassador in 
 
 hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs. House of Representa- 
 tives, Sixty-eighth Congress, First Session, pages 203-211. 
 
80 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 London must have from $45,000 to $50,000 a year prop- 
 erly to do his task. But this is the centre of the world, 
 and the American Ambassador has by far more duties 
 laid on him than all the rest of the Ambassadors here put 
 together. Ambassadors are given precedence over all but 
 royal persons, and this preeminence carries very costly 
 obligations. Everybody in official and in social life offers 
 him entertainment, and some of these entertainments 
 must of course be returned. I have returned perhaps 
 one in five — not more. This is necessary, if for no other 
 reason, to prevent hindering criticism. Every Thursday 
 afternoon from one hundred to two hundred and fifty 
 people call, besides large numbers on other days. These 
 callers are persons in official life, the ruling class in English 
 society, and Americans. A record of them must be kept 
 and calls must be returned. Then there are invitations to 
 dinner, to luncheon, to country houses, palace functions; 
 and every member of the diplomatic corps accepts them 
 in the regular pursuit of his business. In addition to 
 all these the American Ambassador is asked sooner or 
 later to all the cities where the Lord Mayors and Councils 
 entertain him. All these cost. Not a day passes but 
 I am making speeches or taking journeys, short or long, 
 by rail or by motor, trying to interpret our institutions 
 and our life. All these activities are essential, being part 
 and parcel of the better understanding of the two peoples, 
 and warp and woof of our international friendliness. 
 There is no other way to give expression to these close 
 relations. 
 
 Then there are thousands of Americans who come here. 
 Presently, for example, the training ships from Annapolis 
 will come to the coast. The commanding officer will call 
 on me. I must go to his ship in return. We must ex- 
 change dinners, I inviting certain English admirals to 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 81 
 
 meet him. We may dispense with these things in the 
 United States. If we omitted them here, we should 
 start unfriendly gossip throughout Europe. Again, on 
 any nation's natal day, the London Ambassador opera 
 his house to his compatriots. A few hundred call on the 
 other Ambassadors. On the American, from three 
 thousand to four thousand call. I have to hire a hotel! 
 I have thought of omitting it, but everybody warns me 
 not to do so. There surely would be a howl if 1 did. 
 The Ambassador is the visible symbol of the United 
 States to these folk. 
 
 Now such activities as these are not merely the fashion. 
 They have become fixed by long use and habit. Things 
 of mere fashion I have persistently omitted and disre- 
 garded. In other words, a man who is going to be the 
 American Ambassador in London has got to do these 
 and such things. Else he would not represent the United 
 States to these people at all. He could be a clerk and 
 transmit and carry messages to the Foreign Secretary. 
 But he could have no influence on public opinion — could 
 not be a personage in any sense; he could not know the 
 English people, he would not be highly regarded by them, 
 nor could he ever hear or find out such things as I ha\ e 
 sometimes written you in my letters. 
 
 Of course I have thought all tins out. I have thought 
 of omitting most of these things and of taking a small 
 house on a side street and living within my salary. Tha t 's 
 possible, and, seen from the United States, it seemed prac- 
 ticable. But it isn't practicable without utterly changing 
 the nature of the task and omitting the most important 
 parts of it. As it is, the United States Government 
 (God knows) is held in contempt enough for not providing 
 its Ambassador with a house. This omission has hen 
 flung in my face, I am sure, every day that I have been 
 
82 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 here. Even in official circles, it is continually held against 
 us. This British Government has a house in Washington 
 and it makes its Ambassador an allowance for various 
 expenses. It is regarded as a poor return compliment 
 that our government has no home here and skimps our 
 Ambassador. They don't like it. Every other country 
 that has an Ambassador here (except the Turkish) owns 
 a house or has a house on a long lease; it has furnished 
 it well; it allows a fund for entertainment. The absence 
 of an embassy here has become a public scandal. As I 
 think of this criminal omission all these years while every 
 town of any size in the United States has got its big 
 post-office building, I feel an almost irresistible impulse to 
 send my letter of resignation without more ado. For 
 men and governments do not waste their money in these 
 ways. And here, in the principal capital of Europe, while 
 France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Japan all have 
 proper homes, costing each from $250,000 to $500,000, 
 we have — nothing; and yet the American Ambassador 
 has to bear his burden and disgrace and to do more duties 
 than all the others put together and — to pay his own 
 bills! 
 
 The offices 1 have remained the same for about thirty 
 years. In that time the whole street where they are has 
 become a cheap shopping street — as if they were between 
 two stores down on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. 
 The stores have caused an increase in rental value and 
 made the place less desirable for our uses. The entrance 
 is the same as to the cheap flats above. A little while 
 ago, a woman who lives in one of these flats made a sen- 
 sation in the courts; and once in a while I have met 
 immodest-looking women in the hall. I have always 
 wished to move these offices. But they have been the 
 
 ^he Ambassador is now referring to the so-called Chancery, 123 Victoria St. 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 83 
 
 one stable thing about our establishment in London. 
 So long as there was hope that a house might be leased for a 
 term of years for the Ambassador, it seemed I .est to let the 
 offices remain till such a house could be taken and then 
 move them (the offices) also — but not to move them 
 twice. 
 
 During the last fifteen or twenty years living conditions 
 (and the duties laid on the American Ambassador) have 
 greatly changed. In Lowell's day under Queen Victoria's 
 simple reign, a man could live and do his duty on $20, 000 
 to $25,000 a year. But even then Lowell went home poor, 
 and Phelps, I have heard, had a hard time too. Hay 
 was a rich man. Choate (so I have heard since I came 
 here) spent at least $65,000 a year. Henry James, who 
 often comes to my house, the other day told an American 
 lady — in a complimentary way to me — that I was "do- 
 ing — er the task — er just — just right" — in one of his 
 endless sentences. Not a man in any big capital in Europe, 
 as our Ambassador, gets off, I hear, with less than $50,000, 
 and I suspect that every one spends more. Not as 
 Ambassador in London (again excepting the Turk, who 
 doesn't count) gets off with $50,000 if his house rent were 
 reckoned in. We had as well say, then, that the American 
 Ambassador here — necessarily the most costly of all the 
 diplomatic posts — so long as he has to pay his house rent 
 and all his official entertainment bills, must have at least 
 $50,000, if he do his task creditably. 
 
 There has been a curious reversion from a fair start. 
 Isn't it true that Dr. Benjamin Franklin, in France, 
 received $17,000 a year — a great deal more than $17,000 
 a year now — a grant for official entertaining and a coach 
 and pair? That was before the day of the backwoods 
 Congressman and the professional Irish politician. And 
 to give the Ambassador here and in Mexico the same sal- 
 
84 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ary is a ridiculous absurdity. No other government does 
 such a thing. 
 
 I have varying moods. As I write this, I feel as I felt 
 last Sunday when I wrote out my resignation — that's the 
 wisest way out of the difficulty; give it up and tell the 
 public the whole truth, that we can have only rich men 
 for Ambassadors — swallow my loss, forget it, and go back 
 to my work and earn my living. Then I have another 
 mood — that it is exceedingly unfortunate to change 
 Ambassadors so often, that I owe it to you to make every 
 even desperate effort not to have to give up for sheer 
 financial reasons. Moreover, I believe, at least in my 
 vainer moments, that I have now made such an adjust- 
 ment of myself to this task as to warrant the hope of doing 
 it with some credit the next two or three years: I have 
 made most of the inevitable mistakes and outlived them, 
 and I have made the acquaintance of the people. 
 
 We have gone on in this shabby fashion so long that 
 perhaps no conceivable Congress can be made to under- 
 stand what an Embassy is — or ought to be — we have gone 
 on continually lowering our standing in English eyes 
 at least ; and this is one reason why our government is held 
 in contempt here, cordially as they regard our people and 
 our nation. 
 
 I fear I must take some blame on myself for getting into 
 this box at all ; for, if I had known what the real task is 
 and that the obligatory cost is so great, of course I should 
 not have dared to come. But nobody was frank with me 
 about this aspect of the post. In fact, nobody (but you 
 and me) seems ever to be quite frank about our relations 
 to Great Britain. Consequently, the public here, both 
 official and private, construes our lack of an embassy 
 as proof of our fear of the Irish and of the yellow press. 
 They assume that these determine our policy; and this 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 85 
 
 assumption fits practically every fact and every occurrence 
 for the last decade or two, except only your Message 
 asking for the repeal of the discriminating tolls clause 
 in the Panama act. And when an Ambassador talks about 
 a really satisfactory mutual understanding and trust, the 
 man who sits next him says when he sits down: 'It's 
 a real pity that your great government can't have an 
 embassy in London." Merely as a diplomatic asset. 
 a good house here would be worth to us a thousand times 
 what it would cost. The lack of it plays so important 
 a part in British public opinion that I have had moods 
 when it seemed to me hardly worth any man's while 
 to keep going night and day to try to counteract the effect 
 of this omission. 
 
 I pray you pardon all this, my dear Mr. President. It 
 is an unpardonably long explanation of an unfortunate 
 situation. I imagine after all that the best way out of it 
 is for you to relieve me of further duties that I cannot 
 pay for, find a man of fortune for this post, too, and let my 
 resignation help, if it can be made to help, toward an 
 understanding of the whole diplomatic problem. Perhaps 
 that's the best service I can render, after all. But I 
 shouldn't be candid if I didn't express a profound regret, 
 for I am eager now, since I have begun to learn how, to 
 serve you and to do what I can to build up a right under- 
 standing of us and of our government abroad. The 
 first step in building up such a right understanding here 
 must be a house for our Ambassador. If I go away, 
 however, because I can't afford it and my successor has 
 to pay for his own house— that'll not be a flattering or 
 helpful condition for him to begin Ins labour under. It's 
 
 surely a bad predicament. 
 
 Yours most heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
86 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 As a result of this letter the President sent Page an al- 
 lowance from a special fund for the years 1915 and 1916. 
 The larger part of his expenses, however, were carried by 
 his private purse for five years. The outbreak of war 
 naturally made Ins retirement impossible. Since the 
 above letter was written Congress has greatly improved 
 the status of the diplomatic service ; it has even started the 
 purchase of embassies in large capitals ; it has made more 
 than the beginning of promotions on the basis of merit, 
 so that Ministers and even occasionally Ambassadors 
 are appointed from the regular service. However, this 
 country is still far from having a regular diplomatic 
 system in the European sense. 
 
 Page found much compensation in the ability and 
 fidelity of his staff, especially of his First Secretary, Mr. 
 Irwin Laughlin. Of Mr. Laughlin's personal devotion 
 the preceding volumes give evidence in plenty. He was 
 the first man to meet Page on his arrival in Liverpool 
 in May, 1913; five years afterward, he supported the 
 Ambassador's weak and wasted frame as he boarded the 
 train at Waterloo Station on the first step of his journey 
 home. In those five years Mr. Laughlin was constantly 
 at Page's elbow; the Ambassador made hardly a move 
 without consulting this accomplished diplomat. An ex- 
 perience of fifteen years, spent in the most important 
 capitals, had given Mr. Laughlin a knowledge not only 
 of foreign problems, and the relation of his count y to 
 them, but a deep insight into the routine and technique 
 of diplomatic life. He was equally at home drafting a 
 diplomatic dispatch, in deciding rules of precedence, and 
 in determining precisely the right way to approach states- 
 men and court officials. Especially in the early days, 
 when Page was new, and, as he himself has said," green" 
 in the ambassadorial life, was the tactful and skilful 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 87 
 
 guidance of Mr. Laughlin indispensable. In Page's vie* 
 his First Secretary represented precisely the kind of man 
 that the Government should encourage by promotion. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 March 29, 191 1. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Mr. Laughlin, the First Secretary of our Embassy here, 
 is just gone home to spend his vacation. It is now an 
 off season in this country with a calendar and weather 
 all its own. In a few weeks, he will be in Washington 
 where he will spend ten days or a fortnight. He will, of 
 course, immediately report to the Secretary, and I have 
 asked him to let Tumulty know as soon as he arrives; 
 for I hope you will at some time while he is there find a 
 chance to send for him and to talk with him at some length. 
 
 He has my complete confidence. He directs and, in 
 the largest measure, does the routine work of the Em- 
 bassy, and I depend on him more than on all the rest 
 of the staff together. I can hardly imagine a more careful 
 or conscientious man. 
 
 He is just past forty by a year or two; he has been 
 in the diplomatic service most of his working life; he 
 knows international law, and (which is much harder to 
 learn) all the ins and outs of diplomatic usage; and 
 because of his official residence in many capitals, he know s 
 the larger part of the diplomatic corps of all countries. 
 One of the first things that Sir Edward Grey said to me 
 was: "I hope that Mr. Laughlin will remain with you." 
 He speaks and writes French fluently and he has a working 
 knowledge of German and Japanese and several other 
 languages. He is a man of fortune and entertains, in 
 
88 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 most admirable good taste, the most interesting and 
 helpful people — with the simplest elegance. Not by 
 any means least in this game, Mrs. Laughlin is a young 
 woman of charm and ability. In fact, she is, in her way, 
 as useful a member of our diplomatic family as he is in 
 his way. They showed Frank and Jessie some attention 
 — gave them a dinner or two I think; and, if they happen 
 to be in Washington while the Laughlins are there, I am 
 sure they will wish to see something of them. 
 
 Now this is just the kind of man we ought to make a 
 Minister of — when a good chance offers, later, and when 
 I can afford to lose him, as I can't yet! Unless such a 
 promotion come to him his career will end with his 
 service here, for he now holds the highest sub-ministerial 
 post we have. When he entered the service years ago, he 
 called himself a Republican, but he soon ceased to have any 
 more politics than a naval officer and for the same reason. 
 
 I have given him memoranda of certain subjects that 
 he will be glad to talk over with you — in my confidence. 
 I wish simply by this note to direct your attention to him. 
 He will let you hear when he gets to Washington. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Page's difficulties with the anti-British elements in 
 American life, and with their spokesmen in Congress 
 and the press, are already sufficiently familiar. His 
 first year in London was especially marked by episodes 
 of this kind. His famous description of the United States 
 as "English-led and English-ruled" particularly afforded 
 material for his critics. It was used in a speech at a 
 dedication of a monument to the Pilgrim Fathers at South- 
 ampton. Precisely what he meant is described in a letter 
 to President Wilson. 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 89 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 January 23, l ( )l 1. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Last August (observe the date — five and a half months 
 ago) I made a speech at the unveiling oi' a monumenl i<> 
 the Pilgrim Fathers at Southampton which, 1 reall) 
 thought, was quite a good speech — for me. Snnly il 
 was well received. Almost every newspaper in England 
 and Scotland published it and commended il : and I fell 
 that it had something of an effect in commending me 
 to the kindly consideration of men who heard il and read 
 
 it. 
 
 In that speech I said that the United States is " English- 
 led and English-ruled." This phrase came at the end 
 of an elaboration of the fact that the English language, 
 English law, English freedom, English literature, ete.. 
 are our heritage and the foundation of our civilization; 
 and in saying "English" it was perfectly obvious that 
 I meant Scotch, if you will, and as far as historic truth 
 permits, Irish also. Perhaps I should have done better if 
 I had said "British." But we don't naturally say the 
 "British language, British literature," etc. In other 
 words there was not in my mind nor in anybody's mind 
 at the time the slightest suggestion of any discrimination 
 against the Irish, or the Scotch, or the Germans, or I lie 
 Jews, or the Syrians, or anybody under Heaven; and 
 everybody knew it. 
 
 A long time afterward— several months— these four 
 words only from the speech began to appear in I he Irish 
 papers in the United States— "English-led and English- 
 ruled," taken from their context and used, withoul refer- 
 ence to the occasion, as an insult to Ireland. Mayor 
 
90 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Fitzgerald 1 found himself insulted and offended most 
 grievously. Various Irish societies passed resolutions 
 of censure. One day Senator Chamberlain 2 read a lot 
 of 'em in the Senate, which recited how the Irish in Oregon 
 were ashamed of an Ambassador in London who went 
 out of his way to insult our patriotic German and Jewish 
 fellow citizens. Now I hear that Senator Weeks 3 is going 
 to introduce a resolution in the Senate demanding my 
 recall. 
 
 All this, I have just learned, is the work of Miss Lillian 
 Scott Troy, a California lady who has in times past ap- 
 peared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 
 and protested against arbitration treaties with Great 
 Britain, against celebrating the one hundred years of 
 peace, against everything that does not spell blue ruin 
 for John Bull. She says that Senator Chamberlain, 
 Senator Weeks, Senator O'Gorman, 4 and I don't know 
 how many more, keenly feel the disgrace that I have 
 brought on the Administration and on the nation. 
 
 Well, I don't know whether Senator Weeks is going 
 to introduce such a resolution or not— probably he will— 
 nor do I care a tinker's damn, except for two possible 
 results which, I confess, would be annoying: 
 
 (1) If it should cause you annoyance, and 
 
 (2) Because there would be an item about it in every 
 newspaper in Christendom, giving Ins accusations only. 
 
 For these reasons, if I knew how, I should stop it. But 
 I don't know how at this distance. 
 
 All that I can do, at this distance, is to make sure that 
 you understand the genesis and the stimulation of the 
 
 J Of Boston. 
 s Of Oregon. 
 3 Of Massachusetts. 
 4 0f New York. 
 
VEXATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 91 
 
 whole matter; and, to that end, I present to your attention 
 —reluctantly— Miss Lillian Scott Troy. ("Troy" fe 
 ominous!) To live up to her standard, I should have to 
 abolish the word "English" from my vocabulaiy . 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 These attacks produced no disastrous results though 
 they were occasionally renewed in this and other forms. 
 The Ambassador had the complete sympathy and con- 
 fidence of President Wilson, and other matters of more 
 far-reaching consequence presently absorbed the interest 
 of the London Embassy. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 
 
 A PARTICULARLY charming aspect of this early 
 correspondence is the glimpse it gives of the warm 
 personal relations existing between the President and his 
 Ambassador. The extent to which the Administration 
 was justifying Page's expectations and the pride that he 
 felt in Mr. Wilson's growing reputation in England and 
 Europe, added immeasurably to his daily satisfaction with 
 life. On certain developments of the Mexican situation, 
 indeed, the Ambassador could not agree, but in the 
 President's great purpose — his ambition to create a con- 
 stitutional system in Mexico and reorganize Mexican 
 conditions on modern lines — Page once more saw the 
 fulfilment of Ins own ideals. But the thing that de- 
 lighted him most was the exhibition in Washington of 
 a fine intellect, trained in literature and the science 
 of government, successfully applying itself to great 
 practical tasks. The fact that Page afterward radically 
 differed with his chief on matters of historic consequence 
 necessarily tempts one to linger over this period of their 
 association when the two minds and wills were working in 
 the utmost harmony. 
 
 In view of the events of the next four years, one letter 
 written by Page, two months after his arrival in England, 
 has a fairly momentous interest. At this time Mr. Wil- 
 son's Presidency was only four months old, yet his new 
 conception of his office, the high principles that he had 
 already introduced into Federal policy, the vigour with 
 
 92 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 93 
 
 which he was attacking great and pressing domestic prob- 
 lems, and the firm hold which he had obtained on Amer- 
 ican respect, had powerfully impressed the Ambassador. 
 That this new leadership promised much for democratic 
 progress in the United States was clear, but Page believed 
 that it could be profitably exercised in a much h ider field. 
 Again and again the wish to "do something constructive" 
 rose uppermost in Page's mind. The European scene, 
 it is apparent, shocked and saddened him. The spectre 
 of militarism and irresponsible autocracy, hideous enough 
 when viewed across three thousand miles of ocean, 
 assumed an unimagined horror when contemplated a1 
 first hand. The time had come, Page believed, lor some 
 new kind of international leadership. 'Was there ever 
 greater need than there is now," he wrote in a famous 
 memorandum already quoted, 1 which he sent to man} 
 close friends in the United States, "of a first-class mind 
 unselfishly working on world problems?" Only disin- 
 terested leadership of this kind could possibly dissipate 
 the danger then overhanging civilization. There was only 
 one force, Page believed, that was powerful and conscien- 
 tious enough to protect mankind from the menace pre- 
 paring against it in Central Europe. This was the mighty 
 power embodied in the Anglo- American peoples: the 
 wealth, the intelligence, the ideals, the genuine and un- 
 selfish enthusiasm for democratic progress embodied in 
 the United States and Great Britain and the great British 
 Dominions. But the energy and purpose represented in 
 this combination could be exercised for useful ends only 
 under leadership of the ablest kind. Where was the 
 leader? The answer seemed obvious; in his consider- 
 ation of the problem, indeed, Page saw in Woodro* 
 Wilson the one indispensable man for the great task. 
 
 Volume I, page 272. 
 
94 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Mr. Wilson was more closely related in blood to the Brit- 
 ish Isles than any of his predecessors. His grandfather, 
 James Wilson, had come to the United States from the 
 north of Ireland in 1804; his mother, Janet Woodrow, was 
 born in Carlisle, England, and spent her earliest years there. 
 The President regarded the British Constitution as the final 
 achievement of man in the great act of self-government 
 — in certain respects placing it even above the American 
 Constitution — and English literature he had always 
 studied as the most eloquent expression of the human 
 spirit. For militarism and force Mr. Wilson had an 
 innate aversion that had its roots not only in emotion but 
 in a carefully reasoned philosophy of government and 
 society. In addition to the necessary moral and intel- 
 lectual equipment, Mr. Wilson had that vibrant tongue 
 and pen, that impressive personal appearance, and that 
 compelling authority which, in Page's eyes, had set him 
 aside for leadership in this new work. No American 
 statesman — at least in modern times — had ever filled 
 the White House who could so sympathetically recall to 
 Englishmen their own finest type of public man. 
 
 Probably Page's imagination shot ahead of the inter- 
 national sentiment of his own time, yet the fact must be 
 recorded that it was his plan, as early as 1913, a year 
 before the war, to use President Wilson for the purpose of 
 preventing the calamity that after four years of ruin he 
 was afterward called upon to compose. Only the associ- 
 ation of the English-speaking peoples, under the leadership 
 of President Wilson, could save the world from the gather- 
 ing storm. A visible demonstration that the United States 
 and Great Britain were working, not in any definite 
 alliance, but with common aims, was the one thing that 
 would make Europe pause. A visit of the President and 
 his wife to England would, in itself, Page believed, have 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 95 
 
 prevented a European war. He well knew that Europeans 
 attach an importance to friendly interchanges of this 
 kind which Americans scarcely understand, and an official 
 visit, set off with all the grace of Mr. Wilson's oratory, 
 would in itself produce an impression on Europe that 
 might have the most far-reaching consequences. 
 
 To the President 
 
 The Coburg Hotel, 
 Grosvenor Square, London, W. 
 July 9, 1913. 
 My dear Mr. President: 
 
 I am writing you tins little note about a subject that is 
 none of your business nor mine and is, therefore, the more 
 fascinating as well as the more important: I pray you if 
 you have any influence in that quarter, you will persuade 
 your daughter and her fiance, when they are married, to 
 accept the invitation that Mrs. Page took great pleasure 
 in sending a little while ago to make us a visit. \\ e can, 
 I hope, really contribute to their pleasure and give them 
 an interesting experience. It will be out of the London 
 "season"; there will be no court functions, but there'll 
 be plenty of other things; and we can make as much or 
 as little fuss about them as they wish. You and I may 
 not confess it, but just a little well-regulated fuss gives 
 lots of fun— to the young. We all come here and see the 
 outside of London. The inside few of us see; and, I 
 assure you, the inside is well worth getting some glimpses 
 of. They are a noble race yet, these dukes and earls and 
 knights, and you forget their gauds on close view. There 
 is now a Lady X. and a Lady Y. who are sprung in direct 
 line from John Hampden. I know them both and the 
 sons of both are as fine young fellows as this adventurous 
 
96 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 planet holds. These folk and their like, few of whom ever 
 visit our shores, are very simple and genuine and hospita- 
 ble ; and it is a most interesting experience to know them. 
 Tins experience and such like I should like to give to 
 your fine, genuine young couple as they start forth. And 
 we'd at the same time give these good folk here a most 
 pleasant experience. I bespeak your good offices then to- 
 ward this international opportunity. 
 
 And this, quite sufficient for its own sake, is also a 
 prelude to a more swelling song. Later, when the first 
 big tasks are done, you and Mrs. Wilson must come here — 
 I mean during your Presidency. Then you'll smash a 
 precedent to some purpose. I've thought very much 
 about American-English relations. We don't want any 
 alliances: that would bind us to them in their troubles; 
 and under our system we can't even make a treaty: no 
 great matter. But we do wish to keep very close — as 
 close as can be without any artificial force at work and 
 without entangling alliances. The one tie will be made — 
 the one possible and effective bond — by a friendly visit 
 of the President and his wife. 1 Ask House. I mentioned 
 it to him one day and his imagination turned red. 
 
 For the present, however, the young couple. Further 
 our plan in their favour. 
 
 With all good wishes for your health and continued 
 mastery, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 Walter H. Page. 2 
 
 'It might prevent an Anglo-German war and possibly an American-Japanese 
 war also. The world would take notice to whom it belongs. (W. H. P.'s note.) 
 
 2 This letter is printed from a copy found in Page's papers. The original does 
 not appear in the President's fde. Since Page, in a letter to Colonel House dated 
 August 25, 1913, tells of having written to the President on this subject and since 
 Page's papers contain President Wilson's reply, there seems no doubt that it was 
 sent. See Volume I, pages 275 and 276. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 97 
 
 President Wilson's reply to this letter, printed in an 
 earlier volume, 1 expressed a desire to fall in with the 
 suggestion and an agreement with Page's point of view , 
 but a belief that the plan was impracticable. There w as 
 too much work to be done at home, and the "case" against 
 the President's leaving the country was "overwhelming." 
 Page never missed an opportunity, however, of making 
 President Wilson a familiar figure in England. The 
 President's character and purposes were his favourite 
 topics of conversation. He devoted many speeches to 
 setting forth the new presidential aims; and so, when the 
 Authors' Club invited him to be its guest on December 3, 
 1913, it was natural that he should take as his subject, 
 "President Wilson as a Man of Letters." The address 
 and the Christmas letter sent to the President two weeks 
 afterward again portray the fine spirit of friendship and 
 understanding prevailing between the two men. 
 
 "I am most thankful to say that Mr. Wilson happens 
 to be one of my oldest and best friends, and I cannot 
 divest myself of his friendship," said Page on this occa- 
 sion. "Of all the forces which bind together your coun- 
 try and mine there is no other one comparable to literature. 
 The friendship of governments is well, very well, but it 
 is little; the friendship of peoples is very much more im- 
 portant and stable, and the friendship of peoples could 
 have no firmer foundation than in a common literature. 
 
 "With the hope of interesting you for a few moments 
 I may tell you something of the intellectual qualities of the 
 man, and how they have found expression in his literary 
 activities. I first had the pleasure of making Mr. Wilsoi l's 
 acquaintance just thirty-two years ago this week. We 
 were both somewhat younger than we are now, and he 
 had finished his college career and had gone to Atlanta 
 
 Volume I, page 276. 
 
98 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 to practise law. He was a well-trained lawyer. I met 
 him there and he seemed to have quite an abundance of 
 time to read. At that time a series of books was coming 
 out on various aspects of the English Government — if I 
 am not mistaken by a gentleman who in those days was 
 called Mr. John Morley. Mr. Wilson was profoundly 
 interested in them, so much so that I saw at once, on very 
 early acquaintance, that the very first love of his mind 
 was the love of the study of government. There he was, 
 a young man of twenty-seven or twenty -eight, with his 
 living to earn, caring very much more about whether he 
 thoroughly understood the theory of the British Consti- 
 tution than he did about any client whatsoever. He soon 
 discovered — admirable as his legal training had been, 
 and he had what I regard as a great legal mind — that his 
 passion for the study of government was stronger than his 
 passion for the service of clients. 
 
 "He went to the Johns Hopkins University, and set 
 himself to the study of history and government. After 
 two years there he presented his thesis for his doctor's de- 
 gree, a book which he called 'Congressional Government,' 
 in which he showed that the real rulers of the United 
 States were not Congress, but that it was the Committees 
 of the two Houses which really ruled the American people. 
 Everybody knew it as soon as it was said, but nobody had 
 said it for many years before. He elucidated that in a lit- 
 tle book which has become one of the classics of our gov- 
 ernment, and that was his thesis for his doctor's degree. 
 
 "Having received that, he wished still further to pursue 
 his studies of government, and became a teacher. After 
 two or three years at smaller colleges he was called to the 
 professorship of Jurisprudence at his own University of 
 Princeton. There he became a great teacher of govern- 
 ment as well. Up to this time I dare say few of his friends 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 99 
 
 had ever thought of his being a man of action, except his 
 most intimate friends, because he always showed them 
 that quality of his mind which meant leadership. As a 
 teacher he was a notable leader and an admirable lecturer. 
 
 "Here was a man, therefore, who up to this period of 
 his life might be said to have three careers from which 
 he might choose. He might be a lawyer, he might be a 
 great expounder, he might be a man of action. Having 
 those three careers to choose from he chose all tliree. 
 
 "One member of his Cabinet said to me after he had 
 sat at the Cabinet table for three months, ' There has never 
 come a question before the Cabinet but what the President 
 instantly had an opinion about it, and he expressed it 
 as a man would express an opinion he had thought out 
 several years before.' That is just what he has done. 
 
 " Here is a man who pleases his mind and cultivates it by 
 reading Wordsworth and by an equally intelligent study of 
 Burke. In one of his essays he laid down that a man of lit- 
 erature must first of all have something to say, and then, 
 that he cannot hope to say it in a way that will attract and 
 convince men unless he become a great artist in the use of 
 speech. And he has put himself through terrible trials for 
 thirty years to master the great art of expository speech. 
 
 "He never lost sight of the fact that a man who uses 
 our language, and has ideas that he wishes to impress 
 upon people, must express them with the deftest artistry 
 if he can, and he has been a hard student of the art of ex- 
 pression. He has a thoroughly trained legal mind which 
 now stands him in good stead. He has a well-furnished 
 mind in economics and in the history of government, and 
 his state papers are written with the same literary care 
 that the best of you ever give to the best of your sonnets. 
 
 "I know of no other ruler in the world who is his 
 superior in respect of the literary style of Ins state papers. 
 
100 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 That is the literature he is now making. Not since 
 Lincoln has there appeared a man in American life whose 
 'stump' speeches, put in book form, have had the wide 
 reading that Mr. Wilson's have had. Here is a man 
 who believes with all the earnestness and inevitableness 
 that a man ever believed anything, the simple creed of 
 a democracy, and he does not flinch from carrying it out 
 to its farthest consequences. He is convinced that a man 
 can believe only one thing in his life, and the literature 
 that he has produced and is producing, is the exposition 
 of that profound belief. He has an essentially moral 
 belief also, and his mind is essentially a moral mind, as 
 recent events have given the best possible evidence. 
 
 "With all this he has what I call the true humility of a 
 great mind. If I do not speak in praise of Mr. Wilson 
 I fear I shall have to cease to speak, for it is by reason of 
 his command that I owe the honour of dwelling among 
 you. I owe him, also, the intellectual stimulus and 
 companionship of more than thirty years, and there are 
 many men in the United States who feel proud to pay him 
 that tribute. If you will kindly remember that I have 
 not spoken anything about the President of the United 
 States, that I have spoken only of Woodrow Wilson, and 
 that I have no official relation to the United States or 
 anything except to the Authors' Club, I will thank you." 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 21 December, 1913. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 First and foremost your young folk 1 who have gone off 
 with Doctor Grenfell for a week — they have given us and 
 
 ^r. and Mrs. Francis Bowe Sayre, son-in-law and daughter of the President, 
 then on their honeymoon to England. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 101 
 
 many others here great joy. I dare say they have written 
 you about some of their experiences; but they couldn't 
 write, for they don't know, how much pleasure they have 
 given us. In one sense they have come in a dull time, 
 but for that reason we have ourselves seen more of them; 
 and even when most of the great people are gone, there's 
 a good deal of London left. All our friends have been 
 greatly charmed by them. When they first came 1 
 congratulated Frank; when they had been here a week, I 
 congratulated Jessie ; when they went away the other day 
 I congratulated them both. 
 
 And now comes the news of the Senate's passing the 
 currency bill 1 — an unmatched record in one year's legis- 
 lation and leadership. You've now got to high table- 
 land — these two peaks 2 surmounted; and I hope all the 
 governmental and party prospect is pleasing. You may 
 be sure of tins — here your hand is felt. When I first 
 came here I encountered a good deal of curiosity about the 
 personality and the qualities of the new President. Now 
 I encounter the profoundest respect and constant con- 
 gratulations. It's fairly amazing how quickly and ac- 
 curately in this insular world of great ignorance about the 
 United States they "measure up" our real men. Sir 
 Edward Grey and the Prime Minister have both tliis 
 week said things to me about you that sound almost as if 
 they knew something about our government and the 
 spirit of our institutions and people. They are in a good 
 temper and in a good mood, and Tyrrell 3 has come back in 
 good time to help that. He tells me much about you and 
 House and Houston. 4 "I'll tell you what I like about 
 
 ^This is the Federal Reserve Act, passed December 23, 1913. 
 2 The other "peak," of course, was the Underwood Tariff Act. 
 3 Private Secretary to Sir Edward Grey, now permanent Under Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs. His trip to the United States is described in Volume I, Chapter VI. 
 Secretary of Agriculture in the Wilson Cabinet. 
 
102 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 them," said he: "they don't gush." Then he went on 
 to say how you talked in the same phrases as their Liberal 
 leaders here. ' They talked before me just as they talk to 
 one another." It was a good stroke — his going. When 
 House comes over again, that, too, will be a good stroke. 
 If only you should see your way to come, as perhaps 
 you may yet. 
 
 The peace plan which has been carried out in treaties 
 with several small Central American states will, I fear, 
 if presented here, provoke the answer that a renewal of 
 the Arbitration Treaty should come first. That is more 
 definite, concrete, helpful. But, as I say, they are in a 
 mood here to be quite patient. I am surprised, as I 
 think it all over, at the number of reversals of positions 
 they have made — in the Mexican business, in the con- 
 cessions business — in everything we have asked. 
 
 That San Francisco Fair decision is the only exception. 
 That stands. The Government's declination to reopen 
 the subject is, I am informed, due to local politics. The 
 very vigorous British agitation in behalf of the San Fran- 
 cisco Fair has its motive in a wish to please us. "The 
 United States," they say, "wishes us to go and that is a 
 sufficient reason why we should go." As nearly as I can 
 guess, the chance that the Government will be forced by 
 Parliament to participate is small. 
 
 As Christmas comes, I am glad to say that my dip- 
 lomatic docket is entirely cleared up — the slate's clean. 
 
 The one thing that my mind works toward all the 
 time is the hope of finding a chance to do something con- 
 structive, something that will stand out and last and be 
 important in the relations of the two peoples. These 
 relations are surely most satisfactory; but there is an 
 immense amount of ignorance of the other on each side. 
 
 My life continues to be interesting and very busy and 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 103 
 
 in every way pleasant. Its usefulness I sometimes doubt, 
 because of the lack of definite constructive work. (Bryce 
 reassures me and says that I am mistaken.) Then the 
 vast silence across the ocean and the rhetorical indefinite- 
 ness at the other end of the line give a feeling at times of a 
 vast vagueness. Your letters, you may be sure, are always 
 reassuring and most helpful. They are the only definite 
 things I get. I am told, too, that this is always so — 
 perhaps it must be so. But that will be remedied pres- 
 ently, I know. For how big in more essential things are 
 the great tasks you have done since March — the Tariff 
 Act, the Currency Act, the Principle of Saving Helpfulness 
 touching Latin- America, the preservation of the integrity 
 of the Consular Service and of the rank and file of the 
 Diplomatic Service (this has had a great good effect in 
 every European capital), and the welding of the old 
 hungry and growling party into an intelligent and loyal 
 instrument of government. These achievements are so 
 great and so fundamental that, in comparison, it would 
 matter little if we had no diplomatic service. You will, 
 therefore, never catch me complaining of any little sorrows 
 of my own: if I had them, they would not be worth airing; 
 and I am most happy to serve. 
 
 During the last month I have made almost a speech 
 a day — most of them after-dinner speeches before such 
 bodies as the Royal Society, the Economic Section of the 
 University of London, the Authors' Club, the Worshipful 
 Company of Mercers, the Navy League, and the like; and 
 I have tried to present one idea in each little speech that 
 should give the company one clear-cut notion of some 
 part of the work of our great Democracy. They receive 
 my commonplaces most heartily. I had the satisfaction 
 of receiving the appreciative thanks of a group of judges 
 of the higher courts, including the Lord Chief Justice, on an 
 
104 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 explanation of our Mexican policy. They had not before 
 understood it at all. It requires a surgical operation to 
 get so simple a principle into the British head. All this 
 activity, I dare hope, helps — a little. But it's very slow 
 and — it's work as hard as it is pleasant. But all real life is 
 an adventure and this is adventurous enough, you may be 
 sure. I've worn two dress coats to a frazzle, the Lord 
 knows how many pairs of motor tires, and I've been 
 stopped for speeding. But I'm too old a fox to eat their 
 dinners or to drink their wines. Still, if the King lives 
 as long as I've toasted and sung him in my hopes of long 
 life to him, he'll be immortal. He must have got some 
 inkling of it, for he sent me two brace of pheasants the 
 other day. 
 
 Now all this is a rambling and, I fear, a dull letter — 
 meant only to do this: to convey my hearty congratu- 
 lations and good wishes for some rest for yourself and 
 for a Big New Year and many of them. 
 
 Always faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 December 21, 1913. 
 Here's a rather good piece of news — the English and the 
 Germans, who own most of the ships, had been so running 
 the Safety at Sea Conference that it became obvious that 
 their report would be merely a clean bill of health for all 
 ships afloat. Several days ago Mr. Alexander 1 ran across 
 the Prime Minister — at a luncheon, I think. Mr. Asquith 
 asked him how the Conference was going. Alexander 
 told him that it seemed doubtful whether the report would 
 be such that the American delegates would sign it. The 
 Prime Minister evidently passed a word of caution and 
 
 Joshua W. Alexander, Member of Congress, and Chairman of the American 
 Commission to the Safety at Sea Conference. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 105 
 
 command along; for the very next day things began to go 
 differently. I heard that the Prime Minister said that 
 the report must be one that the Americans would sign. 
 I ran across Lord Mersey at dinner about that time. 
 He presides over the Conference, and he's a sleek, fine 
 old Law Lord who says startling things as gently as a 
 sucking dove. He said to me, slyly smiling: "Your 
 Excellency, I have an observation to make to you about 
 your countrymen: they fight well— your Honourable Mr. 
 Alexander, for instance." 
 
 "Thank you," said I. 
 
 You'll be pleased to hear, too, what the Lord Chancellor 1 
 said to me about your daughter. He asked that pair 
 and my daughter to dinner and his only other guest was 
 Lord Morley. Those old fellows had a gay time with 
 the young folk. The Lord Chancellor (who looks like a 
 bigger Hoke Smith and, I sometimes fear, is more or less 
 like him) said to me afterwards: "A fine young lady: I 
 like the breed." 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 ii 
 
 There was one episode of the Mexican disturbance of 
 1914 that caused considerably more excitement in Eng- 
 land than in the United States. The American interest 
 lay chiefly in the political phases of the Huerta revolution 
 and in President Wilson's attempt to create something 
 resembling a constitutional order in the great Indian 
 Republic. The President's "idealism" made little im- 
 pression on practical Englishmen, who, when they thought 
 of Central America, thought almost exclusively of trade. 
 In the latter part of February, 1914, however, Mexico 
 
 x Viscount Haldane. 
 
106 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 wounded the pride of Great Britain in its most sensitive 
 spot. The newspapers printed dispatches describing 
 the murder of William S. Benton in the presence of Fran- 
 cisco Villa. Mr. Benton was an Englishman who, though 
 he had lived in Mexico many years, had followed the 
 usual British custom of retaining his British citizenship. 
 Francisco Villa was the military leader of the Carranza 
 revolutionists — the faction which the American Govern- 
 ment was almost openly supporting against the Huerta 
 regime. Villa and his associates first denied the crime, 
 then misrepresented the circumstances and persistently 
 evaded all attempts at investigation. That Benton had 
 been murdered, that his murderers were Villa and his 
 party, that he was a British subject entitled to the pro- 
 tection of the British Government, and that the United 
 States was responsible for the Villa regime to the ex- 
 tent that it had encouraged the constitutionalists and 
 made possible the munitioning of their army — amid a 
 mass of contradictions and misstatements these facts 
 were true and in themselves presented a grave situa- 
 tion. 
 
 Ever since the days of Lord Palmerston, one of the 
 cardinal principles of British policy had been that the 
 protection of the British Government followed a British 
 subject to the four quarters of the earth. For the first 
 time the British Government now felt itself helpless in 
 face of a situation of this kind. The fact that the murder 
 had been committed by the faction that was more or less 
 under the protection of the American Government was 
 especially embarrassing. Ordinarily the British Navy 
 moves quickly to avenge insults of this kind, but the 
 United States, under its interpretation of the Monroe 
 Doctrine, does not tolerate punitive expeditions by 
 European governments on American soil. Moreover, a 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 107 
 
 blockade of Mexican ports would merely have injured 
 the Huerta government which Great Britain had rec- 
 ognized and to that extent have benefited the Villa and 
 Carranza revolutionists, whose authority extended onl\ 
 over part of the northern section of Mexico. The only 
 power that could act decisively was the United States. Bui 
 the State Department, under Mr. Bryan, was moving in 
 the most deliberate fashion. Meanwhile, the British 
 press was demanding punishment, and the Opposition 
 was prodding the Government in the House of Commons. 
 Sir Edward Grey, in response to these questions, showed 
 his usual self-restraint, but it was a restraint that revealed, 
 rather than concealed, the seriousness of the situation. 
 The old Palmerstonian cry of "Civis Romanus sum" 
 was once more heard throughout the land, but now, in 
 view of the exceeding complexity of Mexican affairs, not 
 to much purpose. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 Tuesday, February 24, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I have to-day telegraphed the State Department how 
 strong and widely spread the feeling is here that the 
 policy of "watching and waiting" in Mexico has gone on 
 long enough. The excitement about Benton is general 
 and intense. I hear it and read it on every side. Whal 
 I telegraphed about the German Ambassador's remarks — 
 well, I take his attitude only as symptomatic of the 
 German spirit of militarism. He's screwed up courage 
 enough to express himself to me, encouraged by the 
 criticism he now hears here of our course towards Mexico. 
 This German prince Artemus Ward would have called as 
 
108 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 "amoosin' cus," a pretty fair specimen of the German 
 courtier. Of course his remedy for everything is the 
 sword, and I'm sure he'd like to see England and the 
 United States have a row. 1 
 
 Not so Sir Edward Grey. In my long talk with him 
 yesterday he showed appreciation of our difficulties, and 
 sympathy. You will notice his clearness and restraint 
 in his answer in the House of Commons, which I enclose. 
 But he is much worried. He told me that the British 
 public never became so much excited as when a subject 
 had been killed in a foreign land. He confessed to some 
 fear of harsh criticism of the United States in the House 
 of Commons. But he is our mainstay — a moderate, 
 patient, wise man, the biggest Englishman I have met. 
 I am to dine with him to-morrow night, and, if I hear 
 anything worth writing, you shall hear it. These friendly 
 intimate meetings sometimes yield more than even the 
 best official interviews. 
 
 I don't foresee just what we may be able with dig- 
 nity to do in this case of Benton. But the more we 
 can do the more patient English opinion will be. It 
 is just the kind of an incident that excites the Briton 
 most. 
 
 Sir Edward's pleasure at the renewal of the Arbitration 
 treaty was very great. 'Things are clearing up," he said. 
 On that, my own hearty congratulations. 
 
 The public comment on it here has been far less than it 
 would have been if the Benton incident had not come at 
 the same time. That has for the moment taken attention 
 from every other foreign event. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 »This is an early judgment of Prince Lichnowsky; afterward Page had reason to 
 think much more admiringly of him. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 109 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 London, February 28, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I have during the week telegraphed reports of the 
 prodigious excitement here about Benton's death and of 
 the calmness under severe criticism of Sir Edward Grey 
 and the Government. Kill an Englishman at home and 
 there is no undue excitement. But kill one abroad, 
 and gunboats and armies and reparation are at once 
 thought about — a state of mind that English rule in India 
 and in other far-off foreign lands has made necessary till 
 it has become instinctive. Of course, too, the financial 
 impatience about Mexican investments has taken ad- 
 vantage of the incident. It need not disturb us, I think, 
 although it will cause quite a strong critical feeling against 
 us for some time to come. There is no doubt about that. 
 
 I took occasion in my talk with Sir Edward Grey to-day 
 to say very frankly that, while the event was in every 
 way regrettable, the death of a man who, having long 
 lived in a country and married there and amassed prop- 
 erty and apparently taken sides in politics, and who yet 
 had not become a citizen of that country, and who had 
 so little judgment as deliberately to go and quarrel with a 
 man who had military power — I told him that such 
 a man's death was not an event that should in any way 
 be thought of sufficient importance to cause a change in a 
 well-thought-out righteous principle upon which a great 
 government was directing its actions towards Mexico 
 and towards all Central America. I thought it opportune, 
 while I could thank him for his own considerate attitude, 
 to tell him plainly that the incident is exaggerated in the 
 British mind. He showed (rather than said) that he 
 
110 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 agreed with me, as I am sure he does. But he must answer 
 to an excited House of Commons. He'll stand square and 
 firm, however, in his relation to us. I feel sure of that. 
 
 I had to reason all this out myself and reach the con- 
 clusion that we ought not to become excited and therefore 
 that we would not become excited ; for I have had no word 
 from our government about the Benton incident. Two 
 hours after my talk with Sir Edward Grey, the afternoon 
 papers brought me news of the (your) Cabinet decision 
 yesterday. If I had known that while I was with him I 
 dare say I could have spoken with more vim. This is a 
 fair instance of the way in which I sometimes have to 
 think out what our government ought to do and to pro- 
 ceed upon that, as if I knew. Tins method has worked 
 all right so far, but there are obvious dangers in it. If 
 there were some man whose especial business it was to 
 telegraph me about that Cabinet meeting, it would have 
 been a great help. 
 
 When the Times published its ferocious leader the 
 other morning (such things have a real influence here as 
 nothing similar has with us) I immediately invited the 
 editor of the Westminster Gazette, 1 which is the government 
 organ, to dinner. During dinner his wife told me they 
 were all much distressed about the Times, and, after din- 
 ner, Spender himself said the same thing. He is to spend 
 the afternoon with me to-morrow — of Ins own seeking — 
 after my giving him this friendly chance. He is in the 
 Government's confidence to an unusual degree. I sought 
 to give the Prime Minister the same chance to talk. But, 
 after he had accepted my invitation, the King commanded 
 him to dine with him on the same evening. Bryce was 
 here and said not a word! Neither did the King during 
 the two hours that I explained baseball to him at the game 
 
 *J. A. Spender. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 111 
 
 between the "White Sox" and the "Giants." Most of 
 the men who lately talked freely about Mexico are become 
 silent. The Spectator to-day declares that our policy has 
 lamentably and pitifully failed. 
 
 All which, to my mind, shows how lucky it is for us 
 and for the world that it is our job and not theirs. They 
 would India-ize and Egypt-ize Mexico forever. 
 
 I have confidence in Sir Edward Grey and the Govern- 
 ment; but I can talk to them better if I am kept informed. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 March 6, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The enclosed editorial from the Pall Mall Gazette is 
 the best statement that I have seen of the way men who 
 count for something here feel about the Benton case. 
 
 The exact influence and importance of the King in 
 tins government I could not explain in less than three 
 hours — if I could at all. But it is very much more im- 
 portant than most men think — certainly than I thought 
 a year ago. His real power grows out of his personality. 
 Well, the King sent me word a few days ago that he now 
 understands "your President" and sees what a high- 
 minded and sagacious ruler he is. (Better not tell this to 
 the Irish!) 
 
 Yours most heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 The Benton episode, like most other matters outside 
 the European scene, was obliterated in the monstrous 
 confusion precipitated by the German invasion of Belgium. 
 
112 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 After August 4, 1914, it became, in fact, an exclusively 
 American problem. In an earlier part of this work, the 
 story, so far as Page was concerned with it, has been told 
 with sufficient detail. His letters to President Wilson, 
 however, bring out new points. The critics of President 
 Wilson's Mexican policy overlook one argument in its 
 favour. Page believed that Mr. Wilson's opposition to 
 the Huerta regime in Mexico, though it had not destroyed 
 the revolutionary spirit in that country and ushered in a 
 constitutional democratic order, had saved not only 
 Mexico, but a considerable part of Central and South 
 America, from the exploitation of commercialists whose 
 chief interest was oil. It came out in the progress of 
 events that Lord Cowdray's company had acquired im- 
 portant concessions, not only in Mexico, but in Colombia 
 and Ecuador. One result of American dissatisfaction 
 at this kind of penetration was that Lord Cowdray re- 
 linquished these concessions at the demand of the British 
 Government. In a letter dated March 19, 1914, Page 
 discussed this incident. "I believe," he wrote, "that if 
 Taft (let us say) had had another four years, Cowdray 
 would have owned Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia, or so 
 much of them as he cared for, with such a grip on their 
 governments as would have amounted to a mortgage. He 
 could have controlled them at any time and in any essen- 
 tial way he chose. The more I hear and see and learn, 
 the surer I become that these countries owe their freedom 
 from tins dictatorship to you — for which release you will 
 never get the credit or the thanks you deserve. Yet, I 
 believe, too, that they are not going to give us any more 
 trouble, certainly not so long as you are in power or any 
 other man who may take your policy. They are doubly 
 afraid — first of the United States, then of their own 
 government in its relations to the United States. No 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 113 
 
 British Government is going to risk our friendship for 
 commercial adventurers. I even believe that Cowdray 
 is thoroughly convinced of the righteousness as well as of 
 the power of the United States and of its earnestness. 
 . . . An excellent lady of title and character asked 
 me to luncheon at her home — far out in Chelsea. I went. 
 Cowdray and Tyrrell were present. We talked freely. 
 I think I saw their minds — Cowdray with subdued fi- 
 nancial ambitions, reconciled with his situation. He isn't 
 vindictive. He will not fight for revenge. I think, in 
 fact, he forgives his enemies. He is essentially good- 
 natured, even amiable. 
 
 "Of course, you had a hand in their halting, for which 
 you need not lose sleep o' nights. And the main fact is, 
 I think they will give us little or no trouble. And the 
 British Government will not risk displeasing us for 
 them." 
 
 To the President 
 
 8 May, 1914, London. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The news that reaches London through every channel 
 that I hear of — governmental, financial, and newspaper — 
 indicates not only the early downfall of Huerta, but the 
 gravest fears for the lives and property of foreigners in 
 Mexico City especially, but throughout the whole country 
 as well. I cannot guess to what extent these fears may 
 be the result of the opinion that has prevailed here 
 till now — that Huerta could never be dislodged by the 
 "rebels"; and of course I have no data to form any 
 opinion of my own. 
 
 But I report tins universal fear of anarchy and murder 
 and plunder because of its bearings on governmental re- 
 lations. Sir Edward Grey is thoroughly alarmed. His 
 
114 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 advices are that such a state of things may follow as will 
 endanger foreign lives and property everywhere in Mexico; 
 and they (members of Parliament and others) are already 
 asking tins Government what assurances it has from us, 
 or what preparations it is making, in common prudence, 
 on the eve of the approaching catastrophe? And nobody 
 here — from Sir Edward down — looks on Villa and Zapata 
 except as scourges — thoroughly unprincipled — brigands 
 and murderers. Carranza they know next to nothing 
 about. But with Villa or Zapata as a conqueror, they 
 will consider rank anarchy come. Are we in a position 
 then to protect foreign lives and property? Will we take 
 this active task in hand? I am asked this on all sides. 
 
 This I send for whatever it may be worth — nothing, or 
 little, or much. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 P. S. The newspapers and certain question-asking 
 members of Parliament keep saying that we have laid 
 so much emphasis on the elimination of Huerta that we 
 seem to have forgotten the larger problem of order and 
 security in Mexico. This is as persistent as it is irritating. 
 
 P. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy London, 
 
 May 19, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The impending catastrophe in the City of Mexico casts 
 its shadow here. Hardly a day passes but I am questioned 
 and argued with and waited on, as, for instance, two days 
 ago by a big banker and director in the Tehuantepec 
 Railway. V I cannot meet the interest on my debentures," 
 said he, "because your government has stopped traffic 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 115 
 
 at one end. My shareholders are more or less dependent 
 on their incomes from this source. What redress can I 
 have? What can I tell them?" &c, &c., &c. Then, 
 after a pause, "If your Government had recognized 
 Huerta — as every other government did," &c. 
 
 Then I got my inning, after he had done — a courteous 
 but much wrought-up old gentleman. 
 
 "Every other government?" I asked. "You mean, of 
 course, European governments who have no responsi- 
 bilities there. Argentina, Brazil, Chile have not rec- 
 ognized him; and recognizing a military dictator merely 
 puts a premium on revolution." 
 
 He had not thought of that. "What can I tell my 
 shareholders and clients?" 
 
 "Tell them, if I may make a suggestion, that Mexico 
 is a country where disorder has reigned for about one 
 hundred and seventy-five years out of two hundred, and 
 that you failed to acquaint yourself with the history of 
 the country in which you asked them to invest, and that, 
 thanks to the United States, there is a chance that orderly 
 government of a permanent sort may be set up as soon 
 as possible and revolutions will be discouraged." 
 
 So it goes almost daily. 
 
 My hearty sympathy, my dear Mr. President, in tins 
 horrible state of things, with the noise of Jingoes and men 
 who are honestly afraid, with the element of uncertainty 
 in the Mexican character, with the possibility of some 
 awful havoc of error that may precipitate war — how 
 admirably your patience shines as a clear light in a dark 
 world. I am afraid to pick up a paper or to hear the 
 telephone ring. But I am of the opinion that your friend 
 Tedcastle expressed to me the other day : " I don't know 
 just how it will turn out, but I have more confidence in 
 the President than in all the rest combined." One of the 
 
116 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 English generals said to me yesterday: "Let me give 
 you a good piece of military advice. Don't go to Mexico. 
 Let 'em howl. Be patient. It will cost a lot of money 
 and many lives, and you'll get no glory— you'll get nothing 
 for this loss. I hope your President will not listen to warlike 
 politicians. They cause us to shed our blood, not theirs." 
 
 I have felt a sort of guilt in finding that I must send my 
 recent reports of general criticism here — that we are 
 blameworthy first for not recognizing Huerta and secondly 
 for hesitating so long about invasion. But, of course, it 
 is my duty to report that feeling, and you must know the 
 danger that this general feeling may possibly prevail in this 
 Cabinet, if some disaster happen, in spite of Sir Edward 
 Grey's admirable attitude. The British War Office lately 
 sent for Colonel Squier, our Military Attache, and asked 
 him what he regarded as the smallest force that might make 
 a march (if the railway were blown up) from Vera Cruz to 
 the City of Mexico— just why, neither Squier nor I know. 
 
 The Anglo-American exposition was opened the other 
 day and among the speeches at the big luncheon was one 
 by Lord Weardale who spoke of "The Wise Patience of 
 the President of the United States." The Duke of Teck 1 
 turned to me and said, "He is a most patient ruler, and 
 I sometimes hear Ins patience criticized. I am glad 
 Weardale said that." All the newspapers here lack 
 confidence in the Board of Mediation, and many of them 
 laugh at it. They lack any sort of confidence in any 
 Mexican promise or agreement. Yet the criticism is 
 not very active. We shall overcome it if only some dra- 
 matic disaster do not disturb the orderly process of events. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 ^he Duke of Teck — a title exchanged in wartime for that of the Marquess 
 of Cambridge — is the brother of Queen Mary. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 117 
 
 The new cloud rising in Europe is evident from the 
 variety of topics covered in the next letter. Colonel 
 House is now in Europe on his famous expedition to 
 establish some kind of working agreement with Germany, 
 Great Britain, and the United States that would make 
 impossible the European war. 1 He has had his rather 
 discouraging interview at Potsdam with the Kaiser and 
 is now in London discussing the same subject with Sir 
 Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, and the government leaders. 
 The United States has recently sold the obsolete battle- 
 ships Mississippi and Idaho to Greece, and thus fortified 
 that power against a threatened naval attack by Turkey. 
 The Mexican situation has been surrendered to the Am- 
 bassadors from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, who, in their 
 meetings at Niagara Falls, have had little more success 
 than American and British diplomats in finding a way 
 out of the wilderness. Meanwhile the class struggle 
 in Great Britain is raging in all unconsciousness of the 
 vastly greater struggle hanging over Europe. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, 
 London, July 5, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 There is nothing on the docket here but Mexico — and 
 only the general question and no specific phase of that — 
 and — House. He's as great a joy as Mexico is a sorrow. 
 About Mexico I am talking with the government folk 
 and with the newspapers. The poor government folk 
 are driven and worried to death with two armies in Ire- 
 land, besides the King's army, and with budget troubles 
 without end, and they are glad to be relieved of any im- 
 mediate crisis in Mexico. I saw Sir Edward Grey at 
 
 , ^ee Volume I, Chapter IX. 
 
118 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 dinner two nights ago, looking much worried. I am told 
 that he has lately threatened to resign from the Cabinet 
 because something displeased him. A threat of resig- 
 nation from him is a compelling argument ; they couldn't 
 afford to lose him. ( Our talk was all about — poetry ; and 
 he hurried away to the House of Commons as soon as 
 coffee and cigars had been served. The Prime Minister I 
 saw last night at the French Embassy. He's yet some- 
 what of a riddle to me. But there's no doubt that hes 
 worried. 
 
 The bitter feeling becomes more bitter all the time. 
 Since I've become an Oxford man, 1 I've seen it even in 
 college life. A Tory M.P. the other day met the best 
 friend of his college years, who is a Liberal. The Liberal 
 walked up to lus old friend with an eager greeting — "How 
 are you, Jack?" and the Tory M.P. put his hands behind 
 him and said: " I'm sorry, but I am not now keeping com- 
 pany with Radicals." Two nights ago the gibes of the 
 two parties came near to a fist fight as the members were 
 going out of the House — all which means that the revo- 
 lution is making progress but that it is meeting desperate 
 tactics by the opposition and the tension is indescribable 
 and — painful. It wears even a spectator to weariness. 
 But I am keeping House's ball rolling (slowly) with Sir 
 Edward Grey, and House and Spring Rice and Tyrrell and 
 Haldane and I are to lunch together in a few days. 
 Then, a few days later, the Prime Minister is to dine 
 with me — all designed for talk about House's big plan. 
 You can't talk with them except at luncheon or dinner — 
 food with talk every time. They're trying to find some- 
 thing to say to Germany, which is hard because they 
 don't fundamentally trust the Germans. Grey is deeply 
 in earnest, but he can't get rid of the fear that the Germans 
 
 J The Ambassador had recently received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford. 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 119 
 
 may misuse his approaches and turn them against him. 
 But the German Emperor has sent for Ins Ambassador 
 here, who is now with him at Kiel for ten days. That 
 may mean something. I'll give the Ambassador a chance 
 to tell me as soon as he comes back. 
 
 The Greek Minister came to see me yesterday, excited 
 with joy. He's one of the ablest and most agreeable of 
 the whole diplomatic corps. He wished to express his 
 unbounded thanks "to your far-seeing wise President 
 who has enabled us to prevent war." I confess he made 
 a quite convincing statement of his case, as he had done 
 to me once before. Since I telegraphed the Department 
 about criticisms that had reached me, I have heard noth- 
 ing more of them. Symington (our Naval Attache) is 
 keeping in close touch with all the naval people and he 
 will tell me if they continue to talk. But Gennadius, the 
 Greek Minister, while he is, of course, making out his own 
 special case, is a broader and wiser man, by far, than the 
 mere naval man of any country. When I told lrim I 
 would write to you what he had said he was greatly 
 pleased. 
 
 The Argentine and Chilean Ministers, both quite cap- 
 able men, are greatly pleased, too, that their governments 
 are taking a hand in the Mexican muddle. They have 
 told me over and over again that tins mere fact (whatever 
 come of the Niagara Conference) will make an immensely 
 better feeling in their countries toward the United States. 
 I meet one or both of them every two or three days, and 
 we always hold a mediation conference ourselves. They 
 are proud that they (i. e., their governments) are admitted 
 to the game. The Brazilian Minister to this government 
 was recalled about the time that mediation began, and his 
 successor is not yet come. I have it in mind to talk with 
 the Brazilian Charge, when I can do it without seeming 
 
120 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 to go out of my way. If I sent for him to come and see 
 me, he'd exaggerate the importance of the whole incident. 
 (You'd laugh a pound of flesh off if I could tell you the 
 intricacies of diplomatic etiquette at a court even no more 
 formal than tins.) I meet the Argentine and Chilean 
 Ministers anywhere, any day — the last time at a big 
 dance, where we sat in a corner and settled all South 
 and Central American troubles. This easy way of doing 
 things comes of their having attractive wives who are 
 sought at big social functions — one of them, by the way, 
 a countrywoman of ours. This is a big thing — having 
 these ABC. governments in tins game. These men here 
 very frankly express their pride and satisfaction, and their 
 wives quite as freely. 
 
 It's rather exhilarating: at this moment the British 
 Government (in House's big plan), the Greek Govern- 
 ment, the Argentine Government, and the Chilean 
 Government, all showing even here their great pride in 
 having the friendship of the United States. Add to tins 
 list the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha of whom I saw 
 much at Oxford — for Germany; and about half the 
 Liberian Cabinet who are in London and have asked for 
 an audience with me this week! Those poor darkies, 
 I'm afraid, are not men born to govern. It's hard to get 
 the truth out of their too-much talk. But of them, later. 
 
 This letter, too, has been delayed by the Fourth of 
 July. Sports, the week end, etc., kept many away from 
 my reception, which I held in my house. (Your kinsman 
 and his wife were among the eighteen hundred to two 
 thousand who came.) It's a funny thing that thousands 
 of men, women, and children who at home never went to a 
 reception and never observed the Fourth of July in any 
 way will so arrange their journeying as to be in London to 
 attend the Ambassador's reception ! This seems to me as 
 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE AMBASSADOR 121 
 
 odd as that newspapers in the United States (so I am told) 
 completely turn my poor speeches on "literary " occasions 
 so as to make me say precisely the opposite of what I did 
 say and then abuse me for it and report that the very 
 people here resent what I say who take the trouble to 
 write me too flattering complimentary letters! It does 
 beat the Dutch — tins business of being an Ambassador. 
 I made a speech at the Royal Literary Fund Dinner which 
 half the authors in England have praised in letters to me. 
 I confess the audience and the British public and I thought 
 it rather good. I hear that I'm scolded in the United 
 States for offending all the writers in England ! Of course 
 it would be easy enough to be silent and — do only half my 
 job. Well, for that matter, it's easy enough to go on and 
 pay no attention to them. The English papers this morn- 
 ing do not report even you intelligently in your Fourth of 
 July speech at Philadelphia. At a rather jolly and rol- 
 licking dinner of Americans last night at which Bryce and 
 the Primate of Ireland and others told good stories, I told 
 of the man who came to see me the other day and asked 
 if I thought that he and his friends could buy the Panama 
 Canal — I told it as an offset to the story of the American 
 who is said to have tried to buy Westminster Abbey. 
 The crowd of course laughed. My family are to-day 
 making wagers that the American papers will report that 
 I am trying to sell the Canal! Well, we'll see— per- 
 haps. 
 
 Yours most heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 In July, General Huerta, the Mexican chieftain whose 
 revolution had nearly caused serious misunderstandings 
 between the United States and Great Britain, fled before 
 the Carranzista forces and began those travels that took 
 
122 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 him to the United States and Spain. His elimination 
 from Mexican politics was a point upon which President 
 Wilson had insisted from the first. 
 
 To the President 
 
 Sunday, July 19, 1914, 
 
 Hooke Court, Beaminster, 
 
 Dorset, England. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Just this line of jubilant congratulations on the course 
 of events in Mexico. Of course the big constructive job 
 is yet to be done, and of course there are grave difficulties. 
 But this is an eight-league step forward — Huerta's quiet 
 going. With the ABC governments sufficiently in the 
 job to feel a certain responsibility and with the demon- 
 stration of the Tightness of your vision and method, all 
 the quiet great forces in the world must now come to your 
 side. 
 
 I am everywhere talking a right explanation of it, in 
 surroundings that are yet incredulous but that are now 
 at least eager to listen. They see slowly, but they'll now 
 begin to see. For the moment the English press is very 
 dense on the subject; but events are very convincing 
 things. I send you my heartiest congratulations. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 "the clash of systems" 
 
 A S THE European war becomes a certainty, the 
 jl\. figure of Sir Edward Grey takes on larger propor- 
 tions than ever in Page's correspondence with the Presi- 
 dent. In that critical last week in July, a week that began 
 with hope but which ended in the collapse of all efforts 
 to forestall the conflagration, Page saw much of this con- 
 templative statesman. For nearly ten years Grey had 
 succeeded in postponing the war; his official career had 
 represented crisis after crisis and conference after con- 
 ference; time after time had he thwarted the European 
 militarists; none realized so keenly as he, however, that 
 now the inescapable hour, so long deferred, had arrived. 
 Writing on Wednesday of this calamitous week, Page 
 gives the President an indelible picture of Grey in face 
 of the inevitable ruin. To appreciate its full meaning, 
 the salient facts in the situation must be recalled. Once 
 more we must transport ourselves to that period of despair 
 and realize, as Sir Edward Grey almost alone of European 
 statesmen realized, the complete hollowness of the diplo- 
 matic proceedings in which he had been recently engaged. 
 These exchanges had been so much wasted paper. 
 What made Grey's problem a hopeless one was that the 
 gentlemen nominally representing the German Empire 
 and the agencies with whom the Foreign Secretary was 
 believed to deal, were mere dummies and phantoms — 
 men without authority to commit their government or to 
 
 123 
 
124 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 settle anything. Not in their hands rested the issue of 
 peace or war. Lichnowsky, Bethmann-Hollweg, and 
 Von Jagow were not the spokesmen of Germany ; the real 
 centre of power was the militarist party, which did not 
 engage in diplomatic correspondence but which had the 
 deciding voice. That was the disheartening discovery 
 which so preyed upon this statesman's mind. A few days 
 previously he had proposed a European conference for the 
 peaceful settlement of the Austro-Serbian quarrel. Ger- 
 many had rejected the proposal, and this rejection, in 
 Grey's opinion, could only mean that the militaristic 
 autocracy, already cheated several times of its long- 
 anticipated war, did not propose to be beguiled 
 again into patching up a truce. Germany's "infamous 
 proposal" that Great Britain should stand aside while 
 France was destroyed, the British obtaining a "neutrality 
 agreement" as compensation for the betrayal of a virtual 
 ally, had removed the last hope of a peaceful issue. What 
 stand was Britain to take in the face of this insult to her 
 honour? The question which confronted Sir Edward at 
 that moment was essentially the same as that which so 
 depressed Page in the days of the submarine. The pic- 
 ture which the American draws of Grey on this occasion 
 may be taken as a companion piece to that of Page, still 
 vivid in the recollection of his intimates, drearily sitting 
 all night long before his fire, pondering the possible out- 
 come of the Lusiiania crisis. The tremendous doubt 
 clouding Grey's mind on this occasion was precisely the 
 same as that which afflicted Page a year afterward. The 
 problem essentially was one of national honour. Would 
 Britain prove faithful to her duty and her interests, or 
 would she stand aside while Germany and Austria wrought 
 their destructive will in Europe? 
 
 At this time — four days before the Belgian question 
 
"THE CLASH OF SYSTEMS 125 
 
 intervened to give the right impetus to British policy— 
 Grey was the one great participant who clearly saw the 
 merits of the situation. The future of Britain and Europe 
 demanded British intervention, irrespective of the inva- 
 sion of Belgium. Yet a majority of the Cabinet, a major- 
 ity of the House of Commons, and probably a majority 
 of the public, were strongly against war. At that very 
 moment the anti-war group in the Cabinet were holding 
 secret meetings to devise ways of blocking the Foreign 
 Secretary's policy of succour to France. France was daily 
 beseeching the Foreign Secretary for a pledge of assistance 
 — a pledge which, Grey well knew, he could not obtain 
 at that time from the Asquith Government. At the 
 moment which Page's letter describes, therefore, not only 
 a great national danger was overhanging Great Britain, 
 but something which was far worse — national dishonour. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 July 29, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Yesterday before the news came that war had begun 
 between Austria and Serbia, yielding to the impulse that 
 every American feels, I went to see Sir Edward Grey and 
 told him that I had come on my own initiative informally 
 to ask him if he saw any way in which the good offices of 
 our government could be used and that, if he did or should 
 see any way, I prayed that he would inform me. He 
 thanked me with feeling and said that he knew that the 
 good influence of the United States could be counted on 
 for peace, and he promised to inform me if he should see 
 anything that we could do. I reminded him again that 
 I had no instructions, but I reminded him also of your 
 wish (of which I felt sure) and of the feeling of the whole 
 
126 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 American people. Then this morning came Mr. Bryan's 
 telegram of inquiry whether I saw a way for us to help. 
 I immediately sent that to Sir Edward with a reminder 
 of our conversation. There the matter for the moment 
 rests. I do not yet see any way in which we could help, 
 for England seems to me to be doing everything that can 
 be done — England, with more direct influence on the 
 Continental Powers than we could have. There has been 
 running through my mind vaguely all day the query 
 whether perhaps we might not in some way add our voice 
 to England's — the wisdom or the uselessness of which 
 you will have seen and decided before you receive this — 
 in case the danger of a general war continue. 
 
 I think that every Ambassador here saw Sir Edward 
 yesterday, and I purposely waited till late in the afternoon 
 when they — all the rest — had gone. I think I shall never 
 forget yesterday. There sat this always solitary man — 
 he and I, of course, in the room alone, each, I am sure, 
 giving the other his full confidence. He looked ten years 
 older than he looked a month ago. He told me a day or 
 two after the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne 
 that he feared just what has happened and worse than has 
 yet happened. He is, I imagine, the foremost Foreign 
 Secretary in Europe. He has held this office eight years. 
 He knows Ins European politics as perhaps no other man 
 knows it. He is a forward-looking, liberal-minded man — 
 a sort of sad and wise idealist, restrained and precise in 
 speech and sparing in his use of words, a genuine clear- 
 thinking man whose high hopes for mankind suffer sad 
 rebuffs but are never quenched — a grave philosopher 
 who feels the prodigious responsibility he carries. He had 
 received Germany's refusal of his proposition of an am- 
 bassadorial conference. He was grieved, but I think not 
 surprised. He still had hope that Russia and Austria 
 
"the clash of systems 127 
 
 would get together directly. "If Germany would give 
 the word," said he, "war would be averted." Throughout 
 his frank talk I felt the possibility of a sort of crack of 
 doom for Continental Europe. This is the man who if 
 the Liberals lose and win again in ten years, or if they 
 hold on for a few years more, will be Prime Minister. 
 Even the Conservative papers to-day, in spite of the 
 intense party feeling, praise him and call on the whole 
 nation to stand behind him. 
 
 A few hours later I went to dinner at Lord Glenconner's 
 whose family are all especial friends of Sir Edward ; and 
 he was there. I do not often meet him dining out. He 
 spends his evenings in the House and later at home with 
 his dispatches and reports, and he frequently does several 
 hours' work in bed in the morning. At dinner he was the 
 same sad figure, saying little, absorbed, waking up once 
 in a while with a smile and then slipping back into silence. 
 After dinner there was music and he sat in a corner of 
 the room — alone. He folded his arms and mechanically 
 kept time with his foot, of course not hearing the music or 
 anything else. The hostess sought him and marched him 
 across the room, and he affected a certain gaiety which 
 fooled nobody, not even himself. Lady Glenconner told 
 me that he spent Sunday at her country house. In the 
 afternoon he and she took a long walk and he told the 
 whole European political story to her two or three times. 
 After thev came back to the house, he went off on a still 
 longer walk alone. 
 
 All this is intensely interesting to me. Here is a great 
 and sincere man working with a great government as his 
 tool, working to save Europe from itself and (most likely) 
 failing. Monarchy and privilege and pride will have it 
 out before they die— at what cost! If they do have a 
 general war they will so set back the march of progress in 
 
128 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Europe as to set the day forward for American leadership. 
 Men here see that clearly. Even in this kingdom every 
 ship is ready, every crew on duty, and every officer of the 
 Admiralty office in London sleeps with a telephone by his 
 bed which he expects to ring, and the telegraph men are 
 at their instruments every minute. But of all men here 
 the most impressive is the brooding, saddened, solitary 
 Foreign Secretary, at whom men turn back and gaze 
 as he drives along the street and for whose success 
 every wise man in all Europe prays to-night. And he 
 will tell me with a melancholy smile the next time I see 
 him of his unfortunate fate that he cannot go fishing. 
 
 It's the Slav and the German. Each wants his day, 
 and neither has got beyond the stage of tooth and claw. 
 While I was talking to Sir Edward, Mrs. Page was talking 
 to Prince X, who wishes to fight, who talks like a mediaeval 
 man, and so loves the blood of his enemies that, if he can 
 first kill enough of them, he is willing to be whipped. 
 He went home last night. Meantime, the price of bread 
 has risen even in England. 
 
 Again and ever I thank Heaven for the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, Sunday night, 
 
 August 2, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 It seems useless and almost silly to write by mail about 
 this quickly changing drama, for whatever one might 
 write will become obsolete before you get it. Yet the 
 impulse to put down what one hears and fears is irresisti- 
 ble. I detect even in English opinion an acquiescence, 
 almost a satisfaction, that war between England and 
 
"the clash of systems" 129 
 
 Germany is certain. They feel that it must come sonic 
 time — why not now and have it over? It is better to have 
 it when Germany will have other enemies than England 
 in the field than at some time when England might alone 
 have to fight Germany — better, too, when the responsi- 
 bility for starting it lies at Germany's door. 
 
 In one way at least race-hatred is at the bottom of it 
 — the Slav against the Teuton. The time to have that 
 fight out seems favourable to Russia; the old Austrian 
 Emperor is in his last years, the Slav states of his empire 
 are restive, not to say rebellious, England may be draw n 
 in now to help weaken Germany, Russia feels the need of 
 a patriotic race cry at tins stage of her growth and the 
 need of a war to cause forgetfulness of the Russian- 
 Japanese disaster. I am told, too, that the Tsar — as, of 
 course, most of his subjects — is really superstitious and 
 that niiracle-working priests — a sort of modern sooth- 
 sayers — have a great influence over him; and of course the 
 military party know how to use such machinery. We 
 have to stop and think of such absurd things as this to 
 realize the deplorable medievalism of a large part of 
 Europe and to imderstand why the criminal folly and the 
 economic suicide of war do not have more effect on them. 
 Russians, Germans, and even Frenchmen are, moreover, 
 yet in that stage of evolution where the "glory" of war 
 makes a strong appeal to them. 
 
 Already the foregoing is out of date. While I was writ- 
 ing, the news came of Germany's declaration of war 
 against Russia and of her marching into Luxemburg, 
 which of course means that France and England must be- 
 come involved : I can see no escape from that. The gen- 
 eral conflagration has begun. 
 
 My thoughts run quickly to what we may do. On my 
 own initiative I asked Sir Edward Grey nearly a week ago 
 
130 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 if he could use the good offices of the United States for 
 peace. Sir Edward is very appreciative of our mood and 
 willingness. But they don't want peace on the Continent 
 — the ruling military classes do not. But they will want 
 it presently, and then our opportunity will come — your 
 opportunity to play an important and historic part. Ours 
 is the only great government in the world that is not in 
 some way entangled. (How wise our no-alliance policy 
 is!) Of course I'll keep in daily touch with Sir Edward 
 and with everybody who can and will keep me in- 
 formed. 
 
 The imagination simply balks at what may happen — 
 at what is happening. The Embassy is already besieged 
 by people who wish to go to the United States and can't, 
 who have travellers' checks for which they cannot get 
 money, and who have other unexpected troubles. I hear 
 of even worse confusion in Paris. 
 
 This island is even now practically cut off from the 
 Continent. Three days ago we tallied with Paris by 
 telephone. Now it is impossible to get a private tele- 
 gram through with any certainty, and telephone communi- 
 cation is wholly cut off. 
 
 Our shipping and foreign commerce will gain immensely ; 
 our chance to help settle the quarrel will surely come — 
 there was nothing that we could have done to prevent it; 
 and our intimate and frank and confidential relations 
 with this country are such that we will, I am sure, be 
 called on as soon as they are willing to call on anybody to 
 point the way back to reason. 
 
 Events here alone seem to me likely to make your 
 Administration historic. Let's watch closely for chances 
 to serve. 
 
 Yours — dazed 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
<£_ TT _, „, T . _,__ _„ „„ »» 
 
 'THE CLASH OF SYSTEMS 131 
 
 In the midst of mobilizations and ultimatums and 
 declarations of war, news of a different and more personal 
 kind now reached the American Embassy. Mrs. Ellen 
 Axson Wilson, the President's wife, died on August 7th. 
 Abandoning the presidential style, Page now addressed 
 his word of condolence to his friend. 
 
 To Woodrow Wilson 
 
 Bachelor's Farm, 
 
 Ockham, Surrey, 
 
 Sunday, August 9, 1914. 
 My dear Wilson: 
 
 There is nothing that even your oldest and nearest 
 friends can say — words fail in the face of a bereavement 
 like this. But I can't resist the impulse to write how 
 deeply I feel for you. 
 
 You would be touched if I could tell you the number 
 of good men and women who every hour of the day and 
 night have expressed to me the grief with which they 
 heard the sad news — men and women who never saw 
 you, from the King down to the English messenger in our 
 embassy. Many of them have come in and left their cards. 
 Sir Edward Grey especially charged me to convey to you 
 his sincere sympathy. Before we plunged into the deepest 
 depths of all this trouble, in the long conversation we had 
 on Friday, he asked me many sympathetic questions about 
 you and Mrs. Wilson. Lord Bryce, too, Jusserand, who 
 is here trying to get back to Washington — everybody. 
 
 But, my dear friend, it hits us hardest who have known 
 you longest and love you most and who wish for you now 
 all possible strength, in this sad, sad hour of the world 
 when, more than any other man in the world you are most 
 needed — all possible strength to you. If the deep sym- 
 pathy of all your friends, known and unknown to you, 
 
132 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 can help to support you and to keep your high spirit and 
 courage up, you have it in most abundant measure. 
 
 Mrs. Page and I grieve with you and hope for you to 
 the utmost. 1 
 
 Yours with affectionate sympathy, 
 
 Walter H. Pace. 
 
 ii 
 
 "No one can describe this vast wreck," Page wrote 
 Wilson on August 25th, after three weeks of war. "It 
 will be ours to preserve civilization. All Europe is 
 shooting it to pieces." If by civilization we understand, 
 as Page certainly did, democratic civilization, we have 
 his whole explanation of the conflict, as well as the history 
 of it, expressed in a single sentence. The judgment of 
 its origin, and the part which the United States was in 
 duty bound to play, which Page so succinctly put into 
 words at this early date, represented the conviction from 
 which he never departed, and furnished the directing 
 thought of the advice which from this time he began to 
 send the White House. Europe was engaged in the 
 task of destroying civilization, as Page understood that 
 term. Uppermost in his mind, of course, was his own 
 conception of the only state of society that was really 
 worthy of such a description — a society in which the 
 average man had the fullest opportunity to participate 
 in the enlightenments and satisfactions of life, and to 
 develop the capacity and the character with which nature 
 had endowed him. It was his definition of democracy — 
 already set forth in sufficient detail. In his mind the 
 leading British statesmen of the day — Grey, Asquith, 
 Lloyd George — were all, in varying degrees, interested in 
 
 'This letter is printed from a copy in Page's papers. The original does not 
 appear in the President's file. 
 
<<_„_, „,,. , _,,, __ , , , ** 
 
 THE CLASH OF SYSTEMS 133 
 
 promoting this new ideal. It was not perhaps so clearly 
 defined in their minds as in Page's for it was not a phe- 
 nomenon with which they were so familiar, but recent 
 British legislation and the legislative programme that had 
 been planned for the next few years were evidence enough 
 that the new time was approaching. Against this belief 
 in the dignity and supremacy of the common man and 
 woman was the mediaeval idea — that society consisted 
 of a minority of emperors and kings and noblemen and 
 military chieftains and diplomats, with a few scholars 
 and artists and writers and statesmen to give it brilliancy 
 and charm, and that the role of the masses was to sen e 
 as silent workers and taxpayers in peace, and as soldiers 
 and cannon fodder in war. Page saw in the struggle so 
 brutally precipitated in Europe the mortal conflict of these 
 two opposing views. It was, to use another of his expres- 
 sive phrases, 'The clash of systems." The European 
 crisis gave a strange and epic consistency to Page's 
 life. Little had he imagined in the days when he was 
 struggling for the betterment of the masses in the South, 
 and especially in his own North Carolina, that he would 
 ever witness the testing of his ideas on a stage of these 
 titanic proportions. To understand completely the 
 thoughts now framing in his mind we should go back 
 once more to his early years — to that conception of pop- 
 ular education which Page himself evolved when little 
 more than a boy at Johns Hopkins University; to his 
 efforts to make the aristocratic classes of the South, just 
 emerging from the Civil War, reorganize their politics 
 and society on the basis of individual development ; to the 
 angry wars he had led against privilege and caste ;to his cam- 
 paigns for sanitation, for modern agriculture, for popular 
 participation in the comforts of country life; for every- 
 thing, indeed, which lightened the existence of the com- 
 
134 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 mon people. This was the "system" to the spread of 
 which Page had devoted all his energies as editor and 
 public man; this was the "system" for which Great 
 Britain and France were now contending; and this the 
 "system" which, entrenched in the mud in France and 
 prepared to sacrifice its last man and its last penny, was 
 engaged in its final battle against the aristocratic ideal. 
 With Page's background, any other attitude than sym- 
 pathy with the Allies would have been grotesque. That 
 America could take any other position would seem a tri- 
 fling with its own history. Probably Page saw this question 
 more clearly than any other observer then in London. The 
 destruction of militarism, the freeing of Europe from a dan- 
 ger that had overshrouded the Continent for forty years, 
 were perhaps the goals most immediately in the minds of 
 the peoples that were fighting the German Empire. Yet 
 Page saw beyond the issues of the hour; the victory of Ger- 
 many, he knew, meant the postponement, for an indefinite 
 period, of any chance of the "freeing" of European men. 
 The destruction of democracy was an essential part of 
 the creed of Kaiserism, and Germany was determined to 
 destroy it not only within the borders of Germany and 
 Austria-Hungary, but everywhere in the world. Should 
 the Central Empires prevail, the day of Lloyd George's 
 "cottage man" would certainly lie far in the misty future. 
 The recently published memoirs of Lord Grey show that 
 that statesman understood the struggle in a similar sense, 
 though it is hardly to be expected that the question should 
 frame itself as concretely in his mind as in that of Page. 
 Himself a member of an ancient and historic family, the 
 Foreign Secretary was not a democrat to the same degree 
 as Page; but he had always been an advanced Liberal, 
 a worthy offshoot of the same stock as that Earl Grey who, 
 in 1832, carried through Parliament the Reform Bill. 
 
"the clash of systems" 135 
 
 Lord Grey, in his 'Twenty-five Years," has stated the 
 issue of the World War in terms very like those used by 
 Page at the beginning. "It was a great struggle," he 
 says, "between the Kultur that stood for militarism and 
 the free democratic ideal. ... It was the perception 
 of this, whether consciously or unconsciously perceived, 
 that brought the United States into the war." 
 
 Page naturally believed that, in setting forth th<> 
 European issue hi this form to President Wilson, he would 
 have an appreciative listener. Democrats had been the 
 Wilsonian purpose from his student days. His whole po- 
 litical career had rested upon the right of the masses 
 to spiritual and material development. This had been 
 the main thought in his campaigns for the governorship 
 of New Jersey and for the Presidency. Even as an 
 educator Wilson had advocated the same principles: 
 he had split Princeton University into two armed camps 
 over the question of putting all students on the same 
 democratic level. His writings likewise contain eloquent 
 pleas for the same cause. This was the enthusiasm 
 in Wilson that had enlisted Page's sympathy hi his po- 
 litical fortunes and induced him to become one of his 
 earliest and most effective supporters. Not unnaturally, 
 therefore, Page, hi letters and telegrams, insisted on I his 
 interpretation of the convulsive European scene. Not to 
 take this stand, Page thought, would be to miss the whole 
 point of the war. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London. 
 August 23, 191 1. 
 Dear Mr. President : 
 
 It has been impossible to write lately, except by tele- 
 graph. I have been kept at work from the time I waked 
 
136 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 till twelve or one or two o'clock every night this fortnight, 
 every minute of the time. I have seen to it — first, that 
 no diplomatic mistake should be made in this delicate 
 situation ; secondly, that the organization and measures for 
 helping our stranded people were energetic and right; 
 thirdly, that the embassy work proper was done when the 
 volume of it was suddenly multiplied by ten. As I look 
 back on this fortnight, all these tasks, I think, have been 
 done — thanks, let me say at once, to the staff and to 
 the very able and generous help of Americans of ability 
 who conducted the American Relief Committee. I shall 
 report in extenso on these. 
 
 The thing of great and lasting importance of course is 
 that the diplomatic work proper be done without error 
 and without fumbling. When this involves direct dealing 
 with four governments every day — well, I keep a straight 
 path, a head not bothered with details, I get advice, and — 
 follow my own judgment. The saving fact is (and the 
 importance of this cannot be exaggerated) that I have 
 dealt so candidly and frankly with Sir Edward Grey and 
 so completely given him my confidence that his candour 
 and confidence in me are now my shield and buckler. I 
 could suggest no change in this relation. I have had con- 
 ferences with him nearly every day these three weeks. 
 I think he has told me every fact at every stage in this 
 troublesome journey so far. I have seen this singularly 
 self-contained, unemotional man weep in talking with 
 me ; I have seen him broken with care and lack of sleep — 
 weighed down with an indescribable burden; and I have 
 seen him roused with indignation, with a confident and 
 invincible air. He could not be more frank or more 
 friendly if I had known him always. That such a man 
 should be in his post now is the first of our pieces of good 
 fortune here. . . . 
 
"the clash of systems" 137 
 
 The dark shadow moves over the map of the continenl 
 bringing political, economic, and spiritual ruin; and again, 
 I think, England will save Europe from itself. Turning 
 from the awful spectacle on land and sea, it is inspiring to 
 watch this nation — sad, dead-in-earnest, resolute, uni ted- 
 not a dissenting voice — silent. It will spend all its treasure 
 and give all its men, if need be. I have never seen such 
 grim resolution. They trust us to play our part of neu- 
 trality with scrupulous exactness and they know we will 
 do it. It will be a hard fight, an experience of unimagined 
 horrors. I am glad the chance comes to me to show our 
 attitude — it calls for steadiness, clearness, frankness. 
 These are not flashy qualities, being the brood rather of 
 wisdom and common sense. 
 
 Yours most heartily, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London. 
 
 September 6, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 In those rushing days of a month ago when nobody here 
 had time to catch his breath, of course I knew event 
 after event as they took place — many events before they 
 happened. There was no time to make a record or to write 
 even to you, and of course you have been as much occupies I 
 as I have been — and more. I do not know,, therefore, 
 how closely you have kept informed of the causes of 1 he 
 war, of the case of each belligerent, of the imier meaning 
 of it all. 
 
 I have given the general subject of German-English 
 rivalry — which has fast become Prussian hatred and 
 English distrust these ten years — I have given it as serious 
 study as I could since I was here and (for a brief time) 
 
138 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 in Germany six years ago. A war between them has 
 ever since then seemed to me inevitable — an early war, 
 a war within my lifetime — except in moods when I shared 
 the feeling of most men, that perhaps the terrible modern 
 engines of destruction would, at the last moment, cause 
 every nation to desist. As I became acquainted with 
 some of the literature of Prussian militarism, I recall I 
 wrote down several years ago in a fitful diary that I have 
 kept, the conviction that Italy, France, Spain, Holland, 
 and England had each had its day of primacy in Europe 
 and that Prussia would not content itself till it, too, had 
 tried. Then, after I came here and began to get some 
 glimpses into the way great national policies were made, 
 this definite Prussian determination became clearer; and 
 little by little I got knowledge of the Prussian bureau- 
 cracy's methods — got glimpses from other than British 
 sources. Their recent diplomacy has been — simply a he, 
 all bent on making ready themselves and on keeping other 
 nations from getting ready. Their " publicity " campaign 
 throughout the world has become clear to all men who 
 know the publishing and newspaper work of the world. 
 I know an American whom the Prussian Foreign Office 
 sought deliberately to bribe to affect public opinion in the 
 United States. When House's plan 1 first came to me, I wrote 
 him a letter to show the utter futility of his idea. The 
 next day I wisely burnt it, because it was foolish, perhaps 
 wicked, to discourage any such effort made by anybody; 
 and I sent him another letter instead. Sir Edward Grey 
 never told me in so many words that he regarded it as his 
 life work to prevent such a war; but as events have 
 unfolded themselves this has become plain. And it is 
 
 l The plan for an agreement between the United States, Germany, and Great 
 Britain that would prevent war. See Volume I, Chapter IX. 
 
"the clash of systems" 139 
 
 equally plain to me that for years he has worked with a 
 diminishing hope. Not only British soldiers— men like 
 Roberts and Kitchener— and British sailors— men like 
 Jellicoe and Fisher— but English and American and 
 French students of modern history and modern politics 
 —men like the late Professor Cramb of the University 
 of London — have seen no way to avoid it. 
 
 The "cult of valour"— a sort of religion of military 
 force — captured Prussia, scholars and all. It makes one 
 revise one's values of sheer scholarship. 
 
 I have tried in my own mind to detach myself from the 
 English and from the English point of view. Well, of 
 course, the French have been aware of the danger. So 
 have the Belgians and the Dutch. A distinguished and 
 thoughtful Dutchman told me six years ago almost what 
 has happened this past month. 
 
 I believe it literally true that the "cult of valour" which 
 is the modern name of sheer force — force that really be- 
 lieves that might, however brutal, is right — is driving 
 these militarists mad: their incomprehensible and in- 
 calculable big-head is sheer madness. It is another case 
 of Napoleon — even more brutal: a dream of universal 
 conquest. Sir Edward remarked to me the other day 
 that if this thing succeeds, Europe will become a place 
 in which life will not be worth living: "the only place 
 worth living in will be the United States— till it at- 
 tacks that, as it would." That seems to me literally 
 true. 
 
 I see no hope of the world's going on towards ends and 
 ideals that we value except on the hypothesis that Prussian 
 militarism be utterly cut out, as surgeons cut out a cancer. 
 And the Allies will do it — must do it, to live. It would 
 dash our Monroe Doctrine to the ground. It would even 
 invade the United States in time. 
 
140 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 There are many objectionable things that will accom- 
 pany its defeat under present circumstances, such as 
 the prominence of Russia as one of the victors — itself a 
 menace in the future — and the continuance of the warlike 
 spirit in Japan, and the acquisition by England of still 
 more colonies. But these are all lesser or less immediate 
 evils. 
 
 Every revelation of German methods as the war goes 
 on confirms all my fears and solidifies all my convictions 
 about Prussian militarism and a war-lord monarchy. The 
 terror and the danger of it are not even yet fully or gener- 
 ally realized. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey's speech ) , .. , , 
 
 tm t> - + - i «wum. r» » ( make the whole case 
 
 The British White Paper > , 
 
 The German " White Paper " J Very Clear 
 
 P. S. London, September 8, 1914. 
 
 I see by this morning's papers that the Allies' decla- 
 ration that none of them will make peace without the con- 
 sent of all is understood by the American press. As 
 I regard it, this makes the result of the war certain — there 
 will be no compromise with the German system. England 
 will fight and starve the Germans out if it takes years to 
 do it — to a complete defeat. The war spirit, which was 
 hard to awaken, is now completely aroused here. The 
 German Empire and its military system are doomed. 
 The only open question is the cost. It will cost hundreds 
 of thousands of men and most of the treasure of Europe. 
 This side of the world will be bankrupt but free. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
"THE CLASH OF SYSTEMS" 141 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 September 22, L914. 
 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The more fully the whole recent diplomatic story of the 
 war and of the events that preceded it comes out, the 
 clearer it becomes here that the German military party 
 had deliberately planned the practical conquest of the 
 world; that it had won the German people (or a largo pari 
 of them) to believe in this as a necessity; and that the 
 military party firmly believed that they could do it; 
 and that, believing in this programme as a necessity, they 
 came to believe that any method whereby they could do 
 tins justified itself. The military party gave the whole 
 people an extraordinary case of big-head. I find the 
 evidence of these extraordinary facts incontrovertible. 
 The English themselves go further than this in their 
 conclusions — under the effects of war. But there is no 
 need to go further to see that the English are not going 
 to discuss peace except in Berlin. In other words, they 
 will reject any terms that Germany will offer except on tin- 
 basis of defeat. They are going to rid themselves and the 
 rest of Europe of the menace that they have lived under 
 for thirty years — a hostile military autocracy. 
 
 These are not a warlike people. They didn't wish to 
 fight. In fact, the public took the war, after it had been 
 declared, with indifference. It was thought for several 
 weeks that the Government would have to conscript men 
 to get enough. They were very slow in waking up. 
 But now they can't find officers or quarters for the 
 volunteer recruits, and you can't find an Englishman 
 of any class who holds any opinion but that the war 
 
142 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 must go on till the Germans are completely disabled 
 from continuing their military caste. All the resources 
 of the Empire and all the men that they can get will 
 be spent if they are needed to prevent another "assault 
 on the continuity of civilization." For these reasons 
 Mr. Straus's 1 peace activity was looked on here as a part 
 of the German campaign to affect public opinion in the 
 United States and as nothing else — as a move in the game 
 of publicity to seem to put the responsibility for con- 
 tinuing the war on England, in spite of the fact that Ger- 
 many had made no definite proposal whatever. 
 
 All the military men I see talk of a long war — from one 
 to three years; and they think that it will be ended, when 
 it ends, quite as much by starving the Germans as by fight- 
 ing them. And England is preparing for an indefinite 
 struggle, many talking even of three years. And one 
 gets glimpses now and then of the quality that has made 
 English history — that quality at work in these people. 
 By sheer good luck I happen to have become pretty well 
 acquainted with both Sir John French and Sir John 
 JeUicoe. They are able and forcible men: I think 
 anybody who knows them would say that. But six 
 months ago nobody thought of them or spoke of them 
 as great historic characters — as great heroes. But now 
 the universal expectation is that they will play the parts 
 of Wellington and Nelson; and if French saves his army 
 and is in at the end, and if JeUicoe gets a chance at the 
 German fleet, all this will come true. It'll be they who 
 saved Europe and kept England free; they will be made 
 peers; they will receive great residences and large grants 
 and their families will become great families in the realm ; 
 
 ^scar S. Straus, ex-Ambassador to Turkey, assured by Count Bernstorff 
 that Germany was ready to make peace, was bringing pressure at this time on 
 Secretary Bryan to this end. See Volume I, Chapter XIII. 
 
"the clash of systems" 143 
 
 and, more than that, the poets and the orators and the 
 biographers will make them known, in heroic size, wher- 
 ever English is read. 
 
 And you may be dead sure the story will be told well 
 and, therefore, it will become history, and sung well, 
 and therefore it will become literature. And the story 
 will be the story of English freedom again saved and again 
 broadened, of the Empire become bigger and very much 
 more firmly knit — of India become really loyal and far 
 better treated, of Ireland stripped of its grievance, of new 
 African colonies to exploit and (more important yet) the 
 common man of England claiming and getting more 
 privileges and more power and a wider opportunity. 
 These things are almost visible now. And, for us, in 
 addition to an increase in our trade and financial power, 
 we shall have the Monroe Doctrine still safe, as we should 
 not have if Germany won. 
 
 All these things, in addition to the daily roll of the dead 
 and the constant march of recruits and all such visible re- 
 minders of war, prevent us here from forgetting it for one 
 moment — prevent us even from ever changing the subject. 
 It bears down on one very hard. There comes a kind 
 of weariness that drives one to long sleep, which is the only 
 way to get away from it. London seems muffled — a queer 
 sort of silence ; and dark — all the bright lights are out at 
 night; and resolute — there are not even the common 
 routine gaieties : if anybody has a few friends in to dinner, 
 it is never spoken of. 
 
 The diplomatic work betwixt Great Britain and our 
 country is, as you know, not difficult: they play the game 
 squarely; they are wholly courteous and sincere and even 
 more than ever they value our friendship and sympathy. 
 But I see Sir Edward Grey four or five times a week; he 
 gives me his confidence; and we have only to keep strictly 
 
144 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 neutral. That is not hard to do here. Nor does the 
 work of the German and Austrian Embassies cause diffi- 
 culty; it is, on all sides, only the large volume of work, 
 not its difficulty. We are beginning to see what the 
 normal conditions of work will be so long as the war lasts 
 and for a period after. The crowds of stranded Amer- 
 icans are gone — they come now in small groups, not in 
 hundreds and thousands; the army men and paymasters 
 will soon be gone; we are moving the offices from the 
 obscure and undignified and dirty-beyond-cleaning old 
 hole where they have been for twenty-nine years to a 
 house (we have the whole house) which costs no more 
 than the increased rental of the old offices, but which 
 has three times the space. It will be the first dignified 
 office we've ever had in London. 
 
 To go back to the war: Lord Kitchener told Colonel 
 Squier, our Military Attache, to-day, that the war would 
 really begin next spring. He was not speaking in jest — 
 there's no jest in Kitchener. Since England has only 
 a small army they sent that over of course to help France. 
 France will give the Germans the best tug they can this 
 autumn and wear them down somewhat, and Russia will 
 finish Austria. Meantime England will drill a million, 
 perhaps a million and a half men, and have them as a 
 fresh army in the spring. I shouldn't wonder if Kitchener 
 himself will take command ; and these are the fellows who 
 will take Berlin ; and Kitchener, if he go, will dictate the 
 terms of peace ; it'll be an English (not a French or a Rus- 
 sian) victory! These English are the only people in 
 Europe who have the habit of success and who know the 
 art of managing great things. Look also at their di- 
 plomacy. Sir Edward Grey was broken-hearted when 
 he could no longer keep peace. But when war came 
 Russia and France were already engaged before England 
 
"the clash of systems" 145 
 
 went in ; and yet it is primarily a war between England and 
 Germany. Of the German allies, one did not come in and 
 the other is already beaten. Of the English allies — so 
 far they are doing practically all the fighting and England 
 will come in at the end as victor! In other words, Grej 
 and Kitchener are more than a match for the whole con- 
 tinent of statesmen and soldiers. 
 
 Now since it is essential to modern progress thai this 
 brutal, big-headed, stupid military caste in German) be 
 rooted up — nobody can live in security till it is — and since 
 the English have the one great fleet and will have a giva! 
 army, and since it has Grey and Kitchener and French 
 and Jellicoe and English character and endurance behind 
 them — peace-talk now is old women's prattle or else it is 
 insincere and is "springes to catch woodcock " — a part of 
 the German tactics. 
 
 It staggers one's reasoning powers to think back over 
 the last thirty years, and it balks the imagination to 
 try to think forward. The Germans, when as a boy I 
 went to Berlin, 1 were a philosophical, studious, mystical, 
 musical folk with a simplicity of mind and with no am- 
 bition to conquer the earth — to win a place in the sun. 
 Their great war machine and their "cult of valour"' were 
 just beginning. Their writers who have completely 
 changed their thought and aims — or expressed this change 
 of thought and aims — were just beginning to write. 1 1 
 is a frightful thing to think how a war party may changes 
 whole nation in three decades. In the meantime England 
 is the same as in other great crises, the leader, making 
 other nations do much of her work, forgetting for the time 
 her domestic differences, leaping from the lap of luxury 
 into the battle trenches, tough and silent and grim. The 
 
 x Page (aged 22) spent the larger part of the summer of 1877 in Germany. lie 
 was at the time a fellow of Johns Hopkins University. 
 
146 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WATLER H. PAGE 
 
 duchesses (who, you will recall, spoiled Lowell) 1 are now 
 working in hospitals ; the great houses are taking in Belgian 
 refugees — entertaining and caring for that whole buffer 
 nation; the noble ladies come to see me to ask if I can 
 get word of their dead or wounded sons or brothers or 
 husbands, and they come dry-eyed and self-possessed 
 with a bearing that Spartan women would have envied. 
 This is the price they pay for Empire. England not only 
 will gain territory and power and trade and even greater 
 dominion at sea, she will also toughen her breed and make 
 literature of the experience. The Germans deserve the 
 fate that awaits them for their sheer stupidity in not 
 understanding this. 
 
 The liberalization of Europe will follow. But, her 
 strong enemy overcome, Great Britain will not so greatly 
 need our friendship; and, when clashes of interests come, 
 we shall need firmness. She doesn't become arrogant with 
 success; she simply becomes more positive and more 
 energetic. There never came so good a time to put our 
 foreign service, at home and abroad, on a firm, liberal, and 
 uniformly efficient basis — from the Department of State 
 to the humblest consul. We have some wonderfully 
 good men — wonderfully, as this stress is showing. But 
 we have also in places the feeblest sort of touch. All news 
 of both sorts comes to London. This war is showing 
 how we are a part of the great world whether we wish to be 
 or not. Could the next Congress not be induced to have 
 a study made of the foreign service of other great states 
 compared with ours? Yourg very heartilV) 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 P. S. The reports of peace meetings in the United 
 States as they have appeared in the London papers the 
 
 'James Russell Lowell, American Minister to Great Britain, 1880-1885 
 
"the clash of systems" 147 
 
 last day or two produce the impression here of mutton- 
 headed victims of German special pleaders. 
 
 This thought grows on me the more I ponder this world- 
 changing series of events— that, when the war is ended, 
 nothing will be precisely as it was before, not even England! 
 England will not only be more powerful, but she will be 
 under very definite bonds to— Russia and Japan. Russia 
 and Japan, therefore, will be different. We shall need a 
 new sort of diplomatic force in most parts of the world; 
 we shall need somehow to wake up the American public to 
 realize that our isolation is gone and that our perfunctory 
 diplomatic work, which has done well enough in many 
 places in the past, will not do anywhere in the future; and 
 a stronger navy? There simply is no end to the changes 
 that are coming. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE 
 
 W A R — I N 1914 
 
 WHAT part had the United States to play in this 
 European conflict? To most Americans, surveying 
 Europe in September, 1914, the idea that their country 
 had any responsibility would have seemed grotesque. 
 Notlnng was apparently further removed from the duties 
 of the American continent. At that time Americans re- 
 garded the war as exclusively the product of European 
 vices — a militarism that had no counterpart in their own 
 country, a tangle of dynasties and treaties and alliances 
 which few Americans, even of the educated classes, under- 
 stood, and a welter of racial hatreds and economic jeal- 
 ousies that had no reality in the American mind. What 
 possible concern had free and distant America with such 
 a strange world and such extraneous ambitions? The 
 American of those days was interested and horrified, 
 but detached; had he been told that the foremost states- 
 men of Europe looked upon his coimtry as the decisive 
 element in determining the result, his astonishment would 
 have known no bounds. He had lived a quiet existence 
 for nearly a century and a half, entirely disassociated from 
 the thoughts and forces that inspired European life, 
 busily engaged constructing his own democratic society, 
 the European continent, in Ins view, representing the 
 starting point of his culture and his institutions, but 
 representing also a place his forefathers had abandoned, 
 
 148 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 1 1<) 
 
 mainly to escape the very evils which had now plunged it 
 into this great war. Whoever or whatever might be 
 responsible for this mighty upheaval— and in this dis- 
 cussion the American did evince much interest — one fact 
 at least was clear, and that was the innocence of his own 
 country. 
 
 Yet, careless of Europe as America might he, the in- 
 exorable working of political and economic forces was 
 something which the most remote Republic could no1 
 escape. And these forces, active through a hundred years, 
 had steadily created for the United States a dominanl 
 interest in the European war, real, inescapable, lor ;ill 
 that Americans were completely unconscious of il. 
 Americans for a century and more had heard and read 
 of a European phenomenon rather vaguely known as 
 the "Balance of Power." Tins represented an attempt 
 to describe the tendency of the European countries to all\ 
 themselves in two groups, more or less equally "balanced " 
 in population, resources, and diplomatic and military 
 strength. For centuries Europe had lived in the fear that 
 some one nation, or a certain group of nations, would achie> e 
 a predominant position, and so become powerful enough 
 to subject the Continent to control. The several attempts 
 to establish such a European hegemony — by Charles V, 
 by Louis XIV, and by Napoleon — proved that this fear 
 was not a groundless one, and the persistence with which 
 the opposing combination was always formed to dele; it 
 such ambitions and reestablish the equilibrium, seeme I 
 almost like the operation of natural law. The part that 
 Great Britain held in these crises had been a source of 
 pride to that nation itself and of envy and criticism to 
 its rivals. The British practice, it was said, was to 
 hold aloof from either group of nations, always prepared, 
 in the case of war, to cast its support — necessarily de- 
 
150 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 cisive — on the side that best promoted its interests. 
 Whether this is an accurate description of history is a 
 point that may be disputed; the fact that is sufficiently 
 plain, however, is that whether such a situation had pre- 
 vailed in previous great European crises it certainly did not 
 prevail in 1914. Great Britain may have possessed the 
 determining influence in the War of the Spanish Succession, 
 and, a hundred years afterward, in the Napoleonic struggle, 
 but she did not hold such a preeminent position in August, 
 1914. When the British Empire joined forces with 
 France and Russia, it had not tipped the "balance" in 
 favour of the Allies; instead, it had really created a new 
 balance, or, stated in more practical terms, it had produced 
 an apparently insuperable military deadlock. The study 
 of Page's correspondence, and of his conversations and 
 negotiations with British statesmen, discloses that, from 
 August 4, 1914, to April 6, 1917— the date the United 
 States declared war — there was only one possible outcome 
 of the military conflict, and that was an exhausting stale- 
 mate. One of the few incontrovertible facts about the 
 World War, however, is that, from the end of the battle 
 of the Marne until American intervention, neither the Allies 
 nor the Germans had any chance of victory. The two 
 sides were rigidly locked in the most terrible death grapple 
 of history, and from this only one force could free them. 
 That force was the United States. 
 
 In the great historic perspective this is only another way 
 of saying that the United States, unconsciously to itself, 
 had succeeded to the position traditionally filled for 
 several centuries by Great Britain. The latter country, 
 by combining her strength with France and Russia, had 
 accomplished nothing except to produce a "balance" 
 against the alliance of the Central Powers. The United 
 States, by taking a decisive stand on one side or the other, 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 151 
 
 could determine the result. Certain European statesmen 
 and military leaders saw this clearly, even before military 
 operations began; the American mind, however, was ex- 
 ceedingly slow to grasp it. Though we are not regarded 
 by foreigners as especially backward in appreciating 
 our importance in the world, we had never practically 
 discerned how important we really were. Our lack of 
 interest in European affairs, our ignorance of European 
 diplomacy, and our natural revulsion from the aspirations 
 that governed so much of European history, inevitably 
 obscured our vision. Moreover, the forces that made the 
 American position such a critical one were less spectacular, 
 and, consequently, less obvious, than those that had 
 previously determined great events. How could a nation 
 that had no army, no navy, no martial spirit, no diplomacy 
 in the European sense, no foreign policy, and little interest 
 in anything that happened outside its own borders, 
 imagine itself marked for a decisive role amid the gigantic 
 military camps and the adroit statesmanship of Europe? 
 The answer was to be found in the furnaces of Pittsburgh, 
 in the fires of Bethlehem, and in such modern develop- 
 ments as the United States Steel Corporation, the Ford 
 Motor Company, Standard Oil, and our great national 
 industry, for it was nothing else, of food production. 
 While Europe had been constructing its armies, its navies, 
 and its alliances, and exhausting the resources of its 
 people in the process, this country — without the slightest 
 thought of military values — had constructed the greatest 
 industrial machine the world had ever known. It was 
 upon these new facts that the issue was to depend. Not 
 the nation that had the largest population, the most 
 heroic soldiers, and the ablest leadership, would necessarily 
 bear off the victory, essential as these were ; the nation that, 
 in addition to these qualities, or a share of them, possessed 
 
152 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the most coal, the most copper, the most cotton, the most 
 iron, controlled the really indisputable materials of 
 success. Herein the United States surpassed all peoples. 
 It was early said that the course of the European war 
 would depend largely upon steel ; the fact that the United 
 States produced more steel than all the rest of the world 
 combined in itself indicated the part that this country 
 could play. 
 
 Irrespective of any personal qualities, therefore, Page, 
 at the outbreak of war, was the most important figure in 
 the diplomatic situation. He held this position because he 
 represented the power whose course could determine the 
 outcome. If the United States allied itself with the 
 Entente, then the Entente would win; if it joined hands 
 with the Central Powers, the result would be a German 
 victory; if it remained consistently neutral, then there 
 could be no triumph for either side, but a patched-up 
 truce after a long and bloody deadlock. Moreover, the 
 United States was the only neutral power that counted for 
 much in the diplomatic game. The decisions of the Euro- 
 pean countries not already engaged in the struggle would 
 depend entirely upon military events ; the probable course 
 of Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, and Rumania was a matter 
 with which statesmen had nothing to do: only the armies 
 in the field could influence their action. But diplomacy 
 might count for much in influencing the American decision; 
 and Page's personal attitude, and his method of handling 
 the pending questions and disputes, might have the most 
 momentous consequences. Lord Grey, British Foreign 
 Secretary from 1905 to 1916, has laid the greatest stress 
 upon this pivotal character of the American position. 
 Describing his policy in these early days he says: "The 
 United States must be considered in a category by 
 
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 2 - 
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 — 00 
 
 ;- - 
 - - 
 
 i— 
 
 5 
 
 
 c 
 
 > 
 
 — i 
 
 co 
 
 be 
 
 - 
 
Sir William Tyrrell, Private Secretary to Sir Edward Grey, 1907-1915. 
 Permanent Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 133 
 
 itself. That country was so powerful that it could not 
 be affected in its sympathy or policy by tlic course of 
 the war. The United States were able to do whatever 
 they felt to be right or desirable without fear of the con- 
 sequences. They were a factor so potentially import- 
 ant, that their attitude might be decisive in deciding 
 the war in favour of either set of belligerents." " Block- 
 ade of Germany," he adds, "was essential to the victory 
 of the Allies, but the ill will of the United States meant 
 their certain defeat." The great object of British 
 diplomacy from the first was, therefore, to obtain the 
 support of this country. "Germany and Austria," 
 says Grey, "were self-supporting in the high supply 
 of munitions. The Allies soon became dependent for 
 an adequate supply upon the United States. If we 
 quarrelled with the United States we could not get that 
 supply. It was better therefore to carry on the \s ; > c 
 without blockade, if need be, than to incur a break with 
 the United States about contraband and thereby deprive 
 the Allies of the resources necessary to carry on the war 
 at all with any chance of success. The object of diplomacy 
 therefore was to secure the maximum of blockade that 
 could be forced without a rupture with the United 
 States. . . . There was one mistake in diplomacy 
 that, if made, would have been fatal to the cause of the 
 Allies. This capital mistake their diplomacy did not make, 
 but carefully avoided. This mistake would have been 
 a breach with the United States, not necessarily a rupture, 
 but a state of things that provoked American interference 
 with the blockade, or an embargo on exports of munitions 
 from the United States. This capital mistake of a breach 
 with the United States, Germany did make. The answ er 
 therefore to the question why allied diplomacy did not 
 
154 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 lose the war is because in Europe diplomacy counted for 
 little and outside Europe Germany's diplomacy was worse 
 than that of the Allies." 1 
 
 Whether Sir Edward Grey could succeed in this task 
 of keeping the United States on the side of the Allies would 
 evidently depend to a large extent upon the nature of his 
 relations with the American Ambassador. Enough has 
 already been printed to make plain the nature of those 
 relations. Page's policy from the first was clear and 
 consistent. The issue of the war, as he at once explained 
 it to President Wilson, was the preservation and extension 
 of democratic civilization. This issue being so un- 
 mistakably drawn, the support, at least the sympathetic 
 support, of the United States must necessarily be cast on 
 the side of the Allies. The technical situation, so far as 
 the blockade was concerned, has been duly described in a 
 previous volume; and tins new correspondence merely 
 makes stronger the conclusions already set forth. At 
 first, American participation in the war, as a military ally, 
 Page hardly considered ; he did believe, however, that the 
 United States should assist the cause to the extent of 
 accepting Britain's practice in the blockade. But there 
 were other agencies at work that seemed likely to destroy 
 the efforts of the American Ambassador and the Foreign 
 Secretary. In many ways the British naval and military 
 leaders were almost as fatuous as their counterparts in 
 Germany. These chieftains were impatient of anything 
 that interfered with their warlike proceedings. Their 
 attitude was not wise, though it was not unnatural, for 
 they understood, even more clearly than the statesmen, 
 the desperate character of their task, and could not re- 
 strain themselves when certain cargoes, regarded as in- 
 dispensable to Germany, kept passing from the United 
 
 lU Tweiity-five Years," by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Chapter XXV. 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 155 
 
 States to the enemy. To prevent this, they were ap- 
 parently prepared to go to extremes that would have 
 wrecked Grey's and Page's diplomacy at the start, made 
 the United States an enemy and lost the war for the 
 Allies. In Germany the control of diplomacy was from 
 the first in the hands of the military party, and the result, 
 so far as the United States was concerned, is a matter of 
 history. In Great Britain, the conduct of foreign affairs 
 remained throughout the war in the hands of the civilian 
 Cabinet. Perhaps never has there been such a splendid 
 justification of the Anglo-American principle of making 
 the army and navy subservient to the civil power. That 
 the contrary system which, in the end, proved fatal to 
 the Central Powers, at one time endangered the fortunes 
 of Britain the following letter shows. 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 August 25, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Officials in the Admiralty Office yesterday dis- 
 cussed with Symington, our naval attache, their possible 
 action in case of serious reverses on land or sea. They said 
 that England might find herself in a desperate struggle 
 for existence. Then the War Office and the Admiralty 
 might take over the management of foreign relations and 
 practically everything else, as they have already done in 
 Germany and France. Then, to prevent Germany from 
 receiving food or other help, they might issue a procla- 
 mation that neutrals must not trade with Germany, and 
 they would be prepared, if necessary, to go to war with 
 any neutral power, even the United States, that should 
 disregard such a proclamation. In other words, in ex- 
 treme need, they might practically forbid neutrality. 
 
156 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Symington asked if they had any complaint to make 
 now — any specific case — against the United States. 
 Their answer was emphatically No. They said they were 
 discussing only possible extreme policies to which un- 
 toward events might drive them. They are wholly 
 pleased with the strict neutral attitude of our govern- 
 ment now. 
 
 I thought this too important (as showing a state of 
 mind) to pass over in silence and too improbable to treat 
 with undue concern. I decided to treat it with straight- 
 forward frankness, which is the best cue that I have found 
 in diplomacy or in life in general; and I informally called 
 Sir Edward Grey's attention to it. He thanked me for 
 my frankness and reminded me that he and not the 
 Admiralty is the spokesman for the Government. 
 
 "Quite an unnecessary reminder, Sir Edward," said I. 
 
 He disclaimed all that the Admiralty men had said to 
 Symington. 
 
 "That is a Cabinet matter, not an Admiralty matter, 
 and the Cabinet has never thought of such a thing." 
 
 This is, I am sure, quite true; but the Admiralty men 
 were discussing a conceivable state of things wherein the 
 Cabinet would be out of commission. 
 
 Sir Edward intimated a wish that Symington should 
 not report this to Washington. I have kept it quiet here, 
 of course, and I report it to you only. I regard it as 
 professional navy talk, and I attach importance to it only 
 as a reminder that the time and conditions of real stress 
 are not yet come. As such a reminder it may be worth 
 while to note in passing. The Continent is every day 
 becoming a slaughter house, and the sea may presently 
 contain the hulks of many dreadnaughts and many dead 
 men. The Germans may take Paris: there is already 
 a distinct fear of this here. These events would bring a 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 157 
 
 panic here — perhaps a world-wide panic. Now this naval 
 talk is a premonition of this state of mind. But, when 
 such a panic comes, our part will be to keep very cool. 1 
 assure you we are keeping cool and silent here. And, in 
 any event, I am very sure England will not do so su- 
 premely foolish a thing as to give us cause of ofTense. 
 
 W. II. P. 
 
 It was not only Commander Symington, the American 
 naval attache, who was having a first-hand experience with 
 the somewhat rough-and-ready methods of Britain's 
 warriors. Colonel George 0. Squier — a name that will 
 figure conspicuously in a future chapter — was also learning 
 that the War Office cared more for winning than for the 
 theoretical notions of international lawyers and statesmen. 
 The proposition made Colonel Squier was not quite so 
 radical as the one suggested to Commander Symington. 
 but it had its startling aspects. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 October 6, 191 1. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The Chief of Ordnance of the British Army (Major- 
 General Sir S. B. Von Donop, K. C. B., Master General 
 of the Ordnance, War Office, Whitehall) yesterday ap- 
 proached Colonel Squier, our military attache, with tlii^ 
 question: whether Squier thought there would be any use 
 in sounding our government on the possibility of procur- 
 ing from it, or from anybody in the United States, 100,000 
 to 150,000 Springfield rifles and 5,000,000 rounds of 
 ammunition. Squier, of course, intimated his personal 
 doubts and kept the conversation on a purely tentative 
 and personal basis, saying, however, that of course thai 
 
158 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 was a diplomatic rather than a purely military question; 
 and he has brought it to me. I have told him to leave it 
 just where it is and not to say that he has put the question 
 to me at all unless he be asked to do so. If he be asked to 
 do so, he can give my opinion that there is no use to sound 
 our government. If that do not satisfy his questioner, 
 Squier must tell him that the way to approach our govern- 
 ment is through the Foreign Office. I think we shall hear 
 no more about it, and I am sure the Foreign Office will 
 never present such a question — certainly not unless the 
 British cause come to some wholly desperate state such 
 as the successful invasion of England, the complete 
 crippling of the British fleet, and the defeat of the Allied 
 Army on the Continent — any one of which, of course, now 
 seems wholly improbable. Until some such catastrophe 
 come, neither the Cabinet nor Sir Edward Grey would 
 for a moment even consider malting such a request. I 
 don't believe they know that any such question has been 
 put to Squier. It is very like Kitchener to have such a 
 "feeler" put forward. His directness and "cheek" are 
 amazing — very soldier-like and more. That man has a 
 way of going after what he wants that takes your breath 
 away. He is capable of forgetting that there is a Cabinet, 
 a Government, a Parliament, a declaration of neutrality ; 
 he is capable of forgetting everything except that there is 
 an enemy. This incident is, I am sure, a flash of Kitche- 
 ner's forgetfulness — nothing more; and, unless I hear from 
 you to the contrary, it will rest where it is or at most go 
 one step further, and Squier will intimate my opinion 
 that such "sounding" had better not be made. 
 
 Officially you know nothing about this — and you'll 
 never hear of it officially — unless some great catastrophe 
 come and they fear the actual conquest of England. But 
 the question is interesting because it reveals the English 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR— IN 1911 159 
 
 unpreparedness on land. Kitchener has frankly said 
 more than once that he didn't have guns or equipment 
 for his new army of a million men. They've got to make 
 'em in six months— and somehow or other they will. 
 
 The question is interesting for another very remote 
 reason: suppose England and English civilization and all 
 that England stands for should be in danger of the fate 
 that has overtaken Belgium— the German Army on these 
 shores— what then? This job done, it would be our turn 
 next: Belgium, France, England, the United States, all 
 German provinces, the war lord "in the sun"— what 
 then? Such a thing isn't going to happen, for England 
 is going to save us from it. But, if danger of this should 
 seem imminent, you may tell the President of the United 
 States that his declaration of neutrality would be in danger 
 of being run over by the people of the United States. 
 Already I have a drawer full of letters from English folk— 
 many of them cranks and some of them anonymous— 
 asking why the United States doesn't do its duty and come 
 to England's aid. I never answer such letters of course; 
 and the whole staff of the Embassy is scrupulous to the 
 nth degree not to say, and more especially never to write, 
 a word that can be construed even by a forced interpre- 
 tation into an expression of opinion or favour. 
 
 And you would be surprised to know how carefully we 
 are obliged to walk this tight rope. For example : I do not 
 dare send a letter from a German here to anybody in 
 Germany, although thousands of them are sent to us. 
 Very well, what is sauce for your German must be sauce 
 also for your Englishman; and, when high and big 
 Englishmen come and say that their own government 
 informs them that I can send letters for them to their 
 invalids at German health resorts or to their sons in 
 German prisons, "No," say I. "Would you have me also 
 
160 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 send letters from your imprisoned Germans here to their 
 influential friends in Germany?" I must say they act 
 very decently about it when the case is squarely put 
 to them. I never knew and no man brought up in 
 American life would believe the degree to which spy work 
 is carried. There is a rumour going around that a servant 
 in the household of Prince Louis of Battenberg (whose 
 wife is one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters) informed 
 the Germans where the English cruisers were that were 
 blown up by German submarines ; x and it has been printed 
 in the newspapers that somebody in England gave this 
 information. A trusted German named Karow was, 
 with the consent of the British Government, left in the 
 German Embassy here. He was the only man left who 
 knew the house and knew a thousand useful and necessary 
 things. One day he wrote a letter to a friend in Germany 
 —a perfectly harmless letter— and gave it to a woman who 
 had got permission to go home. She foolishly sewed it in 
 her frock, and when she was searched of course the letter 
 was discovered. All this was duly presented to me. But 
 the upshot of it all is that Karow, poor fool, is in a de- 
 tention camp of suspect Germans. The English Govern- 
 ment would rather feed him till the war ends than take 
 the risk of his sending some sort of useful information. 
 Everybody's a spy. In one of the law courts the other 
 day an amazing story of organized espionage was nar- 
 rated—things that are incredible to straightforward, 
 simple folk like us. Having spent two months in getting 
 Americans to go home, I'm now trying to get this govern- 
 ment to let Germans and Austrians go. I run soup 
 kitchens and outdoor relief and the Lord knows what for 
 them. These governments have given me together 
 
 *The Hague, the Cressy, and the Aboukir, torpedoed in the North Sea on 
 September 22, 1914. 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 L61 
 
 $75,000 to keep these people alive. The English detec- 
 tives find spies among them all the time and they feed 
 'em thereafter in some detention pen or other. There's 
 an English lady of high degree who is building a house 
 in Dresden. The contractors must have their money, 
 else they'll have her arrested. Her father makes an 
 agreement with the British Government that the moms 
 may leave this kingdom provided the American Am- 
 bassador will send it. This touching confidence in I he 
 American Ambassador's honour and prudence sometimes 
 becomes quite burdensome. The old Lord brings me his 
 check for $40,000, and I write to the German Go\ em- 
 inent, saying the contractors will get their money if the} 
 do not arrest the lady. Then in the safe with this check 
 and a dozen more is the key to the concealed safe in the 
 German Embassy wherein the Princess's 1 jewels were 
 thrown pell-mell before she went away. I am told 
 $100,000 worth at least. Did she leave them because she 
 regarded them safer here than in Berlin? I can only 
 conjecture, for I've never heard a word from the Am- 
 bassador or his wife. It's a simple everyday fact that w < * 
 
 live here in a world of mysteries 
 
 Yours heartily, 
 
 Walter II. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 October 15, 1911. 
 My dear Mr. President: 
 
 There is every indication that the war is just begun. 
 
 The horrors of it and the probable duration of it and I lie 
 
 possible consequences of it nobody but the men who lia\e 
 
 the task in hand seems yet to realize. Certainly the 
 
 Princess Liclmowsky, wife of the German Ambassador. 
 
162 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 public and the press of this kingdom do not yet realize it, 
 and I am sure that the public and the press of the United 
 States come far short of realizing it. England's got to 
 win it and will win it. I say England, because it is 
 essentially a war between England and Germany. Ger- 
 many would whip both France and Russia and, if Eng- 
 land had remained neutral, Germany would then have 
 made war on her. Now Germany is just beginning her 
 land war. Her first calculation — to capture Paris, to 
 levy an enormous tribute and thus to put France out of the 
 game — miscarried; but it may be only postponed. But, 
 if she never get to Paris, she can fight in strongly fortified 
 positions till her food is completely given out — one year, 
 two years, perhaps longer. She now has Belgium. She 
 is likely soon to have Holland — as soon as she has got all 
 the supplies thro' Holland that she needs or can get. 
 Then Holland will probably join her — under threat of the 
 fate that has befallen Belgium. With the Belgian coast, 
 what may Zeppelins do to London within a year? It's 
 conceivable, though not probable, that Zeppelins and 
 submarines may do much hurt to the British fleet. Italy 
 will come with the Allies whenever they win a hopeful 
 victory. England will not give up unless she is utterly 
 beaten: she can't, else she will disappear. Yet she has no 
 army. She'll have one next spring. Then the land war 
 will begin. That's the situation. And England will not 
 talk or think of peace till she's annihilated or has com- 
 pletely whipped the Germans. The British Empire 
 would be gone if she did. The question is: a military 
 autocracy over Europe, or England's position unimpaired. 
 Either Germany or England must be the supreme power 
 in Europe — nothing less than a decision of this question 
 will end the war. 
 Yet even this does not hint of its grimness. In France, 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR— IN 1911 163 
 
 where the two great armies have been fighting without 
 moving far for a month, dead men lie so thick in places 
 that when soldiers lift their heads from the trenches to 
 shoot, the smell overcomes them. Both sides fire on Red 
 Cross squads who would rescue the wounded, and the 
 wounded in consequence lie there and die by t he thousand. 
 Belgium is for the time wiped off the map, and all accounts 
 agree that such terror was never inspired in any population 
 before in the world. Meantime the German press and 
 Germany's learned men have become so full of bitter 
 hatred of England and are so diffusing it through the 
 population that few Germans now living will in any event 
 ever regard anything English with any feeling less than 
 hatred; and the English, far less bitter personally, are >< I 
 firmly resolved to cut out Prussian war culture as one 
 would cut out a cancer. They'll send every man and 
 spend every shilling, if necessary, and you can see their 
 feeling rising every week. It needs only the destruction 
 of a few more British ships or the dropping of a Zeppelin 
 bomb on London to make a British army of 2,000,000 men. 
 
 The ferocity of it, which visibly becomes greater every 
 week, passes anything felt by any men in modern times. 
 It's a death grapple. All preceding mere "wars" are not 
 in the same class of events. It means the extermination, 
 not of the people of either nation, but the utter extermi- 
 nation of the system of either one or the other — English 
 free institutions or German military autocracy. But in 
 fact the men of both nations will be more nearly extermi- 
 nated than anybody yet realizes. 
 
 Of course, I don't know what you know of this un- 
 precedented fierceness or what is known about it in the 
 United States. But if the British public do not yet 
 realize it — are not yet conscious of all that is at stake — I 
 fancy that few men 3,000 miles away realize it. The 
 
164 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 simple truth is, it is unbelievable. I see indications that 
 it is not in the least understood in many quarters. Take, 
 for instance, the resolution passed by the Pan-American 
 Union, which we received by telegraph to-day, asking for 
 peace. "If England lives, who dies?" And, if England 
 dies, who lives? That's their mood; and this resolution 
 reads here like a Sunday-school resolution passed in 
 Kansas requesting cruel Vesuvius to cease its eruption, 
 which destroys villages of innocent people. This is a 
 vast eruption — a world-changing clash of systems: not a 
 "war," as we have hitherto understood the word, but a 
 sort of crash of worlds. If England win, the world will be 
 ruled by English institutions and ideas and ideals and 
 those ideas and ideals that are English-sprung. If 
 Germany win, the war lord will set out to bestride the 
 world, and we shall have big armies and big navies 
 indefinitely and periodical great conflicts. The Monroe 
 Doctrine will be less than a scrap of paper — the mere 
 faded breath of a dead man. 
 
 The men who have this colossal undertaking in hand 
 feel its magnitude and seriousness. The two ablest of 
 them show it in different ways. Grey, who had made it 
 his life work to prevent it, grows a year older every month. 
 Anderson, 1 who went with me the other day to the Foreign 
 Office to a conference on our shipping controversy, and 
 who sees Sir Edward less often than I see him and conse- 
 quently notices changes in his appearance more clearly, 
 remarked as we came away that he had "a Lincoln look" ; 
 and so he has. Kitchener, the imperturbable, the man 
 of colossal "cheek," affects an unnatural calmness — even 
 an unconcern — while he works like a Titan. These men 
 are lonely, sad, remote, feigning their old-time joy in life 
 and work, and keeping up, as far as they can, their old- 
 
 ^handler P. Anderson, legal adviser of the American Embassy in London. 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 165 
 
 time manner, when all the while they are conscious that- 
 life means something different from what it ever meant, 
 before. You can see as you talk with them that their 
 manner and speech are merely reminiscent of their old 
 selves: they have entered a new stage of responsibility; 
 they have a new measure of life, of hope, of work ; and 
 they are perfectly capable of yawning, after you have 
 gone, and saying to themselves, "Oh, well, what does 
 it matter now? What does anything matter?" Then 
 you can imagine them shaking themselves together and 
 taking a new turn at the wheel, with a grim, weary smile — 
 at life. For death is a daily piece of news to them— I lie 
 death of kinsmen, of friends, of companions, and they 
 wonder whether they may not live to see the death of 
 England and the eclipse of English civilization. They 
 think not in terms of mere "war," but in terms of the 
 possible death of civilization — a million men, perhaps, 
 already dead, many of them rotten, unburied, in France 
 and Austria. Red Cross and coffins and quiet graves or 
 affectionate farewells — there are not enough of these to 
 count: shells and acres of bloated human bodies, careless 
 of sun or rain, giving only stench — a hundred miles of 
 them in each of three places — and inviting pestilence. A 1 1 
 this for the clash of systems! I myself, as detached from 
 it as a man here can be, often find myself, when I ought to 
 be in bed, sitting alone silently looking into the dying Are, 
 not only thinking but dumbly brooding on it, wondering 
 in what world I live. For it is not the same world it was 
 last July — nothing is the same. All one's measures and 
 centres of reference are different; and the people you meet 
 have changed; and all talk somehow seems hollow. You 
 wonder yourself if you mean what you say, for you are all 
 the time readjusting yourself to some great shock of 
 things that has hitherto seemed incredible. . . . 
 
166 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 II 
 
 At times Page reflects the view generally held by the 
 public, and by certain of the official classes, that the 
 Allies could ultimately win a victory; at other times, 
 however, he transmits the conviction of the military 
 chieftains, that such a victory is impossible. Such 
 expressions involve no contradictions; they merely echo 
 the changing opinions and hopes of the time — convictions 
 and emotions that varied from day to day, according as 
 events had given grounds for optimism or despair. The 
 British and the French press, in the autumn and winter of 
 1914-15, displayed even more poignantly these varying 
 moods. At times they discussed the war in terms that 
 assumed, as the inevitable outcome, a triumph for the 
 Entente; at other times their pages hardly concealed the 
 despair that too often filled the popular mind. The 
 military leaders, however, whose opinions at that time 
 did not have a public airing, made no secret of their 
 apprehensions when confidentially discussing the outlook 
 with Page. They regarded the situation as a hopeless 
 stalemate. At least, this was the judgment of the highest 
 British authority, the Commander of the British forces, 
 Sir John French. It appears from the following letter 
 that he sent a message to this effect directly to Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 October 29, 1914? 
 My dear Mr. President: 
 
 I have a mortal fear of wearing you weary with my 
 letters — tho' you wouldn't believe it from the number 
 that I write or from their length. I have these months 
 only the hours around midnight to write anything; and 
 it's come to be a joke in my household — that when I'm 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 167 
 
 writing anything I'm writing to you. To-night I write 
 down the following while it is fresh in my mind : 
 
 To-day I had luncheon with the particular friend 1 
 of General Sir John French, in French's house here (these 
 two men live together), and with a military member of 
 French's staff. Both these came from Ins headquarters in 
 France yesterday. I fancy I wrote you that in my various 
 activities here to find my proper orientation, I happened 
 to become pretty well acquainted with the General (nobody 
 dreaming then of a war). We came to know one another 
 well enough to exchange birthday greetings, etc., and 
 since he has been in France he has several times directed 
 members of his staff who were coming on errands to 
 London "to step in and give my greetings to the American 
 Ambassador." All this as a key to the meaning of my 
 conversation to-day with his two friends. All the talk 
 was of the General and of the war and of Ins part in it and 
 of his sayings and doings. And the centrepiece of the 
 table talk was the probability that the war would end 
 a drawn war — neither side surrendering. At the best 
 for the Allies, the Germans would be driven back to their 
 impregnable fortifications on the Rhine ; and at the worst 
 for the Allies, this fierce fighting would go on indefinitely 
 in France or Belgium. Neither London nor Berlin is 
 likely ever to be reached by the enemy. At any rate, next 
 summer or autumn will find the armies in either of these 
 two relations to one another. By that time somebody 
 will know approximately the number of men that are killed 
 — nobody yet knows and the world doesn't begin to 
 suspect — these men think the Germans have already 
 lost at least 400,000 in France and Belgium. Then a 
 great revulsion will come. Not only will the neutral 
 world rise up and say that this slaughter must cease, 
 
 Evidently Mr. George G. Moore, an American. 
 
168 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 but the combatants themselves will say so and will at 
 least be receptive to a suggestion. They will both be 
 worn out, tho' neither will be conquered; and they will 
 both realize that neither can conquer the other to a com- 
 plete surrender. Then the President of the United States 
 will be called upon to mediate — to lay down a broad 
 principle or two by which the struggle may be ended. 
 
 The point is, tins is General French's opinion and 
 General French's message to me — as plain as day, altho' 
 these gentlemen did not say, in so many words, "The 
 General asked us to say this to you": that he couldn't 
 yet do. And the broad principles would be such as these : 
 Every country must maintain its nationality — Belgium 
 must be Belgian, of course; Alsace-Lorraine must be 
 French, if they are French and so wish to be ; Schleswig- 
 Holstein Danish, if they are Danish and wish to be; 
 Poland, the same principle; the South German States 
 go with Austria, if they so wish, etc., etc. ; the Slav states 
 now Austrian become Russian. The German colonies 
 are left as pawns to trade with in working out the details 
 of the bargain. As for the discouragement of big armies 
 and navies — that's more difficult. England will never 
 give up the sea; else she can't be fed. Let great armies 
 and navies be discouraged by treaties. (Here the thought 
 was not very clear: it had not been thought out by the 
 soldier.) As for Germany's paying a big indemnity to 
 Belgium — that would be harder for the Allies to carry. 
 Yet they probably will insist on it. 
 
 Then I asked if Russia might not conceivably take 
 Berlin, with a large German Army necessary all the time 
 in the west. Conceivably, yes; but it is not probable. 
 The Russian lacks staying qualities; he quits, sometimes 
 just before victory. But that is the only hope of reducing 
 Germany to a position where she will make an uncon- 
 
Field Marshal Lord French 
 Commander-in-Chief Expeditionary Force 
 France, 1914-1915. 
 
 © By Underwood & Underwood 
 
 (1852-1925), Earl of Ypres, 
 
 in 
 
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 Major-General George 0. Squier, Military Attache, American 
 Embassy, in London, 1912-1916 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 169 
 
 ditional surrender. The whole world will cry out for 
 peace by next summer or next autumn and it 11 have to 
 be settled the best way possible. 
 
 What, I asked, hinders the world from crying out now 
 — God knows enough men have been killed already? 
 Yes, but the English and German peoples haven't reached 
 the psychological point where either thinks that it can be 
 beaten — each is yet sure of ultimate victory. 
 
 And the navies? Probably they will never fight in 
 full force. The Germans will keep up their submarine 
 and mine activity, but will not come out for a fair fight 
 and be whipped — why should they, unless they be beaten 
 to a frazzle on land and rush their navy out as a last act 
 of desperation, to save it from capture? They'll sow 
 the ocean with mines. 
 
 There was much more talk, but this is the gist of Gen- 
 eral French's message to me. He's a soldier, not a states- 
 man; but he is a soldier, and this fact gives interest to 
 his ideas. 
 
 Here, in any circles in London in winch I have been, 
 you never hear peace discussed. The English are just 
 waking up to the war and the popular mood now is to 
 fight to a dead finish. 
 
 Yours heartily and hastily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Such being the fearful prospect before Europe — that of 
 a military stalemate, neither side justified in expecting 
 a decision by arms, yet each destined to pour out its blood 
 indefinitely until practically the whole of Europe perished 
 from exhaustion — was there any opportunity in this 
 situation for the United States? General French under- 
 stood as well as Sir Edward Grey that America alone 
 possessed the power to end the deadlock, and tlus was 
 
170 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the reason that he sent this message to Page. Afterward, 
 in similar circumstances, French came secretly to London, 
 met Page at another luncheon at the house of Mr. Moore, 
 and again explained to the American Ambassador the 
 hopelessness of the situation. 1 What could America do? 
 Such approaches as Mr. Bryan, presumably acting on 
 the instructions of the President, had made in the direction 
 of peace had not been especially to the point. His re- 
 peated efforts to stop the war had comprised nothing in 
 the way of a precise programme or definite suggestion. 
 They were all merely offers of "mediation" and "good 
 offices." Mr. Bryan had made such offers in the last 
 week in July, before the outbreak of war ; he had repeated 
 them in early August after the conflagration had started, 
 and he renewed the effort on September 8th, after the 
 battle of the Marne. In no instance did Mr. Bryan set 
 forth any terms of settlement. His messages merely 
 expressed the hope that the warring powers would stop 
 fighting and get together. The United States stood 
 ready at any time, the Secretary said, to assist in such an 
 amicable proceeding. In the existing state of Europe, 
 intimations of this sort naturally produced no result. 
 Page formally presented Mr. Bryan's pleas to Sir Edward, 
 who received them respectfully; neither Page nor Grey, 
 however, regarded them with much seriousness. The 
 conflict had reached the point where the exchange of 
 polite notes seemed little less than a mockery. Only 
 the "ponderables" of warfare and negotiation could 
 affect that deadlock in France which Sir John French 
 had recently described. "I have on my own account," 
 Page telegraphed in response to Mr. Bryan's latest appeal, 
 "had an informal conference with Sir Edward Grey about 
 
 ! A memorandum published in Volume I, page 427, gives an account of this 
 interview. 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 171 
 
 possible mediation. He reminded me that he exhausted 
 every honourable means to keep peace, and that every 
 government involved showed a disposition to meet some 
 of his proposals except Germany. She had deliberately 
 planned and prepared for a war. Still he was willing to 
 come to any honourable arrangement for peace now or 
 at any time. But everything will depend on the terms. 
 The war has already revealed two great facts: first, that 
 all Europe has been living on the brink of a precipice, 
 and secondly, that Germany has done a grievous and 
 irreparable wrong to Belgium. No peace can be con- 
 cluded that will permit the continuance or recurrence 
 of an armed brute power in Central Europe winch violates 
 treaties to make war and in making war assaults the 
 continuity of civilization. Any terms that England 
 will agree to must provide for an end of militarism forever 
 and for reparation to ruined Belgium. 
 
 "The foregoing was Grey's wholly private talk to me 
 not to be quoted to anybody or made public. It was 
 personal and must be regarded as inviolably secret." 
 
 Page did not conceal his belief that all such pacific 
 endeavours were merely wasted effort. Exchanges of 
 telegrams and formal and informal communications 
 between foreign secretaries and ambassadors, in his 
 opinion, could have no effect upon the stalemate in 
 France. Yet he believed that the United States could 
 end the war, — end it upon terms that would usher 
 in a period of peace, destroy the German menace, and 
 promote the order of human society in which he 
 believed. Moreover, he was convinced that the United 
 States could do so without a large loss of American life. 
 His midnight meditations by his study fire, to wluch he 
 alludes in the above letter, frequently produced the most 
 practical results. One of the subjects that engrossed his 
 
172 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 thoughts in the autumn of 1914 was this question posed 
 two weeks afterward by Sir John French. And the 
 answer assumed a form that is interesting, not only in 
 itself, but in view of subsequent events. 
 
 To the President 
 
 October 6, 1914. 
 . . . I have my moods when I wonder if we oughtn't 
 to step in and end it on a definite programme of the 
 reduction of armaments and the restriction of military 
 authority, and to make the acceptance of our programme 
 a condition of our refraining from action. I am not yet 
 sure ; and I don't know what bad results this might bring 
 us, who have at least the temporary happiness of being 
 out of it. But this is a world-changing war. The world 
 must be reconstructed out of it. We can't have it recur. 
 Else life's not worth living and civilization is a delusion. 
 Let me speculate: There's no important influence we 
 can have on the terms of peace by any mere offers of 
 mediation. The Allies will not consider peace till one 
 side or the other be crushed. If they did, they would not 
 be rid of the menace of German militarism long. They are 
 going to keep that from growing up again if they can. 
 England will surely. And, after all, it is primarily and 
 mainly a war between England and Germany. It is 
 England that Germany envies and hates and will destroy 
 if she can. The contest is between England's power and 
 position and Germany's ambition to rule the world by 
 sheer military strength. If England win, as she will in 
 the end, she will dictate the terms of peace — the end of 
 militarism, and reparation to Belgium and France, and the 
 English Navy will be stronger than ever and the British 
 Empire more firmly knit together; and Russian military 
 autocracy will remain till another day. There'll be 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 19M 173 
 
 no limitation of armament— except for Germany! And 
 the United States will have no voice in the terms of 
 settlement— and England will keep building her mammoth 
 navy and Russia will keep her innumerable arim . 
 
 But, if we were now to call high Heaven to w itness tin's 
 unspeakable result of armaments and war preparations 
 and call on all neutral nations to join us in a demand thai 
 they shall cease— Italy, Spain, Holland, the Scandina^ ian 
 states, the South American governments— and if we 
 should say militarism must be rooted out of the system 
 of every one of you, perhaps they'd all agree; but the} 
 would agree only as the price of our helping conquer 
 Germany. Such a threat would end the war—? Or i f we 
 alone should do that— say to England: "Now, you w ish 
 to end -militarism? Very well, we'll recall our neutrality . 
 we'll sell you guns and ammunition; we'll sell nothing to 
 Germany; if necessary, we'll let our citizens volunteer 
 in your army ; you may have our navy if you need it: now, 
 what abridgement of armament will you make after this 
 war, if we thus help you end it?" Perhaps we could 
 drive a bargain in that way and really reduce the arma- 
 ments of the world— and end the war almost at once. 
 For, if we stopped all shipping to Germany and gave 
 England arms, peace would quickly come. Could we 
 or could we not thus make them all disarm? England 
 could, force Russia and Japan. And we could stop the 
 war, which cannot be stopped in any other way till millions 
 more men have been slain. We should not have to Bghl 
 but only to give the English guns and to hold back food 
 and everything else from Germany and perhaps to 
 threaten to fight. 
 
 If we turned the proposition around and offered to aid 
 Germany, apart from the trouble of getting our aid to 
 Germany, we should only strengthen militarism in Ger- 
 
174 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 many and consequently everywhere else; and the same 
 race in building armies and navies would go on as before. 
 Oh, well, I mustn't bore you too long with my specu- 
 lations. This I do know : this slaughter and brutalization 
 beggar description. A man's life isn't worth a dog's life. 
 A treaty is a scrap of paper. Nobody can stop it by 
 "good offices" or mediation — by talk or reasoning. It 
 can be stopped or ended quickly only by us, and we can 
 do it only by actions and threats. If that be impracticable, 
 they must fight it out to the bitter end. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 The formula runs thus: 
 
 (1) If Germany were to win, the war lord, the war 
 spirit, and armaments would remain, all around — fiercer 
 and bigger than ever. 
 
 (2) If the Allies win, the armaments of Germany 
 will be limited but not of Great Britain, nor Russia, nor 
 Japan; and probably Germany would not be left a fair 
 chance for legitimate expansion. 
 
 (3) If the neutral nations should join the Allies — 
 not to fight, but to supply arms and to starve Germany 
 out, millions of fives might be saved, and the Allies might 
 now agree to a far more satisfactory policy concerning 
 armies and navies and concentrated executive war power.' 
 
 But I am not commending — only trying to think the 
 thing out. 
 
 The present writer recalls discussing Page with Lord 
 Northcliffe several years ago. 'What do you regard as 
 Page's most striking quality?" I asked the British jour- 
 nalist. The answer came like a flash in one word: "Wis- 
 dom." This letter, describing Page's proposal for 
 American intervention in October, 1914, inevitably recalls 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 175 
 
 Lord NorthclinVs characterization. Viewed in con- 
 nection with subsequent events it certainly seems su- 
 premely wise. In form, of course, it was only a suggestion, 
 only a speculation, but the form in which it was cast 
 should not deceive one as to the seriousness of Page's 
 purpose. In reality the problem had been completely 
 thought out, and this was the Ambassador's solution; 
 this letter was the seed which Page hoped would germinate 
 in the most receptive soil. ("Nobody can stop the war 
 by 'good offices' or mediation — by talk or reasoning. 
 It can be stopped or ended quickly only by us, and we 
 can do it only by actions or threats.?' It would be 
 difficult to find the problem of 1914 described anywhere 
 so briefly and so accurately as in these two sentences. 
 The United States must first publish the terms on which 
 the conflict should end — reparation to Belgium and dis- 
 armament. At that time Great Britain would have 
 accepted these stipulations as a satisfactory basis for 
 peace. Let us suppose, for a moment, that the United 
 States had proposed them, coupled with the announce- 
 ment — "threat" if you will — that unless Germany 
 agreed then all our resources would be cast upon the side 
 of the Allies. At this time it would have been hardly 
 necessary to suggest that an American army be landed 
 in France ; the Russian hosts had hardly been tapped and 
 needed only efficient arming, Great Britain still had her 
 millions to draw upon, and the French army was at the 
 summit of its strength. This country could have poured 
 its money, its steel, its munitions into the Allied front. 
 and the American and British navies could have insti- 
 tuted the same blockade of Germany that so effectually 
 choked the enemy to death three years afterward. 
 How long could Germany have survived without American 
 food, American copper, American cotton, and the other 
 
176 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 indispensable supplies which, despite the British Navy, 
 she was drawing in such vast quantities from the United 
 States? Page's proposal now appears consummate states- 
 manship. However, it failed to produce the desired 
 result. That it made some impression on the President 
 is not impossible for, on February 22, 1916, a year and 
 a half afterward, as will appear, he made a proposal to 
 the British Government almost identically the same. At 
 that time the situation had so changed that the plan 
 seemed unwise and Page himself regarded it as inadequate. 
 
 hi 
 
 Instead of taking this plan to heart, the United States 
 began the long and tedious and unprofitable quarrel 
 with Great Britain over contraband and the blockade. 
 The merits of this dispute have been set forth 
 in preceding volumes. 1 The letters to the President 
 cover much of this familiar ground, but they do so with a 
 new vividness. 
 
 To the President 
 
 October 15, 1914. 
 . . . Now when you are in tins mood and Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey is in this mood and all men here who think are 
 in this mood — listening lest the very pillars of civilization 
 give way and the last crash come — in comes a telegram 
 from Mr. Lansing 2 about a cargo of copper or of wheat, 
 saying that the Declaration of London is the furthest limit 
 our government can go in permitting this or that, or that 
 International Law says thus and so — all which used to be 
 true and seems true yet in Washington, as you look out 
 over the autumn-tinted leaves to the Washington monu- 
 
 ^Volume I, Chapter XII; Volume II, Chapter XV. 
 2 At this time Counsellor of the State Department. 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR— IN 1911 177 
 
 ment and think of Houston's late flowers at the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture— peaceful, happy land— shall we 
 here ever see it again? But read here, we have to say 
 to one another (Anderson and Laughlin and I) — "But 
 England never ratified the Declaration of London, and 
 since it was made petroleum, copper, etc., have for the 
 first time become as necessary to military manufacture as 
 lead itself; and international law— what does that say in 
 the company of 18-inch guns?" But Anderson and I 
 make up our case, adjust our arguments, and full of cour- 
 age go to a conference with Sir Edward Grey and one or 
 two members of his Cabinet and of his staff. We are n le I 
 with the utmost conciliation — they will go the full length 
 to meet our views and wishes; they will tear up preceding 
 proclamations and instead of them issue a new one — they 
 do not wish to disturb normal American commerce (and 
 it is impossible to doubt their sincerity), but — but the 
 enemy shall not receive military material through Holland. 
 The English Government will take and pay for it — they'll 
 do anything but permit it to reach the Germans. Food- 
 stuffs they will no longer stop; but war stuffs must not 
 go through. Now that is the beginning and the end of i I . 
 They'll meet our wishes up to that point. Beyond that 
 point they will not go, as much as to say, "American 
 friendship and favour we prize more highly than anything 
 else, except our chance to win in this unprecedented 
 struggle, but this unprecedented struggle has made new 
 conditions." 
 
 The Spanish Ambassador comes to see me. They have 
 stopped his ore (iron). 
 
 "What are you doing about it?" I ask. 
 
 "Protesting," says he. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well," he says, "that's all I can do, for if my govern- 
 
178 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ment were in their shoes, they'd walk the same path — 
 protest and file claims." 
 
 The Norwegian Minister comes in — the same story, 
 the same conclusion. The Swedish Minister — in a bluster. 
 
 "What agreement have you reached?" I ask. 
 
 "Agreement? None at all! It's an outrage ! But it's a 
 new condition. I have no case. I can't blame them." 
 
 The Danish Minister next, humble and polite, begs, if 
 he be "asking a proper question," etc. idem, idem, idem. 
 Then the Dutch Minister calls, somewhat angry, but he 
 too confesses that they are most courteous but that there 
 was never before any such condition. 
 
 "We have all forgotten what a world war means — eh?" 
 
 Thereafter I meet the Italian Ambassador in the 
 corridor of the Foreign Office. In the course of a rambling 
 conversation I manage to ask him incidentally if his 
 country has any trade with Holland. 
 
 "Not now; who can think of trade in times like these? 
 There's too much at stake." 
 
 Thus, without giving any quid I've got the quo of nearly 
 all the neutral governments. Of course, these are small 
 governments and their protests can be disregarded. We 
 are big and strong and in another class. The British 
 Government so treats us, too. But our arguments are 
 the same as the arguments of the little governments, 
 our case the same. Anderson and I sit down together for 
 the nth time and go over it all, point by point, document 
 by document, complaint by complaint, international 
 law by international law (as if that were a fixed thing, 
 as, of course, it isn't), declaration by declaration, Lansing's 
 dispatch by Lansing's dispatch; and we go to a conference 
 and present our case and make our argument; and every 
 time we get whatever we want and all we want up to this 
 point: 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 19U 179 
 
 "Of course the enemy must not get war mat. rials." 
 "Yes, but your government can get them." 
 "Only because our government has the sea and the 
 enemy cannot prevent us." 
 
 The upshot of it is, to put it more bluntly than anybody 
 has put it, we've got to submit to this— or fight, if wr so 
 choose. And what the Spanish Ambassador says a hoi it 
 his government is true of ours: we'd do the same thing 
 mutatis mutandis. 1 There is no lack of sincerity, <>r of 
 courtesy, or of a genuine wish to meet our wishes and to 
 keep our favour; they accept the Dutch Government's 
 assurance about prohibiting the export of foodstuffs, 
 which the Dutch Government probably can't hinder; 
 they know that vast quantities of American cargoes go to 
 the Germans; they do not draw fine points or make 
 quibbles; but they simply will not let copper tlirough to 
 Krupp or petroleum to the German Army. Not a man of 
 us here — American, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, or Scandi- 
 navian — sees a tenable case against that position. But 
 here come Lansing's telegrams, which read as if they 
 came out of a sort of Hague-book in a time of peace. 
 I believe and hope that the new Order in Council will 
 settle the controversy. But, whether it do or not, I want 
 you to make sure that I have diligently and emphatically 
 presented every case and every argument and every 
 instruction that I have received. I mean this for a mere 
 general report of the atmosphere of these proceedings and 
 of the general result and of the feeling that I have down in 
 my immortal soul. 
 
 Even before you receive this, the controversy may be 
 ended by the Dutch going over to the Germans and h\ 
 
 *It may be worth while pointing out that as soon as the United States en- 
 tered the war, it discarded all the "principles" our State Depart menl was 
 urging at this time, and instituted a more severe, and even "illegal" blockade 
 than Great Britain had been enforcing for two years. 
 
180 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the English blockading Holland, or by further mine- 
 laying in the North Sea. And if German cruisers should 
 get into the Atlantic no war material would reach England 
 from the United States or any other country. 
 
 And thus the heavy days pass, my friend, men dying as 
 we thought they would never be killed again — as they 
 never were killed before — in such a deadly clash as no 
 man away from it can picture to himself, changing the 
 map, changing the world; changing war, changing cus- 
 toms, abolishing precedents. Our land is the only land 
 worth living in, and the immediate present is not a happy 
 time for any controversies that can with honour be avoided 
 or postponed. There will be time for them when this 
 deadly business is ended — some years hence, I fear. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 It therefore appears that the official Washington mind 
 during this critical period was not interested in anything 
 so practical as a plan of American intervention, but in 
 something so difficult and abstract and even unreal as the 
 Declaration of London. Into this morass of legalism 
 it is not the present purpose to enter again. Briefly, the 
 Declaration was a set of rules for regulating commerce 
 in war-time tentatively adopted by an international 
 conference in 1908. The United States was the only 
 nation that ratified this document. Great Britain had 
 repudiated it. Yet Mr. Lansing, as soon as the Euro- 
 pean war began, attempted to force Great Britain 
 to adopt the Declaration as her rule in the naval 
 warfare against Germany. Great Britain refused, de- 
 spite four urgent requests, because to do so meant 
 that such articles as copper, cotton, rubber, and food- 
 stuffs — even when intended for the armed forces of the 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 191 1 181 
 
 enemy— would have free passage to Germany. In other 
 words, its adoption meant that the Allies would lose the 
 war. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 October 21, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I have been and am puzzled by Mr. Lansing's dispatch 
 (No. 323, October, 16) and your confidence in the plan 
 that he proposed., I enclose a copy of the essential parts 
 of the dispatch. It contains two propositions: (1) that 
 Great Britain accept the Declaration without any change 
 or addition whatever, and (2) that the British Gov- 
 ernment then issue a proclamation, setting forth that 
 since the Declaration is conflicting and does not provide 
 for emergencies, Great Britain interprets it to mean what 
 she requires it to mean — the United States not being 
 privy to this, although it is the United Slates that suggests 
 it. Now the Declaration itself distinctly forbids the 
 addition of copper and iron ore and rubber and hides 
 to the contraband list. England could not add these to 
 its list and accept the foregoing plan — in good faith and 
 with truth; and these have become, since the Declaration 
 was drawn up, among the most important articles of 
 warfare. I have surely misunderstood or Mr. Lansing 
 failed to see where his proposal would lead. I am aware 
 of course of Ins over-work (as we are all over-worked), 
 and I am not writing in a critical spirit but in a spirit of 
 mere inquiry to get my own bearings, and of helpful 
 suggestion (if it be helpful) to work out a satisfactory 
 result. Of course I know that Mr. Lansing did not mean 
 that I should make a dishonourable proposal. But I 
 cannot see how he could think that Sir Edward Grey could 
 
182 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 accept this proposal, which, as we see it here, surely is 
 not frank. 
 
 When I telegraphed you that the discussion is "aca- 
 demic," I did not mean that the subject itself is academic, 
 but that our excessively argumentative treatment of it 
 seemed academic to me — for example, our continued 
 insistence on the Declaration of London after England's 
 positive declination three times to accept it in toto. Eng- 
 land neA^er accepted it in peace. Parliament declined to 
 accept it — in effect rejected it. This Government then 
 could hardly be expected to accept it in a time of war, 
 in the face of its own Parliamentary objection. Yet we 
 continue to make its acceptance the first condition of our 
 now reaching an agreement. That is what I meant to 
 call "academic." It surely isn't practical or effective. 
 
 Still I tried for the fourth time to persuade Sir Edward 
 to accept it in toto — such were my instructions — and then 
 to issue another proclamation as explained in Mr. Lansing's 
 dispatch. 
 
 "Do you mean that we should accept it," he asked, 
 "and then issue a proclamation to get around it?" 
 — with some approach to irritation. And the interview 
 ended with a feeling on my part that I had lost ground and 
 really been put on the defensive by my insistence on his 
 acceptance of the Declaration for the fourth time — 
 coupled now with a proposal that could not be made 
 to appear wholly frank and friendly. 
 
 I will not say that such instructions are not agreeable — 
 that's not important or to the point — but I will say that 
 they are not effective in the dealings of two great, friendly, 
 frank and trutliful nations. 
 
 It is one thing and an easy thing to present a question 
 informally (which doesn't bind anybody); but it's a 
 different thing to say that the idea is wholly my own and 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 183 
 
 not my government's when it isn't, I did not tell him whose 
 idea it is, but only that I was discussing the subject 
 informally. I must be spared from saying that an\ thing 
 is my "personal suggestion and not one for which my govern- 
 ment is responsible"" when this is not true. 
 
 Of course, the matter of this controversy is very real and 
 serious, a tender spot as you call it. But it has arisen in 
 all naval wars — long before the Declaration was prepared. 
 England makes her contraband list ; she will pr< jvenl contra- 
 band from reaching the enemy if she can; if she seize cargoes 
 she must prove that they are contraband or suffer heavy 
 damages and heavier criticism and ill will ; and if she de- 
 tain neutral ships or cargoes not contraband she suffers 
 the same penalty in even heavier degree. She's got to 
 give assurance to neutrals what she will do and what 
 they may expect. She's got to take the responsibility 
 for every act — under the usage of international law. 
 By becoming a party to her proclamations beforehand 
 we run a certain risk of agreeing beforehand to her procedure, 
 thus embarrassing ourselves when definite cases come up. 
 We must take no responsibility, but reserve all our rights 
 under international law and usage and so inform our 
 merchants and shippers. Then the responsibility is shifted 
 from us to England — responsibility for her general plan 
 or code of procedure. We are then free to make the 
 most of every case of indignity or deflection or confiscation. 
 
 This, England is perfectly willing to agree to; and, in her 
 naval conduct, she is going to give us as little offence as 
 possible, if we act frankly, in good faith, and trust to her 
 good faith and cease to irritate her and to cause delay by 
 long argumentative general objections to her plan of 
 procedure. 
 
 At any rate, looked at as a practical matter and not as 
 a case in court, this is all that we can do — or we can fight. 
 
184 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Of course that's absurd — I mean talk of war is absurd and 
 criminal. If we come to an open quarrel, we've still got 
 to take this course, for our new peace treaty forbids us 
 to fight until a commission shall report on the quarrel. 
 We can claim damages for any harm we may suffer without 
 a quarrel; or we may quarrel and then claim the same 
 identical damages. The differences will be only tins — 
 that in one case the two greatest nations in the world and 
 the two friendliest peoples and the two great governments 
 that are the only hope of human freedom and human 
 progress will be at ill will (the last good will now existing 
 anywhere in this insane world gone); or these two great 
 nations can remain the only friendly great powers on 
 earth. I think the stake is too big to risk for the satis- 
 faction of arguing to the finish about propositions of 
 general procedure before the event, or about the acceptance 
 of a Declaration that was rejected in time of peace. 
 
 All other neutral governments (so I understand) have 
 accepted this plan. 
 
 The Admiralty are making almost open complaint that 
 Sir Edward Grey in his consideration for the rights of 
 neutrals is "badly in the way" of their preventing war 
 materials from reaching the enemy. I think we can trust 
 something to such a man. Or — what is the alternative? 
 I once heard you say that it took you twenty years 
 to recover from your legal training — from the habit of 
 mind that is bent on making out a case rather than on 
 seeing the large facts of a situation in their proper pro- 
 portion. Remember that all this discussion has so far 
 been on a general code or plan of action, to which, if our 
 suggestions are accepted, we in effect make ourselves a 
 party, whereas more important than any code or plan is 
 the spirit in which it is carried out. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey and I have been over the whole 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 185 
 
 ground, backward and forward, helped by Air. Anderson 
 and his (Grey's) legal advisers, time and again. 1 have 
 told him that we want only 
 
 CI) A clear preservation of our neutrality ; 
 
 (2) No tampering with our commerce with neutral 
 nations; 
 
 (3) No tampering with our commerce with any cation 
 except in contraband ; 
 
 (4) A strict respect for all our rights under inter- 
 national law and usage. 
 
 He wants only to prevent war materials from reaching 
 Germany — nothing more. He does not wish to binder 
 our commerce or to irritate us. He will do everything 
 he can to prevent it. The peculiar complication is, of 
 course, the reaching of Germany with war materials 
 through Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Italy. He will 
 do his best to avoid trouble. He will make those govern- 
 ments help him as far as they can, by friendly persuasion, 
 not by declaring them "enemy territory" as regards 
 trade. And if we suffer injury he is willing to make 
 reparation, case by case. 
 
 If we can trust him (as we must, since there's nobo< I > 
 else to trust in the matter) and cease long arguments 
 about general plans and codes and put the whole re- 
 sponsibility on him and take up case by case — there will 
 still be some chance for a little faith and good will in the 
 world. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 P. S. I have been in some doubt about sending this 
 letter lest it may seem to you a criticism of Mr. Lansing. 
 I do not so mean it in the least — only a criticism of his 
 method of approach to the subject. Great Britain is our 
 
186 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 friend. As a friend we can do with her all we wish. The 
 state of mind we show in this controversy regards her as an 
 opponent in court, whom we are fighting and propose to 
 fight. Again, this tone and temper seem to me to have 
 regard only to this controversy and to the present moment. 
 Wise diplomacy regards the next decade — the next twenty- 
 five years. What will our relations be thenP And how 
 will our conduct of this controversy affect them? That's 
 what I mean, and I do not mean the slightest personal 
 criticism of Mr. Lansing or of anybody else. I am the 
 last man who can for one moment afford to sit in judgment 
 on any other man for what I regard as mistakes. I need 
 too much charity myself. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 The above letter contains an enclosure, "the essential 
 parts of Mr. Lansing's confidential dispatch, No. 323, 
 of October 16," and against each paragraph Page, for 
 the personal edification of the President, has written his 
 comment: 
 
 "The desire of this government is to obtain from the 
 British Government the issuance of an Order in Council 
 adopting the Declaration of London without any amend- 
 ment whatsoever." 
 
 "You might in the strictest confidence intimate to Sir 
 E. Grey the Department's plan as follows stating very 
 explicitly that it is your personal suggestion and not one 
 for which your Government is responsible." 
 
 On these paragraphs, especially the underscored part, 
 Page has written: 
 " This is not true." 
 
 "Let the British Government issue an Order in Council 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1914 187 
 
 accepting the Declaration of London without change or 
 addition. . . . 
 
 "Let this Proclamation be followed by another Order in 
 Council, of which the United States need not be previously 
 advised," on which Page comments: 
 
 "Hardly frank." 
 
 "declaring that when the British Government is 
 convinced that a port or a territory of a neutral coun- 
 try is being used as a base for the transit of supplies 
 for an enemy government, a Proclamation shall issue 
 declaring that such port or territory has acquired enemy 
 character in so far as trade in contraband is concerned 
 and that vessels trading therewith sliall be subject to the 
 rules of the Declaration governing trade to enemy's territory.''' 
 
 On this Page comments: 
 
 "Jn the delicate and dangerous temper of the present, 
 this would have a strong tendency to drive Italy, Holland, 
 Denmark, and Sweden to war against England." 
 
 "I repeat that any suggestion which you may make to 
 Sir Edward Grey must be done in an entirely personal 
 way and with the distinct understanding that this govern- 
 ment is in no way responsible for what you may say." 
 
 The Ambassador's comment: 
 
 "J can hardly believe tJwt such a subterfuge or misrepre- 
 sentation of the real facts is necessary between what I hope 
 I may call large-minded and perfectly frank and truthful 
 representatives of two great and friendly nations. My rela- 
 tions with Sir Edward have not been built up on this basis 
 and could not survive this method of dealing — long." 
 
188 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 It is perhaps not surprising that Page, determined to 
 end an intolerable discussion, informed the President, 
 through Colonel House, that if he were requested again 
 to move for the adoption of the Declaration of London, 
 he would resign as Ambassador. On this the State 
 Department withdrew its demand and the incident was 
 closed. The whole episode was a humiliating defeat for 
 Mr. Lansing and the State Department and for the prestige 
 of the United States, but there was nothing to do 
 but back down. America abandoned its attempt to 
 enforce on Great Britain a code of maritime warfare 
 which every nation, except the United States, had re- 
 jected, and agreed, in future, to rest its protests upon the 
 existing rules of international warfare. 
 
 Possibly diplomats of the old-fashioned school may 
 smile at Page's reluctance to tell falsehoods to the British 
 Foreign Office, or to serve as a medium of misrepresenta- 
 tion. The much quoted definition of an ambassador 
 — the famous epigram of Sir Henry Wotton, a distin- 
 guished practitioner of the art in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, — as "an honest man sent abroad 
 to lie for the good of his country," readily comes to mind. 
 Whether the standards of diplomatic intercourse in the 
 second decade of the twentieth century corresponded with 
 those of Wotton's time is a matter that better informed 
 historians can decide; the fact is that deception had never 
 figured in the diplomacy of Page and Grey. Such adroit 
 manoeuvres as playing for position; concealing important 
 facts; scoring neat though temporary advantages; making 
 false pretentions and claims; telling white or black lies, 
 were gifts which neither man possessed. Grey himself, 
 in reminiscent conversation with the present writer, once 
 explained his method of dealing with Page. "We simply 
 placed all the cards on the table"; — such was his descrip- 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 189 
 
 tion of the way he and the American Ambassador handled 
 weighty problems. They told each other the truth, 
 revealed all the facts they possessed, and discussed all 
 possible solutions. They were not two wily medisei alists; 
 they were merely two twentieth-century gentlemen at- 
 tempting to find the way of honour and justice l»\ the 
 use of that straightforwardness and honesty and common 
 sense with which nature had endowed them. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 October 28, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 In forty-eight hours after we withdrew the demand for 
 the British acceptance of the Declaration of London 
 without change, every detained American ship and cargo 
 was released but one, and I have no doubt that that one 
 will be released in another forty-eight hours. I do not 
 mean to imply in the least that these ships and cargoes 
 were held, so to speak, as hostages: I do not believe that 
 that idea entered anybody's mind. But so long as we 
 held up their general policy, it was impossible — or surely 
 the more difficult — to get at these concrete cases. They 
 couldn't issue their revised list of contraband which 
 shippers all over the neutral world were waiting for, and 
 the ships of other neutral nations were detained as ours 
 were. Now, I think, we are going to have the minimum 
 of trouble. 
 
 As soon as the insistence on the Declaration was with- 
 drawn, I was in a position to talk to Sir Edward Gre\ 
 with the old-time frankness about the whole subject, 
 winch had become impossible so long as I had to lecture 
 him on the necessity of accepting a general code that his 
 Parliament and every other European government had re- 
 
190 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 jected in peace, when they considered it on its merits. I 
 told him again of the universal, especially the American, 
 sensitiveness about any interference with commerce; I 
 hoped that he would impress on his Admiralty the need of 
 the greatest caution ; I told him that the stopping of ships 
 just outside New York produced a worse effect than stop- 
 ping the same ships on this side; 1 1 suggested and urged that 
 in every case he should at once have a full report made to 
 us, as soon as a ship was stopped, why it was stopped — 
 a full report of all facts and suspicions — and not to wait 
 till the ship's captain reported to the American owners 
 of the ship or of her cargo, and the owners reported to our 
 government and our government made demands of his 
 government — all that loses time and causes additional 
 irritation ; and that he might be sure that our government 
 will take up every single case of detention with vigour. 
 I suggested that each government might, in my opinion, 
 permit the utmost and the promptest publicity of the 
 facts in every case. If, for instance, the fact had been 
 published that the ship which was detained (with a cotton 
 cargo) at Stornaway, Scotland, was detained by the 
 Scotch owners and not by the British Admiralty — there 
 could have been no irritation about that. I can now push 
 every case vigorously; and I am sure he will do his best 
 to induce his naval officers to be careful. There's the 
 difficulty: naval men don't have to settle the trouble that 
 they cause. I am hopeful that we may now get through 
 without serious trouble. Sir Edward and I had a little 
 tilt at compliments to-day. I have to see him every day 
 now. 
 
 "I don't like to make myself a nuisance," I said; "but 
 your navy must think we are fond of controversies about 
 
 x He has since told me the British cruisers stay over there for fear the interned 
 German boats might put to sea. (W. H. P.'s note.) . 
 
HOW PAGE WOULD HAVE ENDED THE WAR — IN 1911 191 
 
 ships; and we must, of course, take every case up 
 promptly." 
 
 "You must really believe me," said he, "when I say thai 
 I am glad to see you; for I will say, though you push hard, 
 you play fair." 
 
 "You can stop the pushing, Sir Edward," I said, " w Inn 
 your naval men learn to resist the impulse to stop every 
 ship that comes along. Don't you suppose they enjoy 
 it?" 
 
 "/don't enjoy it." 
 
 Then, after a sad sort of smile — 
 
 " More oil ships? If only that be not going to the Ger- 
 mans, it's all right: I'll do what you like and beg your 
 pardon. But it mustn't get through, you know." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN 
 
 FRONT 
 
 To the President 
 
 6 Grosvenor Square, W. 
 
 November 4, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Then, to put small things next big ones — my 
 daughter got a scolding when she came back and told me 
 that she left Washington before your kind invitation to call 
 reached her. She told me she wrote her explanation and 
 excuses. She was rushing to get back before all the ship 
 routes became mine-strewn; and tins is now fast coming 
 to pass. 
 
 Most important of all — House informs me that you 
 are in good physical trim. That's cheerful as well as most 
 important. I am frequently asked about your health — 
 not because the questioner supposes you are ill, but 
 because he means that the world can't afford now to have 
 any uncertainty on that score. 
 
 The darkest days, I fear, are not yet come here. When 
 more British ships are blown up and more and more of the 
 sea is German mined and when more and more neutral 
 ships are sunk (pray Heaven, not an American one!) and 
 when it is discovered how many Englishmen are among 
 the innumerable dead in France, a shudder of horror will 
 seize all England. It is most solemn now: the men who 
 think look back over their history and see no time so 
 
 192 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 193 
 
 murderous and perhaps none so dangerous and uncertain. 
 All that holds the world together is the friendship and 
 kinship of our country and this. I never forget for one 
 moment — tins fact that just now is the mosl important fad 
 in the world; and I do thank God it is you that are >\ here 
 you are, so that tins will not be forgotten on our side in 
 any small controversy that may come. That Lincoln-like 
 man, Sir Edward Grey, never forgets it. lie is, so far, 
 the strong, pathetic figure of the time. 
 
 "Steady, steady," I say to myself every day, "and look 
 a long way ahead. It's the big, lasting, profound things 
 that count now, not the little tasks of the passing da) < >r < >i 
 the changing humour"; and I try to keep the rudder true. 
 
 Always heartily yours, 
 Walter II. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 November 30, 1911. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Of course nobody has any clear idea about the duration 
 
 of the war, and the general military expectation thai it 
 
 would last certainly one year, probably two years, and 
 
 possibly three, has not been changed. But the feeling 
 
 often comes over me that no people can stand such a 
 
 strain for so long a time. The tension and the depression 
 
 and the anxiety will become simply unbearable. I surel) 
 
 am as far out of it as any man in England. M\ work is 
 
 work of singular detachment. We walk the tight rope 
 
 of neutrality. The women have even ceased to insist 
 
 on Mrs. Page's serving on tins and that committee thai 
 
 has to do with only one side of the conflict. The thrifty 
 
 American merchants of contraband wares have ceased to 
 
 come to me to help them get to the War Oflicc to make 
 
194 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 big contracts. We are as aloof from it as it is possible to 
 
 be. 
 
 Yet we are not aloof at all. It isn't work that tires. 
 It's the war. Everybody feels it. I meet nobody who 
 feels differently. Well, if this is so in London, how must 
 it be on the Continent? I think the world was never 
 before put to such a strain. May it not break some day 
 all on a sudden? The French would probably have col- 
 lapsed as they did in 1870 but for the Belgian check of 
 the Germans and the English help. There is an unex- 
 pressed feeling that the Russians may suddenly quit some 
 day as they did in the Crimean War. They believe here 
 that the Austrians have almost come to the point of 
 despair already — I do not know. The Germans and the 
 English don't have panics. But the people of any nation 
 must reach a point sometime when they feel as I often 
 feel : What's the use? You can do nothing useful, nothing 
 constructive, you can get no cheerful experiences in life, 
 you live in a mood of mourning and of anxiety — is life 
 worth while? In every time of trouble before now (I 
 haven't had many) I have been able to forget myself in 
 some good book. I thought I should always have this 
 resource. But it's gone now. The war gets between 
 my eyes and the printed page. It gets between your golf 
 club and the ball. Somebody said something here the 
 other night about Christmas. It startled me. I found 
 myself tliinking it all out as a new proposition — Christmas 
 — December — presents — the children at home — Santa 
 Claus — the year 1914 — when did I hear of these things 
 before? What does one do at Christmas? — I feel as if 
 I'd never care to come to Europe again. It will always 
 link itself in my mind with this supreme crime. Most 
 of its best young men will be dead, the older ones forever 
 under the shadow of this experience, the Continent 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 195 
 
 bankrupt and ruined, suggesting only human misery- 
 haggard old women, beggars, and starved children, and 
 maimed men, and endless talk all their lives of this war. 
 The sunshine on the sand in North Carolina, a countr\- 
 man spitting at a pebble on Ins way to church and calling 
 his mangy dog— that seems a healthful scene to me com- 
 pared with anything here. 
 
 And all the world has taken to lying. You can't believe 
 anything that you hear or read. Three times within a 
 week somebody in the United States bed to the State 
 Department. Here come telegrams: An American citizen 
 imprisoned for criticizing the English: get him out. We 
 call the man up on the telephone (in Ins office) and ask 
 him if he's in prison or if he has criticized the English. 
 "News to me," he says, and he goes on with his work. A 
 day or two later — an American citizen found guilty of 
 spying, to be shot to-morrow: hustle! All the military 
 camps in the kingdom, all the military courts, all the 
 police are set to work frantically to find the man who's 
 to be shot to-morrow. Telegraph and telephone are 
 worked hot. To-morrow comes. Nobody's heard of 
 such a man. We are talking about what we are to do, 
 when the man walks in and says he guesses he'd better 
 get a passport. He is asked about being a spy and con- 
 demned to be shot; and he laughs and remarks: "I guess 
 my folks at home were getting uneasy about me." Then 
 comes a telegram about the detention of a ship with a 
 full cargo of cotton. Demand its release! Well, it has so 
 many tons of copper in the bottom. On tins side of the 
 world it's the same way. The Germans have taken 
 Calais — everybody believes it for a day. To-morrow 
 night the Zeppelins will come — many people believe it. 
 The Germans have seized American food in Belgium. I 
 get a messenger through to Whitlock. On the contrary, 
 
196 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 he writes back, they are giving us every aid in distributing 
 it. The German Government asks for a report on the 
 scandalous condition of the detention camp at Newcastle. 
 There has never been a detention camp at Newcastle. 
 Periodically I remind the British Government that we 
 can't send private inquiries in our government pouch to 
 Berlin: will they please inform the public that inquiries 
 must be made at the War Office? Certainly. The very 
 next day a man on the staff of the War Office comes in 
 and says that since our embassy is the only channel of 
 communication will we please make inquiry about his 
 brother? So, in addition to being infinitely sad, the whole 
 world is going lying mad and credulously stupid. Now 
 people can't recover from this abnormal state overnight. 
 These little incidents hint big of the demoralization of the 
 mind and of the character of men. 
 
 The Germans are indescribably angry with the British. 
 They question and criticize everything. At bottom 
 they hate and distrust us also. The English are slow 
 beyond any decent patience. The Austrians mechanically 
 follow the Germans in their restrictions. The Turks ask 
 twice a day about their consuls. Untruthful merchants 
 in the United States misinform our own government. 
 The British Admiralty and War Office cause interminable 
 delay. I never know what a day will bring. Depression 
 hangs over everybody like a London fog. But all these 
 are incidental — are as nothing, if we keep fair and consid- 
 erate dealing, — these two governments with one another; 
 for upon this hangs the destiny of the world. The Prime 
 Minister and Sir Edward Grey never forget this and I 
 use their appreciation of our friendship as far as it is manly 
 to use it. And their attitude will enable us to pull through. 
 As I say, all else is of minor consequence. Ours, of course, 
 is the future of the world. When the world recovers its 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 197 
 
 senses, its first remark will be, "Thank God for the United 
 States." And so say I now. 
 
 Heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 P. S. 
 
 Just after I had finished this letter, Lord Haldane 
 dropped in and talked an hour or more. In addition 
 to being "the Keeper of the King's conscience" he is yet 
 Secretary of War, being a sort of civilian aid to Lord 
 Kitchener. He knows German literature and the Ger- 
 mans as well as any man in England. A few days ago 
 he sent me a letter that Prince von Bulow had written to 
 me, asking my good offices on behalf of his interned 
 brother. 
 
 "Your old friend, the old German Chancellor, knows 
 better than to expect me to be able to do what he asks — 
 doesn't he?" 
 
 "Well, that doesn't keep any German from trying." 
 
 Lord Haldane doesn't know how to guess about the 
 duration of the war any better than I. Yet he knows all 
 that the British Government knows. But he has more 
 confidence in the Russians than most men I meet have. 
 He told me of a Russian whom he met here a little while 
 ago. Somebody asked him if he wouldn't soon be called 
 to the front. 
 
 "Not immediately," he said, "I belong to the thir- 
 teenth million and only five millions have yet been called 
 out." 
 
 Lord Haldane thinks they'll stick, for they regard it as 
 a holy war. He's chiefly afraid that a peace may be 
 patched up before another war is made impossible. That's 
 what, I find, most Englishmen fear — that Germany will 
 be left with a chance to do all this over again some years 
 
198 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 hence. If that be so, life will not be worth living on this 
 side of the world. They all confess now that it hasn't 
 been worth living these ten years. 
 
 To the President 
 
 6 Grosvenor Square, W., London, 
 
 15 December, 1914. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 This is my wish for a happy Christmas for you — that 
 we may get through this war with the great influence of 
 our country not only unimpaired but strengthened. 
 
 In the small share that I have in working for that great 
 aim, I try at every step to consider the large historic 
 forces at play before I consider any irritating incident 
 of the day. The incident, at its worst, will be forgotten 
 to-morrow : the great historic forces will exist after we are 
 dead. The great question is, How will our country stand 
 when the Old World is reorganized after this war is ended? 
 The present German Government or any government 
 like it will hate us then as now, because we stand for the 
 very opposite of its military spirit and ambition. Other 
 nations will respect us as we conduct ourselves during its 
 progress. It is the larger good and the future relations 
 that we shall have that I try to keep in view. 
 
 When I get a hint from home that I am pro-British, and 
 am chided here by both English and Americans because 
 (they say) I lack proper friendliness and am too pro- 
 German, I recall a far-off memory of my life out West. 
 There was a cowboy ball in town. As the hours tripped 
 along, a jolly drunk came over the merry gentlemen of the 
 party and they showed their real enjoyment of the eve- 
 ning by accusing one another of all the crimes of which 
 each man had ever been suspected. As this hilarious 
 fun was running strong — all jolly drunk and noisy — the 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 199 
 
 able-bodied parson of the town stepped in. Two friend I y 
 fellows seized him, one by each arm, and one said : 
 
 "Say, parson, what's you accused of— too much hell 
 fire?" 
 
 "No," said the other fellow, "too much harp and holy 
 ghost." 
 
 I don't remember what the parson said ; but I do know 
 that neither his cosmogony nor his daily walk and conver- 
 sation suffered radical change from this inquisition; for 
 he had a way of looking ahead and of seeing things in 
 proper proportion. I suspect he regarded each accu- 
 sation as offsetting the other. 
 
 To drop to a serious depth (that's a sudden way we have 
 in this time of unnatural strain)— I have heard from high 
 sources that any talk of peace which is suspected of being 
 inspired in Berlin would be received as an unfriendly 
 suggestion. There is not the slightest feeling of vengeance 
 here — only a feeling of sorrow; but the English are de- 
 termined not to have this war recur. The German armed 
 threat must disappear, and the sooner it disappears and 
 with the least harm to the Germans, the better. There is not 
 the slightest hatred of Germans. The moment Germany 
 will or can give up what we call militarism forever, peace 
 will come instantly — with no revenge, no hatred, but, of 
 course, with the reinstatement of Belgium. But no voice 
 will be heard except on these conditions — no talk of 
 merely stopping the war to let it recur ten or twenty or 
 forty years hence, to gratify a vast military machine, 
 which must fight somebody at some time to justify its 
 existence. 
 
 The English are become very suspicious of the German 
 influence and activity in the United States. 
 
 But I set out only to wish you a happy Christmas, while 
 I congratulate our country on yonr wise leadership and 
 
200 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 your ever-strengthening grasp on the confidence and 
 affection of our people and of the world. And I send this 
 to be posted under the serene countenance of George 
 Washington (and not King George) by Mrs. Page, who 
 hears (and answers) the call of our grandchildren at 
 Christmas. I hope that she may have the pleasure to 
 see you before her return. 
 
 Always heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 ii 
 
 Sir Edward Grey was not the only leader in the struggle 
 who Avorked, from the first, for American cooperation 
 with the Allies. While he was founding his diplomatic 
 policy on the necessity of obtaining American support, 
 the military chieftains had their eyes on the United 
 States as a desirable military associate. From the day the 
 German armies invaded Belgium, a man of very different 
 type from Grey looked upon the United States as an im- 
 portant element in the war. And Lord Kitchener's idea 
 of American cooperation was much more direct than 
 Grey's. At 'the outbreak of war the Foreign Secretary 
 was thinking of the United States chiefly from the eco- 
 nomic point of view. The time came when Grey's pro- 
 gramme went much further: at the beginning, however, 
 his purpose was to maintain Anglo-American relations on 
 so even a keel that our foodstuffs, our war munitions, our 
 steel, our copper, and other materials would flow un- 
 interruptedly into British ports, while the British Navy, 
 in full command of the seas, was keeping these same 
 materials out of Germany. From the first, however, 
 Lord Kitchener, with the more brutal directness of the 
 practical soldier, was determined to make the United 
 States a military ally. He desired nothing less than an 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 201 
 
 American army, if necessary millions strong, fighting 
 by the side of the British and the French. Whatever 
 criticisms may justly fall on Kitchener's head, one truth 
 at least is clear: he completely understood the magnitude 
 of his problem. His famous prediction that the war would 
 last at least three years was more than a happy prophecy : 
 it was a deliberate calculation. Another opinion, which 
 Kitchener did not publish, was that without the military 
 support of the United States the Allies could not an in. 
 He shared the judgment of General French, expressed to 
 Page on two occasions and reported by the Ambassador to 
 the President, that the military situation, after the battle 
 of the Marne, was an inevitable deadlock. General 
 French's solution was peace. Kitchener's plan was an 
 American army in Europe. British statecraft in these 
 autumn months of 1914 thus presents a double drama; 
 one in which the leading performer was Sir Edward Grey, 
 sitting in the massive Foreign Office in Downing Street, 
 skilfully handling American problems in a way that would 
 make American industrial resources accessible to the 
 Entente, while another figure, more rigid, more direct, 
 perhaps even more determined, was quietly at work only 
 a few hundred feet distant, — Ins ambition being to make 
 the United States an active force in the war. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey conducted his negotiations through 
 Page. Lord Kitchener, however, knew little of Ambassa- 
 dors; he really understood only one type of man, and that 
 was the soldier. Fortunately the American Army had a 
 particularly worthy representative in London at that 
 time. Colonel George 0. Squier was as much of an in- 
 novation as military attache as was Page as Ambassador. 
 Until his appointment, the American military attach*' in 
 London had not taken his duties any too seriously. When 
 General Leonard Wood became Chief of Staff, however, 
 
202 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 he decided to make this post more important. The 
 science of war had made great progress ; the business of a 
 military attache, thought General Wood, should be to 
 survey the great armed camp which Europe had become, 
 and derive from it such lessons as would promote the 
 military preparations of the United States. For this reason, 
 Colonel Squier, much to his astonishment, was transferred 
 to the London Embassy in 1912. Colonel Squier was 
 a man of great scientific attainments. In addition to his 
 military education, received at West Point, he held the 
 doctorate of Johns Hopkins University, where he had 
 been a pupil in physics of Rowland. Colonel Squier 
 had spent the larger part of his military career in scien- 
 tific investigation. His inventions in cable transmission 
 and his wireless had already enrolled him as one of the 
 greatest workers in this field. Under new conditions 
 of warfare, therefore, Colonel Squier seemed to be the 
 man for this London post. When Page reached London 
 he found Colonel Squier well established as military 
 attache. Page was not at first familiar with his repu- 
 tation; the military attache was a modest and undemon- 
 strative man; Page became interested, however, when he 
 discovered that many of the leading scientists in London 
 were making frequent visits to the little office above his 
 own where Colonel Squier had his headquarters. The 
 two years preceding the war gave the military attache the 
 opportunity not only of meeting scholars but of forming 
 the closest associations with the leaders of the British 
 Army. When hostilities broke out there were probably few 
 military attaches in London, if indeed there were any, 
 who had so completely won the intimacy of the men who 
 were to direct the war. British officialdom gives its 
 confidence carefully, after only the severest testing; the 
 indispensable requirement is that a man shall be able to 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 203 
 
 hold his tongue; Colonel Squier had already proved, to 
 the satisfaction of Lord Kitchener and his associates, 
 that his ability to keep secrets amounted to little less than 
 genius; from the beginning of the war, therefore, he was 
 taken practically into their confidence and given opportun- 
 ities and privileges for which all the other attaches were 
 vainly clamouring. 
 
 The proposal of General von Donop, that the American 
 Government transfer hundreds of thousands of Spring- 
 field rifles from its own arsenals to the British Army, has 
 already been described. Not only Von Donop, but Lord 
 Kitchener himself made this request to Colonel Squier. It 
 was indeed one of Kitchener's favourite plans ; the diplo- 
 matic details involved apparently did not interest him. 
 
 "You've got those rifles: we need them and we must 
 have them" — this was the way the matter phrased itself 
 in Kitchener's mind. Colonel Squier was amazed at the 
 War Minister's knowledge of American armament. He 
 knew just how many rifles the American Army had and 
 precisely how many were in each arsenal. At that time 
 British recruits were drilling with wooden muskets and 
 the task of early munitioning the army was a formidable 
 one. 
 
 Kitchener's life was burdened by the demands of 
 foreign military observers who wished to visit the Allied 
 front in France. Their eagerness and insistence indeed 
 passed all reasonable bounds. The extension of such 
 privileges had been usual in all wars, and never since the 
 world began had military experts had such an opportunity 
 of witnessing their art. However, the head of the British 
 Army was inflexible in his hostility to such excursions. 
 The grim and implacable "organizer of victory' sat 
 unimpressed in his large room on the second floor of 
 the War Office, silent in face of these appeals. 
 
204 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 One day Colonel Squier was summoned to this head- 
 quarters. He was requested to come in full-dress uniform 
 and to keep his visit a secret from everybody except his 
 Ambassador. Colonel Squier found Lord Kitchener 
 sitting alone, as usual, in his large office, and in an ex- 
 tremely genial mood. Colonel Squier's recollection of 
 Kitchener indeed is not the common one. The war 
 lord whom he recalls is not the grim, unsmiling, mono- 
 syllabic and unbending autocrat who has passed into 
 history. Instead, his picture is that of an extremely 
 genial and gracious man, with the most confidential man- 
 ner and the most friendly smile, deprecating rather than 
 insistent in his conversation — in fact, a rather slow and 
 hesitant talker, but open, frank, and ingratiating. He 
 was certainly in this mood on this morning. He was 
 secretive about only one thing — his wish that not a 
 soul in London, especially not the military attaches of 
 other nations, should know anything about this inter- 
 view. 
 
 "I suppose I shall get caught at it," he explained, 
 "but I have decided to let you go to the front in France 
 and stay there as long as you wish." Kitchener was ap- 
 parently willing to take the risk of offending other na- 
 tions, so important did he think it that the United States 
 should possess the most up-to-date information about 
 war, in case this country should become a party to the 
 conflict. 
 
 This was the opportunity for which Colonel Squier and 
 all the other military men in the world had been clamour- 
 ing since the outbreak of war. The difficulty, as Lord 
 Kitchener now explained, was that of preventing the 
 attaches of other nations from learning about such a 
 visit. Of course, Colonel Squier's absence from London 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 205 
 
 would be noted immediately, and the suspicions of bis 
 brother attaches at once aroused. However, he had hit 
 upon a plan. That was to have Colonel Squier detached 
 from the American Embassy in London and become, at 
 least temporarily, military attache to the American 
 Embassy in Paris. His absence from London would thus 
 be satisfactorily explained. Lord Kitchener asked ( lolonel 
 Squier to make clear the situation to Page and obtain 
 his consent. 
 
 From the War Office the American officer went al 
 once to the Embassy. 
 
 "I'll do it!" said Page, thumping his desk, and in a brief 
 period the matter was arranged, Ambassador Herrick in 
 France cordially cooperating. 
 
 On November 22, 1914, Colonel Squier arrived at Si. 
 Omer, General French's headquarters in France, and 
 presented a brief note from Lord Kitchener. He soon 
 learned that his trip was not the usual more or less dress- 
 parade affair that the visits of military men subse- 
 quently became. Colonel Squier was taken into the 
 British family and the British camp; he spent five weeks 
 in everyday association; he lived at times with the men 
 in the trenches; he messed with the officers; he was show n 
 everything and permitted to investigate the deepest 
 secrets of the army. Before leaving London, Lord 
 Kitchener had provided Colonel Squier with authority 
 to draw English gold from any British paymaster in the 
 army in France as he desired and to draw it without limit. 
 His daily life from hour to hour was that of the British 
 officer. When he wished to pass from one Corps to the 
 next, formal memorandum orders were issued precisely 
 as in the case of a British officer except that only his name 
 and rank appeared in the papers. These orders gave no 
 
206 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H> PAGE 
 
 hint that he belonged to the American Army. These 
 courtesies were all in response to instructions from Kit- 
 chener's office in London. The explanation was clear 
 enough. Neither Lord Kitchener nor the many military 
 leaders whom Colonel Squier met in France made any 
 concealment of their wish that the United States should 
 enter the war. This was a point that Sir Edward Grey 
 and the diplomats of the Foreign Office carefully evaded, 
 but most of the important army leaders whom Colo- 
 nel Squier met freely discussed the possibility ; the fact that 
 his country was "neutral" did not put the slightest re- 
 straint upon their tongues. That the real purpose of 
 this visit was to enable the American Army to learn the 
 details of the organization and management of modern 
 war has always been Colonel Squier's belief. It was 
 Lord Kitchener's plan to place before the United States 
 the facts that would assist this country in preparing for 
 whatever might happen. Colonel Squier was not merely 
 a military observer; he was given access to military plans, 
 to organization, armament, manoeuvres, the quarter- 
 master's and surgeon's department — to everything that 
 formed the materials and the background of modern war. 
 He was invited to make elaborate reports on all such 
 subjects, and he did so, the British officers giving all 
 possible help in the preparation of these documents. To 
 long lists of questions from the War College in Washington 
 the British officers themselves sometimes wrote the replies. 
 The evident desire was to keep the American Army as 
 completely informed about existing conditions and meth- 
 ods as was the British Army itself. 
 
 Colonel Squier wrote, frequently under gunfire and 
 sometimes in the midst of battle, a series of reports. His 
 position was an unprecedented one; he was techni- 
 cally a "neutral," an officer of a nation whose President 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 207 
 
 was preaching the doctrine of "neutrality in deed and in 
 thought," yet for five weeks he was virtually a member of 
 the British Army. Not unnaturally he believed that 
 Washington would be as interested in his reports as he 
 was himself. In the United States the popular dis- 
 cussion of preparedness was beginning; far-sighted Amer- 
 icans, particularly ex-President Roosevelt and General 
 Wood, already foresaw the possibility that the United 
 States might be drawn into the conflict, or at least might 
 be called upon, in case of a German victory, to fight for its 
 own independence; in any event a wise national policy 
 made it essential that we should abandon our antiquated 
 methods and reorganize an army on the lines made neces- 
 sary by the present war. The great advantage of Colonel 
 Squier's visit was that it would provide the basis for such 
 an organization. He did his work with the utmost zeal 
 and industry, and report after report was sent to Wash- 
 ington. Had the American Army acted upon the infor- 
 mation thus dispatched, it would have had a policy and a 
 program, if not an army, on the Declaration of War in 1917, 
 and thus been prepared, to a great extent, for hostilities. 
 How many lives would have been saved, and how much 
 money would have been conserved, can be only guessed 
 at. Certainly the course of history would have been very 
 different. Colonel Squier sent his reports to the War 
 College, therefore, with the satisfaction that any man feels 
 at having performed a great task. Washington, however, 
 manifested no interest in them. They were deposited 
 in appropriate pigeon-holes — where they still remain. 
 How many officers read them is not known ; that no action 
 was ever taken is the fact. 
 
208 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Telegram to the Secretary of State 
 
 London, 
 January 6, 1915. 
 Secretary of State,' 
 Washington, 
 1423, January 6, 3 p. M. 
 Very confidential and private. 
 Although practically all governments have asked British 
 and French military authorities for permission to send 
 military officers with Allies' armies and have had in 
 London since the war began officers of high rank waiting 
 for permission, no military officer of any country has yet 
 been allowed to go to the front except Colonel Squier, 
 our attache. This notable exception in our favour both 
 Colonel Squier and I think ought to be made known to 
 
 you * 
 
 His going was very secretly arranged and is under no 
 
 circumstances to be made known. It is known here only 
 
 to a few of the highest officials, and the officers of other 
 
 armies are kept in ignorance. Colonel Squier remained at 
 
 the front five weeks, visited generals of every corps of the 
 
 British Army, saw every sort of military operations in 
 
 progress, from front trenches a few yards from the enemy 
 
 back to bases; he was treated with the greatest courtesy 
 
 and cordiality, was permitted to see everything, and 
 
 throughout kept a diary. He is just returned to London 
 
 and has been informally told that in the near future he 
 
 may go to the front again if no word of his visit leaks 
 
 out. His report when he can make it will be of the 
 
 greatest military value. 
 
 American Amrassador, London. 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 209 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, January 12, 1915. 
 
 Confidential to the last degree. 
 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Colonel Squier, our military attache (and a 
 thoroughbred if ever I knew one) has just come back 
 from five weeks at the front mainly with the English bul 
 partly also with the French officers in comma in I. He 
 is the only soldier of any army who has been allowed 
 to go. Not more than half-a-dozen men in London km m 
 that Squier has been to the front. He and I had to do all 
 sorts of tilings to get permission. I formally transferred 
 him to our French Embassy; he formally presented him- 
 self to a series of French military authorities; Joffre 
 received him; then, after more of this freemasonry, he was 
 permitted to go to General French's headquarters where 
 he presented a note which read somewhat like this: 
 "Dear French: Here's Colonel Squier, you knou. 
 Kitchener." He lived with the officers and men in 
 every English corps) for five weeks and nothing was con- 
 cealed. He went in the trenches. Bombs missed him 
 only a few yards time and again. — Why all this secrcc\ , 
 you ask? For several reasons and for no reason but the 
 English silence. In the first place, any man who can't 
 fall in and take care of himself is in the way. Then, the} 
 don't want it reported. Squier is bound to silence till 
 the war ends. The favour shown to Squier, as I make it out, 
 comes partly as a compliment to the United Stales and 
 partly as a personal compliment to Squier. He knoN\s 
 them from Kitchener down, they have great respect for 
 his judgment and his knowledge. Squier is a West Point 
 man, a Hopkins Ph. D., a distinguished inventor, you 
 know, and a member of all the learned scientific societies in 
 
210 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 London, and a fine military scholar. He talks and writes 
 with the directness and simplicity of a child. Well, he has 
 a lot of lessons. His Report (my guess is) will be a mili- 
 tary document of very great value, as I'm sure his brief 
 diary is, which I have read. 
 
 . . . And except for the noise of the guns it's a 
 silent war. No bugles, no music, no shouted commands. 
 The officers dress as the men : even a strip of red on the 
 collar is too good a target. The officer gives his orders 
 by silent motions; nobody speaks. Nobody wears a 
 sword, or a riband, or a stripe — just deadly, silent, grim 
 striving to death. 
 
 No army has begun to report all its dead. In fact, 
 it is doubtful if the commanders themselves know their 
 losses with accuracy. Recruits are all the time coming, 
 and new men take the vacant places in the old regi- 
 ments. 
 
 The horror of this thing outruns all imagination. Yet 
 somehow nobody seems to realize it — men marched into 
 the trenches to as certain slaughter as cattle when they 
 are driven into the killing house in a stockyard. There's 
 no chance to escape — so nearly no chance that it need 
 hardly be counted. There's nothing of the old "glory" 
 of war — the charge, the yell, the music, the clash, and the 
 giving way of one side or of the other. That's all gone. 
 When they bayonet one another to death, more men come 
 from the rear and fill the same ditches. Just plain, 
 beastly butchery of men in such numbers as were never 
 before killed in battle in so short a time, every mollifying 
 thing gone — use any weapon, he in the mud wounded for 
 twelve hours, lie dead unburied for days! And when 
 bombs strike a farmhouse and kill a family, that's not a 
 subject even of passing remark. 
 
 Some of the English officers said to Colonel Squier: 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 211 
 
 "How are we to get out of this? The awfulness of it 
 passes belief. But what can we do? Run and let the 
 Germans take the coast and Paris? That's our only 
 alternative. We can hold them and kill them and be 
 killed ourselves till their nerve gives out, or their men are 
 exhausted, or their ammunition is all gone; but until some 
 one or more of these things happen we can't drive them 
 far; nor can they drive us." 
 
 The Allies can keep putting in millions of men with 
 ammunition and food so long as they can get them as they 
 now get them. The Germans also can keep the same pace 
 a very long time — unless the Russians require an ever- 
 increasing German army on the east; and whenever the 
 Russians get into German territory there will be another 
 trench deadlock. The two trench deadlocks will, of 
 course, at last wear the Germans out; but if it go on as 
 this deadlock has now been in France for several months, 
 the war may last five years. By that time most surviving 
 men in Germany, France, and England, and hundreds of 
 thousands in Russia, will be cripples ; and tins side of the 
 world will consist chiefly of women. 
 
 Of course this sort of thing can't go on till annihilation 
 have overtaken them. But I can't yet see how it can be 
 ended till Germany will agree to restore Belgium. When 
 Germany will agree to that — after Russia has got Con- 
 stantinople — then, no doubt, some arrangement might be 
 discussed. Sir Edward Grey told me within a week that 
 not a word about peace or terms of peace had yet betn 
 spoken between the Allies. The taking of Ostend, the 
 effort to reach Calais and the bombardment of the east- 
 coast towns of England indefinitely postponed England's 
 willingness to consider peace. So far as I recall my Eng- 
 lish history, this race was never before so united and so 
 determined in any struggle. 
 
212 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Telegram to the Secretary of Slate 
 
 London, January 15, 1915, 9 p. m. 
 Secretary of State: 
 
 I lunched to-day with French who came here secretly 
 for a council of war. He talked of course in profound 
 confidence. 
 
 He said the military situation is a stalemate. The 
 Germans cannot get to Paris or to Calais. On the other 
 hand, it will take the Allies a year, perhaps two years, and 
 an incalculable loss of men to drive the Germans through 
 Belgium. It would take perhaps four years and un- 
 limited men to invade Germany. He has little confidence 
 in the ability of Russian aid in conquest of Germany. 
 Russia has whipped Austria and will whip Turkey. But 
 he hopes for little more from her. . . . 
 
 Speaking only for himself and in profoundest confidence 
 he told me of a peace proposal which he said the President, 
 at Germany's request, has submitted to England. He 
 tells me that this proposal is to end the war on condition 
 that Germany give up Belgium and pay for its restora- 
 tion. French's personal opinion is that England would 
 have to accept such an offer if it should be accompanied 
 with additional offers to satisfy the other Allies. Such, 
 for example, as the restoration to France of Alsace- 
 Lorraine and the agreement that Russia shall have 
 Constantinople. 
 
 I had an agreeable and friendly acquaintance with 
 General French before the war and he has sent me several 
 personal messages from the front. But I cannot help 
 suspecting that he had a further purpose than a mere 
 friendly talk in telling me these things. He seemed so 
 much surprised when I confessed that I had not heard 
 of such a proposal, that I felt that possibly he held back 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 213 
 
 something else for the President that he had it in mind to 
 say. He was solicitous to find out my opinion w aether this 
 peace proposal had been made in good faith or whether 
 it was probably a German move to affect public opinion 
 in the United States. 
 
 Colonel Squier had an interview to-day with Lord kit din- 
 ner whose military opinion coincides with General French's. 
 
 American Ambassador, London. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassv, London, 
 
 January 12, L915. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 There is no such thing as fair international reporting 
 of documents or speeches — there isn't often even intelli- 
 gent reporting. The condensed form of our note to the 
 British Government which was telegraphed here gave an 
 impression of bumptiousness that was, of course, wholly 
 absent from the Note when it was read in full. They've 
 got over that, however. But yesterday afternoon and 
 to-day a few sentences are published from your Indiana 
 speeches which seem to make you intimate — not quite 
 say, but intimate — that you must be called in to settle 
 the quarrel. This does no positive harm; but to such 
 persons as may believe that you said what these detached 
 sentences hint that you said (which, I'll bet principalities 
 and powers you did not say at all) it will seem that you 
 do not understand the war or the feeling about it here 
 or in Germany. As I say, this isn't worth a second 
 thought — only the universal feeling here is that nobody 
 can compose the trouble till something more decisive is 
 done in battle. The English will not think of peace until 
 their new army of 2,000,000 men go out in the spring. 
 They've taken their stand on (at the very least) the coin- 
 
214 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 plete restoration of Belgium; and that isn't in sight. 
 There is no bitterness, but there is a steadily growing 
 grim determination. It is the English way — always has 
 been the English way. How to pull the English off — 
 that's a hard thing to say, as it is a hard thing to say how 
 to pull a bulldog off. The doctors in the hospitals say 
 that when a German knows he's going to die, his emotions 
 all break forth and he weeps pitifully; a Frenchman sobs 
 and asks for his mother; but Tommy Atkins is silent, 
 as if he had a secret with the Almighty. Whether he is 
 in the War Office or in the Admiralty or in the trenches, 
 he surely is the least communicative of men when he 
 becomes desperately in earnest. A few weeks ago five 
 members of the staff of one of the English generals were 
 killed one afternoon by a shell. The survivors a few 
 hours afterward sat down to dinner as usual and made no 
 reference to their five dead companions. A visitor who 
 ate with them did not know from anything that was said 
 or done at dinner that anything had happened. Thus 
 they go on, without the slightest personal bitterness, 
 determined to win, perfectly willing to die, but stub- 
 bornly silent. One of the famous preachers in London 
 preached Sunday against complaining; for, he said, we 
 have not been called upon for nearly a century to save 
 our civilization and to save Europe. A noblewoman who 
 has sent five sons to the war — one dead, one a prisoner, 
 two wounded, and one she does not know where — sought 
 the preacher and said: 
 
 "I agree with you; but, pray tell me, who has com- 
 plained? I haven't heard one complaint." 
 
 "Who's complaining?" the woman with five soldier 
 sons asked. Yes; but the depression of it! I don't know 
 how much human nerves can stand. But I often have a 
 feeling that some day, without warning, everybody will 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 213 
 
 simply collapse— just give out. Something will snap. 
 All this part of the world can't continue to live under this 
 strain. I have several times heard men say, "Yes, I'm 
 going to the front. Of course, I shall never come back. 
 That's all right. We've got to win." After a million 
 or two have done that — what then? Can the rest keep 
 going? 
 
 Nothing keeps the war out of mind long. 1 have during 
 the week talked with Sir Edward Grey about il and 
 Winston Churchill and Lord Haldane. Th<>\ know 
 nothing more than I write you: I'm sure they talk to me 
 quite freely. They feel that they must simply go ahead. 
 They hope that the Russians will hold out and do so much 
 damage that the Germans will agree to restore Belgium. 
 Meantime Hoover, of the Commission for the Relief of 
 Belgium — a very able American engineer — was discussing 
 the military situation quite freely in Brussels with two 
 German generals and Whitlock. He tells me identically 
 the same thing that Squier brought back from the other 
 side — a hopeless deadlock. — By the way, when Whitlock 
 goes about Brussels, wherever he passes a group of the 
 common people, they uncover their heads and the women 
 curtsey and they whisper to one another: 'That's the 
 American Minister." They give him credit for saving 
 the city and for having food brought to them now . It is 
 infinitely touching. I wish we were all straight, un- 
 hesitating brave men like Whitlock; you found the righl 
 man the day you chose him. Hold fast to him. He's 
 more than a diplomat: he's a man. 
 
 Life is worth more, too, for knowing Hoover. But for 
 him Belgium would now be starved, however generously 
 people may have given food. He's gathering together 
 and transporting and getting distributed $5,000,000 worth 
 a month, with a perfect organization of volunteers. 
 
216 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 chiefly American. He has a fleet of thirty-five ships, 
 flying the Commission's flag — the only flag that all 
 belligerents have entered into an agreement to respect 
 and to defend. He came to me the other day and 
 said, "You must know the Commission is $600,000 in 
 debt. But don't be uneasy. The Commission has 
 given its note for it." The next day Hoover brought 
 in the Belgian Minister of Finance who brought him 
 $1,000,000 from the run-away Belgian Government. 
 Both the English and the Belgian cabinets send for him 
 about Belgian matters. He's a simple, modest, energetic 
 man who began Ins career in California and will end 
 it in Heaven; and he doesn't want anybody's thanks. 
 The surplus food being near exhaustion in the United 
 States and Canada, he has now begun on the Argentine, 
 where the crop is just coming on. I introduced him to 
 the Argentine Minister the other day, and the Minister 
 said to me afterwards: "Somehow I feel like doing what 
 that man asked me to do." A stone would weep to hear 
 what Hoover has seen in Belgium — pitiful beyond all 
 telling. Refugees are still coming here in considerable 
 numbers, -and the English take them in their homes. 
 My daughter goes every day to help at one of the receiving 
 and distributing places, where poor women come in de- 
 mented from terror: they do not know their own names. 
 When she speaks to them in French, they begin — some 
 of them — to come to their senses: some never do. — 
 The pathos of all this — the sin and misery of it — God! 
 life has nothing left for about half the people on the 
 Continent. It would be a mercy to be shot. You 
 weep at every corner of whatever road you travel until 
 you can weep no more. — There was a meeting in Brus- 
 sels a little while ago of prominent men. The patri- 
 arch of the meeting was a cultivated and (formerly) 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 217 
 
 rich old gentleman now past eighty, a fine old character 
 who, I am told, is known and respected all over Europe. 
 He got it into his head somehow that I had done far more 
 for the Commission than I have done or could do; and he 
 wrote me a letter, which he took to W hillock and asked 
 him to send to me. I can quote it because yon Know 
 I don't deserve it; but I have not many times in m\ life 
 been so touched. He concluded his courteous French 
 letter, in all sincerity, thus: "I offer my homage and kiss 
 your hand in profound gratitude — with the sublimes! 
 admiration for your generous great country. Adieu. 
 We shall soon all pass. But God does not lorgrt." 
 
 One reflection that saves us from collapse is — the world 
 is as infinitely kind as it is unspeakably cruel. 
 
 Collapse — that's what we are witnessing, a gigantic 
 collapse, not a mere war — something far more than thai : 
 and individual kindness and unspeakable pathos run 
 through it all. 
 
 Since the Allies have not even considered the possibility 
 of an early peace, and since the English preparation for 
 the war is only fairly begun, not only (so it seems to the 
 best-informed men here whom I see) is all peace talk re- 
 ceived with a smile or (more likely) with resentment, 
 but all indications point to a very much more severe and 
 determined phase of the war. The feeling is that it is 
 just beginning. There will be very much more suffering; 
 there will be very much more stringent regulations of e\ er> 
 sort; there is likely to be — so there are private strong 
 intimations — a complete cable blockade of the Continent 
 — except the territory of the Allies. England owns all the 
 cables. She can use them or throw them out of use, as 
 war measures, as we did in our war with Spain. This 
 government is sincerely and carefully friendly to us — and 
 most sincere — but it isn't going to consider our con- 
 
218 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 veriience, when no clear rights are involved, in any action 
 that it thinks necessary for victory. Victory will be 
 won by long and hard economic pressure and by supplying 
 unlimited men from all parts of the Empire. It is the last 
 100,000 men and the last £100,000 that will win. Hence 
 the struggle is already passed out of the sentimental stage. 
 Public opinion in England — well-informed men in private 
 life — do not care a fig what people in the United States or 
 anybody else think. They think only of winning the war. 
 Their fortunes and their sons go — to this end — everything 
 goes, including the friendship of the United States, if that 
 must be: they have passed the mood where they particu- 
 larly care for anything. Their own business, their own 
 wealth, their own sons are all going. They are in no mood 
 to consider too carefully anybody else's business or wealth. 
 
 This mood doesn't seem to me to get into the papers. 
 I sometimes wonder if it be understood in the United 
 States. 
 
 In all this there is no personal hatred or ferocity. It 
 is simply a desperate fight for English independence. 
 And I see no reason to think that they will call on any 
 neutral in the interests of peace at any time. The 
 belligerents will settle it themselves nobody knows when, 
 but not till Belgium is restored and Constantinople is 
 taken. 
 
 And the area as well as the earnestness of the war will 
 increase. Rumania and Italy will almost surely come in. 
 No end, therefore, is visible, as the conflict looks here. 
 
 Yet, of course, I know and you know and all thoughtful 
 men know that the totally unexpected may happen. 
 All our conclusions and conjectures are at best guesses. 
 A guess here may be right or wrong. So with a guess 
 made at Washington. 
 
 Picture to yourself, if you can, the state of feeling in 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 219 
 
 Washington and (I will say) in Boston during our Civil 
 War, after the Battle of Gettysburg. What did people 
 there care for feeling in England, provided only that the 
 English Government did not go against them? The 
 growing feeling here is somewhat like that to us— of 
 entire good will but of increasing indifference among 
 the public. The English public, while respectful and 
 friendly, cares less for us now than at any time during 
 recent years— this by a process of exclusion, since their 
 own big problem wholly fills their minds. The Govern- 
 ment here is frank and friendly as ever and most eager to 
 cause us as little trouble as possible. They have not 
 changed at all— except as I will presently explain. They 
 are eager to keep our good will for its own sake and now 
 also for a new reason: they do not want the Germans to 
 have the satisfaction of seeing any difference between 
 England and the United States. The English Govern- 
 ment will go the full length for both these reasons. 
 
 But there is one difference I could not help seeing if I 
 were blind, which (it has for some time seemed to me) I 
 ought to tell you about. They make a distinction in the 
 Foreign Office— they never say this and perhaps they show 
 it all unconsciously — between communications that come 
 from the Department and communications that the news- 
 papers say come with your approval. The Department's 
 insistence on the acceptance in Mo of the Declaration of 
 London, and the several mares' nests that the Depart- 
 ment has found, and the sometimes "shirt-sleeve" tone of 
 their communications causes them to take them rather 
 pro forma. I fear the Government suspects that the 
 Department suspects it. The dispatch that I received 
 some time ago to make, in conjunction with the Consul- 
 General, a thorough investigation of the licenses that 
 have been granted to export copper and other things has 
 
220 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 been kept locked up in my private box. But it implied 
 carelessness of the Government in permitting English 
 merchants to take advantage of us, if not complicity with 
 them. Our investigations have shown neither. I do 
 not know that this government got any hint of our 
 investigations, but their spy system— " intelligence 
 bureau" they call it— discovers absolutely everything; 
 and they may know that somebody in the State Depart- 
 ment (I do not know who it is) seems to suspect the good 
 faith of the British Government. This fear of mine— it 
 is only a fear— is increased by this fact: the Department 
 has had some correspondence or conversations with the 
 British Ambassador in Washington which do not seem 
 to have gone well. I know nothing about it, for I am 
 seldom informed by the Department what it does in 
 Washington. But I have heard numerous references 
 to some Note preceding the recent one— if there was such 
 a Note: as I say, I am always in the dark about what goes 
 on in Washington. Lord Haldane remarked one day dur- 
 ing his temporary occupancy of the Foreign Office that 
 on the whole it seemed more satisfactory to deal with such 
 questions when the mind and hand of the President were 
 visible. And they have ceased to tell me here what Spring 
 Rice te egraphs. For instance, altho' it is distinctly said 
 in Sir Edward Grey's note and in the newspapers that we 
 have come to an agreement about exporting raw rubber 
 from England and her colonies— a subject that I had much 
 to do with— I have no idea what the agreement is; and 
 for four or five days I have had to tell rubber exporters 
 and importers who have called here that I know nothing 
 about it. If I ask the Foreign Office what the agreement 
 is, that makes a bad matter worse: it betrays the situ- 
 ation. 
 
 Understand— I am not complaining: that does no good 
 
COLONEL SQUIER VISITS THE WESTERN FRONT 221 
 
 and is not my nature. I mean only that the Foreign 
 Office makes, consciously or unconsciously, all the (in- 
 ference in the world between a communication or a com- 
 plaint that comes from the Department and one thai is 
 understood to have your approval; and they listen I 
 and less to what the Department says. \s for its Bilence 
 to me about what it does with the British Embassador al 
 Washington, don't trouble about that: it is beyond remedy 
 and I have ceased to worry about it, dangerous as ii is to 
 me. 1 know, of course, that there is no slight meant to 
 me: it's their way. But, as soon as this war job is passed 
 and conditions come when I can be relieved, I shall be 
 glad to escape the constant danger of this situation and 
 the continual leaking of confidential information, the 
 sending of which is necessarily reduced to a minimum l.\ 
 this carelessness. With the most active "intelligence" 
 system and the most rigid suppression of information 
 here and with the grave danger of leaking in the Depart- 
 ment—well, I watch Scylla on this side and Chary lull's 
 on that side and keep my rudder as true as I can — under- 
 standing, too, perfectly clearly, as I think I do, the entire 
 good will and sincere friendliness on both sides. It is 
 not a thing to have any emotions about — only unavoid- 
 able dangers ever to keep in mind. 
 
 Heavens! how long a letter. Forgive both its length 
 and its matter. It is written out of affectionate loyalt) 
 to you and from this volcanic outburst of all fundamental 
 emotions. I thank Heaven I keep well under it all. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE "DACIA" AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 
 
 THE story of the German merchantman Dacia — and 
 Page's part in forestalling the crisis in British- 
 American relations which it threatened— has already been 
 told. This Presidential correspondence, however, gives 
 the incident a new emphasis. The Dacia was one of 
 the numerous German ships caught in American and 
 other ports at the outbreak of the war. Great Britain's 
 command of the sea kept all these vessels huddled in 
 foreign harbours, but the war had hardly started when 
 Congress passed a law that admitted foreign-built ships to 
 American registry, an act that gave a great opportunity 
 to German-Americans in the United States. A group 
 headed by Mr. E. N. Breitung of Marquette, Michigan, 
 purchased the Dacia, registered her as an American vessel, 
 installed an American crew, raised the American flag, 
 loaded the ship with cotton and prepared to sail for a Ger- 
 man port. Would the British Navy seize the Dacia and 
 confiscate it as enemy property? On the answer to this 
 question might well depend peaceful relations between the 
 United States and Great Britain. Page's dexterous sug- 
 gestion that the French Navy stop the ship and take it to 
 a prize court enabled the Allies to avoid this issue. 
 
 Americans at that time little understood the seriousness 
 of the Dacia episode; there is practically nothing about it 
 in Page's letters, the reason being that the discussion was 
 carried on exclusively in cipher telegrams between the 
 
 222 
 
<<_ . . »» 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 223 
 
 London Embassy and the State Department. These 
 telegrams, which are now available, bring home the fact 
 that in the magnitude of the questions involved, the 
 Dacia incident finds its historic parallel only in the Trent 
 case of the Civil War. There were a few days in Novem- 
 ber, 1861, when it seemed impossible to avoid war between 
 the United States and Great Britain. Peace was saved. 
 indeed, only at the eleventh hour. Had another Ambassa- 
 dor than Page represented the United States in January, 
 1915, or had another man than Grey had charge of 
 British foreign relations, the sailing of the Dacia might 
 have had consequences of the most momentous character. 
 Page himself describes his lengthy discussion with Sir 
 Edward Grey on this subject as "the most ominous con- 
 versation I have ever had with him." The Dacia dispute 
 was "ominous" because it involved several of the most 
 critical issues of the war. On what side would the sym- 
 pathies and possibly the support of the United States be 
 thrown? What were the internal forces that really di- 
 rected the official policy of this country? How formidable 
 was the German- American population? Was it large 
 enough and influential enough to control the action of the 
 authorities at Washington? Above all the Dacia involved 
 the great question of the use of British sea power. The 
 most impressive feature of the European conflict was the 
 complete control of the sea exercised by Great Britain. 
 It had already become apparent that if the Allies were to 
 win, or even to maintain the balanced situation that pre- 
 vailed, they could do so only by the majestic omnipotence 
 of the British fleet. Would Great Britain be permitted 
 to use this naval strength in the way that under exist- 
 ing conditions it could most effectively be used? The 
 German fleet declined to leave its ports and meet the 
 naval power of Great Britain in battle, and the result 
 
224 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 was that the Allies could use their naval strength in only 
 one way— that is, for the purpose of blockade. The 
 United States was the only nation strong enough to oppose 
 Great Britain in this programme, and the possible refusal 
 of this country to recognize the blockade was a danger 
 that constantly confronted the Allied cause. 
 
 Such a refusal would simply have meant that the Allies 
 would have lost any chance they may have had of winning 
 the war. Colonel Squier's recent visit to the Western 
 Front had made this clear. He had brought to Page and 
 to Washington the message — a message in which both 
 General French and Lord Kitchener agreed — that the 
 military situation was a hopeless deadlock. Against the 
 apparently impregnable land forces of Germany, the 
 Allies could hardly hope to make much progress; the only 
 recourse left was that of starving the Central Empires 
 to submission. A survey of the highways of commerce 
 gave promise that this plan might succeed. The great 
 foreign commerce which Germany had spent forty years 
 in establishing had vanished, and the merchant fleet of 
 the Fatherland was as useless as though it were lying at 
 the bottom of the sea. The docks of New York were 
 lined with vessels that had long been Germany's pride, 
 while outside of New York Harbour lay several vigilant 
 British cruisers instantly prepared to seize any one of 
 them that stirred beyond the three-mile limit. Because 
 this merchant marine was so inactive, the German popula- 
 tion lacked food that would greatly have promoted its 
 well-being, and the German Army lacked supplies that 
 would have greatly increased its efficiency. At that time, 
 in January, 1915, living conditions in Germany had not 
 reached a serious stage, for the country had well prepared 
 for a brief war; the time would come, however — as it 
 ultimately did — when this isolation from world markets, 
 
<« . . ?» 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 225 
 
 especially from the grain and cotton and copper of the 
 United States, would destroy the Central Empires. If 
 the German ships that were then marooned in American 
 harbours should again have free access to the seas Ger- 
 many would have accomplished an important step in 
 abrogating the Allied blockade. Perhaps more ominous 
 still, if the United States released these German ships 
 for general commerce its action would have signified only 
 one thing, and that is that we had cast our support on 
 the side of Germany. We should at last have become 
 "unneutral," and unneutral in the interest of the Central 
 Empires. 
 
 These, therefore, were the great issues involved in the 
 Dacia. This is the reason why Grey regarded that vessel 
 as presenting the most "ominous" portent of the war. 
 The success of the German-Americans who had chartered 
 the ship would have meant the failure of Grey's diplomatic 
 efforts. His chief purpose, as already explained, had been 
 to conduct British foreign policy in a way that would 
 make the United States at least an economic support to 
 the Entente. Should the British fleet refrain from inter- 
 cepting the Dacia, or should that vessel once arrive at ;i 
 German or a Dutch port, Grey's policy would have gone 
 down in ruins. If German-Americans, or German sym- 
 pathizers, could purchase one German ship and restore 
 it to the sea, they could do the same thing with the great 
 German merchant fleet lying useless in American ports. 
 More important still such a success would have disclosed 
 that the German elements in this country had obtained a 
 determining influence on American policy, and this disclo- 
 sure would have been almost as fatal to the Mlied cause 
 as the breaking of their line in France. If they had ob- 
 tained this preliminary victory, the Germans in tlii^ 
 country would have proceeded with other items of their 
 
226 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 programme. The State Department had already taken 
 the stand that the British attitude toward contraband was 
 illegal, and it was well known that Washington would not 
 recognize the blockade which the Allies intended soon to 
 put in force. A victory in the Dacia episode would have 
 given new inspiration to the German elements in the Am- 
 erican population who were conducting a campaign against 
 this blockade. It would also have encouraged them to 
 add a new emphasis to another proposal which was now 
 gaining considerable strength. At this time the prohi- 
 bition of the shipment of American munitions to the Allies 
 was an active question in Congress. Representative 
 Richard Bartholdt, a man born in Germany, had intro- 
 duced such a bill and was actively pushing it. It is there- 
 fore not surprising that Grey, in his talks with Page, 
 constantly expressed his fear that German influence had 
 gained the upper hand in the United States. 
 
 Above all, then, this was the apprehension that chiefly 
 disturbed British statesmen. The restoration of German 
 shipping to the seas would in itself have represented a 
 calamity of great proportions; in the minds of the British 
 leaders who were closely watching events in the United 
 States the Dacia was important mainly as a portent — as 
 the element in the situation which would determine 
 whether the 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 Germans in the United 
 States were sufficiently powerful, in a political sense, to 
 control American policy in the interest of the Fatherland. 
 In all Page's conversation with Grey this fear becomes 
 the predominant note. " The talk about possible peace," 
 Page telegraphs, "is very guarded and hesitating. Sir 
 Edward Grey, who I think talks to me with unusual 
 freedom, in a long unofficial conversation yesterday left 
 the impression on my mind that until something definite 
 came direct from Berlin there could be nothing worth 
 
<C „ . . »J 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 227 
 
 discussing. There have been six ' offers ' of peace, more or 
 less vague, that have come indirectly to some one of the 
 Allies, and these have not been frank or open. Tin \ 
 were regarded either as dishonourable or as mere tricks 
 to deceive the United States, unless it should be a direct 
 open proposal. Sir Edward reminded me that whereas 
 Englishmen in the United States become Americans man} 
 Germans in the United States remain Germans and carrj 
 on their struggle there against England. Hence the Bale 
 of passports recently unearthed to German subjects. 
 Hence the trick played with the ship Sacramento. I [ence 
 Breitung's purchase of the Dacia. Hence Bartholdt's bill 
 in Congress to forbid export of munitions. Hence nian> 
 other acts by Germans in the United States that are part 
 and parcel of Germany's war against England. He did 
 not in the least imply any criticism of our government. 
 But he made it perfectly clear that he regards the United 
 States as one of the bases from which the Germans carry 
 on the war in spite of our government's neutrality and in 
 spite of the sympathy of most Americans for the Allies. 
 They cannot buy arms there, but use the weapons of 
 an organized propaganda in efforts to relieve England's 
 economic pressure on Germany. These are reasons why 
 anything that comes out of the United States arouses 
 suspicion. 
 
 'The dangerous mood of public opinion about which I 
 telegraphed you yesterday is largely caused by the British 
 public's inability to make the distinction which Grey 
 makes between the acts of our government and the acts 
 of Germans in the United States. When they seem to 
 coincide, as in the case of the Sacramento and the Dacia, 
 British public opinion becomes inflammable. It con- 
 tinues to see what it regards as German influence in the 
 prohibition for thirty days of ship manifests. I send you 
 
228 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 this as an effort to explain why the recently universally 
 friendly public opinion here has become exceedingly 
 suspicious and is fast becoming angry. People say that 
 those Germans in America who are not Americans in 
 fact even if some of them be so in form, are using their 
 base of war in the United States in such ways as to nullify 
 American neutrality. All this has so far had no open 
 influence on this government but it is inevitable that it 
 should have some effect on some members of the Govern- 
 ment. When therefore General French was eager to know 
 whether peace talk was merely a trick worked through 
 the German war base in the United States he reflected 
 the practically universal suspicion in and out of official 
 life." 
 
 Telegram to Secretary of State 
 
 London, Jan. 15, 1915. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 No. 1473 
 
 I read your instruction to Lord Haldane, who is in 
 charge of Foreign Office during temporary absence of Sir 
 Edward Grey, and discussed every phase of the subject. 
 
 He informed me that the Cabinet had already discussed 
 it and reached a definite conclusion as follows: The Gov- 
 ernment has no wish to obstruct the cotton trade and is 
 aware of its importance to the producers and to the 
 United States. If, therefore, the Dacia come loaded 
 with cotton, whether bound for Rotterdam or for Bremen, 
 the British Government would see to it that the owners 
 of the cotton should lose nothing. The Government 
 will buy it, paying the price which had been arranged 
 by contract with the German buyers. 
 
 But under international law and usage, His Majesty's 
 
t<„ . . »» 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 229 
 
 Government felt bound to refer to the public refusals by 
 the purchase and the dispatch of this ship on such an er- 
 rand. The ship, therefore, will be put into the Prize Court 
 if she come. 
 
 Lord Haldane said further that if the Dacia were used 
 under bona fide American register in coast-wise trade, 
 or in trade with South America, his government would 
 not object. I asked him if this remark would appl) to 
 other German ships now interned in the United States 
 and he replied "yes." 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 Telegram to President and Secretary 
 
 London, January 18, 1915. 
 Secretary of State, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 For Secretary and the President. Strictly confidential. 
 Very confidential. 
 
 I have had more than an hour's talk with Sir Edward 
 Grey. He confirms what Haldane told me about the 
 Dacia, but he does not confirm what Haldane said about 
 other German ships in the last sentence of my 1173, 
 January fifteenth. About this they are not agreed and 
 the Cabinet will have further discussion. It will be pru- 
 dent to disregard the last sentence above referred to. 
 Apparently Haldane went beyond what had been agreed 
 on by the Cabinet. My inquiry whether the British 
 Government would object to the purchase and transfer 
 of German-interned ships to ply between American and 
 British ports brought from Sir Edward Grey the most 
 ominous conversation I have ever had with him. 
 
 He explained that the chief weapon that England has 
 against any enemy is her navy and that the navy may 
 
230 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 damage an enemy in two ways: by fighting and by econo- 
 mic pressure. Under the conditions of this war economic 
 pressure is at least as important as naval fighting. One 
 of the chief methods of using economic pressure is to force 
 the German merchant ships off the seas. If, therefore, 
 these be bought and transferred to a neutral flag this 
 pressure is removed. 
 
 He reminded me that he was not making official repre- 
 sentations to the United States Government, and for that 
 reason he was the more emphatic. If the United States, 
 without intent to do Great Britain an injury but moved 
 only to relieve the scarcity of tonnage, should buy these 
 ships, it would still annul one of the victories that Eng- 
 land has won by her navy. He reminded me of the fast- 
 rising tide of criticism of the United States about the 
 transfer of the Dacia, and he declared that this has in- 
 tensified and spread the feeling against us in England on 
 account of our note of protest. He spoke earnestly, 
 sadly, ominously, but in the friendliest spirit. 
 
 The foregoing only confirms the following paragraphs 
 which I wrote yesterday and held till I could see Grey 
 to-day. There is a steadily deepening and spreading 
 feeling throughout every section of English opinion that 
 the German influence in the United States has by this 
 temptation to buy these interned ships won us to the 
 German side. The old criticism of the President for not 
 protesting against the violation of the Hague Treaty by 
 Germany when she invaded Belgium is revived with ten- 
 fold its first earnestness. This is coupled with our protest 
 against shipping as showing an unfriendly spirit. But 
 both these criticisms were relatively mild till the Dacia 
 was transferred to the American flag. That transfer 
 added volume and vehemence to all preceding criticisms 
 and is cited in the press and in conversation everywhere 
 
<«^ . . 11 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN- AMERICANS 231 
 
 as proof of our unfriendliness. They regard the Dacia 
 as a German ship put out of commission by their navy. 
 She comes on the seas again by our permission which so 
 far nullifies their victory. If she come here she will, 
 of course, be seized and put into the Prize Court. Her 
 seizure will strike the English imagination in effect as 
 the second conquest of her, first from the Germans 
 and now from the Americans. Popular feeling will, I 
 fear, run as high as it ran over the Trent affair; and a 
 very large part of English opinion will regard us as 
 enemies. 
 
 If another German ship should follow the Dacia here 
 I do not think that any government could withstand the 
 popular demand for her confiscation; and if we permit the 
 transfer of a number of these ships there will be such a 
 wave of displeasure as will make a return of the recent 
 good feeling between the two peoples impossible for a 
 generation. There is no possible escape from such an 
 act being regarded by the public opinion of this King- 
 dom as a distinctly unfriendly and practically hostile 
 act. 
 
 I not only read and hear this at every turn — I feel it in 
 the attitude of people toward me and toward our govern- 
 ment. For the first time I have felt a distinctly unfriendly 
 atmosphere. It has the quality of the atmosphere just 
 before an earthquake. 
 
 The Government is studiously polite and still genuinely 
 friendly. But there are warnings that it may not be 
 able to maintain its old-time friendly attitude if a whirl- 
 wind of anti- American feeling sweep over the kingdom and 
 over its Allies. Nine men out of every ten you meet in 
 London to-day are convinced that the Dacia is proof 
 that the Germans have won us to their support. I cannot 
 exaggerate the ominousness of the situation. The case 
 
232 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 is not technical but has large human and patriotic and 
 historic elements in it. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 ii 
 
 How much reason was there for this British fear of 
 German-American influence with the Washington Ad- 
 ministration? In the British Cabinet there were plenty 
 of practical politicians who, unfamiliar as they might 
 be with all the complexities of American affairs, readily 
 understood the power that a compact bloc of voters 
 might wield in the counsels of a political party dependent 
 upon popular support for its continuance in office. In 
 Britain itself they knew that considerations like these 
 might be regarded in the formation of public policies, 
 and it seemed hardly likely that so expert a manipulator 
 of political groups as Mr. Bryan, to say nothing of Presi- 
 dent Wilson himself, would ignore so demonstrative a 
 minority as the German- Americans. The Dacia telegrams 
 brought an answer directly from the President himself, 
 an answer that has an interest that extends far beyond 
 the Dacia episode. In this communication President 
 Wilson outlined the ideas that underlay his policy in the 
 prevailing controversies. He yielded nothing on the legal 
 issues involved in the pending dispute. The American 
 Government still maintained its position that the transfer 
 of a German-built, German-owned ship to American 
 registry did not violate international law, and placed the re- 
 sponsibility for her seizure upon the nation that should take 
 this step. The President, that is, endorsed the position 
 of Mr. Breitung and his associates, who had recently 
 purchased the vessel, and again took issue with the British 
 Foreign Office in the matter of the blockade. This mes- 
 
it _ . . *> 
 
 THE DACIA AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 233 
 
 sage therefore left the two countries deadlocked as be- 
 fore. 
 
 Even more important, however, was President Wilson's 
 rejoinder to the apprehension, evidently deeply lodged 
 in the mind of Sir Edward Grey, that the German- 
 American elements in the United States were exerting 
 almost a decisive influence on American war policy. 
 He even took the trouble to set the British mind right on 
 the question of the racial constituents of the American 
 population. Page was instructed to correct the opinion 
 evidently prevalent in Great Britain that the United States 
 was predominantly British in its racial composition. If the 
 British believed that American sympathy should naturally 
 incline to the Allies because Americans were themselves 
 largely of British stock, such a belief, judging from the 
 President's words,rested upon an unwarranted assumption. 
 President Wilson's analysis was incomplete, yet his sen- 
 tences did contain the implication, perhaps because of this 
 very incompleteness, that the British elements in the 
 United States were no longer numerically important. 
 On the other hand the President placed emphasis upon 
 the German and Irish contributions to the American 
 composite. One might reasonably assume from the 
 President's statement of the case that the British peoples 
 formed at present merely one constituent in an extremely 
 varied whole and that other races, especially the German, 
 were more numerous. President Wilson was an eminent 
 historian and would probably have denied that this inter- 
 pretation was justified. Had Sir Edward Grey ever read 
 his dispatch, however, he would not have been far wrong 
 had he concluded that the several races in the United 
 States exercised a certain influence upon American foreign 
 policy, that the British stock was not large, and that 
 German-Americans in particular were sufficiently numer- 
 
234 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ous to make their voices heard in the councils of the De- 
 partment of State. 
 
 "The President," Mr. Bryan telegraphed, "directs me 
 to send the following: 'Answering your two telegrams in 
 regard to the irritation and apparent change in public 
 opinion regarding the United States you will please discuss 
 the matter again with Sir Edward Grey in effect as fol- 
 lows: We regret exceedingly to learn that the British 
 public entertains any doubt as to the strict neutrality of 
 this Government or as to the support given by the general 
 public to the Government's position. This is probably 
 due to the fact that a portion of the British public is quite 
 naturally uninformed as to the character of our popula- 
 tion. While the English element predominated in the 
 original stock the immigration in latter years has been 
 largely from other countries. Germany and Ireland, for 
 instance, have contributed very materially during the 
 last half century, and among those who are the children 
 of foreign-born parents the German element now pre- 
 dominates. This element is not only numerous but it has 
 a strong representation in financial, mercantile life and 
 agriculture. . . . There is, of course, not the slightest 
 alteration in the cordial feeling which has always existed 
 between the United States and Great Britain. Mere 
 debate and newspaper agitation will not alter that feeling; 
 but acts which seem to them arbitrary, unnecessary, 
 and contrary to the recognized rules of neutral commerce 
 may alter it very seriously, because the great majority 
 of our people are trying in good faith to live within those 
 rules, and they are sensitive about nothing more than 
 about their legitimate trade. . . . The export of 
 arms, ammunition, and horses to the Allies is, of course, 
 known, and the protest made by German-Americans and 
 by a portion of the Irish- Americans, while entirely without 
 
THE "dACIA" AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 233 
 
 justification, is not unnatural. It is difficult for people to 
 think logically when their sympathies are aroused. The 
 Government has done all in its power to make the situation 
 plain and has to-day issued a lengthy letter answering nu- 
 merous criticisms that have been made. . . '" 
 
 Whether a great nation should guide itself even to a 
 slight extent by the aspirations and prejudices of the 
 different races that form its population, is a question thai 
 may be argued; it should be pointed out, however, thai 
 the President's description of the American composite, 
 or at least the inference that may be drawn from his some- 
 what careless treatment of the subject, is inaccurate 
 The fact is that the British elements in the United States 
 at the present time are enormously greater than those of 
 any other people. The question was thoroughly investi- 
 gated by the census bureau in 1910 1 and its report on this 
 subject is available to any interested student. The 
 belief that the United States is a racial conglomerate, 
 with no one outstanding population upon which the nation 
 rests as a secure foundation; that, in other words, there 
 are no "Americans," is one of the most prevailing mis- 
 conceptions of the day. The census report in question 
 shows that the white population of the United States in 
 1790 was 3,200,000, and that practically all of this was of 
 British and principally of English origin. This stock n as 
 extremely prolific for the first sixty years of the Republic, 
 so prolific, indeed, that by 1910, this original population 
 had increased to 39,000,000. In the last hundred years 
 the immigration from England, Scotland, and Wales, as 
 well as from the British provinces in Canada, has been 
 much greater than is popularly believed. The official 
 conclusion is that, of the 94,000,000 white men, women, 
 
 'See "A Century of Population Growth in the United States," published by the 
 United States Census Bureau. 
 
236 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 and children, living in the United States in 1910, about 
 55,000,000 traced their origin to England, Scotland, and 
 Wales. This, then, is approximately the British contribu- 
 tion to the American population. The race that ranks next 
 to the British is the German, who numbered, according 
 to the census of 1910, 8,200,000, and next to this the Irish, 
 4,500,000. It is an almost startling fact that this native 
 American population forms the largest body of Anglo- 
 Saxons in the world. It is larger than the combined 
 population of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New 
 Zealand. Compared with it the other stocks in the United 
 States are exceedingly small. It is quite apparent there- 
 fore that President Wilson's discussion of the subject, 
 if not inaccurate, or misleading, was certainly incomplete. 
 
 Page asked permission to withhold this dispatch for 
 the time being and present its contents to Sir Edward 
 Grey "when a favourable opportunity occurs." It may 
 safely be assumed that this "favourable opportunity" 
 never came. In this struggle, as ultimately in all others, 
 the German-Americans failed. The Administration did 
 not waver in its attitude, and the Dacia, loaded with cot- 
 ton, sailed for a European port. Page, as related in a 
 previous volume, had dropped a hint to the British that 
 its seizure by a French vessel would probably not cause a 
 "diplomatic incident." The points involved were pre- 
 cisely the same, but the "atmosphere" would be quite 
 different. Sentiment was still a strong emotion with 
 Americans; memories of the Revolution were keen, 
 and the traditional American friendship for France an 
 active force; thus it would be impossible to rouse the 
 popular mind against "depredations" committed by the 
 French Navy. Page's advice was followed; as soon as 
 the Dacia appeared in the British Channel a French 
 
THE "DACIA" AND THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 237 
 
 cruiser seized her, took her int.., i Inn. h barbour, and put 
 her in a French prize court. Thus ended the great 
 German- American plan to restore the interned German 
 merchant vessels to the seas. No more Dacuu Bailed 
 from American ports, and the great German merchant 
 Qeet interned in the I oited States remained there until 
 the American Government, on its own declaration of war, 
 itself took possession of the German ships. i:> a threat 
 of resignation, Page had persuaded Washington to back 
 
 down on the Declaration of London, and now, l.\ a quiet 
 
 hint dropped to Sir Edward Grey, he had prevented the 
 Dacia crisis from becoming what the Trent crisis almost 
 became in 1861— the cause of war between the I oited 
 States and Great Britain -with consequences to the future 
 of mankind too appalling to contemplate. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE "LUSITANIA" 
 
 THE Lusitania was torpedoed May 7, 1915. Page's 
 experiences during that period have already been 
 described, and the letters written both to the President 
 and Colonel House have been printed. 1 Several telegrams 
 sent the President and the Secretary of State, however, 
 add emphasis to his views. The following message, 
 dated May 8th, the day after the Lusitania disaster, is 
 the earliest official paper dealing with the great issues 
 raised by this calamity. In it Page reports the British 
 and the European view that the United States, by de- 
 claring war at that time, could quickly bring the conflict 
 to an end. 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, May 8 [1915], 5 p. m. 
 
 Confidential in the extreme. For the President and the 
 Secretary only. As nearly as I can interpret public 
 opinion here as affected by the sinking of the Lusitania, 
 it is as follows, which I transmit for your information: 
 
 A profound effect has been produced on English opinion 
 in general regarding both the surprising efficiency of the 
 German submarine work and the extreme recklessness 
 of the Germans. The sinking of the Lusitania, following 
 the use of poisonous gas and the poisoning of wells and the 
 torpedoing of the Gulflight and other plainly marked 
 
 Volume II, Chapter XV. 
 
 238 
 
the "lusitama" 23 ( > 
 
 neutral ships, the English regard as the complete abandon- 
 ment of war regulations and of humanity in its conduct, 
 as well as of any consideration for neutrals. Sir Edward 
 Grey said to me last night, "They are running amuck.' 1 
 It is war under the black flag. Indignation in the ag- 
 gregate reached a new pitch. 
 
 Official comment is of course reticent. The (reel) ox- 
 pressed unofficial feeling is that the United States must 
 declare war or forfeit European respect. So far as I know 
 this opinion is universal. If the Tinted States come in, 
 the moral and physical effect will he, to bring peace quick!) 
 and to give the United States a great influence in ending 
 the war and in so reorganizing the world as to prevenl 
 its recurrence. If the United States submit to German 
 disregard of her citizens' lives and of her property and 
 of her neutral rights on the sea, the United States will 
 have no voice or influence in settling the war or in wlni 
 follows for a long time to come. This, so far as 1 cm 
 ascertain, is the practically unanimous opinion here. The 
 Americans in London are outspoken to the same effect. 
 
 Much the profoundest depression is felt to-day that has 
 been felt since the war began and British opinion is stirred 
 to its depths. 
 
 The foreign editor of the Times, 1 a usually well-informed 
 and trustworthy man, who knows all the principal Euro- 
 pean statesmen, is just returned from a week in France. 
 He tells me in strictest confidence that England, France, 
 and Russia made a bargain with Italy on April 30th, 
 agreeing to cede to Italy very large parts of Austrian 
 territory some of which has a Slavic population, it' Ital\ 
 come into the war within a month. This was done with- 
 out consulting Serbia and against her wishes. It;il> will 
 soon come in if she keep her agreement. t<> be followed 
 
 'II Wickham Steed. 
 
240 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 by Rumania. I have heard unofficial confirmation of this 
 agreement here. 
 
 The same editor informs me that General Joffre told him 
 that he is confident that he would break through the 
 German lines within a month. 
 
 I have heard the opinion expressed to-day in several 
 well-informed but unofficial quarters that warlike action 
 by the United States would be a signal for other neutral 
 nations whose rights Germany has disregarded, especially 
 the Scandinavian countries and possibly Holland. For 
 the correctness of this view I cannot vouch but I know 
 it is widely entertained. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 The sequel made it sufficiently plain that any policy 
 remotely resembling this was not contemplated by the 
 White House. That the suggestion was unwelcome 
 appears from a brief letter written by the President to 
 Mr. Bryan who was then — and for a short time afterward 
 —Secretary of State. In the archives of the State De- 
 partment President Wilson's letter is attached to the 
 original copy of Page's historic telegram. This small 
 sheet of paper pictures one of the most critical moments 
 in the war. Page's message was received less than twenty- 
 four hours after the Lusiiania had gone down with the 
 loss of more than one hundred American lives. It reached 
 the White House late at night. At that moment Pres- 
 ident Wilson was the one man above all others in whose 
 hands the future of America and Europe lay. Every 
 mind and every heart in two continents were centred upon 
 that solitary figure in the White House. Popular emotion 
 in the United States had seldom reached the intensity 
 that then stirred nearly a hundred million Americans. 
 
THE LUSITANIA 24] 
 
 Whatever differences of opinion and sentiment may have 
 appeared in the nearly two years of dix ;ussion that ensued, 
 there is not the slightest doubt thai Americans, or the 
 vast majority of them, sympathized at that momenl 
 with the views set forth in Page's telegram. That 
 Mr. Wilson kept himself carefully secluded from popular 
 emotions for the few days following the Lusitania is \\ .11 
 known. He saw no members of his Cabinet, not even 
 the member whose department was chiefly concerned 
 with that event. For several days Mr. Bryan held him- 
 self in readiness for the Presidential call, but Mr. Wilson 
 never summoned him. So far as is known, Mr. Wilson's 
 only communication with his Secretary of Slate, preceding 
 the Cabinet meeting of Tuesday, May 12th, was the ex- 
 tremely brief but enlightening note written concerning 
 Page's urgent telegram, printed above. The letter was 
 typewritten, evidently by the President's own hand, for 
 the type has the familiar character of the Hammond 
 machine, on which the President typed his own messages 
 and confidential documents. 
 
 It appears at once that Page's presentation of the 
 Lusitania case fell upon unsympathetic ears. The Pres- 
 ident's comment is dated May 10th, which was the Sun<la\ 
 after the sinking had taken place. It was on the evening 
 of the same day that the President went to Philadelphia 
 and delivered the speech in which were embedded the 
 celebrated words, "There is such a thing as a nation 
 being too proud to fight." The letter to Mr. Bryan, 
 which must have been the only light lie obtained upon 
 the President's views before the first Lusitania note was 
 handed to him for signature and which, as a matter of 
 fact, is probably the only evidence existing of the 
 state of the presidential mind at this crisis, is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
242 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Tlie President to the Secretary of Stale 
 
 The White House, Washington, 
 10 May, 1915. 
 My dear Mr. Secretary: 
 
 After all, this* does not express Page's own opinion, 
 but what he takes to be public opinion at the moment in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 It is a very serious thing to have such things thought, 
 because everything that affects the opinion of the world 
 regarding us affects our influence for good. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 W. W. 
 
 *Page's dispatch about the Lusitania which I find I 
 have burned. 
 
 The next day Page again became urgent: 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, May 11, 1915. 
 2080, May 11, 1 p. m. 
 
 Confidential. To the Secretary and the President. 
 
 Continuing my report of British feeling and opinion. 
 Every day without news of definite action by the American 
 Government about the Gulflight and the Lusitania deepens 
 the British suspicion into a conviction that our govern- 
 ment will content itself with mere argumentative protests. 
 The respectful and sympathetic silence of the first few 
 days' excitement is now giving way to open criticism of 
 American failure to realize the situation and of American 
 unwillingness to act. There is a good deal of contempt in 
 British feeling. This contempt is not based upon British 
 wish for military help, but on the feeling that America 
 
the "lush \\i v" 243 
 
 falls short morally to condemn German methods and 
 has fallen victim to German propaganda and does oot 
 properly rate German character as shown in war dot 
 understand German danger to all free institutions. Fear 
 grows of a moral failure on the pari of the I aited 
 States. 
 
 The most conservative action hoped for l»> the best 
 friends of America here is thai diplomatic relations be 
 severed with Germany pending satisfactory Bettlemenl 
 and that Congress be convened so thai the voice of the 
 
 nation may be heard. 
 
 The aristocratic element of English life, which enjoys 
 social and governmental privileges and is whal we should 
 call reactionary, consciously or unconsciously hopes for 
 American inactivity to justify their distrusl of demo- 
 cratic institutions. Their feeling is thai Greal Britain 
 will emerge from the war far more powerful than ever 
 and they are content that the United States should be of 
 as slight influence in the world as possible. The leu 
 expressions that the United States will remain neutral 
 and will refrain from breaking off diplomatic relations 
 with Germany come from this element of English society 
 and unofficially from goyerning circles. 
 
 Official life here is studiousK silent to inc. The few 
 persons who have called to express condolence or who have 
 written letters of sympathy about the Lusiiania arc all, 
 I think, more or less close personal friends who feci free 
 to speak for personal reasons. 
 
 The impression is clear that delay in definite action in 
 some really effective form or failure to act definitely will 
 shut the United States out of British and I should guess of 
 all European respect for a generation. 
 
 American Embassador, 
 
 London. 
 
244 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, May 12, 1915. 
 2091, May 12, 5 p. m. 
 
 Confidential. To the Secretary and the President. 
 A memorial service for the Lusitania victims, including 
 American victims, is being arranged in St. Paul's. I have 
 insisted there shall be no sermon or discourse. 
 
 The feeling among Americans in London, residents and 
 visitors, increases. More than one group has prepared 
 resolutions critical of what they regard as our govern- 
 ment's delay. I am encouraging Hoover and others in the 
 efforts they are making to prevent a mass meeting of 
 Americans which I hope will be successful. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 President Wilson's first Lusitania note gave Page great 
 satisfaction. In it the President severely arraigned 
 Germany and virtually demanded that she abandon 
 unrestricted submarine warfare, disavow the Lusitania 
 sinking and pay an indemnity. The alternative — such 
 was the interpretation generally given this note in 
 the United States and in Europe — was war with this 
 country. "The Imperial German Government," said 
 Mr. Wilson, "will not expect the Government of the 
 United States to omit any word or any act necessary to 
 the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the 
 rights of the United States and its citizens, and of safe- 
 guarding their free exercise and enjoyment." Such was 
 the concluding sentence of the first Lusitania note and 
 it was accepted as definitely committing the United States 
 to vigorous action. In itself it sufficiently accounts for 
 the tone of Page's next message. 
 
THE LUSITANIA 245 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, May 16, 1915. 
 2104, May 16, 10 p. m. 
 
 Commendation of the note to Germany and gratifi- 
 cation are universally expressed privately and in the 
 press. The Times says: "It is a note that both in mi It- 
 stance and expression recalls the best traditions of 
 American diplomacy. The stand taken by President 
 Wilson is something more than a declaration of national 
 policy. Nothing less than the conscience of humanity 
 makes itself audible in Ins measured and incisive sen- 
 tences." The Times editorial ends in these words: "The 
 moral interests of the United States and the Ulies are 
 henceforward indissolubly linked." 
 
 The Westminster Gazette oays: 'We count this note 
 as from all human and moral points of view the greatest 
 event of this war." 
 
 (Cipher) The following is in the Secretary's private 
 code and confidential to the President and the Secrctar> . 
 Among the men whose private expressions of praise have 
 come to me are most members of the Government as well 
 as Lansdowne, Balfour, and Bonar Law, of the opposition. 
 
 I think the practically unanimous expectation here is 
 that the German Government will give an evasive answer 
 and decline to abbreviate the use of submarines against 
 merchant ships. 
 
 The representatives of other neutral governments here 
 privately express pleasure and gratitude. The Americans 
 in London about whose impatience I telegraphed feel 
 ashamed of their hasty fears. 
 
 May I be allowed to express m\ personal congratu- 
 lations on the note? 
 
 \meric.\\ Embassador, 
 
 London. 
 
246 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 However, this satisfaction was short lived. Germany's 
 absurd answer to this first Lusitania note, in which she 
 practically ignored the points insisted on by President 
 Wilson, and defended her action on the ground that the 
 torpedoed vessel was a warship, itself armed with guns 
 and carrying munitions and troops to Great Britain; 
 her refusal to accept the President's demands ; the Kaiser's 
 policy of evasion and delay; and the President's failure 
 to follow his imperious words with acts, produced that 
 doubt in Page's mind and, afterward, that complete 
 divergence of views and sympathy, that now become 
 the prevailing tone in the Ambassador's communica- 
 tions. Mr. Lansing's succession to the State Department 
 after Mr. Bryan's resignation did little to improve British- 
 American relations. From the beginning of the war, 
 indeed, Mr. Lansing, as Counsellor of the Department, 
 had formulated and directed American policy in the 
 blockade. Now that he had become Secretary of State, 
 Mr. Lansing insisted, more energetically than ever, that 
 this blockade was illegal, and it is perhaps not strange that 
 the feeling became broadcast that if the American Gov- 
 ernment were not anti-British it was at least not especially 
 sympathetic to the cause of the Allies. As the summer 
 wore on, the fear in Waslnngton that the German sub- 
 marine campaign would result in a crisis between the 
 United States and Germany becomes more apparent. 
 Any step that would ruffle German sensibilities was 
 carefully avoided. Word came to Page — or at least 
 Page so interpreted an indirect message — that it might 
 be well for him to go to the United States for a face-to- 
 face discussion. He intimated a willingness, even an 
 eagerness to do so. President Wilson, however, abruptly 
 vetoed the plan. "He thinks," telegraphed Mr. Lansing, 
 'that it would be very unwise for you to come at this 
 
the "lusitania" 247 
 
 time, since it would create an impression that something 
 unusually critical and of a most confidential nature had 
 arisen which could not be handled by correspondence." 
 Even trifles revealed the sensitiveness of Washington on 
 the subject of German relations: 
 
 To the Secretary of State 
 
 London, June 22, 1915. 
 
 2329, June 22. 
 
 John S. Sargent, the distinguished American artist 
 resident in London, has a decoration conferred several 
 years ago by the German Emperor, which he now wishes 
 to return. He has handed me a note addressed to the 
 proper Court authority in Berlin respectfully returning 
 the decoration, and he asks me if he may send it to you 
 under cover of a letter, requesting you to ask Gerard to 
 deliver it in Berlin or if I under your instructions may 
 send it to Gerard direct. 
 
 The return of such honours has become quite common 
 between Englishmen and Germans. 
 
 He asks me also if I may transmit through Gerard his 
 resignation from two notable art societies in Berlin and 
 
 Munich. 
 
 Sargent makes no criticism of German Government or 
 
 German societies in his letters but merely resigned because 
 
 he is no longer in sympathy with German aims. I 
 
 await instructions. . K n a M , __„ 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 From the Secretary of State 
 
 Washington, June 23, 1915. 
 Your 2329, June 22. 
 
 Not matters with which Department or its officers 
 abroad can have any connection. 
 
248 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Sargent should reimburse Embassy for your telegram 
 and pay for this reply, five dollars. 
 
 Lansing. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, July 15, 1915. 
 
 2462, July 15, 11 a. m. 
 
 Confidential. For the President and the Secretary. 
 
 I interpret thoughtful and responsible opinion here as 
 follows and send it as in the past for your information. 
 Germany reckons on American unpreparedness for war 
 and hopes that pro-German sentiment can prevent mu- 
 nitions from going to the Allies, arguing that, if pro- 
 German sentiment fail, the United States cannot fight 
 and therefore the risk of insulting us is negligible, since, 
 as a neutral, her enemies obtain help from us through 
 their command of the seas, and as an enemy we could 
 do no more harm than we now do. 
 
 The feeling seems to be that Germany can never be per- 
 mitted to give us a satisfactory answer, and that if we do 
 not take effective action of some sort we shall lose the confi- 
 dence and respect of the Allies and in time have to face Ger- 
 many alone ; that if democracy as represented by the United 
 States yield, its standing in the world will be gone for an in- 
 definite time and its advocates weakened in every country. 
 
 Men here point out the similarity of Germany's dealing 
 with the United States to her dealing with England, 
 always by evasion, and they point to England's mistake 
 in hoping to avoid war and not equipping an army ten 
 years ago. They say that unless German military power 
 is crushed by the crushing of the professional military 
 party, all the world will be terrorized, and that we must 
 range out effectively against this menace without delay or 
 
the "lusitama' 219 
 
 suffer ultimately whatever the outcome of the present 
 struggle may be. 
 
 I think this opinion is practically universal here among 
 thoughtful men. They are saddened by it but regard 
 it as practically certain that we cannot escape; that the 
 Germans will continue assassination and incendiarism 
 in the United States and will sooner or later destroy more 
 American travellers. 
 
 British opinion has great and growing confidence in 
 the President himself but seems to show a douht about 
 the virility and courage of American public opinion, at- 
 tributing to it a timidity arising from failure to grasp the 
 scope of the issues involved in the struggle and the effect 
 of its outcome on the United States. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, August 24, 1915. 
 
 Confidential for the Secretary and the President. 
 
 I report the following as indicating public opinion here 
 for whatever it may be worth, if it be worth anything. 
 
 Sir William Mather, 1 who, you know, is a good repre- 
 sentative of conservative-minded, non-political, thought- 
 ful Englishmen, called to see me yesterday to express 
 the friendly grave fear lest delay in action should deepen 
 the impression throughout Europe that the United States 
 is seeking to maintain peace at the price of humiliat on 
 in the face of repeated offences. This fear is becoming 
 more or less general, even among thoughtful men. 
 
 The reported intention of our government, published 
 here, to give Germany another opportunity to explain 
 
 'Of Manchester; a prominent Liberal and one of the leaden in education in 
 Great Britain. 
 

 250 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 and thereby to evade and to cause delay provokes the 
 general opinion that any delayed action on our part will 
 lose much of its moral effect by tardiness. 
 
 The tone of the less responsible press is a tone of open 
 ridicule. The tone of the best papers shows surprise at 
 what they regard as an unfortunate delay and a restrained 
 fear lest the United States delay too long. 
 
 Several men in official life have expressed opinions such 
 as the opinion that follows. They have spoken, not to 
 me but in quarters where they knew I should hear it: 
 "The Germans shuffled and evaded and lied to us for ten 
 years and we refused to believe that this was their de- 
 liberate policy. The Americans seem slow to learn by 
 our experience. They have a contempt for the United 
 States as they had for England and they hooe to keep her 
 writing letters at which they laugh." 
 
 The facts about the Arabic 1 seem so clear here as to 
 leave no doubt of her deliberate sinking by the German 
 submarine without any protection. The testimony of all 
 survivors is identical on all important particulars. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, September 8, 1915. 
 
 Strictly confidential. For the Secretary and the Pres- 
 ident only. 
 
 The feeling even of conservative men here seems harden- 
 ing into the conviction that the United States is losing 
 the fear and therefore the respect of foreign governments 
 and of foreign opinion. The sinking of the Arabic and 
 the apparent acceptance of Bernstorff's assurance of the 
 cessation of submarine attacks on passenger ships created 
 
 ^Torpedoed August 19, 1915. 
 
the "lusitania" 251 
 
 a bad impression because the assurance was not frank 
 and specific and because no mention was made of the 
 Lusitania. Fear of the same acquiescence in the tor- 
 pedoing of the Hesperian is provoking ridicule and is 
 fortifying the belief that we will desist from action under 
 any provocation. This feeling is not confined to those 
 who would like to have us enter the war, but it exists 
 among our best friends, who think we ought to keep out 
 of actual war. They seem to construe our attitude as 
 proof of weakness and there is danger that whatever we 
 may say hereafter will be listened to with less respect. 
 I think I detect evidence already of a diminishing respect 
 for our communications. The impression grows that the 
 "peace at any price" type of man has control of American 
 opinion. Dumba's remaining would certainly tend to 
 deepen this feeling into a permanent conviction. 
 
 You must read this not as my opinion but as my inter- 
 pretation of responsible opinion here. Men here are 
 of course likely to form judgments on partial selfishness, 
 but I have tried to leave out of account the ordinary 
 temporary selfish section of public opinion and to include 
 only that which looks as if it may become the permanent 
 English judgment of the American democracy. Thinking 
 men persist in regarding the United States as a more or 
 less loose aggregation of different nationalities, without 
 national unity, national aims, or definite moral qualities. 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, August 19, 1915. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 As this amazing tragedy unfolds itself we know only 
 imperfectly what is happening and we can only guess what 
 
252 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 is going to happen. But from what I hear and can infer 
 we had as well prepare our minds and our plans for a long 
 war yet. If the Allies make a peace that leaves the 
 Germans really victorious, they'll have to fight again, 
 perhaps with fewer of them united than now. They'd 
 rather suffer extinction now than later, and they'll not quit 
 till they are obliged to quit or till they win. I hear that 
 neither side can win in France. The report (private) here 
 is that a little while ago the French, with half-a-million 
 men, tried to break through the German line, that they 
 advanced about five miles and had lost more than two 
 hundred thousand, and that they then gave it up. It is 
 said also that the Germans have no expectation of break- 
 ing through in France. If these reports be true and for the 
 present at least they seem true, the land-war will be de- 
 cided in Turkey, in the Balkans, or in Russia, tho' Russian 
 defeat alone can decide nothing. This seems to mean 
 a long struggle — through the winter and nobody knows 
 how much longer. England is alive to the peril, and she'll 
 spend her last shilling and (eventually) send her last man. 
 She regards English civilization as at stake. And Eng- 
 land is so slow that she'll not marshall all her strength till 
 the other Allies are exhausted. No end, therefore, seems 
 in sight. 
 
 But following this war, as there followed all preceding 
 great wars, will be great changes in the rules of the game 
 as between belligerents. Men used to say that the 
 machines of destruction would become so terrible as to 
 make war impossible, for it would mean mere extermi- 
 nation. The war in France is already that — the only ques- 
 tion is, winch side will be exterminated? The trench, the 
 machine-gun, the hand-mortar, the hand-grenade, and 
 gas (yet in its experimental stage) are killing men in such 
 numbers that neither the French nor the Germans report 
 
THE LUSITANIA 253 
 
 the facts — to say nothing of explosive shells from 
 howitzers. Several British regiments now contain hardly 
 a man — private or officer — who first went out. The 
 gentle euphemism for this annihilation is "wastage." 
 Fighting above ground is obsolete where both sides are 
 "scientific." And annihilation is going on in France as 
 fast as any theorist could wish. Of course it takes time 
 to annihilate millions of men : the army unit has increased 
 so enormously. And the population of parts of Poland is 
 suffering annihilation, as a part of the population of 
 northern France and of Belgium did. Starvation and the 
 use of gas will become conventionalized in future wars, 
 whether "legalized" or not. In fact, they are already 
 accepted weapons in this war. The mistake made by 
 those who predicted that the horrors of war with new 
 engines would make wars impossible was not a mistake 
 about annihilation but about the shrinking of men from 
 being annihilated. No such fear stops them. In fact it 
 looks as if war now means practical extermination. If 
 the Belgians ever get into Germany or the Germans ever 
 get into England or Italy, something very closely akin to 
 extermination will follow. Men were once horrified by 
 the use of the cross-bow in war, and by the use of guns — all 
 the old rules of sword and pike war were knocked out by 
 these dishonourable new weapons of indiscriminate de- 
 struction. So the art of killing moves on towards a 
 gas that will annihilate an army or devastate a prov- 
 ince. 
 
 As for our controversy with Great Britain, this seems 
 to me as good a forecast as can now be made: The block- 
 ade, as defended by Sir Edward Grey, rests on his citations 
 of American action during the Civil AYar and on his 
 willingness, if need be, to submit disputes to arbitration. 
 Unless some influence that I do not now foresee comes in 
 
254 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 to play a part, this government will stand on that con- 
 tention. They will conduct the blockade as favourably to 
 us as they can bring themselves to do; but they are per- 
 suaded, perhaps over-persuaded, that the economic 
 pressure on Germany is their strongest weapon. Public 
 opinion here takes that view more and more decisively, 
 and members of both parties that form the Coalition 
 Government have committed themselves to this belief. 
 Since they are willing to submit their action to arbi- 
 tration — taking the risk of another Alabama award — they 
 hope to get through on this basis. I think we did a good 
 stroke in drawing from Sir Edward Grey his note declaring 
 his willingness to submit to arbitration. This seems to 
 me our real triumph so far in the controversy. 
 
 The trouble that the controversy gives you they follow 
 and share. They know the Hoke Smiths 1 and the other 
 agitators and they have their share of alarm. But (I 
 think) they are going to keep up their economic pressure 
 on Germany at all hazards. The public will rend the 
 Government if it does not. 
 
 Yet thoughtful men here know that Great Britain will 
 come out of this war at the best with great financial and 
 commercial embarrassment, and at the worst practically 
 bankrupt along with all the other European governments ; 
 and they know that the United States will have a prodi- 
 gious advantage over any other country for a generation 
 or two, which (barring some great misfortune to us) will 
 mean a prodigious advantage for all time. They wish, 
 therefore, to stand close to us, for selfish reasons, 
 reasons of self-preservation, as well as for reasons 
 of civilization — the preservation of Anglo-Saxon insti- 
 tutions and aspirations. If we get through this war 
 amicably with the British, they will be more friendly 
 
 'Senator from Georgia and a vigorous protestant against the British blockade. 
 
the "lusitania" 255 
 
 to us 1 than they have ever been, since we have not 
 only the largest English-speaking white population but 
 will have the start also definitely towards financial and 
 commercial supremacy. Their predominant financial 
 grip on the world, which is their main grip, will be gone. 
 And, tho' they have not lost their virility, they have 
 never acquired our efficiency. They are slow and un- 
 adaptable and tradition-ridden and class-ridden yet. On 
 any street-corner in London you have to buy one after- 
 noon paper from one man, another from another and a 
 third from a third. It has never occurred to any one 
 man to sell two or more papers. I passed two men the 
 other day in the country each trying to coax a horse 
 hitched to a great load of hay up a steep hill. Each 
 horse had more than it could pull. I said, "Why don't 
 you hitch both horses to one cart, pull that up and then 
 come back and get the other cart in the same way?" 
 After a moment of surprised silence and deep thought, one 
 of them answered, "We've never done that, sir," and he 
 went on urging his horse up inch by inch. That night at 
 a country hotel, lighted by electricity, they charged me for 
 candles. 
 
 "But I had no candles." 
 
 "Yes, sir, but we've always done that." 
 
 These little experiences explain the lack of munitions 
 six months after the munition works had been begging for 
 orders. They explain the effort to take the Dardanelles 
 without an army. They explain the postponement of 
 conscription, although everybody knows that England 
 will have to put her last available man in the army. The 
 amazing thing is, the men who sell only one paper each 
 continue to sell them, the men with the carts do get up the 
 
 'I should say more dependent on us, rather than more friendly to us. (W . H. 
 P.'s note.) 
 
v/ 
 
 256 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 hill, the hotel landlady got my money for candles, the 
 Government is getting munitions at last, and the Darda- 
 nelles will be taken even if all Egypt has become a vast 
 hospital for English needlessly wounded. In none of these 
 activities, however, has the Englishman had the direct 
 competition of the Yankee. When he encounters that, 
 good-bye, John. And that's what he will encounter when 
 the war ends and leaves him poor. 
 
 He understands that his financial primacy is in danger 
 and he will do his utmost to keep close to us. 
 
 There come dull and depressing ruts in this road that 
 we now travel, and we are now in such a rut. Everybody 
 who can leave London is gone. Most houses where one 
 meets people who know things or who think they know are 
 closed. Even the clubs are deserted. Members of the 
 Government themselves — as many as can — try to find 
 seclusion and a little rest in the country a few days in 
 the week. Most of the diplomatic corps have gone to the 
 country and come into town for office hours every day — 
 an utter delusion unless they have babies in the family; 
 and the only diplomatic family here that has babies is the 
 Chinaman's. My house is as good a place as there is in 
 England for me as long as this nightmare lasts — except, of 
 course, every normal man hates a town. But this isn't a 
 bad summer town. It isn't really hot, as you know ; and 
 there are golf links within fifteen minutes of my office. 
 House be hanged ! His kind solicitude for me is a case of 
 benevolence badly wasted. But it is a dull and depressing 
 period. The streets and parks are full of wounded soldiers. 
 So is all England, for that matter. I saw them in every 
 village I drove through in the Midlands last Saturday 
 and Sunday. The price of good food goes higher and 
 higher. Women make the hay in the fields, punch your 
 ticket at the railway stations, and take your fare in the 
 
" — " 257 
 
 THE LUSITANIA 
 
 street cars in some cities. My shoemaker sent only 
 yesterday a pair of shoes that I ordered nearly three 
 months ago: "My men have gone to the war." The 
 up-town part of the city is nearly deserted. Shops and 
 residences are to let on almost every street. The news- 
 papers have little but Russian defeats and assaults by 
 Hoke Smith — two curious sources of sorrow! Poor old 
 John Bull, he pathetically looks to the United States for 
 sympathy, and he's "muddling through," conscious at 
 last of the fact that he didn't get on to Ins big job am - 
 where near the beginning of it. But his strong point is- 
 nothing "rattles" him and nobody can scare him— nor 
 hurry him. 
 
 I cannot yet definitely find out the mistake that caused 
 me to think that you thought it desirable for me to make a 
 brief visit home for a consultation. There's no such thing 
 as a vacation while this earthquake continues. Fortu- 
 nately I don't need one. I am, as occasion permits, driving 
 out now and then into the country for Saturday afternoons 
 and Sundays: that gets a change of air; and I drop the 
 war and all its brood of woes at the third hole on a golf- 
 course. 
 
 Many thanks for your kind letter about the marriage of 
 my daughter. I am very content with it, since such things 
 must be. But it's nevertheless "devilish hard on the 
 old man." That girl has been the charm of my house- 
 hold here, and (if the truth were known) her mother and 
 I need her worse than her husband does. But they are 
 very happily paired, and that's all we have a right to ask. 
 We all heartily appreciate your kind thought of her 
 
 happiness. 
 
 No sooner had I written this than the news comes of 
 
 the sinking of the Arabic! About this there's no use 
 
 writing since all the information will promptly go by 
 
258 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 telegraph. Nobody here is in the least surprised — surely 
 I am not. Some such thing has been expected, and more 
 will come. Berlin is utterly desperate and it will become 
 more desperate. The elation of success in Russia brings 
 desperation, and so will a reverse — such a German re- 
 verse, for example, as I am now told will probably take 
 place within a month or two at the Dardanelles. I hear 
 that the Turks are showing unmistakable signs of ex- 
 haustion — of ammunition and of fighting qualities. The 
 German machine has its qualities and character, which 
 no event has yet in the slightest degree changed. It has 
 that incurable disease — the Napoleonic ambition. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 ii 
 
 What impression did these Lusiiania telegrams and let- 
 ters produce upon the statesman to whom they were ad- 
 dressed? This was a question that especially puzzled 
 Page during this summer and autumn. In addition to 
 the Ambassador's direct communications to the Presi- 
 dent, he wrote a large number of letters to Colonel House, 
 already published in a preceding volume. These letters 
 were written as much for President Wilson as for Colonel 
 House. That the President's confidant would read them 
 to his chief Page well knew; indeed they were written 
 for that precise purpose. The more or less veiled fic- 
 tion that they were addressed to a third person, gave 
 Page great freedom in discussing the President's policies 
 and the opinions which Great Britain and Europe held 
 of his statesmanship. To all these letters and telegrams, 
 however, both those sent directly and those indirectly 
 through Colonel House, Page received no reply. He 
 spent day after day and night after night writing letters 
 
THE LUSITAMA 259 
 
 and messages dealing with the crisis produced by Ger- 
 many's unrestricted submarine warfare. Weeks and 
 months went by, and not even an acknowledgment came 
 from the White House. In the whole course of the war 
 Page received only thirteen letters from Mr. Wilson. 
 Several are extremely brief, introducing friends; others, 
 also brief, concern merely routine matters. Only occasion- 
 ally does the President make any reference to public 
 questions, and not once does he discuss them in any 
 detail. That President Wilson was a busy man may 
 be taken for granted, and, to a certain degree, his failure 
 to answer Page is explained by the great press of offi- 
 cial business. That he was a somewhat inattentive 
 correspondent is also no secret. Page was not the only 
 Ambassador in a great post during the war whose con- 
 fidences failed to inspire replies from the President. Yet 
 that their contents had something to do with this Presi- 
 dential indifference is probably the fact. In the early 
 days Mr. Wilson greatly enjoyed Page's comments ; as the 
 divergence in views between the two men widened, how- 
 ever, his interest became less keen. Not infrequently 
 Colonel House, visiting President Wilson after a month's 
 or six weeks' absence from Washington, would find, among 
 the Presidential papers, a package of Page's letters. 
 
 "Here are some letters from Page," the President would 
 say, handing them to his adviser. "Perhaps you would 
 like to read them." 
 
 Colonel House would take them away for perusal; 
 occasionally he would give Mr. Wilson the gist of their 
 contents, but not invariably. The Ambassador's views 
 differed so from the President's own that the latter's in- 
 terest was not great. 
 
 Of course, Page never knew how much or how little 
 the President was interested. Yet the experience of 
 
260 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 writing letter after letter, with only silence at the other 
 end, was discouraging and even disheartening. He re- 
 garded it as his duty, however, to make constant reports 
 of what he saw and heard. Not unnaturally he pondered 
 much over the President's failure to respond. "He 
 often expressed his uneasiness to me," writes Mr. Irwin 
 Laughlin, Counsellor of the Embassy and Page's closest 
 official confidant, "and I always tried to reassure by 
 impressing on him that it was his duty to write the truth 
 as he saw it, and also by expressing my view that unless 
 he were given an explicit indication that his letters were 
 displeasing to the President there was no good ground for 
 assuming the contrary merely because the President 
 didn't answer them. He finally became so uneasy, how- 
 ever, that I suggested that, to relieve his mind, he put the 
 question directly to Mr. Wilson. This he did. The 
 President's answer relieved him greatly." 
 
 The letter to which Mr. Laughlin refers does not appear 
 in the present file. The President, in his reply, informed 
 Page that his letters were interesting and valuable and 
 asked him to continue writing them. 
 
 He expressed his regret that the great pressure of 
 public duties prevented him from writing more frequently ; 
 the whole tone, indeed, was amiable and friendly and 
 cheered the Ambassador. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, October 16, 1915. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 (1) I have heard to-day that the German Chancellor 
 lately sent, by a neutral private messenger, a proposition 
 to Sir Edward Grey looking towards peace, and one of the 
 conditions that he laid down was that Great Britain should 
 
the "lusitania" 261 
 
 pay an indemnity! I hear that Sir Edward's astonish- 
 ment when he read that was such as not visibly to bring 
 peace any nearer. 
 
 (2) I hear also — for the tenth time or more — that 
 the differences in the Cabinet are on the verge of caus- 
 ing Mr. Asquith's resignation and the incoming of 
 Lloyd George as Prime Minister. 
 
 I have every reason to believe that (1) is true; (2) may 
 or may not be true. I hear the following story also which 
 I know is true : 
 
 Several months ago the English caught a German spy 
 and discovered his superior's address in Holland, the 
 kind of invisible ink the spy used, etc. They have ever 
 since made the spy write letters to his chief which they 
 (the English Intelligence officers) dictate. When the 
 answers come of course the Intelligence officers open 
 them. In this way they keep up a useful correspondence 
 with the German head-spy. Well, a little while ago they 
 made their captive spy write to the Germans that the 
 English and French were about to land a big army at 
 Antwerp. It was judiciously whispered in the clubs that a 
 great force was going to Antwerp. For two days the 
 boats to Holland were stopped — the passenger-boats, I 
 mean. Every man whispered to his neighbour, "Troops 
 going to Antwerp, you know." The daily papers one 
 morning contained a mysterious paragraph about an 
 Allied army landing "somewhere." The Germans, of 
 course, got the story, as it was meant they should, and they 
 withdrew a considerable body of troops from France and 
 rushed them to Antwerp. Then the English and the 
 French made their big "drive"! I suppose the next time 
 an Antwerp story is told, the Germans won't believe it 
 and then an English army may really go. 
 
 I could fill a dozen pages with a crop of such stories 
 
262 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 gleaned almost any good day for gossip — most of them 
 true — but what matter? The air is full of them, clean 
 up to the moon. But most of them are gloomy, such, for 
 example, as the report that the British have lost 100,000 in 
 the Dardanelles and that the late "drive" in France cost 
 the British between 50,000 and 75,000 men. When these 
 facts are made public in Parliament, nobody knows what 
 sort of a convulsion will follow. Perhaps then what is known 
 as the Northcliffe-Lloyd George conspiracy may come 
 to a head. Certainly the Government is in deep water. 
 There are a dozen suppressed criticisms, any one of which 
 might (and may) cause a change of Prime Ministers and 
 perhaps other changes almost as important — the censor- 
 ship, the Dardanelles crime, the Balkan situation, con- 
 scription, etc. Except for the encouragement given by 
 the recent advance in France, every recent military event 
 has deepened the gloom. True, Russia is coming back, 
 but Italy is doing nothing; will she really help in the 
 Balkans? The Germans may reach Constantinople — 
 they won't, but many persons fear they will. If the 
 English people knew of the slaughter of their armies 
 in France and in the Dardanelles, they would rend the 
 Government and accept peace on almost any terms — 
 they wouldn't of course, but the Government seem to 
 think they would. 
 
 In these gloomy times, you will not be surprised — you 
 have not been surprised — that the German "come-down" 
 in the Arabic 1 case provoked so little comment here; for 
 the English have destroyed so many submarines that the 
 
 1 On September 1st, as a result of the torpedoing of the Arabic, Count Bernstorff 
 handed Mr. Lansing a written pledge: " I beg to inform you that my instructions 
 concerning our answer to your last Lusilania note contain the following passage: 
 'Liners will not be sunk by submarines without warning, and without ensuring 
 the safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided that the liners do not try to 
 escape or offer resistance.' " 
 
THE LUSITANIA 263 
 
 Germans are, in that matter, at the end of their rope and 
 they are using us to save their face. It's a moral certainl y 
 that the submarine which sunk the Arabic was itself sunk 
 on that very day and there were no survivors. "Com- 
 mander Schneider" is as dead as Rip Van W inkle's dog. 
 But the English are interested in the Lusitania case. 
 They say, "She was sunk nearly six months ago, and no 
 satisfactory answer has yet been given about her — how 
 long can the Germans keep the President waiting?" 
 "Remember the Lusitania" was one of the most suc- 
 cessful recruiting circulars during the early summer, and 
 it has more than once been the battle-crv of attack- 
 ing British forces in France. We shall not get credit 
 in English opinion for a decisive diplomatic victory 
 over Germany until the Lusitania case is satisfactorily 
 closed. . . . 
 
 I see and feel in a hundred wavs and am reminded bv a 
 hundred incidents of a considerable drifting apart of our 
 people and the English — not unnatural at all, but in a 
 degree delicate: I do not think dangerous. But it must 
 be handled with care. Here they are on the border of a 
 panic about the war — perhaps also on the verge of a 
 political upheaval. The task is too great for their organ- 
 ization and they are not clever at organization as a rule, 
 nor quick. All day every day we work with their diffi- 
 culties and their sorrows — concrete cases of dead and 
 wounded and prisoners; and we live in the atmosphere 
 (for that matter, in the very area) of war. . . . In 
 oflicial life you hear a few ghastly and disquieting secrets, 
 and every man there is worked to death. Sir Edward 
 Grey hasn't slept more than a few hours for nearly a 
 week. ... On the outskirts of oflicial life vou hear 
 of this impending change and that — that Sir Edward has 
 failed and must go, that Lord Kitchener is a stuffed 
 
264 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 dummy, that Lloyd George, though a wind-bag, is the 
 best man they have, and so on, ad nauseam and ad 
 infinitum. 
 
 Out of this atmosphere I go to the Foreign Office to 
 insist on the immediate release of a cargo of toys waiting 
 in Rotterdam. I am patiently listened to; but the next 
 day I learn (tliro' the back door) that one of the Under- 
 Secretaries, when he was told what I asked, remarked, 
 "Last Christmas the Americans were giving us all, includ- 
 ing the Germans, a ship-load of toys. Now they are 
 quarrelling because they can't get a ship-load from 
 Germany — odd Yankees, aren't theyp" This afternoon's 
 paper lectures us on our imbecility in trying to save the 
 Armenians — or (as it puts it) in trying "by the most 
 valiant use of words." — They are on the borderland of a 
 panic. John Morley, who hadn't before been heard of 
 since the war began, appeared in the House of Lords 
 yesterday and asked questions that might cause half 
 the Cabinet to fall, if they were to be pressed home with 
 sufficient vigour. . . . 
 
 To descend to a much smaller aspect of the same 
 subject, there is an indescribable strain on the nerves of 
 all men here : nobody is built for this kind of thing. A few 
 days ago a little group, chiefly of medical men but partly 
 also of military men and civilians, gave a good-bye 
 luncheon to the American physician who has for a year 
 been at the head of the Red Cross American hospital in 
 this kingdom. Apropos of nothing in particular, almost 
 every man at the table began to weep. Osier wiped his 
 eyes time and again, and the General who sat next me said 
 in a weeping whisper: "I've got to get back to the War 
 Office to my work — can't stand this sort of thing." . . . 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 Walter H. Page- 
 
the "lusitama" 265 
 
 To the Preside n! 
 
 London, December 31. 1915. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 My Christmas guess, of no particular \ alue, bu1 as good 
 as anybody else's, is that the war will end ne\l summer 
 or autumn — sooner only if some decisive military event 
 give the Germans a good excuse i<> make terms. \\ e live 
 in a censored world here — in a sort of fog; l>m there are 
 too many signs of impending German disaster to doubl its 
 coming: this in spite of the extraordinary .scries of bad 
 failures by the Allies — the Dardanelles failure, the Bal- 
 kan failure, two military failures in France when the 
 German line was actually broken. These failures have 
 singularly little effect on the English, whose slow Btupidity 
 one curses with the more vehemence and whose cool 
 endurance one admires with the more confidence the 
 more one sees of them. The upshot of it is they are in- 
 vincible, but they bungle their work so that a victory 
 is far, far more costly than it ought to be. They think 
 that the all-around changes they have just made in their 
 military commands are great improvements. I can form 
 no opinion about that; but anybody can see that some 
 sort of change w T as desirable. 
 
 There is great dissatisfaction, too, with the Govern- 
 ment; but there's no way* to change it excepl by the 
 voluntary resignation of the Ministers. The Prime 
 Minister will not resign (his wife said the other day 
 that "nobody but God could put Herbert out"); and 
 Sir Edward Grey's resignation will not be accepted bj 
 him. It is against these two that the Qercesl criticism 
 continues to beat — against Asquilli because the war 
 doesn't go forward fast enough and because he doesn I 
 seem to deal frankly with the people, and against Gre) 
 
266 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 for the diplomatic failure to secure the Balkan States 
 to the Allies. But during those months the English 
 were thinking chiefly of keeping the Germans out of 
 Calais and of holding the German line in France till the 
 Russians should threaten — Berlin! The story goes about 
 now that the Turks offered to permit the British to go 
 through the Dardanelles for the payment of a sum that is 
 small in comparison with what the Dardanelles failure 
 cost. The answer they got was that the English do not 
 do things in that way. The Navy and Army regard Sir 
 Edward Grey, who is supposed to be responsible for this 
 answer, as a visionary statesman — "too much of a gentle- 
 man," as old Lord Fisher said of Mr. Balfour. 
 
 Of course, we who are onlookers here have long ago 
 passed the place where we can be surprised by any event ; 
 but unless new and disastrous things happen in the 
 Balkans or beyond, I have good hope that Sir Edward 
 will not be driven out of office till the war end. He will 
 then go because his eyes demand rest. Else he may go 
 blind. I lay stress on this because his continuing in 
 office is of prime importance to us. He sees more nearly 
 eye-to-eye with us than (I think) any other member of the 
 Cabinet. He has to yield to his associates, who reflect 
 and represent British opinion about the uses of sea power ; 
 and especially does he have to yield to the military and 
 naval group and to the lawyer group. But he has softened 
 many a blow. The diplomatic corps here share my esti- 
 mate of him. Within the last few days Allied and neutral 
 diplomats alike have expressed to me the greatest alarm 
 lest he should resign in disgust at the criticism of him 
 which comes from half the points of the compass. I 
 don't think the diplomats now in service command great 
 weight or brains. I fear that one has a tendency to lessen 
 his list of great men as he sees them at close range. But, 
 
the "lusitania" 267 
 
 as nearly as I can judge, the group in London make a 
 higher average by a good deal than the group al airy other 
 capital. Imperiali, the Italian Ambassador, dined \sith 
 me three nights ago, and I could gel him to talk about 
 nothing else than Sir Edward. \I<n> del Val, the 
 Spaniard, gave me a call lasting a w hole working morning, 
 to express his alarm. The Minister from \ . . . 
 danced all around the room muttering his fear, "God 
 knows we have a hard enough time now. Bui with 
 Curzon, who can tell what we should Buffer?" Vnd it's 
 Curzon they talk about for the Foreign Office if a change 
 should be made. 
 
 Those of us who have so far fought thro' this war have 
 long ago got past the least trace of awe of noble lords, or 
 vice-gerents, or royalty; but you don't want— for steads 
 intercourse — to deal with a fellow who has an air of order- 
 ing all mundane things; you're afraid you'll be tempted 
 some day to say what you think of him, which wouldn't 
 be diplomatic. In India Curzon quarrelled with kit* he- 
 ner — which I secretly hold to his credit. For nobody 
 seems able to work with Kitchener. For twenty years 
 he ordered savages and dependent nations about. The 
 people believe him great and the Government used him 
 most effectively. His name raised a great army, Lord 
 Derby actually doing the work. Thus, you see, we live 
 not in an ordered world, but in a world of ragged hopes and 
 fears. I fancy that History, in one of her vagaries, will 
 set down these plausibilities for facts — that Asquith was 
 England's greatest Prime Minister and that Grey failed 
 in the great war as Secretary for Foreign Affairs — both 
 wide of the truth. 
 
 I've heard nothing lately about the British reply to our 
 long Note. I know they are looking up facts for a reply, 
 and I'll ask when I see Sir Edward next — in a dav or two. 
 

 268 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 But I think I have written you that I do not expect any 
 important concession to our demands. The navy party 
 has public opinion squarely behind it; they are going 
 to do all they can to starve out Germany and settle the 
 bill with neutrals after the war. There isn't much feeling 
 against us on the score of our protests against British 
 action. Feeling flares up when provoked by any event; 
 but nobody has time or feelings to spare from the demands 
 of the war. Then, too, so long as the Lusitania contro- 
 versy is unsettled, our Notes and protests are regarded by 
 the public — I will not say by the Government — as formal. 
 Austria is no longer thought of by the British as an 
 independent power — only a German satrapy, like Turkey 
 or Bulgaria. Consequently, the English conception of the 
 Ancona 1 controversy is that it is an incident. Only Ger- 
 many is regarded as a real power here. Any Englishman 
 who speaks quite frankly will say something like this: 
 "We caught and destroyed between seventy and eighty 
 German submarines so that their activity off the English 
 and Irish coast had to be discontinued. The American 
 controversy gave them a convenient way to ' come-down. ' 
 Rather than confess an English victory they pretended 
 to give in to the American Government. Of course the 
 American Government had to accept their come-down; 
 but of course also it wasn't worth the breath it took to 
 utter it. The real test is the Lusitania: will they disavow 
 that?" 
 
 Such is the public feeling here as the year ends. Men 
 take only a languid interest in anything but the war. 
 The eternal wrangle about the Government's inefficiency 
 goes on all the time. You may look out the window any- 
 where at any time of day and see recruits drilling in the 
 
 ^he Ancona was sunk by an Austrian submarine in the Mediterranean, No- 
 vember 7, 1915. American lives were lost. 
 
the "lusitania" 269 
 
 streets and convalescent wounded taking an outing. 
 God knows how many hospitals there are in London and 
 all over the kingdom or how many maimed lie in them. 
 On Cliristmas day I saw 1,000 in one hospital — cheerful 
 fellows in the main, singing Christmas songs. 
 
 Meantime at the Embassy we have a very full day's 
 work every day — now fortunately routine business in the 
 main, but an enormous volume of it. The Government 
 is as courteous as ever; but everybody in the Government 
 is worked to death. A dense cloud of weariness hangs 
 over all London. Every day or two some man breaks 
 down and has to go off or to give up. Administrative 
 work has its casualties. There are no idle people here- 
 men or women — of any class. Nobody reads a book. 
 The newspapers are meagre. The theatres have mere 
 diversions — "funny shows" chiefly. Social activity is 
 reduced to a minimum. Punch is unutterably dull. 
 Thank Heaven for sleep! and a London winter is foggy 
 and heavy-eyed. 
 
 At this place in my letter I had an interesting inter- 
 ruption. Harold Fowler, the young fellow whom I 
 brought over with me as my private secretary, resigned 
 a year ago and went into the English Army. He has 
 been in France for six months — for the last three 
 months in command of a three-inch sniping gun just 
 back of the trenches. He is as much of a real man 
 as any young fellow I have ever known. I made him 
 a member of my family and he lived with me. Hav- 
 ing ten days' leave, he is in London. He came into m\ 
 library just at the end of the last page; and I've found 
 out more from him than from a dozen or two high officers 
 back from the front. The Englishman has remarkable 
 endurance. He has no nerves. Cornered he will fight 
 as a tiger. He doesn't mind dying and he dies heroic- 
 
 
270 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ally. He loses twice as many men on every move as he 
 need lose. Man for man, he is worth five Germans — 
 alone. In an army every German is worth five English- 
 men. This sort of fighting, therefore, can be carried on 
 for years and years. Fowler sometimes thinks it may. 
 Both sides lack initiative. Both sides have Old World 
 faults. The Australians, New Zealanders, and Ca- 
 nadians (being Englishmen set free) are by far the best 
 soldiers in this war. This American youth is like them. 
 When he was appointed on the Colonel's staff, he begged 
 and begged to command a gun till he got it. He's there 
 to do the effective work — not for safety. There's little 
 chance, I fear, that he will come out whole — or come out 
 at all. When he goes, he'll be gone forever. 1 Kipling 
 said, when his boy went off: "I'll never see him again," 
 and now he's dead. 
 
 This estimate of the English by Fowler is startlingly 
 accurate. They lack knack. Else, they'd end the job 
 quickly. They lack knack at all new tasks. That's the 
 trouble with their government in war time. They manage 
 their finances and their navy incomparably — two tasks 
 they've done for centuries — continuously done. I came 
 near writing that they muddle everything else: I think 
 they do. 
 
 A very well-informed Dane from Copenhagen — an 
 Under Secretary in one department of his government - 
 told me last night after dinner and cigars, that he often 
 fears that the English will drive the Danes into the war 
 on the German side by their stupidity about preventing 
 Danish trade — in spite of the fact that every three Danes 
 out of four are pro-British. I am told his judgment may 
 be twisted by the trade troubles that he has to handle. 
 
 ^his prophecy was happily not fulfilled; Mr. Fowler came out of the war in 
 good condition. 
 
the "lusitania" 271 
 
 But he said that he knew the Germans were building 
 twenty-four gigantic submarines. When they are ready 
 they will come out for ships to and from the United 
 States much farther out at sea than the scene of the 
 Lusitania and Arabic attacks and consequently farther 
 from danger of British attack. 1 
 
 Well, my poor letter is dwindling down to mere gossip, 
 and it's the dullest week of the year in London. Let me 
 add my most hearty good wishes to you and Mrs. Wilson 
 for the New Year and for all New Years. We keep in our 
 trenches here with good spirits and unwearying efforts : and 
 contrary to the predictions of wiser men, I still hope that 
 the war will end in 1916. Yet I confess I fear the wiser 
 men who say 1917 or 1918 may guess better than I. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Must as I am about to seal this, private information comes from Liverpool that 
 German submarines have sunk several British ships in the Irish Sea during the 
 past week. (W. H. P.'s note.) 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PAGE AND THE "HOUSE MEMORANDUM 
 
 IN THE early part of January, 1916, Colonel House 
 arrived in London. Nothing was said publicly 
 about the purpose of the visit, but that purpose was 
 hardly concealed. President Wilson was renewing his 
 efforts to end the war. The whole proceeding caused 
 Page the greatest misgiving. By this time the Am- 
 bassador had lost faith in the wisdom of President Wilson's 
 leadership. He had tried to see the President's point of 
 view, to sympathize with his attempts to solve the 
 Lusilania crisis without involving the country in war, 
 and to believe that back of what Page regarded as Mr. 
 Wilson's inadequacy and indecision there lay a wise and 
 far-reaching policy. Now, however, the facts proved too 
 strong for Page. As he passed in review the events of 
 eighteen months, the aspect that chiefly appalled him was 
 Mr. Wilson's apparent disposition to deal gently with the 
 Germans. Page did not necessarily regard the President 
 as pro-German, yet the anti-British note which, the 
 Ambassador believed, he could always feel in American 
 foreign policy, caused him the deepest anxiety. In prac- 
 tically every question since 1914 the inevitable effect 
 of the American attitude was to make things easier for 
 Germany and more difficult for Great Britain. This was 
 the case with the Declaration of London, with the Dacia, 
 and the correspondence about the blockade, and with 
 
 272 
 
PAGE AND THE HOUSE MEMORANDUM 273 
 
 the failure to adopt a vigorous course in the Lusiiania crisis 
 and the submarine campaign. 
 
 Meanwhile other happenings had added to Page's dis- 
 satisfaction with the Administration. The long drawn- 
 out argument over the Lusiiania seemed to be approach- 
 ing its end; Bernstorff and Mr. Lansing had apparently 
 hit upon some plan for settling that question; just what 
 the plan was no one knew, but that it did not com prise a 
 disavowal by Germany and an admission of guilt was no 
 secret. Such a settlement, Page believed, would onI\ 
 add to the humiliation of the United States; moreover, 
 he did not think that even in the reparation Germany 
 was then discussing, as a matter of grace rather limn as 
 a matter of justice, her motives were at all sincere; 
 one object, perhaps the compelling one, was to end an 
 inconvenient quarrel with the United States, in the ex- 
 pectation that Mr. Wilson, having extracted these con- 
 cessions from Germany, would concentrate all his energies 
 on his disputes with Great Britain. The great German 
 goal, as ever, was to use the United States to end the 
 blockade. The uninterrupted transmission of essential 
 war supplies from American to neutral ports, whence they 
 could quickly be sent to Germany, was becoming more and 
 more essential to German success. The hope of attaining 
 this purpose, or, failing that, to cause a breach between 
 Great Britain and the United States, was, as Page re- 
 garded the pending Lusiiania negotiations, the real pur- 
 pose of the unsatisfactory concessions which Germany 
 was evidently prepared to make. 
 
 Another incident — an incident which only a few persons 
 then knew anything about and which is made public for 
 the first time in this Presidential correspondence — was 
 always present in Page's mind, and did more perhaps than 
 even the Lusiiania controversy to break down his confi- 
 
274 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 dence in the Wilson administration. In the latter part of 
 September, 1915, Mr. Alexander C. Kirk, Secretary at 
 the American Embassy in Berlin, appeared in London and 
 immediately reported to Mr. Irwin Laughlin. Mr. Kirk's 
 story was of such an unprecedented character that Mr. 
 Laughlin at once conducted him to the Ambassador. He 
 was the bearer of a parcel of documents which Mr. James 
 W. Gerard, American Ambassador at Berlin, regarded as 
 so important and so dangerous that he would not take the 
 risk of making any telegraphic or written communication 
 concerning them. Hence he had dispatched them to Page 
 by one of his own secretaries. Page examined the docu- 
 ments, and immediately sent the following telegram to 
 Washington : 
 
 To the Secretary of Slate 
 
 London, September 25, 1915. 
 Secretary of State, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 2855, September 25, 2 p. m. 
 
 Confidential for the Secretary. 
 
 Referring to package of papers forwarded in depart- 
 ment pouch to Berlin which you instructed Gerard to 
 return to you personally, I transmit the following tele- 
 gram, written by Kirk, Third Secretary of Berlin Em- 
 bassy, who has come here under Gerard's oral instructions 
 to send it, as it could not safely be dispatched from Berlin. 
 Kirk remains here pending your instructions. Papers are 
 in my safe. 
 
 "Package in question which has been placed with other 
 official notes pending receipt of instructions from the 
 Department, was inadvertently opened by Mr. Gerard 
 himself and as importance of contents was instantly 
 perceived, all papers were examined. Package found to 
 
PAGE AND THE "HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 275 
 
 contain statements in duplicate of accounts of German 
 Embassy in Washington together with supporting vouch- 
 ers in the original or certified copy. \ ouchers show that 
 $5,000 was paid to Archibald for propaganda, $1,500 to 
 Marcus Braun, editor of Fair Play, $3,000 to Miss Ray 
 Beveridge for a lecture tour, and $1,000 to Edwin Emerson 
 for travelling expenses. In addition statements from the 
 Western Union Telegraph-Cable Company contain names 
 of persons in the United States and elsewhere to whom 
 messages were sent by the German Embassy, as well as 
 purpose of message, whether propaganda or official busi- 
 ness. These statements show r also the bill for cables to 
 Bogota from April first to the tenth amounted to over 
 four thousand dollars and to Guatemala three thousand 
 and to Shanghai two thousand. Large sums spent in 
 cables to Mexico City, Manila, Honolulu, Haiti, and 
 Buenos Aires in that paper appear to furnish authentic 
 list of all kinds of German agents in the United States and 
 elsewhere and also indicate extent and direction of Ger- 
 man propaganda. 
 
 "In this connection, Mr. Gerard considers that Depart- 
 ment would be justified in examining papers in question, 
 especially in view of the fact that since beginning of war, 
 American Embassy in Berlin has found it necessary to 
 direct seventeen notes to the German Foreign Office 
 protesting against opening of mail addressed to the 
 Ambassador. These protests have, for most part, been 
 ignored, while in the single case where a letter to another 
 Chief of Mission in Berlin was opened, an official apology 
 was made before protest was lodged. 
 
 "Mr. Gerard, in accordance with his custom in opening 
 correspondence, did not tear envelopes or break seals of 
 this parcel but detached bottom flap of envelope without 
 it. 
 
276 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 "In view of nature of documents it did not seem advis- 
 able to photograph them in Berlin or entrust them to 
 regular courier." 
 
 American Ambassador, 
 
 London. 
 
 The documents which Mr. Kirk had brought from 
 Mr. Gerard in Berlin to Page were the records of Count 
 Bernstorff, German Ambassador to the United States, 
 containing the financial details of his propaganda ac- 
 tivities in the United States and other countries. They 
 showed his disbursement of $5,000 to J. F. J. Archibald, 
 the American journalist in German and Austrian pay, 
 whose papers, recently intercepted and published by the 
 British, had caused the dismissal of Doctor Dumba as 
 Austrian Ambassador to the United States. They dis- 
 closed Bernstorff s payments to many other persons 
 engaged, in the United States and elsewhere, in spreading 
 German propaganda ; indeed, they gave a complete picture 
 of Bernstorff using his ambassadorial post at Washington 
 as a headquarters for conducting a lively campaign, 
 throughout the world, in favour of German purposes and 
 in hostility to the United States. Practically all the agents 
 mentioned by Count Bernstorff had been attacking 
 American war-time policy, in some instances personally 
 assailing President Wilson ; here was the proof, in the form 
 of official German documents, that the German Ambassa- 
 dor had been fmancing these attacks; here, indeed, were 
 Count Bernstorff's records of his disbursements for that 
 purpose. More extraordinary still, it appeared that 
 Mr. Gerard had uncovered these incriminating papers in 
 the American diplomatic pouch, sent from the State De- 
 partment to Berlin. In what manner had all this evidence 
 found its way into so inappropriate a habitat? One 
 
PAGE AND THE HOUSE MEMORANDUM 277 
 
 would have concluded that fate had played a sorry trick 
 on Bernstorff in placing the fads thai were more than 
 sufficient to destroy his diplomatic career in the one place 
 where they could do him the n losI harm, and thai corre- 
 spondingly it had done the American Governmenl a great 
 kindness in thus delivering its enem} Into its hands. 
 
 Subsequent events disclosed, however, thai fortune 
 had had nothing to do with this transaction. The man 
 who had entrusted these confidential documents to the 
 American diplomatic pouch was none other than Counl 
 Bernstorff himself. One day in early September, prob- 
 ably about the time that popular excitement over the 
 Dumba disclosure was most keen, Ambassador Hernstorff 
 called at the State Department. lie had a package, the 
 German Ambassador said, which he wished to forward 
 to Germany in the Department's official mail bag. Would 
 the Department consent to send it? Count Bernstorff 
 treated the matter as unimportant, and gave the impres- 
 sion that the papers in question concerned trifling and 
 routine administrative details. Permission having been 
 obtained, he delivered a sealed envelope, which was 
 put in the Department's pouch and in due course 
 reached Mr. Gerard. Mr. Gerard opened it, in the some- 
 what ingenious manner Mr. Kirk describes in his message. 
 Even though Mr. Gerard had observed that it was ad- 
 dressed to the German Foreign Minister, he would have 
 had every right to investigate; for it came in the American 
 pouch, and an Ambassador is entitled to know what docu- 
 ments he has been asked to transmit. The resultant 
 "find," however, astonished and shocked Mr. Gerard. 
 Obviously he could not deliver the papers to their ap- 
 pointed destination; the information in them was some- 
 thing that his government was entitled to receive; the only 
 course was to return them to Washington. But he could 
 
278 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 not send such dangerous papers from Berlin; the risk of 
 discovery was too great. This is the reason that he very 
 judiciously dispatched them, by the hand of a trusted 
 courier, to Page for transmission to Mr. Lansing. 
 
 Page at once sent the papers to the State Department. 
 They were immediately forwarded again to Mr. Gerard, 
 with instructions to hand them to the German Foreign 
 Secretary. 
 
 Page refers to tins proceeding several times in his letters. 
 It really preyed upon his mind. That the State Depart- 
 ment had obtained first-hand evidence disclosing Bern- 
 storff's subversive activities in the United States, and still 
 failed to demand the Ambassador's recall, was only one 
 aspect that shocked him. Above all was his humiliating 
 discovery of the contempt and cynicism with which the 
 German Ambassador treated the Administration. Bern- 
 storff evidently regarded the State Department with so 
 little seriousness that he used it for transmitting his most 
 secret papers, — and papers that betrayed his plottings 
 against the country whose hospitality he enjoyed. In 
 Page's view the act of Mr. Lansing — and presumably of 
 the President — in persisting in sending these documents 
 to the German Government, after Page, in accordance 
 with Mr. Gerard's request, had sent them to Washington, 
 simply showed that they were prepared to resort to all 
 means, even to the suppression of evidence, in their 
 determination to avoid a rupture with Germany. Coming 
 after a long course of similar happenings, it destroyed 
 any remaining confidence Page may have had in Mr. 
 Wilson's desire to protect American interest and honour, 
 and henceforth it influenced all Ins thinking and writing 
 about the President. In part it accounts for the tone of 
 the memorandum which he wrote about Colonel House's 
 visit to London in January, 1916: 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM 279 
 
 Events crowd one another. 
 
 Lunch to-day: Sir Edward Grey, Lord Robert Cecil, 
 House, Laughlin, and I. House said : 'The United States 
 would like Great Britain to do whatever would help the 
 United States to aid the Allies," and he said thai this i> t he 
 way the President feds. Much talk along tin- same line. 
 House made it plain, however, that if the President openly 
 came out for the Allies, he could not command the public 
 sentiment of the country. This (as matters stand to-da\ 
 with Congress in session) is no doubt literally true. Bu1 
 it raises a deeper question. That is to say, public senti- 
 ment is now neutral and to a great degree not interested 
 in the war. But is not this the result of the Presidents 
 own work in preaching the duty of personal neutrality? 
 Suppose the President had contented himself with declar- 
 ing the neutrality of the Government, with seeing toil thai 
 the Government was really neutral, but had retrained, in 
 his several speeches and in his Messages, from exhorting 
 the people to a strict personal neutrality — suppose he had 
 refrained from labouring our detachment and our un- 
 concern — wouldn't there have been a better general under- 
 standing of the war and a stronger and more genera] 
 natural feeling for the Allies than there now is? This is a 
 point of much importance. Hasn't the President done all 
 he could to make the people detached? Then, after that 
 event, isn't House using their detachment as an expla- 
 nation of his detached conduct? There has somewhere in 
 this business been a lack of such leadership as the President 
 showed about the domestic issues of the early part of his 
 Administration. 
 
 The President to-day sends House a telegram to the 
 effect that the German submarine controversy being laid, 
 all the pressure of criticism will be made on Gnat Britain 
 — a certain fierce, blue-bellied Presbyterian tone in it. 
 

 
 280 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 And the Lusitania and all the other submarine troubles 
 do seem composed — to the point of American acceptance 
 at least. The Germans stoop to conquer. Bernstorff is 
 hailed as a sort of hero, who has brought Ins own govern- 
 ment to meet the American demands. The text of the 
 German answer and pledge has not yet been made public — 
 it has gone to Berlin for ratification. But there's no 
 doubt about a "settlement" having been reached. There 
 is an insincerity about it because it has been reached only 
 in order to begin an attack on Great Britain. In other 
 words, our government is used by Bernstorff as a tool 
 against Great Britain. In the last analysis, this is 
 beyond all question. There's bound at some time to be a 
 rebound from this position: it isn't sincere on the part of 
 the Germans and it isn't quite satisfying to American 
 pride and to the American conscience. 
 
 A lack of leadership, for instance, crops out in this 
 "profound secret" winch House tells me. Gerard some 
 time ago had a long conversation with the Kaiser. He 
 wrote to the President that he was not at liberty to repeat 
 the Kaiser's remarks! But he enclosed in his letter a 
 cryptic sentence on a separate sheet winch said that 
 " after this war, I will give attention to the United States "* 
 — how instead of commanding Gerard to report what the 
 Emperor said, the President asks House to go to Berlin 
 and find out! — and find out whether he meant this as a 
 threat. Now if there hadn't been a mortal dread of war 
 and therefore a mortal dread of Germany, such a pro- 
 cedure would not have been adopted. 
 
 The facts strongly implied and morally proved, if not 
 technically proved, by the "accounts" — i. e., financial 
 papers — which Lansing permitted Bernstorff to send to 
 
 Embassador Gerard tells of this famous interview in his book, "My Four 
 Years in Germany," Chapter XII, p. 252, 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM ' ! 281 
 
 Berlin in our pouch (and which Gerard sent all the way 
 back to Washington and which Lansing again sent to 
 Berlin in our pouch) — these facts were a strong enough 
 conviction of Bernstorff to warrant his dismissal. But 
 they have been pigeon-holed. Now, Von Papen, the 
 dismissed German military attache, while on his way home 
 was searched at Falmouth, and his checks and check books 
 were taken from him. 
 
 From London Colonel House went to Paris and Berlin. 
 He returned to London in February with a definite 
 scheme for obtaining peace. What this plan was and the 
 opinion of it entertained by the Ambassador appear in 
 the following memorandum. 
 
 Memorandum, dated February 9, 1916 
 
 House arrived from Berlin — Paris — Havre (the King 
 of the Belgians) full of the idea of American intervention. 
 First his plan was that he and I and a group of the British 
 Cabinet (Grey, Asquith, Lloyd George, Reading, etc.) 
 should at once work out a minimum programme of peace — 
 the least that the Allies would accept, which, he assumed, 
 would be unacceptable to the Germans; and that the 
 President would take this programme and present it to 
 both sides; the side that declined would be responsible for 
 continuing the war. Then, to end the war, the President 
 would help the other side — that is, the Allies. House had 
 talked more or less with some members of the French 
 Government, who, he said, were enthusiastic about it. 
 I wonder if they understood what he said, or whether he 
 understood what they said? Then, too, the King of the 
 Belgians approved it. Of course, the fatal moral weakness 
 of the foregoing scheme is that we should plunge into the 
 
282 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 war, not on the merits of the cause, but by a carefully 
 sprung trick. When I said that the way to get into the 
 war was for a proper cause — to decline to be hoodwinked 
 about the Lusitania or (or and) to send BernstorfF home 
 because he gave money to Von Papen which went to 
 bomb-throwers, etc., etc. — of which the Department of 
 State has documentary evidence — this is the way to get 
 into the war — then House objected that we must do it the 
 President's own way. Of course such an indirect scheme 
 is doomed to failure — is wrong, in fact. 
 
 Of course, too, as I told House, nobody here would dare 
 talk about peace, and that, if they did dare, nobody would 
 dare accept the President's "intervention." They no 
 longer have confidence in the President. 
 
 The next day (Thursday, February 10th) House told 
 me that the better plan would be simply to have the 
 President invite both sides to hold a conference and let 
 them work it out themselves — as if they would now 
 confer! 
 
 House told me that we'd have a meeting on Mon- 
 day — Asquith, Grey, Reading, Lloyd George, he, and 
 I. No, we won't. No member of the Government can 
 afford to discuss any such subject; not one of them has 
 any confidence in the strength of the President for action. 
 
 Therefore on Friday, 11 February, I told House that 
 I couldn't go with him to any such conference, and I 
 wouldn't. 
 
 He didn't seem surprised; for (I think) he had dis- 
 covered that such a conference was either impossible or 
 dangerous. He confessed that he was "uneasy on every 
 account." 
 
 This memorandum gives only a faint conception of 
 Page's mood at that time. In his discussion with English^ 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 283 
 
 men, and even with the members of his own staff, he 
 maintained a strict diplomatic reserve; it was character- 
 istic of his frank nature, however, that, in setting forth his 
 views with the President's personal representative, he 
 should not mince matters to the slightest degree. The 
 fact is that recent events had completely exhausted his 
 patience. The contempt shown by Bernstorff for the 
 United States, and the failure of the President to resent 
 this contempt, was a sore wound to Page's proud American 
 soul. What he looked upon as the indirection of this 
 latest peace proposal also stirred him deeply. Blessed by 
 Heaven with great facility of speech — sometimes almost 
 to a disconcerting extent — he now unburdened himself 
 in a quarter where his outspokenness at least could not 
 subject him to the charge of deceit — to President Wilson's 
 closest personal confidant. Page spent one whole eve- 
 ning with Colonel House discussing the President's war 
 policy, taking it up point by point from the day the Ger- 
 mans invaded Belgium. Striding up and down his room, 
 speaking with the rapidity that marked his utterance in 
 his intense and excited moments, Page on this memorable 
 evening characterized each step in the Wilsonian war 
 programme. From the beginning, the whole thing seemed 
 to him a gigantic calamity. The criticisms Page had been 
 writing Colonel House and the President he now re- 
 peated in the most expressive language. He could find 
 only one episode in American history which compared 
 with Wilson's behaviour in the war. Page had been a 
 student of Jefferson from his boyhood; his favourite ideas 
 on social organization he had obtained from his favourite 
 philosopher of democracy; in certain aspects Jefferson 
 had been the inspiration of his life. But his admiration 
 for the great Virginian was not one-sided; it was dis- 
 criminating to a degree. There was one chapter in 
 

 284 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Jefferson's career, which above all others, Page had never 
 respected. Jefferson's attitude toward Great Britain and 
 France in the time of the Napoleonic wars he had always 
 regarded as a blemish on a great career. The quiet 
 acceptance of repeated insults, the refusal to act on the 
 sinkings and captures of American ships and the impress- 
 ment of American seamen, the failure to realize the in- 
 evitability of war, the stubborn neglect to make prepa- 
 ration for hostilities — these derelictions Page had always 
 regarded as seriously detracting from Jefferson's character 
 as a statesman. And now Page pictured President 
 Wilson's attitude toward this great European war as 
 almost a perfect parallel to Jefferson in his weakest period. 
 Far worse, indeed, for Jefferson's laxity was explained in 
 large part by the weakness of the infant nation in the 
 early 19th Century, while Wilson had at his back a giant 
 country, infinitely rich in resources, in wealth, in leader- 
 ship, and in men. It is a pity that no stenographic report 
 of Page's conversation of that evening exists, for it would 
 be an historic document of great importance. The Plu- 
 tarchian parallel between Jefferson and Wilson, faced with 
 such a similar set of circumstances, would be a literary 
 treasure of high order. Page's vividness and intensity 
 usually increased as the discussion proceeded, and on this 
 occasion, as his interest in the subject grew, the energy of 
 his language became more marked. As a climax, Page 
 could find only one word that adequately expressed the 
 American war policy since the Lusiiania; that policy was, 
 he declared, the policy of "cowardice." It was Jefferson 
 all over again! 
 
 Page was just as outspoken about the plan now afoot for 
 peace. 
 
 "If the British public learns that this is going on," 
 he said to Colonel House, half seriously, half good- 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM' 285 
 
 naturedly, "you will be lucky if you are not thrown into the 
 Thames." He declined to have anything to do with the 
 plan or to attend any meeting at which it was to be 
 discussed. 
 
 At first Page's opposition to this proposal may appear 
 strange, for it had many points of resemblance with the 
 same plan he had suggested in a letter to the President on 
 October 6, 1914. 1 There was one way, he wrote at that 
 time, in which the United States could bring the war to an 
 end. Mr. Wilson should announce the terms of a satis- 
 factory peace — such as disarmament and a Belgian 
 indemnity. At that time Great Britain and France 
 would gladly have accepted some such basis of settlement. 
 Page believed that the United States should accompany 
 this proposal with the declaration that if Germany re- 
 fused then the resources of this country would be cast on 
 the side of the Allies. So far as the record shows, this 
 suggestion made no impression on President Wilson, but 
 the programme now r brought forth by Colonel House was 
 much like Page's rejected scheme of fifteen months before. 
 In essence, the new proposal was to present Germany 
 certain terms of peace; if Germany rejected them, the 
 United States would intervene in the war on the side of 
 the Allies. The fact that fifteen months had passed, how- 
 ever, Page regarded as having completely changed the 
 European problem. In October, 1914, the United States 
 had no reason for taking part in the war except the general 
 grounds of humanity and justice and, in a long survey, its 
 regard for its own national future and safety. The Ameri- 
 can Republic at that time had no quarrel with Germany 
 and no specific grievance of its own against that nation. 
 By January, 1916, however, we had suffered a series of 
 outrages almost unparalleled in history. We had our own 
 
 ^ee ante, page 157. 
 
286 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 honour, our own interests, our own position in the world 
 to maintain. If we were going to war, Page believed, we 
 should go to war in the first place to maintain that dignity 
 and honour; the self-respect of the nation demanded 
 straightforward action, not a roundabout approach to the 
 great subject. 
 
 Page felt so deeply that, as he records, he refused to 
 attend the dinner at which the proposal was to be dis- 
 cussed. The meeting nevertheless was held at the house 
 of Lord Reading, at that time Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. Page was entirely right about the prevailing 
 attitude of the British popular mind toward peace. 
 Emotion ran so high in London that it was necessary to 
 observe the utmost secrecy. "If it were known that we 
 were meeting for the purpose of discussing peace," re- 
 marked Sir Edward Grey to Colonel House, "every 
 window in my house would be smashed." It is only 
 recently indeed that the world has learned that, in 
 February, 1916, the foremost leaders of the British Em- 
 pire, Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Arthur J. 
 Balfour, Mr. Lloyd George, and Lord Reading quietly 
 met one evening with Colonel House to consider a plan 
 that had two alternatives : either a peace fairly satisfactory 
 to the Allies or the entrance into the war of the United 
 States on their side. It was proposed to offer Germany 
 a choice that was essentially an ultimatum: accept this 
 settlement of the war, or accept America as an enemy in 
 arms ! Tins plan is the one embodied in a document that 
 promises tobecome historic as the "House Memorandum." 
 Lord Grey has made it public for the first time in his book, 
 "Twenty-five Years." The paper, as Lord Grey pub- 
 fishes it, was the joint production of himself and Colonel 
 House. It is significantly dated on Washington's birth- 
 day, 1916. 
 
PAGE AND THE "HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 287 
 
 Memorandum 
 
 (Confidential) 
 
 Colonel House told me that Presidenl Wilson was ready, 
 on hearing from France and England, l<> propose dial a 
 conference should be summons I Input an end bo the war. 
 Should the Allies accept this proposal, and should Ger- 
 many refuse it, the United States would probably enter 
 the war against Germany. 
 
 Colonel House expressed the opinion that, if such a 
 conference met, it would secure peace on terms not un- 
 favourable to the Allies; and if it failed to secure peace, 
 the United States would leave the Conference as a 
 belligerent on the side of the Allies, if German} was un- 
 reasonable. Colonel House expressed an opinion decidedly 
 favourable to the restoration of Belgium, the transfer of 
 Alsace and Lorraine to France, and the acquisition by 
 Russia of an outlet to the sea, though he thought that the 
 lost territory incurred by Germany in one place would 
 have to be compensated to her by concessions to her in 
 other places outside Europe. If the Allies delayed ac- 
 cepting the offer of President Wilson, and if, later on, the 
 course of the war was so unfavourable to them thai the 
 intervention of the United States would not be effective, 
 the United States would probably disinterest themselves 
 in Europe and look to their protection in their own 
 way. 
 
 I said that I felt the statement, coming from the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, to be a matter of such im- 
 portance that I must inform the Prime Minister and my 
 colleagues; but that I could say nothing until il had re- 
 ceived their consideration. The British Government 
 could, under no circumstances, accept or make any 
 proposal except in consultation and agreement with the 
 

 288 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Allies. I thought that the Cabinet would probably feel 
 that the present situation would not justify them in 
 approaching their allies on this subject at the present 
 moment; but, as Colonel House had an intimate conver- 
 sation with M. Briand and M. Jules Cambon in Paris, I 
 should think it right to tell M. Briand privately, through 
 the French Ambassador in London, what Colonel House 
 had said to us; and I should, of course, whenever there 
 was an opportunity, be ready to talk the matter over 
 with M. Briand, if he desired it. 1 
 
 E.G. 
 
 The reference to M. Briand concerns an important 
 meeting between that French statesman, then Prime 
 Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Colonel 
 House, in the course of the American's recent visit to Paris. 
 At that time Colonel House informed the French Premier 
 that the United States had no intention of standing aside 
 if it became apparent that abstention from war would 
 result in a German victory. This conversation was really 
 a commitment by the United States to France of an 
 unprecedented kind. The United States wished to be 
 informed if, and when, our military assistance was needed 
 to prevent the triumph of Germany. Any time the 
 French Government would notify Washington that our 
 aid was indispensable, then this aid would be forthcoming. 
 The onlv condition President Wilson demanded was that 
 he receive this notification in time to make American 
 assistance decisive. If word came at too late a date to 
 give this country any chance of aiding effectively, then 
 we could not regard it. In other words, the United 
 States wished to enter a going concern, not a bankrupt one. 
 The proposal amounted to a demand that France, in case 
 
 '"Twenty-five Years," by Viscount Grey of Fallodon; Vol. II, pages 127-128. 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM*' 289 
 
 she was able to see her approaching destruction far enough 
 ahead, should, so to speak, sound the tocsin, in which case 
 this country would hasten to her assistance. The French 
 Republic never sent Washington such a message. 
 
 Of the several statesmen present at this meeting at 
 Lord Reading's house, Grey was the only one who posi- 
 tively endorsed the proposal embodied in the "Hon-' 
 Memorandum." On the other hand, not one spoke 
 against it, and the sentiment, on the whole, was rather 
 favourable. All expressed an opinion except Lord Read- 
 ing, who merely sat and listened. Lloyd George talked 
 much and laid the utmost emphasis upon the influence of 
 Wilson. The world situation, he declared, lay in the 
 President's hands; he could make peace at any time and 
 practically dictate the terms of settlement. Asquith's 
 attitude was non-committal although he displayed no 
 hostility to the plan. 
 
 In the interest of strict historic accuracy, however, it 
 must be pointed out that the proposal so secretly dis- 
 cussed that evening was not identically the one which is 
 printed in the memoirs of Lord Grey. This text contains 
 an important word that did not appear in the original 
 version. The document, as drawn bv Colonel House and 
 the Foreign Secretary, was taken to Washington by 
 Colonel House and laid before the President. The Presi- 
 dent, Lord Grey relates, approved it and sent it back to 
 London with only one change. Lord Grev does not dis- 
 close just what the change made by President Wilson was, 
 but it may be revealed in this place. As the paper came 
 to the President the last sentence of the first paragraph 
 ran thus: "Should the Allies accept this proposal, and 
 should Germany refuse it, the United Stales would enter 
 the war against Germany." This phrasing, of course, 
 
290 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 made the document an absolute commitment by the 
 United States. Between the words ' ' would ' ' and ' ' enter 
 the President now inserted the word "probably"; so that 
 the important phrase read, "The United States would 
 probably enter the war." 
 
 It is not likely that Page ever saw this memorandum, 
 either before or after it had been subjected to Presidential 
 revision ; as his own memorandum shows, however, he was 
 acquainted with its substance and strongly disapproved. 
 Opinions may differ as to his judgment, but on one 
 point at least he was right— the plan proved utterly 
 futile. In Page's mind, this scheme simply amounted to 
 trifling with a subject of the most momentous conse- 
 quence. The unfortunate fact is that Page had no longer 
 any confidence in President Wilson. Had he seen the 
 memorandum, after the President had inserted a word 
 that changed the whole document from a definite pledge 
 to a conditional one— one that still, after the preliminary 
 steps had been taken, left the President free to retreat 
 before the irrevocable step— Page would unquestionably 
 have regarded that change as merely confirming his lack 
 of faith. He would have looked upon it as another 
 instance of that indecision, that inability to do anything 
 positive which, in his opinion, had marked the President's 
 course from the first. There were other reasons why the 
 Ambassador would have looked on this outline of peace 
 as an inadequate programme. The European situation, 
 the Ambassador well understood, made impracticable any 
 attempt to end the war on this basis. The "House 
 Memorandum" did not sufficiently regard the complexi- 
 ties of European politics. Great Britain was not the only 
 Allied power; in particular there was France. Lord 
 Grey relates that the substance of this document was 
 communicated to France through the French Ambassador 
 
PAGE AND THE "HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 291 
 
 in London, but that France ignored it. That the proposal 
 would be unwelcome to Frenchmen ina\ be assumed. 
 This memorandum did not contemplate the complete 
 defeat of Germany; its acceptance would have been a 
 humiliation for the Fatherland, it is true, for the cession 
 of Alsace-Lorraine to France and of Constantinople to 
 Russia would have seemed something almost inconceivable 
 in face of the existing military strength of Germany. 
 Still, peace on these terms would not have represented 
 the final triumph that France regarded as essential to 
 her safety as a nation. The very existence of their 
 country, Frenchmen believed, depended on the destruc- 
 tion of Germany as a military power. France had suc- 
 ceeded in consolidating Great Britain, Italy, and Russia 
 as Allies in this war. French statesmen believed that this 
 was something they would never be able to do again. 
 They were therefore convinced that if they could not 
 utterly defeat Germany this time, they could never 
 accomplish it; on the other hand, unless they did defeat 
 Germany, they believed that France as an independent 
 nation had come to its end. Any halfway measures with 
 Germany, even though they represented great German 
 concessions, would merely postpone for a short time the 
 collapse of their country. The American proposal for 
 ending the war did not aim at any such unquestioned 
 destruction of German military power. It left intact the 
 German Army, the German Navy, the German industrial 
 and military machine. Peace on these terms would mean 
 that Germany would be able to recuperate her forces and 
 economic strength, and in the course of ten or fifteen 
 years, or perhaps earlier, start the war again. In the be- 
 ginning Page had insisted, as had most observers, that any 
 peace which left the way open to a resumption of the 
 conflict in any appreciable time, would be worse than the 
 
292 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 continuation of the existing war. President Wilson's new 
 proposal did not guarantee France from a renewal of the 
 attack. And when this second attack came would Great 
 Britain, Italy, and Russia take the field as her allies? 
 French statesmen had no confidence that such an alliance 
 could be reformed. They therefore pictured themselves, 
 a decade or so hence, again assailed by the Central 
 Empires — France this time standing alone, without great 
 allies; they knew they would be defeated and that 
 France would go down in ruin. This is the reason 
 why France could not accept any terms of peace which 
 did not mean the end of German military power. She 
 would rather take the chance of being defeated in this war 
 than accept such a peace, because she knew that in ten 
 years or fifteen years it was probable that she would 
 be destroyed. Frenchmen regarded French salvation 
 as dependent upon a continuation of this struggle, 
 even under the discouraging conditions that prevailed in 
 February, 1916, because they might still get the United 
 States in and thereby win the victory which would 
 eliminate Germany as a danger. This was the reason that 
 the House Memorandum was ignored by France. 
 
 The situation of Great Britain, however, was quite 
 different. Britain's future did not depend upon the 
 annihilation of the German Army ; she still had her great 
 fleet and her dominions and therefore was secure from any 
 fear of destruction. Moreover, a large part of the think- 
 ing British public did not look with any particular satis- 
 faction upon a victorious Russia; in their view a peace 
 that would leave Russia in a weak position would be 
 better for Great Britain than one which would leave the 
 Tsar as a military menace to the British Empire. For 
 these reasons the terms of peace proposed by Colonel 
 House, which amounted to a victory over Germany— 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 293 
 
 though not an overwhelming one- would have been 
 fairly satisfactory. Yet tin- bclumour of the British 
 Foreign Oilice toward France was entirely honourable. 
 For the very reason that a knockout was necessary for 
 French security but not for British, the British statesmen 
 could not be urgent in asking France to accept this 
 document as a basis for bringing the war to an end. This 
 is the explanation for Grey's action in merely transmitting 
 the suggestion to France, making no recommendation 
 when he did so, and, when France ignored it, the plan 
 naturally expired. 
 
 ii 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 12 May, 1916, London. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The message that you were kind enough to telegraph 
 about Shakespeare 1 was enthusiastically received at the 
 Mansion House meeting, whereat men representing most 
 countries (other than the German, of course) paid their 
 countries' tribute to the poet; and I have had many 
 persons speak to me since about it. It added just the 
 right American touch to a notable meeting. 
 
 A word about Colonel Squier, for four years our military 
 attache here, whom the War Department has just called 
 home for service in the Department. Squier, a West 
 Point man, is also a Ph. D. of Johns Hopkins — in Physics. 
 Tie was under Rowland. He made a great place for him- 
 
 'On March 6, 1916, Page wrote the President telling him of the plans for the 
 celebration, on April 23rd, of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth, and Baking 
 for a message to !»«• read at a meeting at the Mansion House. Presidenl \\ Qson 
 sent the following telegram: 
 
 " I join with all lovers of great literature in unqualified admiration of the great 
 genius which spoke the human spirit in fuller measure and more authoritative 
 tones than any other man of any race or age." 
 
294 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 self here. I think he belongs to more learned scientific 
 societies in England than any other American. He is 
 one of our most distinguished physicists, and his in- 
 ventions in telegraphy — with especial reference to cables 
 and cable service— have brought him the friendship of all 
 the great scientific men in the kingdom. The British 
 Government is now using an invention of his which 
 doubles the service of every cable it has. Characteristi- 
 cally Squier simply made them a present of it till the war 
 ends. He has, therefore, added real distinction to this 
 Embassy — in a most unusual way. Besides, he seems to 
 be as good a military man as he is a scientific investigator. 
 The army men here hold him in the greatest esteem. He 
 has Kitchener's frank confidence. He was the guest for 
 weeks of the British Headquarters in France. The reports 
 that he has prepared for our War Department and the 
 War College, will, I am told, be the textbooks on military 
 subjects hereafter. A British General asked me the other 
 day, apropos of Squier's going home, why such a man in 
 our army was not promoted. "Squier a mere Lieutenant 
 Colonel! If we had him, we'd make him a Brigadier 
 General, a Lieutenant General, a General, or a Field 
 Marshall." I take the liberty to suggest that you send 
 for him. He can tell you more about the military situ- 
 ation than any other man I know. By the way, his 
 permanent successor here ought not to be a man of lower 
 rank than a Colonel — of higher rank if possible. It is 
 hard for you and me, who have smiled at ranks and gold 
 lace all our lives, to appreciate the immeasurable distance 
 here between a Captain (say) and a Brigadier General. 
 It is quite as great a difference as between a stenog- 
 rapher in the War Department and the Secretary of War. 
 
 The English ought to be drawn and quartered for their 
 sluggish stupidity in forever abusing one another and for 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDl m" -95 
 
 forever grumbling. They seem to have (with their \llies, 
 all of whom they maintain by mone) and supplies) the 
 
 military' situation well in hand. The ( iennans have had a 
 hard blow and a serious setback at Verdun. In spite of 
 that, the prevalent English mood is a mood of depression. 
 They fear that they can ne^r win a real victor) bu1 <>nl> 
 a draw — and this just when they have voted for con- 
 scription and can thus continue to put men into the iield- 
 a larger reserve than Germany has. Waxes of feeling 
 sweep over them as billows break on a rocky >hore. But 
 the rock remains after the billows are all gone— luckily 
 for them. My own belief is that the <>nl\ invincible 
 thing in Europe are these same English. If all Europe 
 were against them instead of the Germans, still they'd win 
 in the long run. Yet they wrangle and become " grouchy ' 
 and decline even to permit their friends to know what they 
 are doing. I could with truth tell the whole race what 
 I've often told groups of them— that they are good for 
 nothing except to become ancestors of Americans and 
 Colonials. In America and their large colonies, the 
 English become free and hopeful. The despair, the 
 depression, the melancholy, the slow ichor in the blood— 
 of all Europeans, with the possible exception of the 
 French— is what damns them all. It turns their eyes 
 inward and backward. And yet these are the only 
 invincible people in this world— this race. Perhaps I've 
 told you that I talk with many women who have come 
 to ask me to have inquiries made about their sons 
 and husbands who are "missing." "Missing'* generally 
 means dead, and that is what they all fear. Bui they 
 hope that it may mean imprisonment. The\ tell their 
 stories with the same fortitude, the same self-restraint, 
 the same sorrowful pride— noblewomen and working 
 women alike. The Spartan women were n\ eaklings beside 
 
296 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the English. I daily grow stronger in my Americanism — 
 real Americanism, not the hyphenated counterfeit. For 
 the British race is the best race yet mixed and developed 
 on this globe, and this race comes to its best under freer 
 and more mobile conditions than this rainy isle of dukes 
 and earls permits. People here now discuss everything 
 with reference to "after the war." "What are we going 
 to do after the war? What do we do best?" I have an 
 easy answer. "Send your children to the United States. 
 Your daughters will become handsomer and your sons 
 more adaptable — they'll be English set free: that's what 
 an American is. The best thing you've ever done is to 
 breed men for freer lands." And they believe it — 
 some of 'em do at least. These English are the most 
 interesting study in the world. Just when you'd like 
 to hang them for their stupidity, you become aware 
 of such noble stuff in them that you thank God that 
 they were your ancestors. And Europe would be a bloody 
 slave pen to-day but for them. It's a shambles as it 
 is. 
 
 They are not going to get tired. Peace? Yes, on their 
 terms. And, while they are fighting for their lives, they 
 are the only nation that is not fighting also for booty. 
 And among many things that this war is teaching them 
 is the stupidity of their arrogance when they twice pro- 
 voked us to war. They pathetically yearn for our utmost 
 good-will — even while they (some of them at least) curse 
 us. My admiration for their racial qualities deepens 
 while my impatience with their ways is heightened. I 
 could write a book in worship of them and another book 
 damning them — both true, both concrete, both definitely 
 proving my thesis. 
 
 And thus the weary, wearing, endless but interesting 
 days go on. A sort of new Old World will emerge at last, 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 297 
 
 wherein the English will still be dominant and — let us 
 hope — chastened and humbler and, therefore, greater 
 than ever. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 London, June 1, 1916. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I have periods of great irritation with the English — 
 almost of impatience with them. I suppose that any 
 people would be put on edge by such a strain as this war. 
 But not even such a strain can excuse the foolish flurry 
 that public opinion here is having over one word in your 
 speech to the League to Enforce Teace. You are reported 
 to have said that we are not concerned with the causes 
 or the objects 1 of this war. Forgetting all the rest of your 
 speech, the press and the people have singled out the word 
 " objects" and read it to mean that you see no purpose in 
 the conflict, etc., etc., etc. I am sending House a lot 
 of newspaper clippings: I spare you such things — except 
 the enclosed letter that Lord Cromer wrote to the Times. 
 
 My analysis of tins whole unhappy incident — for it has 
 its serious as well as its silly side — is this: The German 
 people are getting tired of the war — as who is not? Th«\ 
 have been fed on "victories" that w r ere fictitious and 
 especially on the promise of victories that have not been 
 won. Now their loyalty and submission must be fed on 
 
 'On May 27, 1916, President Wilson spoke before the League to En for. . 1 
 in Washington. In tin's address he declared thai "the United States was not con- 
 cerned with the causes and objects of the war. The obscure foundations from 
 which its stupendous flood has burst forth we are not interested to Bearcfa for or to 
 explore." It is doubtful if any of Mr. Wilson's public utterance- caused as much 
 pain as this in the Allied counties. 
 
298 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 some other diet. The German leaders, therefore, have set 
 going a great peace hubbub: We want peace; we 11 make 
 peace. It's the stupid English, who are whipped, that 
 will not make peace. The continuance of the war, there- 
 fore, is wholly the fault of the English and their Allies. 
 Thus, they seek to shift the responsibility for whatever 
 fighting must yet be done off their own shoulders — to save 
 their face to their own people and incidentally to affect 
 neutral opinion. The English, who have received no 
 peace proposal from the Germans and who, Sir Edward 
 Grey recently informed me, have not even discussed 
 peace with their Allies, of course understand this piece 
 of German strategy, are annoyed by it — so annoyed that 
 they have, for a time at least, banished the word "peace" 
 from their vocabulary. A lady said to me to-day: "I no 
 longer use the word: it smells German — as German as 
 Kullur." 
 
 It is on this mood that your word "objects" fell; and 
 the anti- American- Government feeling is again all ablaze. 
 Even our best friends of the London press — papers that 
 have hitherto refrained from unfriendly comment — have 
 broken over the censorship and berated us ; and all London 
 is talking about the American desire and design to force — 
 or to try to force — peace. Many sections of society and 
 of opinion have worked themselves into an ugly temper. 
 
 I am trying, without seeming to pay too much attention 
 to it, to set some corrective influences at work. I am 
 glad to say that the best of the American correspondents 
 here, who are very loyal fellows, are giving their help. 
 I can hardly say, as I wish I could, that this is merely a 
 passing mood. Of course, the subject will presently be 
 changed, but something of this unfortunate mood, I am 
 afraid, will persist. 
 
 The serious aspect of it, apart from the gross misreading 
 
PAGE AND THE HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 299 
 
 of your speech, is that our government is suspect of pre- 
 ferring a premature peace— a peace that would be really 
 a German victory. The English no longer expect a 
 stalemate; they expect a definite result in their favour. 
 They have no foolish idea of driving the German armies 
 to Berlin or of imposing humiliating terms: but (Ik > do 
 feel sure of a victory over the German Army and of the 
 complete restoration of Belgium, etc., etc. Jusl when 
 this expectation has become fixed, he who talks peace talks 
 treason ! 
 
 Gossip (none of which, so far as I know, has yet got 
 into print) even busies itself with House's visits: "Whal 
 did he come here for? What message did he bring? He 
 said nothing, but he was feeling for peace. We want 
 no peace emissaries. We know ourselves when we shall 
 want peace. The American Government is playing 
 the German game. They don't wish us harm — we 
 know that — but they don't yet even know what the war 
 is about." Tlus is the kind of talk that buzzes every- 
 where. With House in mind, a questioner asked Sir 
 Edward Grey in the House of Commons yesterday 
 whether the Government meant to send a special diplo- 
 matic envoy to Washington. The answer was: "No, 
 His Majesty's Government have complete confidence 
 in its Ambassador to the United States." Thus, this 
 English mood smites everybody on every side. 
 
 From this point of observation, the less said about 
 peace, at least till some new and decisive event happen, 
 the better. 
 
 All these things and suchlike, though, I take it, you 
 wish to know them, unfortunate as they are, have nothing 
 in them seriously to disturb the philosophic mind. They 
 are, rather, measures of the abnormal effects of the strain 
 of the war. Still, you may be sure that the English mood 
 
300 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 has reached a fixed determination to spend their last 
 shilling and to send their last man rather than stop before 
 their enemy gives up; and this German peace talk all 
 about the world makes that determination all the stronger. 
 The League to Enforce Peace will have its day, but its 
 day will not come till peace come. 
 
 I resolutely refuse to be made the least unhappy by any 
 such outburst of excitement, or the least uncomfortable. 
 The fluctuations of feelings, like the fluctuations of battle, 
 would confuse you if you watch them too minutely; the 
 inevitable result after a while begins to be visible. The 
 inevitable result as regards our relations with the English, 
 will be that they and we will in time become the League to 
 Enforce Peace; and they will thank you, as I now thank 
 you, for showing that when Jefferson spoke of entangling 
 alliances he didn't mean to discourage disentangling alli- 
 ances. 
 
 You wouldn't believe that a three-years' absence and 
 the study all the while of no domestic problem but always of 
 the United States vs. the rest of the world could bring such 
 a mass of ignorance to a man of fair intelligence as my 
 mind now holds about the domestic political condition 
 at home. All my cues are lost. I can't guess what will 
 happen at Chicago next week ;but I can't imagine that any- 
 thing will happen which will put the election in any doubt. 
 All the Americans that I see — and these days they are few- 
 er than at any preceding time for fifty years — hold this 
 opinion. This reminds me, by the way, to say that the 
 resident Americans in London are a right-minded, well- 
 behaved, patriotic group, although of no great importance 
 (a black sheep here and there) who stand up for their 
 country. They are now, for example, quietly and con- 
 tinuously trying to make their English friends under- 
 stand the indecency of criticizing a speech they haven't 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM' 301 
 
 read ; for only two short paragraphs of what you said have 
 been telegraphed here. 
 
 Yours sincerely and faithfully, 
 
 Wai/ikh II. Pack. 
 
 June 1, 1916. 
 
 As I read this letter over, it seems to me unspeakably 
 
 dull and depressing and most uxiinterestingly true. I 
 
 am always, these recent days, swinging from pity and 
 
 indignation to admiration: the English compel all these 
 
 emotions and more. I swear at them and 1 how low to 
 
 them. This is not my bowing week. Great Heavens! 
 
 it's a crazy world — a slaughter house where madness 
 
 dwells. I keep calm — as calm as one can; and one must 
 
 keep calm, well balanced, philosophical. That's half the 
 
 battle. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 21 July, 1916, London. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . The following incidents and events confirm or 
 throw some light on these general propositions: As I make 
 it out, there was very little personal sorrow at the loss 
 of Lord Kitchener. 1 This was not only because Ins in- 
 timate friends were few: he had spent most of his life away 
 from home, but the general feeling w r as that his work was 
 done. Many people, of course, knew r too that he was 
 incapable of team work and was a constant and severe 
 trial to his cabinet associates. Yet his death made a 
 profound impression. He had raised the great army — 
 or his name had; and the whole nation roused itself to 
 
 1 Lord Kitchener lost his life on H. M. S. Hampshire, June 5, 1916. 
 
302 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 keep that army in munitions and to do everything else 
 for it. Although the Germans had nothing to do with 
 his death, his death nevertheless acted as an extraordinary 
 stimulus to the war spirit of the whole English nation. 
 You could almost see the grim determination rise in their 
 minds as you see the hot sun raise the mercury in a ther- 
 mometer. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey, who in my judgment is the greatest 
 man in tins group here, is so exceedingly considerate of 
 the United States, has such a profound faith in our scheme 
 of things — is so convinced and thorough-going a democrat, 
 practically and idealistically, and so believes in our future 
 — this man will go the whole length that his convictions 
 and his environment will permit to meet our wishes. He 
 has given many proofs of this. But on the particular 
 subjects that directly bear on the conduct of the war he 
 becomes more and more rigid. He has several times al- 
 most directly and openly confessed to me that the time 
 has passed when he can always follow his own inclinations. 
 When I find him in the right mood, I linger in his office 
 after my particular business is done and draw him into 
 a general conversation. Standing before his fire (we all 
 had fires during the whole arctic June, and one is burning 
 now in the room where I write) we have gone over schemes 
 of government, the general relations of our two countries, 
 the future of the English-speaking peoples, Wordsworth, 
 fishing (he wrote a book that is a sort of modern Izaak 
 Walton) — any sort of tiling that is big and interesting. 
 The other day I went to see him when I had no errand. 
 
 "I surprise you," I said, "by bringing you no trouble 
 to-day. I called only to congratulate you on your ele- 
 vation to the peerage." 
 
 He explained the drawbacks. He spoke of the wrench 
 it gave him to leave the House of Commons after thirty 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 303 
 
 years' service without a break, and he spoke with much 
 emotion. He was put in the Lords because Kitchener's 
 successor is a commoner and this makes an unlawful 
 number of Cabinet Ministers in the Commons. Somebody 
 had to become a peer, and for several reasons he is the 
 most suitable and available man. \\ e fell to talking 
 at last about the whole subject of our differences. He 
 remarked that in normal times a democracy takes too 
 little interest in public affairs, but in times of stress it takes 
 too dominating an interest. In normal times, it leaves the 
 politicians too much to their own devices; in excited times 
 it curtails too much their liberty of action. 'Why, Mr. 
 Page, if we were to open the door for German reservists 
 to get home from North and South America, in the 
 first place we should commit suicide, and in the second 
 place — I can't say what English opinion in its present 
 mood would do to the Government." There's Ins con- 
 fession ! 
 
 Another remark was this: 
 
 "The French Government is much more rigid than we 
 are in construing precedents and international law. Yet 
 their actions do not seem to stir up American resentment 
 as ours do. Is there not in the American democracy a 
 background of old controversies with us about shipping 
 and no such background of any such controversies with 
 the French?" 
 
 I couldn't keep from saying, "If that be true, it shows 
 only that the French are luckier in their past than you." 
 
 Then he fell to talking about his own future, and this 
 and that; and when I got downstairs where Tom Page 1 
 was waiting for me, I found him asleep in the automobile! 
 A few nights later Sir Edward dined with me and he gave 
 the whole evening to talk about his eagerness that the 
 
 'Thomas Nelson Page, at that time American Ambassador to Italy. 
 
304 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 United States should not pass severe judgments on the 
 Allies during this life-and-death struggle. Tom Page 
 and another American, just come from home, were here; 
 and I told them to tell him quite frankly what the feeling 
 is in the United States which he had heard from me ad 
 nauseam. When they were done he said, "I know it. 
 Now tell me what / can do?" He talked of little else to 
 Mrs. Page, who has come to know him quite well and to 
 whom he talks very freely. After the people had gone 
 she said to me: 'What's the hitch? It is impossible 
 to believe that Sir Edward does less than he can do 
 to meet our views and wishes. He is a simple, honest, 
 straightforward truthful man. Isn't he?" 
 
 "Beyond question," said I. 
 
 'Well, what's the matter then — except British public 
 opinion?" 
 
 "Very little else. We've got to argue with the whole 
 British people. They've taken the Government, foreign 
 policies and all, in hand." 
 
 I think that that is pretty nearly the whole truth. 
 
 The matter of our controversies about the mails and 
 about shipping troubles is practically coming more and 
 more into the hands of Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Block- 
 ade, now of Cabinet rank. He is the ablest of the sons of old 
 Lord Salisbury. I think he is the only Tory to the nth 
 degree that I ever had a decided liking for. He was the 
 bitterest critic of the Liberal Government, and now under 
 the Coalition he has half his old enemies as bedfellows. I 
 must say that he plays the game squarely. Ugly, gentle, 
 courteous in the extreme, he told me one day that for 
 the present there are only two articles in his working 
 creed: 'First and foremost, to win the war and save 
 civilization on the earth, and secondly, to do all that I 
 can to safeguard the rights of neutrals and especially 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 305 
 
 the United States." And some things he does see, and 
 he has done some things of practical value. I have had a 
 long unofficial as well as official fight about the censorship 
 — of news to the United States, as well as of other things. 
 I convinced him as I convinced Sir Edward of the desira- 
 bility of being open and generous to the correspondents of 
 the American newspapers. Sir Edward agreed with me 
 but he brought very little to pass; it wasn't quite his job. 
 But Lord Robert has brought much to pass: he has had 
 more time. And he has done a good deal to lessen the 
 delay of the mails. He smooths many little paths. The 
 broad highways are sometimes too much for him. 
 
 He is much interested in "the war after the war," i. e., 
 the war of trade. That crusade was conducted here 
 chiefly by Hughes, the Labour Prime Minister of Aus- 
 tralia. Hughes stumped the Kingdom for it. Cities 
 gave him their Freedom in silver cases. The universities 
 gave him degrees. The people gave him loud applause. 
 Half the press hailed him as a Moses. I made a pretty 
 close study of Hughes. He is not a big man. In many 
 ways he is an ignorant man. But he is an earnest fellow, 
 and, I think, quite honest. His economic grasp is not 
 wide — a somewhat narrow but very earnest and surely 
 very convincing man, a free-and-easy and ready cam- 
 paigner with a colonial breeziness which "takes." He 
 used the background and setting of Australian help and 
 loyalty with most excellent effect. And he and Lord 
 Robert Cecil were among the British delegates to the 
 Paris Economic Conference. Now some things the 
 Allies will do in "the war after the war." Germans had 
 used commercial and financial methods in England and 
 in Russia in particular which were unmoral if not immoral 
 — methods that might have been taken out of the books 
 of a decade or so about the Standard Oil Company. They 
 
306 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 "dumped" and killed competition by starving out com- 
 petitors. They conducted systems of commercial espion- 
 age, &c, &c, &c. The English were slow to detect these 
 things and sluggish to move against them. They will 
 be neither slow to see nor sluggish to act for some time 
 after the war. They will try, too, to prevent dependence 
 on Germany for dyestuffs and other monopolized articles. 
 These things and suchlike they can and probably will do. 
 No German ships will be allowed to touch here to carry 
 English freight and passengers. Germans will, for a 
 time, find London a hard money market. But the notion 
 of a general Allied Zollverein with preferential tariffs will 
 either never be carried into effect or it will break down 
 so quickly that I am sure nobody need pay much present 
 heed to it. Besides, they will find it impracticable to 
 discriminate against neutrals in any comprehensive 
 scheme. Trade makes its own customs and own laws — 
 in the long run; and no nation is going to cut its own 
 throat — very long. As the whole matter now stands, 
 it is a war measure, a piece of Allied " frightfulness " 
 like German Zeppelins; and it does seem to be annoying 
 the Germans. 
 
 The truth is, the mind of this nation now takes in only 
 one subject. Everybody thinks about that and works 
 toward that, in his or her own way, all the time; and that 
 is how to win the war. Nothing else concerns them. All 
 other things seem of so little consequence in comparison 
 that most other things have to wait. The battle in France 
 goes on month after month. Day after day the London 
 papers will contain less than twenty fines of dispatches 
 from the United States, and these have some direct bearing 
 on the war, e.g., the dispatches about the Deutschland. 
 The same is true of other neutral countries. It is a time 
 of but one subject for this half of the world. You cannot 
 
PAGE AND THE " HOUSE MEMORANDUM" 307 
 
 imagine the depressing monotony of this. Every Amer- 
 ican who comes here straight from home remarks after 
 a week or less, " I didn't know it was this way. It seemed 
 very different in the United States." 
 
 When I went to a camp where there are 3,000 interned 
 (civilian) Germans a few weeks ago and for nearly the 
 whole afternoon heard the complaints of their committees, 
 one doctor struck an original note. "Sir," said he in his 
 most earnest address to me, "the solemn truth is we are 
 all on the road to the madhouse. We ' ve been here, most 
 of us, for nearly two years. We seem or may seem to you 
 to have room enough ; we have these grounds to walk and 
 sit in ; we do have enough air and space ; but I assure you, 
 sir, the monotony of this life is driving us to insanity. 
 There are three men in the hospital now whose brains 
 have gone wrong. I am a physician and I assure you 
 we shall all be mad if we have to stay here much longer." 
 I felt a strong impulse to applaud and to say that he 
 wouldn't find it essentially different outside. . . . 
 
 Yet, strange as tins paradox is, people are very cheerful. 
 War has come to be the normal state of life : it is not only 
 taken for granted — it gives these people activity that 
 brings in some a sort of exaltation, in many more a form 
 of milder excitement. But the point I have chiefly in 
 mind is the impossibility of inducing anybody to think 
 or to talk about anything else or to consider or to do 
 anything that doesn't seem immediately to help to win it. 
 We are living almost within the sound of the guns of a 
 continuous Gettysburg. I am told that people at certain 
 places on the east coast of England hear the guns dis- 
 tinctly except when the wind is against the sound; and 
 whole trains of woimded and of prisoners are constantly 
 arriving. There is a hospital just through the wall from 
 where I write and another two doors from the building 
 
308 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 where our offices are. These instances are typical of most 
 of the residential neighbourhoods. A continuous Gettys- 
 burg; a tyrannical public opinion; a universal concen- 
 tration on one subject; an obedient government — to 
 public opinion ; a depressing monotony of subject and talk 
 and work, relieved by the exaltation born of a belief in 
 victory — this is the atmosphere we now live in. In the 
 course of time — a long time, I hope — we'll all be on the 
 way to the madhouse. 
 
 And the most important news of all is the Department's 
 telegram asking if I think it advisable to go home for a 
 personal conference. I do, decidedly — certainly for my 
 own instruction and benefit. Three years and a half is a 
 long time, especially when two have been war years. 
 Such a visit will be of infmite help to me. Nor do I think 
 that any newspaper sensation can now be made of my go- 
 ing. If leave be granted me, I shall follow this letter 
 a week later. And it will be a great pleasure, as well as 
 a great benefit, to see you, Mr. President. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Soon after writing this letter Page sailed for the United 
 States. The story of that visit has been told elsewhere. 1 
 
 J See Volume II, Chapter XIX. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ON THE EVE OF WAR 
 
 THE long-anticipated change in the British Ministry 
 took place in December, 1916. Lloyd George became 
 Prime Minister and Mr. Balfour succeeded Lord Grey as 
 Foreign Secretary. Page's impression of the new Premier 
 appears in the following letter: 
 
 To the President 
 
 Embassy of the United States of America, 
 
 London, 30 December, 1916. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I made my telegram about Lloyd George so full last 
 night that I have little left to write on that score. The 
 Prime Minister has been ill, the Foreign Secretary has 
 been ill (there's an epidemic of influenza), the Christmas 
 holidays came — so far as any outsider's experience with the 
 new Government goes, they have till now been inacces- 
 sible. But so far as any outsider can say, they have made 
 an exceedingly good start. Of course, Lloyd George's 
 enemies predict that he will not last six months. But they 
 are his enemies. His friends and the public in general 
 expect him to finish the war successfully, and (many 
 think) pretty quickly. To me, the new Government 
 seems to promise well — very well. There's a snap about 
 it that the old Government lacked. Lloyd George is 
 not a spent force, but one of the most energetic projectiles 
 
 309 
 
310 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 that I've ever watched or come in contact with. He 
 said more in half an hour yesterday than Asquith ever 
 told me in his life. 
 
 They are not going to yield their contention about the 
 blockade, or about the mails. They are so hard-pressed 
 for ships that they will keep all they can and dare within 
 their reach. But on most other subjects I think they will 
 be conciliatory and we can help (I come back to my old 
 text) if we will be more courteous. The Department is 
 too blustering, as, I think, it has always been. Its " will- 
 not-stand-it's," its "intolerables," its "demands," and 
 suchlike, belong to a war vocabulary or to the time of 
 George III. This tone provokes many a denial when 
 a courteous tone would get what we want. The Depart- 
 ment, my dear Mr. President, is under-manned. Of 
 course, I am not criticizing any man in it: I am 
 saying only that it has about routine things a tone and 
 a manner that defeat its own purposes, because, I think, 
 there are far too few responsible men in it, and because 
 none of them know the men they write to. Hence the 
 vast importance of Polk's 1 coming here if for ever so 
 brief a visit. He will not find enemies, as I fear he thinks, 
 but most courteous gentlemen who wish to retain our real 
 friendship. Moriturus sum, 2 and I can speak even more 
 frankly than ever. 
 
 To come to a subject of smaller importance to the 
 nation, I shall be glad when you can tell me your wishes 
 about the end of my service. My arrangements were 
 made in the beginning for my official demise on March 4th. 
 My lease expires then. My servants were engaged till 
 
 Trank L. Polk, at that time Counsellor of the State Department and in charge 
 of correspondence over the blockade. Aji unsuccessful attempt was made at 
 this time to have him visit Great Britain for a discussion of shipping difficulties. 
 
 2 Page had recently sent to Washington his resignation as Ambassador. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 311 
 
 then. If I am to retain either or both, I must soon speak 
 to landlord and butler. And if it should be your wish 
 that I should remain three months or six longer (in which 
 time the war may end — a circumstance that might make 
 my successor's induction somewhat easier), I shall be 
 happy to serve you, as I am in that and in all other ways. 
 But it would be a convenience to know, at your earliest 
 pleasure. My affairs at home could wait even for a year, 
 but not longer. 
 
 My own guess is — and it is a guess — that the Germans 
 will give in within a year — perhaps within half a year. 
 Then several months will be consumed by the peace- 
 making quarrel. Their "invincibility"' legend is fading 
 out, between guns and hunger. The man who really 
 makes the blockade lives around the corner (you never 
 heard of him, a man named Harris, 1 a mere plain, Right 
 Honorable Harris). He and Lloyd George are the two 
 most energetic men that I know in this kingdom. Now 
 Mrs. Harris is one of Mrs. Page's good friends and neigh- 
 bours. That's the way I've come to know Harris very 
 well; and he tells me things that no Cabinet Minister 
 would ever whisper — perhaps doesn't know; such as the 
 price of fish in any city in Germany, the calories that a 
 man in Leipzig gets, the number of eggs that reach Berlin 
 from Poland, and the value in dollars of a goose in Dresden. 
 He knows, for he gets daily reports. " At 10 o'clock every 
 night I take up the food reports from Germany and 
 Austria: they are getting hungry and they will get hun- 
 grier yet before spring." 
 
 What a glimpse of war! It's the blockade that will 
 conquer. This gentle, resolute, quiet man sits guardian 
 at all the gates into Germany; and, tho' he wouldn't kill a 
 hare, he watches Hunger beginning to stalk its victims, 
 
 'The Right Honourable Frederick Leverton Harris. 
 
312 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 and he methodically tabulates its approaches and maps 
 the shadow that it casts before. I think he would gladly 
 lie down and die to-night to have the horrors of this infer- 
 nal business ended. 
 
 But what I sat down to write you was my belief that 
 Lloyd George will keep the programme that he sketched 
 to me as far as you are willing he should. He will be frank. 
 He is most friendly. He has often expressed his ad- 
 miration for you — long before he could have known that 
 he would become Prime Minister — and during the year 
 he has shown and expressed to his intimates his con- 
 fidence in me. He wishes confidentially to use me as a 
 medium to reach you and for you to reach him whenever 
 either of you have need or even an impulse. He is very 
 direct. He does not use circumlocution. He doesn't 
 " intimate": he says things straight out. "Call me on 
 the telephone any time you like," was his parting word. 
 This from the present ruler of the British Empire; for the 
 Prime Minister is of course not only the Chief Executive 
 but the chief and leader also of the House of Commons. 
 I am sure he is quite sincere. Much may come of it, or 
 little may come of it, as you or he will. 
 
 This change of government is quite as complete as a 
 change of administration at Washington — when one party 
 goes out and the other comes in. All that I can yet say 
 about it is that it promises well for us. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Memoranda 
 
 December 30, 1916. 
 Written, not for the sake of the gentlemen mentioned, 
 but for possible help to the President and the Service. 
 
Earl Kitchener of Khartoum I L850 L916), Secretary <»t State for 
 
 War. 1914 1916 
 
Rear-Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall, Director of Intelligence 
 Division Admiralty War Staff, 1914-1918 
 
on the eve of war 313 
 
 Hoover: 
 
 Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, Chairman of the Commission 
 for Relief in Belgium, would, if opportunity should offer, 
 make a useful officer in the State Department. He is 
 probably the only man living who has privately (i.e., 
 without holding office) negotiated understandings with 
 the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian govern- 
 ments. He personally knows and has had direct dealings 
 with these governments, and his transactions with them 
 have involved several hundred million dollars. He is ;i 
 man of very considerable fortune — less than when the 
 war began, for tins relief work has cost him much. He 
 was approached on behalf of the British Government 
 with the suggestion that if he would become a British 
 subject the Government would be pleased to give him 
 an important executive post and with the hint that if he 
 succeeded a title might await him. His answer was: "I'll 
 do what I can for you with pleasure; but I'll be damned if 
 I'll give up my American citizenship — not on your life!" 
 Within the last six months two large financial organiza- 
 tions, each independently, have offered him $100,000 a year 
 to enter their service; and an industrial company offered 
 him $100,000 "to start with." He declined them all. 
 When the Belgian relief work recently struck a financial 
 snag, Hoover by telegraph got the promise of a loan in the 
 United States to the British and French governments for 
 Belgian relief of $150,000,000 ! I do not know, but I think 
 he would be glad to turn his European experience to the 
 patriotic use of our government. He is forty-two years 
 old, a graduate of Leland Stanford Jr. University. 
 
 Laughlin: 
 
 There's nothing in our diplomatic service open to 
 Laughlin in the way of promotion after he leaves this 
 
314 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Embassy — except an important post in the Department 
 or the head of a foreign mission. If I were President, 
 I'd make him an Ambassador. He has served in most 
 capitals; he knows the game through and through; he's 
 conscientious to a fault; he's patriotic to the marrow. He, 
 too, has a fortune. After he quits the Service he will re- 
 tire from active life. The Service oughtn't to lose one of 
 the best men that has ever grown up in it, especially at so 
 young an age. 
 
 Men like these, who have had experience abroad, would 
 add much to the Department. I needn't say that neither 
 of them knows of my writing this memorandum. 
 
 W. H. P. 
 
 The year, which had been an extremely vexatious one 
 for Page, ended with no particularly bright spot on the 
 horizon. Germany had continued her submarine attacks 
 on ships carrying American passengers, and the Pres- 
 ident's activities were directed chiefly to promoting a 
 peace which the Allies had notified him in advance 
 that they would not accept. The degree to which the 
 United States had sunk in the estimation of the world 
 discouraged Page, especially as he believed that our 
 policy had justified this unfavourable opinion. How 
 disheartened the Ambassador was appears from the 
 memorandum he wrote, as he says, "for myself only" 
 on the last day of the year. Possibly Page's prediction 
 that the actual bombardment of American ports would 
 be necessary to produce war with Germany may be re- 
 garded as an extreme statement, yet the German acts 
 that finally resulted in American participation — the 
 declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, the attempt 
 to form a combination with Japan and Mexico against 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 315 
 
 this country, with the consequent dismemberment of the 
 United States, and the destruction of American lives on 
 torpedoed ships — amounted to almost the same thing. 
 
 December 31, 1916. 
 I write this memorandum (for myself only) with the 
 hope of revising it by the light of subsequent events; 
 and I write it only to record my present fear, which I hope 
 to have reason to abandon. 
 
 If at the beginning of Germany's onslaught on civili- 
 zation — when Belgium was invaded, or, later, when the 
 Lusitania was sunk, the President had given a sign or 
 spoken a word the whole American people and American 
 sentiment would have called Germany down quick and 
 short and gone to war if necessary. 
 
 But the President had silenced and suppressed them 
 by his making the artificial quality of neutrality a positive 
 virtue and quality. He suppressed the natural feeling 
 of Americans — even suppressed discussion as far as he 
 could. This made hay for the Germans in the United 
 States, and Bernstorff took command (to a large degree) 
 of American sentiment. He threatened and the President 
 feared. It has been a regime of fear of the Germans ever 
 since — see the much greater deference of tone shown in 
 Notes to Germany than in Notes to Great Britain. Thus 
 Bernstorff has waxed more and more daring and more and 
 more influential. 
 
 2 
 
 This distinct fear of the Germans and fear of war now 
 causes the President's peace movement. If the war go on 
 
316 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 till spring he fears that the Germans will make good their 
 threat to sink all ships (including American) that come to 
 England. Hence the extreme desire for peace now. 
 
 I predict that the President cannot be made to lift a 
 finger for war — until the Germans should actually bom- 
 bard one of our ports. It's cowardice or pacifism that 
 holds him back every time — Jeffersonianism. 
 
 About this time President Wilson's address to the 
 Senate, delivered January 22, 1917, reached the London 
 Embassy. The speech was sent to Page several days 
 before being spoken, in order that he might have it 
 published in full in certain newspapers well known for their 
 pacifist tendencies — such as the Nation, the Manchester 
 Guardian, and the Daily News. This oration represented 
 President Wilson's final appeal for peace. In the main 
 the opinions expressed were just and high minded, and the 
 President's declarations of the principles that should 
 govern the world in future were such as would be echoed 
 by most men of good sense and good spirit. Unfortu- 
 nately the address contained just one phrase that utterly 
 destroyed its usefulness. Before any attempt could be 
 made to organize a new world order, said President Wilson, 
 it would be necessary to reestablish peace in Europe. 
 And this must be "a peace without victory." There are 
 probably few Americans to-day who do not regard this 
 phrase as one of the greatest mistakes of President 
 Wilson's career; both those who approve his war policy 
 and those who disapprove are unanimous on this point. 
 The words "peace without victory " implied that, so far as 
 the moral issues were concerned, there was little to choose 
 between the Allies and the Central Powers. The over- 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 317 
 
 whelming triumph of either side to the conflict could 
 represent no gain for mankind. Wilson by implication 
 at least made public acknowledgment that this con- 
 ception of equal balance was wrong when two months 
 afterward he insisted that the United States should 
 declare war against Germany on the ground "that the 
 world must be saved for democracy." That Page, after 
 considering the import and inevitable effect of these fate- 
 ful words, should have cabled President Wilson suggest- 
 ing their omission from his forthcoming speech is only an- 
 other instance of that farsightedness which he had 
 exhibited from the beginning of the war. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London 
 Dated Jan. 20, 1917. 
 
 Rec'd 8:50 p. m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 5514. January 20, 1 p. m. 
 
 The following is strictly confidential and of immediate 
 importance to the President. 
 
 Since there has been an apparent delay in delivering 
 your speech to the Senate I venture respectfully to offer 
 a comment on the phraseology in the sentence about 
 "Peace without victory." My experience of the state of 
 mind in this country makes me fear that unless you define 
 your use of the word "victory" it will be misconstrued 
 as an effort directly to influence the result of the present 
 war, and even as an interference on behalf of Germany, 
 since you took no step while the Germans were gaining 
 military advantages. Any phrase which now appears 
 to the Allies to interfere just when they hope to gain a 
 striking military advantage is enough to provoke a storm 
 
318 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of criticism that may greatly lessen your influence here- 
 after. Nothing can now stop the war before the almost 
 imminent campaign in France for which every preparation 
 has been made. There is a general expectation here that 
 after that peace may soon come. 
 
 [If?] instead of "Peace without victory" you should 
 amplify your statement in some manner such as "Peace 
 without conquest" or "People of either side," your 
 speech will have the greatest good effect. Your words 
 as they stand may be construed here as a sort of denial 
 of Balfour's letter and possibly even as an unfriendly 
 interference in the war at its most critical moment. 
 
 The sentiments you express are the noblest utterance 
 since the war began, and with the explanatory modifi- 
 cation of this passage the speech will greatly further 
 the cause you plead, enhance your influence, and fix 
 you at the front of the movement for securing permanent 
 peace. 
 
 Page. 
 
 ii 
 
 On February 3rd, Bernstorff was informed that his career 
 in the United States was at an end. The United States 
 had severed diplomatic relations with Germany. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, February 4, 1917. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 5595. February 4, noon. Personal to the President. 
 
 Your prompt action after your patient efforts to avoid 
 
 a rupture will strengthen our national character and 
 
 build up our national unity at home. In Europe it will 
 
 put us in the highest esteem of all nations, including 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 319 
 
 even the people of the Central Powers; it will shorten 
 the war; it will preserve to us our proper high place in the 
 family of great powers; it will immeasurably advance the 
 influence of democracy and it will give you the lead with 
 your constructive programme in insuring peace hereafter. 
 Mrs. Page thinks this telegram too impersonal. So it 
 may be, but I am afraid to let myself go. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 Dated February 6, 1917. 
 Rec'd Feb. 7, 2:30 a. m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 5616, February 6, 6 p. m. 
 
 Confidential to the Secretary and President. 
 
 I called on the Prime Minister yesterday. In a private 
 unofficial talk he said that it would be an affectation to 
 conceal Ins pleasure at our diplomatic break with Ger- 
 many. H began immediately to talk about the prob- 
 ability of war following. I reminded him that the United 
 States are arranging peace and that war was not in my 
 vocabulary. He replied that it was well to look a little 
 ahead in a private conversation. He hoped that in no 
 event would our supply of ammunition to the Allies be 
 curtailed, that a much larger supply of steel could be got 
 from the United States, which munition factories here 
 badly need, and he asked earnestly about our merchant 
 shipbuilding activities. 
 
 "Are your shipyards on the Great Lakes doing their 
 utmost? Vast numbers of small ships are now needed and 
 whoever owns a ship can get rich and this condition will 
 not soon change." I reminded him that supplies for 
 belligerents concerned the belligerents' shipbuilding pri- 
 
320 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 vate concerns in the United States and not our govern- 
 ment. But such reminders in no way stopped his rapid 
 talk. He continued: 
 
 " If you are drawn into the war I shall be glad for many 
 reasons, but especially because your government will then 
 participate in the conference that concludes peace. I 
 especially desire this because of your President's cool and 
 patient and humane counsel, which will be wholesome for 
 us all." 
 
 Then he asked, "Is there any way we can serve you? 
 I have already directed our Army Chief of Staff [Robert- 
 son] and the first Sea Lord [Jellicoe] to give you all 
 possible information out of our experience that you may 
 ask for. You will find them communicative to you at 
 any time," and he asked if any other departments of his 
 government could serve us, — "if so come and see me at 
 any time and I will open the way." Perhaps you will 
 send me definite suggestions or instructions on this point. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Two months were to pass, however, before President 
 Wilson took the irrevocable step. They were months 
 filled with exciting events and humiliating moments. 
 During this period Page kept something that resembled 
 a diary; at least he jotted down, now and then, the 
 thoughts that each succeeding crisis inspired. Much as 
 Page welcomed the breach with Germany, and sincere 
 as were his congratulations to the President over that 
 event, the old doubt as to Wilson's constancy still pre- 
 vailed. The President's reluctant and wavering course 
 as Page regarded it — had left the belief, which he never 
 abandoned, that Mr. Wilson had not understood the 
 issues of the war — or that he persisted in misunderstanding 
 them; that he placed the Allies and the Central Powers on 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 321 
 
 the same moral level; that he looked upon Germany with 
 an indulgent eye; that even after dismissing BernstorfT 
 he sought in every conceivable way to keep the United 
 States out of the war, and that only an overwhelming 
 public sentiment at last forced him into the conflict 
 After the German declaration of unrestricted warfare Am- 
 erican ships kept, for a period, within American harbours. 
 They feared to leave, for they were helpless before sub- 
 marine attack and knew that they would be torpedoed. 
 The Government itself was unable to afford them any pro- 
 tection. This humiliating situation oppressed Page, as it 
 did all right-tliinking Americans and all friends of America 
 in other countries. A law introduced in Congress and 
 supported strongly by President Wilson authorized the 
 arming of American merchant vessels. If they were per- 
 mitted to carry guns, the captains of these vessels were 
 prepared to run the gauntlet of the submarines; quite 
 properly they declined to do so without such means of 
 defence. This proposed law disclosed an ugly situation 
 in the United States Senate. The purpose w r as to give 
 American ships a certain protection against the attacks of 
 German submarines, yet a small minority of the upper 
 chamber, led by Senators LaFollette and Stone and 
 assisted by the antiquated Senate rules, used all their 
 ingenuity in efforts to prevent the matter from coming 
 to a vote. Only an amendment to the Senate rules a1 
 last enabled the majority to pass the measure. The most 
 sensational episode of this period, however, was the 
 publication on March 1st of a telegram from Dr. Alfred 
 Zimmermann, German Foreign Secretary, to the German 
 Minister in Mexico, outlining a scheme for an alliance of 
 Germany, Japan, and Mexico against the United States, 
 and for the cession, in case of victory, of Texas, New 
 Mexico, and Arizona to Mexico. The hopes, the fears, 
 
322 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 the uncertainties, the occasional flashes of encouragement 
 and approval that possessed Page's mind in the face 
 of these events are mirrored in his rather haphazard and 
 informal jottings. They are merely the expression of 
 fleeting and varying moods; but the period itself was a 
 variable one; and these paragraphs have a great historic 
 and psychological interest as portraying what was un- 
 doubtedly the state of the normal American mind during 
 that great crisis of doubt and of hope. The quickness 
 with which Page notes Ins approval of the President's 
 acts, when they justify such approval, and the eagerness 
 with winch he watches for any sign of positive action, are 
 not their least characteristic features. 
 
 February 25, 1917. 
 It is a momentous time. First, the submarine menace: 
 The submarines are destroying shipping at an appalling 
 rate. The percentage of lost ships — of all the ships 
 afloat — is small, of course; and the hopeful men are al- 
 ways reminding us how small it is. This, to give com- 
 fort to the population. But there is a menace, neverthe- 
 less — a very grave menace. The small number of ships 
 that can carry food — that can be spared from war uses — 
 makes this percentage-comfort smaller than it seems. 
 On the other hand, nobody knows, outside the Admiralty, 
 how fast the Navy is capturing or destroying the sub- 
 marines. After all, everything depends on this latter 
 fact. The hope that I get is, since the Navy has twice 
 overcome vigorous submarine attacks, they are likely to 
 overcome this one. True, the Germans now have more 
 submarines, larger ones and stronger; but the Navy has 
 had corresponding experience. But food may be lacking 
 in the meantime. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 323 
 
 In the meantime, too, American ships keep port. For 
 some reason our government will not arm our ships or 
 permit them to be armed; and they are keeping their 
 docks. We are practically blockaded — held up, hold in, 
 driven off the seas by the German tlireat ! 
 
 The Germans on 22 February sank seven Dutch ships. 
 
 Thus, the submarine menace is very real; and there is 
 much fear. Read Lloyd George's speech in the papers of 
 two days ago about food restriction, production, etc., 
 etc. 
 
 Then the military situation now, just before the severe 
 fighting can be begun in France. The soldiers are all 
 hopeful. General Sir Douglas Haig's famous interview a 
 week ago with a French journalist predicts a clear vic- 
 tory. All the military men feel very sure. But there 
 was a note of doubt through a large part of civilian life; 
 the German Army is still very large — how strong, it 
 remains to be seen. Awful carnage awaits us in any 
 event — awful, awful, awful. 
 
 It is an anxious time. 
 
 (While Stevens is sketching me !) 
 
 Tuesday, February 27, 1917. 
 
 The President's Speech to Congress yesterday asking 
 for authority and credit to establish "armed neutrality" 
 is published and received without much comment in 
 morning papers. It distresses W. A. W. P. 1 Laughlin 
 is pleased. 
 
 "Admirable," he says. Looked at over a considerable 
 period the President's course has progressed — slowly, per- 
 haps, but steadily — from neutrality (hard and severe), to 
 warning, to a break in diplomatic relations, to "armed 
 
 'Mrs. W. H. Page. 
 
324 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 neutrality." Apparently there is only one step more 
 possible. Or can there be any intermediate step? 
 
 About the time the President was delivering that 
 speech news reached us and Washington of the torpedoing 
 of the Laconia and the death of Mrs. and Miss Hoy, of 
 Chicago. What effect will tins have? An "overt act" 
 surely. 
 
 Mr. Hoy, son and brother of the dead women called — 
 greatly wrought up — will wire President — will join United 
 States Army if we go to war, or British Army if we do not 
 — an able, determined-looking fellow of thirty-six. Frost 
 at Queenstown has made very good reports indeed on the 
 Laconia — no German apology in any dispatch. I am 
 asking official statement from Admiralty. 
 
 A letter from A. W. P. 1 is full of fire and ginger — not 
 enough leadership for him. 
 
 Lord Grey of Fallodon writes me an excellent letter; 
 it'll be a black page in American history if America sits 
 still after six or seven Dutch boats have been sunk. 
 (He hadn't heard of the Laconia.) He proposes that 
 United States silently convoy American and neutral 
 ships and see if Germany dares sink one or to sink a con- 
 voy. 
 
 More than a billion pounds of new money in the War 
 Loan! That's impressive, surely. 
 
 Friday, March 2, 1917. 
 It would be hard to imagine a more rapid succession of 
 exciting events, and yet we refuse to be excited ! Startling 
 things have become normal. The Zimmermann (Berlin) 
 Mexican-Japan bomb burst to-day, the Zimmermann 
 telegram to the German Minister in Mexico being in the 
 
 'Arthur W. Page. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 325 
 
 morning papers. They gave it out in Washington (ap- 
 parently) to cause Congress to give the President au- 
 thority to arm merchant ships, &c., &c., as he should see 
 fit, and to use the armed forces of the nation to protecl 
 commerce and life. It had that effect. An enormous 
 majority in the House last night (nearrj 500 to 13!) voted 
 in favour of the resolution. I am curious to see the ef- 
 fect on the country. I have never abandoned the belief 
 that if the President were really to lead, all the people 
 would follow. Whether he will even now lead remains to 
 be seen. 
 
 Yesterday I told Chinda, the Japanese Ambassador, 
 about this Zimmermann telegram. He thought it a huge 
 joke at first. To-day Yates Thompson confessed that it 
 seemed to him a newspaper hoax! Nobody (few people 
 surely) yet thoroughly understands the German. This 
 telegram will go some distance surely to instruct the 
 people of the U. S. A. 
 
 The danger is that with all the authority he wants 
 (short of a formal declaration of war) the President will 
 again wait, wait, wait— till an American finer be tor- 
 pedoed! Or till an attack is made on our coast by a 
 German submarine ! 
 
 Many members of Congress and others in Washington 
 do not yet believe the authenticity of this [Zimmermann] 
 telegram. Hence the Department telegraphed to-day for 
 the German of the translation, which I sent them. Now 
 they have Bernstorff's code message, the German of it and 
 the English of it. See the London papers' editorials. 
 
 Mr. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, and I to-day had a con- 
 ference of an hour or more about exchange with the 
 United States and the possibility of more loans there to 
 pay for munitions and food bought there. Could a 
 great popular loan be got in United States (like the great 
 
326 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Victory Loan here) ? Probably if the right men took hold 
 of it in every section of the U. S. Balfour has always 
 held in the Cabinet that the problem of exchange is the 
 great problem — not the submarine. 
 
 The Commission for Relief in Belgium goes slowly to its 
 end. The King of Spain and the Queen of Holland are in 
 it — as it will be organized; and all the official people 
 have forgotten Hoover! 
 
 We dined to-night at Buckler's — the hosts, Miss 
 Buckler, Mr. Lubbock (who will edit Henry James's 
 Letters), the banker Grenfell, and we. 
 
 Lunched at Captain McDougall's — the Bryces, the 
 Yates Thompsons and Jellicoes, and we. 
 
 Talk on League to Enforce Peace. 
 
 6 March, 1917. 
 Here's the rhetorical Inaugural. 1 It's no time for these 
 fine words. The eleven "obstructionist" Senators are 
 bad enough. But 
 
 (1) If W. W. had asked for the authority he wants a 
 month earlier no filibuster could have succeeded. 
 
 (2) An old 1819 statute (to keep the hunters of Bar- 
 bary pirates from attacking a civilized country?) need 
 not stand in the way, if he were in earnest, were not look- 
 ing for something to hold him back. 
 
 (3) He hasn't called Congress in extra session yet — 
 which he'd do if he wished really to do anything. 
 
 (4) It's the President who still holds the people back. 
 And our ships keep port yet — kept off the sea a month 
 now by the Germans, and he does nothing to help this 
 situation. And the Laconia has gone into the same limbo 
 that has enveloped the Lusitania and the Sussex and all 
 the rest. 
 
 'President Wilson's second inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1917. 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAB 327 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, March 9, 1917. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 5816, March 9, 9 a. m. Confidential, for the President 
 and the Secretary only. 
 
 In reporting on the general feeling here I find thai con- 
 tinued delay in sending out American ships, especially 
 American liners, is producing an increasingly unfavourable 
 impression. In spite of all explanations, which are im- 
 perfectly understood here, delay is taken to mean the 
 submission of our Government to the German blockade. 
 This is the view of the public and of most of the press. 
 There is a tendency even in high government circles to 
 regard the reasons for delay which are published here as 
 technicalities which a national crisis should sweep aside. 
 British opinion couples the delay of our ships with the 
 sinking of the Laconia and the Zimmermann telegram 
 and seems to be reaching the conclusion that our Govern- 
 ment will not be able to take positive action under any 
 provocation. The feeling which the newspaper dis- 
 patches from the United States produce on the British 
 mind is that our Government is holding back our people 
 until the blockade of our ships, the Zimmcrniaim tele- 
 gram, and the Laconia shall be forgotten, and until the 
 British Navy shall overcome the German submarines. 
 There is danger that this feeling harden into a conviction 
 and interfere with any influence that we might otherwise 
 have when peace comes. 
 
 So friendly a man as Viscount Grej of Fallodon writes 
 me privately from his retirement: "1 do not see how the 
 United States can sit still while neutral shipping is swept 
 off the sea. If no action is taken, it will be like a great 
 
328 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 blot in history or a failure that must grievously depress 
 the future history of America." 
 
 Page. 
 
 13 March, 1917 (Tuesday). 
 
 It's well to be patient in judgment, surely. Hard on the 
 President's tame and vague inaugural and his apparent 
 wandering off into the by-way of a controversy with the 
 Senate — hard on these came a few days ago a definite 
 announcement that American ships will be armed fore 
 and aft and that other ships, armed, will be admitted to 
 our ports! And an Extra Session of Congress is called 
 for April 16th. 1 Now that's the stuff! 
 
 Meantime, not only the Zimmermann Note to the 
 German Minister in Mexico has done its work on public 
 opinion, but there have come to light various German 
 intrigues, for example, to get Colombia and Nicaragua to 
 get into a row with the United States. Look out for the 
 Canal ! Then the practical certainty looms on the horizon 
 of submarine bases somewhere in Central America. 
 
 Hence a complete reversal of the Government's posi- 
 tion about admitting armed merchantmen. Hence a 
 complete (almost complete) cessation of trade quarrels 
 with Great Britain, such as filled the whole sky when I was 
 in Washington last autumn! Even the President was 
 full of indignation at the British Government for these 
 atrocious crimes. Nobody saw or would believe that the 
 Germans stirred up all this, then! 
 
 Curious coincidence : Bernstorff reached land in Norway 
 on the very day Gerard reached Havana! 
 
 Bagdad fell on Sunday — the end of the German Eastern 
 dream, for the English are not likely to give that up. 
 
 To-day I spoke at the unveiling (in St. Paul's) of a 
 
 1 An error; Congress met on April 2. 
 
The Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law (1858-1923), Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, 1916-1918, Prime Minister, 1922-23 
 
ON THE EVE OF WAR 329 
 
 tablet to the memory of E. A. Abbey, H. R. H. the 
 Princess Louise pulling the string. I took Mrs. Abbey 
 to and from the Cathedral. 
 
 Unless Germany modifies her submarine plan and 
 exempts all American ships, we shall now soon have war 
 — unless peace come by an almost sudden collapse, which 
 hardly seems likely. Well, we must go in, when we go in, 
 "with both feet." 
 
 At Colefax's at dinner last night, Colefax and Sir George 
 Ask with el al. speculated on whether Lloyd George will 
 last as Premier till the war ends. The underhand in- 
 trigue that almost every group and party indulge in — 
 Good Lord! deliver us! The Dardanelles Report was 
 published (as the Asquith old Cabinet think) in order to 
 discredit them. It has discredited them, whether that 
 were the purpose or not. 
 
 20th March, 1917. 
 
 The Russian Revolution holds the attention, engages 
 the speculation, and fills the newspapers. 
 
 As for American things — the tliree American ships, 
 news of whose sinking came on Saturday, seem really to 
 have stirred the people to a mood that may possibly 
 cause them to run over the President. Everybody is 
 now fearful lest, if we "get into the war," we'll get in with 
 only one foot — will go submarine chasing, and when the 
 British Navy has driven the submarines home, we'll quit 
 war — a la Vera Cruz, and the expedition to catch Villa. 
 That, however, can hardly be if Germany declares war 
 on us — which she may not do, because of this very hope. 
 
 We haven't broken with Austria yet. — Peace? — 
 
 But our ships (American merchantmen) are coming with 
 guns and gunners. 
 
330 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 The Washington business of the Chancery has fallen 
 off much. The State Department is engaged with other 
 things. 
 
 The preceding paragraphs contain several references 
 to the telegram sent by Herr Zimmermann, German 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the German Minister in 
 the City of Mexico. The complete story of this famous 
 document will be told in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 
 
 ONE day, in the latter part of February, 1917, Page 
 was requested to call upon Mr. Ha I four at the 
 Foreign Office. Mr. Balfour quietly handed the Ambassa- 
 dor a sheet of paper — a document that, in its influence 
 upon American policy, proved to be the most sensational 
 that the European War had so far brought forth. This 
 paper contained the message that will be immortal as 
 the Zimmermann telegram. It disclosed the preparations 
 Germany was making for war with the United States. It 
 was a message from the German Foreign Office in Berlin 
 to Von Eckhardt, the German Minister in the City of 
 Mexico. As Germany had no satisfactory method of com- 
 municating with Mexico, this telegram had been sent 
 to Count Bernstorff in Washington, with instructions to 
 forward it by cable to the German Minister in the Mexi- 
 can Republic. This latter diplomat was directed to enter 
 at once into negotiations with Venustiano Carranza, 
 President of Mexico, and to make an alliance with Mexico 
 for a joint German and Mexican invasion of the United 
 States. In case this invasion succeeded, Mexico was to 
 obtain Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona — territory which 
 she had lost to the United States as a result of the war 
 of 1816, and which was now to be treated as a kind of 
 Mexican Alsace-Lorraine and be "redeemed." The Ger- 
 man plan also contemplated an attempt to detach Japan 
 from her European Allies and persuade her to join the 
 German-Mexican Alliance. President Carranza, who, as 
 
 331 
 
332 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 subsequent events disclosed, looked not unfavourably 
 upon this ambitious proposal, was the same Carranza 
 whom President Wilson had supported for the Mexican 
 Presidency among a multitude of revolutionary candidates. 
 Carranza was President of Mexico, indeed, as the result 
 of a succession of events that amounted almost to Ameri- 
 can intervention. 
 
 Page at once transmitted this information to the State 
 Department: 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, 
 Dated Feb. 24, 1917. 
 
 Rec'd 9 a. m.' 
 Secretary of State 
 Washington. 
 
 5746, February 24, 2 a. m. 
 
 In about three hours I shall send a telegram of great 
 importance to the President and Secretary of State. 
 
 Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, 
 Dated February 24, 1917. 
 Rec'd 8:30 p.m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 
 5747. February 24 1 p. m. 
 My 5746, February 24 8 p. m. 
 
 Confidental for the President and the Secretary of State. 
 
 Balfour has handed me the text of a cipher telegram 
 from Zimmermann, German Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, to the German Minister to Mexico, which was sent 
 via Washington and relayed by Bernstorff on January 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 333 
 
 19th. You can probably obtain a copy of the text re- 
 layed by liernstorff from the (-able office in Washington. 
 The first group is the number of the telegram, one hun- 
 dred and thirty, and the second is thirteen thousand and 
 forty-two, indicating the number of the code used. The 
 last group but two is ninety-se\ en thousand live hundred 
 and fifty-six, which is Zimmermann'a signature. I shall 
 send you by mail a copy of the cipher text and of the de- 
 code into German, and meanwhile I give you the English 
 translation as follows: 
 
 "We intend to begin on the first of February unre- 
 stricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour in spile 
 of this to keep the United States of America neutral. 
 In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a 
 proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war to- 
 gether, make peace together, generous financial support 
 and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to recon- 
 quer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 
 The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform 
 the President [that is, President Carranza of Mexico] of 
 the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war 
 with the United States of America is certain and add the 
 suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite 
 Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time medi- 
 ate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the Presi- 
 dent's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment 
 of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling 
 England in a few months to make peace. 
 
 (Signed) Zimmermann." 
 
 The receipt of this information has so greatly exercised 
 the British Government that they have lost no time in 
 communicating it to me to transmit to you, in order 
 that our government may be able without delay to make 
 
334 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 such disposition as may be necessary in view of the threat- 
 ened invasion of our territory. 
 
 The following paragraph is strictly confidential: 
 
 Early in the war, the British Government obtained 
 possession of a copy of the German cipher code used in 
 the above message and have made it their business to 
 obtain copies of Bernstorff's cipher telegrams to Mexico, 
 amongst others, which are sent back to London and 
 deciphered here. This accounts for their being able to 
 decipher this telegram from the German Government to 
 their representative in Mexico, and also for the delay 
 from January 19th until now in their receiving the in- 
 formation. This system has hitherto been a jealously 
 guarded secret and is only divulged now to you by the 
 British Government in view of the extraordinary circum- 
 stances and their friendly feeling toward the United 
 States. They earnestly request that you will keep the 
 source of your information and the British Government's 
 method of obtaining it profoundly secret, but they put no 
 prohibition on the publication of Zimmermann's telegram 
 itself. 
 
 The copies of this and other telegrams were not ob- 
 tained in Washington but were bought in Mexico. 
 
 I have thanked Balfour for the service his government 
 has rendered us and suggest that a private official message 
 of thanks from our government to him would be bene- 
 ficial. 
 
 I am informed that this information has not yet been 
 given to the Japanese Government, but I think it not 
 unlikely that when it reaches them they may make a 
 public statement on it in order to clear up their position 
 regarding the United States and prove their good faith 
 to their Allies. 
 
 Page. 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 335 
 
 The manner in which the British had acquired this 
 message is disclosed in Page's telegram. It was "bought 
 in Mexico." That is, the British secret service had ob- 
 tained it evidently from some approachable person in 
 the Mexican capital — a practice which, it appears from 
 Page's communication, had been going on for some time. 
 An interesting additional fact is that this is not the only 
 way in which the British obtained this priceless treasure. 
 The German Government was so determined to make 
 this Mexican alliance that it did not depend upon a single 
 route for transmitting the Zimmermann message to Von 
 Eckhardt. It dispatched it in several other ways. For 
 one it used the wireless route from Nauen, Germany, to 
 Sayville, Long Island. In the early days of the war, 
 the American Government prohibited the use of this Say- 
 ville line except under American supervision; how little 
 this prohibition interfered with the Germans is shown 
 by the use they made of the Long Island station for this, 
 the most fateful message sent to America during the war. 
 As Page discloses to the President, the British had for 
 a considerable period been reading the most secret German 
 documents. Information entrusted to the air was easily 
 obtained by the British and as easily deciphered. One 
 of the most curious discoveries, and one that casts an 
 illuminating light upon German simplicity, is the con- 
 fident belief of the German Government that its secret 
 service was in fact secret. Not once did the suspicion 
 apparently rise that its proceedings were almost as well 
 known to the British as though they had been published in 
 the newspapers. The ciphers and codes of other nations 
 might be read, but not the German; its secret methods of 
 communication, like anything else German, were regarded 
 as perfection. Not until the war was concluded did the 
 Germans learn the truth: that the British for nearly four 
 
336 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 years had had continual access to their most confidential 
 information. This German confidence in their Intelli- 
 gence methods cost them dear. Relying upon the secrecy 
 of their codes, they developed an amazing telegraphic 
 loquacity in the course of the war. They were constantly 
 filling the atmosphere with the most intimate news of their 
 Navy, Army, and their Diplomatic Service, and all this in- 
 formation the British were quietly taking out of the ether 
 and quickly deciphering. The result was that the British 
 Government had as accurate information about every- 
 thing German as the Germans themselves. The move- 
 ment of every German submarine was about as well 
 known to the British as it was to the German Admiralty ; 
 every time one left a German port the British had an 
 accurate record of that fact ; they followed its voyage day 
 by day, and even plotted it on the map. Similarly, as 
 soon as any message involving any department of the 
 German Government was entrusted to wireless, the 
 British promptly seized it and reduced it to understand- 
 able English. 
 
 On the 16th of January, 1917, the ever-watchful ears 
 of the British wireless operators detected the characteris- 
 tic spluttering which informed them that another German 
 message was speeding through the air. When decoded, 
 the British found that they possessed this somewhat dis- 
 jointed but still extremely valuable document: 
 
 Zimmermann to Bernstorff for Eckhardt 
 
 W. 158, 
 
 16th January, 1917. 
 Most secret for Your Excellency's personal information 
 and to be handed on to the Imperial Minister in ? Mexico 
 with . . . by a safe route. 
 Tel. No. 1 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 337 
 
 We propose to begin on the 1st February unrestricted 
 submarine warfare. In doing so, however, we shall en- 
 deavour to keep America neutral . . . ? If we should 
 not [succeed in doing so] we propose to [? Mexico] an 
 alliance upon the following basis: 
 
 (joint) conduct of the war 
 
 (joint) conclusion of peace. 
 Your Excellency should for the presenl Inform the 
 President secretly [that \\c expect] war with the I . S. \. 
 [possibly] [. . . Japan] and at the same time to negoti- 
 ate between us and Japan . . . [Indecipherable sentence 
 meaning please tell the President] that . . . our sub- 
 marines . . . will compel England to peace in a lew 
 months. Acknowledge receipt. 
 
 ZniMI.KM \\\. 
 
 This somewhat confused message gives an idea of I he 
 difficulty of picking up wireless symbols sent across the 
 Atlantic — at that time — in midwinter. P>ut there is a 
 conspicuous discrepancy between this telegram and the 
 more complete and finished one sent to BernstorfT by way 
 of the Washington cable office and by him relaxed to the 
 City of Mexico. The plan for dismembering the United 
 States and making President Carranza a free gift of Texas, 
 New Mexico, and Arizona does not appear in it. Whether 
 this omission was the result of defective wireless work or 
 has another explanation is not yet clear. 
 
 Evidently Herr Zhnmermann si ill feared thai his in- 
 structions to Eckhardt would not reach their destination, 
 for this very painstaking Foreign Secretary sent I hem 
 by a third route. In the British Admiralty this Nauen- 
 Sayville thoroughfare was known as the '"main line": 
 it was the most direct and consequently the one mosl 
 used for sending German dispatches t<> the I oited States. 
 
338 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 But the Foreign Office had another way of communicating 
 with its Ambassador in Washington. The extent to 
 which Swedish diplomatic agents were transmitting 
 German messages constituted one of the gravest scandals 
 of the war. That the Swedish Foreign Office was so 
 used is now no secret; in fact, the American Government 
 itself disclosed the part Sweden was playing, when, in 
 the summer of 1917, it published the notorious "sink 
 without a trace' ' messages of the German Minister at 
 Buenos Aires. The fact seems to be that the Swedish 
 Court was openly pro-German; that popular opinion in 
 Sweden similarly inclined to the German side; and, by 
 January, 1917, the Swedish Foreign Office had become 
 almost an integral part of the German organization. In 
 many capitals German messages were frequently put in 
 Swedish cipher and sent to Swedish Ministers in other 
 countries and by them delivered to their German col- 
 leagues. Herr Zimmermann, in his desire to make certain 
 that his Mexican telegram should reach Washington, 
 again fell back upon the assistance of his Swedish con- 
 freres. He handed his message to the Swedish Minister 
 to Berlin; this functionary sent it to Stockholm, Sweden; 
 from this point it was cabled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, 
 and from that city cabled in turn to Washington. The 
 journey was a roundabout one, covering about ten thou- 
 sand miles. Yet nothing that was sent through the air 
 or under the sea seemed to escape the watchful attention 
 of the British Naval Intelligence, and this Swedish mes- 
 sage was captured almost at the same moment as that one 
 which was going by the "main line." 
 
 The German Government forwarded this dispatch to 
 Washington in still another way. Indeed, the most re- 
 markable incident in this remarkable transaction remains 
 to be told. Evidently the German Foreign Office feared 
 
THE ZTMMERMANN TELEGRAM 339 
 
 that transmission by wireless and cable transmission to 
 Buenos Aires — by grace of the Swedish Government — 
 might fail them. The prohibition the American Govern- 
 ment had placed upon the use of wireless from Nauen 
 to Sayville, Long Island, might naturally cause appre- 
 hension as to the delivery of messages sent by this route 
 The cable line from Stockholm to Buenos Aires and 
 thence to Washington and Mexico was a round-about 
 one and a message transmitted that way might con- 
 ceivably fail to reach its destination. The dispatch of 
 this telegram, however, was at that moment the most 
 important business before the German Foreign Oflice, and 
 its safe arrival in the City of Mexico must be assured at 
 any cost. There was one method that was absolutely 
 certain, though the fact that this should have occurred to 
 Zimmermann must be regarded as one of the most auda- 
 cious and even reckless strokes of the war. Humour of any 
 kind the Germans seldom displayed at crises of this sort, 
 yet the mechanism adopted to make certain that this plot 
 against the American people would safely land on Bern- 
 storfTs desk evinces an unmistakable gift — even though 
 an unconscious one — for the sardonic. The transaction 
 reflects so seriously upon the methods of the State De- 
 partment that it would probably never have seen the light 
 had the Germans not made it public themselves. In 
 1919-20 the German Constituent Assembly held an elab- 
 orate investigation into the responsibility for the war. 
 In this the Zimmermann telegram played its part. Among 
 its published documents is a note which reveals one route 
 by which this document found its way across the Atlantic. 1 
 It says: "Instructions to Minister v. Eckhardt were to be 
 
 ^ee Vol. II. p. 1337, "Official German Documents Relating to the World \\ ar. 
 Translated under the supervision of the Carnegie Endowment for International 
 Peace, Division of International Law." 
 
340 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 taken by letter by way of Washington by U-Boat on the 
 15th of January; since the U-Boat Deutschland did not 
 start on her outward trip, these instructions were attached 
 on January 16 to telegram No. 157, and through the offices 
 of the American Embassy in Berlin telegraphed to Count 
 BernstorfT by way of the State Department in Washing- 
 ton." 
 
 What this means is that the German Foreign Office used 
 the American Government as an errand boy for the trans- 
 mission of a document that contained a plot against its 
 own territorial integrity. The coolness with which Bern- 
 storfT sent his financial accounts to the German Foreign 
 Office in the American diplomatic pouch — documents that 
 contained the details of his propaganda work at Washing- 
 ton — has already been set forth. 1 The use of the Ameri- 
 can State Department in transmitting the Zimmermann 
 telegram is another instance of a similar kind. The Ger- 
 man Government, many times in the course of the war, 
 used the good offices of the American State Department 
 for transmitting messages to Ambassador BernstorfT. 
 Germany had no cable communication with the United 
 States, the wireless was unreliable and not always avail- 
 able, occasionally therefore the Germans would request 
 Washington to serve in this capacity. As all such mes- 
 sages touched England before starting across the Atlantic, 
 the consent of the British Government was necessary be- 
 fore the favour could be performed. That the British 
 graciously permitted the Germans to use their cable 
 facilities may possibly have seemed, at the time, an act 
 savouring of the magnanimous; the fact, however, that 
 the British possessed the German cipher and read all 
 these messages as they sped through England creates the 
 suspicion that they may have regarded this as a way of 
 
 'See ante, page 274. 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 3 1 I 
 
 obtaining valuable information. From the American 
 standpoint, however, the proceeding was without prece- 
 dent. Ambassador Gerard, of course, is not subjecl to 
 criticism, as he merely carried out the c\[>li< it orders of 
 his Government. But it is a well-established principle 
 that no government, especially in war time, ever transmits 
 the dispatches or official documents of another without 
 knowing what they are. No government e\ er makes such 
 a request without submitting the contents of such official 
 papers. Had the usual procedure been adopted, Germany 
 would have handed its messages to the American Embassy 
 in Berlin, which would have enciphered them into the 
 American code and transmitted them to Washington. Un- 
 less Germany were willing to do this, the administration 
 of course should have declined to act as the intermedials . 
 
 i 
 
 The very fact that the Germans were unwilling to submit 
 to this usual method in itself was a sufficient proof that 
 the proffered document was one our Government could 
 not send. That the Germans went to the extreme of using 
 the State Department as a medium for sending such in- 
 formation to Bernstorff certainly discloses a contempt not 
 flattering to American vanity; yet that Zimmermann 
 should have used a route one of whose stopping places was 
 English soil shows that he himself was almost as simple 
 as he believed Washington to be. 
 
 At this time President Wilson was practically his own 
 Secretary of State, and these German messages were sent 
 on his explicit orders. There are reasons to believe that 
 the State Department itself disapproved the whole trans- 
 action. The procedure in the Zimmermann matter is 
 especially illuminating. According to the German official 
 statement, already quoted, this telegram was attached to 
 another, No. 157, for the transmission of which the 
 German Government had obtained the Presidential con- 
 
342 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 sent. The only information vouchsafed about this latter 
 message was that it pertained to the "peace efforts" on 
 which Mr. Wilson was then engaged. It did indeed refer 
 to those peace endeavours, but in a most indirect fashion. 
 In it the German Foreign Office informed Bernstorff that 
 the German Government "promises the early termination 
 of the war and the restoration of that peace which the 
 President has so much at heart" — and that it proposed to 
 bring about this result by the institution of unrestricted 
 submarine warfare. Message "No. 157," in other words, 
 was Germany's official notification to its Ambassador in 
 Washington that it had decided to take the fateful step 
 which brought the United States into the war. This 
 message was sent January 16th, and in it Bernstorff was 
 instructed not to notify Washington until the first of 
 February. The Zimmermann telegram was attached; 
 the whole document was put into the German cipher and 
 handed to Mr. Gerard. Mr. Gerard telegraphed it to 
 Copenhagen, thence it went to London, thence to the 
 State Department at Washington and there was delivered 
 by the State Department to Bernstorff. In London, of 
 course, the Intelligence Service seized it and rendered it 
 into comprehensible English. 
 
 Almost as soon as this communication was sent, 
 therefore, the British Government acquired possession 
 of it in four ways. It was "bought" in Mexico. It 
 was picked up in the wireless route from Nauen to Say- 
 ville. It was intercepted on its way from Stockholm, 
 Sweden, to Buenos Aires. It was sent by the American 
 State Department — and also intercepted. Important as 
 was the information that it contained of a Germanic 
 attempt to secure a Mexican- Japanese affiance against the 
 United States, the telegram and accompanying messages 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 313 
 
 concealed another piece of information which was almost 
 as startling. The first sentence declared that " we propose 
 to begin unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1st." 
 The date of this message is January 16th — practically two 
 weeks before Count Bernstorff made this announcement to 
 the American authorities. 
 
 Both President Wilson and the State Department 
 wished to give this Zimmermann telegram to the press. 
 The President had sent Bernstorff home; relations with 
 Germany had been severed; there seemed every likelihood 
 that this act would result in war; this telegram, disclos- 
 ing Germany's plot for the invasion by Mexicans of the 
 United States and the dismemberment of American terri- 
 tory, would enormously strengthen the President's hand. 
 Moreover, the President saw that this evidence of Teu- 
 tonic intrigue would exert an important influence in a 
 section of the country which, in his opinion, was not en- 
 thusiastic for war. The Middle Western and the South- 
 western States would now discover that German aggression 
 might concern them more intimately than they had pre- 
 viously suspected. They would find that the Kaiser, in 
 the event of success, was planning to deliver large sections 
 of their own region to Mexico. 
 
 Evidently the State Department wasted no time in 
 locating the telegram in the Washington cable office. 
 There it was discovered, just as Page had informed the 
 President that it would be. The Administration itself, 
 of course, had no suspicion that it was not authentic, 
 but it foresaw that this question would arise. It wished 
 to be able to assure the American public that it possessed 
 the message and had deciphered it. Page was therefore 
 asked if the British could not send the German code to 
 Washington for this purpose: 
 
344 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 To the Secretary of State 
 
 London, 
 Dated March 1, 1917, 
 Rec'd March 2, 12:30 a.m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 March 1, 11 p. m. 
 Your 4493, February 28, 8 p. m. 
 Confidential. . . . The question of our having a 
 copy of the code has been taken up, but there appear to be 
 serious difficulties. I am told actual code would be of 
 no use to us as it was never used straight, but with a 
 great number of variations which are known to only one 
 or two experts here. They cannot be spared to go to 
 America. If you will send me copies of B's 1 cipher tele- 
 grams the British authorities will gladly decipher them as 
 quickly as possible, giving me copies as fast as deciphered. 
 I could telegraph texts or summaries in matters of im- 
 portance and send the others by pouch. Neither Spring 
 Rice nor Gaunt 2 knows anything about this matter. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The matter was easily arranged, for Mr. Edward Bell, 
 Secretary of Embassy in charge of Intelligence, was ex- 
 tremely close to the British Intelligence Service. The Zim- 
 mermann telegram, as uncovered in the Washington cable 
 office, was sent to Mr. Bell. The British lent him their 
 precious German code, and Mr. Bell in a few hours de- 
 ciphered it. Thus Mr. Wilson could assure the American 
 people, when the time came, of its absolute authenticity. 
 The President insisted also that he should have it in the 
 
 Obviously meaning Bernstorff. 
 2 British Naval Attache at Washington. 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 315 
 
 original German. The results of Mr. Bell's work are em- 
 bodied in the following message. 
 
 To the Secretary oj State 
 
 London, 
 
 Dated March 2, 1917, 
 
 Rec'd 10:15 p. m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 5789. March 2, 4 p. m. 
 My 5784 of to-day. Bell took the cipher text of the 
 German messages contained in your 1191 of yesterday 
 to the Admiralty and there, himself, deciphered it from 
 the German code which is in the Admiralty's possession. 
 The first group, 130, indicates BernstorfTs number of 
 telegram number . . . The second group, 130 12. in- 
 dicates the code to be used in deciphering the cipher 
 telegram. From the third group onwards, message reads 
 as follows: 
 
 "Auswaertiges Amt telegraphiert Januar 16: No. 1 
 Ganz geheim selbst zu entziffern. Wir beabsichtigen 
 am ersten Februar uneingeschraenkt U-Boot Krieg zu 
 beginnen. Es wird versucht werden Vereinigte Staatm 
 von Amerika trotzdem neutral zu erhalten. Fuer den 
 Fall dass dies nicht gelingen sollte schlagen wir Mexico auf 
 folgender GrundlageBuendnis vor ; Gemeinsam Krieg fueh- 
 ren. Friedenschluss. Reichlich finanzielle Unterstuetzung 
 und Einverstaendnis unsererseits dass IMexico in Texas, 
 New Mexico, Arizona frueher verlorenes Gebiet zurueck 
 erobert. Regelung im einzelnen Euer Hochwohlgeboren 
 ueberlassen. Sie wollen vorstehendes dem Praesidenten 
 streng geheim eroeffnen, sobald Eriegsausbrucfa mit 
 Vereinigten Staaten feststeht und Anregung hinzufucgen 
 
346 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Japan von sich aus zu sofortiger Betrachtung einzuladen 
 und gleichzeitig zwischen uns und Japan zu vermitteln. 
 Bitte den Praesidenten darauf hinweisen, dass ruecksich- 
 slose Anwendung unserer U-Boote jetzt Aussicht bietet, 
 England in wenigen Monaten zum Frieden zu zwingen. 
 Empfang bestaetigen. Zimmermann. Schluss der De- 
 pesche." 
 
 Punctuations are given as in German text. I am send- 
 ing decode into German, group by group, by to-morrow's 
 pouch. 
 
 Page. 
 
 President Wilson acted wisely in not publishing this 
 document until he had thus prepared himself to sustain 
 its genuineness. The message was the product of an 
 ignorant and stupid man; its context almost carried 
 its own refutation. That any sane human being, still 
 less the head of a great Foreign Department, could be 
 guilty of dispatching such an incriminating document into 
 the open ether was certain to prove a serious strain 
 upon credulity. Even the well-disposed American would 
 probably laugh the message away as a clumsy hoax, and 
 that the enemies of Great Britain would denounce it as a 
 British trick to embroil the United States with the Father- 
 land could be taken for granted. Page insisted that the 
 evidence of its genuineness should be furnished the Presi- 
 dent so that, when these inevitable attacks were made, he 
 would be able to assure the American people personally 
 that this plot, ridiculous as it seemed, represented a serious 
 endeavour of German statecraft. It was arranged first of 
 all that Mr. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, should hand 
 this message to the American Ambassador, and this is the 
 reason that Page went to the Foreign Office and received 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 347 
 
 it with all solemnity. The meaning of the ceremony was 
 that the British Government had given its pledge that the 
 communication was authentic. The first response from 
 official Washington seemed to indicate a feeling of pro- 
 found relief. The President's reply, acknowledging the 
 document and expressing his thanks, was, as one of the 
 secretaries expressed it, almost a "sigh" — not one of de- 
 spair, however, but of satisfaction. 
 
 As had been anticipated the publication inspired nu- 
 merous accusations that the proposed alliance was all a 
 British hoax. Precisely those elements which were ex- 
 pected to attack it now proceeded to function according 
 to form and the German- American press pilloried it as an 
 easily detected fraud. Senator Lodge quieted this hubbub 
 by offering a resolution, which was passed, asking the 
 President if the message were a veracious one. The ques- 
 tion was proper, since the publication, on March 1st, had 
 not been made on the authority of the State Department; 
 it had strangely appeared as a dispatch of the Associated 
 Press, sent broadcast apparently upon its own responsi- 
 bility. The President immediately issued a statement 
 through the Secretary of State, which ended the discussion. 
 "I have the honour to state," said Mr. Lansing in reply 
 to the Senate's query, "that the Government is in pos- 
 session of evidence which establishes the fact that the 
 note referred to is authentic and that the evidence was 
 procured by this Government during the present week." 
 The next day Herr Zimmermann, the German Foreign 
 Secretary, confounded his German-American apologists 
 by admitting that the communication was official. The 
 alacrity of Germany in making this admission has caused 
 much astonishment. Had Zimmermann been dealing 
 merely with a British wireless message he probably would 
 have taken the risk of a denial; but Mr. Lansing's state- 
 
348 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 merit had disclosed that denials would be useless. Zim- 
 mermann knew that a Germanic disavowal would be 
 followed by the production of the Bernstorff telegram 
 discovered in a Washington telegraph office; instead of 
 denying, therefore, the German Foreign Office undertook 
 to explain. 
 
 President Wilson wished to quiet the detractors by 
 publishing the German text, but the British had good 
 reasons for not wishing this done. 
 
 To the Secretary of State 
 
 London, 
 Dated March 10, 1917, 
 Rec'd 5 :30 p. m. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 5822, March 10, noon. 
 4516, March 8, 4 p. m. * 
 The authorities directly concerned would prefer that 
 the German text should not be published, as its publica- 
 tion in entirety would indicate that our Government or 
 some other parties are able to decipher the German code 
 used in its transmission from Washington to Mexico and 
 the Germans would then cease using it elsewhere. This 
 is information which, judging by Zimmermann's reported 
 statements, they do not now possess and a confirmation 
 of what they may suspect would be of great value to 
 them. At present the Germans cannot know exactly 
 where or how the leak occurred ; for all they know a copy 
 of the message may have been lost or removed from the 
 German Embassy in Washington, or the leak might have 
 occurred between Berlin and Washington. 
 
 Were serious doubts being cast in America on the 
 genuineness of the instructions to the German Minister 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 349 
 
 in Mexico the authorities here might reconsider their 
 position, but as Zimmerraann has admitted their genuine- 
 ness in the Reichstag this can scarcely be the case. 
 
 Pack. 
 
 Had Zimmermann made this denial, he would probably 
 have been embarrassed by a sheaf of other telegrams deal- 
 ing with his frustrated statesmanship. After BernstorfFs 
 dismissal by the United States, the Wilhelmstrasse became 
 active once more. The Mexican Alliance appeared more 
 desirable, as the probability of war with America in- 
 creased. 
 
 Zimmermann to Eckhardt 1 
 
 To Mexico 
 
 No. ] 1 
 
 8th Feb., 1917. 
 In continuation of No. l. a 
 
 Most secret. Decipher personally. Provided there 
 is no danger of secret being betrayed to U. S. A. you are 
 desired without further delay to broach the question 
 of an alliance to the President. The definite conclusion 
 of an alliance, however, is dependent on outbreak of war 
 between Germany and U. S. A. The President [President 
 Carranza of Mexico] might even now, on his own account, 
 sound Japan. 
 
 If the President declines from fear of subsequent re- 
 venge, you are empowered to offer him a definitive alliance 
 after conclusion of peace, provided Mexico succeeds in 
 drawing Japan into the Alliance. 
 
 Zimmermann. 
 
 1 German Minister in Mexico. 
 
 The original message of January 16th, published above. 
 
350 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 The concluding paragraph is extremely illuminating; 
 the alliance was to be no temporary expedient, lasting 
 only for the "duration of the war"; it represented the 
 permanent German policy; for an indefinite period the 
 United States was to be faced with Germany, Mexico, and 
 Japan on her Southern border. The dispatch was intended 
 to convey to Carranza the news that the Monroe Doctrine 
 had ceased to exist. 
 
 The reply to this communication was slow in coming, 
 but it was suggestive: 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico No. 7, 
 
 To: Berlin 26th February, 1917. 
 
 Most Secret 
 
 Beginning negotiations [? Carranza] 
 
 Could WE provide munitions? 
 
 Request reply. 
 
 [Several doubtful groups followed by] offered me a 
 propaganda service here. 
 
 Eckhardt. 
 
 On March 1st Washington published the original 
 Zimmermann telegram, but the great sensation which this 
 caused apparently did not interfere with the negotiations. 
 On the very next day, when the world was ringing with 
 denunciations of German duplicity, Von Eckhardt re- 
 ported the result of his activities up to that time. His 
 message reveals the fact, which was generally suspected, 
 that the Mexican Government was not at all disinclined 
 to the proposed alliance. At least, as Eckhardt says, it 
 "willingly took the matter into consideration" and at 
 once sought the Japanese Minister in Mexico, discussing 
 it with him for "an hour and a half." 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 351 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico No. 9, 
 
 To: Berlin March 2, 1917. 
 
 Reply to Telegram 15, par. 2. 
 
 A visit to the President 1 at Queretaro was inopportune, 
 so I took the opportunity of a short visit here of the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs on the 20th February of 
 sounding him. He willingly took the matter into considera- 
 tion, and thereupon had a conversation, which lasted an 
 hour and a half, with Japanese Minister, the tenor of which 
 is unknown to me. He subsequently went away to see the 
 President where he was staying at the time. 
 
 Yesterday after the publication by the Universal 2 1 
 telegraphed to him in clear to give him a line, that the 
 affair was unknown to me. 
 
 Von Eckhardt. 
 
 There was, of course, nothing improper in the fact that 
 the Japanese Minister in Mexico should discuss the pro- 
 posal with the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs and 
 President Carranza. It was, indeed, an act of friendship to 
 the United States. His purpose in talking the thing over 
 was merely to obtain information of the plot. As soon 
 as the message was published, indeed, the Japanese Gov- 
 ernment repudiated the schemes Germany was concoct- 
 ing without its knowledge. In his first dispatch to Wash- 
 ington Page said that the Japanese Government would 
 probably make a statement, and this statement was not 
 long delayed. "The Government is confident," said the 
 Japanese Foreign Office, "that the peoples and govern- 
 
 'Venustiano Carranza. 
 
 2 This refers, of course, to Washington's publication of the first Zimmermann 
 telegram. 
 
352 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 merits of the Entente will continue to have confidence in 
 Japan's loyalty and its determination to extend all possible 
 aid and share the difficulties and hardships until the 
 struggle against Germany and cruelties ends." 
 
 Baron Shidehara, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs 
 in Japan, said in a statement to the Associated Press, 
 "We are greatly surprised to hear of the German 
 proposal. We cannot imagine what Germany is thinking 
 about to conceive that she could possibly involve us in war 
 with the United States merely by asking Mexico. This 
 is too ridiculous for words. Needless to say, Japan re- 
 mains faithful to the Allies." 
 
 A message of March 7th reveals the anxiety that was 
 growing in Berlin: 
 
 Zimmermann to Eckhardt 
 
 From: Berlin No. 16, 
 
 To: Mexico 7th March, 1917. 
 
 Please burn compromising instructions. Entirely ap- 
 prove your attitude. We have openly acknowledged cable 
 Dispatch No. I. 1 In connection with this, emphasize that 
 instructions were only to be carried out after Declaration 
 of War by America. 
 
 Cable Dispatch No. II 2 is of course being kept strictly 
 
 secret here also. 
 
 (Signed) Zimmermann. 
 
 Evidently the negotiations with Carranza had not 
 ceased, however, for the question of supplying the Mex- 
 ican army was a pressing one: 
 
 iThc original Zimmermann telegram of January 16, 1917. 
 2To Mexico. No. 11 of 8th February: "You are desired without further 
 delay to broach the question of an alliance." 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 353 
 
 Zimmermann to Eckhardt 
 
 From: Berlin No. 17, 
 
 To: Mexico 17tli March, 1917. 
 
 Reply to Telegram 7. 1 
 
 Find out what kind of munitions and arms arc wanted 
 and to what Mexican port on Kasl or West ('oast a (Ger- 
 man ship [under] foreign flag could proceed. 
 
 Mexico must procure arms so far as possible from Japan 
 and South America. 
 
 But the German Foreign Office was not resting all 
 its hopes upon Carranza. It could use his bitterest ene- 
 mies in Mexican politics for its own purposes. 
 
 Mexico-German Military Attache to Berlin 
 
 March 24th, 1917. 
 
 Vice-Consul at Mazatlan reports that Villa, aided by 
 Germans, is expecting to receive three cargoes of munitions 
 by sailing vessels to be landed between Mazatlan and 
 Manzanillo. Cantu 2 is believed to be conniving. 
 
 Vice-Consul states this information is trustworthy. 
 
 Addressed to Washington. 
 
 On April 6th the American Congress declared the ex- 
 istence of a state of war with Germany. The German 
 correspondence with Mexico clearly proves that the ar- 
 rangement for an alliance was making rapid progress. A 
 message of April 13th is sufficient: 
 
 'From Mexico of 26th February: "Could WE provide anus and ammunition?" 
 2 Another Mexican revolutionary leader. His iield of operations was F/>wer 
 California. 
 
354 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Zimmermann to Eckhardt 
 
 From: Berlin No. 29, 
 
 To: Mexico 13.4.17. 
 
 Request answer to No. 10 with a statement as to what 
 sums would be required for the support of our policy. 
 
 Preparations are being made here to send over con- 
 siderable sums (resources — possible inclusion of arms, etc.). 
 
 But Carranza was much vexed over the publication of 
 the Zimmermann telegram. He was strongly in favour of 
 the proposed German alliance; for the present, however, he 
 thought that this publication had made it a difficult 
 matter, but he announced his willingness to resume nego- 
 tiations at a more propitious moment. 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico No. 18, 
 
 To: Berlin 14th April, 1917. 
 
 Please omit the recognition group of the cipher. 
 
 President declared that he intends in all circumstances 
 to remain neutral. If Mexico were nevertheless drawn 
 into the war, we must see [the same intentionally vague 
 phrase in the German]. The alliance, he said, had been 
 stultified by its "premature publication" but would be- 
 come necessary at a later period. As regards munitions — 
 Mauser 7 mm — and money, he will answer when, after 
 obtaining full powers from Congress, he has the sole 
 power of decision in his hands. 
 
 Congress is dominated by the pro-German military 
 party. 
 
 Meanwhile there were certain activities in which 
 Germany could indulge without the "alliance." 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 355 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico 13.4.17, 
 
 To: Berlin No. 17 of 12th April 
 
 (26010, key 612). 
 For Captain Magea of Nadolny. 
 
 For Grand General Staff. 
 
 Mexico, 12th April. Where is Leutenant Wohst 
 stationed? Has he sent about 25,000 dollars to Paul 
 Hilken? He or somebody else is to send me money 
 F. . . .55793 Quartalsen Hermann. 
 
 With reference to the previous paragraph. Hermann 
 (a smart fair-haired German with an Anglo-Saxon accent) 
 professes to have received from General Staff a year ago, 
 and renewed in January by Hilken, a commission to set 
 lire to the Tampico oilfield, and proposes now to carry 
 it out. He asks me whether he is to do it. Would it 
 not be well for me to answer that I am not in communica- 
 tion with Berlin? Verdy believes him and his companion 
 B.... (51158) Gerds to be English or American spies. 
 Request immediate answer — most immediate! 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico 3Ho. 19, 
 
 To: Berlin 16th April. 
 
 I was present yesterday at the opening of the Congress. 
 
 President declares his strict neutrality. I was greeted 
 both going and coming with a storm of cheers. VIVA 
 ALEMANIA, VIVA EL. . . . 
 
 On entering the chamber the whole house signified 
 its approval. The American Ambassador received three 
 faint hisses. 
 
 All that was lacking to make this great international 
 episode fulfil all the requirements of drama was the 
 
356 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 element of comedy; and this the Germans, all uncon- 
 sciously, now proceeded to supply. Astonished as were 
 Americans and Englishmen when this Zimmermann tele- 
 gram was made public on March 1st, the Imperial Govern- 
 ment was more astonished still. The curiosity that was 
 manifested in England and the United States as to the 
 manner in which the leak had taken place was even more 
 acutely felt in the Wilhelmstrasse. In all countries 
 plenty of explanations were forthcoming. All of these 
 paid Americans the compliment of assuming that they 
 were responsible for the discovery — a misapprehension 
 which both governments intended to disseminate. Espe- 
 cially amusing phases of the sensation were the attacks 
 made in the British press upon their own inefficient 
 Government; how inferior the British secret service was to 
 the American! Every newspaper reporter on this side 
 of the water explained the mystery in a way of his own. 
 The one which seemed to be the most plausible was that 
 the telegram had been found among Count BernstorfTs 
 effects when his baggage was overhauled at Halifax. A 
 circumstantial story was printed describing how American 
 soldiers had captured BernstorfTs messenger on the Mexi- 
 can border and found the incriminating evidence on his 
 person. 
 
 The interest of the German Foreign Office in this great 
 mystery took the form of many telegraphic messages 
 which now passed back and forth across the Atlantic — all 
 of which, like the original telegram itself, the British 
 intercepted, deciphered, and placed permanently upon 
 the record. These were passed around at the time among 
 a select few in the American Embassy and the British 
 Foreign Office and were the occasion of much hilarity. 
 Page, with his alert sense of fun and with his well-known 
 love of everything German, found these telegraphic mani- 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 357 
 
 festations of Teutonic woe an endless delight. Probably 
 the most agitated man at that time in the German diplo- 
 matic service was Von Eckhardt, the German Minister in 
 Mexico, who promptly saw in the newspaper accounts 
 of March 1st the end of his diplomatic career, and who, 
 with a lamentable lack of sportsmanship, proceeded to 
 fix the blame upon his colleague at Washington. 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico No. 8, 
 
 To: Berlin March 1st, 1917. 
 
 The newspaper here, the Universal, which is friendly 
 to the Allies, publishes to-day exactly the same informa- 
 tion as yesterday's Washington telegram, ostensibly as 
 having been in President Wilson's hands since the breach 
 of relations, the text of cable Dispatch A, No. 1. Of 
 course I did not make the communication here. Treachery 
 or indiscretion here out of the question ; therefore appar- 
 ently it happened in the U. S. A., or cipher 13010 is 
 compromised. 
 
 Cable Dispatch No. II, 1 which was forwarded to me by 
 
 the other known way, has so far not been published. 
 
 I denied everything here. 
 
 Von Eckhardt. 
 
 But Berlin desired more explicit information: 
 
 Stumm to Eckhardt 
 
 To: Mexico No. 20, 
 
 21st March, 1917. 
 Most Secret. Decipher Personally 
 Please cable in same cipher who deciphered Cable 
 Dispatches 1 and 11, how the originals and decodes 
 
 'The message of February 8th enjoining him to tuke up negotiations immedi- 
 ately for the alliance. 
 
358 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 were kept, and, in particular, whether both dispatches 
 
 were kept in the same place. 
 
 Stumm. 1 
 
 The German Foreign Office apparently had no inten- 
 tion of letting Von Eckhardt off too easily. It persisted 
 in believing that the trouble had all started in Mexico 
 City: 
 
 Berlin to Eckhardt 
 
 From: Berlin No. 22, 
 
 To: Mexico 27th March, 1917. 
 
 Various indications suggest that the treachery was 
 committed in Mexico. 
 
 The greatest caution is indicated. 
 
 Burn all compromising material. 
 
 This message evidently greatly disturbed Von Eckhardt, 
 for he now gives impressive details, including additional 
 evidence that Bernstorff's organization is guilty: 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico 
 
 To: Berlin 27th March, 1917. 
 
 Both dispatches were deciphered, in accordance with 
 my special instructions, by Magnus. Both, as is the case 
 with everything of a politically secret nature, were kept 
 from the knowledge of the Chancery officials. 
 
 Telegram No. 1 was received here in cipher 13040, while 
 Kinkel, 2 who is at present employed here, thinks he re- 
 members that it was sent off by the Washington Embassy, 
 like all telegrams sent here in cipher, from Cape Cod. 3 
 
 'Of the German Foreign Office in Berlin. 
 
 2 Formerly an employe at the German Embassy in Washington. 
 
 3 Where there was a cable station. 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 359 
 
 The originals in both cases were burned by Magnus 
 and the ashes scattered. Both dispatches were kept in 
 an absolutely secure steel safe, procured especially for 
 the purpose and installed in the Chancery building, 
 in Magnus's bedroom, up to the time when they were 
 burned. 
 
 Reply to Tel. 21 Order carried out. Cable Dispatch 
 No. 18 is still missing. 
 
 With a view to making preparations for the period after 
 the war, I suggest if possible the immediate appointment 
 of Herr Lubeck — compare report No. 69 of 3d November 
 — as Commercial Adviser to the Embassy. 
 
 Eckhardt. 
 
 Eckhardt to Zimmermann 
 
 From: Mexico No. 14, 
 
 To: Berlin 30.3.17. 
 
 Reply to Telegram No. 22. Greater caution than is 
 always exercised here would be impossible. The text of 
 telegrams which have arrived is read to me at night in my 
 dwelling house by Magnus, in a low voice. My servant, 
 who does not understand German, sleeps in an annex. 
 Apart from this, the text is never anywhere but in Mag- 
 nus's hand or in the steel safe, the method of opening 
 which is known only to him and myself. 
 
 According to Kinkel, in Washington even secret tele- 
 grams were known to the whole Chancery. Two copies 
 were regularly made for the Embassy records. Here 
 there can be no question of carbon copies or waste paper. 
 
 Please inform me at once, as soon as we are excul- 
 pated, as we doubtless shall be; otherwise, I insist, as 
 does Magnus also, on a judicial investigation, if necessary, 
 by Consul Grunow. 
 
 With ref. to Tel. No. 11, Director Schmidt of the 
 
360 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Deutsche Bank, New York, has telegraphed to Lima that 
 the probability of an American loan to Mexico was in- 
 creasing. 
 
 (Signed) Eckhardt. 
 
 This was too much. The "low voice," the "steel 
 safe," the "scattered ashes," and non-German-speaking 
 servant were evidently accepted by Berlin as complete 
 exculpations of Von Eckhardt, who presently was delighted 
 by the following telegram, giving him a clean bill of 
 health : 
 
 Foreign Office to Eckhardt 
 
 From: Berlin No. 28, 
 
 To: Mexico 4.4.17. 
 
 After your telegram it is hardly conceivable that be- 
 trayal took place in Mexico. In face of it the indications 
 which point in that direction lose their force. No blame 
 rests on either you or Magnus. 
 
 Foreign Office. 
 
 The humour of the situation, of course, resides in the 
 fact that both Bernstorff and Von Eckhardt were re- 
 sponsible, for the message was uncovered both in Mexico 
 City and Washington. 
 
 Who was mainly responsible for unearthing the Zimmer- 
 mann telegram? The work was done by the Intelligence 
 Service of the British Admiralty. The head of that 
 department was Admiral William Reginald Hall, a man 
 not widely known in the United States, but one to whom 
 this country has every reason for profound gratitude. 
 The part that Admiral Hall played in the war is vividly 
 told by Page in a letter to the President: 
 
THE ZIMMERMAXN TELEGRAM 361 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, March 17, 1918. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Hall is one genius that the war has developed. 
 Neither in fiction nor in fact can you find any such man to 
 match him. Of the wonderful things thai I know he has 
 done, there are several that it would hike an exciting 
 volume to tell. The man is a genius — a clear case of genius. 
 All other secret service men are amateurs !>> comparison. 
 If there be any life left me after this war and If Hall's 
 abnormal activity and ingenuity have not caused him to be 
 translated, I wish to spend a week with him in sonic quid 
 place and then spend a year in writing out what he will 
 have told me. That's the shortest cut to immortalit > for 
 him and for me that has yet occurred to me. I shall 
 never meet another man like him: that were too much to 
 expect. 
 
 And (whether it becomes me to say so or not) Bell 
 and I have his complete confidence and that fact entitles 
 us to some special consideration in the esteem of our 
 friends. For Hall can look through you and see the very 
 muscular movements of your immortal soul while he is 
 talking to you. Such eyes as the man has! My Lord! I do 
 study these men here most diligently who have this vast 
 and appalling War- Job. There are most uncommon 
 creatures among them — men about whom our great- 
 grandchildren will read in their school histories; but. of 
 them all, the most extraordinary is this naval officer — 
 of whom, probably, they'll never hear. He locks up 
 certain documents "not to be opened till 20 years after 
 this date." I've made up my mind to live twenty 
 years more. I shall be present at the opening of that 
 safe. 
 
362 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 For his great achievements, Admiral Hall was made a 
 Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George by a 
 grateful Government. The record is appropriately con- 
 cluded by the correspondence that passed between him 
 and Page and Colonel House: 
 
 Page to Sir William Reginald Hall 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 October 24, 1917. 
 Dear Sir William: 
 
 I have waited, perhaps ungracefully, to send you my 
 congratulations on your K. C. M. G., because, once hav- 
 ing you in range, I wished to take a double shot at you. 
 I am sincerely glad, not only at this honour done you 
 because you have so richly deserved it, but also because 
 it was bestowed on you not in a long list of other honours, 
 but all by itself on you alone. I think I see in this un- 
 usual fact a special significance. None of your many 
 friends rejoice more truly than we who dwell and labour 
 at the sign of this Embassy, which is most grateful to 
 you. 
 
 And now I have the additional pleasure, under in- 
 structions sent to me directly by the President, to convey 
 his personal thanks to you. I quote from his letter: 
 
 'You will at an early time take some private occasion 
 to assure Admiral Hall of my very great appreciation of 
 what he has done and of the spirit in which he has done 
 it." 
 
 May I add an expression of my great personal gratifi- 
 cation at being instructed to convey this message to you? 
 
 I am, 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM 363 
 
 Sir William Reginald Hall to Page 
 
 25 October, 1917. 
 My dear Ambassador: 
 
 I find it difficult to say how very much I appreciate 
 your most kind letter, which has touched me deeply. I 
 do assure you that nothing has given me more pleasure 
 than the work which I have had the privilege of doing with 
 you and your Embassy, and I shall ever feel grateful to 
 you for the singular kindness you have shown to me. It 
 will always be, as you may well imagine, a lasting memory 
 and gratification to me that at a time when your great 
 nation was taking a decision which affected the civiliza- 
 tion of the whole world you honoured me with your con- 
 fidence. 
 
 I don't know how to thank you for the kind words in 
 which you convey the President's personal message. 
 
 I venture to ask that, should you be writing to the 
 President, you would say to him that in honouring me 
 with his words of warm appreciation, I feel that I have re- 
 ceived the very highest reward, and that I shall always 
 treasure his message as one of my most valued possessions. 
 
 I am, my dear Ambassador, 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 W. R. Hall. 
 
 Edward M. House to Sir William Reginald Hall 
 
 115 East 53rd Street, 
 New York. 
 Rear Admiral Hall, 
 
 The Admiralty, London. 
 Dear Admiral Hall: 
 
 I want to congratulate you and felicitate you over the 
 great work you have been doing. 
 
 I believe you were largely responsible for the overthrow 
 
364 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of the recent German Ministry — certainly Zimmermann's 
 downfall was brought about by the expose of his note to 
 the German Ambassador in Mexico. 
 
 I cannot think at the moment of any man who has done 
 more useful service in tins war than you, and I salute you. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 E. M. House. 
 September 22, 1917. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 president Wilson's attempt to detach 
 austria from germany 
 
 ON April 2d President Wilson asked Congress to de- 
 clare that a state of war existed between the United 
 States and Germany. On April 6th the two nations w ere 
 at war. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, April 17, 1917. 
 Secretary of State, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 6018, April 17, 3 p. m. Confidential for the President. 
 The King summoned me to Windsor Castle to spend 
 last night and gave me a private audience of more than an 
 hour, and talked with me again at some length after 
 dinner. He is most appreciative of our help which he 
 very frankly confessed is much needed. He hoped the 
 naval, military, and technical men of both countries will so 
 fully and frankly confer as to prevent our repeating 
 British mistakes. The most serious submarine situation, 
 the dire need of ships, and the fear lest Russia make a 
 separate peace were his chief topics. He expressed high 
 appreciation of Admiral Sims's visit and spoke of 
 Mr. Balfour's mission, 1 for winch I thanked him. He re- 
 marked: "I do not know how Balfour can now be spared, 
 but nothing else is so important as giving your government 
 all the information we have." He feels content with the 
 present military situation in France, but he is much con- 
 
 ^o the United States. See Volume II, Chapter XXII. 
 
 365 
 
366 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER IT. PAGE 
 
 cerned, as everybody here is, who knows the facts, about 
 the submarine warfare. He spoke with the greatest 
 appreciation of your last speech in Congress and of your 
 leadership. 
 
 He added: "People are talking much about absolute 
 monarchs; there is no monarch, thank God, in Europe who 
 has the power of the President." 
 
 His conversation throughout was full of appreciation. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Why did President Wilson let two months elapse be- 
 tween the dismissal of Bernstorff and the declarationof war 
 against Germany? One reason for the President's delay 
 appears in an important letter written Mr. Wilson on 
 February 22d. The President was attempting to detach 
 Austria-Hungary from the Germanic Alliance and cause 
 that empire to make peace. The United States did not 
 sever diplomatic relations with Austria-Hungary when it 
 gave Count Bernstorff his passports ; and in fact this coun- 
 try did not declare war against the Dual Monarchy until 
 December, 1917. Just what the effect would have been had 
 Austria-Hungary separated from Germany in February, 
 following the American break, is conjectural; it might 
 have been extremely important; indeed, there was a 
 probability that such a development in itself might have 
 brought the European war to an end. One possible out- 
 come would have been the shifting of the Italian Army 
 to the western front — though this is doubtful; at least 
 it would have made unnecessary British and French ac- 
 tivities in Italy, and the energies of the British Navy in 
 Mediterranean waters could have been transferred to the 
 area south and west of Ireland. This in itself would have 
 been a great gain. The elimination of Austria would 
 have meant the speedy collapse of Bulgaria and Turkey, 
 
ATTEMPT TO DETACH AUSTRIA FROM GERMANY 367 
 
 for these nations, their communications with Germany 
 severed, would have been helpless and a speedy prey to 
 the Allies. This would have ended the favourite Pan- 
 German " Mittel-Europa" scheme, and destroyed the 
 long-cherished dream of a Germanic empire extending from 
 the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. The separation of 
 Austria-Hungary from Germany, could it have been 
 accomplished at that time, would have been a great 
 achievement, and the plan naturally enlisted the hearty 
 cooperation of Page. There was, of course, practically no 
 chance that it could succeed. Italy was an insurmount- 
 able obstacle. The terms she would demand of Austria 
 would be terms that Austria, desperate as was her con- 
 dition at that time, could hardly be expected to grant. 
 But the incident has great interest, if for nothing else for 
 the light which it sheds upon the methods and the temper- 
 ament of Mr. Lloyd George. 
 
 The proposal at first was not cordially received by the 
 Prime Minister. Page has left this record of his first 
 conversation on the subject: 
 
 He demurred at once. No; if Austria-Hungary make 
 peace that will open blockade on the South; we shall have 
 to grant her more than we wish to grant, etc., etc., — all 
 rapidly, like a machine-gun. And he asked me for the 
 present not to mention the subject to any one, not even to 
 any member of his Cabinet. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London. 
 
 22 February, 1917. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 I telegraphed so fully about my interviews with Lloyd 
 George concerning a possible Austrian peace proposal that 
 
363 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 I need write only certain minor illuminative incidents. 
 At my first interview I expressed my astonishment at his 
 conclusion — that Austria was a greater hindrance to 
 Germany as an ally than she would be as a neutral. To 
 my arguments he simply repeated his conclusion — with 
 amazing rapidity. The most hopeful thing that I could 
 then induce him to say was that he would take some of his 
 associates into his confidence and tell me when there was 
 anything more to say. But on top of this he forbade me 
 to mention the subject to any members of the Government 
 "for the present." That for the time being balked me. 
 It was as if an Ambassador at Washington had taken up 
 a subject with you, had got your answer, and had asked 
 leave to discuss it with members of your cabinet. If you 
 had said "No," he would of course have been silenced on 
 the penalty of forfeiting your confidence, if he had gone 
 further. It occurred to me, then, that perhaps I had made 
 a mistake in going to him first. Yet any other course 
 would have been discourteous to him after his request that 
 I should take up with him informal subjects of high im- 
 portance; for he is practically Dictator. All that was 
 left me to do was to pursue him relentlessly since I could 
 pursue nobody else — or to give it up; and I had no idea of 
 resting with the answer he had given me. 
 
 The very next day I had what seemed a piece of good 
 luck. I was invited by a member of the Government to 
 dinner a few evenings later — "the Prime Minister will 
 come." After dinner I talked again with Lloyd George. 
 "Nothing to say further yet," he said. "I haven't had 
 a chance to go over the subject with the men I had in 
 mind." Then I got up a little dinner myself for him, to 
 which I invited the Jellicoes, the Bryces, and several 
 other couples of high degree. Again I asked him, "What 
 newsP" He shook his head. I took him aside and re- 
 
ATTEMPT TO DETACH AUSTRIA FROM GERMANY 369 
 
 marked on the ease with which great men and groat 
 governments make great mistakes. Lloyd George is 
 perhaps the easiest man to talk with (not necessarily to 
 convince) of all men that hold high places. He has little 
 dignity. He has no presence, except as an orator. He 
 swears familiarly on easy occasion. But he has as quick 
 a mind and as ready speech as any man that I ever en- 
 countered. It is impossible to realize that l iis cas ual 
 deliverances are the Voice of the British Empire. M'h-r 
 more talk, in which he had injected an oath or two, 1 
 made bold to say, "Good God! Prime Minister, have 
 you forgotten that the whole object of the war is to re- 
 duce Europe to peace, and here may be peace that you 
 are rejecting — how do you know?" But I got no satis- 
 factory response. This was my third interview. 
 
 I still refused to believe that this was to be the end of 
 the matter. Now, queer accidents happen when you 
 keep steadily on one quest and see many people and hear 
 much talk; and by an accident I found out that Curzon 1 
 was opposed to discussing peace with anybody and had 
 talked with the Prime Minister, and that Jellicoe was 
 eager for peace with Austria and had not been able to 
 talk with the Prime Minister on the subject. That very 
 night I dined with Lord Salisbury. Lady Curzon was 
 there — without Lord Curzon. Lady Curzon, married 
 just a month, began life as an Alabama girl, and you can 
 yet distinguish the Alabama intonations in her speech 
 as you now and then hear the oboe in an orchestra. 
 
 "Where's your husband?" I asked her. 
 
 "He had to spend the evening with the Prime Minis- 
 ter." That sounded somewhat discouraging. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. I recalled that Admiral 
 Jellicoe left his ceaseless watch at the Admiralty every 
 
 'At this time Lord Curzon was Lord President of the Council. 
 
370 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Sunday afternoon at five o'clock and went home to meet 
 his friends at tea. At five o'clock, therefore, Mrs. Page 
 and I were there to pay our respects. I could not yet 
 mention the subject to the Admiral, but I gave him a 
 chance to mention it to me. Not a word did he say 
 about it. He told me only that fishing (for submarines) 
 was pretty good — that's all. 
 
 A full week had passed and I had got no further than I 
 had got at my first interview. I resolved to go and see 
 the Prime Minister again at his office. I rehearsed my 
 arguments, which seemed to me irrefutable, and I was 
 determined to fight to the last ditch. To my surprise, 
 he yielded at once — gracefully, easily, almost unbidden. 
 He had somewhat modified his views, he said — provided 
 — provided the greatest secrecy could be maintained. 
 By this emphasis he gave me the cue to his thought and 
 mood. 
 
 The German proposal of a peace conference a little 
 while ago, which, because no terms were named, was re- 
 garded by the British as a trick, steeled the nation and 
 the Government in particular against all peace talk till 
 the spring campaign and the submarine war decide some- 
 thing. The very word 'peace" was banished from the 
 English vocabulary. Lloyd George himself in several 
 speeches had declared that there could yet be no peace — 
 no thought of peace. This was his state of mind when I 
 first brought up the subject and the state of mind of the 
 nation. Peace men had been hooted in the House of 
 Commons and suspected peace meetings had been dis- 
 persed by the police. His emphasis on secrecy made his 
 fear plain. No doubt if he could announce Austria's 
 surrender that would be a great stroke. But if it got 
 abroad that he were "dickering" with Austria or any- 
 body else about peace, he would lose his Dictatorship 
 
ATTEMPT TO DETACH AUSTRIA FROM GERMANY 371 
 
 overnight. He was afraid of the subject. But having 
 discussed this particular possibility of eliminating Aus- 
 tria with some of his colleagues, he "had somewhat 
 changed his view." 
 
 I feel the necessity to be on my guard with Lloyd 
 George. Perhaps I do him wrong. Of course, his politi- 
 cal enemies (and he has many and fierce enemies) say 
 that he is tricky and untruthful. They are not good wit- 
 nesses; no doubt their judgment is unfair. But he is 
 changeable — mercurial. He reaches quick conclusions by 
 his emotions as well as by his reason — he reasons with 
 his emotions. He has been called the illiterate Prime 
 Minister, "because he never reads or writes." He is the 
 one public man in the Kingdom who has an undoubted 
 touch of genius. He has also the defects of genius. He 
 has vision and imagination, and his imagination at times 
 rims away with him. That's the reason he's the most 
 interesting man here — an amazing spectacle to watch. 
 He compels admiration and permits, but does not compel, 
 complete confidence. I wish I instinctively had the 
 same unquestioning and unshakable confidence in him 
 that I have in Edward Grey, whose genius is all the genius 
 of character. A Scotch friend of Lloyd George was de- 
 fending him the other night in a little group of men who 
 expressed fear of his emotional adventures, and one of 
 them asked about his truthfulness. "Oh, he's truthful — 
 perfectly truthful. But a Scotsman's truth is a straight 
 line. A Welshman's is more or less of a curve." But 
 how this Kingdom has waked up under his leadership! 
 There's something ramshackle and slipshod about him 
 and his ways and his thought. But he has organized 
 England, man power, pound power, mind power, will 
 power, as perhaps no man ever did before. 
 
 The situation, therefore, so far as the mood of this 
 
372 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Government is concerned, is just as good as it would 
 have been if the Prime Minister had given the answer we 
 wanted when I first brought the subject to him — only a 
 week was lost because of tins extraordinary man's ex- 
 traordinary mood and of Ins extraordinary attitude to me 
 whereby he had me bound to secrecy on pain of becoming 
 a traitor to him; and Ins extraordinary attitude to me 
 comes of his admiration for you and from his wish to have 
 you at the conference that will make peace. 
 
 Now, of course, I have talked with others. Mr. Balfour 
 is eager to see a proposal from Austria, provided he can 
 believe it to be a genuine proposal. He and others have 
 some fear of the hand of Germany in it — fear that it may 
 be a trick. But the answer that the Prime Minister gave 
 me at my last interview is the answer of the Government. 
 They will give thorough and appreciative attention to any 
 proposal that comes. 
 
 Very heartily yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Additional details appear in several entries in Page's 
 memorandum book: 
 
 I made an engagement to call on the Prime Minister 
 (Lloyd George) at 3 :15. To prevent the newspapers from 
 discovering my visit I walked to Downing Street and 
 came up the steps at the end of the street, and I sent 
 my car to wait for me at the steps of the German Em- 
 bassy. 
 
 I renewed my conversation with the Prime Minister 
 about receiving formally the offer of peace (if the President 
 can send it now) of Austria-Hungary. The President 
 (said I) is keeping relations with Austria-Hungary open 
 with the hope of doing this great service. Have you 
 
ATTEMPT TO DETACH AUSTRIA FROM GERMANY 373 
 
 anything to add to what you previously said? I then 
 put the case as strongly as I could. 
 
 "It would be a good thing to detach Austria," said he. 
 
 Whew! He had said just the contrary a little more 
 than a week ago! Curzon, I suspect, had talked with 
 him before my other interview, and he had conferred 
 with somebody else. I brought him to definiteness — 
 at first, he was a little reluctant. But he finally com- 
 mitted himself fully. 
 
 As I walked away from Downing Street this reflection 
 occurred to me : I sat down and talked to this Dictator of 
 the British Empire as calmly and as easily as if I had gone 
 to see a man on some trifling errand — to order a pair of 
 shoes, to engage a room at a hotel, or any other common- 
 place errand. I stated the case earnestly but precisely as 
 I would have stated any commonplace case to any man. 
 He was still a little reluctant — he feared publicity. 
 Would it be possible to let him alone see it? — No; the 
 President wished to present it formally. He yielded — all 
 in a commonplace way. We two men were talking about 
 and trying to devise a plan for ending the war — surely 
 a subject to excite anybody. There was no excitement — ■ 
 only a commonplace argument and at last a favourable 
 response. 
 
 "Thank you; good-day." 
 
 "Good-day." 
 
 I fancy that all great transactions and conferences are 
 done so. The momentousness of such occasions comes 
 afterwards — is a sort of afterthought. 
 
 I fear that if the Austrian peace inquiry were now to 
 come again, all the members of the Government would 
 take the view of it which the Prime Minister took at 
 first — that it was a mere German trick. As mild and 
 
374 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 temperate and just a man as Mr. Balfour said to me pri- 
 vately a little while ago: "I have the greatest admiration 
 for the President, as you know ; but I am afraid (and I do 
 not wonder at it) that he does not yet know the German 
 Government. It is an incredible thing. We did not 
 know it either. If the President had known it he would 
 never have addressed the European neutrals as he did 
 when he broke relations with Germany. These neutrals 
 are simply terrorized. They dare not speak out. Ger- 
 many could and would smash Denmark and reduce her 
 to ruins — as she did Belgium, Poland, and Serbia — she'd 
 smash Denmark in a week and Holland in a month. She 
 sinks their ships wholesale and drowns their crews till 
 their ships have practically been taken off the seas. And 
 what can they do? They are, in fact, already conquered 
 but not destroyed." 
 
< . 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ON THE BRINK OF THE PRECIPICE 
 
 » » 
 
 THERE is a certain satisfaction and interest in recall- 
 ing now the heartening effect upon the Allied cause 
 produced by the American declaration of war. Just how 
 desperate the situation was appears from a group of let- 
 ters written in the summer and autumn of 1917. Over 
 and over Page records his belief, and the belief of all the 
 leaders in the Allied countries, that only American in- 
 tervention had prevented an Allied defeat, or at least an 
 inconclusive and humiliating peace. 
 
 To the President 
 
 June 8, 1917, London. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The liveliest satisfaction has of course been felt here 
 at the way in which the registration of men under the 
 conscription act went off. For two days it has been a 
 chief topic of conversation everywhere. But this con- 
 vincing and dramatic demonstration of our people's 
 earnestness was not needed to make all thoughtful men 
 here understand: they understood already. Our ready 
 supply of large sums of money, the prompt coming of our 
 destroyers and Admiral Sims, and now the coming of 
 General Pershing, and Mr. Balfour's reception had done 
 the work. The English appreciation is genuine, profound, 
 and complete. The story is told about London of a deaf 
 and half-blind old countess who had been a very great lady 
 
 375 
 
376 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 in her day — that, when someone told her that the United 
 States had come in, she asked, 
 
 " Come into what?" 
 
 "Into the war." 
 
 Then she said, "Well, my dear, the subject doesn't 
 interest me in the least." 
 
 I have heard of no other such deaf and blind person. 
 The expressions of gratitude by all classes and on all sides 
 are touching and continuous. In St. Paul's the other day 
 an American legion of the Canadian Army brought an 
 American and a Canadian flag to be blessed and to be 
 deposited in the Cathedral till the end of the war. In 
 the special prayers written for tins service were two for 
 the divine guidance of the President and people of the 
 United States, and nothing would do but for Mrs. Page 
 to take part in the ceremony by passing our flag from the 
 donors to the Bishop. They work the poor lady and me 
 in so many touching duties that we have composed a 
 prayer of our own for protection against being worn out. 
 The King asked me to present to him the first of our units 
 of doctors and nurses. When another unit of nurses, on a 
 sight-seeing tour, went to St. Paul's one day, they were met 
 at the door by "a most engaging and well-informed clergy- 
 man," who spent hours in showing them everything. 
 They accidentally discovered as they were coming away 
 that he was "The Very Reverend and Honourable the 
 Lord Bishop of London," who had come five miles to 
 have the pleasure of meeting them. When I next saw 
 him, he said: "Noble women whom God has sent in our 
 extremity!" Although he is a fighting Bishop, Ins eyes 
 were damp. I could write you a volume of such incidents. 
 A group of our nurses were walking on the street and they 
 met a dignified old Englishman. He pulled off Ins hat 
 and bowed and said, "God bless you, ladies." The 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 377 
 
 Canon of Westminster asked the privilege of himself show- 
 ing one group through the Abbey. An old man who has a 
 fine country place twenty miles from London asked an- 
 other group to spend Sunday with him. He had all our 
 patriotic airs played, and a photographer took the group 
 on his lawn, he among them; and he remarked, "This for 
 posterity. This is an immortal event." 
 
 Admiral Sims is the darling of the Kingdom. The Ad- 
 miralty regards him and treats him as if lie were one of 
 their own admirals. The Admiral 1 (British) at Queens- 
 town is going on a fortnight's vacation and he has asked 
 the Admiralty to put Sims in command there of both 
 British and American fleets during his absence. He has 
 made a great personal as w r cll as professional impression. 
 Among the most popular shows of the war is the film pic- 
 turing the arrival of our destroyers, and admiring stories 
 about our young naval officers constantly make their way 
 from Ireland. 
 
 General Pershing comes to-day. The Government calls 
 me in to ask whether they shall give him a government 
 dinner. My reply was that General Pershing is come 
 to fight andnot to dine ;we are all in to win the war. "Help 
 us on this errand first. Then, if there be time, we'll dine. 
 Yet — also give him a dinner now, for the effect it will have 
 at home. It will please our public to see that your 
 hospitality and good feeling and appreciation are in good 
 working order." So the dinner is on. Of course I also 
 am giving him a dinner to meet the high military authori- 
 ties and the Prime Minister. 
 
 It may please you to know that the Government 
 consults me about everything, from small things like a 
 dinner to tlnngs of great importance, asking, "How will 
 this be received in the United States?" The King asked 
 
 'Sir Lewis Bayly. 
 
378 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 about his receiving the Admiral; now about his receiving 
 the General. The secretaries in the Embassy have a joke 
 among themselves — that the Ambassador has become a 
 Member of the Government without portfolio. I have 
 made several of the secretaries members of government 
 committees — on Blockade and the like— at the Govern- 
 ment's request. So far as I can see they are playing the 
 game openly and squarely and opening all doors to us. 
 The lunges on some of the doors are yet a little rusty, but 
 they are shining them up. 
 
 The prompt passage of the conscription act opened 
 their eyes to our earnestness and efficiency more than any 
 other single event. 
 
 While, of course, the Government is giving all its 
 thought and attention to the conduct of the war, there is 
 a constantly growing discussion of possible peace, and 
 especially of economic arrangements to follow the war. 
 Nobody sees peace or any near chance for it. But 
 thoughtful men constantly discuss the possible advis- 
 ability of making Trieste and Salonika "international- 
 ized" ports so that the Balkan States may have free 
 access to the Mediterranean. Everybody foresees the 
 terrific difficulty that will arise in trying to apply any 
 general principle in the Balkans — this on the assumption 
 that the Allies win a decisive victory — give the Germans 
 a complete thrashing. And trade after the war fills in- 
 creasing space in print and in discussion, with no concrete 
 result so far. But this topic is now worked very hard as a 
 military weapon — for effect during the war. The British 
 theory is that if Germany can be made to see that practi- 
 cally the whole world will discriminate against her trade 
 after the war, she will be the more likely to give in at some 
 early time. For tins reason much emphasis is laid here on 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 379 
 
 Brazil, and for this reason hopes are entertained that 
 China may come in. 
 
 By the way, it will please yon to know that the British 
 press and people have clearly seen the great influence on 
 Central and South America of the policy of the United 
 States toward these sister republics; and they applaud 
 your management of this matter. 
 
 In fact, they understand us far better in every * ;i\ I han 
 they ever did before ; and they understand you. In half-a- 
 dozen groups of men lately the conversation has turned 
 (a favourite topic) on what personalities will emerge 
 largest from the war. Somebody always remarks, "You 
 mean after the American President?" And the discussion 
 starts on that basis. 
 
 I still maintain that the attitude (the changed and 
 changing attitude) of the English is the most interesting 
 subject in the world and — in the long run — the most 
 important. It is very difficult to describe it. I have 
 twice tried in letters to you that seemed too unsatisfactory 
 to send. Take certain facts like these: The first discus- 
 sion of sensible and appreciative plans for really popular 
 education — the education of all the people — ever heard in 
 this Kingdom is now beginning; and the head of the 
 Government Chemical Research Bureau, in discussing with 
 Professor Hulett the work of German chemists, remarked, 
 "It isn't the Germans we are afraid of, it's you Ameri- 
 cans"; — take these facts (and I could put down 300 such), 
 you can't help seeing and feeling the ground-swell in- 
 fluence of the United States as the strongest pull on this 
 English planet that it has ever been subjected to; and 
 they know it. If Europe is to be made even reasonably 
 safe, it'll be only through our help; and they know it. 
 I heard an Australian general tell an old peer that if the 
 
380 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 British Empire didn't make a proper place in Imperial 
 Government for the great Colonies, Australia would see 
 if she couldn't join the American Union! The English 
 are waking up to see the vast burden of useless impedi- 
 menta they carry. All interesting things follow from 
 this. 
 
 The studies that all these subjects open — enticing and 
 fascinating and absorbing and necessary studies — I have 
 been trying with my staff to make, at least in some 
 fashion. Mr. Buckler 1 is working in what time he can 
 get on the Balkan situation ; he and I together are looking 
 up and keeping tabulated all that seems worth while about 
 peace terms and proposals and possibilities and the feel- 
 ings and hopes of men worth while. And we have other 
 such studies going. There are of course always many 
 interesting conversations on these subjects. We have 
 equipped a dining room in the basement of one of our 
 office buildings where we have luncheon served (at our 
 personal expense) and we have anybody there from 
 Ministers and Admirals down, out of whom we wish to 
 get information. With high sailors and soldiers and 
 statesmen and writers of books thus to help us, we are 
 trying to pack ourselves and this Embassy as full as we can. 
 
 Meantime, praise God, our destroyers are making the 
 approach to these shores appreciably safer, General Persh- 
 ing is now in conference with the Big British Generals, our 
 doctors and nurses have been going to France for a fort- 
 night (you would be thrilled to see the important English 
 people who have flocked to my house to meet them), and 
 gratitude to the United States beams on every counte- 
 nance we meet. 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 William H. Buckler, Special Attache at the London Embassy. 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 381 
 
 To (he President 
 
 London, 22 June, 1917. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 Problems of organization press for larger and perma- 
 nent cooperation with the British. I have telegraphed 
 about the War Conferences which the European Allies 
 have held from time to time. The next Conference * ill 
 come about the middle of July. Mr. Balfour thinks, and 
 I think, that our Government ought to be represented. 
 The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and the War 
 Minister will probably attend it, with a General as a 
 military expert. The larger policies regarding the conduct 
 of the war are considered. Incidentally, these Confer- 
 ences bring to light the incredible friction between the 
 Allies and their apparently irreconcilable differences. It 
 is not a happy family. For instance, the Italian Prime 
 Minister, I hear on good authority, has already served 
 notice that his Government will not be represented at the 
 next Conference if peace with Austria is to be discussed. 
 Here comes the everlasting question of boundaries. 
 Italy opposed to the last the deposition of King Constan- 
 tine. A communication that I am sending to the Depart- 
 ment from the Greek Minister here, by the instruction 
 of his Government, throws light on the Italian attitude. 
 Then, too, there is the perpetual and baneful Trade- 
 Union of Monarchs. Almost every country that has a 
 king is opposed to the deposition of any king. The Tsar, 
 the King of Spain, the King of Italy, and presumably 
 Queen Alexandra, at least, of England, who is Constan- 
 tine's aunt, used their influence to the utmost to save him. 
 These cross-currents of dynasties, the special ambitions 
 for territory of practically every continental Ally, which 
 of course conflict, the commitments of England herself 
 
382 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 to some of them made to get them or to keep them in the 
 war — all these make such a tangle as to defy logic; i 
 adjustment; and underneath the surface a quarrel i: 
 always imminent. When Lloyd George told me this 
 morning that any effort to make a separate peace with 
 Austria-Hungary or Bulgaria was premature because it 
 seemed wise to wait and to see whether Russia will fight 
 again, he did not know that I knew of Italy's unwillingness 
 to discuss peace with Austria; and if Italy is unwill- 
 ing to discuss peace with Austria, she is unwilling, of course, 
 to discuss peace with Bulgaria. Lloyd George gave me 
 one reason — no doubt a good one, but there was also 
 another and stronger reason in his mind. 
 
 Perhaps we ought to be represented at these Conferences, 
 if for no other reason, to get a clear insight into these 
 strong controversies and differences under the surface. 
 To judge only from such as have come, and as are con- 
 stantly coming to my knowledge, they are numerous and 
 exceedingly embarrassing. 
 
 Some weeks ago there was a more or less general fear 
 here lest France herself might say, "Well, I've almost 
 exhausted myself; I can go no further. Great Britain 
 must carry on the war." The coming in of the United 
 States gave her new spirit and new hope. This accounts 
 in some measure for the extraordinary display of senti- 
 ment when General Pershing reached Paris — I cannot say 
 how much cold truth there is in this quite generally held 
 British opinion. But I do know that it had much to do 
 with their profound appreciation of our help. 
 
 Again — the friction between the Australians and Can- 
 adians and the British sometimes reaches seriousness. 
 There is likely to be a stiff controversy when the lid is 
 lifted. 
 
 Many such seamy-side pieces of information come to 
 
ON THE BRINK OF THE PRECIPICE" 383 
 
 me, but only as reflected and refracted by English minds. 
 I imagine we ought to learn them— such as are true- 
 authoritatively. I get them by sometimes eating three 
 meals a day and committing other such intimacies with 
 the men who have attended these Conferences. 
 
 Regarding the establishment of a military mission here 
 —that seems necessary and urgent. Men, committees, 
 commissions come, some bringing credentials from sonic 
 department of our Government and some bringing none: 
 and in not a few cases several of I hem seek the sum.' 
 information that was given to their predecessors a week 
 or two weeks ago. Then they go away. In a few more 
 weeks new information is acquired and nobody gets that. 
 This whole business of our Government seeking infor- 
 mation from this Government ought to be systematized 
 and coordinated. Officers of our Government of technical 
 training ought to remain here— most of the subjects dealt 
 with are military— and inquiries should be made of this 
 commission by all branches of our Government, and all 
 inquirers should come to them. About this, too, I have 
 telegraphed. The principal Allied governments have 
 just such a practical working arrangement. I have 
 telegraphed about this, too. 
 
 The British views that reach me in army circles are as 
 cheerful and hopeful as the news that comes from navy 
 sources is discouraging. There is no danger of a serious 
 shortage of food for any period that may be foreseen. 
 But the generally informed fear a very serious lack 
 of such materials as oils, steel, copper, etc., for uses both 
 for the fleet and for the army. There is no doubt of a very 
 grave fear raised by the submarines. The Admiralty is 
 dejected. No submarine "antidote" has been found. 
 A few are sunk. But there are vast armies that musl 
 yet be killed before the Germans will have to give in. The 
 
384 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 feeling here is that if the submarine success were discour- 
 agingly diminished, the spirit of the German Army would 
 quickly fail. 
 
 The multitudinous tasks of preparation in the United 
 States reported, but reported very briefly, in the London 
 papers, make a most favourable impression, and these 
 reports are read here most gratefully. In their gratitude 
 there is a confession of the Allies' dire need of our help — 
 a far more urgent need than anybody confesses or than 
 anybody realizes but the men who know the inside facts. 
 I have had momentary fears that the British may depend 
 on us too much and expect too much — a state of mind 
 that, however much we do, will lead to disappointment. 
 But there is yet no evidence of this. And I am glad to say 
 I have yet seen no evidence to show that the British 
 will "lie down on us" — relax their efforts because we are 
 now helping. They are not built that way. They have 
 vices and they are not always easy to live with or to fight 
 and die with and we shall have our troubles with them. 
 But I do not expect them to try to put their own tasks on 
 us. Their continental allies have depended too much on 
 British help, and the British have keenly felt the unfair- 
 ness of being too heavily leant on. 
 
 In fact, nothing could keep these nations all together a 
 week but dire necessity: it's another case of all hanging 
 together or all hanging separately. 
 
 Two facts mark the successful progress of the war: 
 the fall of kings — all thrones are unsteadier; and the 
 steady fall of the mark. Its decline was greatly acceler- 
 ated by our coming into the war. This decline is a meas- 
 ure of the judgment of the world on the struggle. 
 
 Northcliffe's 1 errand is causing criticism here, which 
 was inevitable. He has many bitter enemies, being a 
 
 'In June Lord Northcliffe came to the United States as head of a British mission. 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 385 
 
 stimulating and contentious fellow. He has done good 
 service in many (perhaps most) of his crusades; for most 
 of them have been directed against more or less incompe- 
 tent men. He indulges in crusades rather than criticism. 
 But I think the criticism of him has now spent itself. 
 And since he has no diplomatic authority and is a business 
 man of extraordinary ability and energy, 1 think his 
 appointment a good one. Our Government may deal 
 with him very frankly. He is the friendliest of English- 
 men to us. His papers have all been singularly fair to us. 
 He knows and likes the United States, and it is very well 
 worth our while to show our appreciation of his friend- 
 liness and helpfulness. Any attention that you yourself 
 may show him will bear good fruit. He is perhaps the 
 most powerful man now living in Great Britain — how 
 much by reason of and how much in spite of his methods, 
 it would be hard to say. For the twenty years that I have 
 known him he has done our country steady and useful 
 service in his vast influence on British opinion. . . . 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 American Embassy, London, 
 
 14 August, 1917. 
 My dear Mr. President: 
 
 No suggestion or proposal has been received here with 
 a heartier welcome than your proposal to send Admiral 
 Mayo and other naval officers for a conference here about 
 the naval situation. Mr. Balfour welcomed it eagerly and 
 the Admiralty is equally pleased. I ought to add that 
 Admiral Sims, too, is particularly pleased. 
 
 Since the war began the Admiralty has of course hoped 
 that the German fleet would come out for a fight. The 
 
386 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Jutland battle was a bitter disappointment because it was 
 not conclusive ; and since then, as before, the British naval 
 programme has been defensive. The Admiralty opinion, 
 which, as I understand, is unanimous among naval officers, 
 is that the German naval bases (in Germany) are im- 
 pregnable. Mines, submarines, and the biggest concealed 
 guns in the world are supposed to make any sea attack a 
 foolhardy failure. In front the Germans have Heligoland 
 and they have an open back door into the Baltic. 
 
 I don't know how sound this reasoning is ; but I do know 
 that its soundness has at every stage of the war been 
 questioned — somewhat timidly, but still questioned. 
 There has been an undercurrent of doubt. The several 
 changes that have been made in the personnel of the 
 Admiralty have seemed to have a thought of some change 
 of the defensive programme in mind. The one method 
 of attack that one ever hears discussed openly is by air- 
 craft. For that, the British have never had enough 
 machines to spare. Moreover, it seems to be too far from 
 the German naval bases to any British aircraft base, 
 unless seaplanes can be used from the North Sea. 
 
 But there seems to be no doubt of the open-mindedness 
 of the Government to any suggestion. 
 
 The most pressing naval question — the most pressing 
 question of the whole war — continues to be the sub- 
 marines. They have found no "antidote." The "mys- 
 tery" ships catch a few — I do not know how many, but 
 not enough to discourage the Germans. A few more are 
 destroyed by other methods ; but the problem of catching 
 them at their exit is unsolved. They make their way 
 along the territorial waters of Denmark and Holland and 
 come out to sea wherever they find it safe. I have gone 
 over many maps, charts, and diagrams on which the 
 presence of submarines in British waters and at sea is 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 387 
 
 indicated ; and the one thing that seems to be conclusively 
 proved is that the convoy is the best means so far put into 
 practice to increase safety. The future of the world seems 
 to me to hang on the answer to tins question: Can the 
 war be won in spite of the submarines? Can a great 
 American army be brought over and its large subsequent 
 supply fleet be sufficiently safeguarded? As matters now 
 go, tliree large British ships are sunk a day. How many 
 are sunk of other nationalities, I do not know. At this 
 rate, the Allies can hold out long enough to win provided 
 our armies and supplies can come over — convoyed, of 
 course — with reasonable safety. But in the course of 
 time the present rate of ship destruction will greatly 
 weaken the Allied endurance. 
 
 British opinion is that the war must be won on the 
 battlefield — that the German armies must be beaten by 
 arms and by economic pressure in Germany; that the 
 German naval bases are untakeable ; that the submarines 
 must be endured. And it is universally understood that 
 American intervention is all that saved or can save the 
 Allied cause. France will be practically exhausted by the 
 end of this year as an offensive power; Italy counts for 
 little except to keep a certain number of Austrian troops 
 engaged; Russia, as a fighting force, probably will not 
 recover in time. The probability that is generally ac- 
 cepted is that the war, unless Germany collapse during the 
 next six months by reason of economic exhaustion or by 
 the falling away of Austria or Turkey or both, will become 
 a war between Germany and the English-speaking nations, 
 all which except the United States are already partially 
 exhausted. 
 
 The waste in the war caused by the failures of the 
 European allies to work together with complete unity is 
 one of the most pitiful aspects of the conflict. The 
 
388 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 recently begun offensive by the British on the northern 
 French coast, now interrupted for the moment by heavy 
 rains, ought to have been undertaken long ago. But the 
 French withheld their consent because (so the British 
 military authorities say) a certain section of French 
 opinion feared, or pretended to fear, that the British 
 would keep these coast towns and cities if they were per- 
 mitted to retake them from the Germans! It is reported, 
 too, that the Belgians objected. The Belgian Army now 
 holds 3,000 yards of the whole trench line: that's all; and 
 the British have so little confidence in them that they keep 
 all the time in easy reach enough reserves to hold this 
 3,000 yards if the Germans should attack it. This jeal- 
 ousy and distrust run more or less through all the dealings 
 of the continental allies with one another. It's a sad 
 
 tale. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, September 3, 1917. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . Some time ago, in a general conversation, 
 Mr. Balfour said something like this to me: " There is uni- 
 versal admiration and wonder at the American energy and 
 earnestness in getting into the war, which has no parallel. 
 But there are people who privately express a certain fear 
 lest your ardour may cool with the first wave of war- 
 weariness. What should one say to them? Mind you, 
 I have no such fear myself, but I am sometimes met with 
 the necessity to allay it in weaker minds." 
 
 I replied: "To put it in good American, the real answer 
 to any such person is, 'Go to hell!' But the judicious 
 answer is, ' Who is going to cool American ardour and how 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 389 
 
 will he go about it? The darn is burst and the flood is 
 come. Will you do me the favour to refer all such persons 
 to meP' ' I haven't seen any such yet. But such a fear, 
 which I have no doubt was felt in ignorant quarters, is 
 forever laid by your letter to the Pope. And the leader- 
 ship of the war is now definitely and confessedly trans- 
 ferred to you, in British opinion. 
 
 The acknowledgment of this took many forms even 
 before this letter. Several of your speed les, no 1 1 1 1 1 1 y your 
 speech asking for a declaration of war, have been reprinted 
 in dozens of forms for wide distribution. There's hardly 
 a reading household in the Kingdom but has a copy. 
 
 . . . The telegrams and other documents, tele- 
 graphed to you, which show the customary insincerity 
 and cold-blooded willingness to murder, touching the 
 Argentine Republic, it is here hoped, will, if you have 
 published them, bring the Argentine Government into the 
 war. It is hoped, too, that the proof of Sweden's using 
 her Ministers and pouches in Germany's behalf may cause 
 a change of government in Sweden. 1 The smuggling that 
 has been done through Sweden is the most helpful to 
 Germany of all her channels of supply; and the large 
 quantity of iron ore that has gone from Swedish mines is, 
 perhaps, the most valuable help from outside that Ger- 
 many has got since the war began. 
 
 Admiral Mayo's coming has given the whole Govern- 
 ment and especially the Admiralty great satisfaction. As 
 soon as he came I invited the chief Admiralty officers and 
 British Admirals to dinner to meet him, and they have 
 shown him continuous attention since. He told me to-day 
 
 'In early September Secretary Lansing published a series of 1 «•!. yrams sent by 
 Count Luxburg, German Minister in Buenos Aires, containing instructions to 
 German submarine commanders. The phrase "sink without a trace" gave these 
 messages a particular infamy. They were sent in Swedish code through the 
 Swedish Legation in Buenos Aires. 
 
390 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 that they are showing him everything that he cares to see 
 and are answering all his questions. The Naval Con- 
 ference (British, French, Italian, and American) begins 
 to-morrow. Immediately after the Conference ends, 
 Admiral Mayo will visit the Grand Fleet. The sub- 
 marine activity continues (as I regard it) to be a most 
 serious thing. Convoyed ships have come safely, which 
 seems to point to success in our getting troops and supplies 
 to France. But the toll that the submarines continue to 
 take of unconvoyed freight ships is making the trouble of 
 shipping very great. All ships will have to be convoyed. 
 
 This Government is most anxious for a number of our 
 Representatives and Senators to make a visit to England 
 and France, not really lor any specific legislative con- 
 ference, although the invitation may take that form, but 
 for personal interchanges of experience. It is a com- 
 mon saying in England that even no Englishman can 
 really understand the war and its problems who has not 
 made a visit to France. I recall that I was forcibly struck 
 with Bryce's confession to this effect, after he had come 
 back from France. It is on this principle — that it is well 
 for American legislators to get as vivid an idea as possible 
 — that the British are eager for a number of them to come. 
 I agree with them. 
 
 The abandonment of Riga, it is feared here, will mean 
 the German occupation of Petrograd, and that will mean 
 the getting of more supplies from Russia and the getting 
 of men, too, for all sorts of labour — will mean, in fact, the 
 prolongation of the war. The German spirit, in spite of 
 hunger, can be kept up by such a land victory and by the 
 continued submarine success for Heaven knows how long; 
 and these German successes seem to point to the slow and 
 murderous necessity of whipping the German Army, lock, 
 stock, and barrel. That, with our help, is only a question 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 391 
 
 of time. But within that time the sickening loss of life 
 will continue. But for the falling clown of Bussia and 
 the psychological effect of the submarine campaign I 
 should have a very lively hope of the German collapse 
 before the coming winter is gone. The public and the 
 Government here set high expectations on your embargo. 
 
 Take your actions all together — from the Conscription 
 Act to the embargo — what a record that is! Of course, 
 it has saved the Allied cause, which would others ise have 
 been lost, in great measure if not wholly. And the British 
 know that and freely say so. This in itself is a conquest 
 over British "arrogance" which makes us henceforth the 
 masters of the English-speaking world. 
 
 Lord Beading again goes to the United States — on the 
 ship that carries tliis. He goes on a general financial 
 errand, the details of which I do not know — further than 
 the necessity of coming to some concrete understanding. 
 So far as I can find out, the British use their money well 
 (allowing, of course, for the waste of war from which 
 every nation suffers) ; but they seem to me to be awkward 
 and careless and then suddenly panic-stricken in their 
 large dealings with us to procure money. The financial 
 conferences to which they have invited me seemed to me 
 like a voyage through mist till you suddenly come to a 
 great fall. I have prayed them to be definite before they 
 become panic-stricken. ' The Ambassador is quite right/' 
 exclaims the Prime Minister. We then adjourn till the 
 next scare comes; and then the same journey is taken 
 again — to the same Nowhere. 
 
 Yours verv faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Serious as the submarine situation was, there was 
 another matter that, in Mr. Balfour's eyes, was even more 
 
392 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 alarming; that was the condition of Allied finances. That 
 the Allies were seriously pressed for dollars to cover their 
 purchases in the United States is no secret. Yet the 
 expressions which British statesmen used, in conver- 
 sation with Page and in their own official papers, are 
 fairly startling. On June 28th Page was asked to meet 
 Mr. Bonar Law, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Balfour, 
 Lord Curzon, and others to discuss the impending crisis. 
 The immediate difficulty was the assumption, by the 
 United States, of British obligations to J. P. Morgan 
 and Company, amounting to $400,000,000. This item 
 is always described in the correspondence of the two 
 countries as the "Morgan overdraft." While this ex- 
 pression is accurate enough, it must be remembered that 
 the English use of the banking word "overdraft" is 
 somewhat different from the American, and does not 
 carry the odious meaning attached to it in this 
 country. The British had not "overdrawn" their ac- 
 count in the American sense of the term. The firm of 
 J. P. Morgan had made advances to the British Govern- 
 ment of not far from $400,000,000; that is, in reality the 
 "overdraft" partook rather the nature of a loan. The 
 time had arrived for settlement. The Balfour Com- 
 mission to the United States had taken up this "over- 
 draft" with Mr. McAdoo in June, 1917, and had left the 
 country with the belief that it was to be paid out of the 
 money obtained in the first Liberty Loan. Mr. McAdoo, 
 however, insisted that no such promise had been made. 
 The incident had led to a painful misunderstanding, 
 and the meeting with Page and the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer was held in the hope of reaching a definite 
 agreement. At the same time the whole financial plight 
 of the Allies was discussed — a plight which Mr. Balfour 
 himself described as the "brink of the precipice." It is 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 393 
 
 a revelation also that on June 28, 1917, Great Britain had 
 enough money in the United Slates to keep up exchange 
 "for only one day more." 
 
 Telegram to the President 
 
 London, June 28, 1917. 
 Secretary of State, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 Greatest Urgency. 
 
 Wholly confidential for the President and the Secre- 
 tary of State and Secretary of the Treasury. 
 Mr. Balfour asked me to a conference at seven o'clock 
 with him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and tin it 
 financial advisers. It was disclosed that financial disastei 
 to all the European Allies is imminent unless the United 
 States Government advances to the British enough money 
 to pay for British purchases in the United States as they 
 fall due. 
 
 Bonar Law reports that only half enough has been 
 advanced for June and that the British agents in the 
 United States now have enough money to keep the ex- 
 change up for only one day more. If exchange with 
 England fall exchange with all European allies also will 
 immediately fall, and there will be a general collapse. 
 Balfour understood that in addition to our other loans 
 and our loans to France and Italy, we would advance t < > 
 England enough to pay for all purchases by the British 
 Government made in the United States. He authorizes 
 me to say that they are now on the brink of a precipice, 
 and unless immediate help be given financial collapse will 
 follow. He is sending an explanatory telegram to Spring 
 
 Rice. 
 
 I am convinced that these men are not overstating 
 their case. Unless we come to their rescue we are all in 
 
394 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 danger of disaster. Great Britain will have to abandon 
 the gold standard. 
 
 Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 29 June, 1917, London. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The financial panic (it's hardly less) that this Govern- 
 ment has raises the question, Why on earth do the British 
 drift along till they reach a precipice? That's hard to 
 answer. It's their way. They are too proud to acknowl- 
 edge their predicament even to themselves until events 
 force them to do so. Mr. Balfour informs me that the 
 agreement that he reached in general terms with Mr. Mc- 
 Adoo was this — that our Government would thenceforth 
 lend (1) to France and Italy (and Russia?) the sums they 
 would otherwise have to borrow from England (as they 
 have all the while been borrowing) and (2) in addition 
 lend to England whatever sums should be required to pay 
 for British Government purchases in the United States. 
 So much for that. I have no information whether that 
 is Mr. McAdoo's understanding. 
 
 Now, Bonar Law assured me at the fearful financial 
 conference to which they invited me that the Treasury 
 Department had given Lever (the English financial 
 agent) only half enough in June to meet the British 
 Government's bills in the United States. Since they had 
 reckoned on meeting all such bills from advances made by 
 us, they find themselves unable to go further without our 
 help. They have used all the gold they have in Canada. 
 This, then, is the edge of the precipice. It came out 
 that, a few weeks ago, the French came over here and 
 persuaded the British that in addition to the French 
 loan from the United States they were obliged to have the 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 395 
 
 British loans to them continued— for how long, I do not 
 know. Bonar Law said, "We simply had to do it." 
 The British, therefore, in spite of our help to France, still 
 have France on their back and continue to give her 
 money. I know that for a long time the British have 
 felt that the French were not making a sufficient iinancial 
 effort for themselves. "A Frenchman will Lightly gh e his 
 life for any cause that touches his imagination, but he will 
 die rather than give a franc for any cause." There is a 
 recurring fear here lest France in a moment of war- 
 weariness may make a separate peace. 
 
 As things stand to-day, there is a danger of the fall of ex- 
 change and (perhaps) the abandonment of specie payments. 
 These British run right into such a crisis before they are 
 willing to confess their plight even to themselves. 
 
 They are not trying to lie down on us: they are too 
 proud for that. Why they got into this predicament I do 
 not fully know. I know nothing of what arrangements 
 were made with them except what Mr. Balfour tells me. 
 It seems to me that some definite understanding ought to 
 have been reduced to writing. But here they are in this 
 predicament, which I duly reported by telegram. 
 
 It is unlucky that "crises" come in groups — two or 
 three at once. But the submarine situation is as serious 
 as the financial. I have a better knowledge of that than 
 I have of the financial situation. But in one respect they 
 are alike — the British drive ahead, concealing their losses, 
 their misfortunes, and their mistakes till they are on the 
 very brink of disaster: that is their temperament. Into 
 this submarine peril (the Germans are fast winning in this 
 crucial activity — there's no doubt about that) I have gone 
 pretty thoroughly with their naval men and their shipping 
 authorities. Admiral Sims has reached the same conclu- 
 sions that I have reached — independently, from his point 
 
396 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of view. The immediate grave danger for the present lies 
 here. If the present rate of destruction of shipping goes 
 on, the war will end before a victory is won. And time 
 is of the essence of the problem; and the place where it 
 will be won is in the waters of the approach to this Kingdom 
 — not anywhere else. The full available destroyer power 
 that can by any method be made available must be con- 
 centrated in this area within weeks (not months) . There 
 are not in the two navies half destroyers enough : impro- 
 vised destroyers must be got. There must be enough 
 to provide convoys for every ship that is worth saving. 
 Merely arming them affords the minimum of protection. 
 Armed merchantmen are destroyed every day. Con- 
 voyed ships escape — almost all. That is the convincing 
 actual experience. 
 
 If we had not come into the war when we did, and if we 
 had not begun action and given help with almost miracu- 
 lous speed, I do not say that the British would have been 
 actually beaten (tho' this may have followed), but I do 
 say that they would have quickly been on a paper money 
 basis, thereby bringing down the financial situation of all 
 the European Allies; and the submarine success of the 
 Germans would or might have caused a premature peace. 
 They were in worse straits than they ever confessed to 
 themselves. And now we are all in bad straits because of 
 this submarine destruction of shipping. One sea-going 
 tug now may be worth more than a dozen ships next 
 year. 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 Mr. McAdoo, in his discussion of the financial situation, 
 differed somewhat with British representatives in Wash- 
 ington. He declared that neither he nor any other 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 397 
 
 responsible American official had promised to pay the 
 "Morgan overdraft" out of the proceeds of the first 
 Liberty Loan, and insisted that before making such 
 engagements the American Governmeni must have rather 
 more information about British finances and British 
 purchases in the United States. He also expressed him- 
 self as rather confused by the number of Englishmen in 
 the United States who professed to represent the British 
 Government and was especially puzzled l>\ Lord North- 
 clifie's presence. "We have every desire," ho wrote. 
 'to be friendly and obliging. We have given conclusive 
 evidence of this, but in order to avoid future misunder- 
 standing it would be wise to have it understood that 
 nothing shall be considered as agreed to until signed 
 memoranda or documents have been exchanged." \\ hat 
 especially hurt the feelings of the British, however, was 
 Mr. McAdoo's remark that "America's cooperation can- 
 not mean that America can assume the entire cost of 
 financing the war." This statement, and the difficulties 
 arising from the general situation, led Mr. Bonar Law 
 to frame a memorandum for Page, which succinctly 
 describes Great Britain's financial efforts since August, 
 1914, and sets forth with the utmost frankness the con- 
 ditions that prevailed when the United States came to 
 the rescue. It is therefore a document of great historic 
 importance, and was immediately sent by Page to 
 Washington. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer to Page 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer has seen Mr. P; 
 July 11th and would be much obliged if Mr. Secre- 
 tary Balfour would cause the following note in reply 
 to be communicated to Mr. Page. The Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer of course accepts Mr. McAdoo's state- 
 
398 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 ment that "At no time, directly or indirectly, has the 
 Secretary of the Treasury or any one connected with his 
 Department promised to pay the Morgan overdraft." 
 In any event, this question of past misunderstandings is 
 of small consequence as compared with the question as to 
 whether the financial interests of the alliance make this 
 repayment necessary or advisable at the present time. 
 But in view of what passed at the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer's interview with Mr. Page, the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer thinks it right to quote the actual words 
 received by cable from Sir C. Spring Rice on April 9th 
 which were the foundation of what he said on that oc- 
 casion. Spring Rice telegraphed: "Sir R. Crawford de- 
 sires the following to be communicated to the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. I told the Secretary of the Treasury 
 last night that you appreciated and concurred in his 
 proposals. He was very gratified and asked me to convey 
 his compliments. I mentioned to him the four con- 
 siderations referred to in paragraph two of your telegram. 
 He agreed that repayment of overdraft on four hundred 
 million dollars would be a first call on the loan. . . . 
 This morning Governor Harding called, at the request of 
 the Secretary, and confirmed the views expressed by the 
 latter on the above points. This evening I went over 
 the matter again with the Counsellor of the State Depart- 
 ment, who fully concurred that our overdraft should be 
 a first charge." There are several indications in Mr. 
 McAdoo's note that he desires above all a fuller and 
 freer communication of facts on our part. We have never 
 desired or intended to keep any reserves from him as to 
 our financial position. On the other hand, it has been 
 our preoccupation to bring home to him exactly what that 
 position is. Any specific question we will answer. In the 
 meantime the following figures are presented in the belief 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 399 
 
 that they are the figures most relevant to present issues: 
 
 (A) Mr. McAdoo points out: "That America's cooper- 
 ation cannot mean that America can assume the en lire 
 burden of financing the war." How much less than this 
 has been expressly asked of it is exemplified in the follow- 
 ing table of assistance rendered to the European Allies !>\ 
 the United States and the United Kingdom respectively 
 since the date of the entry of America into the war. 
 
 Financial assistance from April first to July fourteenth, 
 nineteen hundred and seventeen: 
 
 Advanced by United Kingdom to France £56,037,000 
 sterling; to Russia, £78,472,000; to Italy, £17, 700,000; to 
 Belgium, including Congo, £8,035,000; to minor Allies, 
 £3,545,000. Total, £193,819,000 sterling. 
 
 Advanced by United States [to France] $310,000,000; 
 [to Russia] nil; [to Italy] $100,000,000; [to Belgium] 
 $15,000,000; [to minor Allies] $2,000,000; total. 
 $127,000,000, equals pounds sterling, ninety million. 
 
 The advances by the United States equal, roughly, 
 £90,000,000 against the advances by the United Kingdom 
 of nearly £194,000,000. Russia has been promised 
 $100,000,000 but it is understood that she has not yet 
 received any cash installments. For Belgian relief total 
 amounts promised $45,000,000; Serbia total amount 
 promised $3,000,000. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer gratefully acknowl- 
 edges that the United States Treasury have advanced 
 $686,000,000 to this country in addition to the above sums 
 to the other Allies. 
 
 But he invites Mr. McAdoo's particular attention to the 
 fact that even since America came into the war the financial 
 assistance afforded to the other Allies by the United King- 
 dom has beenmore thandouble the assistance afforded them 
 by the United States, and that the assistance the United 
 
400 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Kingdom has afforded these other Allies much exceeds the 
 assistance she has herself received from the United States. 
 
 (B) The United States Treasury have so far limited 
 their assistance to expenditure incurred by the Allies 
 within the United States, rightly recognizing that such 
 assistance involves a much less onerous burden than a 
 financial assistance abroad. The United Kingdom have 
 been unable to adopt this attitude toward their Allies but 
 have supported the burden of their expenditure in all parts 
 of the world. Without this support the Allies would have 
 been unable to obtain the supplies of food and munitions 
 which have been essential to their prosecution of the war. 
 
 To such an extent has the above been the case that up 
 to the present time, the United Kingdom is still financing 
 the expenditure of Russia in the United States. 
 
 (C) The total expenditure out of the British Exchequer 
 between April first, nineteen hundred and seventeen, 
 and July fourteenth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, 
 amounted to £825,109,000 sterling, of which pounds ster- 
 ling £131,245,000 was met from loans raised in the United 
 States. Both these figures relate to expenditure and 
 income brought to account out of date fourteenth. 
 
 (D) The financial burden upon the Exchequer of the 
 United Kingdom did not begin, however, on April first 
 last. The total expenditure between April first, 1914, 
 and March 31st, 1917, amounted to £4,362,798,000 
 sterling which added to the expenditure of £825,109,000 
 sterling since April first, 1917, makes a total expenditure of 
 £5,161,471,000 sterling. It is after having supported an 
 expenditure of this magnitude for three years that the 
 United Kingdom venture to appeal to the United States 
 of America for sympathetic consideration in financial 
 discussion where the excessive urgency of her need and 
 the precariousness of her position may somewhat impart 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 401 
 
 a tone of insistence to her requests for assistance which 
 would be out of place in ordinary circumstances. 
 
 A statement is appended at the end of (his note for 
 Mr. McAdoo's information showing precisely h< m this sum 
 of five billion pounds has been financed up to date. The 
 proceeds of the overdraft in New York are included under 
 the heading of the ways and means advances. Thia 
 statement included several particulars which have not 
 been communicated to Parliament and is to bo regarded, 
 like all the other figures cited in this note, as being on l> 
 for the confidential information of the United States 
 Government. 
 
 (E) The following statement shows the expenditure 
 and receipts of the British Government in New York from 
 the first April to the fourteenth July nineteen hundred and 
 seventeen. 
 
 Payments out of the treasury account in New York for 
 the purchase of commodities and interest due, $602,000,000. 
 
 Purchase of exchange (e. g., the cost of all wheat pur- 
 chases for Allies) is included in this figure infer alia durin 
 the greater part of the period in question) $529,000,000, 
 total $1,131,000,000. 
 
 Loans from United States Government, $685,000,000. 
 
 British treasury notes (sundry munitions contracts), 
 $27,000,000. 
 
 Repayments by French and Italian governments, 
 $134,000,000. 
 
 Gold, $246,000,000. 
 
 Sale of securities, $58,000,000 ; miscellaneous, $19,000,000 ; 
 total, $1,169,000,000. 
 
 (F) It will be seen from the preceding statement that 
 gold and securities were realized during the period in 
 question (for the most part during June) to the extent of 
 $304,000,000. The impossibility of the United Kingdom's 
 
 <r 
 & 
 
402 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 continuing to supplement American government assist- 
 ance on this scale is shown by the following facts. 
 
 Gold. We have exported to the United States since 
 the commencement of the war (including gold lately ear- 
 marked for the New York Federal Reserve Bank) a sum 
 of $305,000,000 in actual gold. This has all been sent 
 on behalf of the United Kingdom, but a considerable part 
 has been borrowed or purchased from the other Allies. 
 In addition a fairly substantial amount has been des- 
 patched to other destinations. This represents an enor- 
 mous effort of which the reserves of the United States 
 have obtained the benefit. 
 
 The United Kingdom now have left about £50,000,000 
 in the Bank of England's reserve, £28,500,000 in the 
 currency note reserve, and an unknown amount estimated 
 at a maximum of £50,000,000 with the joint stock banks. 
 In addition there is a sum of about £10,000,000 at the 
 disposal of the Treasury but not included in any published 
 reserve. This makes a total of about £140,000,000. 
 There are virtually no government bonds in circulation. 
 This is about six per cent, of our banking liabilities and 
 considerably less than allotted circulation of the govern- 
 ment bonds in the United States. 
 
 The amount of tins government loan which we could 
 part with, without destroying the confidence upon which 
 our credit rests, is inconsiderable. 
 
 Securities. Before the Treasury initiated their official 
 mobilization of dollar securities large amounts were dis- 
 posed of through private channels and also by the Bank of 
 England, who were systematically engaged in the disposal 
 of Dutch government securities in New York. 
 
 The following figures relate only to the treasury scheme : 
 value of securities purchased, $770,000,000; value of 
 securities obtained on deposit as a loan, $1,130,000,000. 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 403 
 
 Total, $1,900,000,000. The above has been disposed of as 
 follows: Sold in New York, $750,000,000; deposited as 
 security against loans, $600,000,000; deposited as security 
 against call loan, $400,000,000; still in hand, $150,000,000; 
 total, $1,900,000,000 (all figures approximate). We have 
 now obtained virtually all the dollar securities available 
 in this country and, in view of penalties now attached, it 
 is believed that the amount of saleable securities still in 
 private hands is now of very small dimensions. The 
 balance in hand can only be disposed of gradually and is 
 not in any case an important amount. 
 
 In short, our resources available for payments in 
 America are exhausted. Unless the United States Gov- 
 ernment can meet in full our expenses in America, 
 including exchange, the whole financial fabric of the 
 alliance will collapse. Tins conclusion will be a matter 
 not of months but of days. 
 
 The question is one of winch it is necessary to take a 
 large view. If matters continue on the same basis as 
 during the last few weeks a financial disaster of the first 
 magnitude cannot be avoided. In the course of August 
 the enemy will receive the encouragement of which he 
 stands in so great need, at the moment of the war when 
 perhaps he needs it most. 
 
 Mr. McAdoo suggests that the settlement of joint 
 allied purchasing arrangements must precede any prom- 
 ises from him of financial support in August. His 
 Majesty's Government do not know how to interpret this 
 statement. They are doing what they can to promote 
 the establishment of such arrangements and at the end of 
 June prepared a detailed scheme, on lines which they had 
 been given to understand would commend themselves to 
 the United States Government, for submission to the 
 other Allies, but the settlement depends upon the progress 
 
404 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 of events in America and the acquiescence of the other 
 Allies concerned. They will instruct Sir C. Spring Rice to 
 communicate unofficially the details to the United States 
 Government immediately without waiting for replies 
 from the other Allies. His Majesty's Government cannot 
 believe that, if these or other natural and unavoidable 
 causes of delay are operative for reasons winch may be 
 out of their control, financial support will be withheld and 
 a catastrophe precipitated. 
 
 As regards Mr. McAdoo's concluding passage, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to say that Lord 
 Northcliffe is the duly authorized representative of His 
 Majesty's Government to conduct all financial negoti- 
 ations on their behalf. Lord Northcliffe has, however, 
 suggested that the United States Government would 
 themselves prefer that someone with political experience 
 such as an ex-cabinet member should be asked to cross 
 to the United States for the purpose of dealing with the 
 financial situation. If tins is the desire of the United 
 States Government, His Majesty's Government would 
 gladly comply with it. 
 
 To the Secretary of State 
 
 London, August 2, 1917. 
 Secretary of State, 
 Washington. 
 
 August 2, 3 p. m. Confidential for the Secretary and 
 President only. 
 Mr. Balfour has gone over with me the telegram he sent 
 July thirty to Spring Rice for McAdoo about exchange. 
 He represents the position as most perilous. He hopes 
 that the President has seen it and will cause a reply to 
 be sent at earliest possible time. 
 
 Page. 
 
"on the brink of the precipice" 405 
 
 These documents make clear the financial disaster 
 from winch the United States saved the Vllies, for, in a 
 brief time, all difficulties and misunderstandings were 
 adjusted, and American advances, to the extent of nearly 
 $12,000,000,000, went with clock-like regularity to sup- 
 port the great cause. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE LAST LETTERS 
 
 OF ALL the utterances of President Wilson, probably 
 the answer to Pope Benedict XV, in August, 1917, 
 gave Page the greatest satisfaction. His Holiness had 
 appealed to the warring powers to cease their battles, to 
 restore the political conditions of Europe as they had 
 existed before 1914, and to settle outstanding problems 
 on the basis of arbitration, general condonation, and 
 Christian charity. President Wilson, paying due respect 
 to the source from which the proposal came, rejected it in 
 words that sped like lightning through two hemispheres 
 and put a new spirit into the efforts of the Allies. ' The 
 object of the war," said the President, "is to deliver the 
 free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual 
 power of a vast military establishment, controlled by an 
 irresponsible government, which, having secretly planned 
 to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out 
 without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty 
 or the long-established practices and long-cherished prin- 
 ciples of international action and honour, which chose 
 its own time for the war, delivered its blow fiercely and 
 suddenly, stopped at no barrier, either of law or of mercy; 
 swept a whole continent within the tide of blood — not the 
 blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women 
 and of children also, and of the helpless poor; and now 
 stands, balked but not defeated, the enemy of four fifths 
 of the world." It was an eloquent description of the 
 origin of the war and the spirit with which Germany had 
 
 406 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 407 
 
 waged hostilities and one can imagine Page's pleasure in 
 reading it. Nor would it have been more than human 
 nature had he felt a personal gratification. For the 
 President's interpretation was precisely the one that Page 
 had been setting forth for three years. From the day the 
 Germans invaded Belgium, the Ambassador, in letter 
 after letter, had described the object of the war, as the 
 deliverance "of the free peoples of the world from the 
 menace and the actual power of a vast nulitary establish- 
 ment, controlled by an irresponsible government." The 
 necessary conclusion, in the President's reply — that the 
 United States, in making peace, should have no nego- 
 tiations with the Hohenzollern government, but would 
 insist on dealing only with the responsible representatives 
 of the German people — was a plan which Page would 
 naturally approve. 
 
 "As I promptly telegraphed you," Page wrote in 
 reference to this message, "and as, of course, you have 
 heard through many channels, your reply to the Pope 
 received a most enthusiastic welcome here, not only be- 
 cause it meets with universal approval: there's a deeper 
 reason than that. It expresses definitely the moral and 
 the deep and clear political reason for the war — the freeing 
 of the world, including the German people, from the Ger- 
 man military autocracy; and it expresses this better and 
 with more force than it has ever been expressed by any- 
 body on this side the world. You have made acceptable 
 peace-terms clearer, not only to the enemy, but also to tin 1 
 Allies, than they have ever before been made known. All 
 these nations here have so many relatively unimportant 
 and so many purely selfish aims that their minds run on. 
 Here you come setting forth the one big thing worth 
 fighting for — the one big moral and political aim — no re- 
 venge, no mere boundary rectifications, no subsidiary thing 
 
408 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 to confuse the main purpose. This gives moral leader- 
 ship to the whole war; and the British know and feel this." 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, Sept. 25, 1917. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 There has, I think, been no other stroke so effective — 
 apart from our coming into the war — as your firm an- 
 nouncement in your letter to the Pope that we cannot 
 deal with the present government of Germany unless 
 satisfactory guarantees are given directly by the German 
 people. This had been said here but never, I think, said 
 with official sanction and surely never with convincing 
 force. Now that you have said it, it takes precedence 
 over every other formula of necessary demands. It is, 
 of course, the necessary demand, the necessary condition 
 of peace. It has had a tremendous effect upon British 
 opinion and British resolution. 
 
 And so far as I can judge, its effect in Germany has been 
 and continues to be supreme. The violence with which 
 it is resented and the mobilization of official opinion 
 against it tell the story. It is worth more than the win- 
 ning of a dozen great battles. 
 
 Of course, it means far more coming from you than it 
 could be made to mean coming from any subject of a 
 "crowned" republic. The "crowned" is the trouble. 
 Then, too, the British do not trust even the German 
 people. Neither do I, for that matter. But this is not 
 directly to the point. For no popular government — even 
 of a nation wholly depraved and villainous, if there were 
 such a nation — could ever get the power or develop the will 
 to play the German Government's role. I can't judge 
 what chance there is of a revolution in Germany, but, if 
 there be a chance, your declaration strengthens it and if 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 409 
 
 there have hitherto been no chance, your declaration 
 suggests it. Besides, it has planted liiinK in t In* minds 
 of all the Allies the real aim of the war. Everything else 
 is secondary to this aim. 
 
 Of course, your declaration is only part and parcel of the 
 commanding influence of all that you say; and whatever 
 you say goes further home both in Germany and among 
 the Allies than all things that all other men say. 
 
 The British are full not only of gratitude but of ad- 
 miration of the way we go about the task; and their 
 curiosity to know all that we are doing is pathetic. I have 
 just come, for instance, from lunch with Mr. Asquith 
 and Mr. Winston Churchill, who talked and asked about 
 nothing but our preparations. They have both been in 
 France very lately and they are full of praise of what they 
 saw and heard of our Expeditionary Force. They freely 
 acknowledge that an undesirable peace would have been 
 forced on the Allies by this time if we had not come in. 
 So, too, did M. Schneider, the French Krupp, who was at 
 this luncheon. The same frank confession comes out 
 everywhere now. It was freely spoken, for instance, the 
 other day when Balfour, Geddes, and Jellicoe, and I talked 
 for two hours. 
 
 I wish it were possible for some proper person to come 
 here — a good public speaker — who could explain in some 
 detail and somewhat officially just what we arc doing and 
 how we are doing it in the United States. The curiosity 
 of the British Government and public is insatiable and 
 their admiration unbounded. 
 
 I have heard nothing more about the reported naval 
 misunderstanding 1 than I telegraphed a few days ago 
 
 •The reference is to a report which had reached Washington, that the British 
 naval authorities were not dealing fairly with the American Navy and were con- 
 cealing information. 
 
410 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 after my long conference with Balfour, Geddes, and Jel- 
 licoe. They are much disturbed and they evidently 
 think that some mischiefmaker is at work. They protest 
 that they have been perfectly frank and have opened all 
 doors of information to us and given the profoundest 
 consideration to every suggestion and request that has 
 come from us, and that still they hear of dissatisfaction 
 at Washington. I suspect that they have a fear lest 
 Pollen, 1 a British writer and lecturer on naval subjects, 
 now in the United States, has been stirring up trouble. 
 It seems that the Admiralty and the Navy here have never 
 been able to please Pollen or to win his approval. Whether 
 my guess about Pollen be correct or not, something is 
 wrong in fact or in gossip. They are very eager for 
 Admiral Benson himself to come here. I asked Jellicoe 
 why he didn't go to Washington, and his reply was: "The 
 problem itself is here. I wish the head of your naval staff 
 himself to see that we withhold nothing. If he understand 
 it, no trouble can come from subordinates." 
 
 Geddes, by the way, the new First Lord of the Admir- 
 alty, is making a very favourable impression on the 
 Government and on public opinion; and I think deservedly 
 and properly. He is an extraordinarily forcible man. 
 He ran away when a boy and worked in a saw-mill camp 
 in West Virginia. Subsequently he had a valuable and 
 (I think) quite extensive experience in railroad work in 
 the United States and learned American railroad manage- 
 ment. The result was that he worked his way, when 
 he came back here, into the chief manager's place of one 
 of the big English railways, and made a great reputation 
 as a manager of men — as a man of great force who brings 
 things to pass. A year or so ago he was put in charge of 
 
 x Mt. Arthur H. Pollen, a severe critic of the Admiralty. 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 411 
 
 the big transportation problem of the British in France — 
 against the wishes of the army commanders. He went 
 there with their prejudice againsl him, but he completely 
 won their approval and their warm praise by thewa) he did 
 the job. They made him a Brigadier-General When 
 Lloyd George concluded that he wanted the utmost push 
 in the Admiralty, he made Geddes First Lord. This 
 required that he should be a member of Parliament. The 
 member for Cambridge resigned to make room tor him and 
 Geddes was elected in his place. Then they made him an 
 Admiral. Some wag remarked that next week they'd 
 probably make Geddes Archbishop! It was a new ex- 
 perience to take a civilian railroad manager — a man who 
 has no politics that anybody ever heard of and who h;is 
 had no political experience and who didn't even know 
 many of the political figures or managers — and give lum 
 one of the very foremost Cabinet positions. When he 
 took office those who did not feel some prejudice against 
 him at least looked at him with a question mark. Already 
 he has won the confidence and enthusiasm of his associates, 
 as he did of the army officers in France. 
 
 I have seen a good deal of him, and there is no doubt of 
 his clear head, his sound judgment, and his most uncommon 
 energy and directness. One nickname they have for him 
 is "The Yank." If I had to bet, I'd bet on him. I don't 
 for a moment believe that this fellow will play any tricks 
 on us or on anybody else. I should say that he now has 
 only one aim in life and that is to win the war and to make 
 the Navy do its utmost to win it. 
 
 Every ship now brings special men sent by many 
 departments of our Government to get information — army 
 men, naval men, aircraft men, Red Cross men; and after 
 I have put them into the proper channels, I try to follow 
 every one of them and to ask if they've got all they came 
 
412 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 for. They all report the most courteous treatment and 
 success in their quests. Several departments of the 
 British Government have volunteered the request that 
 I have them promptly informed if any accredited Amer- 
 icans fail to receive what they ask for. 
 
 We are fast accumulating war trophies from the air 
 raids on London. Pieces of shells — from the British 
 anti-aircraft guns— fell on my roof last night during the 
 half-hour battle. We were at dinner and we concluded 
 that it was as well to be hit with full stomachs as with 
 empty ones. So we finished the meal about the time 
 the battle ended. During these moonlit evenings we re- 
 ceive an attack every night— always, of course, with loss 
 of life greater than the newspapers are allowed to report. 
 Two bombs fell last night within a few hundred yards 
 of Buckingham Palace and two more still nearer the 
 Houses of Parliament. But it is hard to believe that the 
 German airmen knew just what buildings they came near 
 hitting. The guns at least keep them at a great height. 
 A fortnight ago a bomb wrecked a street so near my house 
 that two or three seconds difference would have caused 
 it to fall on the square where I live— two or three seconds 
 difference in the time of its release from the aeroplane. 
 We are, therefore, now literally in the war. We pay 
 singularly little attention to it — one gets used to it— and 
 there are, after all, singularly few casualties— about 
 twenty people killed and seventy-five hurt every time. 
 We expect a raid and a battle every night while the moon 
 lasts. 
 
 But this is an incident of the war unworthy of 
 
 mention. 
 
 Believe me, Mr. President, 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 413 
 
 The few remaining letters, written at long intervals, 
 require no comment. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, 22 December, 1017. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 . . . The Lansdowne 1 letter NViis used ;is ;in oc(;ision 
 to demand a clearer and simpler explanation of the aims 
 of the war. I do not quite see how such a demand — 
 which itself is one evidence of a weary depression -can 
 be satisfied by thumb-nail catch phrases. Mr. Balfour, 
 as I dare say you have read, declared in the House <>f 
 Commons two nights ago that your recent speeches and 
 letters were as able as any state papers produced In the 
 whole history of the world. Everybody points to them 
 as the preeminent formulation of war aims, and yet the 
 cry continues here for some summary that the man in the 
 street and the man in the trenches can understand. All 
 this will pass with the New Year mood. 
 
 But there is one thing that I wish the British would 
 themselves say more plainly and concretely — that the 
 only way to security is to overthrow the German military 
 autocracy, so as to show that tins implies at least the 
 unhorsing of the Emperor. I should not say positively 
 that the dynastic principle prevents. But it has some- 
 thing to do with preventing a clear cry. Almost every- 
 where in Europe — everywhere outside of France and 
 Switzerland — men seem yet unable to think of govern- 
 ment without kings. Something of the old divinity doth 
 yet hedge them. Even in England there is a hesitancy to 
 speak out plainly about crowned villains. The Tsar 
 
 1 A. letter written by Lord Lansdowne, on November 29, 1917, and published in 
 the Daily Telegraph. It contended that the war had lasted too lon^r, and was 
 generally criticized as favouring an unsatisfactory peace. 
 
414 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 himself found much sympathy here in certain circles. 
 The vague fear lest royalty here may come upon an evil 
 day shows itself by irrelevant and unnecessary out- 
 bursts in praise of the King; and the argument is over- 
 worked that a throne is necessary to hold the Empire 
 
 together 
 
 With all good wishes, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, January 16, 1918. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 You know Lord Reading 1 and have taken measure of 
 him, but the following facts and gossip may interest you : 
 He is one of the ablest Englishmen living — everybody 
 concedes that. See and compare the view taken of 
 Disraeli, the other Hebrew Earl, by his political enemies. 
 As between the two my judgment would be in favour of 
 Reading. He is not so spectacular as old Dizzy was, 
 but he is far sounder. I doubt if Dizzy was honest, and 
 Reading is. He is one of the most brilliant and able mem- 
 bers of the Bar. He has himself told me that he worked 
 for years from early hours to early hours again day in and 
 day out — a prodigy of industry. He became skilful, es- 
 pecially in financial cases, and his fees were prodigious. 
 
 Lord Reading does not give up the Lord Chief Justice- 
 ship. He remarked to me the other day that his Am- 
 bassadorship would be temporary. Lady Reading told 
 Mrs. Page that they expected to be gone only three months. 
 But I take it that he will not return till the end of the war. 
 
 I have reason to believe (although I do not know) that 
 
 'Lord Reading had recently been appointed British Ambassador to the United 
 States. 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 415 
 
 an effort was made to induce Mr. Balfour and then Lord 
 Grey to go as Ambassador to Washington. 1 know that 
 the appointment was offered to Northcliffe. He didn't 
 
 care to be away from London so long lest he should lose 
 his grip on the general management of things, which in his 
 inmost soul he thinks he holds and which, to a degree, 
 he does hold. The belief, moreover, is widespread that 
 he may become Prime Minister if Lloyd George should 
 not last till peace come. I think there is no doubt that to 
 do a concrete job Lord Reading will succeed, during war 
 time, better than any man who was considered for the 
 post. But if when the war is over Lord Grey should go, 
 we should have the best possible representative of English 
 tradition and English character. Yet I think he ne\<r 
 will, although he is going after the war to deliver lectures 
 at Yale and elsewhere. 
 
 Of course, the immediate problems to be met in the 
 relations of the two Governments will continue to be 
 financial — till we have to slacken our pace. The British, 
 God knows, need money, but God knows also that they 
 are not slow in making their wants known. I doubt 
 if anybody, but the Germans, will ever wage war on less 
 than twice what it ought to cost. But, if it could be more 
 extravagantly conducted than they (the British) conduct 
 it, I can't imagine how it could be done. 
 
 There is going on a visit to the United States on the invi- 
 tation of some of our ecclesiastical organizations the Most 
 Reverend and Rt. Honourable His Grace the Lord Arch- 
 bishop of York whose name (which is never used) is Cosmo 
 Gordon Lang, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., D.Litt. &c, &c, &c. — 
 and he signs his name Cosmo Ebor. He comes of Scotch- 
 Irish stock. He is the best representative of the best 
 English clerical life — a simple, humble, learned, right- 
 minded man of charm and fine manners and fine feeling. 
 
416 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 He is most eager to meet you and you will enjoy him. Of 
 course his proper approach (he's a Peer Spiritual) is 
 through his Ambassador. To mortals of humble rank, 
 such as President Eliot, I have given him letters. The 
 Archbishop at one end of the line and Reading at the 
 other — they make good representatives of Notable Eng- 
 land. 
 
 There is a very general uneasiness here about the ex- 
 pected offensive by the Germans in France, for the feeling 
 is that they are willing to sacrifice their whole army for 
 Paris or Calais and that they are going to make their most 
 desperate effort regardless of the cost in men or in anything 
 else. How true this is everybody can guess for himself. 
 But it seems probable, to say the least. Their chance is 
 better than it will be after we get a great trained army in 
 France. There is a sense, too, in which such a decisive 
 effort will be welcomed here. Nothing is printed and little 
 is said in public about the constant danger of labour 
 troubles in this Kingdom, but such a danger has always 
 to be taken into account. The Briton, nobleman or 
 labourer, is not going to give out or give up, but it costs 
 him more and more in money and in anxiety to keep his 
 whole force in the field, in the factory, in the mine, and 
 on the land, going at full strength, than it would cost but 
 for this constant labour burden. 
 
 "After the War" hasn't come yet. But I recall a re- 
 mark that Edward Grey made to me before the war, that 
 Labour would in a decade control many governments. 
 A frequent prediction now made here by well-informed 
 Englishmen is that it will control the government of 
 Great Britain. The Labour Party is already playing for 
 supremacy. 
 
 It's a quieter, sadder, more serious time and mood than 
 we have before had in England. Everybody feels that we 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 417 
 
 are approaching great and perhaps decisive events; and 
 they all thank God for the United States and its President. 
 
 Yours very heartily, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
 There certainly could be no more appropriate conclusion 
 to this series than the following letter, which probably 
 sets forth as eloquently as it has ever been set forth the 
 spirit that made inevitable Allied victory : 
 
 To the President 
 
 London, March 7, 1918. 
 Dear Mr. President: 
 
 The complete break-down of Russia and the present 
 German occupation of so much of that Empire as she 
 wants, together with the surrender of Rumania, have 
 had a very strong effect on both sections of public opinion 
 here as I interpret the British mind. In the enormously 
 dominant section these untoward events have stiffened 
 the war resolution. They say that Germany must now be 
 whipped to a finish. Else she will have doubled her 
 territory, got raw materials and food, probably opened a 
 way to Asia, strengthened the Turks, and will hold the 
 peoples of her new territory as vassals — to exploit them 
 and their lands in preparation for another war for further 
 conquests. The war lord will be more firmly seated than 
 before. Only if her armies be literally whipped will the 
 German military caste be thrown out of power. This 
 probably means a very long war yet. 
 
 The minority section of opinion — so far as I can judge, 
 it is a small minority — has the feeling that such a decisive 
 military victory cannot be won ; that the enemies of Ger- 
 many, allowing her to keep her Eastern gains, must soon 
 make the best bargain they can in the West. Of course 
 
418 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 this plan would leave the German military caste in power 
 and would be a defeat for the Allies in so far as a fair 
 chance for a permanent peace is concerned. It would 
 leave at least European Russia to German mercy, and the 
 Baltic and Black seas practically in German control. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne and his friends (how numerous they 
 are nobody knows) are the loudest spokesmen for such 
 a peace as might be made now, especially if Belgium 
 can be restored and an agreement reached about Alsace- 
 Lorraine. But it is talked much of in Asquith circles that 
 the time may come when this policy (its baldness somewhat 
 modified) may be led by Mr. Asquith. He has up to this 
 time patriotically supported the Government. But he 
 is very generally suspected of intrigue, and his friends 
 openly predict that at what they regard as a favourable 
 moment he will take his cue. I myself can hardly believe 
 this. I do not believe that even a party political victory 
 lies in that direction. But a virtual surrender to the 
 Germans would, if this peace-plan should be successful. 
 
 The dominant section is sorely grieved about the 
 present state of Russia. But they refuse to be discour- 
 aged by it. They recall how Napoleon overran the most 
 of Europe and how the French held none of his conquests 
 after his fall. 
 
 The danger that the present government is in here, 
 comes, it seems to me, not mainly from the split in public 
 opinion that I have described, but from the personal 
 enemies of Mr. Lloyd George and his Government. They 
 make the most of the dismissal of Jellicoe and of Robertson 
 and of the appointment of Beaverbrook and Northcliffe 
 and of the closeness of the Government to agitating news- 
 papers — whether the newspapers run the Government 
 or the Government runs the newspapers doesn't matter: 
 they are, their enemies say, too closely intertwined. 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 419 
 
 It is certain that Lloyd George keeps power mainly if 
 not solely because he is the most energetic man in sight. 
 Many who support him do not like him personally. But 
 nobody doubts his supreme earnestness to win the war, 
 and everybody holds that tins is the only task now worth 
 while. This feeling has saved him in both recent political 
 "crises." After the last one, he remarked to me with an 
 exultant manner : " They don't seem to want anybody < Ise 
 — yet, do they?" His dismissal of Robertson has been ac- 
 cepted in the interest of greater unity of military control, 
 but that was a dangerous rapids he shot; for he didn't 
 handle the boat very tactfully. The previous dismissal of 
 Jellicoe has now just come up, rather bitterly, in t In- 
 House of Commons. Whether these two incidents are 
 quiescent, it is hard to tell. From the inside I hoar thai 
 both were necessary because of the inability both of the 
 great sailor and of the great soldier to work in adminis- 
 trative harness with other people. It may very well be 
 true that the place for both is in fight, not in administra- 
 tion. Such surely was the case with Kitchener. 
 
 Yet there is a certain danger to the Government also 
 because some of them are thought to be wearing out. 
 Parliament itself — I mean the House of Commons — is 
 thought to be going stale: it has had an enormously long 
 life. The Prime Minister, though a tough and robust 
 man, has increasingly frequent little breakdowns. Bonar 
 Law seems and is very weary. Mr. Balfour's health is not 
 uniformly robust, and his enemies call him old and languid. 
 But, just when this criticism finds a voice, he makes 
 a clearer statement than anybody else has made and the 
 threatened storm passes. Still, the Government, like all 
 other governments in Europe now, is overworked and 
 tired. 
 
 But I believe British opinion to be sound, and British 
 
420 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 endurance is only having its first real test. The people 
 here are forever accusing one another, especially those in 
 authority, of weakness. They have always done so. It 
 is a sort of national vice, which it is well to remember in 
 all outbursts of dissatisfaction. I form my opinion from 
 what I know and see of two opposite and widely separated 
 sections of society. Labour — there has been grave trouble 
 with Labour since the beginning of the war — in its recent 
 manifesto stood quite firm and resolute. The "lower 
 classes" are undoubtedly in favour of a fight to a finish. 
 The Tommy is made of as good fighting material as there 
 is in the world. He knows enough to be bulldoggish and 
 not enough to have any philosophic doubts. I was much 
 impressed a little while ago with the reasons that Lord 
 Derby gave me for regarding the present British Army as 
 the best that the world has ever seen. I reminded him, 
 when he had enumerated his reasons, that all that he had 
 said suggested to me that for those very reasons there 
 would soon be a better army. He was gracious enough 
 not to dispute my contention. 
 
 The aristocracy — the real aristocracy — too are plucky 
 to the last degree. That's one virtue that they have 
 supremely. They do not wince. They seem actually to 
 remember the hard plight that Napoleon put them in. 
 They licked him. Hence, they can lick anybody. The 
 separation of this island from the Continent and the 
 ancient mixture here of the breeds of men produced a 
 kind of man that stands up in a fight — no doubt about that 
 — whether he be a bejewelled and arrogant aristocrat and 
 reactionary or a forgotten and neglected Hodge of the 
 soil. 
 
 I was at a dinner of old Peers at the Athenaeum Club— 
 a group of old cocks that I meet once in a while and have 
 come to know pretty well and ever to marvel at. I think 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 421 
 
 every one is past seventy — several of them past eighty. 
 On this occasion I was the only commoner present. The 
 talk went on about every imaginable thing — reminis- 
 cences of Browning, the years of good vintages of i>ort, 
 the excellence of some court opinions handed down in the 
 United States by quite obscure judges — why shouldn't 
 they be got out of the masses of law reports and pub- 
 lished as classics? — wouldn't it have been well if the 
 King had gone and spent his whole time at the front and 
 on the fleet, — what's an English King for anyhow? — then 
 a defense of Reading; and why should the Attorney 
 General or the Lord Chief Justice be allowed out of the 
 Kingdom at all at such a time? 
 
 "Call in the chief steward. . . . Here, steward, 
 what's that noise?" 
 
 "A hair raid, milord." 
 
 "How long has it been going on?" 
 
 "Forty minutes, milord." 
 
 "I must be deaf," said the old fellow, with an inquiring 
 look at the company. Everybody else had heard it, but 
 we've learned to take these things for granted and nobody 
 had interrupted the conversation to speak of it. Then 
 the old man spoke up again. 
 
 "Well, there's nothing we can do to protect His Excel- 
 lency. Damn the air raid. Pass the port." 
 
 Then the talk went on about the ignorance and the 
 commonness of modern British governments — most mod- 
 ern governments, in fact. French statesmen — most of 
 'em common fellows, and Italians and Germans — ach! 
 What swine! "Think of that fellow Von Kuhlmann. 1 I 
 lent him a valuable book and the rogue never returned it. 
 Did you know Kuhlmann?" 
 
 1 An important member of the German Embassy in London under Prince 
 Lichnowsky. 
 
422 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 "But," turning to me, 'you are to be congratulated. 
 You have a gentleman for your President. How do you 
 do it? That breed seems to be out of a job in most 
 countries." 
 
 Not one of those old fellows drove to the club. They 
 can't get gasoline and they have no horses. Nor can 
 cabs be got after ten o'clock. When the firing and bomb 
 dropping had ceased, the question arose whether it was 
 safe to walk home. My car had come and I took five of 
 them in it — one on the front with the driver. As each got 
 out at his door he bade me an almost affectionate good- 
 night. One of them said, "By our combined forces the 
 God of our Fathers — not the barbarous Prussian Gott — 
 will see us through." 
 
 There's no sham about these old masters of empire. 
 They feel a proprietary interest in the King, in the King- 
 dom, in everything British. Every man of them had 
 done some distinguished service and so have the sons of 
 most of them; and at least half of them have lost grand- 
 sons or sons in the war, to which they never allude. An 
 enemy might kill them if he could get to them, but change 
 them or scare them or make them surrender — never. 
 Take 'em all in all, for downright human interest, I don't 
 know where you'd find their equals. Take them as mere 
 phenomena of human society and of a social system — well, 
 that's another story. But they, and their like, are not 
 going to give up in this war. 
 
 Well, a little before that, I met once a week for three 
 or four weeks at dinner about a dozen Labour leaders, who 
 good-humouredly wrangled with one another and with 
 me, they being of a disputatious turn. It's a pretty good 
 world to them, on the whole; but economic society is or- 
 ganized with gross injustice and their misfortune is that 
 they must set it right. On many things they can't agree 
 
THE LAST LETTERS 423 
 
 with one another; but on one thing they are of like mind: 
 the employer wasn't fair before the war and he isn't fair 
 now. The war brings no reason to their minds wh} thej 
 should surrender. Let him surrender, rather. Bui they 
 wouldn't desert the country. They'll beat the hog of an 
 employer, but they'll keep up the war, and a lar«:. r 
 measure of democracy will follow. Most of these men 
 are keen-minded, able, pugnacious and, like all breeds of 
 the John Bull stock, tenacious. They have a case — I'm 
 disposed to think, a good case— which they urge most 
 often by bad methods. They will have a larger measure 
 of democracy. The first concrete form that it has taken 
 is the new Franchise Act which doubles the number of 
 voters. There is now an approximation to one vote for 
 every man over twenty-one and for every woman over 
 thirty. Other such concrete changes will come— perhaps 
 a Labour government, certainly a Labour government if 
 all Labour holds together. One of these fellows goes on 
 a crutch from a war wound. They are not for a peace that 
 will soon end in another war. 
 
 As I make it out, it is chiefly in political and philosophic 
 circles that hopelessness finds a home. Lord Lansdowne 
 belongs to both these groups, to one by temperament, the 
 other by training. I ran across him a fortnight ago. He 
 had, for an old man who is far from well, an almost un- 
 seemly gaiety of spirit, and he insisted on talking almost 
 wholly about agriculture. I had sent to our Agricultural 
 Department for certain of its publications, which greatly 
 interested him. I almost forgive him his vagueness, cut 
 bias of political thought because of his sound agricultural 
 knowledge. 
 
 I set out to write you, Mr. President, more about our 
 own affairs here rather than this weary stuff about the 
 curious and admirable and stolid and eternally baffling 
 
424 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 carnivorous and amphibious animal that inhabits this 
 island. But I'll tire you with a longer letter. Our own 
 affairs here are, I think, going well — in most respects 
 surely. The Embassy is war-weary in this sense — that the 
 staff has one sick man — one after another — all the while. 
 The London winter all indoors and the failure of some of 
 the best workers to take exercise — that's the trouble; but 
 it's not serious. A week on the South Shore sets the diges- 
 tion going again. 
 
 I am trying to get together some information in an 
 authoritative way which I hope will be useful to House 
 in his preparation for the Peace Conference. It is an 
 interesting task as well as baffling. And much of my time 
 is taken in making sure that our several groups of people, 
 such as the Shipping Board group, the War Trade Board 
 group, etc., are getting on well with the several depart- 
 ments of the Government, as, up to this time, they have. 
 The British try to play the game openly and gratefully. 
 
 My fears for our future dealings centre about trade 
 
 jealousies. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 Walter H. Page. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 T)AGE died at Pinehurst, North Carolina, December 
 r 21, 1918; the first two volumes of "The Life and 
 Letters of Walter H. Page" were published in October, 
 1922. In both the United States and Great Britain the 
 disclosure of the great part he had played in the war 
 and the literary charm and permanent historical value 
 of his letters, made a deep impression. Americans recog- 
 nized that in supporting the Allied cause from the begin- 
 ning of the war, in constantly placing before President 
 Wilson the great facts in the coniiict, in insisting that the 
 power of the United States should inevitably be used to 
 bring about the defeat of the Central Empires, Page 
 was preaching Americanism of the loftiest kind. Espe- 
 cially impressive was the recognition that the Ambassador- 
 ship and the policies and opinions it made vital merely 
 formed the climax of a consistent career. With Page's 
 past in his own country — with his interest in the demo- 
 cratic progress of the common man — any other attitude 
 than that of allegiance to the Allied cause would have 
 been unthinkable. Since his death several memorials, 
 in this country and in England, have paid tribute to Page's 
 services in several fields. The little town in which the 
 future Ambassador was born, Cary, North Carolina, has 
 named its institution for secondary education "The 
 Walter H. Page High School" — an appropriate testimony 
 to his struggles for popular instruction in the South. 
 His college, Randolph-Macon, in Virginia, dedicated, 
 
 425 
 
426 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER II. PAGE 
 
 in December, 1923, the 'Walter Hines Page Library." 
 North Carolina, the state winch Page loved so well, but 
 which at times had so misunderstood him — the old boy- 
 hood home to which his heart longingly turned in those 
 last days in England, and to which, broken by his five 
 years' Ambassadorship, he came back to die — has placed 
 his portrait in the State Capitol at Raleigh — a replica of 
 the painting, by Philip Laszlo, that hangs in the American 
 Embassy in London. 
 
 A great school of international relations has been 
 founded at Johns Hopkins University — the institution 
 at which Page, from 1876 to 1878, was one of the first 
 twenty Fellows. It had been Page's plan, on his return 
 to the United States, to devote his life to improving 
 relations between peoples — not only between the United 
 States and Great Britain, but the United States and the 
 whole world. "My fears for our future dealings," he 
 writes in the last letter of the present book, "centre 
 about trade jealousies." The sentence contains much to 
 set his countrymen thinking. Many developments since 
 the armistice give it especial point. How can these trade 
 rivalries and other causes of international ill-health be 
 prevented from precipitating an even greater calamity 
 than that through which he lived? The proposed Walter 
 Hines Page School of International Relations, with an 
 endowment of $1,000,000, will seek the answer to this 
 question. It will conduct elaborate studies in the field 
 of international economics, communications, law, racial 
 psychology, geography, diplomatic practice, and other 
 subjects that closely concern war and peace. In years to 
 come this school will thus accumulate a vast fund of 
 information that should help the spread of that inter- 
 national good fellowship and democratic progress to 
 which Page had proposed to devote his last years. 
 
EPILOGUE 127 
 
 Great Britain has also paid tribute to the man who 
 believed that in acting as her friend and the friend of the 
 Allied cause he was best serving his own country and the 
 world. Soon after the publication of the Page biography . 
 the following letter, signed by the Prime Minister of 
 Great Britain, three former Prime Ministers, and a 
 former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs appeared 
 in the London Times: 
 
 Sir: 
 
 The publication of the two admirably edited volumes 
 of "The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page" has re- 
 vealed to the world a personality and a record of 
 achievement of which perhaps only those who came into 
 intimate social and official contact with him during the 
 term of his Ambassadorship in this country were already 
 aware. 
 
 In these "Letters" Mr. Page lives again. They give 
 the clearest and widest expression we can ever now hope 
 to receive of his vivid, free-ranging mind and of that 
 mellow integrity of character and abounding humanity 
 which endeared him to us all. More particularly, they 
 show him to have been one of the best friends that 
 Great Britain ever had, and a far-seeing and practi- 
 cal crusader in the cause of Anglo-American coopera- 
 tion. 
 
 In the difficult period of the war, before the United 
 States had entered it, and when many contentious issues 
 inevitably arose between the British and American 
 Governments, it was Mr. Page's handling of these issm 
 as much as any other factor, that kept them within the 
 bounds of reason and good temper. Scrupulous, as an 
 Ambassador should be, in presenting his country's case 
 with all the vigour and persuasiveness at his command. 
 
123 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 Mr. Page's conduct of the negotiations entrusted to him 
 was informed throughout by his native courtesy, humour, 
 and straightforwardness ; by a quick understanding of the 
 nature of the European struggle; and by an intensity of 
 sympathy for the Allied cause and of admiration for 
 Great Britain's part in it which was irrepressible. He was 
 the happiest, the most liberated, man in Europe when 
 America entered the war. 
 
 For all that Mr. Page contributed toward that supreme 
 development, by smoothing away friction and minimizing 
 and removing difficulties and misunderstandings, this 
 country, no less than his own, owes him an inestimable 
 debt. There must, moreover, be many hundreds of our 
 people who used his services and those of his most 
 efficient staff to inquire after the fate of relatives at 
 the fronts, and who drew freely and gratefully on his 
 exhaustless stock of sympathy, patience, and promptitude. 
 There is nothing in Great Britain to mark the fact that 
 Mr. Page lived here for five years as United States Am- 
 bassador, and that in a great crisis he served his own 
 country and ours, and civilization itself, with a noble 
 competence. We desire to repair that omission. We 
 confidently invite subscriptions to perpetuate a name 
 and services that can never be thought of, on either 
 side of the Atlantic, without deep affection and gratitude. 
 We are, Sir, &c, 
 
 A. Bonar Law 
 
 Balfour 
 
 H. H. Asquith 
 
 D. Lloyd George 
 
 Grey of Fallodon 
 
 The response from all classes of British life was im- 
 mediate. The opinion was unanimous that there was 
 
EPILOGUE 429 
 
 only one place in Great Britain for a memorial to Page: 
 that was Westminster Abbey. On July 3, 1923, a gather- 
 ing which completely filled the ancient structure attended 
 services in memory of the Ambassador. A few minutes 
 before this service, Mrs. Walter H. Page, the Ambassa- 
 dor's widow, and other members of the Page I'amik, 
 gathered with the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, 
 Mr. H. H. Asquith, Mr. Winston Churchill, Lord Lans- 
 downe, and others, in the Chapter House of the Abbey, 
 to unveil a marble tablet in Page's honour. The following 
 remarks were made by Lord Grey : 
 
 The tablet that is to be unveiled to-day is in memory 
 of one whose every word and act in great place were 
 inspired by single-minded and earnest desire to make 
 human freedom, as he saw it realized in democracy, pre- 
 vail among the nations of the world. Walter Ilines Page 
 was an example of the truth that the strongest person- 
 alities are the outcome not so much of striving for per- 
 sonal success or fame, as of patriotism and of faith in 
 an ideal. His patriotism was of the noblest kind; lie 
 loved his country both for what it was and for what 
 he believed it could and would do for the benefh of 
 mankind. His perception of the power of the United 
 States, his belief in its democracy, his absolute and 
 never-faltering trust in the will of its people to do great 
 things and good things for the world, were part of his 
 very being. 
 
 Surely it must be a proud as well as a happy thought 
 for his country to remember that it inspired a faith so 
 high in a mind so keen and pure. 
 
 I have spoken first of Walter Hines Page as an American 
 because that is how, I am sure, he would have wished ns to 
 speak of him and to think of him; but it was very near his 
 
430 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE 
 
 heart that there should be between his country and ours 
 true knowledge and understanding each of the other; and 
 there is no greater consummation to be wished for in 
 public affairs than that the high and beneficial hopes for 
 the world which he founded upon this should be realized. 
 
 We in this country feel deep gratitude to him; we wish 
 that there should be something to commemorate the 
 sympathy and moral support that he gave us in the 
 greatest crisis of our history. We wish his name to be 
 remembered with regard, with honour, and with affection, 
 as that of one who gave us invaluable help at a time when 
 our liberty, our very independence even, seemed to be at 
 stake. 
 
 His countrymen who still cherish the names of those 
 who helped the United States years ago in time of trial 
 and peril will find it easy to understand what we here now 
 feel for such men as Walter Hines Page. In all conver- 
 sations with him I felt — what I am sure many others here, 
 who knew him, also felt— that there was between him 
 and us a peculiarly close tie of personal sympathy. We 
 felt attached to him by a sense of the same values in public 
 life, by a desire for the same sort of world in which to live, 
 by a kinship of thought, of standards, and of ideals. 
 Therefore, while his resting-place is in his own country, 
 which he loved so devotedly, we have wished to have a 
 memorial here to do honour to him and to preserve for 
 those who come after us a record and memory of his life. 
 It is most fitting that the place for this should be West- 
 minster Abbey — where so much that is great, and honour- 
 able, and dear in our history is consecrated — this Abbey, 
 which not so very long ago, as time is reckoned in the life 
 of nations, was as much part of the inheritance of his 
 ancestors as of our own. In this spirit I unveil the 
 memorial and ask the Dean to accept it. 
 
EPILOGUE 431 
 
 Lord Grey then unveiled the tablet, which bears the 
 following inscription: 
 
 TO THE GLORY OF GOD 
 
 AND IN MEMORY OF 
 
 WALTER HINES PAGE 
 
 1855-1918 
 
 ambassador 
 
 of the united states 
 
 of america to the 
 
 court of st. james's 
 
 1913-1918 
 
 The Friend of Britain in Her 
 Sorest Need. 
 
 the end 
 
INDEX TO VOLUME III 
 
 Abbey, Edwin A., memorial to, 329 
 
 Alderman, Edwin A., letter from Page to, 19 
 
 Alexander, Joshua W., his comment on Safety 
 at Sea Conference, 104 
 
 Allied finances, condition of, 392 
 
 Allies, encouraged by American declaration of 
 war, 375; not a happy family, 331; "must all 
 hang together or all hang separately," 384; 
 mutual distrust among, 388 
 
 Ambassador: "personal good offices " of, 69; 
 vexations of an American, 70; inadequate 
 allowance for expenses of, 73; Page fitting 
 type of, 73; traditional distinction between 
 Ministers and, 75, 76; wide duties of, 77; 
 salary of American and British, compared, 
 78; numerous duties of, American, in London, 
 80; Sir Henry Wotton's definition of, 188 
 
 "American Democracy, Some Aspects of," lec- 
 ture at Royal Institution by Ambassador 
 Page, 31 
 
 American Duchesses, 56 
 
 American Embassy, no permanent dignified 
 building for, 71; necessity for proper building 
 and maintenance for, 79-85 
 
 American Expeditionary Force wins praise, 
 409 
 
 American foreign policy, 29, 34, 36 
 
 American intervention, its effect on the World 
 War, 150 
 
 American isolation before World War, 148 
 
 American neutrality from English point of view, 
 156 
 
 American Relief Committee gives able help at 
 outbreak of war, 136 
 
 American representatives, proper types of, 74 
 
 American supplies indispensable to Germany, 
 175, 176 
 
 American support great object of British diplo- 
 macy, 153 
 
 Anderson, Chandler P., legal adviser of Ameri- 
 can Embassy in London, 164 
 
 Arabic torpedoed, 250 
 
 Archibald, J. F. J., American journalist in Ger- 
 man pay, 275, 276 
 
 Argentine Minister pleased that his government 
 is taking a hand in the Mexican muddle, 119 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, died May 3, 1914, 42 
 
 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., signer of letter pro- 
 posing a memorial to Walter II. Page, 428 
 
 Asquith, Mrs., quoted,*63, 265 
 
 Athcna-um Club, Page dines with "old corks" 
 
 at, 420 
 Allan lii- ( )eean, Page " thanks Heaven" for. 128 
 Austria-Hungary, Wilson's attempt t<> del.,, li, 
 
 from Germanic alliance, 366 
 Authors' Club, Page speaks at, on "President 
 
 Wilson as a Man of Letters," 97 
 
 Bagdad, fall of, 328 
 
 Bagehot, Walter, Wilson's articles on, in 
 Atlantic Monthly, 9 
 
 " Balance of Power," 149, 150 
 
 Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., p r esen ted with 
 freedom of town of Hertford, 67, 68; sue. at I 
 Lord Grey as Foreign Secretary, December, 
 
 1916, 309; signer of letter proposing u me- 
 morial to Walter I lines Page, 428 
 
 Bartholdt, Richard, Representative, 226 
 Belgium irreparably wronged by Germany, 171 
 Bell, Edward, Secretary of Embassy in charge 
 of Intelligence, deciphers Zimmcrmanu mes- 
 sage, 344 
 Benton, William S., murder of, in Mexii o, 106; 
 
 effect of, in England, 109, 110, 111 
 Bernstorff, Count, in regard to Liuitania settle- 
 ment, 273; the "package of papers," 271. 
 276; uses United States as tool against 
 Great Britain, 280; his contempt for the 
 United States, 283; dismissed February, 
 
 1917, 318; employs American diplomatic mail 
 pouch, 340 
 
 Bethmann-IIollweg, not spokesman of (ier- 
 
 many, 124 
 Beveridge, Miss Ray, lecture tour of, -~~> 
 Blockade, essential, but difficult, 153; situation 
 
 of, described in previous volume, 1 . i. 
 
 instituted by United States, 179; Germany*! 
 
 aim to use the United States to end. 27. S 
 Braun, Marcus, editor of hair Play, 275 
 Breitung, E. N., purchased Dacia to carry ml- 
 
 ton to Germany. 222 
 British elements predominate in I oited s 
 
 235 
 British Ministry, change in, December, 1916, 
 
 309 
 British naval and military leader, impatient of 
 
 interference, 1"> I 
 British statecraft in 1914. 201 
 
 433 
 
434 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bryan, W. J., telegram of inquiry from, 126; 
 futile messages from, 170; telegraphs Page 
 as to numerical importance of German and 
 Irish element in the United States, 234 
 
 Bryce, Lord, comments to Page on Panama 
 Tolls clause, 48; speaks of repeal at dinner 
 of the American Society, 64 
 
 Buckler, William H., special attache London 
 Embassy, studies Balkan situation, 380 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, on America's bad 
 job in Mexico, 35; Page's account of dinner 
 with Archbishop and prayers in Lambeth 
 Palace, 39 
 Carden's influence less, 65 
 
 Carranza, Venustiano, President of Mexico, 
 331; vexed over publishing of Zimmermann 
 telegram, 354 
 Cecil, Lord Bobert, Minister of Blockade, 304 
 Chamberlain, Senator George E., criticized 
 
 Page as "truckler'' to Great Britain, 42 
 Chinda, Japanese Ambassador, thinks Zim- 
 mermann telegram a joke, 325 
 "Civis Romanus Sum," old Palmerstonian cry 
 heard over murder of Benton in Mexico, 107 
 Clark, Champ, thinks ambassadors had better 
 
 be abolished, 48; "as dead as Hector," 61 
 "Clash of systems" in European crisis, 133 
 Commission for Belief in Belgium, 326 
 Conscription Act, effect of, 391 
 Convoys, best means to increase safety, 387, 
 
 390, 396 
 "Courts" described by Page, 51, 54 
 Cowdray, Lord, his company's concessions in 
 Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador, 112; "es- 
 sentially good-natured, even amiable," 113 
 Cowper family, home of, 66 
 Currency Bill, Senate's passing of, 101 
 
 Dacia, episode, 222, 223; great issues involved 
 
 in, 225, 226; seized by French cruiser, 236 
 Dardanelles Beport, possible purpose of, 329 
 Davis, John W., explains need of increase of 
 
 Ambassador's salary to House Committee 
 
 on Foreign Affairs, 75 
 Declaration of London, 176, 180; Mr. Lansing's 
 
 despatch on, 181, 186 
 Democracy, a social force, 22; destruction of 
 
 creed of Kaiserism, 134; Wilson's purpose 
 
 from his student days, 135 
 Deu'.schland, U-Boat, 340 
 Dumba, Doctor, Austrian Ambassador to the 
 
 United States, dismissal of, 276 
 
 Eckhardt, Von, German Minister to Mexico, 
 Zimmermann's telegrams to, 336, 360; tele- 
 grams to Zimmermann, 350 
 
 English, their adherence to tradition, 255; 
 Page's opinion of, 270, 294, 296 
 
 "English-led and English-ruled," 88-89 
 English literature, as basis for style, 8 
 
 Financial situation, memorandum of assist- 
 ance rendered, 399, 400; statement of British 
 expenditures and receipts, 400, 403; American 
 advances, 405 
 
 Fowke, Brigadier General, on America's Mexi- 
 can attitude, 35 
 
 Fowler, Harold, private secretary to Page, re- 
 ports conditions at the front, 269, 270 
 
 France, begs Sir Edward Grey for pledge of 
 assistance, 125; and the Allies, 291; ignored 
 House Memorandum, 292; fear lest she 
 make a separate peace, 395 
 
 French, Field-Marshal Sir John, a possible Well- 
 ington, 142; interview with Ambassador 
 Page, 212 
 
 Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir Eric, First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, account of, 410 
 
 George V, hears Page's explanation of Wilson's 
 Mexican policy, 30; popularity of, 32; works 
 hard for more than half the year, 58; in- 
 fluence and importance of, 111 
 
 Gerard, James W., and the " package of papers," 
 274, 275 
 
 German Ambassador in London, his attitude 
 February, 1914, 107; an "amoosin' cus," 
 108; is summoned to Kiel, 119 
 
 German Empire doomed, 140 
 
 German Merchant Marine, its inactivity, 224; 
 to be forced off seas, 230; Dacia seized, 237 
 
 Germany, "infamous proposal" of, 124; block- 
 ade of, 153; diplomacy of, 155; press full of 
 bitter hatred of England, 165; militarism to 
 be permanently destroyed, 172; agents of, 
 in the United States, 275; monopolies of, 
 306; declaration of unrestricted submarine 
 warfare by, 314; Secret Service of, 333 
 
 Great Britain, Home Bule, 24; Land Beform, 
 24; aristocracy, 24; class war, 24; threat of 
 civil war over Ireland, 24; foreign affairs con- 
 trolled by the civilian Cabinet, 155 
 
 Greece, gossip about sale of American ships to 
 subsides, 66; result of sale of American ships 
 to, 117 
 Greek Minister, Gennadius, Page's opinion of, 
 
 119 
 Grey, Sir Edward (Viscount Grey of Fallodon), 
 Page explains President Wilson's Mexican 
 policy to, 29; his memorandum on Mexico, 38; 
 proposes to take Panama Canal Bill repeal as 
 text for speech. 62; "a lonely idealist," 
 63; pleased with repeal of Tolls clause, 64; 
 disturbed over Serbian-Austrian situation, 
 66; his self-restraint over Benton episode, 
 197; Page's estimate of, 108; report that he is 
 to resign from Cabinet, 118; for nearly ten 
 
INDEX 
 
 135 
 
 years had succeeded in postponing the war, 
 123, 124; France begs pledge of assistance, 
 125; Page has interview with, 126; dines at 
 Lord Glencouner's, 127; Memoirs of, 131; 
 Page describes attitude of, at outbreak of 
 war, 136; pronounces United States poten- 
 tially important factor in deciding the war, 
 153; confers with Page on Declaration of 
 London, 177; wants to prevent war materials 
 from reaching Germany, 183; Page's relations 
 with, 183; his description of the way ho and 
 the American Ambassador handled weighty 
 problems, 189; American cooperation with 
 Allies, 200; Anglo-American relations in the 
 war, 200; Dacia episode, 229; his failure to 
 secure Balkan States to the Allies, 266; 
 modern Izaak Walton, 302; congratulated 
 on his elevation to the peerage, 302; signer 
 of letter proposing a memorial to Walter 
 Hines Page, 428; remarks at unveiling of 
 tablet in honour of Walter Hines Page in 
 Westminster Abbey, 429-30 
 
 Haig, General Sir Douglas, 323 
 Haldane, Viscount, Lord Chancellor, invites the 
 Sayres and Page's daughter to dinner, 105; 
 "Keeper of the King's conscience", 197; his 
 confidence in Russia, 197; fear of patched-up 
 peace, 197 
 Hall, Admiral William Reginald, head of In- 
 telligence Service of British Admiralty, 
 Zimmermann telegram discovered by, 360; 
 knighted, 362; letter to Page on receiving his 
 congratulations, 363 
 Halsbury, Lord, the great law-Lord, 60 
 Harris, Frederick Leverton, real maker of the 
 
 blockade, 311 
 Harvey, George, one of first detectors of Wil- 
 son's availability as Presidential candidate, 
 13; his identification with Wall Street million- 
 aires, 13; his support an embarrassment, 14 
 Hertford, whence Hartford, Connecticut, was 
 
 settled 67; pageant at, 67 
 Hill, James J., friend of Donald Smith, 32 
 Home Rule, most exciting topic of 1913, 26 
 Hoover, Herbert C, reports "a hopeless dead- 
 lock," 215; "began his career in California 
 and will end it in Heaven," 216; Page's ac- 
 count of, 313 
 House, Colonel, his expedition to establish a 
 working agreement in Europe, 117; purpose 
 of his visit to England and effect of on Eng- 
 lish mind, 299; his letter to Admiral Hall on 
 expose of Zimmermann, 363 
 "House Memorandum," 272 
 Houston, David F., letter from Page to, 18 
 Hoy, Mrs. and Miss, deaths of, on Laconia, 324 
 Huerta, General Victoriano, 36; his early down- 
 fall indicated May, 1914, 113; flight, 121 
 
 Hughes, Rt. Hon. William Morris, Prime Minis- 
 ter of Australia, 305 
 Hundred Years' Peace, Committee on, 58 
 
 "International Relations. Walter Hi 
 School of," at Johns Bopkina I Diversity 
 426 
 
 Italy, obstacle to separation of Austri i 
 Hungary from Germany, 367; Opposed de- 
 position of King C.onstanline, :>;!1 
 
 Japan repudiates German schemes, 351. 3S2 
 Japanese and Mexican allianoe with Germany 
 
 proposed, 321, 331 
 Jefferson, Thomas, Page's views on. J.S. l';: ; :; t 
 "Jeffcrsonianism," 316 
 Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John, expected to play 
 
 the part of Nelson, I 12 
 Jutland Buttle, a bitter disappointment, :'.:;ii 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, reverence of, for royalty, 32 
 Kirk, Alexander C., Secretary of American l m- 
 
 bassy in Berlin, brings document* from \m 
 bassador Gerard, 27 I 
 Kitchener, Lord, qualities as a soldier. 
 
 determined to make the United Stale, all> of 
 Great Britain, 200; prediction on length 
 of war, 201; opinion that support of the 
 United States was essential to victory of 
 Allies, 201; demands Springfield rifles for 
 British Army, 203; "his name raised a groat 
 army," 267; death of, 301; effect of his 
 death, 302 
 
 Labour leaders, views of, in peace and war, 422 
 
 Laconia torpedoed, 324 
 
 Land Reform, Budget of 1907, 25 
 
 Lansing, Robert L., his dispatch on Declaration 
 of London, 186; episode of Declaration of 
 London, 188 
 
 Laszlo, Philip, portrait by, of Walter Mines 
 Page, 426 
 
 Laughlin, Irwin, First Secretary of the Em- 
 bassy, letter from Page to Wilson, com- 
 mending, 87 
 
 Laughlin, Mrs., her value in "our diplomatic 
 family," 88 
 
 Law, Rt. Hon. Andrew li r. confers with 
 
 Ambassador Page as to exchange and Ion 
 325; explains financial crisis, 394; his memo- 
 randum to Page on Great Britain's finan ci al 
 efforts, 397-404; signer of letter proposing a 
 memorial to Waller Hines Page, 428 
 
 Lichnowsky, Prince, German Ambassador to 
 England, 33; an "amoosin' cos," 108; not 
 spokesman of Germany. 1- I 
 
 Lichnowsky. Princess, jewels thrown in safe, 161 
 
 Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. David, influenco of 
 American statesmen on, 22; his attitude In 
 
436 
 
 INDEX 
 
 1913-1914, 24-25; Prime Minister, December, 
 1916, 309; Page's estimate of, 312; on separa- 
 tion of Austria from Germany, 367, 370, 373; 
 signer of letter proposing a memorial to 
 Walter H. Page, 428 
 
 Lodge, Senator, offers resolution inquiring 
 as to veracity of Zimmermaun telegram, 347 
 
 London, Bishop of, receives visit of nurses at 
 St. Paul's, 376 
 
 Lusilania, torpedoed May 7, 1915, 238; Page's 
 telegram to Wilson as to effect of torpedoing 
 of, 238-240; Page's telegram concerning 
 tragedy of, received by President Wilson less 
 than twenty-four hours after, 240 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, "a lawyer with a style," 11 
 
 Mather, Sir William, representative of conserva- 
 tive Englishmen, 249 
 
 Mayo, Admiral, his proposed visit to England 
 is cordially approved, 385; receives much 
 attention, 389 
 
 McAdoo, Secretary, discussion of financial 
 crisis by, 396, 397, 403 
 
 Merry del Val, Spanish Ambassador, calls on 
 Page, 267 
 
 Mersey, Lord, 103 
 
 Mexico, Wilson's policy, 26-29; English at- 
 titude regarding, 35; Wilson's ambition to 
 create constitutional system in, 92; Wilson's 
 "idealism" regarding, 105; murder of Ben- 
 ton in, 106; Benton episode in, discussed 
 by Page and Sir Edward Grey, 109-110; 
 Huerta's downfall indicated, 113; Villa and 
 Zapata regarded as scourges in England, 114; 
 Mexican situation surrendered to South 
 American Ambassadors, 117; flight of 
 Huerta from, 121; Page congratulates 
 Wilson on Mexican conditions, 122; Mexican- 
 Japanese alliance, 342 
 
 Monroe Doctrine would be destroyed by Prus- 
 sian militarism, 139 
 
 Moore, George G., Ambassador Page lunches 
 with, 167 
 
 Morgan, J. P., and Company's advances to the 
 British Government, 392 
 
 Morley, Lord, on our Mexican policy, 35 
 
 Navy League, Page speaks at, 103 
 
 Newspapers, false impressions given by, 61 
 
 No-alliance policy, wisdom of, 130 
 
 Northcliffe, Lord, Page visits his country 
 house, 62; says "wisdom" is Ambassador 
 Page's most striking quality, 174; his visit 
 to America criticized, 384; his papers all 
 fair to the United States, 385 
 
 Page, Ralph W., opinion of Court "show," 57 
 Page, Thomas Nelson, Ambassador to Italy, 303 
 Page, Walter Hines, a careful and careless 
 
 correspondent, 1; first meeting of Page and 
 Wilson, literary and political interests basis 
 of their friendship, 2; discovers Wilson as a 
 writer, 3; famous for his editorial letters, 4; 
 letter to.Wilson requesting articles for Atlantic 
 Monthly, 5; letter to Wilson asking for review 
 of Cleveland's career, 7; letter to Wilson on 
 practicability of publishing edition of Bage- 
 hot, 9 ; his admiration for Rooseveltian democ- 
 racy, approval of Wilson as Democratic 
 candidate, 12; letter to Wilson on Harvey 
 incident, 14; on Wilson's characteristics as a 
 man and a President, 15-16; letter to Wilson 
 regarding study of the Philippines, 17; letter 
 to David F. Houston expressing confidence 
 in the new Administration, 1913, 18; Am- 
 bassadorship to England offered by Wilson, 
 18; arrival in England, May, 1913, 21; in- 
 fluence of American conceptions, 21; his 
 outlook on caste, luxury, 22; his admi- 
 ration for English standards, 23; his criti- 
 cism of Jefferson, 23; his sympathy with 
 Lloyd George, 25 ; picture of English aristoc- 
 racy, 26; views on changes in Church and 
 State, 26 ; question of primogeniture and enta il 
 and vital social and political changes in pre- 
 war period, 26 ; his agreement with Emerson on 
 real strength of British nobility, 27; report to 
 the President of interview with King George, 
 30; lecture at Boyal Institution on "Some 
 Aspects of the American Democracy," 31; 
 his attitude toward royalty, 31, 32; letter 
 to Wilson concerning Central and South 
 America, 33; opinions on British aristocracy, 
 36, 40, 41; speaks at Shakespearean celebra- 
 tion, 42; speech on Shakespeare at Strat- 
 ford an expression of his attitude toward all 
 great literature, 44; letter to Wilson on 
 gaiety of London season, 46; informal com- 
 ments of aristocratic ladies on war situation, 
 49; court presentations described, 51; notes 
 on the English Revolution, 59; passing of 
 Panama Canal Bill triumph for Wilson and 
 Page, 60; his distress at perverted newspaper 
 reports, 61; visits Lord Northcliffe at his 
 country house, 62 ; repeal of Tolls clause gen- 
 eral topic, 64; congratulates Wilson on suc- 
 cess of his Mexican programme, Carden's 
 influence less, 65; writes Wilson on English 
 hospitality as a fine art, 66; House adjourns 
 because Mr. Asquith is dining with the 
 American Ambassador, 67; special envoys 
 besiege the Ambassador, 69; need for 
 adequate salary for official expenses of 
 Ambassador, 73; his friendship with Sir 
 Edward Grey, 78; states need of increase of 
 salary and describes duties of Ambassador, 
 79-80; change of living conditions makes 
 $50,000 necessary, 83; writes letter to Wilson 
 
INDEX 
 
 137 
 
 in praise of Irwin Laughlin'a services to 
 the Embassy, 87; explains phrase "Eng- 
 lish-led and English-ruled" to President 
 Wilson, 89; warm personal relations with 
 Wilson, 92; shocked and saddened by Euro- 
 pean conditions, 93; writes Wilson proposing 
 official visit to London, 96; speaks at Authors' 
 Club on "President Wilson as a Man of 
 Letters," 97; mentions Wilson's son-in-law 
 and daughter on their honeymoon in Eng- 
 land, 100; designates Sir Edward Grey, "the 
 biggest Englishman I have met," 108; reports 
 to Wilson effect of Benton's murder in Mexico, 
 109; suggests advisability of prompt cables on 
 Cabinet meetings, 110; explains baseball game 
 to King George, 110; emphasizes influence of 
 King George's personality, 111; believes 
 Wilson's opposition to Huerta was salvation 
 of parts of Central and South America, 112; 
 writes Wilson of predictions of Iluerta's 
 downfall, 113; his consolatory advice to 
 English banker on Mexican situation, 115; 
 writes Wilson enthusiastically of Colonel 
 House, 117; on college relations and poli- 
 tical feeling, 118; Ambassador's reception, 
 120; Royal Literary Fund Dinner, Page's 
 speech at, misunderstood in newspaper re- 
 ports, 121; anecdotes of proffered sale of 
 Panama Canal, 121; congratulates President 
 Wilson on Huerta's flight, 122; writes of 
 interview with Sir Edward Grey in regard 
 to using good offices of American Govern- 
 ment in war issues, 125; description of Grey 
 as man and statesman, 126; war inevitable, 
 why not now and have it over, 129; "while 
 writing, news comes of Germany's decla- 
 ration of war against Russia and her march- 
 ing into Luxembourg," 129; England cut 
 off from Continent, 130; American ship- 
 ping and foreign commerce to gain, 130; 
 Wilson's Administration probably made 
 historic by war, 130; Page sends letter of 
 condolence to Wilson, 131; his early efforts 
 for social reorganization in the South, 133; 
 describes difficulties of situation in first 
 days of war, 135, 136; his confidence in 
 Sir Edward Grey, 136; outlines conditions 
 that made war inevitable between Germany 
 and England, 137; says England will reject 
 any terms from Germany save on basis of 
 defeat, 141; no escape from subject of war, 
 145; London muffled, 143; his recollections 
 of Germans as a boy, 145; account of English 
 ladies and their work, 146; reports of peace 
 meetings in the United States, 146; no end 
 to changes war will bring, 147; most im- 
 portant figures in the diplomatic situation, 
 152; his policy clear and consistent, 154; 
 his frankness with Sir Edward Grey, 156; 
 
 the question of American ammunition being 
 sent to England, 157; comments On Kit- 
 chener's directness and "cheek," L58; rtN eivee 
 in. my letters concerning America's attitude, 
 160; runs soup kitchens, IliD; war essentially 
 between England and Germany, 162; unpre- 
 cedented fierceness, 164; pot Eble death of 
 civilization to follow "clash <if lyatecB 
 165; message from General French, loti- 
 169; telegraphs Bryan of oonf ereoce with Bir 
 Edward Grey about po able mediation, 
 
 170; believed the United Slates < • >u 1< 1 end 
 the war, 171; on reduction "I armament - and 
 restriction of military authority, 17-', out- 
 lines formula to \\ ibon, 174, I 7 >. on I let I (ra- 
 tion of London, 176, litl) ; has conference with 
 Sir Edward Grey, 177; protests against 
 Lansing's despatch on Declaration of Lon- 
 don, 181-188; threat to resign, 188; write, 
 Wilson of immediate effect of American with- 
 drawal of demand that England accept the 
 Declaration of London, lii'i; the tight rope of 
 neutrality, 193; "French would have probably 
 collapsed but for Belgian check of Germans 
 and English help," 194; feeling that Russians 
 may suddenly quit, 194; reports lying 
 rumours everywhere, 195; requested to give 
 personal aid on all sides, 196; says world 
 after war will thank God for United States, 
 197; Christmas letter to Wilson, 1914, 198; 
 sees suspicion of German influence in tin- 
 United States, 199; arranges for Colonel 
 Squier to go to front in France, 205; semis 
 telegram to Secretary of State concerning 
 Colonel Squier's visit to front, 208; reports to 
 Wilson of Squier's visit and its result, 209; a 
 silent war, 210; reports interview with General 
 French to Secretary of State, 212; comments 
 on international reporting of President 
 Wilson's speeches, 213; writes Wilson of 
 Belgian refugees, 216; is kept in ignorance of 
 situation in Washington, 220; Foreign OHn B 
 and its attitude toward American Ami 
 sador, 221; his suggestion that Dacia boaeised 
 by French Navy, 222; outlines public opinion 
 in England, 227, 228; has talk with Sir 
 Edward Grey on German merchant ships, 
 229; economic pressure in forcing German 
 merchunt ships off the seas. 230, 231; his 
 handling of Dacia crisis prevented war be- 
 tween the United Suites and England, 2.17; 
 his telegram to Wilson on effect of sinking of 
 Lusilania, 238-239; telegraphs WOsoa of 
 English criticism of Ink of action by I oitad 
 States on Gulflinht ond Lusilania cases. 212; 
 
 expresses satisfaction on Nil 'a Brat 
 
 Lusilania note, 245; his farther rc|*.rt 
 on English opinion, 218: writes Wilson thai 
 English impression is that "peace at any 
 
438 
 
 INDEX 
 
 price" type controls American opinion, 251; 
 receives news of sinking of Arabic, 257; has no 
 reply from Wilson to messages and letters, 258, 
 259; predicts war will end in summer of 1916, 
 265; comments on Sir Edward Grey's im- 
 portance to American Government, 266; 
 appalled by Wilson's apparent attitude 
 toward Germans and toward British, 272; 
 discovers Bernstorff's "package of papers", 
 his faith in Wilson destroyed, 274-278; 
 hears Colonel House's explanation of Wilson's 
 policy, 279, 281; compares Wilson to Jeffer- 
 son, 283-284; opposes Wilson's peace plan, 
 285; no longer has confidence in President 
 Wilson, 290; writes Wilson of effect of phrase 
 "causes and objects of the war," 298; living 
 near a continuous Gettysburg, 307; sails for 
 home, 308; writes of change in British Minis- 
 try, 309; emphasizes need of Governmental 
 courtesy; writes of his resignation as Ambas- 
 sador, 310; estimate of Lloyd George, 312; 
 writes Wilson commendingHoover and Laugh- 
 lin, 313, 314; thinks fear of Germans caused 
 Wilson's peace movement, 315; advises omis- 
 sion of "Peace without Victory" phrase, 
 317; congratulates Wilson on break with 
 Germany, 318; sends translation of Zimmer- 
 mann telegram, 332; writes Wilson of Ad- 
 miral Hall, 361; congratulates Hall on 
 his knighthood, 362; quotes President's 
 message to Hall, 362; has private audience 
 with King George at Windsor, 365; inter- 
 views Lloyd George on proposed separation 
 of Austria from Germany, 367-373; urges 
 establishment of military mission in London, 
 383; pronounces submarines most pressing 
 question of the war, 386; praises Wilson's 
 letter to the Pope, 389, 407; advises general 
 use of convoys, 390; reports financial crisis in 
 England, 393; dines at Athenaeum Club, 420; 
 died in North Carolina, December, 1918, 425; 
 memorials to, in the United States and 
 England, 425-428; unveiling of tablet in 
 honour of, in Westminster Abbey, 429-431 
 
 Page, Mrs. Walter Hines, in conversation with 
 Turkish Ambassador, 55 
 
 Panama Canal, English view on tolls, 34; 
 passage of repeal of toll taken for granted, 
 36; repeal of Panama Tolls clause great 
 triumph for President Wilson and Page, 
 60; Lord Bryce speaks on it, 64 
 
 Papen, Von, searched at Falmouth, 281 
 
 "Peace without Victory," 316 
 
 Pershing, General, official welcome, 377 
 
 Philippines, Page on American attitude as to 
 their independence, 16; letter from Page to 
 Wilson on investigation of, 17 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, unveiling of monument to, 89 
 
 Pittsburgh's furnaces, 151 
 
 Pocahontas, church window to be unveiled by 
 
 Ambassador, 69 
 Polk, Frank L., Counsellor of State Depart- 
 ment, 310 
 Pollen, Arthur II., British writer on naval 
 
 subjects, 410 
 Pope Benedict XV, Wilson's letter to, 406; 
 
 its effect on Europe, 408 
 Population of United States, Anglo-Saxon 
 
 origin, 235 
 Prussian bureaucracy, its methods, 138; 
 
 "cult of Valour," 139; military caste to be 
 
 wiped out, 142 
 Public opinion in England, 218; dangerous 
 
 mood of, effect of Sacramento and Dacia 
 
 episodes, 227, 228 
 
 Rayleigh, Lord, one of the greatest physicists 
 
 in the world, 66 
 Reading, Lord, appointed Ambassador to the 
 
 United States, note, 414 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, vitality he gave to 
 
 popular conscience, 12 ; far-sighted American, 
 
 207 
 Royal Institution of Great Britain, Page speaks 
 
 on "Some Aspects of the American Democ- 
 racy," 31 
 "Russian, the, lacks staying qualities," 168; 
 
 Russian Revolution fills newspapers, 329 
 
 Safety at Sea Conference, Joshua W. Alex- 
 ander's comment on, 104 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, "Lord Steward" of Hertford, 
 England, 67; gives ball in honour of daughter's 
 "coming out," 68 
 
 San Francisco Exposition, English attitude 
 toward unfavourable, 34; Government's dec- 
 lination to reopen subject due to local poli- 
 tics, 102 
 
 Sargent, John S., wishes to return Kaiser's 
 decoration and to resign from German Art 
 Societies, 247; Lansing's criticism of his re- 
 quest to Page, 247 
 
 Sayre, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Bowe, son-in-law 
 and daughter of the President, on honeymoon 
 in England, 100 
 
 Sayville, Long Island station used by Germans 
 for sending Zimmermann telegram, 335 
 
 Selborne, Lady, holds meetings in favour of 
 woman suffrage, 68 
 
 Shakespeare, Wilson's message on, 293 
 
 Shakespeare Celebration at Stratford, 42; 
 Page's speech at, impresses England, 43; 
 school children of England and America in, 
 43-44; Page's speech at, 44 
 
 Ships, numbers needed, 319; helpless before 
 torpedoes, 321; question of their carrying 
 guns, 321; delay in shipping produces criti- 
 cism, 327 
 
INDEX 
 
 IV) 
 
 Simon, Sir John, Attorney-General, on America 
 in Mexico, 36 
 
 Sims, Admiral, makes great impression in 
 England, 377 
 
 Smith, Donald, put through Canadian Pacific 
 Railway, see Baron Strathcona, 32 
 
 Spender, J. A., editor of Westminster Gazette, 
 in Government's confidence, 110 
 
 Spies everywhere, 160, 161 
 
 Spy's letters to his chiefs, 261 
 
 Squier, Colonel George O., question of securing 
 ammunition, 157; Military attache, London 
 Embassy, 1912, 202; given British confi- 
 dence, 203; has confidential interview with 
 Lord Kitchener, 20 1; goes to front in France, 
 205; belief that purpose of this visit was to 
 let American Army understand organization 
 of modern war, 206; his reports to Washing- 
 ton on conditions in France roused no interest 
 in Washington, 207; Page commends him 
 to Wilson, 293-294 
 
 State Department, concerning special envoys 
 to the American Ambassador, 69; held British 
 attitude toward contraband illegal, 226 
 Strathcona, Baron, sketch of life, 32 
 Straus, Oscar S., his peace activity, 142 
 Submarine?, see Lusilania, 238; Laconia, 324; 
 no "antidote" found for, 383; Germans 
 winning in submarine activities, 395 
 Swedish Foreign Office used for transmitting 
 
 German messages, 338 
 Symington, Powers, American Naval Attache, 
 119 
 
 Tablet in Westminster Abbey in honour of 
 Walter H. Page, 429-431 
 
 Taft, President, and his party's attitude in 
 Mexico, Canada, and Colombia, 112 
 
 Teck, Duke of, now Marquess of Cambridge, 
 116 
 
 Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona mentioned 
 in Zimmermann telegram, 333 
 
 Times, London, its ferocious leader, 110 
 
 Tommy, the, "as good fighting material as 
 there is in the world," 420 
 
 "Too proud to fight," phrase in Wilson's 
 speech after Lusitania tragedy, 241 
 
 Trent case in the Civil War, 223 
 
 Troy, Miss Lillian Scott, causes criticism of 
 Page's phrase "English-led and English- 
 ruled," 90 
 
 Tsar of Russia, the, under influence of miracle- 
 working priests, 129; feeling for him in 
 England, til 
 
 "Twenty-Five Years," by Lord Grey, 286 
 
 University of London, Economic Section of, 
 Page speaks before, 103 
 
 V : 1 1 , Mrrr> .1.-1. . ill- on I 
 
 \ ill i. Francisco, le idw "f < ..rr ma rvralatiao- 
 
 i>ts, 106; English opinion of, 111 
 \ .hi Donop, « Sener il Sir 3. B., M ml 
 
 of the Ordnance, on ■soaring ammunition 
 
 fr.iin Imeric i, l ">? 
 
 Von Jagow, not -|>'ik.Mii.iii ..f ( ..rin in. 1 _■ I 
 
 w ir Lord, the, "iii the no," l 9 
 
 \\ .ir Office, possibility ..f ii - managing for 
 relatione, L5S 
 
 \\ ;ir Problem of I'M l. P lotion of 
 
 Watteraon, Henry, <>f Louisville Cboriar- 
 Journal, leads public discu ion ..f W il 
 attitude toward Harvej . i i 
 
 Westminster tbbey, tablet En honour of 
 \\ alter Mines Page in, vi<> I tl 
 
 Whitlock, Brand, American Minister tn Bel 
 giiini. anecdote <>(. 2l.~> 
 
 Wilson, Mrs. Ellen kxson, death of, I '•! 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, lir>t meeting with I' 
 1881, 2; welcome contributor I 
 3; a leading historical writer >' ige of forty, 
 3; first "boom" for the Presidency laoncbed 
 in 1908, 11; personal qualities m -■ I • 
 Page, IS; letter fr..m Page sugge iint; 
 thorough study of the situation in Phihp- 
 pines, 17; instructions given Pageai \n! 
 sador to England. 20; Mexican policy 
 letter from Page explaining English feeling 
 American-Mexican problem, 35; letter from 
 Pago congratulating him on apparent solu- 
 tion of Mexican affairs. 65; warm per* 
 relations between President in. I his Ami. 
 dor, 92; his growing reputation in Europe 
 in 1914, 92; ambitious to reorgiini/.- Mexit in 
 conditions on modern lines, °2 ; innate aver- 
 sion to militarism and force, 91; "< ■>,,-■ 
 siou:il Government," thesis at Johns Hopkim 
 Unversity, 98; Professor of Jurisprudence 
 at Princeton, 98; his "idealism" concerning 
 Mexico does not impress English men, M.">; 
 his opposition to Iluertn regime in M< 
 and its effect on Central and South \ni. 
 112; Page congratulates him on Mexican 
 conditions, 122: Page sends account of 
 interview with Sir Edward Grej 
 ministration probably historic, ISO; Den 
 racy his purpose from student ■! I 
 replies to Dacia telegram I 
 
 correct English views on American rymp 
 
 speaks of minority of British elements in 
 
 the United States and amph ><■'— importance 
 
 of German and Iri-li . ontriliutions to \n 
 
 can composite. 23S; attitude anaynipathetk 
 in regard to Page's prc aentation of L uiitm m 
 case. 241; his aote to Bryan on Page'i fla- 
 gram concerning the I 
 Lusilania note gave Page greal satisfaction, 
 
440 
 
 INDEX 
 
 244; failure to acknowledge Page's letters 
 and messages, 258, 259; plan for peace con- 
 ference, 281, 282; House Memorandum, 289; 
 his phrase, "causes and objects of the war," 
 297; damage done by his praise of neutrality, 
 315; Page says fear of Germans caused his 
 peace movement, 315; address to Senate, 
 January, 1917, a final appeal for peace, 316; 
 "Peace without Victory," 316; "armed neu- 
 trality," 323; his second inaugural address, 
 326; German messages sent on his orders, 
 341; sends personal message to Admiral 
 Hall through Page, 362; asks Congress to 
 declare war, April 2, 1917, 365; attempts to 
 detach Austria-Hungary from Germanic 
 alliance, 366; his speeches widely read in 
 England, 389; his letter to Pope Benedict 
 eloquent description of origin of war, 406 
 Wood, General Leonard, decides to make 
 post of Military Attache more important, 
 
 202; foresaw possibility of United States 
 being drawn into conflict, 207 
 
 Worshipful Company of Mercers, Page speaks 
 before, 103 
 
 Wotton, Sir Henry, his definition of an ambas- 
 sador, 188 
 
 York, Archbishop of, description of, 415 
 
 Zapata, English opinion of, 114 
 Zeppelins, possible damage from, 162 
 Zimmermann, Dr. Alfred, and the Japanese 
 and Mexican alliance with Germany, 321; 
 his "bomb" bursts, 324; his "immortal" 
 telegram, 331 ; text of telegram sent to Wilson 
 by Ambassador Page, 333; his wireless mes- 
 sage, 336; admits his telegram is official, 
 347; further telegrams to Von Eckhardt, 
 349-357 
 
 
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