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LIBRARY OF THE
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GIFT OF
VIRGINIA EDUCATION
ASSOCIATIONTHE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
WALTER H. PAGE

(School Edition)From a painting by P. A. LASZLOThe Life and Letters
ot

Walter H. Page

By
Burton J’ Hendrick

Adapted for school use by
Rollo [2 Lyman

Professor in the Teaching of English
University of Chicago

 

Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company

[925COPYRIGHT, 1921-1922

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DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY; N: ¥.CHAPTER

I.
is
ITI.
IV.
V.
VI.

VII.
VIII.
IX.
»,
Ae
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.

CONTENTS

A Reconstruction Boyhood

Journalism

Services to the South

The Wilsonian Era Begins

England Before the War

America [ries to Prevent the European
War

England Under the Stress of War

‘Waging Neutrality”

Germany’s First Peace Drives

The “Lusitania’”—and After .

Dark Days for the Allies

A Perplexed Ambassador

Peace Without Victory

The United States at War

Page—The Man

A Crisis on the Western Front

Last Days 5. tee (ade pe

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116

134
161

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A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

HE earliest recollections of any man have great

biographical interest, and this is especially the
case with Walter Page, for not the least dramatic as-
pect of his life was that it spanned the two greatest
wars in history. His last weeks in England Page
spent at Sandwich, on the coast of Kent; every day
and every night he could hear the pounding of the
great guns in France, as the Germans were making
their last desperate attempt to reach Paris or the
Channel ports. His memories of his childhood days
in America were similarly the sights and sounds of
war. Page was a North Carolina boy; he has him-
self recorded the impression that the Civil War left
upon his mind.

“One day,” he writes, “when the cotton fields were
white and the elm leaves were falling, in the soft au-
tumn of the Southern climate wherein the sky is fath-
omlessly clear, the locomotive’s whistle blew a much
longer time than usual as the train approached Mill-
worth. It did not stop at so small a station except
when there was somebody to get off or to get on, and
so long a blast meant that someone was coming. Sam

and I ran down the avenue of elms to see who it was.
Ia

 

 

 

 

2 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

Sam was my Negro companion, philosopher, and
friend. I was ten years old and Sam said that he was
fourteen. There was constant talk about the war.
Many men of the neighborhood had gone away some-
where—that was certain; but Sam and I had a theory
that the war was only a story. We had been fooled
about old granny Thomas’s bringing the baby and long
ago we had been fooled also about Santa Claus. The
war might be another such invention, and we some-
times suspected that it was. But we found out the
truth that day, and for this reason it is among my
clearest early recollections.

“For, when the train stopped, they put off a big box
and gently laid it in the shade of the fence. ‘The only
man at the station was the man who had come to
change the mail bags; and he said that this was Billy
Morris’s coffin and that he had been killed in a battle.
He asked us to stay with it till he could send word to
Mr. Morris, who lived two miles away. The man
came back presently and leaned against the fence till
old Mr. Morris arrived, an hour or more later. ‘The
lint of cotton was on his wagon, for he was hauling
his crop to the gin when the sad news reached him;
and he came in his shirt sleeves, his wife on the wagon
seat with him.

‘All the neighborhood gathered at the church, a
funeral was preached and there was a long prayer for
our success against the invaders, and Billy Morris was
buried. I remember that I wept the more because
it now seemed to me that my doubt about the war had
somehow done Billy Morris an injustice. Old Mrs.
Gregory wept more loudly than anybody else; and
she kept saying, while the service was going on, ‘It'll
be my John next.’ Ina little while, sure enough, John
Gregory’s coffin was put off the train, as Billy Morris’sA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 3

had been, and I regarded her as a woman gifted with
prophecy. Other coftins, too, were put off from time
to time. About the war there could no longer be a
doubt. And, a little later, its realities and horrors
came nearer home to us, with swift, deep experiences.

“One day my father took me to the camp and pa-
rade ground ten miles away, near the capital. The
General and the Governor sat on horses and the sol-
diers marched by them and the band played. They
were going to the front. There surely must be a war
at the front, I told Sam that night. Still more cof-
fins were brought home, too, as the months and the
years passed; and the women of the neighborhood used
to come and spend whole days with my mother, sew-
ing for the soldiers. So precious became woolen
cloth that every rag was saved and the threads were
unraveled to be spun and woven into new fabrics.
And they baked bread and roasted chickens and sheep
and pigs and made cakes, all to go to the soldiers
at the front.” ?

The quality that is uppermost in the Page stock,
both in the past and in the present generation, is that
of the builder and the pioneer. The ancestor of the
North Carolina Pages was a Lewis Page, who, in the
latter part of the eighteenth century, left the original
American home in Virginia, and started life anew in
what was then regarded as the less civilized country
to the south. It may safely be assumed that the im-
pelling motive was that love of seeking out new things,
of constructing a new home in the wilderness, which
has never forsaken his descendants. His son, An-
derson Page, manifesting this same love of change,

1From “The Southerner,” Chapter I. The first chapter in this
novel is practically autobiographical, though fictitious names have
been used.——————

 

 

4 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

went farther south into Wake County, and acquired
a plantation of a thousand acres about twelve miles
north of Raleigh. He cultivated this estate with
slaves, sending his abundant crops of cotton and to-
bacco to Petersburg, Virginia, a trafic that made him
sufficiently prosperous to give several of his sons a
college education.

The son who is chiefly interesting at the present
time, Allison Francis Page, the father of the future
Ambassador, did not enjoy this opportunity. ‘This
fact in itself gives an insight into his character. While
his brothers were grappling with Latin and Greek and
theology, we catch glimpses of the older brother bat-
tling with the logs in the Cape Fear River, or pene-
trating the virgin pine forest, felling trees and con-
verting its raw material to the uses of a growing cly-
ilization. Like many of the Page breed, this Page
was a giant in size and in strength, as sound morally
and physically as the mighty forests in which a con-
siderable part of his life was spent, brave, determined,
aggressive, domineering almost to the point of intol-
erance, deeply religious and abstemious—a mixture
of the frontiersman and the Old Testament prophet.

Though he was not especially versed in the learning
of the schools, Walter Page’s father had a mind that
was keen and far-reaching. He was a pioneer in pol-
itics as he was in the practical concerns of life.
Though he was the son of slave-holding progenitors
and even owned slaves himself, he was not a believer in
slavery. The country that he primarily loved was not
Moore County or North Carolina, but the United
States of America. In politics he was a Whig, which
meant that, in the years preceding the Civil War, he
was opposed to the extension of slavery and did not
regard the election of Abraham Lincoln as a sufficientA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 5

provocation for the secession of the Southern States.

If we are seeking an ancestral explanation for that
moral ruggedness, that quick perception of the differ-
ence between right and wrong, that unobscured vision
into men and events, and that deep devotion to Amer-
ica and to democracy which formed the fiber of Wal-
ter Page’s being, we evidently need look no further
than his father. But the son had qualities which the
older man did not possess—an enthusiasm for litera-
ture and learning, a love of the beautiful in Nature and
in art, above all a gentleness of temperament and of
manner. ‘These qualities he held in common with his
mother. On his father’s side Page was undiluted
English; on his mother’s he was French and English.
Her father was John Samuel Raboteau, the descend-
ant of Huguenot refugees who had fled from France
on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; her mother
was Esther Barclay, a member of a family which gave
the name of Barclaysville to a small town halfway
between Raleigh and Fayetteville, North Carolina.
It is a member of this tribe to whom Page once re-
ferred as the ‘‘vigorous Barclay who held her recep-
tions to notable men in her bedroom during the years
of her bedridden condition.’”’ She was the proprietor
of the “Half Way House,” a tavern located between
Fayetteville and Raleigh; and in her old age she kept
royal state, in the fashion which Page describes, for
such as were socially entitled to this consideration.
The most vivid impression which her present-day de-
scendants retain is that of her fervent devotion to the
Southern cause. She carried the spirit of secession to
such an extreme that she had the gate to her yard
painted to give a complete presentment of the Confed-
erate Flag.

The granddaughter of this determined and rebellious6 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

lady, Walter Page’s mother, had also her positive
quality, but in a somewhat more subdued form. She
did not die until 1897, and so the recollection of her
is fresh and vivid. As a mature woman she was un-
demonstrative and soft spoken; a Methodist of old-
fashioned Wesleyan type, she dressed with a Quaker-
like simplicity, her brown hair brushed flatly down
upon a finely shaped head and her garments destitute
of ruffles or ornamentation. The home which she
directed was a home without playing cards or dancing
or smoking or wine-bibbing or other worldly frivoli-
ties, yet the memories of her presence which Catherine
Page has left are not at all austere. Duty was with
her the prime consideration of life, and fundamental
morals the first conceptions which she instilled in her
children’s growing minds, yet she had a quiet sense
of humor and a real love of fun.

She had also strong likes and dislikes, and was not
especially hospitable to men and women who fell un-
der her disapproval. A small North Carolina town,
in the years preceding and following the Civil War,
was not a fruitful soil for cultivating an interest in
things intellectual, yet those who remember Walter
Page’s mother remember her always with a book in
her hand. She would read at her knitting and at her
miscellaneous household duties, which were rather
arduous in the straitened days that followed the war,
and the books she read were always substantial ones.
Perhaps because her son Walter was in delicate health,
perhaps because his early tastes and temperament were
not unlike her own, perhaps because he was her oldest
surviving child, the fact remains that, of a family of
eight, he was generally regarded as the child with
whom she was especially sympathetic.

The picture of mother and son in those early daysA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD a

is an altogether charming one. Page’s mother was
only twenty-four when he was born; she retained
her youth for many years after that event, and during
his early childhood, in appearance and manner, she was
little more than a girl. When Walter was a small
boy, he and his mother used to take long walks in the
woods, sometimes spending the entire day, fishing
along the ‘brooks, hunting wild flowers, now and then
pausing while the mother read pages of Dickens or
of Scott. These experiences Page never forgot.
Nearly all his letters to his mother—to whom, even
in his busiest days in New York, he wrote constantly
—have been accidentally destroyed, but a few scraps
indicate the close spiritual bond that existed between
the two. Always he seemed to think of his mother
as young. Through his entire life, in whatever part
of the world he might be, and however important was
the work in which he might be engaged, Page never
failed to write her a long and affectionate letter at
Christmas.

“Well, I’ve gossiped a night or two’’—such is the
conclusion of his Christmas letter of 1893, when Page
was thirty-eight, with a growing family of his own—

“till Pve filled the paper—all such little news and
less nonsense as most gossip and most letters are made
of. But it is for you to read between the lines.
That’s where the love lies, dear Mother. I wish you
were here Christmas; we should welcome you as no-
body else in the world can be welcomed. But wher-
ever you are and though all the rest have the joy of
seeing you, which is denied to me, never a Christmas
comes but I feel as near you as I did years and years
ago when we were young. (In those years big fish
bit in old Wiley Bancom’s pond by the railroad: they
must have been two inches long!)—I would give a8 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

year's growth to have the pleasure of having you
heres,ere
‘‘God bless you.
‘““WALTER.”

Such were the father and mother of Walter Hines
Page; they were married at Fayetteville, North Caro-
lina, July 5, 1849; two children who preceded Walter
died in infancy. The latter was born at Cary, Au-
gust 15, 1855.

Page’s home was almost the last stopping place of
Sherman’s army on its march through Georgia and
the Carolinas, and the Confederacy came to an end,
with Johnston’s surrender of the last Confederate
Army, at Durham, only fifteen miles from his native
village. Walter, a boy of ten, his brother Robert,
aged six, and the Negro ‘“‘companion” Tance, stood at
the second-story window and watched Sherman’s sol-
diers pass their house, in hot pursuit of General ‘oak
Wheeler’s cavalry. The thing that most astonished
the children was the vast size of the army, which took
all day to file by their home. They had never real-
ized that either of the fighting forces could embrace
such great numbers of men.

One day a kindly Northern soldier, sympathizing
with the boy because of the small rations left for the
local population, invited him to join the officers’ mess
at dinner. Walter drew proudly back.

“I'll starve before I'll eat with the Yankees,” he
said.

“IT slept that night on a trundle bed by my mother’s,”
Page wrote years afterward, describing these early
scenes, “for her room was the only room left for the
family, and we had all lived there since the day before.
The dining room and the kitchen were now superflu-A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 9

ous, because there was nothing more to cook or to
eat. .. . A week or more after the army corps had
gone, I drove with my father to the capital one day,
and almost every mile of the journey we saw a blue
coat or a gray coat lying by the road, with bones or
hair protruding—the unburied and the forgotten of
either army. Thus I had come to know what war
was, and death by violence was among the first
deep impressions made on my mind. My emotions
must have been violently dealt with and my sensibili-
ties blunted—or sharpened? Who shall say? The
wounded and the starved straggled home from hos-
pitals and from prisons. There was old Mr. Sanford,
the shoemaker, come back again, with a body so thin
and a step so uncertain that I expected to see him fall
to pieces. Mr. Larkin and Joe Tatum went on
crutches; and I saw a man at the post office one day
whose cheek and ear had been torn away by a
shell. .

‘But there was the cheerful gentleness of my mother
to draw my thoughts to different things. I can even
now recall many special little plans that she made to
keep my mind from battles. She hid the military cap
that I had worn. She bought from me my military
buttons and put them away. She would call me in
and tell me pleasant stories of her own childhood.
She would put down her work to make puzzles with
me, and she read gentle books to me and kept away
from me all the stories of the war and of death that
she could. Whatever hardships befell her (and they
must have been many) she kept a tender manner of
resignation and of cheerful patience.

‘After a while the neighborhood came to life again.
There were more widows, more sonless mothers, more
empty sleeves and wooden legs than anybody there10 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

had ever seen before. But the mimosa bloomed, the
cotton was planted again, and the peach trees blos-
somed: and the barnyard and the stable again became
full of life. For, when the army marched away, they,
too, were as silent as an old battlefield. The last hen
had been caught under the corn crib by a ‘Yankee’ sol-
dier, who had torn his coat in this brave raid... .

“Every year the cotton bloomed and ripened and
opened white to the sun; for the ripening of the cot-
ton and the running of the river and the turning of
the mills make the thread not of my story only but
of the story of our Southern land—of its institutions,
of its misfortunes and of its place in the economy of
the world; and they will make the main threads of
its story, I am sure, so long as the sun shines on our
white fields and the rivers run—a story that is now
rushing swiftly into a happier narrative of a broader
day. The same women who had guided the spindles
‘n war-time were again at their tasks—they at least
were left; but the machinery was now old and worked
ill. Negro men, who had wandered a while looking
for an invisible ‘freedom,’ came back and went to
work on the farm from force of habit. They now
received wages and bought their own food. That was
the only apparent difference that freedom had brought
them.”

It was a tragic world into which this boy Page
had been born. He was ten years old when the Civil
War came to an end, and his early life was therefore
cast in a desolate country. Like all of his neighbors,
Frank Page had been ruined by the war. Both the
Southern and Northern armies had passed over the
Page territory; compared with the military depreda-
tions with which Page became familiar in the last
years of his life, the Federal troops did not particu-A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD II

larly misbehave, the attacks on hen roosts and the
destruction of feather beds representing the extreme
of their ‘‘atrocities’’; but no country can entertain
two great fighting forces without feeling the effects
for a prolonged period. Life in this part of North
Carolina again became reduced to its fundamentals.
The old homesteads and the Negro huts were still left
standing, their interiors for the most part unharmed,
but nearly everything else had disappeared. Horses,
cattle, hogs, livestock of all kinds had vanished before
the advancing hosts of hungry soldiers; and there was
one thing which was even more a rarity than these.
That was money. Confederate veterans went around
in their faded gray uniforms, not only because they
loved them, but because they did not have the where-
withal to buy new wardrobes. Judges, planters, and
other dignified members of the community became
hack drivers from the necessity of picking up a few
small coins.

Page’s father was more fortunate than the rest, for
he had one asset with which to accumulate a little
liquid capital: he possessed a fine peach orchard, which
was particularly productive in the summer of 186s,
and the Northern soldiers, who drew their pay in
money that had real value, developed a weakness for
the fruit. Walter Page, a boy of ten, used to take his
peaches to Raleigh and sell them to the “invader”:
although he still disdained having companionable re-
lations with the enemy, he was not above meeting them
on a business footing; and the greenbacks and silver
coin obtained in this way laid a new basis for the
family fortunes.

“Wat” Page—he is still known by this name in his
old home—was a tall, rangy, curly-headed boy, with
brown hair and brown eyes, fond of fishing and hunt-12 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

ing, not especially robust, but conspicuously alert and
vital. Such of his old playmates as survive recall
chiefly his keenness of observation, his contagious
laughter, his devotion to reading and to talk. He was
also given to taking long walks in the woods, frequently
with the solitary companionship of a book. Indeed,
his extremely efficient family regarded him as a
dreamer and were not entirely clear as to what purpose
he was destined to serve in a community which, above
all, demanded practical men.

Such elementary schools as North Carolina possessed
had vanished in the war; the prevailing custom was for
the better-conditioned families to join forces and en-
gage a teacher for their assembled children. In such
a primary school in Cary Page learned the elementary
branches, though his mother herself taught him to
read and write. The boy showed such aptitude in
his studies that his mother began to hope, though in
no aggressive fashion, that he might some day become
a Methodist clergyman; she had given him his middle
name,‘‘Hines,” in honor of her favorite preacher—a
kinsman. At the age of twelve Page was transferred
to the Bingham School, then located at Mebane. This
was the Eton of North Carolina, from a social and an
educational standpoint. It was a military school; the
boys all dressed in gray uniforms built on the plan of
the Confederate army; the hero constantly paraded
before their imaginations was Robert E. Lee; discipline
was rigidly military; more important, a high standard
of honor was insisted upon.

There was one thing a boy could not do at Bingham
and remain in the school; that was to cheat in class-
rooms or at examinations. For this offense no second
chance was given. ‘“‘I cannot argue the subject,” Page
quotes Colonel Bingham saying to the distracted parentA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 13

whose son had been dismissed on this charge, and who
was begging for his reinstatement. ‘In fact, I have
no power to reinstate your boy. I could not keep the
honor of the school—I could not even keep the boys
if he were to return. hey would appeal to their
parents and most of them would be called home.
They are the flower of the South, sir!” And the
social standards that controlled the thinking of the
South for so many years after the war were strongly
entrenched.

“The son of a Confederate general,’ Page writes,
‘if he were at all a decent fellow, had, of course, a
higher social rank at the Bingham School than the son
of a colonel. There was some difficulty in deciding
the exact rank of a judge or a governor, as a father;
but the son of a preacher had a fair chance of a good
social rating, especially of an Episcopalian clergyman.
A Presbyterian preacher came next in rank. I at
first was at a social disadvantage. My father had
been a Methodist—that was bad enough; but he had
had no military title at all. If it had become known
among the boys that he had been a ‘Union man’—I
used to shudder at the suspicion in which I should be
held. And the fact that my father had held no
military title did at last become known!”

At Bingham Page gained his first knowledge of
Greek, Latin, and mathematics, and he was an out-
standing student in all three subjects. He had no
particular liking for mathematics, but he could never
understand why anyone should find this branch of
learning difficult; he mastered it with the utmost ease
and always stood high. In two or three years he had
absorbed everything that Bingham could offer and
was ready for the next step.

Page spent something more than a year at Trinity14 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

College, entering in the autumn of 1871, and leaving in
December, 1872. A few letters, written from this
place, are scarcely complimentary. They show that the
young man was very unhappy. One long letter to his
mother is nothing but a boyish diatribe against the
place. “I do not care a horse apple for Trinity’s dis-
tinction,” he writes, and then he gives the reason for
this juvenile contempt. His first report, he says, will
soon reach home; he warns his mother that it will be
unfavorable, and he explains that this bad showing is
the result of a deliberate plot. The boys who obtain
high marks, Page declares, secure them usually by
cheating or through the partisanship of the professors;
a high grade therefore really means that the recipient
is either a humbug or a bootlicker. Page had there-
fore attempted to keep his reputation unsullied by
aiming at a low academical record! ‘The report on
that three months’ work, which still survives, discloses
that Page’s conspiracy against himself did not succeed,
for his marks are all high. ‘‘Be sure to send him
back” is the annotation on this document, indicating
that Page had made a better impression on Trinity
than Trinity had made on Page.

But the rebellious young man did not return.
After Christmas, 1872, his schoolboy letters reveal
him at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va.
Here the atmosphere was of a somewhat more genial
type. ‘It was at Ashland that I first began to unfold,”
said Page afterward. ‘‘Dear old Ashland!” Dr.
Duncan, the President, was a clergyman whose pulpit
oratory is still a tradition in the South, but, in addition
to his religious exaltation, he was an exceedingly
lovable, companionable, and stimulating human being.

In many ways young Page was the life of the under-A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD Is

graduate body. A passing desire for an immediate
theological campaign was merely that passion for doing
things and for self-expression which were always con-
spicuous traits. His intense ambition as a boy is still
remembered in this sleepy little village. He read
every book in the sparse college library; he talked to
his college mates and his professors on every im-
aginable subject; he led his associates in the miniature
parliament —the Franklin Debating Society—to which
he belonged; he wrote prose and verse at an astonishing
rate; he explored the country for miles around, making
frequent pilgrimages to the birthplace of Henry Clay,
which is the chief historical glory of Ashland, and to
that Hanover Court House which was the scene of
the oratorical triumph of Patrick Henry; he flirted
with the pretty girls in the village, and even had two
half-serious love affairs in rapid succession; he slept
upon a hard mattress at night and imbibed more than
the usual allotment of Greek, Latin, and mathematics
in the daytime.

One year he captured the Greek prize and the next
the Sutherlin medal for oratory. With a fellow class-
icist he entered into a solemn compact to hold all
their conversation, even on the most trivial tropics, in
Latin, with heavy penalties for careless lapses into
English. ‘The experiment at least had a certain in-
fluence in improving the young man’s Latinity. An-
other favorite dissipation was that of translating
English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still
survives among Page’s early papers a copy of Bryant’s
‘Waterfowl’ done into Latin iambics. As to Page’s
personal appearance, a designation coined by a fellow
student who afterward became a famous editor gives
the suggestion of a portrait. He called him one of16 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

the “seven slabs” of the college. And, as always, the
adjectives which his contemporaries chiefly use in de.
scribing Page are “alert’’ and “‘positive.”

But Randolph-Macon did one great thing for Page.
Like many small struggling Southern colleges it man-
aged to assemble several instructors of real mental dis-
tinction. And at the time of Page’s undergraduate
life it possessed at least one great teacher. This was
Thomas R. Price, afterward Professor of Greek at
the University of Virginia and Professor of English
at Columbia University in New York. Professor
Price took one forward step that has given him a
permanent fame in the history of Southern education.
He found that the greatest stumbling block to teaching
Greek was the fact that his hopeful charges were not
sufficiently familiar with their mother tongue. The
prayer that was always on Price’s lips, and the one with
which he made his boys most familiar, was that of a
wise old Greek: ‘“(O Great Apollo, send down the re-
viving rain upon our fields; preserve our flocks; ward
off our enemies; and—build up our speech!” “It 1s
irrational,” he said, ‘‘absurd, almost criminal, to ex-
pect a young man, whose knowledge of English words
and construction is scant and inexact, to put into Eng-
lish a difficult thought of Plato or an involved period
of Cicero.”

To-day every great American educational institution
has vast resources for teaching English literature;
even in 1876, most American universities had their
professors of English; but Price insisted on placing
English on exactly the. same footing as Greek and
Latin. He himself became head of the new English
school at Randolph-Macon; and Page himself at
once became the favorite pupil. This distinguished
scholar—a fine figure with an imperial beard thatA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 17

suggested the Confederate officer—used to have Page
to tea at least twice a week and at these meetings the
young man was first introduced in an understanding
way to Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson,
and the other writers who became the literary passions
of his maturer life.

And Price did even more for Page; he passed him
on to another place and to another teacher who ex-
tended his horizon. Up to the autumn of 1876 Page
had never gone farther North than Ashland; he was
still a Southern boy, speaking with the Southern drawl,
living exclusively the thoughts and even the prejudices
of the South. His family’s broad-minded attitude
had prevented him from acquiring a too restricted
view of certain problems that were then vexing both
sections of the country; however, his outlook was still
a limited one, as his youthful correspondence shows.
But in October of the centennial year a great prospect
opened before him.

Two or three years previously an eccentric merchant
named Johns Hopkins had died, leaving the larger
part of his fortune to found a college or university in
Baltimore to which only those American boys who had
displayed exceptional promise should be admitted.
Part of the university funds should be used to pay the
expenses of twenty young men who, in undergraduate
work at other colleges, stood head and shoulders
above their contemporaries. The bringing together
of selected teachers and selected students, two sets of
brains for graduate study, would constitute the new
university. A few rooms in the nearest dwelling
house would suffice for headquarters. Dr. Gilman's
scheme was approved; he became President on these
terms; he gathered his faculty not only in the United18 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

States but in England, and he collected his first body of
students, especially his first twenty fellows, with the
same minute care.

It seems almost a miracle that an inexperienced youth
in a little Methodist college in Virginia should have
been chosen as one of these first twenty fellows, and it
is a sufficient tribute to the impression that Page must
have made upon all who met him that he should have
won this great academic distinction. He was only
twenty-one at the time—the youngest of a group nearly
every member of which became distinguished in after
life. He won a Fellowship in Greek. This in itself
was a great good fortune; even greater was the fact
that his new life brought him into immediate contact
with Professor Gildersleeve, a scholar of great genius
and lovableness.

The atmosphere of Johns Hopkins was quite dif-
ferent from anything which the young man had previ-
ously known. ‘Gentlemen, you must light your own
torch,’ was the admonition of President Gilman, in
his welcoming address to his twenty fellows; intel-
lectual independence, freedom from the trammels of
tradition, were thus to be the directing ideas. One of
Page’s associates was Josiah Royce, who afterward
had a distinguished career in philosophy at Harvard.
“The beginnings of Johns Hopkins,” he afterward
wrote, “‘was a dawn wherein it was bliss to be alive.
The air was full of noteworthy work done by the older
men of the place and of hopes that one might find a
way to get a little working power one’s self. One
longed to be a doer of the word, not a hearer only, a
-creator of his own infinitesimal fraction of the prod-
uct, bound in God’s name to produce when the time
came.”

A choice group of five aspiring Grecians, of whomA RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD 19

Page was one, periodically gathered around a long
pine table in a second-story room of an old dwelling
house on Howard Street, with Professor Gildersleeve
at the head. The process of teaching was thus the in-
timate contact of mind with mind. Here in the course
of nearly two years’ residence, Page was led by Pro-
fessor Gildersleeve into the closest communion with
the great minds of the ancient world and gained that
intimate knowledge of their written word which was
the basis of his mental equipment.

But the truth is that the world was tugging at Page
more insistently than the cloister. ‘Speaking gram-
matically,” writes E. G. Sihler, one of Page’s fellow
students of that time, “Page was interested in that
one of the main tenses which we call the Present.”’
In his after life, amid all the excitements of journal-
ism, Page could take a brief vacation and spend it
with Ulysses by the sea; but actuality and human activ-
ity charmed him even more than did the heroes of the
ancient world. He went somewhat into Baltimore
society, but not extensively; he joined a club whose
membership comprised the leading intellectual men of
the town; probably his most congenial associations,
however, came of the Saturday night meetings of the
fellows in Hopkins Hall, where they passed in review
all the questions of the day.

Page was still the Southern boy, with the strange
notions about the North and Northern people which
were the inheritance of many years’ misunderstand-
ings. He writes of one fellow student to whom he
had taken a liking. ‘He is that rare thing,” he says,
“fa Yankee Christian gentleman.” He particularly
dislikes one of his instructors, but, as he explains, “‘he
is a native of Connecticut, and Connecticut, I suppose,
is capable of producing any unholy human phenom-20 A RECONSTRUCTION BOYHOOD

enon.” Speaking of a beautiful and well-mannered
Greek girl whom he had met, he writes: “The little
creature might be taken for a Southern girl, but never
for a Yankee. She has an easy manner and even an
air of gentility about her that doesn’t appear north of
Mason and Dixon’s Line. Indeed, however much the
Southern race (I say race intentionally) however much
the Southern race owes its strength to Anglo-Saxon
blood, it owes its beauty and gracefulness to the South-
ern climate and culture.’ This sort of thing 1s
especially entertaining in the youthful Page, for it is
precisely against this kind of complacency that, as a
mature man, he directed his choicest ridicule. As an
editor and writer his energies were devoted to recon-
ciling North and South, and Johns Hopkins itself had
much to do with opening his eyes. Its young men and
its professors were gathered from all parts of the coun-
try; a student, if his mind was awake, learned more
than Greek and mathematics; he learned much about
that far-flung nation known as the United States.CHAE TER. jl
JOURNALISM

HE five years from 1878 to 1883 Page spent in
ak various places, engaged, for the larger part of
the time, in several kinds of journalistic work. It was
his period of struggle and of preparation. In the au-
tumn of 1878 he went to Louisville, Kentucky, and
presently found an occupation in this progressive city
which proved absorbing. A few months before his
arrival certain energetic spirits had founded a weekly
paper, the 4ge, a journal which, they hoped, would fil
the place in the Southern States which the very suc-
cessful New York Nation, under the editorship of
Godkin, was then occupying in the North. Page at
once began contributing leading articles on literary and
political topics to this publication; the work proved so
congenial that he purchased—on notes—a controlling
interest in the new venture and became its directing
spirit.

The Age was in every way a worthy enterprise; in
the dignity of its makeup and the high literary
standards at which it aimed it imitated the London
Spectator. Perhaps Page obtained a thousand dol-
lars’ worth of fun out of his investment; if so, that
represented his entire profit. He now learned a lesson
which was emphasized in his after career as editor
and publisher, and that was that the Southern States
provided a poor market for books or periodicals.
The net result of the proceeding was that, at the age

2I22 JOURNALISM

of twenty-three, he found himself out of a job and
considerably in debt.

He has himself rapidly sketched his varied activities
of the next five years:

‘After trying in vain,”’ he writes, “to get work to do
on any newspaper in North Carolina, I advertised for
a job in journalism—any sort of a job. By a queer
accident—a fortunate one for me—the owner of the
St. Joseph, Missouri, Gazette, answered the advertise-
ment. Why he did it, I never found out. He was
in the same sort of desperate need of a newspaper man
as I was in desperate need of a job. I knew nothing
about him: he knew nothing about me. I knew noth-
ing about newspaper work. I borrowed $50 and set
out to St. Joe, Missouri, where I didn’t know a human
being. I became a reporter.

‘At first I reported the price of cattle—went to the
stockyards, etc. My salary came near to paying my
board and lodging, but it didn’t quite do it. But I
had a good time in St. Joe for somewhat more than
ayear. There were interesting people there. I came
to know something about Western life. Kansas was
across the river. I often went there. I came to
know Kansas City, St. Louis—a good deal of the
West. After a while I was made editor of the paper.
What a rousing political campaign or two we had!
Then—lI had done that kind of a job as long as I cared
<o. Every swashbuckling campaign is like every other
one. Why do two? Besides, I knew my trade. I
had done everything on a daily paper from stockyard
reports to political editorials and heavy literary arti-
cles. In the meantime I had written several magazine
articles and done other such jobs. I got leave of
absence for a month or two. I wrote to several of
the principal papers in Chicago, New York, andJOURNALISM 23

Boston and told them that I was going down South to
make political and social studies and that I was going
to send them my letters. I hoped they’d publish
them.

‘“That’s all I could say. I could make no engage-
ment; they didn’t know me. I didn’t even ask for an
engagement. I told them simply this: that I’d write
letters and send them; and I prayed heaven that they’d
print them and pay for them. Then off I went with
my little money in my pocket—about enough to get
to New Orleans. I traveled and I wrote. I went
all over the South. [I sent letters and letters and let-
ters. All the papers published all that I sent them
and I was rolling in wealth! I had money in my
pocket for the first time in my life. Then I went
back to St. Joe and resigned; for the (old) New York
World had asked me to go to the Atlanta Exposition
as a correspondent. I went. I wrote and kept writ-
ing. How kind Henry Grady was to me! But at
last the Exposition ended. I was out of a job. I ap-
plied to the Constitution. No, they wouldn’t have
me. I never got a job in my life that I asked for!
But all my life better jobs have been given me than I
dared ask for.

‘“Well—I was at the end of my rope in Atlanta and
I was trying to make a living in any honest way I could
when one day a telegram came from the New York
World (it was the old World, which was one of the
best of the dailies in its literary quality) asking me to
come to New York. I had never seen a man on the
paper—had never been in New York except for a day
when I landed there on a return voyage from a
European trip that I took during one vacation when
I was in the University. Then I went to New York
straight and quickly. I had an interesting experience24 JOURNALISM

on the old World, writing literary matter chiefly, an
editorial now and then, and I was frequently sent as
a correspondent on interesting errands. I traveled all
over the country with the Tariff Commission. I spent
one winter in Washington as a sort of editorial cor-
respondent while the tariff bill was going through Con-
gress. Then, one day, the World was sold to Mr.
Pulitzer and all the staff resigned.”

What better training could a journalist ask for than
this? Page was only twenty-eight when these five
years came to an end. Merely from the standpoint
of geography, his achievement had been an important
one; how many Americans, at the age of twenty-eight,
have such an extensive mileage to their credit? Page
had spent his childhood in North Carolina; he had
passed his youth in Virginia and Maryland; before he
was twenty-three he had lived several months in Ger-
many, and, on his return voyage, he had sailed by the
white cliffs of England, and, from the deck of his
steamer, had caught glimpses of that Isle of Wight
which then held his youthful favorite, Tennyson. He
had added to these experiences a winter in Kentucky
and a sojourn of nearly two years in Missouri. His
Southern trip, to which Page refers in the above, had
taken him through Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, and Louisiana; he had visited the West again
in 1882, spending a considerable time in all the large
cities, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Leadville, Salt Lake,
and from the latter point he had traveled extensively
through Mormondom.

The several months spent in Atlanta had given the
young correspondent a glimpse into the new South,
for this energetic city embodied a Southern spirit that
was several decades removed from the Civil War.
After this came nearly two years in New York andJOURNALISM 25

Washington, where Page gained his first insight into
Federal politics; in particular, as a correspondent at-
tached to the Tariff Commission—an assignment that
again started him on his travels to industrial centers—
he came into contact, for the first time, with the
mechanism of framing the great American tariff.

During this period Page was not only forming a
first-hand acquaintance with the passing scene, but also
with important actors in it. [he mere fact that, on
the St. Joseph Gazette, he succeeded Eugene Field—
“A good fellow named Page is going to take my desk,”
said the careless poet. ‘‘I hope he will succeed to my
debts too’’—always remained a pleasant memory.
He entered zealously into the life of this active com-
munity; his love of talk and disputation, his interest in
politics, his hearty laugh, his vigorous handclasp, his
animation of body and of spirit, and his sunny out-
look on men and events—these are the traits that hig
old friends in this town, some of whom still survive,
associate with the juvenile editor.

In his Southern trip Page called—self-invited—
upon Jefferson Davis and was cordially received. At
Atlanta, as he records above, he made friends with
that chivalric champion of a resurrected South, Henry
Grady; here also he obtained fugitive glimpses of a
struggling and briefless lawyer, who, like Page, was
interested more in books and writing than in the hum-
drum of professional life, and who was then engaged
in putting together a brochure on Congressional Gov-
ernment which immediately gave him a national stand-
ing. The name of this sympathetic acquaintance was
Woodrow Wilson.

Another important event had taken place, for, at St.
Louis, on November 15, 1880, Page had married Miss

Willia Alice Wilson. Miss Wilson was the daughter26 JOURNALISM

of a Scotch physician, Dr. William Wilson, who had
settled in Michigan, near Detroit, in 1832. When
she was a small child she went with her sister’s family
—her father had died seven years before—to North
Carolina, near Cary; and she and Page had been child-
hood friends and schoolmates. At the time of the
wedding, Page was editor of the St. Joseph Gazette;
the fact that he had attained this position, five months
after starting at the bottom, sufficiently discloses his
aptitude for journalistic work.

Page had now outgrown any Southern particularism
with which he may have started life. He no longer
found his country exclusively in the area south of the
Potomac; he had made his own the West, the North—
New York, Chicago, Denver, as well as Atlanta and
Raleigh. It is worth while insisting on this fact, for
the cultivation of a wide-sweeping Americanism and
a profound faith in democracy became the qualities
that will loom most largely in his career from this
time forward. It is necessary only to read the news-
paper letters which he wrote on his Southern trip in
1881 to understand how early his mind seized this
new point of view.

Many things which now fell under his observant eye
in the Southern States greatly irritated him and with
his characteristic impulsiveness he pictured these traits
in pungent phrase. The atmosphere of shiftlessness
that too generally prevailed in some localities; the
gangs of tobacco-chewing loafers assembled around
railway stations; the listless Negroes that seemed to
overhang the whole country like a black cloud; the
plantation mansions in a sad state of disrepair; the
old unoccupied slave huts overgrown with weeds;
the unpainted and broken-down fences; the rich soil
that was crudely and wastefully cultivated with a singleJOURNALISM 27

crop—the youthful social philosopher found himself
comparing these vestigia of a half-moribund civiliza-
tion with the vibrant cities of the North, the beautiful
white and green villages of New England, and the
fertile prairie farms of the West. ‘‘Even the dogs,”
he said, “look old-fashioned.” Oh, for a change in
his beloved South—a change of almost any kind!
‘Even a heresy, if it be bright and fresh, would be a
relief. You feel as if you wished to see some kind of
an effort put forth, a discussion, a fight, a runaway,
anything to make the blood go faster.”

Wherever Page saw signs of a new spirit—and he
saw many—he recorded them with an eagerness which
showed his loyalty to the section of his birth. The
splitting up of great plantations into small farms he
put down as one of the indications of a new day. A
growing tendency to educate, not only the white child,
but the Negro, inspired a similar tribute. But he
rejoiced most over the decreasing bitterness of the
masses over the memories of the Civil War, and dis-
covered, with satisfaction, that any remaining ill
feeling was a heritage left not by the Union soldier,
but by the carpetbagger.

Page went south for a short visit after resigning his
place on the New York World, and several admirers
in Raleigh persuaded him to found a new paper, which
should devote itself to exerting an influence on the de-
velopment of a new Southern spirit. No task could
have been more grateful to him and there was no place
in which he would have better liked to undertake it
than in the old state which he loved so well. ‘The
result was the State Chronicle of Raleigh, practically a
new paper, which for a year and a half proved to be
the most refreshing influence that North Carolina had
known in many a year. Necessarily Page found him-28 JOURNALISM

self in conflict with his environment. He had little
interest in the things that then chiefly interested the
state, and North Carolina apparently had little in-
terest in the things that chiefly occupied the mind of
the youthful journalist. Page was interested in the
reform of the civil service; the Democrats of North
Carolina were especially hostile to the belief that serv-
ice to a party did not in itself establish a qualification
for public office. Page was interested in uplifting the
common people, in helping every farmer to own his
own acres, and in teaching the most modern and
scientific way of cultivating them; he was interested in
giving every boy and girl at least an elementary educa-
tion, and in giving a university training to such as had
the aptitude and the ambition to obtain it; he believed
in industrial training—and in these things the North
Carolina of those days had little concern. Page even
went so far as to take an open stand for the pitiably
neglected black man: he insisted that he should be
taught to read and write, and instructed in agriculture
and the manual trades.

A man who advocated such revolutionary things in
those days was accused—and Page was so accused—
of attempting to promote the ‘“‘social equality” of the
two races. Page also declaimed in favor of develop-
ing the state industrially; he called attention to the
absurdity of sending Southern cotton to New England
spinning mills, and he pointed out the boundless but
unworked natural resources of the state, in minerals,
forests, waterpower, and lands.

North Carolina, he informed his astonished com-
patriots, had once been a great manufacturing colony;
why could the state not become one again? But the
matter in which the buoyant editor and his constituentsJOURNALISM 29

found themselves most at variance was the spirit that
controlled North Carolina life. It was a spirit that
found comfort for its present poverty and lack of
progress in a backward look at the greatness of the
state in the past and the achievements of its sons in the
Civil War. Though Page believed that the Con-
federacy had been a ghastly error, and though he
abhorred the institution of slavery and attributed to
it all the woes, economic and social, from which his
section suffered, he rendered that homage to the
soldiers of the South which is the due of brave, self-
sacrificing and conscientious men; yet he taught that
progress lay in regarding the four dreadful years of
the Civil War as the closed chapter of an unhappy
and mistaken history and in hastening the day when
the South should resume its place as a living part of
the great American democracy. All manifestations of
a contrary spirit he ridiculed in language which was ex-
tremely readable but which at times outraged the good
conservative people whom he was attempting to
convert.

Altogether it was a piquant period in Page’s life.
He found that he had suddenly become a ‘‘traitor”
to his country and that his experiences in the North
had completely “‘Yankeeized’’ him. Even in more
mature days, Page’s pen had its javelin-like quality;
and in 1884, possessed as he was of all the fury of
youth, he never hesitated to return every blow that
was rained upon his head. As a matter of fact he had
a highly enjoyable time. The State Chronicle during
his editorship is one of the most cherished recollections
of older North Carolinians to-day. Even those who
hurled the liveliest epithets in his direction have long
since accepted the ideas for which Page was then con-30 JOURNALISM

’

tending; ‘“‘the only trouble with him,” they now rue-
fully admit, ‘was that he was forty years ahead of
his time.”

One editorial is joyfully recalled, in which Page re-
ferred to a public officer who was distinguished for his
dignity and his family tree, but not noted for any
animated administration of his duties, as ‘“Thothmes
Il.’ When this bewildered functionary searched the
Encyclopedia and learned that ‘“Thothmes II” was
an Egyptian king of the XVII Ith dynasty, whose desic-
cated mummy had recently been disinterred from the
hot sands of the desert, he naturally stopped his sub-
scription to the paper. The metaphor apparently
tickled Page, for he used it in a series of articles which
have become immortal in the political annals of North
Carolina. These have always been known as the
“Mummy letters.” They furnished a vivid but rather
aggravating explanation for the existing backward-
ness and chauvinism of the commonwealth. All the
trouble, it seems, was caused by the ‘‘mummies.” “It
is an awfully discouraging business,” Page wrote, “to
undertake to prove to a mummy that it is a mummy.
You go up to it and say, ‘Old fellow, the Egyptian
dynasties crumbled several thousand years ago: you
are a fish out of water. You have by accident or the
Providence of God got a long way out of your time.
This is America.’ The old thing grins that grin which
death set on its solemn features when the world was
young; and your task is so pitiful that even the humor
of it is gone. Give it up.” His liveliness of spirits,
his mental and physical vitality, the constant sparkle
of his talk, the sharp edge of his humor, naturally drew
the younger men to his side. The result was the or-
ganization of the Wautauga Club, a gathering which
held monthly meetings for the discussion of ways andJOURNALISM 31

means of improving social and educational conditions
in North Carolina.

The Wautauga Club had a brief existence of a little
more than two years, the period practically covering
Page’s residence in the state; but its influence is an im-
portant fact at the present time. It gave the state
ideas that afterward caused something like a revolu-
tion in its economic and educational status. The no-
blest monument to its labors is the State College in
Raleigh, an institution which now has more than a
thousand students, for the most part studying the me-
chanic arts and scientific agriculture.

To this one college most North Carolinians to-day
attribute the fact that their state in appreciable meas-
ure is realizing its great economic and industrial op-
portunities. From it in the last thirty years thousands
of young men have gone: in all sections of the common-
wealth they have caused the almost barren acres to
yield fertile and diversified crops; they have planted
everywhere new industries; they have unfolded unsus-
pected resources and everywhere created wealth and
spread enlightenment. ‘This institution is a direct
outcome of Page’s brief sojourn in his native state
nearly forty years ago. ‘The idea originated in his
brain; the files of the State Chronicle tell the story of
his struggle in its behalf; the activities of the Wau-
tauga Club were largely concentrated upon securing
its establishment.

The State College was a great victory for Page,
but final success did not come until three years after
he had left the state. For a year and a half of hard
newspaper work convinced Page that North Carolina
really had no permanent place forhim. The Chronicle
was editorially a success: Page’s articles were widely
quoted, not only in his own state but in New England32 JOURNALISM

and other parts of the Union. He succeeded in stir-
ring up North Carolina and the South generally, but
popular support for the Chronicle was not forthcoming
in sufficient amount to make the paper a commercial
possibility. Reluctantly and sadly Page had to forego
his hope of playing an active part in rescuing his state
from the disasters of the Civil War. Late in the
summer of 1885, he again left for the North, which
now became his permanent home.

And with this second sojourn in New York Page’s
opportunity came. ‘The first two years he spent in
newspaper work, for the most part with the Evening
Post, but, one day in November, 1887, a man whom
he had never seen came into his office and unfolded a
new opportunity. Two years before a rather miscel-
laneous group had launched an ambitious literary un-
dertaking. This was a monthly periodical, which, it
was hoped, would do for the United States what such
publications as the Fortnightly and the Contemporary
were doing for England. The magazine was to have
the highest literary quality and to be sufficiently dig-
nified to attract the finest minds in America as con-
tributors; its purpose was to exercise a profound
influence in politics, literature, science, and art. The
projectors had selected for this publication a title
that was almost perfection—the Forum—but this,
after nearly two years’ experimentation, represented
about the limit of their achievement. The Forum
had hardly made an impression on public thought and
had attracted very few readers, although it had lost
large sums of money for its progenitors. ‘These
public-spirited gentlemen now turned to Page as the
man who might rescue them from their dilemma and
achieve their purpose. He accepted the engagement,
first as manager and presently as editor, and remainedJOURNALISM 33

the guiding spirit of the Forum for eight years, until
the summer of 1895.

Page, indeed, represented a new type of editor. Up
to that time this functionary had been a rather solemn,
inaccessible high priest; he sat secluded in his sanctu-
ary, and weeded out from the mass of manuscripts
dumped upon his desk the particular selections which
seemed to be most suited to his purpose. To solicit
contributions would have seemed an entirely undigni-
fied proceeding; in all cases contributors must come to
him. According to Page, however, ‘‘an editor must
know men and be out among men.” Fis system of

‘making up”’ the magazine at first somewhat astounded
his associates. A month or two in advance of publica-
tion day he would draw up his table of contents. ‘This,
in its preliminary stage, amounted to nothing except
a list of the main subjects which he aspired to handle
in that number. It was a hope, not a performance.
The subjects were commonly suggested by the hap-
penings of the time—an especially outrageous lynch-
ing, the trial of a clergyman for heresy, a new attack
upon the Monroe Doctrine, the discovery of a new
substance such as radium, the publication of an epoch-
making book. Page would then fix upon the inevitable
men who could write most readably and most author-
itatively upon these topics, and “go after’ them.

Sometimes he would write one of his matchless edi-
torial letters; at other times he would make a personal
visit; if necessary, he would use any available friends
in a wire-pulling campaign. At all odds he must “get”’
his man; once he had fixed upon a certain contributor
nothing could divert him from the chase. Nor did
the negotiations cease after he had “‘landed”’ his quarry.
He had his way of discussing the subject with his pro-
posed writer, and he discussed it from every possible34 JOURNALISM

point of view. He would take him to lunch or to din-
ner; in his quiet way he would draw him out, find
whether he really knew much about the subject, learn
the attitude that he was likely to take, and delicately
slip in suggestions of his own.

Page was no mere chaser of names; there was
nothing of the literary tuft-hunter about his editorial
methods. He liked to see such men as Theodore
Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Graham Sum-
ner, Charles W. Eliot, Frederic Harrison, Paul Bour-
get, and the like upon his title page—and here these
and many other similarly distinguished authors ap-
peared—but the greatest name could not attain a place
there if the letter press that followed were unworthy.
Indeed Page’s habit of throwing out the contributions
of the great, after paying a stiff price for them, caused
much perturbation in his counting room. One day he
called in one of his associates.

“Do you see that waste basket?” he asked, point-
ing to a large receptacle filled to overflowing with
manuscripts. ‘‘All our Cleveland articles are there!”

He had gone to great trouble and expense to ob-
tain a series of six articles from the most prominent
publicists and political leaders of the country on the
first year of Mr. Cleveland’s second administration.
It was to be the “feature” of the number then in
preparation.

“There isn’t one of them,’’ he declared, “who has
got the point. I have thrown them all away and
I am going to try to write something myself.”

And he spent a day- or two turning out an article
which aroused great public interest. When Page
commissioned an article, he meant simply that he
would pay full price for, it; whether he would pub-
lish it depended entirely upon the quality of the ma-JOURNALISM 35

terial itself. But Page was just as severe upon his
Own writings as upon those of other men. He wrote
occasionally—always under a nom-de-plume; but he
had great difficulty in satisfying his own editorial
standards. After finishing an article he would com-
monly send for one of his friends and read the result.

“That is superb!’’ this admiring associate would
sometimes say.

In response Page would take the manuscript and,
holding it aloft in two hands, tear it into several
bits, and throw the scraps into the waste basket.

“Oh, I can do better than that,’ he would laugh
and in another minute he was busy rewriting the ar-
ticle, from beginning to end.

The Forum had established Page’s reputation as
an editor, and the competition for his services was
lively. The distinguished Boston publishing house
of Houghton, Mifflin & Company immediately in-
vited him to become a part of their organization.
When Horace E. Scudder, in 1898, resigned the edi-
torship of the Atlantic Monthly, Page succeeded
him. Thus Page became the successor of James Rus-
sell Lowell, James T. Fields, William D. Howells,
and Thomas Bailey Aldrich as the head of this fa-
mous periodical. This meant that he had reached
the top of his profession. He was now forty-three
years old.

No American publication had ever had so brilliant
a history. Founded in 1857, in the most flourishing
period of the New England writers, its pages had
first published many of the best essays of Emerson,
the second series of the Biglow papers as well as
many other of Lowell’s writings, poems of Longfel-
low and Whittier, such great successes as Holmes’s

“Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,’ Mrs. Howe’s.
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36 JOURNALISM

“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the early novels
of Henry James. If America had a literature, the
Atlantic was certainly its most successful periodical
exponent. Yet, in a sense, the Atlantic, by the time
Page succeeded to the editorship, had become the
victim of its dazzling past.

When Page made his first appearance in the At-
lantic office, the magazine was unquestionably on the
decline. Its literary quality was still high; the mo-
mentum that its great contributors had given it was
still keeping the publication alive; entrance into its
columns still represented the ultimate ambition of the
aspiring American writer; but it needed a new spirit
to insure its future. What it required was the kind
of editing that had suddenly made the Forum one of
the greatest of English-written reviews. This is the
reason why the canny Yankee proprietors had reached
over to New York and grasped Page as quickly as
the capitalists of the Forum let him slip between
their fingers.

Page’s sense of humor discovered a certain ironic
aspect in his position as the dictator of this famous
New England magazine. The fact that his manner
was impatiently energetic and somewhat startling to
the placid atmosphere of Park Street was not the
thing that really signified its break with its past. But
here was a Southerner firmly entrenched in a head-
quarters that had long been sacred to the New Eng-
land abolitionists. Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, the present
editor of the Atlantic, has described the somewhat
disconcerting descent of Page upon the editorial sanc-
tuary of James Russell Lowell:

“Were a visitant from another sphere to ask me
for the incarnation of those qualities we love to call
American, I should turn to a familiar gallery of myJOURNALISM NT

memory and point to the living portrait that hangs
there of Walter Page. A sort of foursquareness,
bluntness, it seemed to some; an uneasy, often ex-
plosive energy; a disposition to underrate fine-drawn
nicenesses of all sorts; ingrained Yankee common
sense, checking his vaulting enthusiasm; enormous
self-confidence, impatience of failure—all of these
were in him; and he was besides affectionate to a
fault, devoted to his country, his family, his craft—
a strong, bluff, tender man.

‘‘Page’s coming marked the end of small ways. His
first requirement was, in lieu of a desk, a table that
might have served a family of twelve for Thanks-
giving dinner. No one could imagine what that vast,
polished tableland could serve for until they watched
the editor at work. Then they saw. Order van-
ished and chaos reigned. Huge piles of papers, let-
ters, articles, reports, books, pamphlets, magazines,
congregated themselves as if by magic. To work
in such confusion seemed hopeless, but Page eluded
the congestion by the simple expedient of moving on.
He would light a fresh cigar, give the editorial chair
a hitch, and begin his work in front of a fresh ex-
panse of table, with no clutter of the past to disturb
the new day’s litter.

‘The motive power of his work was enthusiasm.
Never was more generous welcome given to a new-
comer than Page held out to the successful manuscript
of an unknown. I remember, though I heard the
news second hand at the time, what a day it was in
the office when the first manuscript from the future
author of “To Have and To Hold,’ came in from an
untried Southern girl. He walked up and down,
reading paragraphs aloud and slapping the crisp man-
uscript to enforce his commendation. To take a38 JOURNALISM

humbler instance, I recall the words of over gener-
ous praise with which he greeted the first paper I
ever sent to an editor quite as clearly as I remember
the monstrous effort which had brought it into be-
ing. Sometimes he would do a favored manuscript
the honor of taking it out to lunch in his coat-pocket,
and an associate vividly recalls eggs, coffee, and pie
in a near-by restaurant, while, in a voice that could be
heard by the remotest lunchers, Page read passages
which many of them were too startled to appreciate.
He was not given to overrating, but it was not in his
nature to understate. ‘I tell you,’ said he, grumbling
over some unfortunate proof sheets from Manhat-
tan, ‘there isn’t one man in New York who can write
English—not from the Battery to Harlem Heights.’
And if the faults were moral rather than literary,
his disapproval grew in emphasis. There is more
than tradition in the tale of the Negro who, presum-
ing on Page’s deep interest in his race, brought to his
desk a manuscript copied word for word from a pub-
lished source. Page recognized the deception, and
seizing the rascal’s collar with a firm editorial grip,
rejected the poem, and ejected the poet, with an en-
ergy very invigorating to the ancient serenities of the
office.

“Page was always effervescent with ideas. Like
an editor who would have made a good fisherman,
he used to say that you had to cast a dozen times be-
fore you could get a strike. He was forever in those
days sending out ideas and suggestions and invita-
tions to write. The result was electric, and the mag-
azine became with a suddenness (of which only an
editor can appreciate the wonder) a storehouse of an-
imating thoughts. He avoided the mistake common
to our craft of editing a magazine for the immediateJOURNALISM 39

satisfaction of his colleagues. ‘Don’t write for the
office,’ he would say. ‘Write for outside,’ and so his
magazine became a living thing. His phrase sug-
gests one special gift that Page had, for which his pro-
fession should do him especial honor. He was able,
quite beyond the powers of any man of my acquaint-
ance, to put compendiously into words the secrets of
successful editing. It was capital training just to
hear him talk. ‘Never save a feature,’ he used to
say. ‘Always work for the next number. Forget
the others. Spend everything just on that.’ And
to those who know, there is divination in the princi-
ple. Again he understood instinctively that to write
well a man must not only have something to say, but
must long to say it.

‘‘Page was generous in his cooperation. He never
drew a rigid line about his share in any enterprise,
but gave and took help with each and all. A lover
of good English, with an honest passion for things
tersely said, Page esteemed good journalism far
above any second-rate manifestation of more preten-
tious forms; but many of us will regret that he was
not privileged to find some outlet for his energies
in which aspiration for real literature might have
played an ampler part. For the literature of the
past Page had great respect, but his interest was ever
in the present and the future. He was forever ful-
minating against bad writing, and hated the ignorant
and slipshod work of the hack almost as much as he
despised the sham of the man who affected letters,
the dabbler and the poet-aster. His taste was for
the roast beef of literature, not for the side dishes
and the trimmings, and his appreciation of the sub-
stantial work of others was no surer than his instinct
for his own performance. He was an admirable40 JOURNALISM

writer of exposition, argument, and narrative—solid
and thoughtful, but never dull. . . . I came into close
relations with him and from him I learned more of
my profession than from anyone I have ever known.
Scores of other men would say the same.”

Page’s most independent stroke in his Atlantic
days came with the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War. Boston was then the headquarters of a na-
tional mood which has almost passed out of popular
remembrance. Its spokesmen called themselves anti-
imperialists. The theory back of their protest was
that the American declaration of war on Spain was
not only the wanton attack of a great bully upon a
feeble little country: it was something that was bound
to have deplorable consequences. The United
States was breaking with its past and engaging in
European quarrels; as a consequence of the war it
would acquire territories and embark on a career of
‘Imperialism.’

At all such twaddle Page was impatient. He de-
clared that the Spanish War was a “‘necessary act of
surgery for the health of civilization.” He did not
believe that a nation, simply because it was small,
should be permitted to maintain indefinitely a human
slaughter house at the door of the United States.
The Atlantic for June, 1898, gave the so-called anti-
imperialists a thrill of horror. On the cover ap-
peared the defiantly flying American flag; the first
article was a vigorous and approving presentation of
the American case against Spain; though this was un-
signed, its incisive style at once betrayed the author.
The Atlantic had printed the American flag on its
cover during the Civil War; but certain New Eng-
landers thought that this latest struggle, in its mo-
tives and its proportions, was hardly entitled to theJOURNALISM Al

distinction. Page declared, however, that the Span-
ish War marked a new period in history; and he en-
dorsed the McKinley Administration, not only in the
war itself, but in its consequences, particularly the
annexation of the Philippine Islands.

Page greatly enjoyed life in Boston and Cam-
bridge. The Atlantic was rapidly growing in circu-
lation and in influence, and the new friends that its
editor was making were especially to his taste. He
now had a family of four children, three boys and
one girl—and their bringing up and education, as he
said at this time, constituted his real occupation. So
far as he could see, in the summer of 1899, he was
permanently established in life. But larger events
in the publishing world now again pulled him back to
New York, where he joined forces with Mr. Frank
N. Doubleday and founded the firm of Doubleday,
Page & Company. Page now had the opportunity
which he had long wished for; the mere editing of
magazines, even magazines of such an eminent char-
acter as the Forum and the Atlantic Monthly, could
hardly satisfy his ambition; he yearned to possess
something which he could call his own, at least in
part.

The life of an editor has its unsatisfactory aspect,
unless the editor himself has an influential ownership
in his periodical. Page now found his opportunity
to establish a monthly magazine which he could re-
gard as his own in both senses. He was its untram-
meled editor, and also, in part, its proprietor. All
editors and writers will sympathize with the ideas
expressed in a letter written about this time to Page’s
friend, Mr. William Roscoe Thayer.

When the first number of the World’s Work ap-
peared Mr. Thayer wrote, expressing a slight disap-42 JOURNALISM

pointment that it was more popular in character than
the publications with which Page had previously been
associated. Page met this challenge in his usual
hearty fashion.

To William Roscoe Thayer

34 Union Square East, New York,
December 5, 1900.
My DEAR THAYER:

The World’s Work has brought me nothing so
good as your letter of yesterday. When Mrs. Page
read it, she shouted, ‘‘Now that’s it!” Hor jalts
read “truth,” and you will have her meaning and
mine. My thanks you may be sure you have, in great
and earnest abundance.

You surprise me in two ways—(1) that you think
as well of the magazine as you do. If it have half
the force and earnestness that you say it has, how
happy I shall be, for then it will surely bring some-
thing to pass. The other way in which you surprise
me is by the flattering things that you say about my
conduct of the Atlantic. Alas! it was not what you
in your kind way say—no, no.

Of course the World’s Work is not yet by any
means what I hope to make it. But it has this in-
calculable advantage (to me) over every other mag-
azine in existence: it is mine (mine and my partners’,
i. e., partly mine). . . . A man ought to express him-
self, ought to live his own life, say his own little say,
before silence comes: The ‘say’? may be bad—a
mere yawp, and silence might be more becoming.
But the same argument would make a man dissatis-
fied with his own nose if it happened to be ugly.JOURNALISM 43

It’s his nose, and he must content himself. So it’s
his yawp and he must let it go.

I’m not going to make the new magazine my own
megaphone—you may be sure of that. It will never-
theless contain my general interpretation of things,
in which I swear I do believe! The first thing, of
course, is to establish it. Then it can be shaped more
nearly into what I wish it to become. If it seem
unmannerly, aggressive, I know no other way to make
it heard. If it died, then the game would be up.
Well, we seem to have established it at once. It
promises not to cost us a penny of investment.

Now, the magazines need new topics. They have
all threshed over old straw for many years. There
is one new subject, to my thinking worth all the old
ones: the new impulse in American life, the new feel-
ing of nationality, our coming to realize ourselves.
To my mind there is greater promise in democracy
than men of any preceding period ever dared dream
of—aggressive democracy—growth by action. Our
writers (the few we have) are yet in the pre-
democratic era. When men’s imaginations lay hold
on the things that already begin to appear above the
horizon, we shall have something worth reading. At
present I can do no more than bawl out, ‘See! here
are new subjects.’’ One of these days somebody will
come along who can write about them. I have
started out without a writer. Fiske is under con-
tract, James would give nothing more to the Atlantic,
you were ill (I thank Heaven you are no longer so),
the second- and third-rate essayists have been bought
by mere Wall Street publishers. Beyond these are
the company of story-tellers and beyond them only a
dreary waste of dead-level unimaginative men and44 JOURNALISM

women. I can (soon) get all that I could ever have
got in the Atlantic and new ones (I know they'll
come) whom I could never have got there.

You’ll see—within a year or two—by far a better
magazine than I have ever made; and you and I will
differ in nothing unless you feel despair about the
breakdown of certain democratic theories, which I
think were always mere theories. Let ’em go. The
real thing, which is life and action, is better.

Heartily and always your grateful friend,
WALTER H. PAGE.

Thus the fact that Page’s new magazine was in-
tended for a popular audience was not the result of
accident, but of design. It represented a periodical
plan which had long been taking shape in Page's
mind. The things that he had been doing for the
Forum and the Atlantic he aspired to do for a larger
audience than that to which publications of this char-
acter could appeal. Scholar though Page was, and
lover of the finest things in literature that he had al-
ways been, yet this sympathy and interest had al-
ways lain with the masses. Perhaps it is impossible
to make literature democratic, but Page believed that
he would be genuinely serving the great cause that
was nearest his heart if he could spread wide the
facts of the modern world, especially the facts of
America, and if he could clothe the expression in lan-
guage which, while always dignified and even “‘liter-
ary,” would still be sufficiently touched with the vital,
the picturesque, and the “human,” to make his new
publication appeal to a wider audience of intelligent,
everyday Americans.CHALE TE Re!
SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

NEVITABLY the condition of the people in his

own homeland enlisted Page’s sympathy, for he
had learned of their necessities at first hand. The
néed of education had powerfully impressed him even
as a boy. At twenty-three he began writing articles
for the Raleigh Observer, practically all of them pleas
for the education of the Southern child. His subse-
quent activities of this kind, as editor of the State
Chronicle, have already been described. The Ameri-
can from other parts of the country is rather shocked
when he first learns of the backwardness of education
in the South a generation ago. In any real sense
there was no publicly supported system for training
the child. A few wretched hovels, scattered through
a sparsely settled country, served as schoolhouses; a
few uninspiring and neglected women, earning per-
haps $50 or $75 a year, did weary duty as teachers;
a few groups of anemic and listless children, attending
school for only forty days a year—such was the prep-
aration for life which most Southern states gave the
less fortunate of their citizens. The glaring fact that
emphasized the outcome of this official carelessness
was an illiteracy, among white men and women, of 26
per cent. Among the Negroes it was vastly larger.

The first exhortation to reform came from the
Wautauga Club, which Page had organized in Raleigh
in 1884. After Page had left his native state, other

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46 SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

men began preaching the same crusade. Perhaps the
greatest of those advocates whom the South loves to
refer to as ‘‘educational statesmen’ was Dr. Charles
D. McIver, of Greensboro, N. C. Mclver’s per-
sonality and career had an heroic quality all their own.
His great work was the State Normal College for
Women, which, amid unparalleled difficulties, he
founded for teaching the teachers of the new Southern
generation. It was at this institution that Page, in
1897, delivered the address which gave the cause of
Southern education that one thing whick is worth
armies to any struggling reform—a phrase; and it
was a phrase that lived in the popular mind and heart
and summed up, in a way that a thousand speeches
could never have done, the great purpose for which
the best people in the state were striving.

His editorial gift for title-making now served Page
in good stead. ‘The Forgotten Man,” which was
the heading of his address, immediately passed into
the common speech of the South and even at this day
inevitably appears in all discussions of social progress.
It was again Page’s familiar message of democracy,
of improving the condition of the everyday man,
woman, and child; and the message, as is usually the
case in all incitements to change, involved many un-
pleasant facts. Page had first of all to inform his
fellow Southerners that it was only in the South that
“The Forgotten Man” was really an out-standing
feature. He did not exist in New England, in the
Middle States, in the Mississippi Valley, or in the
West, or existed in these regions to so slight an extent
that he was not a grave menace to society.

But in the South the situation was quite different.
And for this fact the explanation was found in history.
The South certainly could not fix the blame upon Na-SERVICES TO THE SOUTH 47

ture. In natural wealth—in forests, mines, quarries,
rich soil, in the unlimited power supplied by water-
courses—the Southern States formed perhaps the
richest region in the country. These things North
Carolina and her sister communities had not de-
veloped; more startling still, they had not developed
a source of wealth that was infinitely greater than all
these combined; they had not developed their men
and their women.

The region which had given Thomas Jefferson and
George Washington to the world was still, in the year
1897, organized upon an essentially aristocratic basis.
The conception of education which prevailed in the
most hide-bound aristocracies of Europe still ruled
south of the Potomac. There was no acceptance of
that fundamental American doctrine that education
was the function of the state. It was generally re-
garded as the luxury of the rich and the socially high
placed; it was certainly not for the poor; and it was
a generally accepted view that those who enjoyed this
privilege must pay for it out of their own pock-
ets. Again Page returned to the “mummy” theme
—the fact that North Carolina, and the South gener-
ally, were too much ruled by ‘‘dead men’s” hands.
The state was controlled by a “little aristocracy,
which, in its social and economic character, made a
failure and left a stubborn crop of wrong social no-
tions behind it—especially about education.”

Thus the North Carolina aristocracy had failed in
education and the failure of the Church had been as
complete and deplorable. The preachers had estab-
lished preparatory schools for boys and girls, but
these were under the control of sects; and so education
was either a class or an ecclesiastical concern. ‘The
forgotten man remained forgotten. The aristocraticRAN ined

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48 SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

scheme of education had passed him by. To a less ex-
tent, but still to the extent of hundreds of thousands,
the ecclesiastical scheme had passed him by.’ But
even the education which these institutions gave was
inferior. Page told his North Carolina audience that
the University of which they were so proud did not
rank with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other univer-
sities of the North. The state had not produced
great scholars nor established great libraries. In the
estimation of publishers North Carolina was unim-
portant as a book market. ‘‘By any test that may be
made, both these systems have failed even with the
classes that they appealed to.’ The net result was
that ‘one in every four was wholly forgotten’”—that
is, was unable to read and write.

Even more tragic than these ‘‘forgotten men” were
the “forgotten women.” “Thin and wrinkled in
youth from ill-prepared food, clad without warmth
or grace, living in untidy houses, working from day-
light till bedtime at the dull round of weary duties,
the slaves of men of equal slovenliness, the mothers
of joyless children—all uneducated if not illiterate.”
“This sight,’ Page told his hearers, “every one of
you has seen, not in the countries whither we send
missionaries, but in the borders of the State of North
Carolina, in this year of grace.”

“Our civilization,’ he declared, ‘has been a
failure.” Both the politicians and the preacher had
failed to lift the masses. ‘“‘It is a time for a wiser
statesmanship and a more certain means of grace.”
He admitted that there had been recent progress in
North Carolina, owing largely to the work of Mclver
and Alderman, but taxes for educational purposes
were still low. What was the solution? “A publicSERVICES TO THE SOUTH 49

school system generously supported by public senti-
ment and generously maintained by both state and
local taxation, is the only effective means to develop
the forgotten man and even more surely the only
means to develop the forgotten woman. ...’ He
advised that North Carolina commit his creed of de-
mocracy to memory and teach it to its children. It
was as follows:

“I believe in the free public training of both the
hands and the mind of every child born of woman.

“T believe that by the right training of men we add
to the wealth of the world. All wealth is the creation
of man, and he creates it only in proportion to the
trained uses of the community; and the more men we
train the more wealth every one may create.

“I believe in the perpetual regeneration of society,
and in the immortality of democracy and in growth
everlasting.”

Thus Page nailed his thesis upon the door of his
native state, and mighty was the reverberation. In
a few weeks Page’s Greensboro address had made its
way all over the Southern States, and his melancholy
figure, the “forgotten man,” had etched itself deeply
into the popular consciousness for the very good
reason that its truth was pretty generally recognized.
The higher type of newspaper, though it winced some-
what at Page’s strictures, manfully recognized that
the best way of meeting his charge was by setting to
work and improving conditions. ‘The fact is that the
better conscience of North Carolina welcomed this
eloquent description of unquestioned evils; but the
gentlemen whom Page used to stigmatize as “‘profes-
sional Southerners’—the men who commercialized
class and sectional prejudice to their own political and:

A

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moe |)
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50 SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

financial or ecclesiastical profit—fell foul of this
“renegade,” this “Southern Yankee” who had dared
to visit his old home and desecrate its traditions and
its religion.

This clerical wrath was kindled into fresh flame
when Page, in an editorial in his magazine, declared
that these same preachers, ignoring their real duties,
were content “to herd their women and children
around the stagnant pools of theology.” For real
religion Page had the deepest reverence, and he had
great respect also for the robust evangelical preachers
whose efforts had contributed so much to the opening
up of the frontier. In his Greenboro address Page
had given these men high praise. North Carolina
had many clergymen of the more progressive type;
these men chuckled at Page’s vigorous characteriza-
tion of the brethren, but those against whom it had
been aimed raged with a fervor that was almost un-
christian. This clerical excitement, however, did not
greatly disturb the philosophic Page. The hubbub
lasted for several years, but he never publicly referred
to the attacks upon him. Occasionally in letters to
his friends he would good-naturedly discuss them. ol
have had several letters about an ‘excoriation’ (Great
Heavens! What a word!) that somebody in North
Carolina has been giving me. I never read these
things and I don’t know what it’s all about—nor do
I care. But perhaps you'll be interested in a letter
that I wrote an old friend (a lady) who is concerned
about it. I enclose a copy of it. I shall never notice
any ‘excoriator.’ But if you wish to add to the gayety
of nations, give this copy to some newspaper and let it
loose in the state—if you care to do so. We must
have patience with these puny and peevish brethren.SERVICES TO THE SOUTH 51

They’ve been trained to a false view of life. Heaven
knows I bear them no ill-will.”
The letter to which Mr. Page referred follows:

My DEAR FRIEND:

I have your letter saying that some of the papers
in North Carolina are again “jumping on” me. I do
not know which they are, and I am glad that you did
not tell me. I had heard of it before.

And why do you not write me about things that I
really care for in the good old country—the budding
trees, the pleasant weather, news of old friends, gos-
sip of good people—cheerful things? I pray you,
don’t be concerned about what any poor whining soul
may write about me. I don’t care for myself: Il
care only for him; for the writer of personal abuse
always suffers from it—never the man abused. . . .

These silly outbursts never reach me and they never
can; and they, therefore, utterly fail, and always will
fail, of their aim; yet, my dear friend, there is never-
theless a serious side to such folly. For it shows the
need of education, education, education. . .

‘Those who took joy in abuse of me have such a
starved view of life that they cannot themselves, per-
haps, ever be educated into kindliness and dignity of
thought. But their children may be—must be... .
There is no way to lift up life that is on so low a level
except by the free education of all the people. Let
us work for that and, when the growlers are done
growling and forgotten, better men will remember us
with gratitude.

Meantime let us live and work for things nobler
than any controversies, for things that are larger than
the poor mission of any sect; and let us have charity52 SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

and a patient pity for those that think they serve God
by abusing their fellow men. I wish I saw some way
to help them to a broader and a higher life.
Faithfully yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

That Page should have little interest in his critics
at the time this letter was written—in April, 1902—
was not surprising, for his educational campaign and
that of his friends was now bearing fruit. The “‘for-
gotten man” and the “forgotten woman” were rapidly
coming into their own. Two years after the delivery
of Page’s Greensboro address, a small group of educa-
tional enthusiasts met at Capon Springs, West Vir-
ginia, to discuss the general situation in the South.
The leader of this gathering was Robert C. Ogden, a
great New York merchant who for many years had
been President of the Board of Hampton Institute.
Out of this meeting grew the Southern Educational
Conference, which was little more than an annual
meeting for advertising broadcast the educational
needs of the South. Each year Mr. Ogden chartered
a railroad train; a hundred or so of the leading editors,
lawyers, bankers, and the like, became his guests; the
train moved through the Southern States, pausing now
and then to investigate some particular institution or
locality; and at some Southern city, such as Birming-
ham or Atlanta or Winston-Salem, a stop of several
days would be made, a public building engaged, and
long meetings held. In all these proceedings Page
was an active figure, as he became in the Southern
Education Board, which directly resulted from Mr.
Ogden’s public-spirited excursions. Like the Confer-
ence, the Southern Education Board was a purely mis-
sionary organization, and its most active worker wasSERVICES TO THE SOUTH 53

Page himself. He was constantly speaking and writ-
ing on his favorite subject; he printed article after ar-
ticle, not only in his own magazine, but in the Atlantic,
in the Outlook, and in a multitude of newspapers, such
as the Boston Transcript, the New York Times, and
the Kansas City Star. And always through his writ-
ings, and, indeed, through his life, there ran, like the
motif of an opera, that same perpetual plea for the
‘forgotten man’’—the need of uplifting the backward
masses through training, both of the mind and of the
hand.

The General Education Board, which grew out of
the Ogden organization and was financed by Mr. John
D. Rockefeller, now became the chief outside interest
of Page’s life. He was made a member of the Exec-
utive Committee, faithfully attended all its sessions,
and participated intimately in every important plan.
All such bodies have their decorative members and
their working members; Page belonged emphatically
in the latter class. Not only was he fertile in sug-
gestions, but his ready mind could give almost any
proposal its proper emphasis and clearly set forth its
essential details. Between Page and Dr. Buttrick,
Secretary and now President of the Board, a close
personal intimacy grew up. ‘‘Page was one of the
real educational statesmen of this country,” says Dr.
Flexner, ‘probably the greatest that we have had since
the Civil War.”

This support of the General Education Board came
at a time when that movement known as the “‘educa-
tional awakening”’ had started in the South. In 1900
North Carolina elected its greatest governor since the
Civil War—Charles B. Aycock. A much repeated
anecdote attributes Lincoln’s detestation of slavery to
a slave auction that he witnessed as a small boy; Ay-54 SERVICES TO THE SOUTH

cock’s first zeal as an educational reformer had an
origin that was even more pathetic, for he always
carried in his mind his recollection of his own mother
signing an important legal document with across. As
a young man fresh from the university Aycock also
came under the influence of Page. An old letter,
preserved among Page's papers, dated February 26,
1886, discloses that he was a sympathizing reader of
the “mummy” controversy; when the brickbats began
flying in Page’s direction Aycock wrote, telling Page
that “fully three fourths of the people are with you
and wish you Godspeed in your effort to awaken better
work, greater activity, and freer opinion in the state.”
And now under Aycock’s governorship North Caro-
lina began to tackle the educational problem with a
purpose. Schoolhouses started up all over the state
at the rate of one a day—many of them beautiful,
commodious, modern structures, in every way the
equals of any in the North or West; high schools,
normal schools, trade schools made their appearance
wherever the need was greatest; and in other parts
of the South the response was similarly energetic.
The reform is not yet complete, but the description
that Page gave of Southern education in 1897, accur-
ate in all its details as it was then, has now become

ancient history.

In occupations of this kind Page passed his years
of maturity. His was not a spectacular life; his
family for the most part still remained his most imme-
diate interest; the daily round of an editor has its
imaginative quality, but in the main it was for Page
a quiet, even a cloistered existence; the work that an
editor does, the achievements that he can put to his
credit, are usually anonymous; and the American pub-SERVICES TO THE SOUTH 55

lic little understood the extent to which Page was in-
fluencing many of the most vital forces of his time.
The business association that he had formed with Mr.
Doubleday turned out most happily. Their publish-
ing house, in a short time, attained a position of great
influence and prosperity. The two men, on both the
personal and the business side, were congenial and com-
plementary; and the love that both felt for country
life led to the establishment of a publishing and print-
ing plant of unusual beauty. In Garden City, Long
Island, a great brick structure was built, somewhat
suggestive in its architecture of Hampton Court, sur-
rounded by pools and fountains, Italian gardens,
green walks and pergolas, gardens blooming in ap-
propriate seasons with roses, peonies, rhododendrons,
chrysanthemums, and the like, and parks of evergreen,
fir, cedar, and more exotic trees and shrubs. Cer-
tainly fate could have designed no more fitting setting
for Page’s favorite activities than this. In assem-
bling authors, in instigating the writing of books, in
watching the achievements and the tendencies of
American life, in the routine of editing his magazine
—all this in association with partners whose daily
companionship was a delight and a stimulation—Page
spent his last years in America.CHAP hE R PV

THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

l’ was Page’s interest in the material and spiritual
elevation of the masses that first directed his at-
tention to the Presidential aspirations of Woodrow
Wilson. He and thousands of other public-spirited
men saw in Wilson a leader of fine intellectual gifts
who was prepared to devote his splendid energies to
making life more attractive and profitable to the “for-
gotten man.”

Page had known Mr. Wilson for thirty years, and
all this time the Princeton scholar had seemed to him
to be one of the most helpful influences at work in the
United States. As already noted Page had met the
future President when he was serving a journalistic
apprenticeship in Atlanta, Georgia. Wilson was then
spending his days in a dingy law office and was putting
to good use the time consumed in waiting for the
clients who never came by writing that famous book
on “Congressional Government” which first lifted his
name out of obscurity. This work, the product of a
man of twenty-nine, was perhaps the first searching
examination to which the American Congressional
system had ever been subjected. It brought Wilson a
professorship at the newly established Bryn Mawr
College and drew to him other growing minds like
Page’s. ‘‘Watch that man!’? was Page’s admonition
to his friends.

Page’s letters also portray the new hopes with
56THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 57

which Wilson inspired him. “I see you are coming
around to Wilson,” Page writes to a friend, ‘‘and in
pretty rapid fashion. I assure you that that is the
solution of the problem. I have known him since we
were boys, and | have been studying him lately with
a great deal of care. I haven’t any doubt but that
is the way out. The old labels ‘Democrat’ and ‘Re-
publican’ have ceased to have any meaning, not only
in my mind and in yours, but I think in the minds of
nearly all the people. Don’t you feel that way?”

The campaign of 1912 was approaching its end
when this letter was written; and no proceeding in
American politics had so aroused Page’s energies.
He had himself played a part in Wilson’s nomina-
tion. He was one of the first to urge the Princeton
President to seize the great opportunity that was ris-
ing before him. These suggestions were coming from
many sources in the summer of 1910; Mr. Wilson was
about to retire from the presidency of Princeton;
the movement had started to make him governor of
New Jersey, and it was well understood that this was
merely intended as the first step to the White House.
But Mr. Wilson was himself undecided; to escape the
excitement of the moment he had retired to a country
house at Lyme, Connecticut. In this place, in re-
sponse to a letter, Page now sought him out. His
visit was a plea that Mr. Wilson should accept his
proffered fate—the governorship of New Jersey, then
the Presidency, and the opportunity to promote the
causes in which both men believed.

“But do you think I can do it, Page?” asked the
hesitating Wilson.

‘“T am sure you can’’; and then Page again, with his
customary gusto, launched into his persuasive argu-
ment. His host at one moment would assent; atH |
|
m |
i |

A
; i ut

 

58 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

another present the difficulties; it was apparent that
he was having trouble in reaching a decision. To
what extent Page’s conversation converted him the rec-
ord does not disclose; it is apparent, however, that
when, in the next two years, difficulties came, his mind
seemed naturally to turn in Page’s direction.

On election day Page wrote the President-elect a
letter of congratulation which contains one item of
the greatest interest. When the time came for a new
President to deliver his first message to Congress, he
surprised the country by abandoning the usual practice
of sending a long written communication to be droned
out by a reading clerk to a yawning company of legis-
lators. He appeared in person and read the docu-
ment himself. As President Harding has followed
his example it seems likely that this innovation, which
certainly represents a great improvement over the old
routine, has become the esablished custom. The
origin of the idea theretore has historic value.

To Woodrow Wilson
Garden City, N. Y.
Election Day, 1912. [Nov. 5]
My DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT-ELECT:

Before going into town to hear the returns, I write
you my congratulations. Even if you were defeated,
I should still congratulate you on putting a Presiden-
tial campaign on a higher level than it has ever before
reached since Washington’s time. Your grip became
firmer and your sweep wider every week. It was in-
spiring to watch the unfolding of the deep meaning of
‘t and to see the people’s grasp of the main idea. It
was fairly, highly, freely won, and now we enter the
Era of Great Opportunity. It is hard to measure theTHE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 59

extent or the thrill of the new interest in public affairs
and the new hope that you have aroused in thousands
of men who were becoming hopeless under the long-
drawn-out reign of privilege.

To the big burden of suggestions that you are re-
ceiving, may I add these small ones?

1. Call Congress in extra session mainly to revise
the tariff and incidentally to prepare the way for rural
credit societies. .

The time is come when the land must be developed
by the new agriculture and farming made a business.
This calls for money. Every acre will repay a rea-
sonable loan on long time at a fair interest rate, and
group-borrowing develops the men quite as much as
the men will develop the soil. It saved the German
Empire and is remaking Italy. And this is the proper
use of much of the money that now flows into the
reach of the credit barons. This building up of farm
life will restore the equilibrium of our civilization and,
besides, will prove to be one half the solution of our
currency and credit problem.

2. Set your trusted friends immediately to work,
every man in the field he knows best, to prepare briefs
for you on such great subjects and departments as
the Currency, the Post Office, Conservation, Rural
Credit, the Agricultural Department, which has the
most direct power for good to the most people—to
make our farmers as independent as Denmark’s and
to give our best country folk the dignity of the old-
time English gentleman—this expert, independent in-
formation to compare with your own knowledge and
with official reports.

3. The President reads (or speaks) his Inaugural
to the people. Why not go back to the old custom
of himself delivering his Messages to Congress ?60 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

Would that not restore a feeling of comradeship in
responsibility and make the Legislative branch feel
nearer to the Executive? Every President of our
time has sooner or later got away with Congress.

I cannot keep from saying what a new thrill of hope
and tingle of expectancy I feel—as of a great event
about to happen for our country and for the restora-
tion of popular government; for you will keep your
rudder true.

Most heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.
To Governor Wilson,

Princeton, N. J.

Page was one of the first of Mr. Wilson’s friends
to discuss with the President-elect the new legislative
program. The memorandum which he made of this
‘aterview shows how little anyone, in 1912, appre-
ciated the tremendous problems that Mr. Wilson
would have to face. Only domestic matters then
seemed to have the slightest importance. Especially
significant is the fact that even at this early date, Page
was chiefly impressed by Mr. Wilson’s “loneliness.”

Memorandum dated November 15, 1912

To use the Government, especially the Department
of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, to help
actively in the restoration of country life—that’s the
great chance for Woodrow Wilson, ten days ago
elected President. Precisely how well he understands
this chance, how well, for example, he understands the
grave difference between the Knapp Demonstration
method of teaching farmers and the usual AgriculturalTHE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 61

College method of lecturing to them, and what he
knows about the rising movement for country schools
of the right sort, and agricultural credit societies—
how all this great constructive problem of Country
Life lies in his mind, who knows? Idonot. If Ido
not know, who does know?

In two days he will go to Bermuda for a month to
rest and to meditate. He ought to meditate on this
constructive program. It seemed my duty to go and
tell him about it. I asked for an interview and he
telegraphed to go to-day at five o'clock.

Arthur and I drove in the car and reached Prince-
ton just before five—a beautiful drive of something
less than four hours from New York. Presently we
arrived at the Wilson house.

‘The Governor is engaged,” I was informed by the
man who opened the door. ‘He can see nobody.
He is going away to-morrow.”

“T have an appointment with him,” said I, and I
gave him my card.

“T know he can’t see anybody.”

“Will you send my card in?”

We waited at the door till the maid took it in and
returned to say the Governor would presently come
down.

The reception room had a desk in the corner, and
on a row of chairs across the whole side of the room
were piles of unopened letters. It is a plain, modestly
but decently furnished room, such as you would expect
to find in the modest house of a professor at Princeton.
During his presidency of the college, he had lived in
the President’s house in the college yard. This was
his own house of his professorial days.

‘Hello, Page, come out here; I am glad to see you.”62 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

There he stood in a door at the back of the room,
which led to his library and workroom. ‘‘Come back
here.”

“Tn the best of all possible worlds, the right thing
does sometimes happen,”’ said I.

Wes?

“And a great opportunity.”

He smiled and was cordial and said some pleasant
words. But he was weary. ‘I have cobwebs in my
head.” He was not depressed but oppressed—rather
shy, I thought, and I should say rather lonely. The
campaign noise and the little campaigners were hushed
and gone. There were no men of companionable size
about him, and the Great Task lay before him. The
Democratic party has not brought forward large men
in public life during its long term of exclusion from
the Government; and the newly elected President has
had few opportunities and a very short time to make
acquaintances of a continental kind. This little col-
lege town, this little hitherto corrupt state, are both
small.

I went at my business without delay. The big
country-life idea, the working of great economic forces
to put its vitalization within sight, the coming equilib-
rium by the restoration of country life—all coincident
with his coming into the Presidency. His adminis-
tration must fall in with it, guide it, further it. The
chief instruments are the Agricultural Department,
the Bureau of Education, and the power of the Presi-
dent himself to bring about Rural Credit Societies and
similar organized helps. He quickly saw the difter-
ence between Demonstration Work by the Agricul-
tural Department and the plan to vote large sums to
agricultural colleges and to the states to build up
schools.THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 63

‘Who is the best man for Secretary of Agricul-
ture?”

I ought to have known, but I didn’t. For who is?

“May I look about and answer your question
later ?”’

“Yes, I will thank you.”

‘I wish to find the very best men for my Cabinet,
regardless of consequences. I do not forget the
party as an instrument of government, and I do not
wish to do violence to it. But I must have the best
men in the Nation’’—with a very solemn tone as he
sat bolt upright, with a stern look on his face, anda
lonely look.

I told him my idea of the country school that must
be and talked of the Bureau of Education. He saw
quickly and assented to all my propositions.

And then we talked somewhat more conservatively
of Conservation, about which he knows less.

I asked if he would care to have me make briefs
about the Agricultural Department, the Bureau of
Education, the Rural Credit Societies, and Conserva-
tion. “I shall be very grateful, if it be not too great
a sacrifice.”

I had gained that permission, which (if he respect
my opinion) ought to guide him somewhat toward a
real understanding of how the Government may help
toward our Great Constructive Problem... .

There was a general expectation that Page would
become a member of President Wilson’s Cabinet, and
the place for which he seemed particularly qualified
was the Secretaryship of Agriculture. The smoke of
battle had hardly passed away, therefore, when Page’s
admirers began bringing pressure to bear upon the
President-elect. There was probably no man in the— er as — ,

 

64 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

United States who had such completely developed
views about this Department as Page; and it is not im-
probable that, had circumstances combined to ofter
him this position, he would have accepted it. But
fate in matters of this sort is sometimes kinder than
a man’s friends. Page had a great horror of any-
thing which suggested office-seeking, and the campaign
which now was started in his interest greatly em-
barrassed him. He wrote Mr. Wilson, disclaiming
all responsibility and begging him to ignore these mis-
guided efforts. As the best way of checking the
movement, Page now definitely answered Mr. Wil-
son’s question: Who was the best man for the Agri-
cultural Department? It is interesting to note that
the candidate whom Page nominated in this letter—a
man who had been his friend for many years and an
associate on the Southern Education Board—was the
man whom Mr. Wilson chose, David F. Houston.

Though Mr. Wilson did not offer Page the Agri-
cultural Department, he much desired to have him in
his cabinet, and had already decided upon him for a
post which the new President probably regarded as
more important—the Interior. The narrow margin
with which Page escaped this responsibility illustrates
again the slender threads upon which history is con-
structed. The episode is also not without its humor-
ous side. For there was only one reason why Page
did not enter the Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior:
he was so busy planning his new house on the sand-
hills of North Carolina that, while cabinets were be-
ing formed and great decisions taken, he was absent
from New York.

A short time before the inauguration, Mr. Wilson
asked Colonel House to arrange a meeting with Page
in the latter’s apartment. Mr. Wilson wished to seeTHE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 65

him on a Saturday; the purpose was to offer him the
Secretaryship of the Interior. Colonel House called
up Page’s office at Garden City and was informed that
he was in North Carolina. Colonel House then tele-
graphed asking Page to start north immediately, and
suggesting the succeeding Monday as a good time for
the interview. A reply was at once received from
Page that he was on his way.

Meanwhile certain of Mr. Wilson’s advisers had
heard of the plan and were raising objections. Page
was a Southerner; the Interior Department has super-
vision over the pension bureau, with its hundreds of
thousands of Civil War veterans as pensioners; more-
over, Page was an outspoken enemy of the whole pen-
sion system and had led several “campaigns” against
it. The appointment would never do! Mr. Wilson
himself was persuaded that it would be a mistake.

‘But what are we going to do about Page?” asked
Colonel House. ‘I have summoned him from North
Carolina on important business. What excuse shall I
give for bringing him way up here?”’

But the President-elect was equal to the emergency.

‘“Flere’s the cabinet list,’ he drily replied. ‘Show
it to Page. Tell him these are the people I have
about decided to appoint and ask him what he thinks
of them. Then he will assume that we summoned
him to get his advice.”’

When Page made his appearance, therefore,
Colonel House gave him the list of names and
solemnly asked him what he thought of them.

About the time of Wilson’s election a great calamity
befell one of Page’s dearest friends. Dr. Edwin A.
Alderman, the President of the University of Virginia,
one of the pioneer educational forces in the Southern66 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

States, and for years an associate of Page on the
General Education Board, was stricken with tubercu-
losis. He was taken to Saranac, and here a patient
course of treatment happily restored him to health.
One of the dreariest aspects of such an experience is
its tediousness and loneliness. Yet the maintenance
of one’s good spirits and optimism is an essential
part of the treatment. And it was in this work that
Page now proved an indispensable aid to the medical
men. As soon as Dr. Alderman found himself
stretched out, a weak and isolated figure, cut off from
those activities and interests which had been his inspi-
ration for forty years, with no companions except his
own thoughts and a few sufferers like himself, letters
began to arrive with weekly regularity from the man
whom he always refers to as ‘dear old Page.” The
gayety and optimism of these letters, the lively com-
ments which they passed upon men and things, and
their wholesome and genial philosophy, were largely
instrumental, Dr. Alderman has always believed, in
his recovery. Their effect was so instant and benefi-
cial that the physicians asked to have them read to the
other patients, who also derived abounding comfort
and joy from them. The whole episode was one of
the most beautiful in Page’s life, and brings out again
that gift for friendship which was perhaps his finest
quality.

To Edwin A. Alderman

Garden City, L. I.
December 31, 1912.

My DEAR Ep ALDERMAN:
I have a new amusement, a new excitement, a new
study, as you have and as we all have who really be-THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 67

lieve in democracy—a new study, a new hope, and
sometimes a new fear; and its name is Wilson. I
have for many years regarded myself as an interested,
but always a somewhat detached, outsider, believing
that the democratic idea was real and safe and lifting,
if we could ever get it put into action, contenting my-
self ever with such patches of it as time and accident
and occasion now and then sewed on our gilded or
tattered garments. But now it is come—the real
thing; at any rate a man somewhat like us, whose
thought and aim and dream are our thought and aim
and dream. That’s enormously exciting! I didn’t
suppose I’d ever become so interested in a general
proposition or in a governmental hope.

Will he do it? Can he doit? Can anybody do it?
How can we help him do it? Now that the task is
on him, does he really understand? Do I understand
him and he me? There’s a certain unreality about it.

The man himself—I find that nobody quite knows
him now. Alas! I wonder if he quite knows him-
self. Temperamentally very shy, having lived too
much alone and far too much with women (how I
wish two of his daughters were sons!) this Big Thing
having descended on him before he knew or was quite
prepared for it, thrust into a whirl of self-seeking
men even while he is trying to think out the theory of
the duties that press, knowing the necessity of silence,
surrounded by small people—well, I made up my mind
that his real friends owed it to him and to what we all
hope for, to break over his reserve and to volunteer
help.

He asks for conferences with official folk—only, I
think. So I began to write memoranda about those
subjects of government about which I know something
and have opinions and about men who are or who may= = rr . a =

 

 

 

 

 

68 THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

be related to them. It has been great sport to set
down in words without any reserve precisely what
you think. It is imprudent, of course, as most things
worth doing are. But what have I to lose, I who
have my life now planned and laid out and have got
far beyond the reach of gratitude or hatred or praise
or blame or fear of any man? I sent him some such
memoranda. Here came forthwith a note of almost
abject thanks. I sent more. Again, such a note
—written in his own hand. Yet not a word of
what he thinks. The Sphinx was garrulous in com-
parison.

Then here comes a mob of my good friends crying
for office for me. So I sent a ten-line note, by the
hand of my secretary, saying that this should not dis-
turb my perfect frankness nor (I knew it would not)
his confidence. Again, a note in his own hand, of per-
fect understanding and with the very glow of grati-
tude. And he talks—generalities to the public. Per-
haps that’s all he can talk now. Wise? Yes. But
does he know the men about him? Does he really
know men? Nobody knows. Thus ’twixt fear and
hope I see—suspense. I'll swear I can't doubt, I
can’t believe. Whether it is going to work out or not
—whether he or anybody can work it out of the haze
of theory—nobody knows; and nobody’s speculation
is better than mine and mine is worthless.

This is the game, this is the excitement, this is the
doubthope and the hopedoubt. I send this word
about it to you (I could and would to nobody else:
you’re snowbound, you see, and don’t write much and
don’t see many people: restrain your natural loqua-
city!). But for the love of heaven tell me if you see
any way very clearly. It’s a kind of misty dream
to me.THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS 69

[ ask myself why should I concern myself about it.
Of course the answer’s easy and I think creditable:
I do profoundly hold this democratic faith and be-
lieve that it can be worked into action among men;
and it may be I shall yet see it done. That’s the secret
of my interest. But when this awful office descends
on a man, it oppresses him, changes him, you are not
quite so sure of him, you doubt whether he knows him-
self or you in the old way.

And I find among men the very crudest ideas
of government or of democracy. They have not
thought the thing out. They hold no ordered creed
of human organization or advancement. They leave
all to chance and think, when they think at all, that
chance determines it. And yet the Great Hope per-
sists, and I think I have grown an inch by it.

I wonder how it seems, looked at from the cold
mountains of Lake Saranac?

It’s the end of the year: Mrs. Page and I
(alone!) have been talking of democracy, of these
very things I’ve written. ‘The bell-ringing and the
dancing and the feasting are not, on this particular
year, to our liking. We see all our children gone—
half of them to nests of their own building, the rest
on errands of their own pleasure, and we are left,
young yet, but the main job of life behind us! We're
going down to a cottage in southern North Carolina
(with our own cook and motor car, praise God!) for
February, still further to think this thing out and in-
cidentally to build us a library, in which we'll live
when we can. ‘That, for convention’s sake, we call a
Vacation.

Your brave note came to-day. Of course, you'll
‘set’? ’em—those small enemies. The gain of twelve
pounds tells the story. The danger is, your season of7O THE WILSONIAN ERA BEGINS

philosophy and reverie will be too soon ended. Don’t
fret: the work and the friends will be here when you
come down... .

A conquering New Year—that’s what you'll find,
begun before this reaches you, carrying all good
wishes from

Yours affectionately,

Wo P:

President Wilson finally succeeded in carrying out
his determination to make Page an important part of
his Administration. One morning Page’s telephone
rang and Colonel House’s well-known and well-
modulated voice came over the wire.

“Good morning, Your Excellency,” was his greet-
ing.
“What the devil are you talking about?” asked
Page.

Then Colonel House explained himself. The
night before, he said, he had dined at the White
House. Ina pause of the conversation the President
had quietly remarked:

“Tye about made up my mind to send Walter Page
to England. What do you think of that?”

Colonel House thought very well of it indeed and
the result of his conversation was this telephone call,
in which he was authorized to offer Page the Ambas-
sadorship to Great Britain.CHAE Rev.
ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

HE London Embassy is the greatest diplomatic

gift at the disposal of the President, and, in the
minds of the American people, it possesses a glamour
and an historic importance all its own. Page came to
the position, as his predecessors had come, with a
sense of awe; the great traditions of the office; the
long line of distinguished men, from Thomas Pinck-
ney to Whitelaw Reid, who had filled it; the peculiar
delicacy of the problems that then existed between the
two countries; the reverent respect which Page had
always entertained for English history, English litera-
ture, and English public men—all these considerations
naturally quickened the new ambassador’s imagination
and, at the same time, made his arrival in England a
rather solemn event. Yet his first days in London had
their grotesque side as well. He himself has recorded
his impressions, and, since they contain an important
lesson for the citizens of the world’s richest and most
powerful Republic, they should be preserved. When
the ambassador of practically < any other country reaches
London, he finds Ree for him a spacious and beauti-
ful embassy, filled with a large corps of secretaries
and servants—everything ready to the minutest de-
tail, for the beginning of his labors. He simply en-
ters these elaborate state-owned and state-supported
quarters and starts work. How differently the mighty

7172 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

United States welcomes its ambassadors let Page’s
memorandum tell:

The boat touched at Queenstown, and a mass of
Irish reporters came aboard and wished to know what
I thought of Ireland. Some of them printed the im-
portant announcement that I was quite friendly to
Ireland! At Liverpool was Mr. Laughlin,’ Charge
d’ Affaires in London since Mr. Reid’s death, to meet
me, and of course the consul, Mr. Washington... .

On our arrival in London, Laughlin explained that
he had taken quarters for me at the Coburg Hotel,
whither we drove, after having fought my way
through a mob of reporters at the station. One fel-
low told me that since I left New York the papers had
published a declaration by me that I meant to be very
“democratic” and would under no conditions wear
‘“Icnee breeches”; and he asked me about that report.
I was foolish enough to reply that the existence of an
ass in the United States ought not necessarily to re-
quire the existence of a corresponding ass in London.
He printed that! I never knew the origin of this
“Knee breeches’’ story.

That residence at the Coburg Hotel for three
months was a crowded and uncomfortable nightmare.
The indignity and inconvenience—even the humilia-
tion—-of an ambassador beginning his career in an
hotel, especially during the Court season, and a green
ambassador at that! I hope I may not die before our
government does the conventional duty to provide
ambassadors’ residences.

The next morning I went to the Chancery (123
Victoria Street) and my heart sank. I had never in

1Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Embassy in
London.ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 13

my life been in an American Embassy. I had had no
business with them in Paris or in London on my pre-
vious visits. In fact I had never been in any embassy
except the British Embassy at Washington. But the
moment I entered that dark and dingy hall at 123
Victoria Street, between two cheap stores—the same
entrance that the dwellers in the cheap flats above
used—I knew that Uncle Sam had no fit dwelling
there. And the Ambassador’s room greatly depressed
me—dingy with twenty-nine years of dirt and dark-
ness, and utterly undignified. And the rooms for the
secretaries and attachés were the little bedrooms,
kitchen, etc., of that cheap flat; that’s all it was. For
the place we paid $1,500 a year. I did not under-
stand then and I do not understand yet how Lowell,
Bayard, Phelps, Hay, Choate, and Reid endured that
cheap hole. Of course they stayed there only about
an hour a day; but they sometimes saw important
people there. And, whether they ever saw anybody
there or not, the offices of the United States Govern-
ment in London ought at least to be as good as a com-
mon lawyer’s office in a country town in a rural state
of our Union. Nobody asked for anything for an
embassy; nobody got anything for an embassy. I
made up my mind in ten minutes that I’d get out of
this place.

Every afternoon people came to the hotel to see
me—some to pay their respects and to make life
pleasant, some out of mere curiosity, and many for
ends of their own. I confess that on many days
nightfall found me completely worn out. But the
evenings seldom brought a chance to rest. ‘The social
season was going at its full gait; and the new ambas-i
|
|
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|

 

 

 

 

74 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

sador (any new ambassador) would have been in-
vited to many functions. A very few days after my
arrival, the Duchess of X invited Frank and me to
dinner. The powdered footmen were the chief
novelty of the occasion for us. But I was much con-
fused because nobody introduced anybody to anybody
else.

Party succeeded party. I went to them because
they gave me a chance to become acquainted with
people.

But very early after my arrival, I was of course
summoned by the King. I had presented a copy of
my credentials to the Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward
Grey) and the real credentials—the original in a
sealed envelope—I must present to His Majesty.
One morning the King’s Master of the Ceremonies,
Sir Arthur Walsh, came to the hotel with the royal
coaches, four or five of them, and the richly capari-
soned grooms. ‘The whole staff of the Embassy must
go with me. We drove to Buckingham Palace, and,
after waiting a few moments, I was ushered into the
King’s presence. He stood in one of the drawing
rooms on the ground floor looking out on the garden.
There stood with him in uniform Sir Edward Grey.
I entered and bowed. He shook my hand, and |
spoke my little piece of three or four sentences.

He replied, welcoming me and immediately pro-
ceeded to express his surprise and regret that a great
and rich country like the United States had not pro-
vided a residence for its ambassadors. “Tt is not
fair to an ambassador,” said he; and he spoke most

earnestly.
I reminded him that, although the lack of a homeENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR as

was an inconvenience, the trouble or discomfort that
fell on an ambassador was not so bad as the wrong
impression which I feared was produced about the
United States and its government, and I explained
that we had had so many absorbing domestic tasks
and, in general, so few absorbing foreign relations,
that we had only begun to develop what might be
called an international consciousness. . . .

In time Page obtained an entirely adequate and
dignified house at 6 Grosvenor Square, and soon found
that the American Ambassadorship had compensa-
tions which were hardly suggested by his first glimpse
of the lugubrious Chancery. He brought to this new
existence his plastic and inquisitive mind, and _ his
mighty gusto for the interesting and the unusual; he im-
mensely enjoyed his meetings with the most important
representatives of all types of British life.

To Herbert §. Houston
American Embassy
London
Sunday, 24 Aug., 1913.
Dear H. S. H.:

. . . You know there’s been much discussion of the
decadence of the English people. I don’t believe a
word of it. They have an awful slum, I hear, as
everybody knows, and they have an idle class.
Worse, from an equal-opportunity point-of-view, they
have a very large servant class, and a large class that
depends on the nobility and the rich. All these are
economic and social drawbacks. But they have
always had all these—except that the slum has be-
come larger in modern years. And I don’t see or find76 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

any reason to believe in the theory of decadence.
The world never saw a finer lot of men than the best
of their ruling class. You may search the world and
you may search history for finer men than Lord Mor-
ley, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Harcourt, and other mem-
bers of the present Cabinet.

And I meet such men everywhere—gently bred,
high-minded, physically fit, intellectually cultivated,
patriotic. If the devotion to old forms and the in-
ertia which makes any change almost impossible strike
an American as out-of date, you must remember that
in the grand old times of England, they had all these
things and had them worse than they are now. I
can’t see that the race is breaking down or giving out.
Consider how their political morals have been pulled
up since the days of the rotten boroughs; consider
how their court life is now high and decent, and think
what it once was. British trade is larger this year
than it ever was, Englishmen are richer than they ever
Sei and) more of them are rich. ‘They write and
speak and play cricket, and govern, and fight as well
as they have ever done—excepting, of course, the writ-
ing of Shakespeare.

Another conclusion that is confirmed the more you
see of English life is their high art of living. When
they make their money, they stop money-making and
cultivate their minds and their gardens and entertain
their friends and do all the high arts of living—to per-
fection. Three days ago a retired soldier gave a
garden party in my honor, twenty-five miles out of
London. There was his historic house, a part of it
500 years old; there were his ten acres of garden, his
lawn, his trees; and they walk with you over it all;
they sit out-of-doors; they serve tea; they take lifeENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 77

rationally; they talk pleasantly (not jocularly, nor
story-telling) ; they abhor the smart in talk or in con-
duct; they have gentleness, cultivation, the best man-
ners in the world; and they are genuine.

The hostess has me take a basket and go with her
while she cuts it full of flowers for us to bring home;
and, as we walk, she tells the story of the place. She
is a tenant-for-life; it is entailed. Her husband was
wounded in South Africa. Her heir is her nephew.
The home, of course, will remain in the family for-
ever. No, they don’t go to London much in recent
years: why should they? But they travel a month or
more. They give three big tea-parties—one when the
rhododendrons bloom and the others at stated times.
They have friends to stay with them half the time,
perhaps—sometimes parties of a dozen. England
never had a finer lot of folk than these. And you see
them everywhere. The art of living sanely they have
developed to as high a level, I think, as you will find
at any time in any land.

I’m beginning to believe that the Englishman has
always been afraid of the future—that’s what keeps
him so alert. They say tome: ‘You have frightful
things happen in the United States—your Governor
of New York,? your Thaw case, your corruption, etc.,
etc.; and yet you seem sure and tell us that your coun-
trymen feel sure of the safety of your government.”
In the newspaper comments on my Southampton
speech the other day, this same feeling cropped up;
the American Ambassador assures us that the note of
hope is the dominant note of the Republic—etc., etc.
Yes, they are dull, in a way—not dull, so much as

1A reference to William Sulzer, Governor of New York, who at
this time was undergoing impeachment.78 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

steady; and yet they have more solid sense than any
other people.

It’s an interesting study—the most interesting
in the world. The genuineness of the courtesy, the
real kindness and the hospitality of the English are
beyond praise and without limit. In this they show
a strange contradiction to their dickering habits in
trade and their “unctuous rectitude” in stealing conti-
nents. I know a place in the world now where they
are steadily moving their boundary line into other
people’s territory. I guess they really believe that the
earth belongs to them.

Sincerely,

WEP:
To Arthur W. Page’

Gordon Arms Hotel, Elgin, Scotland.
September 6, 1913.
DEAR ARTHUR:

Your mother and Kitty 2 and I are on our way to see
Andy. Had you any idea that to motor from Lon-
don to Skibo means driving more than eight hundred
miles? Our speedometer now shows more than
seven hundred and we've another day to go—at least
one hundred and thirty miles. And we haven't even
had a tire accident. We're having a delightful jour-
ney—only this country yields neither vegetables nor
fruits, and I have to live on oatmeal. They spell it
p-o-r-r-i-d-g-e, and they call it puruge. But they beat

 

1The Ambassador’s son.
2Miss Katharine A. Page.
3 Mr. Andrew Carnegie.ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 79

all creation as carnivorous folk. We stayed last night
at a beautiful mountain hotel at Braemar (the same
town whereat Stevenson wrote “Treasure Island’’)
and they had nine kinds of meat for dinner and eggs
in three ways, and no vegetables but potatoes. But
this morning we struck the same thin oatbread that
you ate at Grandfather Mountain.

I’ve never understood the Scotch. I think they are,
without doubt, the most capable race in the world—
away from home. But how they came to be so and
how they keep up their character and supremacy and
keep breeding true needs explanation. As you come
through the country, you see the most monotonous and
dingy little houses and thousands of robust children,
all dirtier than niggers. In the fertile parts of the
country, the fields are beautifully cultivated—for
Lord This-and-I’Other who lives in London and
comes up here in summer to collect his rents and to
shoot. The country people seem desperately poor.
But they don’t lose their robustness. In the solid
cities—the solidest you ever saw, all being of granite
—such as Edinburgh and Aberdeen, where you see the
prosperous class, they look the sturdiest and most in-
dependent fellows you ever saw. As they grow old
they all look like blue-bellied Presbyterian elders.
Scotch to the marrow—everybody and everything
seem—bare knees alike on the street and in the hotel
with dress coats on, bagpipes—there’s no sense in
these things, yet being Scotch they live forever. The
first men I saw early this morning on the street in
front of the hotel were two weather-beaten old chaps,
with gray beards under their chins. ‘Guddddd
murrrrninggggeg, Andy,” said one. ‘‘Guddddd murrn-
ingggge, Sandy,” said the other; and they trudged on.8o ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

They'd dethrone kings before they’d shave differently
or drop their burrs and gutturals or cover their knees
or cease lying about the bagpipe. And you can't get
it out of the blood.

Your mother ! becomes provoked when I say these
things, and I shouldn’t wonder if you yourself resent
them and break out quoting Burns. Now the High-
lands can’t support a population larger than the moun-
tain counties of Kentucky. Now your Kentucky feud
is a mere disgrace to civilization. But your High-
land feud is celebrated in song and story. Every
clan keeps itself together to this day by its history and
by its plaid. At a turn in the road in the mountains
yesterday, there stood a statue of Rob Roy painted
every stripe to life. We saw his sword and purse in
Sir Walter’s house at Abbotsford. The King him-
self wore the kilt and one of the plaids at the last
court ball at Buckingham Palace, and there is a man
who writes his name and is called ‘“The Macintosh
of Macintosh,” and that’s a prouder title than the
King’s. A little handful of sheep-stealing bandits got
themselves immortalized and heroized, and they are
now all Presbyterian elders. They got their church
“established” in Scotland, and when the King comes to
Scotland, by Jehoshaphat! he is obliged to become a
Presbyterian. Yet your Kentucky feudist—poor devil
he comes too late. The Scotchman has preémpted
that particular field of glory. And all such compari-

sons make your mother fighting mad. . . .
Affectionately,

Wer. P.

1 Mrs. Walter H. Page is the daughter of a Scotchman from Ayr-
shire.ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR SI

To the President
American Embassy, London.
October 25, 1913.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

I am moved once in a while to write you privately,
not about any specific piece of public business, but only,
if I can, to transmit something of the atmosphere of
the work here. And, since this is meant quite as much
for your amusement as for any information it may
carry, don’t read it “‘in office hours.”’

The future of the world belongs to us. A man
needs to live here, with two economic eyes in his head,
a very little time to become very sure of this. Every-
body will see it presently. These English are spending
their capital, and it is their capital that continues to
give them their vast power. Now what are we going
to do with the leadership of the world presently when
it clearly falls into our hands?? And how can we use
the English for the highest uses of democracy ?

You see their fear of an on-sweeping democracy in
their social treatment of party opponents. A Tory
lady told me with tears that she could no longer invite
her Liberal friends to her house: ‘I have lost them
—they are robbing us, you know.”’ I made the mis-
take of saying a word in praise of Sir Edward Grey
to a duke. ‘“‘Yes, yes, no doubt an able man; but you
must understand, sir, that I don’t train with that
gang.” A bishop explained to me at elaborate length

—_—___ __—_—_.

 

LThe astonishing thing about Page’s comment on the leadership
of the United States—if it would only take this leadership—is that
these letters were written in 1913, a year before the outbreak of the
war, and eight years before the Washington Disarmament Conference

of 1921-22.82 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

why the very monarchy is doomed unless something
befalls Lloyd George and his program. Every din-
ner party is made up with strict reference to the party
politics of the guests. Sometimes you imagine you
see something like civil war; and money is flowing out
of the Kingdom into Canada in the greatest volume
ever known and I am told that a number of old
families are investing their fortunes in African lands.

These and such things are, of course, mere chips
which show the direction the slow stream runs. The
great economic tide of the century flows our way.
We shall have the big world questions to decide pres-
ently. Then we shall need world policies; and it will
be these old-time world leaders that we shall then have
to work with, more closely than now.

The English make a sharp distinction between the
American people and the American Government—a
distinction that they are conscious of and that they
themselves talk about. They do not think of our
people as foreigners. I have a club book on my table
wherein the members are classified as British, Colonial,
American, and Foreign—dquite unconsciously. But
they do think of our government as foreign, and as a
frontier sort of thing without good manners or good
faith. This distinction presents the big task of im-
planting here a real respect for our government.
People often think to compliment the American Am-
bassador by assuming that he is better than his govern-
ment and must at times be ashamed of it. Of course
the Government never does this—never—but persons
in unofficial life; and I have sometimes hit some hard
blows under this condescending provocation.

This is the one experience that I have found irritat-
ing. They commiserate me on having a government
that will not provide an ambassador’s residence—ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 83

from the King to my servants. They talk about
American lynchings. Even the Spectator, in an early
editorial about you, said that we should now see what
stuff there is in the new President by watching whether
you would stop lynchings. ‘They forever quote Bryce
on the badness of our municipal government. They
pretend to think that the impeachment of governors
is common and ought to be commoner. One delicious
M. P. asked me: ‘‘Now since the Governor of New
York is impeached, who becomes Vice-President ?”’ *
Ignorance, unfathomable ignorance, is at the bottom
of much of it; if the Town Treasurer of Yuba Dam
gets a $100 “rake off” on a paving contract, our city
government is a failure.

I am about to conclude that our yellow press does
us more harm abroad than at home, and many of the
American correspondents of the English papers send
exactly the wrong news. The whole governing class
of England has a possibly exaggerated admiration for
the American people and something very like contempt
for the American Government.

If I make it out right two causes (in addition to
their ignorance) of their dislike of our government
are (1) its lack of manners in the past, and (2) its
indiscretions of publicity about foreign affairs. We
ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways and
courteous manners in many of the everyday, ordinary,
unimportant dealings with them—aloof from the com-
mon amenities of long-organized political life.

Not one of these things is worth mentioning or re-

1 Just what this critical Briton had in mind, in thinking that the
removal of a New York governor created a vacancy in the Vice-
Presidency, is not clear. Possibly, however, he had a cloudy recol-
lection of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt, after serving as Gov-
ernor of New York State, became Vice-President, and may have con-
cluded from this that the two offices were held by the same man.84 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

membering. But generations of them have caused
our government to be regarded as thoughtless of the
fine little acts of life—as rude. The more I find out
about diplomatic customs and the more I hear of the
little-big troubles of others, the more need I find to
be careful about details of courtesy. .. .

But our Government, though green, isn’t young
enough to plead its youth. It is time that it, too,
were learning Old World manners in dealing with Old
World peoples. I do not know whether we need a
Bureau, or a Major-Domo, or a Master of Cere-
monies at Washington, but we need somebody to
prompt us to act as polite as we really are, somebody
to think of those gentler touches that we naturally
forget. Some other governments have such officers
—perhaps all. The Japanese, for instance, are new-
comers in world politics. But this Japanese Ambas-
sador and his wife here never miss a trick; and they
come across the square and ask us how to doit! All
the other governments, too, play the game of small
courtesies to perfection—the French, of course, and
the Spanish and—even the old Turk.

Another reason for the English distrust of our gov-
ernment is its indiscretions in the past of this sort:
one of our Ministers to Germany, you will recall, was
obliged to resign because the Government at Washing-
ton inadvertently published one of his confidential des-
patches; Griscom saved his neck only by the skin,
when he was in Japan, for a similar reason. These
things travel all round the world from one chancery
to another and all governments know them. Yester-
day somebody in Washington talked about my des-
patch summarizing my talk with Sir Edward Grey
about Mexico, and it appeared in the papers here this
morning that Sir Edward had told me that the bigENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 85

business interests were pushing him hard. This I sent
as only my inference. I had at once to disclaim it.
This leaves in his mind a doubt about our care for
secrecy. They have monstrous big doors and silent
men in Downing Street; and, I am told, a stenogra-
pher sits behind a big screen in Sir Edward’s room
while an ambassador talks!1 I wonder if my com-
ments on certain poets, which I have poured forth
there to provoke his, are preserved in the archives of
the British Empire. The British Empire is surely
very welcome to them. I have twice found it useful,
by the way, to bring up Wordsworth when he has be-
gun to talk about Panama tolls. Then your friend
Canon Rawnsley? has, without suspecting it, done
good service in diplomacy.

The newspaper men here, by the way, both English
and American, are disposed to treat us fairly and to
be helpful. The London Times, on most subjects, is
very friendly, and I find its editors worth cultivating
for their own sakes and because of their position. It
is still the greatest English newspaper. Its general
friendliness to the United States, by the way, has
started a rumor that I hear once in a while—that it
is really owned by Americans—nonsense yet awhile.
To the fairness and helpfulness of the newspaper men

1For years this idea of the stenographer back of a screen in the
Foreign Office has been abroad, but it is entirely unfounded. Several
years ago a Foreign Secretary, perhaps Lord Salisbury, put a screen
behind his desk to keep off the draughts and from this precaution
the myth arose that it shielded a stenographer who took a complete
record of ambassadorial conversations. After an ambassador leaves,
the Foreign Secretary, however, does write out the important points
in the conversation. Copies are made and printed, and sent to the
King, the Prime Minister, the British Ambassador in the country to
which the interview relates, and occasionally to others. All these
records are, of course, carefully preserved in the archives of the
Foreign Ofhce.

2’The Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, a personal friend of President Wilson.86 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

there are one or two exceptions, for instance, a certain
sneaking whelp who writes for several papers. He
went to the Navy League dinner last night at which
I made a little speech. When I sat down, he re-
marked to his neighbor, with a yawn, ‘Well, nothing
in it for me. The Ambassador, I am afraid, said
nothing for which I can demand his recall.” ‘They,
of course, don’t care thrippence about me; it’s you
they hope to annoy.

Then after beating them at their own game of daily
little courtesies, we want a fight with them—a good
stiff fight about something wherein we are dead right,
to remind them sharply that we have sand in our
craw.! I pray every night for such a fight; for they
like fighting men. Then they'll respect our govern-
ment as they already respect us—if we are dead right.

But I’ve little hope for a fight of the right kind
with Sir Edward Grey. He is the very reverse of
insolent—fair, frank, sympathetic, and he has so clear
an understanding of our real character that he’d yield
anything that his party and Parliament would permit.
He’d make a good American with the use of very little
sandpaper. Of course I know him better than I know
any other member of the Cabinet, but he seems to me
the best-balanced man of them all... .

We are in the international game—not in its Old
World intrigues and burdens and sorrows and melan-
choly, but in the inevitable way to leadership and to
cheerful mastery in the future; and everybody knows
that we are init but us. It is a sheer blind habit that
causes us to continue to try to think of ourselves as

aloof. They think in terms of races here, and we are

1It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the Ambassador was think-
ing only of a diplomatic “fight.”ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 87

of their race, and we shall become the strongest and
the happiest branch of it.

While we play the game with them, we shall play it
better by playing it under their long-wrought-out rules
of courtesy in everyday aftairs.

We shall play it better, too, if our government play
it quietly—except when the subject demands publicity.
I have heard that in past years the foreign representa-
tives of our government have reported too few things
and much too meagerly. I have heard since I have
been here that these representatives become timid be-
cause Washington has for many a year conducted its
foreign business too much in the newspapers; and the
foreign governments themselves are always afraid of
this.

Meantime I hardly need tell you of my appreciation
of such a chance to make so interesting a study and to
enjoy so greatly the most interesting experience, I
really believe, in the whole world. I only hope that
in time I may see how to shape the constant progres-
sion of incidents into a constructive course of events;
for we are soon coming into a time of big changes.

Most heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

To Frank N. Doubleday and Others
London, Sunday, December 28, 1913.
My DEAR COMRADES:

I was never one of those abnormal creatures who
got Christmas all ready by the Fourth of July. The
true spirit of the celebration has just now begun to
work on me—three days late. In this respect the
spirit is very like Christmas plum pudding. More-ay |
a

 

$8 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

Over, we've just got the patriotic fervor flowing at
high tide this morning. ‘This is the President’s birth-
day. We've put up the Stars and Stripes on the roof;
and half an hour ago the King’s Master of Cere-
monies drove up in a huge motor car and, being shown
into my presence in the state drawing room, held his
hat in his hand and (said he):

“Your Excellency: I am commanded by the King
to express to you His Majesty’s congratulations on
the birthday of the President, to wish him a successful
administration and good health and long life and to
convey His Majesty’s greeting to Your Excellency:
and His Majesty commands me to express the hope
that you will acquaint the President with His Majesty’s
good wishes.”

Whereto I made just as pretty a little speech as
your ’umble sarvant could. Then we sat down, I
called in Mrs. Page and my secretary and we talked
like human beings.

Having worked like the devil, upon whom, I imag-
ine, at this bibulous season many heavy duties fall—
having thus toiled for two months—the international
docket is clean, I’ve got done a round of twenty-five
speeches (O Lord!) I’ve slept three whole nights, I’ve
made my dinner calls—you see I'm feeling pretty well,
in this first period of quiet life I’ve yet found in this
Babylon. Praise Heaven! they go off for Christmas.
Everything’s shut up tight. The streets of London
are as lonely and as quiet as the road to Oyster Bay
while the Oyster is in South America. It’s about as
mild here as with -you in October and as damp as
Sheepshead’s Bay in an autumn storm. But such
people as you meet complain of the c-o-l-d—the c-o-l-d;
and they run into their heatless houses and put on
extra waistcoats and furs and throw shawls over theirENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR 89

knees and curse Lloyd George and enjoy themselves.
They are a great people—even without mint juleps
in summer or eggnog in winter; and [ like them. The
old gouty Lords curse the Americans for the decline
of drinking. And you can’t live among them without
laughing yourself to death and admiring them, too.
It’s a fine race to be sprung from.

All this field of international relations—you fel-
lows regard it as a bore. So it used to be before my
entrance into the game! But it’s everlastingly inter-
esting. Just to give him a shock, I asked the Foreign
Secretary the other day what difference it would make
if the Foreign Offices were all to go out of business
and all the ambassadors were to be hanged. He
thought a minute and said: ‘‘Suppose war kept on
in the Balkans, the Russians killed all their Jews,
Germany took Holland and sent an air fleet over Lon-
don, the Japanese landed in California, the English
took all the oil wells in Central and South America
and is

“Good Lord!” said I, ‘do you and I prevent all
these calamities? If so, we don’t get half the credit
that is due us—do we?”’

You could ask the same question about any group
or profession of men in the world; and on a scratch,
I imagine that any of them would be missed less than
they think. But the realness and the bigness of the
job here in London is simply oppressive. We don't
even know what it is in the United States and, of
course, we don’t go about doing it right. If we did,
we shouldn’t pick up a green fellow on the plain of
Long Island and send him here; we'd train the most
capable male babies we have from the cradle. But
this leads a long way.

As I look back over these six or seven months, from.90 ENGLAND BEFORE THE WAR

the pause that has come this week, I’m bound to say
(being frank, not to say vain) that I had the good
fortune to do one piece of work that was worth the
effort and worth coming to do—about that infernal
Mexican situation. An abler man would have done it
better; but, as it was, I did it; and I have a most
appreciative letter about it from the President.

By thunder, he’s doing his job, isn’t he? Whether
you like the job or not, you've got to grant that.
When I first came over here, I found a mild curiosity
about Wilson—only mild. But now they sit up and
listen and ask most eager questions. He has im-
pressed his personality most strongly on the governing
class here.

Yours heartily,
W,. gE RB.CHAPTER VI

AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT THE
EUROPEAN WAR

AGE’S mind, from the day of his arrival in Eng-

land, had been filled with that portent which was
the most outstanding fact in European life. Could
nothing be done to prevent the dangers threatened by
European militarism? Was there no way of fore-
stalling the war which seemed every day to be ap-
proaching nearer? The dates of the following let-
ters, August, 1913, show that this was one of the first
ideas which Page presented to the new Administration.

To Edward M. House

Aug. 28, 1913.
My DEAR House:

_.. Everything is lovely and the goose hangs
high. We're having a fine time. Only, only, only—
I do wish to do something constructive and lasting.
Here are great navies and armies and great with-
drawals of men from industry—an enormous waste.
Here are kings and courts and gold lace and cere-
monies which, without producing anything, require
great cost to keep them going. Here are all the privi-
leges and taxes that this state of things implies—every
one a hindrance to human progress. We are free
from most of these. We have more people and more
capable people and many times more territory than

gl92 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

both England and Germany; and we have more po-
tential wealth than all Europe. They know that.
They’d like to find a way to escape. The Hague pro-
grams, for the most part, just lead them around a
circle in the dark back to the place where they started.
Somebody needs to do something. If we could find
some friendly use for these navies and armies and
kings and things—in the service of humanity—they’d
follow us. We ought to find a way to use them in
cleaning up the tropics under our leadership and under
our code of ethics—that everything must be done for
the good of the tropical peoples and that nobody may
annex a foot of land. They want a job. Then
they’d quit sitting on their haunches, growling at one
another.

I wonder if we couldn’t serve notice that the land-
stealing game is forever ended and that the cleaning
up of backward lands is now in order—for the people
that live there; and then invite Europe’s help to make
the tropics as healthful as the Panama Zone? .. .

Heartily yours,
WALTER H. Pace.

It is one of the minor ironies of modern history
that the United States and Great Britain should have
selected 1914 as a year for a great peace celebration.
That year marked the one hundredth anniversary of
the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the
War of 1812, and in 1913 comprehensive plans had
already been formed for observing this impressive
centennial. The plan was to make it more than the
mere observance of a hundred years of peaceful inter-
course; it was the intention to use the occasion to em-
phasize the fundamental identity of American andAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR 93

British ideals and to lay the foundation of a perma-
nent understanding and friendship. The erection of
a monument to Abraham Lincoln at Westminster—a
plan that has since been realized—was one detail of
this program. Another was the restoration of Sul-
grave Manor, the English country seat of the Wash-
ingtons, and its preservation as a place where the
peoples of both countries could share their common
traditions. Page now dared to hope that President
Wilson might associate himself with this great pur-
pose to the extent of coming to England and accepting
this gift in the name of the American nation. Such
a Presidential visit, he believed, would exercise a
mighty influence in forestalling a threatening Euro-
pean war. The ultimate purpose, that is, was world
peace—precisely the same motive that led President
Wilson, in 1919, to make a European pilgrimage.

This idea was no passing fancy with Page: it was
with him a favorite topic of conversation. Such a
Presidential visit, he believed, would accomplish more
than any other influences in dissipating the clouds that
were darkening the European landscape. He would
elaborate the idea at length in discussions with his
intimates.

“What I want,” he would say, “‘is to have the Presi-
dent of the United States and the King of England
stand up side by side and let the world take a good
look at them!”’

But at that time Washington was too busy with its
domestic program to consider such a proposal seri-
ously. ‘‘Your letters,” wrote Colonel House in reply,
“have come to me and lifted me out of the rut of
things and given me a glimpse of a fair land. What
you are thinking of and what you want this Adminis-|
!
)

 

94 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

tration to do is beyond the power of accomplishment
for the moment. My desk is covered with matters
of no lasting importance, but which come to me as a
part of the day’s work, and which must be done if
I am to help lift the load that is pressing upon the
President. It tells me better than anything else what
he has to bear, and how utterly futile it is for him to
attempt such problems as you present.”

From the President

My DEAR PAGE:

. As for your suggestion that I should myself
visit England during my term of office, I must say that
I agree with all your arguments for it, and yet the case
against the President’s leaving the country, particu-
larly now that he is expected to exercise a constant
leadership in all parts of the business of the govern-
ment, is very strong and I am afraid overwhelming.
It might be the beginning of a practice of visiting for-
eign countries which would lead Presidents rather far
afield.

It is a most attractive idea, I can assure you, and |
turn away from it with the greatest reluctance.

We hear golden opinions of the impression you are
making in England, and I have only to say that it is
just what I had expected.

Cordially and faithfully yours,
Wooprow WILSON.
Hon. WALTER H. Pace.

In December, however, evidently Colonel House’s
mind had turned to the general subject that had so
engaged that of the Ambassador.AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR _ 95

From Edward M. House

December 13th, 1913.
DEAR PAGE:

In my budget of yesterday I did not tell you of the
suggestion which I made to Sir William Tyrrell when
he was here, and which I also made to the Presi-
dent: 20%:

It ocurred to me that between us all we might bring
about the naval holiday which Winston Churchill has
proposed. My plan is that I should go to Germany
in the spring and see the Kaiser, and try to win him
over to the thought that is uppermost in our mind and
that of the British Government. . . .

I spoke to the President about the matter and he
seemed pleased with the suggestion; in fact, I might
say, he was enthusiastic. He said, just as Sir Wil-
liam did, that it would be too late for this year’s bud-
get; but he made a suggestion that he get the
Appropriations Committee to incorporate a clause,
permitting him to eliminate certain parts of the battle-
ship budget in the event that other nations declared
for a naval holiday. So this will be done and will
further the plan.

Now I want to get you into the game. If you
think it advisable, take the matter up with Sir William
Tyrrell and then with Sir Edward Grey, or directly
with Sir Edward, if you prefer, and give me the bene-
fit of your advice and conclusions. . . .

Faithfully yours,
E. M. House.

It is apparent from Page’s letters that the sug-
gestion now contained in Colonel House’s communica-
tion would receive a friendly hearing. The idea that96 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

Colonel House suggested was merely the initial stage
of a plan which soon took on more ambitious propor-
tions. Was it not possible to bring the greatest na-
tions, especially the United States, Great Britain, and
Germany, to some agreement on this question, as well
as on the question of disarmament? ‘This once ac-
complished, the way could be prepared for joint action
on the numerous other problems which were then
threatening the peace of the world.

The League of Nations was then not even a phrase,
but the plan that was forming in Colonel House's
mind was at least some scheme for permanent inter-
national codperation. For several years Germany
had been the nation which had proved the greatest
obstacle to such international friendliness and arbitra-
tion. The Kaiser had destroyed both Hague Con-
ferences as influential forces in the remaking of the
world; and in the autumn of 1913 he had taken on a
more belligerent attitude than ever. If this attempt
to establish a better condition of things was to suc-
ceed, Germany’s cooperation would be indispensable.
This is the reason why Colonel House proposed first
of all to visit Berlin. Page’s response to this idea
was consistent and characteristic. He had no faith
in Germany and believed that the existence of Kaiser-
ism was incompatible with the extension of the demo-
cratic ideal. Even at this early time—eight months
before the outbreak of the World War—he had no
enthusiasm for anything in the nature of an alliance,
or a “pact,”’ that included Germany as an equal part-
ner. He did, however, have great faith in the coop-
eration of the English-speaking peoples as a force that
would make for permanent peace and international
justice.AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR _ 97

To Edward M. House

January 2, 1914.
My DEAR House:

You have set my imagination going. I’ve been
thinking of this thing for months, and now you've
given me a fresh start. It can be worked out some-
how—doubtless, not in the form that anybody may at
first see; but experiment and frank discussion will find
a way.

As I think of it, turning it this way and that, there
always comes to me just as I am falling to sleep this
reflection: the English-speaking peoples now rule the
world in all essential facts. They alone and Switzer-
land have permanent free government. In France
there’s freedom—but for how long? In Germany
and Austria—hardly. In the Scandinavian States—
yes, but they are small and exposed as are Belgium
and Holland. In the big secure South American
States—yes, it’s coming. In Japan—? Only the
British lands and the United States have secure
liberty. They also have the most treasure, the best
fighters, the most land, the most ships—the future in
fact.

Now, because George Washington warned us
against alliances, we’ve gone on as if an alliance were
a kind of smallpox. Suppose there were—let us say
for argument’s sake—the tighest sort of an alliance,
offensive and defensive, between all Britain, colonies
and all, and the United States—what would happen?
Anything we’d say would go, whether we should say,
“Come in out ofthe wet.’ or, )Disagmene loa
might be the beginning of a real world-alliance and
union to accomplish certain large results—disarma-98 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

ment, for instance, or arbitration—dozens of good
EnINgS..5..3°4:

I’m not proposing a program. I’m only thinking
out loud. I see little hope of doing anything so long
as we choose to be ruled by an obsolete remark made
by George Washington.

Weil

From Edward M. House

145 East 35th Street,
New York City.
April 20th, 1914.

DEAR PAGE:

It is our purpose to sail on the /mperator,
May 6th, and go directly to Germany. I expect to
be there a week or more, but Mrs. House will reach
London by the Ist or 2nd of June.

Our friend ! in Washington thinks it is worth while
for me to go to Germany, and that determines the
matter. The press is shrieking to-day over the Mexi-
can situation, but I hope they will be disappointed. It
is not the intention to do anything further for the mo-
ment than to blockade the ports, and unless some
overt act is made from the North, our troops will not
cross the border.

Your friend always,

E. M. House.
To Edward M. House
London, April 27, 1914.

My DEAR House:
Of course you decided wisely to carry out your orig-

1 Obviously President Wilson.AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR _ 99

inal Berlin plan, and you ought never to have had a
moment’s hesitation, if you did have any hesitation.
I do not expect you to produce any visible or imme-
diate results. I hope I am mistaken inthis. But you
know that the German Government has a well-laid
progressive plan for shipbuilding for a certain num-
ber of years. I believe that the work has, in fact,
already been arranged for. But that has nothing to
do with the case. You are going to see what effect
you can produce on the mind of a man. Perhaps you
will never know just what effect you will produce.
Yet the fact that you are who you are, that you make
this journey for this especial purpose, that you are
everlastingly right—these are enough.

Moreover, you can’t ever tell results, nor can you
afford to make your plans in this sort of high work
with the slightest reference to probable results.
That’s the bigness and the glory of it. Any ordinary
man can, on any ordinary day, go and do a task, the
favorable results of which may be foreseen. That's
easy. The big thing is to go confidently to work on a
task, the results of which nobody can possibly. foresee
—a task so vague and improbable of definite results
that small men hesitate. It is in this spirit that very
many of the biggest things in history have been done.
Wasn’t the purchase of Louisiana ‘such a‘ thing?
Who'd ever have supposed that that could have been
brought about? I applaud your errand and I am
eagerly impatient to hear the results. When will you
get here? I assume that Mrs. House will not go with
you to Berlin. No matter so you both turn up here
for a good long stay.

I’ve taken me a little bit of a house about twenty
miles out of town whither we are going in July as soon
as we can get away from London. I hope to stay100 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

down there till far into October, coming up to Lon-
don about thrice a week. That’s the dull season of
the year. It’s a charming little country place—big
enough for you to visit us... .

It will be observed that Colonel House had sailed
directly to Germany on a German ship—the Impe-
rator. Ambassador Gerard had made preparations
for his reception in Berlin, and the American soon
had long talks with Admiral von Tirpitz, Falkenhayn,
Von Jagow, Solf, and _ others. Von Bethmann-
Hollweg’s wife died almost on the day of his arrival
in Berlin, so it was impossible for him to see the Chan-
cellor—the man who would have probably been the
most receptive to these peace ideas. All the leaders
of the government, except Von Tirpitz, gave Colonel
House’s proposals a respectful if somewhat cynical
hearing. Von Tirpitz was openly and demonstra-
tively hostile. The leader of the German Navy
simply bristled with antagonism at any suggestion for
peace or disarmament or world cooperation. He
consumed a large part of the time which Colonel
House spent with him denouncing England and all its
works. Hatred of the ‘Island Kingdom” was appar-
ently the consuming passion of his existence. On the
whole, Von Tirpitz thus made no attempt to conceal
his feeling that the purpose of the House mission was
extremely distasteful to him. The other members of
the Government, while not so tactlessly hostile, were
not particularly encouraging.

House had come to Berlin not merely to talk with
the cabinet heads; his goal was the Kaiser himself.
But he perceived at once a persistent opposition to his
plan. As he was the President's personal representa-
tive, and carried a letter from the President to theAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR IOI

Kaiser, an audience could not be refused—indeed, it
had already been duly arranged; but there was a quiet
opposition to his consorting with the “All Highest’’
alone. It was not usual, Colonel House was in-
formed, for His Imperial Majesty to discuss such mat-
ters except in the presence of a representative of the
Foreign Office.

But the American knew that an interview with a
third person present would be simply thrown away
since his message was intended for the Kaiser’s own
ears; and ultimately his persistence succeeded. ‘The
next Monday would be June 1st—a great day in Ger-
many. It was the occasion of the Schrippenfest, a
day which for many years had been set aside for the
glorification of the German Army. On that festival,
the Kaiser entertained with great pomp representative
army officers and representative privates, as well as
the diplomatic corps and other distinguished for-
eigners. Colonel House was invited to attend the
Kaiser’s luncheon on that occasion, and was informed
that, after this function was over, he would have an
opportunity of having a private conversation with His
Majesty.

The affair took place in the palace at Potsdam.
The militarism which Colonel House had felt so op-
pressively in Berlin society was especially manifest on
this occasion. There were two luncheon parties—
that of the Kaiser and his officers and guests in the
state dining room, and that of the selected private
soldiers outside. The Kaiser and the Kaiserin spent
a few moments with their humbler subjects, drinking
beer with them and passing a few comradely remarks;
they then proceeded to the large dining hall and took
their places with the gorgeously caparisoned and be-
medaled chieftains of the German Army. ‘The whole102 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

proceeding has an historic interest, in that it was the
last Schrippenfest held.

When the lunch was finished, the Kaiser took Colo-
nel House aside, and the two men withdrew to the
terrace, out of earshot of the rest of the gathering.
However, they were not out of sight. For nearly
half an hour the Kaiser and the American stood side
by side upon the terrace, the German generals, at a
respectful distance, watching the proceeding, resent-
ful, puzzled, curious as to what it was all about. The
mass of officers watching this meeting little guessed
that the purpose of House’s visit was to persuade the
Kaiser to abandon everything for which the Schrip-
penfest stood; to enter an international compact with
the United States and Great Britain for reducing arm-
aments, to reach an agreement about trade and the
treatment of backward peoples, and to form some-
thing of a permanent association for the preserva-
tion of peace.

The one thing which was apparent to the watchers
was that the American was only now and then saying
a brief word, but that the Kaiser was, as usual, doing
a vast amount of talking. His speech rattled on with
the utmost animation, his arms were constantly gestic-
ulating, he would bring one fist down into his palm to
register an emphatic point, and enforce certain ideas
with a menacing forefinger. At times Colonel House
would show slight signs of impatience and interrupt
the flow of talk. But the Kaiser was clearly absorbed
in the subject under discussion.

The subject that had mainly aroused the Imperial
warmth was the ‘Yellow Peril.”’ For years this had
been an obsession with the Kaiser, and he launched
into the subject as soon as Colonel House broachedAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR 103

the purpose of his visit. [here could be no question
of disarmament, the Kaiser vehemently declared, as
long as this danger to civilization existed. “‘We
white nations should join hands,” he said, “to oppose
Japan and the other yellow nations, or some day they
will destroy us.”’

It was with difficulty that Colonel House could get
His Majesty away from this subject. Whatever
topic he touched upon, the Kaiser would immediately
start declaiming on the dangers that faced Europe
from the East. His insistence on this accounted
partly for the slight signs of impatience which the
American showed. He feared that all the time al-
lotted for the interview would be devoted to discuss-
ing the Japanese. About another nation, the Kaiser
showed almost as much alarm as he did about Japan,
and that was Russia. He spoke contemptuously of
France and Great Britain as possible enemies, for
he apparently had no fear of them. But the size
of Russia and the exposed eastern frontier of Ger-
many seemed to appall him. How could Germany
join a peace pact, and reduce its army, so long as
175,000,000 Slavs threatened them from this direc-
tion?

Another matter that the Kaiser discussed with de-
rision was Mr. Bryan’s arbitration treaty. Prac-
tically all the great nations had already ratified this
treaty except Germany. The Kaiser now laughed at
the treaties and pooh-poohed Bryan. Germany, he
declared, would never accept such an arbitration plan.
Colonel House had particular cause to remember this
part of the conversation three years afterwards, when
the United States declared war on Germany. ‘The
outstanding feature of the Bryan treaty was the clause104. AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

which pledged the high contracting parties not to go
to war without taking a breathing spell of one year
in which to think the matter over.

Had Germany adopted this treaty, the United
States, in April, 1917, after Germany had presented
a casus belli by resuming unrestricted submarine war-
fare, could not have gone to war. We should have
been obliged to wait a year, or until April, 1918, be-
fore engaging in hostilities. That is, an honorable
observance of this Bryan treaty by the United States
would have meant that Germany would have starved
Great Britain into surrender, and crushed Europe with
her army. Had the Kaiser, on this June afternoon,
not notified Colonel House that Germany would not
accept this treaty, but, instead, had notified him that
he would accept it, William II might now be sitting
on the throne of a victorious Germany, with Europe
for a footstool.

Despite the Kaiser’s hostile attitude towards these
details, his general reception of the President’s pro-
posals was not outwardly unfriendly. Perhaps he
was sincere, perhaps not; yet the fact is that he mani-
fested more cordiality to this somewhat vague “‘get-
together” proposal than had any of his official
advisers. He encouraged Colonel House to visit
London, talk the matter over with British statesmen,
and then return to Berlin.

“The last thing,” he said, “that Germany wants is
war. Weare getting to be a great commercial coun-
try. Ina few years Germany will be a rich country,
like England and the-United States. We don’t want
a war to interfere with our progress.”’

Any peace suggestion that was compatible with Ger-
man safety, he said, would be entertained. Yet his
parting words were not reassuring.AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR 10S

‘““Every nation in Europe,” he said, “has its bayo-
nets pointed at Germany. But "and with this
he gave a proud and smiling glance at the glistening
representatives of his army gathered on this brilliant
occasion—'‘we are ready!”

Colonel House left Berlin, not particularly hopeful;
the Kaiser impressed him as a man of unstable nerv-
ous organization—as one who was just hovering on
the border land of insanity. Certainly, this was no
man to be entrusted with such powers as the Ameri-
can had witnessed that day at Potsdam. Dangerous
as the Kaiser was, however, he did not seem to Colo-
nel House to be as great a menace to mankind as were
his military advisers. The American came away
from Berlin with the conviction that the most power-
ful force in Germany was the militaristic clique, and
second, the Hohenzollern dynasty. He has always
insisted that this represented the real precedence in
power. So long as the Kaiser was obedient to the
will of militarism, so long could he maintain his stand-
ing. He was confident, however, that the militaristic
oligarchy was determined to have its will, and would
dethrone the Kaiser the moment he showed indications
of taking a course that would lead to peace. Colonel
House was also convinced that this militaristic oli-
garchy was determined on war. ‘The coolness with
which it listened to his proposals, the attempts it made
to keep him from seeing the Kaiser alone, its repeated
efforts to break up the conversation after it had be-
gun, all pointed to the inevitable tragedy. he fact
that the Kaiser expressed a wish to discuss the matter
again, after Colonel House had sounded London, was
the one hopeful feature of an otherwise discouraging
experience, and accounts for the tone of faint opti-
mism in his letters describing the visit.TS
> | it
fs ‘ok

 

 

 

 

106 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

From Edward M. House

Paris, June 3, 1914.
DEAR PAGE:

I had a satisfactory talk with the Kaiser on Mon-
day. I have now seen everyone worthwhile in Ger-
many except the Chancellor. I am ready now for
London. Perhaps you had better prepare the way.
The Kaiser knows I am to see them, and I have ar-
ranged to keep him in touch with results—if there
are any. We must work quickly after I arrive, for
it may be advisable for me to return to Germany, and
I am counting on sailing for home July 15th or
28th. . . . I am eager to see you and tell you what I
know.

Yours,

E. M. H.

The political situation in Great Britain was greatly
confused. ‘The country was in a state approaching
civil war on the question of Home Rule for Ireland;
the suffragettes were threatening to dynamite the
Houses of Parliament; and the eternal struggle be-
tween the Liberal and the Conservative elements was
raging with unprecedented virulence. A European
war was far from everybody’s mind. It was this
utter inability to grasp the realities of the European
situation which proved the main impediment to Colo-
nel House’s work in England. He met all the impor-
tant people—Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir
Edward Grey, and others. With them he discussed
his ‘‘pact”’ proposal in great detail. Though the Brit-
ish statesmen did not say so definitely, the impression
was conveyed that the mission on which ColonelAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR _ 107

House was engaged was an unnecessary one—a prep-
aration against a danger that did not exist.

The fact that the British statesmen entertained so
little apprehension of a German attack may possibly
be a reflection on their judgment; yet Colonel House’s
visit has great historical value, for the experience
afterward convinced him that Great Britain had had
no part in bringing on the European war, and that
Germany was solely responsible. It certainly should
have put the Wilson Administration right on this all-
important point, when the great storm broke.

The most vivid recollection which the British states-
men whom Colonel House met retain of his visit, was
his consternation at the spirit that had confronted him
everywhere in Germany. The four men most in-
terested—Sir Edward Grey, Sir William Tyrrell, Mr.
Page, and Colonel House—met at luncheon in the
American Embassy a few days after President Wil-
son’s emissary had returned from Berlin. Colonel
House could talk of little except the preparations for
war which were manifest on every hand.

“T feel as though I had been living near a mighty
electric dynamo,” Colonel House told his friends.
“The whole of Germany is charged with electricity.
Everybody’s nerves are tense. It needs only a spark
to set the whole thing off.”

The “spark”? came two weeks afterward with the
assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand.

“Tt is all a bad business,’’ Colonel House wrote to
Page when war broke out, “and just think how near
we came to making such a catastrophe impossible! If
England had moved a little faster and had let me go
back to Germany, the thing, perhaps, could have been
done.”108 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

To which Page at once replied:

“No, no, no—no power on earth could have pre-
vented it. The German militarism, which is the crime
of the last fifty years, has been working for this for
twenty-five years. It is the logical result of their
spirit and enterprise and doctrine. It had to come.
But, of course, they chose the wrong time and the
wrong issue. Militarism has no judgment. Don’t
let your conscience be worried. You did all that any
mortal man could do. But nobody could have done
anything effective.

“We've got to see to it that this system doesn't
grow up again. ‘That’s all.”

In the latter part of July the Pages took a small
house at Ockham, in Surrey, and here they spent the
fateful week that preceded the outbreak of war. ‘The
Ambassador’s emotions on this event are reflected in
a memorandum written on Sunday, August 2nd—a
day that was full of negotiations, ultimatums, and
other precursors of the approaching struggle.

Bachelor’s Farm, Ockham, Surrey.
Sunday, August 2, 1914.

The Grand Smash is come. Last night the Ger-
man Ambassador at St. Petersburg handed the Rus-
sian Government a declaration of war. ‘To-day the
German Government asked the United States to take
its diplomatic and consular business in Russia in hand.
Herrick, our Ambassador in Paris, has already taken
the German interests there.

It is reported in London to-day that the Germans
have invaded Luxemburg and France.

Troops were marching through London at oneAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR 10g

o’clock this morning. Colonel Squier + came out to
luncheon. He sees no way for England to keep out
of it. There is no way. If she keep out, Germany
will take Belgium and Holland, France would be be-
trayed, and England would be accused of forsaking
her friends.

People came to the Embassy all day to-day (Sun-
day), to learn how they can get to the United States—
a rather hard question to answer. I thought several
times of going in, but Greene and Squier said there
was no need of it. People merely hoped we might
tell them what we can’t tell them.

Returned travelers from Paris report indescribable
confusion—people unable to obtain beds and fighting
for seats in railway carriages.

It’s been a hard day here. I have a lot (not a big
lot either) of routine work on my desk which I meant
to do. But it has been impossible to get my mind off
this Great Smash. It holds one in spite of oneself.
I revolve it and revolve it—of course getting nowhere.

The United States is the only great Power wholly
out of it. The United States, most likely, therefore,
will be able to play a helpful and historic part at its
end. It will give President Wilson, no doubt, a great
opportunity. It will probably help us politically and
it will surely help us economically.

The possible consequences stagger the imagination.
Germany has staked everything on her ability to win
primacy. England and France (to say nothing of
Russia) really ought to give her a drubbing. If they

 

1 At this time American military attaché.ctrl

 

 

 

 

Il10 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

do not, this side of the world will henceforth be Ger-
man. If they do flog Germany, Germany will for a
long time be in discredit.

I walked out in the night a while ago. The stars
are bright, the night is silent, the country quiet—as
quiet as peace itself. Millions of men are in camp
and on warships. Will they have to fight and many
of them die—to untangle this network of treaties and
alliances and to blow off huge debts with gunpowder
so that the world may start again?

A hurried picture of the events of the next seven
days is given in the following letter to the President:

To the President

London, Sunday, August 9, 1914.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

God save us! What a week it has been! Last
Sunday I was down here at the cottage I have taken
for the summer—an hour out of London—uneasy
because of the apparent danger and of what Sir Ed-
ward Grey had told me. During the day people be-
gan to go to the Embassy, but not in great numbers—
merely to ask what they should do in case of war.
The Secretary whom I had left in charge on Sunday
telephoned me every few hours and laughingly told
funny experiences with nervous women who came in
and asked absurd questions. Of course, we all knew
the grave danger that war might come but nobody
could by the wildest imagination guess at what
awaited us.

On Monday I was at the Embassy earlier than |
think I have ever been there before and every mem-
ber of the staff was already on duty. Before break-AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR III

fast time the place was filled—packed like sardines.
This was two days before war was declared. ‘There
was no chance to talk to individuals, such was the jam.
I got on a chair and explained that I had already
telegraphed to Washington—on Saturday—suggest-
ing the sending of money and ships, and asking them
to be patient. I made a speech to them several times
during the day, and kept the Secretaries doing so at
intervals. More than 2,000 Americans crowded into
those offices (which are not large) that day. We
were kept there till two o’clock in the morning. The
Embassy has not been closed since.

Tuesday the crowd at the Embassy was still great
but smaller. The big space at the Savoy Hotel gave
them room to talk to one another and to get relief for
‘mmediate needs. By that time I had accepted the
volunteer services of five or six men to help us explain
to the people—and they have all worked manfully day
and night. We now have an orderly organization at
four places: The Embassy, the Consul-General’s
Office, the Savoy, and the American Society in London,
and everything is going well. Those two first days,
there was, of course, great confusion. Crazy men
and weeping women were imploring and cursing and
demanding—God knows it was bedlam turned loose.

I have been called a man of the greatest genius for
an emergency by some, by others a damned fool, by
others every epithet between these extremes. Men
shook English banknotes in my face and demanded
United States money and swore our Government and
its agents ought all to be shot. Women expected me
to hand them steamship tickets home. When some
found out that they could not get tickets on the trans-II2 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

ports (which they assumed would sail the next day)
they accused me of favoritism. These absurd ex-
periences will give you a hint of the panic. But now
it has worked out all right, thanks to the Savoy Com-
mittee and other helpers.

Then came the declaration of war, most dramat-
ically. Tuesday night, five minutes after the ultima-
tum had expired, the Admiralty telegraphed to the
fleet “Go.” In a few minutes the answer came back
“Off.” Soldiers began to march through the city
going to the railway stations. An _ indescribable
crowd so blocked the streets about the Admiralty, the
War Office, and the Foreign Office, that at one o’clock
in the morning I had to drive in my car by other streets
to get home.

The next day the German Embassy was turned
over to me. I went to see the German Ambassador
at three o’clock in the afternoon. He came down in
his pyjamas, a crazy man. I feared he might literally
go mad. He is of the anti-war party and he had done
his best and utterly failed. This interview was one
of the most pathetic experiences of my life. The poor
man had not slept for several nights.

Then came the crowds of frightened Germans,
afraid that they would be arrested. ‘They besieged
the German Embassy and our Embassy. I put one
of our naval officers in the German Embassy, put the
United States seal on the door to protect it, and we
began business there, too. Our naval officer has
moved in—sleeps there. He has an assistant, a ste-
nographer, a messenger; and I gave him the German
automobile and chautteur and two English servants thatAMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR DE

were left there. He has the job well in hand now,
under my and Laughlin’s supervision. But this has
brought still another new lot of diplomatic and govern-
mental problems—a lot of them. Three enormous
German banks in London have, of course, been closed.
Their managers pray for my aid. Howling women
come and say their innocent German husbands have
been arrested as spies. English, Germans, Americans
—everybody has daughters and wives and invalid
grandmothers alone in Germany. In God’s name,
they ask, what can I do for them? Here come stacks
of letters sent under the impression that I can send
them to Germany. But the German business is already
well in hand and I think that will take little of my own
time and will give little trouble. I shall send a report
about it in detail to the Department the very first day
I can find time to write it. In spite of the effort of the
English Government to remain at peace with Austria,
I fear I shall yet have the Austrian Embassy too. But
I can attend to it.

Now, however, comes the financial job of wisely
using the $300,000 which I shall have to-morrow. I
am using Mr. Chandler Anderson “as counsel, of
course. I have appointed a Committee—Skinner, the
Consul-General, Lieut.-Commander McCrary of our
Navy, Kent of the Bankers Trust Company, New
York, and one other man yet to be chosen—to advise,
after investigation, about every proposed expenditure.
Anderson has been at work all day to-day drawing up
proper forms, etc., to fit the Department’s very excel-
lent instructions. I have the feeling that more of that
money may be wisely spent in helping to get people off
the Continent (except in France, where they seem ad-
mirably to be managing it, under Herrick) than is114 AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR

immediately needed in England. All this merely to
show you the diversity and multiplicity of the job.

_ All London has been awake for a week.
Soldiers are marching day and night; immense throngs
block the streets about the government offices. But
they are all very orderly. Every day Germans are
arrested on suspicion; and several of them have
committed suicide. Yesterday one poor American
woman yielded to the excitement and cut her throat.
I find it hard to get about much. People stop me on
the street, follow me to luncheon, grab me as I come
out of any committee meeting—to know my opinion
of this or that—how can they get home? Will such-
and-such a boat fly the American flag? Why did I
take the German Embassy? I have to fight my way
about and rush to an automobile. I have had to buy
me a second one to keep up the racket. Buy ?—no—
only bargain for it, for | have not any money. But
everybody is considerate, and that makes no matter
for the moment. This little cottage in an out-of-the-
way place, twenty-five miles from London, where I am
trying to write and sleep, has been found by people
to-day, who come in automobiles to know how they
may reach their sick kinspeople in Germany. I have
not had a bath for three days: as soon as I got in the
tub, the telephone rang an “urgent” call!

Upon my word, if one could forget the awful trag-
edy, all this experience would be worth a lifetime of
commonplace. One surprise follows another so
rapidly that one loses all sense of time: it seems an
age since last Sunday.

I shall never forget Sir Edward Grey’s telling me
of the ultimatum—while he wept; nor the poor Ger-AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT EUROPEAN WAR I1$

man Ambassador who has lost in his high game—
almost a demented man; nor the King as he declaimed
at me for half-an-hour and threw up his hands and said,
‘““My God, Mr. Page, what else could we do?” Nor
the Austrian Ambassador’s wringing his hands and
weeping and crying out, ‘‘My dear Colleague, my dear
Colleague.”

And this awful tragedy moves on to—what? We
do not know what is really happening, so strict is the
censorship. But it seems inevitable to me that Ger-
many will be beaten, that the horrid period of alliances
and armaments will not come again, that England will
gain even more of the earth’s surface, that Russia may
next play the menace; that all Europe (as much as
survives) will be bankrupt; that relatively we shall be
immensely stronger financially and politically—there
must surely come many great changes—very many,
yet undreamed of. Be ready; for you will be called
on to compose this huge quarrel. I thank Heaven
for many things—first, the Atlantic Ocean; second,
that you refrained from war in Mexico; third, that we
kept our treaty—the canal tolls victory, I mean.
Now, when all this half of the world will suffer the
unspeakable brutalization of war, we shall preserve
our moral strength, our political powers, and our
ideals.

God save us!

We P:CHAPTER Vit

ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

HE months following the outbreak of the war

were busy ones for the American Embassy in
London. The Embassies of all the great Powers
with which Great Britain was contending were handed
over to Page, and the citizens of these countries—
Germany, Austria, Turkey—who found themselves
stranded in England, were practically made his wards.
It is a constant astonishment to his biographer that,
during all the labor and distractions of this period,
Page should have found time to write long letters de-
scribing the disturbing scene. [here are scores of
them, all penned in the beautiful copper-plate hand-
writing that shows no signs of excitement or weariness,
but is in itself an evidence of mental poise and of the
sure grip which Page had upon the evolving drama.
From the many sent in these autumn and early winter
months the following selections are made:

To Edward M. House
September 22nd, 1914.

My DEAR House:

When the day of settlement comes, the settlement
must make sure that the day of militarism is done and
can come no more. If sheer-brute force is to rule the
world, it will not be worth living in. If German

bureaucratic brute force could conquer Europe, pres-
116ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 107

ently it would try to conquer the United States: and
we should all go back to the era of war as man’s chief
industry and back to the domination of kings by divine
right. It seems to me, therefore, that the Hohen-
zollern idea must perish—be utterly strangled in the
making of peace.

Just how to do this, it is not yet easy to say. If
the German defeat be emphatic enough and dramatic
enough, the question may answer itself—how’s the
best way to be rid of the danger of the recurrence of
a military bureaucracy? But in any event, this thing
must be killed forever—somehow. I think that a
firm insistence on this is the main task that mediation
will bring. The rest will be corollaries of this.

The danger, of course, as all the world is beginning
to fear, is that the Kaiser, after a local victory—es-
pecially if he should yet take Paris—will propose
peace, saying that he dreads the very sight of blood—
propose peace in time, as he will hope, to save his
throne, his dynasty, his system. That will be a dan-
gerous day. The horror of war will have a tendency
to make many persons in the countries of the Allies
accept it. All the peace folk in the world will say
“Accept it!” But if he and his throne and his dynasty
and his system be saved, in twenty-five years the whole
job must be done over again. .. .

The diplomatic work proper brings fewer difficulties
than you would guess. New subjects and new duties
come with great rapidity, but they soon fall into for-
mulas—at least into classes. We shall have no sharp
crises nor grave difficulties so long as our government
and this government keep their more than friendly
relations. I see Sir Edward Grey almost every day.
We talk of many things—all phases of one vast
wreck; and all the clear-cut points that come up I re-118 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

port by telegraph. To-day the talk was of American
cargoes in British ships and the machinery they have
set up here for fair settlement. Then of Americans
applying for enlistment in Canadian regiments. “‘If
sheer brute force conquer Europe,” said he, “the
United States will be the only country where life will
be worth living; and in time you will have to fight
against it, too, if it conquer Europe. . . .”

I hear nothing but satisfaction with our neutrality
tight-rope walk. I think we are keeping it here, by
close attention to our work and by silence.

Our volunteer and temporary aids are doing well
—especially the army and navy oficers. We now
occupy three work places: (1) the over-crowded
embassy; (2) a suite of offices around the corner
where the ever-lengthening list of inquiries for per-
sons is handled and where an army officer pays money
to persons whose friends have deposited it for them
with the Government in Washington—just now at the
rate of about $15,000 a day; and (3) two great rooms
at the Savoy Hotel, where the admirable relief com-
mittee (which meets all trains that bring people from
the Continent) gives aid to the needy and helps people
to get tickets home. They have this week helped
about 400 with more or less money—after full inves-
tigation.

At the Embassy a secretary remains till bed-time,
which generally means till midnight; and I go back
there for an hour or two every night.

The financial help we give to German and Austrian
subjects (poor devils) is given, of course, at their em-
bassies, where we have men—our men—in charge.
Each of these governments accepted my offer to give
our Ambassadors (Gerard and Penfield) a sum of
money to help Americans if I would set aside an equalENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 119

sum to help their people here. The German fund that
I thus began with was $50,000; the Austrian, $25,000.
All this and more will be needed before the war ends.
—All this activity is kept up with scrupulous atten-
tion to British rules and regulations. In fact, we are
helping this government much in the management of
these ‘alien enemies,” as they call them.

The soldiers here complained for weeks in private
about the lethargy of the people—the slowness of
men to enlist. But they seemed to me to complain
with insufficient reason. For now they come by thou-
sands. They do need more men in the field, and they
may conscript them, but I doubt the necessity. But I
run across such incidents as these: I met the Dowa-
ger Countess of D yesterday—a woman of
sixty-five, as tall as I and erect herself as a soldier, who
might be taken for a woman of forty, prematurely
gray. “I had five sons in the Boer War. I have
three in this war. I do not know where any one of
them is.”” Mrs. Page’s maid is talking of leaving her.
‘My two brothers have gone to the war and perhaps
I ought to help their wives and children.” The Coun-
tess and the maid are of the same blood, each alike
unconquerable. My chauffeur has talked all day
about the naval battle in which five German ships
were lately sunk.1_ He reminded me of the night two
months ago when he drove Mrs. Page and me to dine
with Sir John and Lady Jellicoe—Jellicoe now, you
know, being in command of the British fleet.

This Kingdom has settled down to war as its one
great piece of business now in hand, and it is impos-
sible, as the busy, burdensome days pass, to pick out
events or impressions that one can be sure are worth

 

1 Evidently the battle of Heligoland Bight of August 28, 1914.120 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

writing. For instance a soldier—a man in the War
Office—told me to-day that Lord Kitchener had just
told him that the war may last for several years.
That, I confess, seems to me very improbable, and
(what is of more importance) it is not the notion
held by most men whose judgment I respect. But all
the military men say it will be fong. .

_. Food here is practically as cheap as it was
three months ago and the sea routes are all open to
England and practically all closed to Germany. The
ultimate result, of course, will be Germany’s defeat.
But the British are now going about the business of
war as if they knew they would continue it indefinitely.

The grim efficiency of their work even in small de-
tails was illustrated to-day by the Government’s in-
forming us that a German handy man, whom the
German Ambassador left at his Embassy, with the
English Government’s consent, is a spy—that he sends
verbal messages to Germany by women who are per-
mitted to go home, and that they have found letters
written by him sewed in some of these women’s under-
garments! This man has been at work there every
day under the two very good men whom I have put in
charge there and who have never suspected him.
How on earth they found this out simply passes my
understanding. Fortunately it doesn’t bring any em-
barrassment to us; he was not in our pay and he was
left by the German Ambassador with the British Gov-
ernment’s consent, to take care of the house.

The Germans have far more than their match in
resources and in shrewdness and—in character. As
the bloody drama unfolds itself, the hollow pretense
and essential barbarity of Prussian militarism become
plainer and plainer: there is no doubt of that. AndENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR I21

so does the invincibility of this race. A well-known
Englishman told me to-day that his three sons, his
son-in-law, and half his office men are in the military
service, ‘where they belong in a time like this.” The
lady who once so sharply criticized this gentleman to
Mrs. Page has a son and a brother in the army in
France. It makes you take a fresh grip on your eye-
lids to hear either of these talk. In fact, the strain
On one’s emotions, day in and day out, makes one
wonder if the world is real—or is this a vast
dream? .. . No experience seems normal. A vast
organization is working day and night down town re-
ceiving Belgian refugees. ‘They become the guests of
the English. They are assigned to people’s homes,
to boarding houses, to institutions. They are taking
care of them—this government and this people are.
I do not recall when one nation ever did another whole
nation just such a hospitable service as this. You
can’t see that work going on and remain unmoved.
An old woman who has an income of $15 a week de-
cided that she could live on $7.50. She buys milk
with the other $7.50 and goes to meet every train
at one of the big stations with a basket filled with
baby bottles, and she gives milk to every hungry-
looking baby she sees. Our American committeeman,
Hoover, saw her in trouble the other day and asked
her what was the matter. She explained that the
police would no longer admit her to the platform be-
cause she didn’t belong to any relief committee. He
took her to headquarters and said: ‘Do you see this
good old lady? She puts you and me and everybody
else to shame—do you understand?” The old lady
now gets to the platform. Hoover himself gave
$5,000 for helping stranded Americans and he goes— i ear "

 

122 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

to the trains to meet them, while the war has stopped
his big business and his big income. This is a sample
of the noble American end of the story.

These are the saving class of people to whom life
becomes a bore unless they can help somebody.
There’s just such a fellow in Brussels—you may have
heard of him, for his name is Whitlock. Stories of
his showing himself a man come out of that closed-up
city every week. To a really big man, it doesn’t mat-
ter whether his post is a little post or a big post but,
‘{ I were President, I’d give Whitlock a big post.
There’s another fellow somewhere in Germany—a
consul—of whom I never heard till the other day.
But people have taken to coming in my ofice—English
ladies—who wish to thank “‘you and your great gov-
ernment” for the courage and courtesy of this consul.’
Stories about him will follow. Herrick, too, in Paris,
somehow causes Americans and English and even
Guatemalans who come along to go out of their way
to say what he has done for them. Now there is a
quality in the old woman with the baby bottles, and
“1 the consul and in Whitlock and Hoover and Her-
rick and this English nation which adopts the Bel-
gians—a quality that is invincible. When folk like
these come down the road, I respectfully do obeisance
to them. And—it’s this kind of folk that the Ger-
mans have run up against. I thank Heaven I’m of
their race and blood.

The whole world is bound to be changed as a result
of this war. If Germany should win, our Monroe
Doctrine would at once be shot in two, and we should
have to get “out of the sun.” The military party is
a party of conquest—absolutely. If England wins,

1The reference in all probability is to Mr. Charles L. Hoover,
at that time American Consul at Carlsbad.ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 123

as of course she will, itll be a bigger and a stronger
England, with no strong enemy in the world, with her
Empire knit closer than ever—lIndia, Canada, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt; under
obligations to and in alliance with Russia! England
will not need our friendship as much as she now needs
it; and there may come governments here that will
show they do not. In any event, you see, the world
willtbevchangeds ==".

All of which means that it is high time we were con-
structing a foreign service. First of all, Congress
ought to make it possible to have half a dozen under-
secretaries—men who, after service in the Depart-
ment, could go out as Ministers and Ambassadors;
it ought generously to reorganize the whole thing. It
ought to have a competent study made of the foreign
ofices of other governments. Of course it ought to
get room to work in. ‘Then it ought at once to give
its Ambassadors and Ministers homes and digni-
fied treatment. We've got to play a part in the
world whether we wish to or not. ‘Think of these
things.

The blindest great force in this world to-day is the
Prussian War Party—blind and stupid.—Well, and
the most weary man in London just at this hour is

Your humble servant,

Wa Eee
but he’ll be all right in the morning.

To Arthur W. Page

[ Undated ]
DEAR ARTHUR:
... I recall one night when we were dining at
Sir John Jellicoe’s, he told me that the Admiralty124 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

never slept—that he had a telephone by his bed every
night. .°.%

“Did it ever ring?” I asked.

“No; but it will.”

You begin to see pretty clearly how English history
has been made and makes itself. This afternoon
Lady S told your mother of her three sons, one
on a warship in the North Sea, another with the army
in France, and a third in training to go. “How brave
you all are!” said your mother, and her answer was:
“They belong to their country; we can’t do anything
else.’ One of the daughters-in-law of the late Lord
Salisbury came to see me to find out if I could make
an inquiry about her son who was reported “missing”’
after the battle of Mons. She was dry-eyed, calm,
self-restrained—very grateful for the effort I prom-
ised to make; but a Spartan woman would have
envied her self-possession. It turned out that her son
was dead.

You hear experiences like these almost every day.
These are the kinds of women and the kinds of men
that have made the British Empire and the English
race. You needn’t talk of decadence. All their great
qualities are in them here and now. I believe that half
the young men who came to Katharine’s* dances last
winter and who used to drop in at the house once in
a while are dead in France already. [hey went as
a matter of course. ‘This is the reason they are going
to win. Now these things impress you, as they come
to you day by day.

 

This government doesn’t now let anybody carry any
food away. But to-day they consented on condition

1Miss Katherine A. Page, the Ambassador’s daughter.ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 125

I’d receive the food (for the Belgians) and consign it
to Whitlock. This is their way of keeping it out of
German hands—have the Stars and Stripes, so to
speak, to cover every bag of flour and of salt. ‘That’s
only one of 1,000 queer activities that I engage in.
I have a German princess’s! jewels in our safe—
$100,000 worth of them in my keeping; I have an old
English nobleman’s check for $40,000 to be sent to
men who have been building a house for his daughter
in Dresden—to be sent as soon as the German Gov-
ernment agrees not to arrest the lady for debt. I
have sent Miss Latimer ? over to France to bring an
Austrian baby eight months old whose mother will
take it to the United States and bring it up an Ameri-
can citizen! The mother can’t go and get it for fear
the French might detain her; I’ve got the English
Government’s permission for the family to go to the
United States. Harold? is in Belgium, trying to get
a group of English ladies home who went there to
nurse wounded English and Belgians and whom the
Germans threaten to kidnap and transport to German
hospitals—every day a dozen new kinds of jobs.

To the President

[ Undated. ]
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
When England, France, and Russia agreed the
other day not to make peace separately, that cooked
the Kaiser’s goose. They'll wear him out. Since

1 Princess Lichnowsky, wife of the German Ambassador to Great
Britain.

2 Private Secretary to Mrs. Page.

3. Mr. Harold Fowler, the Ambassador’s Secretary." - a ae

 

126 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

England thus has Frenchmen and Russians bound, the
Allies are strengthened at their only weak place.
That done, England is now going deliberately, method-
ically, patiently to do the task. Even a fortnight ago,
the people of this Kingdom didn’t realize all that the
war means to them. But the fever is rising now.
The wounded are coming back, the dead are mourned,
and the agony of hearing only that such-and-such a
man is missing—these are having a prodigious effect.
The men I meet now say in a matter-of-fact way:
“Oh, yes! we’ll get ’em, of course; the only question is,
how long it will take us and how many of us it will
cost. But no matter, we'll get ’em.”’

a . e . . . . ? . e

To Edward M. House

October II, 1914.
Dear House:

There is absolutely nothing to write. It’s war, war,
war all the time; no change of subject; and, if you
changed with your tongue, you couldn’t change in your
thought; war, war, war—‘‘for God’s sake find out if
my son is dead or a prisoner’; rumors—they say that
two French generals were shot for not supporting
French, and then they say only one; and people come
who have helped take the wounded French from the
field and they won’t even talk, it is so horrible; and
a lady says that her own son (wounded) told her that
when a man raised up in the trench to fire, the stench
was so awful that it made him sick for an hour; and
the poor Belgians come here by the tens of thousands,
and special trains bring the English wounded; and the
newspapers tell little or nothing—every day’s reportsENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 127

like the preceding days’; and yet nobody talks about
anything else.

Meantime this invincible race is doing this revolu-
tionary task marvelously—volunteering; trying to buy
arms in the United States (a Pittsburgh manufacturer
is now here trying to close a bargain with the War
Office) ;1 knitting socks and mufflers; taking in all the
poor Belgians; stopping all possible expenditure;
darkening London at night; doing every conceivable
thing to win as if they had been waging this war
always and meant to do nothing else for the rest of
their lives—and not the slightest doubt about the re-
sult and apparently indifferent how long it lasts or
how much it costs.

We here don’t know what you think or what you
know at home; we haven't yet any time to read United
States newspapers, which come very, very late; nobody
writes us real letters (or the censor gets ’em, per-
haps!) ; and so the war, the war, the war is the one
thing that holds our minds.

We have taken a house for the Chancery ?—almost
the size of my house in Grosvenor Square—for the
same sum as rent that the landlord proposed hereafter
to charge us for the old hole where we've been for
twenty-nine years. For the first time Uncle Sam has
a decent place in London. We've five times as much

1 Probably a reference to Mr. Charles M. Schwab, President of
the Bethlehem Steel Company, who was in London at this time on

this errand.
2No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.128 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

room and ten times as much work. Now—yjust this
last week or two—I get off Sundays: that’s doing well.
And I don’t now often go back at night. So, you
see, we've much to be thankful for—Shall we insure
against Zeppelins? That’s what everybody’s asking.
I told the Spanish Ambassador yesterday that I am
going to ask the German Government for instructions
about insuring their Embassy here!

Write and send some news. I saw an American to-
day who says he’s going home to-morrow. “Cable
me,’’ said I, “if you find the continent where it used
to be.”

Faithfully yours,
WALTER H. Pace.

To Arthur W. Page

London, November 6, 1914.
DEAR ARTHUR:

Those excellent photographs, those excellent apples,
those excellent cigars—thanks. I’m thinking of send-
ing Kitty! over again. They all spell and smell and
taste of home—of the U. S. A. Even the messenger
herself seems Unitedstatesy, and that’s a good qual-
ity, I assure you. She’s told us less news than you'd
think she might for so long a journey and so long a
visit; but that’s the way with us all. And, I dare
say, if it were all put together it would make a pretty
big news-budget. And luckily for us (I often think
we are among the luckiest families in the world) all
she says is quite cheerful. It’s a wonderful report
she makes of County Line 7—the country, the place,

1Miss Katherine A. Page had just returned from a visit to the
United States.

2Mr. Arthur W. Page’s country home on Long Island.ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 129

the house, and its inhabitants. Maybe, praise God,
I’ll see it myself some day—it and them.

But—but—I don’t know when and can’t guess out
of this vast fog of war and doom. The worst of it is
nobody knows just what is happening. I have, for
an example, known for a week of the blowing up of
a British dreadnaught '—thousands of people know
it privately—and yet it isn’t published! Such secrecy
makes you fear there may be other and even worse
secrets. But I don’t really believe there are. What
I am trying to say is, so far as news (and many other
things) go, we are under a military rule.

It’s beginning to wear on us badly. It presses
down, presses down, presses down in an indescribable
way. All the people you see have lost sons or
brothers; mourning becomes visible over a wider area
all the time; people talk of nothing else; all the books
are about the war; ordinary social life is suspended—
people are visibly growing older. And there are
some aspects of it that are incomprehensible. .
There must already be a total of 2,000,000 killed.
Nothing like that has ever happened before in the his-
tory of the world. A flood or a fire or a wreck which
has killed 500 has often shocked all mankind. Yet
we know of this enormous slaughter and (in a way)
are not greatly moved. I don’t know of a better
measure of the brutalizing effect of war—it’s bringing
us to take a new and more inhuman standard to meas-
ure events by.

As for any political or economic reckoning—that’s
beyond any man’s ability yet. I see strings of incom-
prehensible figures that some economist or other now
and then puts in the papers, summing up the loss in

1. Evidently the Audacious, sunk by mine off the North of Ireland,
October 27, 1914.130 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

pounds sterling. But that means nothing because we
have no proper measure of it. If aman lose $10 or
$10,000 we can grasp that. But when nations shoot
away so many million pounds sterling every day—
that means nothing to me. I do know that there’s
going to be no money on this side the world for a long
time to buy American securities. The whole world
is going to be hard up in consequence of the bank-
ruptcy of these nations, the inestimable destruction of
property, and the loss of productive men. I fancy that
such a change will come in the economic and financial
readjustment of the world as nobody can yet guess at.
It is not
only South-American trade; it is all sorts of manu-
facturers; it is financial influence—if we can quit
spending and wasting, and husband our earnings.
There’s no telling the enormous advantages we shall
gain if we are wise..

                                    

When’s it going to end? Everybody who ought to
know says at the earliest next year—next summer.
Many say in two years. As for me, I don’t know. I
don’t see how it can end soon. Neither can lick the
other to a frazzle and neither can afford to give up
till it is completely licked. This way of living in
trenches and fighting a month at a time in one place
is a new thing in warfare. Many a man shoots a
cannon all day for a month without seeing a single
enemy. There are many wounded men back here
who say they haven’t seen a single German. When
the trenches become so full of dead men that the living
can’t stay there longer, they move back to other
trenches. So it goes on. Each side has several more
million men to lose. What the end will be—I meanENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR I31

when it will come, I don’t see how to guess. The
Allies are obliged to win; they have more food and
more money, and in the long run, more men. But the
German fighting machine is by far the best organiza-
tion ever made—not the best men, but the best organi-
zation; and the whole German people believe what the
woman writes whose letter I send you. It'll take a
long time to beat it.

Affectionately,
We Eiek:

To Ralph W. Page*

London, Sunday, November 15, 1914.
DEAR RALPH:

You were very good to sit down in Greensboro’, or
anywhere else, and to write me a fine letter. Do that
often. You say there’s nothing to do now in the
Sandhills. Write us letters: that’s a fair job!

God save us, we need’em. We need anything from
the sane part of the world to enable us to keep our
balance. One of the commonest things you hear
about now is the insanity of a good number of the poor
fellows who come back from the trenches as well as of
a good many Belgians. The sights and sounds they’ve
experienced unhinge their reason. If this war keep
up long enough—and it isn’t going to end soon—
people who have had no sight of it will go crazy, too
—the continuous thought of it, the inability to get
away from it by any device whatever—all this tells on
us all. Letters, then, plenty of them—let ‘em come.

You are ina peaceful land. The war is a long, long
way off. You suffer nothing worse than a little idle-

1Qf Pinehurst, North Carolina, the Ambassador's oldest son.= ae

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132 ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

ness and a little poverty. They are nothing. I hope
(and believe) that you get enough to eat. Be con-
tent, then. Read the poets, improve a piece of land,
play with the baby, learn golf. That's the happy and
philosophic and fortunate life in these times of world
madness.

As for the continent of Europe—forget it. We
have paid far too much attention to it. It has ceased
to be worth it. And now it’s of far less value to us—
and will be for the rest of your life—than it has ever
been before. An ancient home of man, the home, too,
of beautiful things—buildings, pictures, old places, old
traditions, dead civilizations—the place where man
rose from barbarism to civilization—it is now bank-
rupt, its best young men dead, its system of politics
and of government a failure, its social structure en-
slaving and tyrannical—it has little help for us. The
American spirit, which is the spirit that concerns itself
with making life better for the whole mass of men—
that’s at home at its best with us. The whole future
of the race is in the new countries—our country chiefly.
This grows on one more and more and more. ‘The
things that are best worth while are on our side of the
ocean. And we've got all the bigger job to do be-
cause of this violent demonstration of the failure of
continental Europe. It’s gone on living on a false
basis till its elements got so mixed that it has simply
blown itself to pieces. It is a great convulsion of
nature, as an earthquake or a volcano is. Human
life there isn’t worth what a yellow dog’s life is worth
in Moore County. Don’t bother yourself with the
continent of Europe any more—except to learn the
value of a real democracy and the benefits it can con-

fer precisely in proportion to the extent to which men
trust to it.ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR 33

Did you ever read my Address delivered before the
Royal Institution of Great Britain?! I enclose a
copy. Now that’s my idea of the very milk of the
word. ‘To come down to daily, deadly things—this
upheaval is simply infernal. Parliament opened the
other day and half the old lords that sat in their robes
had lost their heirs and a larger part of the members
of the House wore khaki. To-morrow they will vote
$1,125,000,000 for war purposes. ‘They had already
voted $500,000,000. They’ll vote more, and more,
and more, if necessary. They are raising a new army
of 2,000,000 men. Every man and every dollar they
have will go if necessary. That’s what I call an in-
vincible people. The Kaiser woke up the wrong pas-
senger. But for fifty years the continent won't be
worth living on. My heavens! what bankruptcy will
follow death!

Affectionately,
We Eel

1On June 12, 1914. The title of the address was “Some Aspects of
the American Democracy.”i.

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HE foregoing letters sufficiently portray Page’s

attitude toward the war; they also show the ex-
tent to which he suffered from the daily tragedy.
The great burdens placed upon the Embassy in them-
selves would have exhausted a physical frame that had
never been particularly robust; but more disintegrat-
ing than these was the mental distress—the constant
spectacle of a civilization apparently bent upon its own
destruction. Indeed, there were probably few men in
Europe upon whom the war had a more depressing
effect. In the first few weeks the Ambassador per-
ceptibly grew older; his face became more deeply
lined, his hair became grayer, his body thinner, his
step lost something of its quickness, his shoulders be-
gan to stoop, and his manner became more and more
abstracted.

‘In those first few weeks,” says Mr. Irwin Laugh-
lin, Page’s most important assistant, “he acted like
a man who was carrying on his shoulders all the sins
and burdens of the world. I know no man who
seemed to realize so poignantly the misery and sorrow
of it all. The sight of an England which he loved
bleeding to death in defense of the things in which
he most believed was a grief that seemed to be sap-
ing his very life.”

Page’s associates, however, noted a change for the
better after the Battle of the Marne. Except to his

134“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 135

most intimate companions he said little, for he repre-
sented a nation that was ‘‘neutral’’; but the defeat of
the Germans added liveliness to his step, gave a keener
sparkle to his eye, and even brought back some of his
old familiar gayety of spirit. One day the Ambassa-
dor was lunching with Mr. Laughlin and one or two
other friends.

‘We did pretty well in that Battle of the Marne,
didn’t we?” he said.

‘‘Isn’t that remark slightly unneutral, Mr. Ambas-
sador?”’ asked Mr. Laughlin.

At this a roar of laughter went up from the table
that could be heard for a considerable distance.

Yet greatly as his sympathies from the first day of
the war were enlisted on the side of the Allies, there
was no diplomat in the American service who was
more “neutral” in the technical sense. ‘‘Neutral!”
Page once exclaimed. ‘‘There’s nothing in the world
so neutral as this embassy. Neutrality takes up all
our time.’’ When he made this remark he was, as he
himself used to say, “the German Ambassador to
Great Britain.” And he was performing the duties
of this post with the most conscientious fidelity.

Page was prepared to observe all the traditional
rules of neutrality, to insist on American rights with
the British Government, and to do full legal justice
to the Germans, but he declined to abrogate his con-
science where his personal judgment of the rights and
wrongs of the conflict were concerned. ‘‘Neutrality,”’
he said in a letter to his brother, Mr. Henry A. Page,
of Aberdeen, N. C., “is a quality of government—an
artificial unit. When a war comes a government must
go in it or stay out of it. It must make a declaration
to the world of its attitude. That’s all that neutrality
is. A government can be neutral, but no man can be.”’136 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

“The President and the Government,” Page after-
ward wrote, “‘in their insistence upon the moral quality
of neutrality, missed the larger meaning of the war.
It is at bottom nothing but the effort of the Berlin
absolute monarch and his group to impose their will
on as large a part of the world as they can overrun.
The President started out with the idea that it was a
war brought on by many obscure causes—economic
and the like; and he thus missed its whole meaning.
We have ever since been dealing with the chips which
fly from the war machine and have missed the larger
meaning of the conflict. Thus we have failed to ren-
der help to the side of Liberalism and Democracy,
which are at stake in the world.”

Evidently Page did not regard his frank descrip-
tions of England under war as expressing unneutral
feeling; at any rate, as the war went on, his letters,
even those which he wrote to President Wilson, be-
came more and more outspoken. Page’s resignation
was always at the President’s disposal; the time came,
as will appear, when it was offered; so long as he oc-
cupied his post, however, nothing could turn him from
his determination to make what he regarded as an
accurate record of events. This policy of maintain-
ing an outward impartiality, and, at the same time,
of bringing pressure to bear on Washington in behalf
of the Allies, he called “waging neutrality.”

Such was the mood in which Page now prepared to
play his part in what was probably the greatest diplo-
matic drama in history. The materials with which
this drama concerned itself were such apparently life-
less subjects as ships and cargoes, learned discourses
on such abstract matters as the doctrine of continuous
voyage, effective blockade, and conditional contra-
band; yet the struggle, which lasted for three years,“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 137

involved the greatest issue of modern times—nothing
less than the survival of those conceptions of liberty,
government, and society which make the basis of
English-speaking civilization. To the newspaper
reader of war days, shipping difficulties signified little
more than a newspaper headline which he hastily read,
or a long and involved lawyer’s note which he seldom
read at all—or, if he did, practically never understood.

Yet these minute and neglected controversies pre-
sented to the American Nation the greatest decision
in its history. Once before, a century ago, a Euro-
pean struggle had laid before the United States prac-
tically the same problem. Great Britain fought
Napoleon, just as it had now been compelled to fight
the Hohenzollern, by blockade; such warfare, in the
early nineteenth century, led to retaliations, just as did
the maritime warfare in the recent conflict, and the
United States suffered, in 1812, as in 1914, from what
were regarded as the depredations of both sides. In
Napoleon’s days France and Great Britain, according
to the international lawyers, attacked American com-
merce in illegal ways; on strictly technical grounds this
infant nation had an adequate cause of war against
both belligerents; but the ultimate consequence of a
very confused situation was a declaration of war
against Great Britain.

Though an England which was ruled by a George
III or a Prince Regent—an England of rotten bor-
oughs, of an ignorant and oppressed peasantry, and of
a social organization in which caste was almost as def-
initely drawn as in an Oriental despotism—could
hardly appeal to the enthusiastic democrat as embody-
ing all the ideals of his system, yet the England of
1800 did represent modern progress when compared
with the medieval autocracy of Napoleon. If we138 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

take this broad view, therefore, we must admit that,
in 1812, we fought on the side of darkness and injus-
tice against the forces that were making for enlight-
enment. The war of 1914 had not gone far when
the thinking American foresaw that it would present
to the American people precisely this same problem.
What would the decision be? Would America repeat
the experience of 1812, or had the teachings of a
century so dissipated hatreds that it would be able to
exert its influence in a way more worthy of itself and
more helpful to the progress of mankind?

There was one great difference, however, between
the position of the United States in 1812 and its posi-
tion in 1914. A century ago we were a small and
feeble nation, of undeveloped industries and resources
and of immature character; our entrance into the Eu-
ropean conflict, on one side or the other, could have
little influence upon its results, and, in fact, it influ-
enced it scarcely at all; the side we fought against
emerged triumphant. In 1914, we had the greatest
industrial organization and the greatest wealth of any
nation and the largest white population of any country
except Russia; the energy of our people and our na-
tional talent for success had long been the marvel of
foreign observers. It mattered little in 1812 on
which side the United States took its stand; in 1914
such a decision would inevitably determine the issue.

Of all European statesmen there was one man who
saw this point with a definiteness which, in itself, gives
him a clear title to fame. That was Sir Edward Grey.
The time came when a section of the British public
was prepared almost to stone the Foreign Secretary
in the streets of London, because they believed that
his ‘subservience’? to American trade interests was
losing the war for Great Britain; his tenure of office“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 139

was a constant struggle with British naval and mili-
tary chiefs who asserted that the Foreign Office, in its
efforts to maintain harmonious relations with Amer-
Ica, was hamstringing the British fleet, was rendering
Riese impotent its control of the sea, and was thus
throwing away the greatest mdvantane which Great
Britain possessed in its life-and-death struggle.

These criticisms unquestionably caused Sir Edward
great unhappiness, but this did not for a moment
move him from his course. His vision was fixed upon
a much greater purpose. Parliamentary orators
might rage because the British fleet was not permitted
to make indiscriminate warfare on commerce, but the
patient and far-seeing British Foreign Secretary was
the man who was really trying to win the war. He
was one of the few Englishmen who, in August, 1914,
perceived the tremendous extent of the struggle in
which Great Britain had engaged. He saw that the
English people were facing the greatest crisis since
William of Normandy, in 1066, subjected their island
to foreign rule. Was England to become the ‘‘Reichs-
land” of a European monarch, and was the British
Empire to pass under the sway of Germany?

Proud as Sir Edward Grey was of his country, he
was modest in the presence of facts; and one fact of
which he early became convinced was that Great Brit-
ain could not win unless the United States was ranged
upon its side. Here was the country—so Sir Edward
reasoned—that contained the largest effective white
population in the world; that could train armies larger
than those of any other nation; that could make the
most munitions, build the largest number of battle-
ships and merchant vessels, and raise food in quanti-
ties great enough to feed itself and Europe besides.
This power, the Foreign Secretary believed, could de-140 ‘“WAGING NEUTRALITY

termine the issue of the war. If Great Britain se-
cured American sympathy and support, she would win;
‘f Great Britain lost this sympathy and support, she
would lose. A foreign policy that would estrange the
United States and perhaps even throw its support to
Germany would not only lose the war to Great Brit-
ain, but it would be perhaps the blackest crime in
history, for it would mean the collapse of that
British-American cooperation, and the destruction of
those British-American ideals and institutions which
are the greatest facts in the modern world. ‘This con-
viction was the basis of Sir Edward’s policy from the
day that Great Britain declared war. Whatever ene-
mies he might make in England, the Foreign Secretary
was determined to shape his course so that the support
of the United States would be assured to his country.
A single illustration shows the skill and wisdom with
which he pursued this great purpose.

Perhaps nothing in the early days of the war en-
raged the British military chiefs more than the fact
that cotton was permitted to go from the United
States to Germany. That Germany was using this
cotton in the manufacture of torpedoes to sink British
ships and of projectiles to kill British soldiers in
trenches was well known; nor did many people deny
that Great Britain had the right to put cotton on the
contraband list. Yet Grey, in the pursuit of his larger
end, refused to take this step. He knew that the
prosperity of the Southern States depended exclusively
upon the cotton crop. He also knew that the South
had raised the 1914 crop with no knowledge that war
was impending and that to deny the Southern planters
their usual access to the German markets would all but
ruin them. He believed that such a ruling would im-
mediately alienate the sympathy of a large section of‘“‘WAGING NEUTRALITY” I4I

the United States and make our Southern Senators
and Congressmen enemies of Great Britain.

Two other dangers constantly haunted Sir Edward’s
mind at this time. One was that the enemies of Great
Britain would assemble enough votes in Congress to
place an embargo upon the shipment of munitions
from this country. Such an embargo might well be
fatal to Great Britain, for at this time she was im-
porting munitions, especially shells, in enormous
quantities from the United States. The other was
that such pressure might force the Government to
convoy American cargoes with American warships.
Great Britain then could stop the cargoes only by at-
tacking our cruisers, and to attack a cruiser is an act
of war. Had Congress taken either one of these steps
the Allies would have lost the war in the spring of
1915. At a cabinet meeting held to consider this
question, Sir Edward Grey set forth this view and
strongly advised that cotton should not be made con-
traband at that time.t’ The Cabinet supported him
and events justified the decision. Afterward, in
Washington, several of the most influential Senators
informed Sir Edward that this action had averted a
great Crisis.

This was the motive, which, as will appear as the
story of our relations with Great Britain progresses,
inspired the Foreign Secretary in all his dealings with
the United States. His purpose was to use the sea
power of Great Britain to keep war materials and
foodstuffs out of Germany, but never to go to the
length of making an unbridgeable gulf between the
United States and Great Britain. The American Am-
bassador to Great Britain completely sympathized

1This was in October, 1914. In August, 1915, when conditions had
changed, cotton was declared contrabrand.oupuprore ea =_—r

 

142 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

with this program. It was Page’s business to protect
the rights of the United States, just as it was Grey's
to protect the rights of Great Britain. Both were
vigilant in protecting such rights, and animated dif-
ferences between the two men on this point were not
infrequent. Great Britain did many absurd and high-
handed things in intercepting American cargoes, and
Page was always active in “‘protesting” when the basis
for the protest actually existed. But on the great
overhanging issue the two men were at one.

Like Grey, Page believed that there were more 1m-
portant things involved than an occasional cargo of
copper or of oil cake. The American Ambassador
thought that the United States should protect its ship-
ping interests, but that it should realize that maritime
law was not an exact science, that its principles had
been modified by every great conflict in which the
blockade had been an effective agency, and that the
United States itself, in the Civil War, had not hesi-
tated to make such changes as the changed methods
of modern transportation had required. In other
words he believed that we could safeguard our rights
in a way that would not prevent Great Britain
from keeping war materials and foodstuffs out of Ger-
many.

That Page took this larger view of the supreme im-
portance of British and American coéperation 1s evi-
dent from the communications which he now began
sending to the President. One that he wrote on Oc-
tober 15, 1914, is especially to the point. The date
is extremely important; so early had Page formu-
lated the standards that should guide the United
States and so early had he begun his work of attempt-
ing to make President Wilson understand the real““WAGING NEUTRALITY” 143

nature of the conflict. The position which Page now
assumed was one from which he never departed.

To the President

In this great argument about shipping I cannot help
being alarmed because we are getting into deep water
uselessly. The Foreign Office has yielded unques-
tioningly to all our requests and has shown the sin-
cerest wish to meet all our suggestions, so long as it is
not called upon to admit war materials into Germany.
It will not give way to usin that. We would not yield
it if we were in their place. Neither would the Ger-
mans. England will risk a serious quarrel or even
hostilities with us rather than yield. You may look
upon this as the final word.

Since the last lists of contraband and conditional
contraband were published, such materials as rubber
and copper and petroleum have developed entirely
new uses in war. ‘he British simply will not let Ger-
many import them. Nothing that can be used for war
purposes in Germany now will be used for anything
else. Representatives of Spain, Holland, and all the
Scandinavian states agree that they can do nothing but
acquiesce and file protests and claims, and they admit
that Great Britain has the right to revise the list of
contraband.

This is not a war in the sense in which we have
hitherto used that word. It is a world clash of sys-
tems of government, a struggle to the extermination
of English civilization or of Prussian military autoc-
racy. Precedents have gone to the scrap heap. We
have a new measure for military and diplomatic ac-
tion. Let us suppose that we press for a few rights144 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

to which the shippers have a theoretical claim. The
American people gain nothing and the result is fric-
tion with this country; and that is what a very small
minority of the agitators in the United States would
likeseen:

Let us take a little farther view into the future.
If Germany win, will it make any difference what posi-
tion Great Britain took on the Declaration of Lon-
don? The Monroe Doctrine will be shot through.
We shall have to have a great army and a great navy.
But suppose that England win. We shall then have
an ugly academic dispute with her because of this con-
troversy. Moreover, we shall not hold a good posi-
tion for helping to compose the quarrel or for any
other service.

The present controversy seems here, where we are
close to the struggle . . . a petty matter when it is
compared with the grave danger we incur of shutting
ourselves off from a position to be of some service to
civilization and to the peace of mankind.

As we see the issue here, it is a matter of life
and death for English- speaking civilization. It is not
a happy time to raise controversies that can be avoided
or postponed. We gain nothing, we lose every chance
for useful codperation for peace. In jeopardy also
are our friendly relations with Great Britain in the
sorest need and the greatest crisis in her history. I
know that this is the correct view. I recommend most
earnestly that we shall substantially accept the new
Order in Council or acquiesce in it and reserve what-
ever rights we may have. I recommend prompt in-
formation be sent to the British Government of such
action. I should like to inform Grey that this is our
decision.

So far as our neutrality obligations are concerned,“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 145

I do not believe that they require us to demand that
Great Britain should adopt for our benefit the Dec-
laration of London. Great Britain has never ratified
it, nor have any other nations except the United
States. In its application to the situation presented
by this war it is altogether to the advantage of
Germany.

WALTER H. PAGE.

The immediate cause of this communication was, as
its context shows, the fact that the State Department
was insisting that Great Britain should adopt the Dec-
laration of London as a code of law for regulating its
warfare on German shipping. Hostilities had hardly
started when Mr. Bryan made this proposal; his tele-
gram on this subject is dated August 7, 1914. “You
will further state,” said Mr. Bryan, “that this Goy-
ernment believes that the acceptance of these laws by
the belligerents would prevent grave misunderstand-
ings which may arise as to the relations between bel-
ligerents and neutrals. It therefore hopes that this
inquiry may receive favorable consideration.” At the
same time Germany and the other belligerents were
asked to adopt this Declaration.

In Great Britain the Declaration had an especially
interesting course. In that country it became a foot-
ball of party politics. The Liberal Government was
at first inclined to look upon it favorably; the Liberal
House of Commons actually ratified it. It soon be-
came apparent, however, that this vote did not repre-
sent the opinion of the British public. In fact, few
measures have ever aroused such hostility as this Dec-
laration, once its details became known. For more146 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

than a year the hubbub against it filled the daily press,
the magazines, the two Houses of Parliament and the
hustings; Rudyard Kipling even wrote a poem de-
nouncing it. The adoption of the Declaration, these
critics asserted, would destroy the usefulness of the
British fleet. In many quarters it was described as a
German plot—as merely a part of the preparations
which Germany was making for world conquest. The
fact is that the Declaration could not successfully stand
the analysis to which it was now mercilessly submitted;
the House of Lords rejected it, and this action met
with more approbation than had for years been ac-
corded the legislative pronouncements of that cham-
ber. The Liberal House of Commons was not in the
least dissatisfied with this conclusion, for it realized
that it had made a mistake and it was only too happy
to be permitted to forget it.

When the war broke out there was therefore no
single aspect of maritime law which was quite so odi-
ous as the Declaration of London. Great Britain
realized that she could never win unless her fleet were
permitted to keep contraband out of Germany and, if
necessary, completely to blockade that country.
What enraged the British public against any sugges-
tion of the Declaration was that it practically deprived
Great Britain of this indispensable means of weaken-
ing the enemy. In this Declaration were drawn up
lists of contraband, non-contraband, and conditional
contraband, and all of these, in English eyes, worked
to the advantage of Germany and against the advan-
tage of Great Britain. How absurd this classification
was is evident from the fact that airplanes were not
listed as absolute contraband of war. Germany’s dif-
ficulty in getting copper was one of the causes of her
collapse; yet the Declaration put copper forever on“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 147

the non-contraband list; had this new code been
adopted, Germany could have imported enormous
quantities from this country, instead of being com-
pelled to reinforce her scanty supply by robbing
housewives of their kitchen utensils, buildings of their
hardware, and church steeples of their bells. Ger-
many’s most constant scramble for rubber formed a
diverting episode in the struggle; there are indeed
few things so indispensable in modern warfare; yet
the Declaration included rubber among the innocent
articles and thus opened up to Germany the world’s
supply. But the most serious matter was that the
Declaration would have prevented Great Britain from
keeping foodstuffs out of the Fatherland.

Germany, of course, promptly accepted the Dec-
laration, for the suggestion fitted in perfectly with
her program; but Great Britain was not so acquies-
cent. Four times was Page instructed to ask the
British Government to accede unconditionally, and
four times did the Foreign Office refuse. Page was in
despair. In the following letter he notified Colonel
House that if he were instructed again to move in this
matter he would resign his ambassadorship.

To Edward M. House

American Embassy, London,
October 22, 1914.
DEAR HOUSE:

This is about the United States and England.
Let’s get that settled before we try our hands at mak-
ing peace in Europe.

One of our greatest assets is the friendship of
Great Britain, and our friendship is a still bigger asset
for her, and she knows it and values it. Now, if148 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

either country should be damfool enough to throw
this away because old Stone! roars in the Senate
about something that hasn’t happened, then this crazy
world would be completely mad all round, and there
would be no good will left on earth at all.

The case is plain enough to me. England is going
to keep war materials out of Germany as far as she
can. We'd do it in her place. Germany would do
it. Any nation would do it. That’s all she has de-
clared her intention of doing. And, if she be let
alone, she'll do it in a way to give us the very least an-
noyance possible; for she'll go any length to keep our
friendship and good will. And she has not confis-
cated a single one of our cargoes even of unconditional
contraband. She has stopped some of them and
bought them herself, but confiscated not one. All
right; what do we do? We set out on a comprehen-
sive plan to regulate the naval warfare of the world
and we up and ask ’em all, ‘“‘Now, boys, all be good,
and agree to the Declaration of London.”

“Yah,” says Germany, “if England will.”

Now Germany isn’t engaged in naval warfare to
count, and she never even paid the slightest attention
to the Declaration all these years. But she saw that
it would hinder England and help her now, by forbid-
ding England to stop certain very important war
materials from reaching Germany. ‘Yah,’ said
Germany. But England said that her parliament had
rejected the Declaration in times of peace and that
she could now hardly be expected to adopt it in the
face of this Parliamentary rejection. But to please
us, she agreed to adopt it with only two changes.

1Senator William J. Stone, perhaps the leading spokesman of the
pro-German cause in the United States Senate. Senator Stone rep-
resented Missouri.“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 149

Then Lansing to the bat:

“No, no,” says Lansing, “you’ve got to adopt
ital:

Four times he’s made me ask for its adoption, the
last time coupled with a proposition that if England
would adopt it, she might issue a subsequent proclama-
tion saying that, since the Declaration 1s contradictory,
she will construe it in her own way, and the United
States will raise no objection!

In a word, England has acted in a friendly way to
us and will so act, if we allow her. But Lansing, in-
stead of trusting to her good faith and reserving all
our rights under international law and usage, imagines
that he can force her to agree to a code that the Ger-
mans now agree to because, in Germany’s present
predicament, it will be especially advantageous to
Germany. Instead of trusting her, he assumes that
she means to do wrong and proceeds to try to bind her
in advance. He hauls her up and tries her in court—
that’s his tone.

Now the relations that I have established with Sir
Edward Grey have been built up on frankness, fair-
ness and friendship. I can’t have relations of any
other sort nor can England and the United States
have relations of any other sort. This is the place
we've got to now. Lansing seems to assume that the
way to an amicable agreement is through an angry
controversy.

Lansing’s method is the trouble. He treats Great
Britain, to start with, as if she were a criminal and an
opponent. That’s the best way I know to cause
trouble to American shipping and to bring back the
good old days of mutual hatred and distrust for a150 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

generation or two. If that isn’t playing into the
hands of the Germans, what would be? And where's
the “neutrality” of this kind of action?

See here: If we let England go on, we can throw
the whole responsibility on her and reserve all our
rights under international law and usage and claim
damages (and get ’em) for every act of injury, if acts
of injury occur; and we can keep her friendship and
good will. Every other neutral nation is doing that.
Or we can insist on regulating all naval warfare and
have a quarrel and refer it to a Treaty Commission
and claim at most the selfsame damages with a less
chance to get ’em. We can get damages without a
quarrel; or we can have a quarrel and probably get
damages. Now, why, in God’s name, should we pro-
voke a quarrel?

Now about the peace of Europe. Nothing can yet
be done, perhaps nothing now can ever be done by us.
The Foreign Office doubts our wisdom and prudence
since Lansing came into action. The whole atmos-
phere is changing. One more such move and they
will conclude that Dernburg and Bernstorff have se-
duced us—without our knowing it, to be sure; but
their confidence in our judgment will be gone. God
knows I have tried to keep this confidence intact and
our good friendship secure. But I have begun to get
despondent over the outlook since the President tele-
graphed me that Lansing’s proposal would settle the
matter. I still believe he did not understand it—he
couldn’t have done so. Else he could not have ap-
proved it. But that tied my hands. If Lansing
again brings up the Declaration of London—after
four flat and reasonable rejections—I shall resign.“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 151

I will not be the instrument of a perfectly gratuitous
and ineffective insult to this patient and fair and
friendly government and people who in my time have
done us so many kindnesses and never an injury but
Carden, and who sincerely try now to meet our
wishes. It would be too asinine an act ever to merit
forgiveness or ever to be forgotten. I should blame
myself the rest of my life. It would grieve Sir Ed-
ward more than anything except this war. It would
knock the management of foreign affairs by this ad-
ministration into the region of sheer idiocy. I’m
afraid any peace talk from us, as it 1s, would merely
be whistling down the wind. If we break with Eng-
land—not on any case or act of violence to our ship-
ping—but on a_ useless discussion, in advance, of
general principles of conduct during the war—yJust for
a discussion—we've needlessly thrown away our great
chance to be of some service to this world gone mad.
If Lansing isn’t stopped, that’s what he will do. Why
doesn’t the President see Spring Rice? Why don't
you take him to see him?

Good night, my good friend. I still have hope that

the President himself will take this in hand.
Yours always,

Ws ELBE:

The letters and the cablegrams which Page was
sending to Colonel House and the State Department
at this time evidently ended the matter. By the
middle of October the two nations were fairly dead-
locked. Sir Edward Grey’s reply to the American
proposal had been an acceptance of the Declaration of
London with certain modifications. For the list of
contraband in the Declaration he had submitted the
list already adopted by Great Britain in its Order in152 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

Council, and he had also rejected that article which
made it impossible for Great Britain to apply the
doctrine of “continuous voyage’’ to conditional con-
traband. The modified acceptance, declared Mr.
Lansing, was a practical rejection—as of course it was,
and as it was intended to be. So the situation re-
mained for several exciting weeks, the State Depart-
ment insisting on the Declaration in full, precisely as
the legal luminaries had published it five years before,
the Foreign Office courteously but infiexibly refusing
to accede. Only the cordial personal relations which
prevailed between Grey and Page prevented the crisis
from producing the most disastrous results. Finally,
on October 17th, Page proposed by cable an arrange-
ment which he hoped would settle the matter. This
was that the King should issue a proclamation accept-
ing the Declaration with practically the modifications
suggested above, and that a new Order in Council
should be issued containing a new list of contraband.
Sir Edward Grey was not to ask the American Govern-
ment to accept this proclamation; all that he asked
was that Washington should offer no objections to it.
It was proposed that the United States at the same
time should publish a note withdrawing its suggestion
for the adoption of the Declaration, and explaining
that it proposed to rest the rights of its citizens upon
the existing rules of international law and the treaties
of the United States. This solution was accepted.

‘Now we can goon, . . . inan independent position
vigorously stand up for every right and privilege under
law and usage and treaties; and we have here a govern-
ment that we can deal with frankly and not (I hope)
in a mood to suspect us of wishing to put it at a disad-
vantage for the sake of a general code or doctrine. A“WAGING NEUTRALITY” G3

land and naval and air and submarine battle (the
greatest battle in the history of the belligerent race of
man) within seventy-five miles of the coast of Eng-
land, which hasn’t been invaded since 1066 and is now
in its greatest danger since that time; and this is no
time I fear, to force a great body of doctrine on Great
Britain. God knows I’m afraid some American boat
will run on a mine somewhere in the Channel or the
North Sea. There’s war there as there is on land in
Germany. Nobody tries to get goods through on land
on the continent, and they make no complaints that
commerce is stopped. Everybody tries to ply the
Channel and the North Sea as usual, both of which
have German and English mines and torpedo craft
and submarines almost as thick as batteries along the
hostile camps on land. The British Government
(which now issues marine insurance) will not insure a
British boat to carry food to Holland en route to the
starving Belgians; and I hear that no government and
no insurance company will write insurance for anything
going across the North Sea. I wonder if the extent
and ferocity and danger of this war are fully realized
in the United States?”

And so this crisis was passed; it was the first great
service that Page had rendered the cause of the Allies
and his own country. Yet shipping dificulties had
their more agreeable aspects. Had it not been for
the fact that both Page and Grey had an understand-
ing sense of humor, neutrality would have proved a
more difficult path than it actually was. Even amid
the tragic problems with which these two men were
dealing there was not lacking an occasional moment’s
relaxation into the lighter aspect of things.

One of the curious memorials preserved in the154 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

British Foreign Office is the canceled $15,000,000
check with which Great Britain paid the Alabama
claims. ‘That the British should frame this memento
of their great diplomatic feat and hang it in the
Foreign Office is an evidence of the fact that in states-
manship, as in less exalted matters, the English are
excellent sportsmen. ‘The real justification of the
honor paid to this piece of paper, of course, is that the
settlement of the Alabama claims by arbitration sig-
nalized a great forward step in international relations
and did much to heal a century’s troubles between the
United States and Great Britain. Sir Edward Grey
used frequently to call Page’s attention to this docu-
ment. It represented the amount of money, then
considered large, which Great Britain had paid the
United States for the depredations on American ship-
ping for which she was responsible during the
Civil War.

One day the two men were discussing certain de-
tentions of American cargoes—high-handed acts
which, in Page’s opinion, were unwarranted. Not in-
frequently, in the heat of discussion, Page would get
up and pace the floor. And on this occasion his body,
as well as his mind, was in a state of activity. Sud-
denly his eye was attracted by the framed Alabama
check. He leaned over, peered at it intensely, and
then quickly turned to the Foreign Secretary:

‘If you don’t stop these seizures, Sir Edward, some
day you’ll have your entire room papered with things
like that!”

Not long afterward Sir Edward in his turn scored
on Page. The Ambassador called to present one of
the many State Department notes. ‘The occasion was
an embarrassing one, for the communication was writ-
ten in the Department’s worst literary style. It not“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 155

infrequently happened that these notes, in the form
in which Page received them, could not be presented
to the British Government; they were so rasping and
undiplomatic that Page feared that he would suffer the
humiliation of having them returned, for there are
certain things which no self-respecting Foreign Office
will accept. On such occasions it was the practice of
the London Embassy to smooth down the language be-
fore handing the paper to the Foreign Secretary.
The present note was one of this kind; but Page, be-
cause of his friendly relations with Grey, decided to
transmit the communication in its original shape.

Sir Edward glanced over the document, looked up,
and remarked, with a twinkle in his eye:

“This reads as though they think that they are still
talking to George the Third.”

The roar of laughter that followed was something
quite unprecedented amid the thick and dignified
walls of the Foreign Office.

It has been said that the tact and good sense of
Page and Grey, working sympathetically for the same
end, avoided many an impending crisis. The trouble
caused early in 1915 by the ship Dacia and the way in
which the difficulty was solved, perhaps illustrate the
value of this codperation at its best. In the early days
of the War Congress passed a bill admitting foreign
ships to American registry. The wisdom and even
the “neutrality” of such an act were questioned at the
time. Colonel House, in one of his early telegrams
to the President, declared that this bill “is full of lurk-
ing dangers.” Colonel House was right. ‘The
trouble was that many German merchant ships were
‘interned in American harbors, fearing to put to sea,
where the watchful British warships lay waiting for
them. Any attempt to place these vessels under the156 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

American flag, and to use them for trade between
American and German ports, would at once cause a
crisis with the Allies, for such a paper change in owner-
ship would be altogether too transparent. Great
Britain viewed this legislation with disfavor, but did
not think it politic to protest such transfers generally;
Spring Rice contented himself with informing the
State Department that his government would not ob-
ject so long as this changed status did not benefit Ger-
many. If such German ships, after being transferred
to the American flag, engaged in commerce between
American ports and South American ports, or other
places remotely removed from the Fatherland, Great
Britain would make no difficulty.

The Dacia, a merchantman of the Hamburg-
America line, had been lying at her wharf in Port
Arthur, Texas, since the outbreak of the war. In
early January, 1915, she was purchased by Mr. E. N.
Breitung, of Marquette, Michigan. Mr. Breitung
caused great excitement in the newspapers when he
announced that he had placed the Dacia under Ameri-
can registry, according to the terms of this new law,
had put upon her an American crew, and that he pro-
posed to load her with cotton and sail for Germany.

The crisis had now arisen which the well-wishers of
Great Britain and the United States had so dreaded.
Great Britain’s position was a difficult one. If it ac-
quiesced, the way would be opened for placing under
American registry all the German and Austrian ships
that were then lying unoccupied in American ports and
using them in trade between the United States and the
Central Powers. If Great Britain seized the Dacia,
then there was the likelihood that this would embroil
her with the American Government—and this would
serve German purposes quite as well.“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 157

Sir Cecil Spring Rice, the British Ambassador at
Washington, at once notified Washington that the
Dacia would be seized if she sailed for a German port.
The cotton which she intended to carry was at that
time not contraband, but the vessel itself was German
and was thus subject to apprehension as enemy prop-
erty. The seriousness of this position was that
technically the Dacia was now an American ship, for
an American citizen owned her, she carried an Ameri-
can crew, she bore on her flagstaff the American flag,
and she had been admitted to American registry under
a law recently passed by Congress. How could the
United States sit by quietly and permit this seizure to
take place? When the Dacia sailed on January 23rd
the excitement was keen; the voyage had obtained a
vast amount of newspaper advertising, and the eyes
of the world were fixed upon her. German sympa-
thizers attributed the attitude of the American Gov-
ernment in permitting the vessel to sail as a “dare”
to Great Britain, and the fact that Great Britain had
announced her intention of taking up this ‘“dare’’ made
the situation still more tense.

When matters had reached this pass Page one day
dropped into the Foreign Office.

“Have you ever heard of the British fleet, Sir Ed-
ward?” he asked.

Grey admitted that he had, though the question ob-
viously puzzled him.

“Yes,” Page went on, musingly. ‘“We’ve all heard
of the British fleet. Perhaps we have heard too much
about it. Don’t you think it’s had too much adver-
tising ?”’

The Foreign Secretary looked at Page with an ex-
pression that implied a lack of confidence in his sanity.

“But have you ever heard of the French fleet ?”’ the158 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

American went on. ‘“‘France has a fleet too, I be-
lieve.”

Sir Edward granted that.

“Don’t you think that the French fleet ought to
have a little advertising °”’

‘“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Well,” said Page, “there’s the Dacia. Why not
let the French fleet seize it and get some advertising ?”’

A gleam of understanding immediately shot across
Grey’s face. The old familiar twinkle came into his
eye.
“Yes,” he said, ‘‘why not let the Belgian royal yacht
seize it?”

This suggestion from Page was one of the great in-
spirations of the war. It amounted to little less than
genius. By this time Washington was pretty wearied
of the Dacia, for mature consideration had convinced
the Department that Great Britain had the right on
its side. Washington would have been only too glad
to find a way out of the difficult position into which it
had been forced, and this Page well understood. But
this government always finds itself in an awkward
plight in any controversy with Great Britain, because
the hyphenates raise such a noise that it has difficulty
in deciding such disputes upon their merits. To ig-
nore the capture of this ship by the British would have
brought all this hullabaloo again about the ears of the
Administration.

But the position of France is entirely different; the
memories of Lafayette and Rochambeau still exercise
a profound spell on the American mind; France does
not suffer from the persecution of hyphenate popula-
tions, and Americans will stand even outrages from
France without getting excited. Page knew that if
the British seized the Dacia, the cry would go up in“WAGING NEUTRALITY” 159

certain quarters for immediate war, but that, if France
committed the same crime, the guns of the adversary
would be spiked. It was purely a case of sentiment
and “psychology.” And so the event proved. His
suggestion was at once acted on; a French cruiser
went out into the Channel, seized the offending ship,
took it into a port, where a French prize court
promptly condemned it. The proceeding did not
cause even a ripple of hostility. The Dacia was sold
to Frenchmen, rechristened the Yser and put to work
in the Mediterranean trade. The episode was closed
in the latter part of 1915 when a German submarine
torpedoed the vessel and sent it to the bottom.

Such was the spirit which Page and Sir Edward Grey
brought to the solution of the shipping problems of
1914-1917. There is much more to tell of this great
task of “waging neutrality,” and it will be told in its
proper place. But already it is apparent to what ex-
tent these two men served the cause of English-
speaking civilization. Neither would quibble or up-
hold an argument which he thought unjust, even
though his nation might gain in a material sense, and
neither would pitch the discussion in any other key
than forbearance and mutual accommodation and
courtliness. For both men had the same end in view.
They were both thinking, not of the present, but of
the coming centuries. The cooperation of the two
nations in meeting the dangers of autocracy and Prus-
sian barbarism, in laying the foundations of a future
in which peace, democracy, and international justice
should be the directing ideas of human society—such
was the ultimate purpose at which these two states-
men aimed.

And no men have ever been more splendidly justi-
fied by events. The Anglo-American situation of160 “WAGING NEUTRALITY”

1914 contained dangers before which all believers in
real progress now shudder. Had Anglo-American
diplomacy been managed with less skill and considera-
tion, the United States and Great Britain would have
become involved in a quarrel beside which all their
previous differences would have appeared insignifi-
cant. Mutual hatreds and hostilities would have
risen that would have prevented the entrance of the
United States into the war on the side of the Allies.
It is not inconceivable that the history of 1812 would
have been repeated, and that the men and resources of
this country might have been used to support purposes
which have always been hateful to the American con-
science.

That the world was saved from this calamity is ow-
ing largely to the fact that Great Britain had in its
Foreign Office a man who was always solving tem-
porary irritations with his eyes constantly fixed upon
a great goal, and that the United States had as am-
bassador in London a man who had the most exalted
view of the mission of his country, who had dedicated
his life to the world-wide spread of the American
ideal, and who believed that an indispensable part of
this work was the maintenance of a sympathetic and
helpful codperation with the English-speaking peoples.CHAPTER IX
GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

HE Declaration of London was not the only
(4 li problem that distracted Page in these early
months of the war. Washington’s apparent deter-
mination to make peace also added to his daily anx-
ieties. That any attempt to end hostilities should
have distressed so peace-loving and humanitarian a
statesman as Page may seem surprising; it was, how-
ever, for the very reason that he was a man of peace
that these Washington endeavors caused him endless
worry. The inspiring force back of the proposals, as
the Ambassador well understood, was a panic-stricken
Germany. The real purpose was not a peare, but a
truce; and the cause which was to be advanced was not
democracy but Prussian absolutism. Between the
Battle of the Marne and the sinking of the Lusitania
four attempts were made to end the war; all four were
set afoot by Germany. President Wilson was the
man to whom the Germans appealed to rescue them
from their dilemma.

It is no longer a secret that the Germans at this
time regarded their situation as a tragic one; the suc-
cess that they had anticipated for forty years had
proved to be a disaster. The attempt to repeat the
great episodes of 1864, 1866, and 1870, when Prussia
had overwhelmed Denmark, Austria, and France in
three brief campaigns, had ignominiously failed. In-

stead of beholding a conquered Europe at her feet,
161162 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

Germany awoke from her illusion to find herself en-
compassed by a ring of resolute and powerful foes.
The fact that the British Empire, with its immense
resources, naval, military, and economic, was now
leading the alliance against them, convinced the
most intelligent Germans that the Fatherland was face
to face with the greatest crisis in its history.

Peace now became the underground Germanic pro-
gram. Yet the Germans did not have that inexorable
respect for facts which would have persuaded them to
accept terms to which the Allies could consent. The
military oligarchy were thinking not so much of saving
the Fatherland as of saving themselves; a settlement
which would have been satisfactory to their enemies
would have demanded concessions which the German
people, trained for forty years to expect an unparal-
leled victory, would have regarded as a defeat. The
collapse of the militarists and of Hohenzollernism
would have ensued. What the German oligarchy de-
sired was a peace which they could picture to their
deluded people as a triumph, one that would enable
them to extricate themselves at the smallest possible
cost from what seemed a desperate position, to escape
the penalties of their crimes, to emerge from their
failure with a Germany still powerful, both in eco-
nomic resources and in arms, and to set to work
again industriously preparing for a renewal of the
struggle at a more favorable time. If negotiations
resulted in such a truce, the German purpose would be
splendidly served; even if they failed, however, the
gain for Germany would still be great. Germany
could, appear as the belligerent which desired peace
and the Entente could perhaps be maneuvered into the
position of the side responsible for continuing the war.

The consideration which was chiefly at stake inGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 163

these tortuous proceedings was public opinion in the
United States. Americans do not yet understand the
extent to which their country was regarded as the de-
termining power. Both the German and the British
Foreign Offices clearly understood, in August, 1914,
that the United States, by throwing its support, es-
pecially its economic support, to one side or the other,
could settle the result. Probably Germany grasped
this point even more clearly than did Great Britain,
for, from the beginning, she constantly nourished the
hope that she could embroil the United States and
Great Britain—a calamity which would have given
victory to the German arms.

In every German move there were thus several mo-
tives, and one of the chief purposes of the subter-
ranean campaigns which she now started for peace
was the desire of putting Britain in the false light of
prolonging the war for aggressive purposes, and thus
turning to herself that public opinion in this country
which was so outspoken on the side of the Allies.
Such public opinion, if it could be brought to regard
Germany in a tolerant spirit; could easily be fanned
into a flame by the disputes over blockades and ship-
ping, and the power of the United States might thus
be used for the advancement of the Fatherland. On
the other hand, if Germany could obtain a peace which
would show a profit for her tremendous effort, then
the negotiations would have accomplished their pur-
pose.

The Ambassador was especially apprehensive of
these peace moves in the early days of September,
when the victorious German armies were marching on
Paris. In London, as in most parts of the world, the
capture of the French capital was then regarded as
inevitable. September 3, 1924, was One of the dark-164 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

est days in modern times. The population of Paris
was fleeing southward; the Government had moved its
headquarters to Bordeaux; and the moment seemed to
be at hand when the German Emperor would make
his long anticipated entry into the capital of France.
It was under these circumstances that the American
Ambassador to Great Britain sent the following mes-
sage directly to the President:

To the President

American Embassy, London,
Sep. 3, 4. A. M.

Everybody in this city confidently believes that the
Germans, if they capture Paris will make a proposal
for peace, and that the German Emperor will send
you a message declaring that he is unwilling to shed
another drop of blood. Any proposal that the Kaiser
makes will be simply the proposal of a conqueror.
His real purpose will be to preserve the Hohenzollern
dynasty and the imperial bureaucracy. The prevail-
ing English judgment is that, if Germany be permitted
to stop hostilities, the war will have accomplished
nothing. ‘There is a determination here to destroy
utterly the German bureaucracy, and Englishmen
are prepared to sacrifice themselves to any extent in
men and money. The preparations that are being
made here are for a long war; as I read the disposi-
tion and the character of Englishmen they will not
stop until they have accomplished their purpose.
There is a general expression of hope in this country
that neither the American Government nor the public
opinion of our country will look upon any suggestion
for peace as a serious one which does not aim, first ofGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 165

all, at the absolute destruction of the German bureau-
cracy.

PAGE.

This message had hardly reached Washington when
the peace effort of which it warned the President be-
gan to take practical form. In properly estimating
these maneuvers it must be borne in mind that Ger-
man diplomacy always worked underground and that
it approached its negotiations in a way that would
make the other side appear as taking the initiative.
This was a phase of German diplomatic technique with
which every European Foreign Office had long been
familiar. Count Bernstorff arrived in the United
States from Germany in the latter part of August,
evidently with instructions from his government to se-
cure the intercession of the United States.

There were two unofficial men in New York who
were ideally qualified to serve the part of intermedia-
ries: Mr. James Speyer and Mr. Oscar S. Straus.
Mr. Straus had been born in Germany; his father had
been a German revolutionist of ’Forty-eight; like
Carl Schurz, Abraham Jacobi, and Franz Sigel, he had
come to America to escape Prussian militarism and the
Prussian autocracy, and his children had been educated
‘na detestation of the things for which the German
Empire stood. Three times Mr. Straus had served
the United States as Ambassador to Turkey; he had
filled the post of Secretary of Commerce and Labor
‘n President Roosevelt’s Cabinet and had held other
important public commissions. Among his other activ-
ities, Mr. Straus had played an important part in the166 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

peace movement of the preceding quarter of a century
and he had been a member of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration at The Hague.

On September 4th, Mr. Straus arrived at New York
on the Mauretania. He had hardly reached this
country when he was called upon the telephone by Mr.
James Speyer, a friend of many years’ standing.
Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, Mr.
Speyer said, was a guest at his country home, Wald-
heim, at Scarboro, on the Hudson; Mr. Speyer was
giving a small, informal dinner the next evening, Satur-
day, September 5th, and he asked Mr. and Mrs. Straus
to come. Mr. Straus accepted the invitation, men-
tally resolving that he would not discuss the war him-
self, but merely listen. It would certainly have been
a difficult task for any man to avoid this subject on
this particular evening; the date was September Sth,
the day when the German Army suddenly stopped in
its progress toward Paris, and began retreating, the
French and the British forces in pursuit. A few min-
utes before Count Bernstorff sat down at Mr. Speyer’s

table, with Mr. Straus opposite, he had learned that

the magnificent enterprise which Germany had planned
for forty years had failed and that his country was
facing a monstrous disaster. The Battle of the Marne
was raging in all its fury while this pacific conversation
at Mr. Speyer’s house was taking place.

Of course the war became the immediate topic of
discussion. Count Bernstorff at once plunged into the
usual German point of view—that Germany did not
want war in the first place, that the Entente had
forced the issue, and the like.

‘The Emperor and the German Government stood
for peace,” he said.

Naturally, a man who had spent a considerableGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 167

part of his life promoting the peace cause pricked up
his ears at this statement.

“Does that sentiment still prevail in Germany?”
asked Mr. Straus.

“Yes,” replied the German Ambassador.

“Would your government entertain a proposal for
mediation now ?”’ asked Mr. Straus.

“Certainly,” Bernstorff promptly replied. He has-
tened to add, however, that he was speaking unofh-
cially.

“Do you object to my laying this matter before our
government ?””

= Novledo! not.”

Mr. Straus glanced at his watch; it was 10:15
o'clock.

“T think I shall go to Washington at once—this
very night. I can get the midnight train.”

In a few minutes, Mr. Straus was speeding in his
automobile through Westchester County in the direc-
tion of the Pennsylvania Station. He caught the ex-
press, and, the next morning, which was Sunday the
sixth, he was laying the whole matter before Secretary
Bryan at the latter’s house. Naturally, Mr. Bryan
was overjoyed at the news; he at once summoned
Bernstorff from New York to Washington, and went
over the suggestion personally. The German Am-
bassador repeated the statements which he had made
to Mr. Straus—always guardedly qualifying his re-
marks by saying that the proposal had not come orig-
inally from him but from his American friend. Mean-
while Mr. Bryan asked Mr. Straus to discuss the mat-
ter with the British and French ambassadors.

Both thought that the proposal should be seriously
considered.

“Tf it holds out one chance in a hundred of lessen-168 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

ing the length of the war, we should entertain it,” said
Ambassador Jusserand.

These facts were at once cabled to Page, who took
the matter up with Sir Edward Grey. A despatch
from the latter to the British Ambassador in Washing-
ton gives a splendid summary of the British attitude
on such approaches at this time.

Sir Edward Grey to Sir Cecil Spring Rice

Foreign Office,
September 9, 1914.
SIR:

The American Ambassador showed me to-day a
communication that he had from Mr. Bryan. It
was to the effect that Mr. Straus and Mr. Speyer
had been talking with the German Ambassador, who
had said that, though he was without instructions, he
thought that Germany might be disposed to end the
war by mediation. .. .

The American Ambassador said to me that this in-
formation gave him a little concern. He feared that,
coming after the declaration that we had signed last
week with France and Russia about carrying on the
war in common, the peace parties in the United States
might be given the impression that Germany was in
favor of peace, and that the responsibility for con-
tinuing war was on others.

I said that the agreement that we had made with
France and Russia was an obvious one; when three
countries were at war on the same side, one of them
could not honorably make special terms for itself and

1On September 5, 1914, Great Britain, France, and Russia signed
the Pact of London, an agreement which bound the three Powers of
the Entente to make war and peace as a unit. Each Power specifi-
cally pledged itself not to make a separate peace.GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 169

leave the others in the lurch. As to mediation, I was
favorable to it in principle, but the real question was:
On what terms could the war be ended? If the
United States could devise anything that would bring
this war to an end and prevent another such war
being forced on Europe I should welcome the proposal.

The Ambassador said that before the war began I
had made suggestions for avoiding it, and that these
suggestions had been refused.

I said that this was so, but since the war began there
were two further considerations to be borne in mind:
We were fighting to save the west of Europe from
being dominated by Prussian militarism; Germany had
prepared to the day for this war, and we could not
again have a great military power in the middle of
Europe preparing war in this way and forcing it upon
us; and the second thing was that cruel wrong had
been done to Belgium, for which there should be some
compensation. I had no indication whatever that
Germany was prepared to make any reparation to
Belgium, and, while repeating that in principle I was
favorable to mediation, I could see nothing to do but
to wait for the reply of the German Emperor to the
question that Mr. Bryan had put to him and for the
United States to ascertain on what terms Germany
would make peace if the Emperor's reply was favor-
able to mediation.

The Ambassador made it quite clear that he re-
garded what the German Ambassador had said as a
move in the game. He agreed with what I had said
respecting terms of peace, and that there seemed no
prospect at present of Germany being prepared to

accept them.
I am, &c.,

E. GREY.170 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

A letter from Page to Colonel House gives Page’s
interpretation of this negotiation:

To Edward M. House

London, September 10, 1914.
My DEAR House:

A rather serious situation has arisen: The Ger-
mans of course thought that they would take Paris.
They were then going to propose a conqueror’s terms
of peace, which they knew would not be accepted. But
they would use their so-called offer of peace purely
for publicity purposes. They would say, ‘See, men of
the world, we want peace; we offer peace; the con-
tinuance of this awful war is not our doing.”

Every nation was willing to accept Sir Edward
Grey’s proposals? but Germany. She was bent on a
war of conquest. Now she’s likely to get licked—
lock, stock, and barrel. She is carrying on a propa-
ganda and a publicity campaign all over the world.
The Allies can’t and won’t accept any peace except on
the condition that German militarism be uprooted.
They are not going to live again under that awful
shadow and fear. They say truly that life on such
terms is not worth living. Moreover, if Germany
should win the military control of Europe, she would
soon—that same war party—attack the United States.
The war will not end until this condition can be im-
posed—that there shall be no more militarism.

But in the meantime, such men as Straus (a good
fellow) may be able to let (by helping) the Germans
appear to the Peace people as really desiring peace.

Of course, what they want is to save their mutton.

1 This refers, of course, to proposals made before the war started,GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 171

And if we begin mediation talk now on that basis,
we shall not be wanted when a real chance for media-
tion comes; our chance for real usefulness will be
thrown away.

Put the President on his guard.

Wee:

In the latter part of the month came Germany's
reply. One would never suspect, when reading it,
that Germany had played any part in instigating the
negotiation. The Kaiser repeated the old charges
that the Entente had forced the war on the Father-
land, that it was now determined to annihilate the
Central Powers and that consequently there was no
hope that the warring countries could agree upon ac-
ceptable terms for ending the struggle.

So ended Germany’s first peace drive, and in the
only possible way that it could end. But the Wash-
ington administration continued to be most friendly
to mediation. A letter of Colonel House’s, dated Oc-
tober 4, 1914, possesses great historical importance.
It was written after a detailed discussion with Presi-
dent Wilson, and it indicates not only the President’s
desire to bring the struggle to a close, but it describes
in some detail the principles which the President then
regarded as essential to a permanent peace. It fur-
rishes the central idea of the presidential policy for
the next four years; indeed, it contains the first state-
ment of that famous “Article X’’ of the Covenant of
the League of Nations which was Mr. Wilson’s most
important contribution to that contentious document.
This was the article which pledges the League “to
respect and preserve as against external aggression
the territorial integrity and existing political independ-
ence” of all its members; it was the article which,V72 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

more than any other, made the League obnoxious to
Americans, who interpreted it as an attempt to in-
volve them perpetually in the quarrels of Europe; and
it was the one section of the Treaty of Versailles
which was most responsible for the rejection of that
document by the United States Senate. There are
other suggestions in Colonel House’s letter which ap-
parently bore fruit in the League Covenant. It is
somewhat astonishing that a letter of Colonel House’s,
written as far back as October 3, 1914, two months
after the outbreak of the war, should contain “‘Article
X’’ as one of the essential terms of peace, as well as
other ideas afterward incorporated in that document,
accompanied by an injunction that Page should present
the suggestion to Sir Edward Grey:

From Edward M. House

October 3rd, 1914.
DEAR PAGE:
Frank [the Ambassador’s son] has just come in and
has given me your letter of September 22nd which
is of absorbing interest. You have never done any-
thing better than this letter, and some day, when you
give the word, it must be published. But in the mean-
time, it will repose in the safe-deposit box along with
your others and with those of our great President.

I have just returned from Washington where I was
with the President for nearly four days. He is look-
ing well and is well. Sometimes his spirits droop, but,
then again, he is his normal self.

Before I came from Prides! I was fearful lest

1 Colonel House’s summer home in Massachusetts.GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 173

Straus, Bernstorff, and others would drive the Presi-
dent into doing something unwise. I have always
counseled him to remain quiet for the moment and
let matters unfold themselves further. In the mean-
time, I have been conferring with Bernstorff, with
Dumba,! and of course, Spring Rice. The President
now wants me to keep in touch with the situation, and
I do not think there is any danger of anyone on the
outside injecting himself into it unless Mr. Bryan does
something on his own initiative.

Both Bernstorff and Dumba say that their countries
are ready for peace talks, but the difficulty is with Eng-
land. Sir Cecil says their statements are made merely
to place England in a false position.

The attitude, I think, for England to maintain is the
one which she so ably put forth to the world. That
is, peace must come only upon condition of disarma-
ment and must be permanent. I have a feeling that
Germany will soon be willing to discuss terms. I do
not agree that Germany has to be completely crushed
and that terms must be made either in Berlin or Lon-
don. It is manifestly against England’s interest and
the iriterest of Europe generally for Russia to become
the dominating military force in Europe, just as Ger-
many was. ‘The dislike which England has for Ger-
many should not blind her to actual conditions. If
Germany is crushed, England cannot solely write the
terms of peace, but Russia’s wishes must also largely
prevail.

When peace conversations begin, at best, they will
probably continue many months before anything tan-
gible comes from them. England and the Allies could

2 Ambassador from Austria-Hungary to the United States.174 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

readily stand on the general proposition that only en-
during peace will satisfy them, and I can see no in-
superable obstacle in the way.

The Kaiser did not want war and was not respon-
sible for it further than his lack of foresight which led
him to build up a formidable engine of war which
later dominated him. Peace cannot be made until
the war party in Germany find that their ambitions
cannot be realized, and this, I think, they are begin-
ning to know.

When the war is ended and the necessary territorial
alignments made, it seems to me, the best guaranty of
peace could be brought by every nation in Europe
guaranteeing the territorial integrity of every other
nation,’ by confining the manufacture of arms to the
governments themselves, and by permitting represen-
tatives of all nations to inspect, at any time, the
works.”

Then, too, all sources of national irritation should
be removed so what at first may be a sore spot cannot
grow into a malignant disease. It will not be too dif-
feult, I think, to bring about an agreement that will
insure permanent peace, provided all the nations of
Europe are honest in their desire for it.

I am writing this to you with the President’s knowl-
edge and consent and with the thought that it will be
conveyed to Sir Edward. There is a growing impa-
tience in this country because of this war and there is
constant pressure upon the President to use his influ-
ence to bring about normal conditions. He does not
wish to do anything to irritate or offend any one of

‘This, with certain modifications is Article 10 of the Covenant
of the League of Nations.

*There is a suggestion of these provisions ir Article 8 of the
League Covenant.GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 175

the belligerent nations, but he has an abiding faith in
the efficacy of open and frank discussion between those
that are now at war.

As far as I can see, no harm can be done by a dis-
passionate discussion at this stage, even though nothing
comes of it. In a way, it is perhaps better that in-
formal and unofficial conversations are begun and later
the principals can take it up themselves.

I am sure that Sir Edward is too great a man to let
any prejudices deter him from ending, as soon as pos-
sible, the infinite suffering that each day of war entails.

Faithfully yours,
E. M. House.

By December 4th Washington had evidently made
up its mind to move again.

From Edward M. House

December 4th, 1914.
DEAR PAGE:

The President desires to start peace parleys at the
very earliest moment, but he does not wish to offend
the sensibilities of either side by making a proposal
before the time is opportune. He is counting upon
being given a hint, possibly through me, in an unofh-
cial way, as to when a proffer from him will be ac-
ceptable.

Pressure is being brought upon him to offer his serv-
ices again, for this country is suffering, like the rest
of the neutral world, from the effects of the war, and
our people are becoming restless.

Would you mind conveying this thought delicately
to Sir Edward Grey and letting me know what he
thinks?176 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

I stand ready to go to Germany at any moment in
order to sound the temper of that government, and I
would then go to England as I did last June.

This nation would not look with favor upon a policy
that held nothing but the complete annihilation of the
enemy.

Something must be done sometime, by somebody, to
Initiate a peace movement, and I can think of no way,
at the moment, but the one suggested.

I will greatly appreciate your writing me fully and
freely in regard to this phase of the situation,

Faithfully yours,
E. M. House.

To this Page immediately replied:
To Edward M. House

December 12th, 1914.

My DEAR House:

The English rulers have no feeling of vengeance.
I have never seen the slightest traces of that. But
they are determined to secure future safety. They
will not have this experience repeated if they can help
it. They realize now that they have been living un-
der a sort of fear—or dread—for ten years: they
sometimes felt that it was bound to come some time
and then at other times they could hardly believe it.
And they will spend all the men and all the money
they have rather than suffer that fear again or have
that danger. Now, if anybody could fix a basis for
the complete restoration of Belgium, so far as restora-
tion is possible, and for the elimination of militarism,
I am sure the English would talk on that basis. ButGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 177

there are two difficulties—Russia wouldn’t talk till
she has Constantinople, and I haven’t found anybody
who can say exactly what you mean by the ‘“elimina-
tion of militarism.” Disarmament? England will
have her navy to protect her incoming bread and meat.
How, then, can she say to Germany, “You can’t have
anarmy’?

You say the Americans are becoming “restless.”
The plain fact is that the English people, and espe-
cially the English military and naval people, don’t care
a fig what the Americans think and feel.. They say,
“We're fighting their battle, too—the battle of democ-
racy and freedom from bureaucracy—why don’t they
come and help us in our life-and-death struggle?”
I have a drawer full of letters saying this, not
one of which I have ever answered. The official
people never say that, of course—nor the really
responsible people, but a vast multitude of the pub-
lichdot:

Now, the question which nobody seems to be able
to answer is this: How can the military party and
the military spirit of Germany be prevented from con-
tinuing to prepare for the conquest of Great Britain
and from going to work to try it again? That im-
plies a change in the form, spirit, and control of the
German Empire. If they keep up a great army, they
will keep it up with that end more or less in view. If
the military party keeps in power, they will try it again
in twenty-five or forty years. This is all that the
English care about or think about.

They don’t see how it is to be done themselves.
All they see yet is that they must show the Germans
that they can’t whip Great Britain. If England wins
decisively the English hope that somehow the military178 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

party will be overthrown in Germany and that the Ger-
mans, under peaceful leadership, will go about their
business—industrial, political, educational, etc.—and
quit dreaming of and planning for universal empire
and quit maintaining a great war machine, which at
some time, for some reason, must attack somebody to
justify its existence. This makes it dificult for the
English to make overtures to or to receive overtures
from this military war-party which now is Germany.
But, if it be possible so completely to whip the war
party that it will somehow be thrown out of power at
home—that’s the only way they now see out of it.
To patch up a peace, leaving the German war party
in power, they think, would be only to invite another
war.

There you are. I’ve blinked myself blind and
talked myself hoarse to men in authority—from Grey
down—to see a way out—without keeping this intol-

erable slaughter up to the end. But they stand just
where [ tell you.

At present, I can’t for the life of me see a way to
peace, for the one reason I have told you. The Ger-
mans wish to whip England, to invade England.
They started with their army toward England. Till
that happened England didn’t have an army. But I
see no human power that can give the English now
what they are determined to have—safety for the fu-
ture—till some radical change is made in the Ger-
man system so that they will no longer have a war
party any more than England has a war party. Eng-
land surely has no wish to make conquest of Germany.
If Germany will show that she has no wish to makeGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 179

conquest of England, the war would end to-morrow.
_. . All this for you and me only—nobody else.
Heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

Probably Page thought that this statement of the
case—-and it was certainly a masterly statement—
would end any attempt to get what he regarded as an
unsatisfactory and dangerous peace. But President
Wilson could not be deterred from pressing the issue.
His conviction was firm that this winter of 1914-1915
represented the most opportune time to bring the war-
ring nations to terms, and it was a conviction from
which he never departed. After the sinking of the
Lusitania the Administration gazed back regretfully
at its frustrated attempts of the preceding winter, and
it was inclined to place the responsibility for this fail-
ure upon Great Britain and France. The efforts
which the Administration was making represented a
most serious determination to bring hostilities to an
end. This letter and the correspondence which now
took place with Page also indicate the general terms
upon which the Wilson Administration believed that
which Colonel House now set forth were probably
the mighty differences could be composed. ‘The ideas
more the President’s than his own; he was merely the
intermediary in their transmission. They emphasized
Mr. Wilson’s conviction that a decisive victory on
either side would be a misfortune for mankind. As
early as August, 1914, this was clearly the conviction
that underlay all others in the President’s interpreta-
tion of events. His other basic idea was that mili-
tarism should come to an end “‘on land and sea’’; this
could mean nothing except that Germany was expected180 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

to abandon its army and that Great Britain was to
abandon its navy.

From Edward M. House

January 4th, 1915.
DEAR PAGE:

I believe the Dual Alliance is thoroughly ready for
peace and I believe they would be willing to agree
upon terms that England would accept provided Rus-
sia and France could be satisfied.

They would, in my opinion, evacuate both Belgium
and France and indemnify the former, and they would,
I think, be willing to begin negotiations upon a basis
looking to permanent peace.

It would surprise me if the Germans did not come
out in the open soon and declare that they have always
been for peace, that they are for peace now, and that
they are willing to enter into a compact which would
insure peace for all time; that they have been misrep-
resented and maligned and that they leave the entire
responsibility for the continuation of the war with the
Allies.

If they should do this, it would create a profound
impression, and if it was not met with sympathy by the
Allies, the neutral sentiment, which is now almost
wholly against the Germans, would veer toward them.

Will you not convey this thought to Sir Edward and
let me know what he says?

The President is willing and anxious for me to go to
England and Germany as soon as there is anything
tangible to go on, and whenever my presence will be
welcome. The Germans have already indicated this
feeling but I have not been able to get from Spring
Rice any expression from his government.GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 181

As I told you before, the President does not wish
to offend the sensibilities of anyone by premature ac-
tion, but he is, of course, enormously interested in
initiating at least tentative conversations.

Will you not advise me in regard to this?

Faithfully yours,
E. M. House.

Why was Colonel House so confident that the Dual
Alliance was prepared at this time to discuss terms
of peace? Colonel House, as his letter shows, was
in communication with Zimmermann, the German
Under Foreign Secretary. But a more important ap-
proach had just been made, though information bear-
ing on this-had not been sent to Page. The Kaiser
had asked President Wilson to transmit to Great Brit-
ain a suggestion for making peace on the basis of sur-
rendering Belgium and of paying for its restoration.
It seems incredible that the Ambassador should not
have been told of this, but Page learned of the pro-
posal from Field Marshal French, then commanding
the British armies in the field. Page has left a memo-
randum which explains the whole strange proceeding
—a paper which is interesting not only for its contents,
but as an illustration of the unofficial way in which
diplomacy was conducted in Washington at this time:

Field Marshal Sir John French, secretly at home
from his command of the English Forces in France,
invited me to luncheon. . . . The military situation
is this: a trench stalemate in France. Neither army
has made appreciable progress in three months.
Neither can advance without a great loss of men.
Neither is whipped. Neither can conquer. It would
require a million more men than the Allies can com-182 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

mand and a very long time to drive the Germans back
across Belgium.

What then? The Allies are still stronger—so long
as they hold together as one man. But is it reason-
able to assume that they can? And, even if they can,
is it worth while to win a complete victory at such a
cost as the lives of practically all the able-bodied men
in Europe? But can the Allies hold together as one
man for two or three or four years? Well, what are
we going to do? And here came the news of the
lunch. General French informed me that the Presi-
dent had sent to England, at the request of the Kaiser,
a proposal looking toward peace, Germany offering
to give up Belgium and to pay for its restoration.

“This,” said Sir John, “is their fourth proposal.”

“And,” he went on, “if they will restore Belgium
and give Alsace-Lorraine to France and Constanti-
nople will go to Russia, I can’t see how we can refuse
tan

Now—did General French send for me and tell me
this just for fun and just because he likes me? He
was very eager to know my opinion whether this peace
offer were genuine or whether it was a trick of the
Germans to—publish it later and thereby to throw the
blame for continuing the war on England?

It occurs to me as possible that he was directed to
tell me what he told, trusting to me, in spite of his
protestations of personal confidence, etc., to get it to
the President. Assuming that the President sent the
Kaiser’s message to the King, this may be a suggested
informal answer—that if the offer be extended to give
France and Russia what they want, it will be con-
sidered, etc. “This may or may not be true. Alas!GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 183

the fact that I know nothing about the offer has no
meaning; for the State Department never informs me

of anything it takes up with the British Ambassador
in Washington. Well, I'll see.

These were therefore the reasons why Colonel
House had decided to go to Europe and enter into
peace negotiations with the warring powers. . . . His
letter intimates that the German Government was
eager to have him cross the ocean on this particular
mission; it discloses, on the other hand, that the Brit-
ish Government regarded the proposed negotiations
with no enthusiasm. Sir Edward Grey and Mr. As-
quith would have been glad to end hostilities on terms
that would permanently establish peace and abolish the
vices which were responsible for the war, and they
were ready to welcome courteously the President's
representative and discuss the situation with him in
a fair-minded spirit. But they did not believe that
such an enterprise could serve a useful purpose. Pos-
sibly the military authorities did not believe that either
side could win a decisive victory, but this was not the
belief of the British public itself. Ihe atmosphere in
England at that time was one of confidence in the suc-
cess of British arms and of suspicion and distrust of
the British Government. A strong expectation pre-
vailed in the popular mind, that the three great Powers
of the Entente would at an early date destroy the
menace which had enshrouded Europe for forty years,
and there was no intention of giving Germany a breath-
ing spell during which she could regenerate her forces
to resume the onslaught.

Colonel House reached London early in February
and was soon in close consultation with the Prime
Minister and Sir Edward Grey. He made a great184 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

personal success; the British statesmen gained a high
regard for his disinterestedness and his general de-
sire to serve the cause of decency among nations; but
he made little progress in his peace plans, simply be-
cause the facts were so discouraging and so impreg-
nable. Sir Edward repeated to him what he had
already said to Page many times: that Great Britain
was prepared to discuss a peace that would really safe-
guard the future of Europe, but was not prepared to
discuss one that would merely reinstate the régime
that had existed before 1914. The fact that the Ger-
mans were not ready to accept such a peace made dis-
cussion useless. Disappointed at this failure, Colonel
House left for Berlin. His letters to Page show that
the British judgment of Germany was not unjust and
that the warnings which Page had sent to Washington
were based on facts:

From Edward M. House

Embassy of the United States of America,
Berlin, Germany,
March 20, 1915.
DEAR PAGE:

I arrived yesterday morning and I saw Zimmer-
mann almost immediately. He was very cordial and
talked to me frankly and sensibly.

I tried to bring about a better feeling toward Eng-
land, and told him how closely their interests touched
at certain points. I also told him of the broad way
in which Sir Edward was looking at the difficult prob-
lems that confronted Europe, and I expressed the
hope that this view would be reciprocated elsewhere,
so that, when the final settlement came, it could beGERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES 185

made in a way that would be to the advantage of
mankind.

Zimmermann said that it was impossible for them
to make any peace overtures, and he gave me to under-
stand that, for the moment, even what England would
perhaps consent to now, could not be accepted by
Germany, to say nothing of what France had in
mings 0-0

Faithfully yours,
E. M. House.

From Edward M. House

Embassy of the United States of America,
Berlin, Germany.
March 26, 1915.
DEAR PAGE:

While I have accomplished here much that is of
value, yet I leave sadly disappointed that no direct
move can be made toward peace.

The Civil Government are ready, and upon terms
that would at least make an opening. ‘There is also
a large number in military and naval circles that I
believe would be glad to begin parleys, but the trouble
is mainly with the people. It is a very dangerous
thing to permit a people to be misled and their minds
inflamed either by the press, by speeches, or other-
wise.

In my opinion, no government could live here at
this time if peace was proposed upon terms that would
have any chance of acceptance. Those in civil author-
ity that I have met are as reasonable and fairminded186 GERMANY’S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

as their counterparts in England or America, but, for
the moment, they are impotent.

I hear on every side the old story that all Germany
wants is a permanent guaranty of peace, so that she
may proceed upon her industrial career undisturbed.

Faithfully yours,
E. M. Hovuse.

The ink on those words was scarcely dry when a
message from Queenstown was handed to the Ameri-
can Ambassador. A German submarine had tor-
pedoed and sunk the Lusitania off the Old Head of
Kinsale, and one hundred and twenty-four American
men, women, and children had been drowned.(GlalerteIUir D6

THE ‘“‘LUSITANIA’—AND AFTER

HE news of the Lusitania was received at the

American Embassy at four o’clock on the after-
noon of May 7, 1915. At that time preparations
were under way for a dinner in honor of Colonel and
Mrs. House: the first Lusitania announcement de-
clared that only the ship itself had been destroyed and
that all the passengers and members of the crew had
been saved; there was, therefore, no good reason for
abandoning this dinner.

At about seven o’clock, the Ambassador came
home: his manner showed that something extraordi-
nary had taken place; there were no outward signs
of emotion, but he was very serious. The first news,
he now informed Mrs. Page, had been a mistake;
more than one thousand men, women, and children
had lost their lives, and more than one hundred of
these were American citizens. It was too late to post-
pone the dinner but that affair was one of the most
tragic in the social history of London. The Ambassa-
dor was constantly receiving bulletins from his Chan-
cery, and these, as quickly as they were received, he
read to his guests. His voice was quiet and sub-
dued: there were no indications of excitement in his
manner or in that of his friends, and hardly of sup-
pressed emotion. The atmosphere was rather that
of dumb stupefaction. The news seemed to have

dulled everyone’s capacity for thought and even for
187188 THE “SLUSITANIA’—AND AFTER

feeling. If anyone spoke, it was in whispers. A fter-
ward, in the drawing room, this same mental state
was the prevailing one; there was little denunciation
of Germany and practically no discussion as to the
consequences of the crime; everyone’s thought was en-
grossed by the harrowing and unbelievable facts which
the Ambassador was reading from the little yellow
slips that were periodically brought in. An irresist-
ible fascination evidently kept everybody in the room;
the guests stayed late, eager for every new item.
When they finally left, one after another, their man-
ner was still abstracted and they said their good-nights
in low voices. There were two reasons for this be-
havior. The first was that the Ambassador and his
guests had received the details of the greatest infamy
which any supposedly civilized state had perpetrated
since the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. ‘The sec-
ond was the conviction that the United States would
at once declare war on Germany.

On this latter point several of the guests expressed
their ideas and one of the most shocked and outspoken
was Colonel House. For a month the President's per-
sonal representative had been discussing with British
statesmen possible openings for mediation, but all his
hopes in this direction now vanished. That President
Wilson would act with the utmost energy Colonel
House took for granted. This act, he evidently be-
lieved, left the United States no option. “We shall
be at war with Germany within a month,” he declared.

The sensations of most Americans in London dur-
ing this crisis are almost indescribable. Washington's
failure promptly to meet the situation affected them
with astonishment and humiliation. Colonel House,
confident that war was impending, hurried his prepara-
tions to leave England; he wished to be in the UnitedTHE ‘‘LUSITANIA’—AND AFTER 189

States, at the President’s side, when the declaration
was made. With this feeling about Mr. Wilson,
Colonel House received a fearful shock a day or two
after the Lusitania had gone down: while walking in
Piccadilly, he caught a glimpse of one of the famous
sandwich men, bearing a poster of an afternoon news-
paper. This glaring broadside bore the following
legend: ‘We are too proud to fight—Woodrow
Wilson.”

The sight of that placard was Colonel House’s first
intimation that the President might not act vigorously.
He made no attempt to conceal from Page the shock
which it had given him. Soon the whole of England
was ringing with these six words; the newspapers were
filled with stinging editorials and cartoons, and the
music halls found in the Wilsonian phrase materials
for their choicest gibes. Even in more serious quar-
ters America was the subject of the most severe denun-
ciation. No one felt these strictures more poignantly
than President Wilson’s closest confidant. A day or
two before sailing home he came into the Embassy
greatly depressed at the prevailing revulsion against
the United States. “I feel,”’ Colonel House said to
Page, ‘“‘as though I had been given a kick at every lamp
post coming down Constitution Hill.”

And now came the period of distress and of dis-
‘Ilusionment. Three Lusitania notes were sent and
were evasively answered by Germany, and Washing-
ton still seemed to be marking time. The one signifi-
cant event in this exciting period, Mr. Bryan's
resignation as Secretary of State, seemed likely to
have important consequences for Page. Colonel
House and others strongly urged the President to call
the Ambassador home from London and make him
Secretary of State. This was the third position in190 THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

President Wilson’s cabinet for which Page had been
considered. Of all cabinet posts, however, the one
that would have especially attracted him would have
been the Department of State. But President Wilson
believed that the appointment of an Ambassador at
one of the belligerent capitals, especially of an Am-
bassador whose sympathies for the Allies were so
pronounced as were Page’s, would have been an
“unneutral”’ act, and, therefore, Colonel House’s rec-
ommendation was not approved.

Page, pinning his faith in President Wilson, still
had confidence in the President’s determination to up-
hold the national honor. Page was not one of those
who thought that the United States should declare
war immediately after the Lusitania. The Presi-
dent’s course, in giving Germany a chance to make
amends and to disavow the act, met with his approval,
and he found, also, much to admire in Mr. Wilson’s
first Lusitania note. His judgment in this matter was
based first of all upon the merits of the case; besides
this, his admiration for Mr. Wilson as a public man
was strong. To think otherwise of the President
would have been a great grief to the Ambassador and
to differ with his chief on the tremendous issue of the
war would have meant for Page the severance of one
of the most cherished associations of his life.

But in the summer and autumn of 1915 one agony
followed another. The “too proud to fight” speech
was in Page’s mind nothing less than a tragedy. The
President’s first Lusitania note for a time restored the
Ambassador’s confidence; it seemed to show that the
President intended to hold Germany to that “strict
accountability’ which he had threatened. But Mr.
Wilson’s course now presented new difficulties to his
Ambassador. Still Page believed that the President,THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER IgI

in his own way and in his own time, would find a path
out of his dilemma that would protect the honor and
the safety of the United States. If any of the Em-
bassy subordinates became impatient over the proced-
ure of Washington, he did not find a sympathetic
listener in the Ambassador. The whole of London
and of Europe might be resounding with denunciations
of the White House, but Page would tolerate no man-
‘festations of hostility in his presence. ‘The problem
appears different to Washington than it does to us,”
he would say to his confidants. “We see only one
side of it; the President sees all sides. If we give him
all the facts, he will decide the thing wisely.”

Events, however, eventually proved too strong for
the most devoted supporter of President Wilson.
After the Arabic and the Hesperian, Page’s official
intimates saw signs that the Ambassador was losing
confidence in his old friend. He would discuss
Mr. Wilson occasionally, with those in whom his con-
fidence was strongest; his expressions, however, were
never flippant or violent. That Page could be biting
as well as brilliant in his comments on public per-
sonages his letters abundantly reveal, yet he never
exercised his talent for sarcasm or invective at the ex-
pense of the White House. He never forgot that
Mr. Wilson was President and that he was Ambassa-
dor; he would still defend the Administration; and he
even now continued to find consolation in the reflection
that Mr. Wilson was living in a different atmosphere
and that he had difficulties to confront of which a man
in London could know nothing.

The Ambassador’s emotion was rather one of dis-
appointment and sorrow, mingled with anxiety as to
the plight into which his country was being led. As
to his duty in this situation, however, Page never hesi-192 THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

tated. In his relations with his Embassy and with the
British world he maintained this non-critical attitude;
but in his letters to President Wilson and Colonel
House, he was describing the situation, and expressing
his convictions, with the utmost freedom and frank-
ness. In both these attitudes Page was consistent and
absolutely loyal. It was his duty to carry out the
Wilson instructions and he had too high a conception
of the ambassadorial office to show to the world any
unfavorable opinions he may have held about his
country’s course. His duty to his post made it just
as imperative that he set forth to the President the
facts exactly as they were.

And this the Ambassador now proceeded to do.
For the mere ornamental dignities of an Ambassador-
ship Page cared nothing; he was wasting his health in
his duties and exhausting his private resources; much
as he loved the English and congenial as were his sur-
roundings, the fear of being recalled for ‘‘disloyalty”’
or insubordination never influenced him. The letters
which he now wrote to Colonel House and to Presi-
dent Wilson himself are probably without parallel in
the diplomatic annals of this or of any other country.
In them he told the President precisely what English-
men thought of him and of the extent to which the
United States was suffering in European estimation
from the Wilson policy. His boldness sometimes as-
tounded his associates.

One day a friend and adviser of President Wilson
came into the Ambassador’s office just as Page had
finished one of his communications to Washington.

‘Read that!’’ the Ambassador said, handing over
the manuscript to his visitor.

As the caller read, his countenance displayed the
progressive stages of his amazement. When he hadTHE ““LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 193

finished, his hands dropped helplessly upon his knees.

“Is that the way you write to the President?” he
gasped.

“Of course,’ Page replied, quietly. “Why not?
Why shouldn’t I tell him the truth? ‘That is what I
am: here for.’

“There is no other person in the world who dare
talk to him like that!’ was the reply.

This is unquestionably the fact. When Mr. Wil-
son found that one of his former confidants had turned
out to be a critic, that man instantaneously passed out
of his life. And this was now Page’s fate; the friend-
ship and associations of forty years were as though
they had never been. Just why Mr. Wilson did not
recall his Ambassador is a question that has puzzled
Page’s friends. He would sometimes refer to him as
a man who was “more British than the British,” as
one who had been taken completely captive by British
blandishments, but he never came to the point of dis-
missing him. Perhaps he did not care to face the
public scandal that such an act would have caused; but
a more plausible reason is that Page, despite the
causes which he had given for irritation, was indis-
pensable to him. Page’s early letters had furnished
the President ideas which had taken shape in Wilson’s
policies, and, disagreeable as the communications now
became, there are evidences that they influenced the
solitary statesman in the White House, and that they
had much to do in finally forcing Mr. Wilson into the
war. The alternative question, as to why Page did
not retire when he found himself so out of sympathy
with the President, will be suficiently answered in sub-
sequent chapters; at present it may be said that he did
resign and only consented to remain at the urgent re-
quest of Washington. In fact, all during 1915 and194 THE “LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

1916, there seemed to be a fear in Washington that
Page would definitely abandon the London post.

On one occasion, when the newspapers published
rumors to this effect, Page received an urgent despatch
from Mr. Lansing. The message came at a time—
the date was October 26, 1915—-when Page was es-
pecially discouraged over the Washington policy.
“Representatives of the press,” said Mr. Lansing,
“have repeated rumors that you are planning to re-
sign. These have been brought to the President's at-
tention, and both he and I have denied them. Still
these rumors persist, and they cause both the President
and me great anxiety. We cannot believe that they
are well founded.

‘In view of the fact that they are so persistent, we
have thought it well to inform you of them and to
tell you how earnestly we hope that they are base-
less. We trust that you will set both our minds at
rest...

If Page had ever had any compunction about ad-
dressing the President in blunt phrases these expres-
sions certainly convinced him that he was a free agent.

To Edward M. House

July 21, 1915.

DEAR HOUSE:

I enclose a pamphlet in ridicule of the President.
I don’t know who wrote it, for my inquiries so far
have brought no real information. I don’t feel like
sending it to him. I send it to you—to do with as
you think best. This thing alone is, of course, of no
consequence. But it is symptomatic. There is much
feeling about the slowness with which he acts. One
hundred and twenty people (Americans) wereTHE ‘‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 195

drowned on the Lusitania and we are still writing
notes about it. . . . Anybody who knows the Ger-
mans knows, of course, that they are simply playing
for time, that they are not going to ‘“‘come down,”
that Von Tirpitz is on deck, that they’d just as lief
have war with us as not—perhaps had rather—be-
cause they don’t want any large nation left fresh when
the war ends. They’d like to have the whole world
bankrupt. There is a fast growing feeling here,
therefore, that the American Government is pusillan-
imous—dallies with ’em, is affected by the German
propaganda, etc., etc. Of course, such a judgment is
not fair. It is formed without knowing the conditions
in the United States. But I think you ought to real-
ize the strength of this sentiment. No doubt before
you receive this, the President will send something to
Germany that will amount to an ultimatum and there
will be at least a momentary change of sentiment here.
But looking at the thing in a long-range way, we're
bound to get into the war. For the Germans will
blow up more American travelers without notice.
And by dallying with them we do not change the ulti-
mate result, but we take away from ourselves the
spunk and credit of getting in instead of being kicked
and cursed in. We've got to get in: they won't play
the game in any other way. I have news direct from
a high German source in Berlin which strongly con-
firms thiss ane

It’s a curious thing to say. But the only solution
that I see is another Lusitania outrage, which would
force war.

Wielae ke

The prophecy contained in this letter was quickly
fulfilled. A week or two after Colonel House had196 THE ‘“‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

received it, the Arabic was sunk with loss of American
life.

“That settles it,’ said Page to his son. “They
have sunk the Arabic. That means that we shall

break with Germany and I’ve got to go back to
London.”

To Edward M. House

London, September 2nd, 1915S.
DEAR House:

You write me about pleasing the Allies, the big Ally
in particular. That doesn’t particularly appeal to me.
We don’t owe them anything. There’s no obligation.
I’d never confess for a moment that we are under any
obligation to any of them nor to anybody. I’m not
out to ‘please’ anybody, as a primary purpose: that’s
not my game nor my idea—nor yours either. As for
England in particular, the account was squared when
she twice sent an army against us—in her folly—es-
pecially the last time, when she burnt our Capitol.
There’s been no obligation since. The obligation 1s
on the other foot. We've set her an example of what
democracy will do for men, an example of efficiency,
an example of freedom of opportunity. The future
is ours, and she may follow us and profit by it. Al-
ready we have three white English-speaking men to
every two in the British Empire: we are sixty per cent.
of the Anglo-Saxons in the world. If there be any
obligation to please, the obligation is on her to please
us. And she feels and sees it now.

My point is not that, nor is it what we or any other
neutral nation has done or may do—Hiolland or any
other. ‘This war is the direct result of the over- -polite,
diplomatic, standing-aloof, bowing-to-one-another inTHE ‘‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 197

gold lace, which all European nations are guilty of in
times of peace—castes and classes and uniforms and
orders and such folderol, instead of the proper busi-
ness of the day. Every nation in Europe knew that
Germany was preparing for war. If they had really
got together—not mere Hague Sunday-school talk and
resolutions—but had really got together for business
and had said to Germany, ‘“The moment you fire a shot,
we'll all fight against you; we have so many millions
of men, so many men-of-war, so many billions of
money; and we'll increase all these if you do not
change your system and your building-up of armies’ —
then there would have been no war.

My point is not sentimental. It is:

(1) We must maintain our own self-respect and
safety. If we submit to too many insults, that will in
time bring Germany against us. We've got to show
at some time that we don’t believe, either, in the ef-
ficacy of Sunday-School resolves for peace—that we
are neither Daughters of the Dove of Peace nor Sons
of the Olive Branch, and

(2) About nagging and forever presenting tech-
nical legal points as lawyers do to confuse juries—the
point is the point of efficiency. If we do that, we
can’t carry our main points. I find it harder and
harder to get answers now to important questions be-
cause we ask so many unimportant and nagging ones.

I’ve no sentiment—perhaps not enough. My gush-
ing days are gone, if I ever had em. The cutting-out
of the ‘‘100 years of peace” oratory, etc., etc., was
one of the blessings of the war. But we must be just
and firm and preserve our own self-respect and keep
alive the fear that other nations have of us; and we
ought to have the courage to make the Department of
State more than a bureau of complaints. We must198 THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

learn to say “‘No” even to a Gawdamighty independent
American citizen when he asks an improper or 1m-
practicable question. Public opinion in the United
States consists of something more than the threats of
Congressmen and the bleating of newspapers; it con-
sists of the judgment of honorable men on courageous
and frank actions—a judgment that cannot be made up
till action is taken.

Heartily yours,
W:, Hise:

To Edward M. House

London, Tuesday night, Sept. 8, 1915.
Dear House:

... They are laughing at Uncle Sam here—it
comes near to being ridicule, in fact, for seeming to
jump at Bernstorff’s unfrank assurances. And, as |
have telegraphed the President, English opinion is—
well, it is very nearly disrespectful. Men say here
(I mean our old friends) that with no disavowal of
the Lusitania, the Falaba, the Gulflight, or the Arabic
or of the Hesperian, the Germans are “stuffing’’
Uncle Sam, that Uncle Sam is in the clutches of the
peace-at-any-price public opinion, that the United
States will suffer any insult and do nothing. I hardly
pick up a paper that does not have a sarcastic par-
agraph or cartoon. We are on the brink of con-
vincing the English that we'll not act, whatever the
provocation. By the English, I do not mean the
lighter, transitory public opinion, but I mean the
thoughtful men who do not wish us or expect us to
fire a gun.

They say that the American democracy, since
Cleveland’s day, has become a mere agglomerationTHE ““LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 199

of different races, without national unity, national
aims, and without courage or moral qualities. And
(I deeply regret to say) the President is losing here
the high esteem he won by his Panama tolls repeal.
They ask, why on earth did he raise the issue if un-
der repeated provocation he is unable to recall Ge-
rard or to send Bernstorff home? ‘The Hesperian
follows the Arabic; other “liners” will follow the
Hesperian, if the Germans have submarines. And,
when Sackville-West 1 was promptly sent home for
answering a private citizen’s inquiry about the two
political parties, Dumba is (yet awhile) retained in
spite of a far graver piece of business. There is a
tone of sad disappointment here—not because the
most thoughtful men want us in the war (they don’t),
but because for some reason, which nobody here un-
derstands, the President, having taken a stand, seems
unable to do anything.

(Here comes a parenthesis. Word came to me
a little while ago that a Zeppelin was on its way to
London. Such a remark doesn’t arouse much atten-
tion. But just as I had finished the fifth line above
this, Frank and Mrs. Page came in and challenged
me to play a game of cards before we should go to
bed. We sat down, the cards were dealt, and bang!
bang !—-with the deep note of an explosion. A third,
a fourth shot. We went into the street. [here the
Zeppelin was revealed by a searchlight—sailing along.
I think it had probably dropped its bombs; but the

1Sir Lionel Sackville-West was British Minister to the United
States from 1881 to 1883. In the latter year a letter was published
which he had written to an American citizen of British origin, the
gist of which was that the reélection of President Cleveland would
be of advantage to British interests. For this gross interference in
American domestic affairs, President Cleveland immediately handed
Sir Lionel his passports. The incident ended his diplomatic career.200 THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

aircraft guns were cracking away at it. Some of
them shot explosive projectiles to find the range.
Now and then one such explosive would almost reach
the Zeppelin, but it was too high for them and it
sailed away, the air guns doing their ineffectual best.
I couldn’t see whether airplanes were trying to shoot
it or not. The searchlight revealed the Zeppelin but
nothing else-—While we were watching this battle in
the air, the maids came down from the top of the
house and went into the cellar. I think they’ve al-
ready gone back. You can’t imagine how little ex-
citement it caused. It produces less fright than any
other conceivable engine of war.

We came back as soon as the Zeppelin was out of
sight and the firing had ceased; we played our game
of cards; and here I am writing you the story—all
within about half an hour.—There was a raid over
London last night, too, wherein a dozen or two
women and children and a few men were killed. I
haven’t the slightest idea what harm this raid to-
night has done. For all I know it may not be all
done. But of all imaginable war experiences this
seems the most futile. It interrupted a game of
cards for twenty minutes!)

When I am asked every day “Why the United
States doesn’t do something—send Dumba and Bern-
storft home ?”’—Well, it is not the easiest question in
the world to answer.

Yours heartily,

Wieskiee:

Friday, September 10, 1915.
P. S. The news is just come that Dumba is dis-
missed. That will clear the atmosphere—a little,
but only a little. Dumba committed a diplomatic of-THE “LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 201

fense. The German Government has caused the
death of United States citizens, has defied us, has de-
clared it had changed its policy and yet has gone on
with the same old policy. Besides, Bernstorff has
done everything that Dumba did except employ Arch-
ibald, which was a mere incident of the game. The
President took a strong stand: they have disregarded
it—no apology nor reparation for a single boat that
has been sunk. Now the English opinion of the
Germans is hardly a calm, judicial opinion—of course
not. There may be facts that have not been made
known. There must be good reasons that nobody
here can guess, why the President doesn’t act in the
long succession of German acts against us. But I
tell you with all solemnity that British opinion and
the British Government have absolutely lost their re-
spect for us and their former high estimate of the
President. And that former respect is gone for good
unless he acts now very quickly. ‘They will pay noth-
ing more than formal and polite attention to any-
thing we may hereafter say. This is not resentful.
They don’t particularly care for us to get into the
war. Their feeling (I mean among our best old
friends) is not resentful. It is simply sorrowful.
They had the highest respect for our people and our
President. [The Germans defy us; we sit in silence.
They conclude here that we'll submit to anything from
anybody. We'll write strong notes—nothing more.

I needn’t and can’t write more. Of course there
are more important things than English respect. But
the English think that every Power has lost respect for
us—the Germans most of all. And (unless the
President acts very rigorously and very quickly) we'll202 THE “‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

have to get along a long time without British respect.

Wi. EPs

P. S. The last Zeppelin raid—which interrupted
the game of cards—killed more than twenty persons
and destroyed more than seven million dollars’ worth
of private business property—all non-combatants’!

Woe
The letters which Page sent directly to the President
were just as frank. ‘Incidents occur nearly every

day,” he wrote to President Wilson in the autumn of
1915, ‘which reveal the feeling that the Germans have
taken us in. Last week one of our naval men, Lieu-
tenant McBride, who has just been ordered home,
asked the Admiralty if he might see the piece of
metal found on the deck of the Hesperian. Contrary
to their habit, the British officer refused. ‘Take my
word for it,’ he said. ‘She was torpedoed. Why
do you wish to investigate? Your country will do
nothing—will accept any excuse, any insult and—do
nothings 7...

A sort of pro-German American newspaper corre-
spondent came along the other day from the German
headquarters; and he told me that one of the German
generals remarked to him: ‘War with America? Ach
no! Not war. If trouble should come, we’d send
over a platoon of our policemen to whip your little
army.’ (He didn’t say just how he’d send -Giy))

To the President

American Embassy, London, Oct. ce LOG
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

I have two letters that I have lately written to you
but which I have not sent because they utterly lackTHE ‘‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 203

good cheer. After reading them over, I have not
liked to send them. Yet I should fail of my duty if I
did not tell you bad news as well as good.

The high esteem in which our government was
held when the first Lusitania note to Germany was
sent seems all changed to indifference or pity—not
hatred or hostility, but a sort of hopeless and sad
pity. That ship was sunk just five months ago; the
German Government (or its Ambassador) is yet hold-
ing conversations about the principle involved, making
“concessions” and promises for the future, and so far
we have done nothing to hold the Germans to account-
ability. In the meantime their submarine fleet has
been so reduced that probably the future will take
care of itself and we shall be used as a sort of excuse
for their failure. This is what the English think and
say; and they explain our failure to act by concluding
that the peace-at-any-price sentiment dominates the
Government and paralyzes it. They have now, I
think, given up hope that we will ever take any ac-
tion. So deeply rooted (and, I fear, permanent) is
this feeling that every occurrence is made to fit into
and to strengthen this supposition. When Dumba
was dismissed, they said: ‘‘Dumba, merely the abject
tool of German intrigue. Why not Bernstorff?”
When the Anglo-French loan? was oversubscribed,
they said: ‘The people’s sympathy is most welcome,
but their government is paralyzed.” ‘Their respect is
gone—at least for the time being.

1JIn a communication sent February 10, 1915, President Wilson
warned the German Government that he would hold it to a “strict
accountability” for the loss of American lives by illegal submarine
attack.

2A reference to the Anglo-French loan for $500,000,000, placed
in the United States in the autumn of 1915.‘

204 THE “LUSITANIA”’—AND AFTER

It is not that they expect us to go to war: many,
in fact, do not wish us to. They expected that we
would be as good as our word and hold the Germans
to accountability. Now I fear they think little of
our word. I shudder to think what our relations
might be if Sir Edward Grey were to yield to another
as Foreign Minister, as, of course, he must yield at
some time.

It comes down and comes back to this—that for
five months after the sinking of the Lusitania the
Germans are yet playing with us, that we have not
sent Bernstorff home, and hence that we will submit
to any rebuff or any indignity. It is under these con-
ditions—under this judgment of us—that we now
work—the English respect for our Government in-
definitely lessened and instead of the old-time respect
a sad pity. I cannot write more.

Heartily yours,
WaLTER H. Pace.

On January 3, 1916, Page sent the President a
mass of clippings from the British press, all criticizing
the Wilson Administration in unrestrained terms.
In his comment on these, he writes the President:

‘Public opinion, both official and unofficial, is ex-
pressed by these newspaper comments, with far
greater restraint than it is expressed in private con-
versation. Ridicule of the Administration runs
through the programs of the theaters; it inspires
hundreds of cartoons; it is a staple of conversation —
at private dinners and in the clubs. The most serious
class of Englishmen, including the best friends of the
United States, feel that the Administration’s reliance
On notes has reduced our government to a third- or
fourth-rate power. There is even talk of spheres ofTHE ‘“‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 205

German influence in the United States as in China.
No government could fall lower in English opinion
than we shall fall if more notes are sent to Austria
or to Germany. The only way to keep any shred
of English respect is the immediate dismissal without
more parleying of every German and Austrian official
at Washington. Nobody here believes that such an
act would provoke war.

“T can do no real service by mincing matters. My
previous telegrams and letters have been purposely re-
strained as this one is. We have now come to the
parting of the ways. If English respect be worth
preserving at all, it can be preserved only by imme-
diate action. Any other course than immediate sever-
ing of diplomatic relations with both Germany and
Austria will deepen the English opinion into a con-
viction that the Administration was insincere when it
sent the Lusitania notes and that its notes and pro-
tests need not be taken seriously on any subject. And
English opinion is allied opinion. The Italian Am-
bassador said to me, ‘What has happened? ‘The
United States of to-day is not the United States I
knew fifteen years ago, when I lived in Washington.’
French officers and members of the Government who
come here express themselves even more strongly than
do the British. The British newspapers to-day pub-
lish translations of ridicule of the United States from
German papers.’

One of the reasons why Page felt so intensely about
American policy at this time was his conviction that
the severance of diplomatic relations, in the latter part
of 1915, or the early part of 1916, in itself would
have brought the European War to an end. ‘This
was a conviction from which he never departed.
Count Bernstorff was industriously creating the impres-206 THE “LUSITANIA” —AND AFTER

sion in the United States that his dismissal would im-
mediately cause war between Germany and the United
States, and there is little doubt that the Administra-
tion accepted this point of view. But Page believed
that this was nothing but Prussian bluff. The sever-
ance of diplomatic relations at that time, in Page’s
opinion, would have convinced the Germans of the
hopelessness of their cause.

In spite of the British blockade, Germany was draw-
ing enormous quantities of food supplies from the
United States, and without these supplies she could
not maintain indefinitely her resistance. The sever-
ance of diplomatic relations would naturally have been
accompanied by an embargo suspending trade between
the United States and the Fatherland. Moreover,
the consideration that was mainly leading Germany to
hope for success was the belief that she could embroil
the United States and Great Britain over the block-
ade. <A break with Germany would of course mean
an end to that maneuver. Page regarded all Mr.
Wilson’s attempts to make peace in 1914 and early
1915—before the Lusitania—as mistakes, for reasons
that have already been set forth. Now, however, he
believed that the President had a real opportunity
to end the war and the unparalleled suffering which
it was causing. The mere dismissal of Bernstorff, in
the Ambassador’s opinion, would accomplish this re-
sult.

In a communication sent to the President on Feb-
ruary 15, 1916, he made this plain.

To the President

February 15, 7 P.M.
The Cabinet has directed the censor to suppress, as

far as he can with prudence, comment which is un-THE ‘‘LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER 207

favorable to the United States. He has taken this
action because the public feeling against the Adminis-
tration is constantly increasing. Because the Lusi-
tania controversy has been going on so long, and be-
cause the Germans are using it in their renewed U-boat
campaign, the opinion of this country has reached a
point where only prompt action can bring a turn in
the tide. Therefore my loyalty to you would not
be complete if I should refrain from sending, in the
most respectful terms, the solemn conviction which I
hold about our opportunity and our duty.

If you immediately refuse to have further parley or
to yield one jot or tittle of your original Lusitania
notes, and if you at once break diplomatic relations
with the German Empire, and then declare the most
vigorous embargo of the Central Powers, you will
quickly end the war. There will be an immediate
collapse in German credit. If there are any Allies
who are wavering, such action will hold them in
line. Certain European neutrals—Sweden, Rumania,
Greece, and others—will put up a firm resistance to
Germanic influences and certain of them will take part
with Great Britain and France. There will be an end
at once to the German propaganda, which is now
world-wide. The moral weight of our country will be
a determining influence and bring an early peace. The
credit you will receive for such a decision will make
you immortal and even the people of Germany will be
forever grateful.

It is my conviction that we would not be called upon
to fire a gun or to lose one human life.

Above all, such an action will settle the whole ques-
tion of permanent peace. The absolute and grateful
loyalty of the whole British Empire, of the British
Fleet, and of all the Allied countries will be ours.208 THE “LUSITANIA’’—AND AFTER

The great English-speaking nations will be able to
control the details of the peace and this without any
formal) alliance. “There will be an incalculable say-
ing of human life and of treasure. Such an act will
make it possible for Germany to give in honorably
and with good grace because the whole world will
be against her. Her bankrupt and blockaded people
will bring such pressure to bear that the decision will
be hastened.

The sympathies of the American people will be
brought in line with the Administration.

If we settle the Lusitania question by compromising
in any way your original demands, or if we permit it
to drag on longer, America can have no part in bring-
ing the war to anend. The current of allied opinion
will run so strongly against the Administration that
no censorship and no friendly interference by an allied
S0vernment can stem the distrust of our government
which is now so strong in Europe.

We shall gain by any further delay only a danger-
ous, thankless, and opulent isolation. The Lusitania
is the turning point in our history. The time to act
Is now.

PAGE.GRA EAE Rea
DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

To Edward M. House

June 30, 1915.
My DEAR House:

There’s a distinct wave of depression here—per-
haps I’d better say a period of setbacks has come.
So far as we can find out only the Germans are doing
anything in the war on land. The position in France
is essentially the same as it was in November, only
the Germans are much more strongly entrenched.
Their great plenty of machine guns enables them to
use fewer men and to kill more than the Allies. The
Russians also lack ammunition and are yielding more
and more territory. The Allies—so you hear now—
will do well if they get their little army away from
the Dardanelles before the German-Turks eat ‘em
alive, and no Balkan state comes in to help the Allies.
Italy makes progress—slowly, of course, over almost
impassable mountains—etc., etc... .

At any rate, it is true that a great wave of discour-
agement is come. All these events and more seem to
prove to my mind the rather dismal failure the Lib-
eral Government made—a failure really to grasp the
problem. It was a dead failure. Of course they are
waking up now, when they are faced with a certain
dread lest many soldiers prefer frankly to die rather

than spend another winter in practically the same
209210 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

trenches. You hear rumors, too, of great impending
military scandals—God knows whether there be any
truth in them or not.

In a word, while no Englishman gives up or will
ever give up—that’s all rot—the job he has in hand
is not going well. He’s got to spit on his hands and
buckle up his belt two holes tighter yet. sAind! a]
haven’t seen a man for a month who dares hope for
an end of the fight within any time that he can fore-
see.

The Germans have been preparing northern France
for German occupation. No French are left there, of
course, except women and children and old men.
They must be fed or starved or deported. The Ger-
mans put them on trains—a whole village at a time
—and run them to the Swiss frontier. Of course the
Swiss pass them on into France. The French have
their own and—the Germans will have northern France
without any French population, if this process goes
on long enough.

The mere bang! bang! frightful era of the war is
passed. The Germans are settling down to perma-
nent business with their great organizing machine.
Of course they talk about the freedom of the seas
and such mush-mush; of course they'd like to have
Paris and rob it of enough money to pay what the war
has cost them, and London, too. But what they re-
ally want for keeps is seacoast—Belgium and as much
of the French coast as they can win. That’s really
what they are out gunning for. Of course, somehow
at some time they mean to get Holland, too, and Den-
mark, if they really need it. Then they'll have a very
respectable seacoast—the thing that they chiefly lack

now.DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES Dart

It’s got hot in London—hotter than I’ve ever
known it. It gets lonelier (more people going away )
and sadder—more wounded coming back and more
visible sorrow. We seem to be settling down to some-
thing that is more or less like Paris—so far less, but
it may become more and more like it. And the con-
fident note of an earlier period is accompanied by a
dull undertone of much less cheerfulness. The end

is—in the lap of the gods.
Wi. EER:

To Arthur W. Page

American Embassy, London,
July 25; 1915-
DEAR ARTHUR:

_.. Many men here are very active in their
thought about the future relations of the United
States and Great Britain. Will the war bring or leave
them closer together? . . . Pll indicate to you some
of my cogitations on this subject by trying to repeat
what I told Philip Kerr? a fortnight ago—one Sun-
day in the country. I can write this to you without
seeming to parade my own opinions.—Kerr is one of
“The Round Table,” perhaps the best group of men
here for the real study and free discussion of large
political subjects. . . . He is red hot for a close and
perfect understanding between Great Britain and the
United States. I told him that, since Great Britain
had only about forty per cent. of the white English-
speaking people and the United States had about sixty
per cent., I hoped in his natural history that the tail
didn’t wag the dog. I went on:

1 Afterward private secretary to Premier Lloyd George.Z12 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

“You now have the advantage of us in your aggre-
gation of three centuries of accumulated wealth—the
spoil of all the world—and in the talent that you have
developed for conserving it and adding to it and in
the institutions you have built up to perpetuate it—
your merchant ships, your insurance, your world-wide
banking, your mortgages on all new lands; but isn’t
this the only advantage you have? ‘This advantage
will pass. You are now shooting away millions and
millions, and you will have a debt that is bound to
burden industry.

On our side, we have a more recently mixed race
than yours; you’ve begun to inbreed. We have also
(and therefore) more adaptability, a greater keenness
of mind in our masses; we are Old-World men set
free—free of classes and traditions and all that they
connote. Your so-called democracy is far behind ours.
Your aristocracy and your privileges necessarily bring
a social and economic burden. Half your people look
backward.

“Your leadership rests on your wealth and on the
power that you’ve built on your wealth.”

When he asked me how we were to come closer
together—‘‘closer together, with your old-time distrust
of us and with your remoteness ?’’—I stopped him at
‘‘remoteness.”’

‘“‘That’s the reason,’ I said. ‘‘Your idea of our
‘remoteness.’ ‘Remoteness’ from what? From you?
Are you not betraying the only real difficulty of a
closer sympathy by assuming that you are the center of
the world? When you bring yourself to think of the
British Empire as a part of the American Union—
mind you, I am not saying that you would be formally
admitted—but when you are yourselves in close enough
sympathy with us to wish to be admitted, the chiefDARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 213

difficulty of a real union of thought will be gone. You
recall Lord Rosebery’s speech in which he pictured the
capital of the British Empire being moved to Washing-
ton if the American Colonies had been retained under
the Crown? Well, it was the Crown that was the
trouble, and the capital of English-speaking folk has
been so moved and you still remain ‘remote. Drop
‘remote’ from your vocabulary and your thought and
we'll actually be closer together.”

It’s an enormous problem—just how to bring these
countries closer together. Perhaps nothing can do it
but some great common danger or some great common
adventure. But this is one of the problems of your
life-time. England can’t get itself clean loose from
the continent nor from continental medievalism; and
with that we can have nothing to do. Men like Kerr
think that somehow a great push toward democracy
here will be given by the war. I don’t quite see how.
So far the aristocracy have made perhaps the best
showing in defense of English liberty. They are pay-
ing the bills of the war; they have sent their sons;
these sons have died like men; and their parents never
whimper. It’s a fine breed for such great uses as
these. There was a fine incident in the House of
Lords the other day, which gave the lie to the talk
that one used to hear about “degeneracy.” Some-
body made a perfectly innocent proposal to complete
a list of peers and peers’ sons who had fallen in the
war—a thing that will, of course, be done, just as a
similar list will be compiled of the House of Com-
mons, of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. But
one peer after another objected vigorously lest such
a list appear immodest. “We are but doing our duty.
Let the matter rest there.”

In a time like this the aristocracy proves its worth.ar

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214 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

In fact, all aristocracies grew chiefly out of wars, and
perhaps they are better for wars than a real democ-
racy. Here, you see, you run into one of those contra-
dictions in life and history which make the world so
hard to change... .

Affectionately,

Worle P:

One happiness came to Mr. and Mrs. Page in the
midst of all these war alarums. On August 4, 1915,
their only daughter, Katharine, was married to Mr.
Charles G. Loring, of Boston, Massachusetts. The
occasion gave the King an opportunity of showing the
high regard in which Page and his family were held.
It had been planned that the wedding should take
place in Westminster Abbey, but the King very court-
eously offered Miss Page the Royal chapel in St.
James’s Palace. This was a distinguished compli-
ment, as it was the first time that any marriage, in
which both bride and bridegroom were foreigners, had
ever been celebrated in this building, which for cen-
turies has been the scene of royal weddings. The
special place which his daughter had always held in
the Ambassador’s affections is apparent in the many
letters that now followed her to her new home in the
United States. The unique use Page made of the
initials of his daughter’s name was characteristic.

To Mrs. Charles G. Loring

London, September 1, 1915.
My pear K. A. P-TAIN:

Here’s a joke on your mother and Frank: We
three (and Smith) went up to Broadway in the car,DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 215

to stay there a little while and then to go on into
Wales, etc. The hotel is an old curiosity shop; you
sit on Elizabethan chairs by a Queen Anne table, on
a drunken floor, and look at the pewter platters on the
wall or do your best to look at them, for the ancient
windows admit hardly any light. ‘‘Oh! lovely,” cries
Frank: and then he and your mother make out in the
half-darkness a perfectly wonderful copper mug on the
mantelpiece; and you go out and come in the ram-
shackle door (stooping every time) after you've felt
all about for the rusty old iron latch, and then you
step down two steps (or fall), presently to step up
two more. Well, for dinner we had six kinds of meat
and two meat pies and potatoes and currants! My
dinner was a potato. I’m old and infirm and I have
many ailments, but I’m not so bad off as to be able
to live on a potato a day. And since we were having
a vacation, I didn’t see the point. So I came home
where I have seven courses for dinner, all good; and
Mrs. Leggett took my place in the car. That car-
nivorous company went on. They've got to eat S1X
kinds of meat and two meat pies and—currants! I
haven’t. Your mother calls me up on the ’phone every
morning—me, who am living here in luxury, seven
courses at every dinner—and asks anxiously, ‘“And
how are you, dear?’ I answer: “Prime, and how
are you?” We are all enjoying ourselves, you see,
and I don’t have to eat six kinds of meat and two
meat pies and—currants! They do; and may Heaven
save ’em and get ’em home safe!

It’s lovely in London now—fne, shining days and
showers at night and Ranelagh beautiful, and few
people here; but I don’t deny its loneliness—some-
what. Yet sleep is good, and easy and long. I havea ah re

i :
:
md

216 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

neither an ocean voyage nor six kinds of meat and
two meat pies and currants. I congratulate myself
and write to you and mother.

You’ll land to-morrow or next day—good; I con-
gratulate you. Salute the good land for me and pre-
sent my respectful compliments to vegetables that have
taste and fruit that is not sour—to the sunshine, in
fact, and to everything that ripens and sweetens in its
glow.

And you’re now (when this reaches you) fixing up
your home—your own home, dear Kitty. Bless your
dear life, you left a home here—wasn’t it a good and
nice one ?—left it very lonely for the man who has
loved you twenty-four years and been made happy by
your presence. But he'll love you twenty-five more
and on and on—always. So you haven’t lost that—
nor can you. And it’s very fit and right that you
should build your own nest; that adds another happy
home, you see. And I’m very sure it will be very
happy always. Whatever I can do to make it so,
now or ever, you have only to say. But—your mother
took your photograph with her and got it out of the
bag and put it on the bureau as soon as she went to

her room—a photograph taken when you were a little
girl.

I laugh as I think of all your new aunts and cousins
looking you over and wondering if you'll fit, and then
saying to one another as they go to bed: ‘“‘She is
lovely—isn’t she?” I could tell ’em a thing or two
if I had a whack at ’em.

And you'll soon have all your pretty things in place
in your pretty home, and a lot more that I haven't
seen. I'll see ’em all before many years—and you,DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES" 217

too! Tell me, did Chud get you a dinner book?
Keep your record of things: you'll enjoy it in later
years. And you'll have a nice time this autumn—
your new kinsfolk, your new friends and old and Bos-
ton and Cambridge. . . .
My love to you and Chud too.
Affectionately,
W. HOR:

The task of being ‘“German Ambassador to Great
Britain” was evidently not without its irritations.

To Arthur W. Page

September 15, 1915.
DEAR ARTHUR:

Yesterday was my German day. When the boy
came up to my room, I told him I had some official
calls to make. ‘Therefore get out my oldest and
worst suit.’ He looked much confused; and when I
got up both my worst and best suits were laid out.
Evidently he thought he must have misunderstood
me. lI asked your mother if she was ready to go down
to breakfast. ‘“Yes.’—‘‘Well, then I'll leave you.”
She grunted something and when we both got down
she asked: ‘(What did you say to me upstairs il
replied: ‘I regard the incident as closed.”” She
looked a sort of pitying look at me and a minute or
two later asked: ‘What on earth is the matter with
you? Can’t you hear at all?” I replied: “No.
Therefore let’s talk.” She gave it up, but looked at
me again to make sure I was all there.

I stopped at the barber shop, badly needing a shave.
The barber got his brush and razor ready. I said:bel
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218 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES ©

“Cut my hair.’”’ He didn’t talk for a few minutes,
evidently engaged in deep thought.

When I got to my office, a case was brought to me
of a runaway American who was caught trying to send
news to Germany. “Very good,”’ said I, ‘“‘now let it
be made evident that it shall appear therefore that his

innocence having been duly established he shall be
shot.”’

“What, sir?”

‘That since it must be evident that his guilt is gen-
uine therefore see that he be acquitted and then shot.”’

Laughlin and Bell and Stabler were seen in an ear-
nest conference in the next room for nearly half an
hour.

Shoecraft brought me a letter. ‘‘This is the most
courteous complaint about the French passport bureau
we have yet had. I thought you'd like to see this
lady’s letter. She says she knows you.”’

‘Do not answer it, then.”’

He went off and conferred with the others.

Hodson spoke of the dog he sold to Frank. ‘‘Yes,”’

said I, ‘‘since he was a very nice dog, therefore he was
worthless.”’

“Sir P”’

And he went off after looking back at me in a queer
way.

The day went on in that fashion. When I came
out to go to lunch, the stairs down led upward and
I found myself, therefore, stepping out of the roof on
to the sidewalk—the house upside down. Smith
looked puzzled. ‘‘Home, sir ?”’

“No. Go the other way.” After he had driven
two or three blocks, I told him to turn again and
go the other way—home !

Your mother said almost as soon as I got into theDARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 219

door—‘‘What was the matter with you this morning?”
“Oh, nothing. You forget that I am the German
Ambassador.”
Now this whole narrative is a lie. Nothing in it
occurred. If it were otherwise it wouldn’t be German.
Affectionately,

We Hee:
To the President

London, September 26, 1915.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

The suppression of facts about the military situa-
tion is more rigorous than ever since the military facts
have become so discouraging. The volume of pretty
well authenticated news that I used to hear privately
has become sensibly diminished. Rumors that reach
me by the back door, in all sorts of indirect ways, are
not fewer, but fewer of them are credible. There is
great confusion, great fear, very great depression—
far greater, I think, than England has felt, certainly
since the Napoleonic scare and probably since the
threat of the Armada.

Nobody, I think, supposes that England herself will
be conquered: confidence in the navy is supreme. But
the fear of a practical defeat of the Allies on the con-
tinent is become general. Russia may have to pay a
huge indemnity, going far to reimburse Germany for
the cost of the war; Belgium may be permanently held
unless Germany receive an indemnity to evacuate, and
her seaports may be held anyhow; the Germans may
reach Constantinople before the Allies, and Germany
may thus hold, when the war ends, an open way to the
East: and France may have to pay a large sum to re-
gain her northern territory now held by the Germans.220 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

These are not the convictions of men here, but they
have distinctly become the fears; and many men’s
minds are beginning to adjust themselves to the pos-
sible end of the war, as a draw, with these results.
Of course such an end would be a real German vic-
tory and—another war as soon as enough men grow
up to fight it.

When the more cheerful part of public opinion, es-
pecially when any member of the Government, affects
to laugh at these fears, the people say: ‘Well, make
known the facts that you base your hope on. Pre-
cisely how many men have volunteered? Is the vol-
untary system a success or has it reached its limit?
Precisely what is the situation in the Dardanelles?
Are the allied armies strong enough to make a big
drive to break through the German line in France?
Have they big guns and ammunition enough? What
are the facts about the chance in the Dardanelles?
What have we done with reference to the Balkan
States ?”

Thus an angry and ominous political situation is
arising. The censorship on war news apparently be-
comes severer, and the general fear spreads and deep-
ens. The air, of course, becomes heavily charged with
such rumors as these: that if the Government continue
its policy of secrecy, Lloyd George will resign, seeing
no hope of a real victory: that, if he do resign, his
resignation will disrupt the Government—cause a sort
of earthquake; that the Government will probably fall
and Lloyd George will be asked to form another one,
since he is, as the public sees it, the most active and
efhcient man in political life; that, if all the Balkan
States fail the Allies, Sir Edward Grey will be reck-
oned a failure and must resign; and you even now hear
talk of Mr. Balfour’s succeeding him.DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 221

It is impossible to say what basis there is for these
and other such rumors, but they show the general very
serious depression and dissatisfaction. Of that there
‘sno doubt. Nor is there any doubt about grave dif-
ferences in the Cabinet about conscription nor of grave
fear in the public mind about the action of labor un-
‘ons in hindering the utmost production of ammuni-
tion, nor of the increasing feeling that the Prime Min-
‘ster doesn’t lead the nation. Except Lloyd George
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’ the Cabinet
seems to suffer a sort of paralysis. Lord Kitchener’s
speech in the House of Lords, explaining the military
situation, reads like a series of month-old bulletins and
was a great disappointment. Mr. Asquith’s corre-
sponding speech in the House seemed to lack complete
frankness. ‘The nation feels that it is being kept in
the dark, and all the military information that it gets
is discouraging. Sir Edward Grey, as philosophic
and enduring a man as I know, seems much more de-
pressed than I have ever known him to be; Bryce is
very very far from cheerful; Plunkett,2, whom also
you know, is in the dumps—it’s hard to find a cheerful
or a hopeful man.

In the meantime our prestige (if that be the right
word), in British judgment, is gone. As they regard
it, we have permitted the Germans to kill our citizens,
to carry on a worldwide underhand propaganda from
our country (as well as in it), for which they have
made no apology and no reparation but only vague
assurances for the future now that their submarine
feet has been almost destroyed. ‘hey think that we

1The Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna.
2Sir Horace Plunkett.222 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

are credulous to the point of simplicity to accept any
assurances that Bernstorff may give—in a word, that
the peace-at-any-price sentiment so dominates Ameri-
can opinion and the American Government that we will
submit to any indignity or insult—that we will learn
the Germans’ real character when it is too late to save
our honor or dignity. There is no doubt of the def-
niteness or depth of this opinion.

Their feeling is based on their disappointment at
our submitting to what they regard as German dally-
ing with us and to German insults. ‘They believe that,
if we had sent Bernstorff home when his government
made its unsatisfactory reply to our first Lusitania
note, Germany would at once have ‘‘come down’’; op-
portunist Balkan States would have come to the help
of the Allies; Holland and perhaps the Scandinavian
States would have got some consideration at Berlin for
their losses by torpedoes; that more attention would
have been paid by Turkey to our protest against the
wholesale massacre of the Armenians; and that a bet-
ter settlement with Japan about Pacific islands and
Pacific influence would have been possible for the Eng-
lish at the end of the war. Since, they argue, nobody
is now afraid of the United States, her moral influence
is impaired at every capital; and I now frequently hear
the opinion that, if the war lasts another year and the
Germans get less and less use of the United States as
a base of general propaganda in all neutral countries,
especially all American countries, they are likely them-
selves to declare war on us as a mere defiance of the
whole world and with the hope of stirring up internal
trouble for our government by the activity of theDARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 223

Germans and the Irish in the United States, which may
hinder munitions and food and loans to the Allies.

| We are not within hearing of the guns (except
the guns that shoot at Zeppelins when they come) ;
but the war crowds itself in on us sensibly more and
more. There are more wounded soldiers on the
streets and in the parks. More and more families
one knows lose their sons, more and more women
their husbands. Death is so common that it seems
a little thing. Four persons have come to my house
to-day (Sunday) in the hope that I may find their
missing kinsmen, and two more have appealed to me
on the telephone and two more still have sent me notes.
Since I began this letter, Mrs. Page insisted on my
going out on the edge of the city to see an old friend
of many years who has just lost both his sons and
whose prospective son-in-law is at home wounded.
The first thing he said was: ‘“Tell me, what is Amer-
ica going to do?” As we drove back, we made a call
on a household whose nephew is “missing.” — ‘Can't
you possibly help us hear definitely about him?”

This sort of thing all day every day must have
some effect on any man. Then—yesterday morning
gave promise of a calm, clear day. I never know
what sensational experience awaits me around the next
corner. Then there was put on my desk the first
page of a reputable weekly paper which was filled with
an open letter to me written by the editor and signed.
After the usual description of my multitudinous and
delicate duties, I was called on to insist that my gov-
ernment should protest against Zeppelin raids on Lon-
don because a bomb might kill me! Humor doesn’t
bubble much now on this side the world, for the censor
had forbidden the publication of this open letter lest224 DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES

it should possibly cause American-German trouble!
Then the American correspondents came in to verify
a report that a news agency is said to have heard that I
was deluged with threatening letters!—_-More widows,
more mothers looking for lost sons! .. .

Once in a while—far less often than if I lived in a
sane and normal world—I get a few hours off and go
to a lonely golf club. Alas! there is seldom anybody
there but now and then a pair of girls and now and
then a pair of old fellows who have played golf for
a century. Yet back in London in the War Office I
hear they indulge in disrespectful hilarity at the poor
game I play. Now how do they know? (You'd bet-
ter look to your score with Grayson: the English have
spiesin America. A major general in their spy-service
department told Mrs. Page that they knew all about
Archibald? before he got on the ship in New York.)

All this I send you not because it is of the slightest
permanent importance (except the English judgment
of us) but because it will prove, if you need proof,
that the world is gone mad. Everything depends on
fighting power and on nothing else. A victory will
save the Government. Even distinctly hopeful mili-
tary news will. And English depression will vanish
with a turn of the military tide. If it had been Bern-
storff instead of Dumba—that would have affected
even the English judgment of us. Tyrrell ? remarked
to me—did I write you? ‘Think of the freaks of
sheer, blind Luck; a man of considerable ability like
Dumba caught for taking a risk that an idiot would
have avoided, and a fool like Bernstorff escaping!”’

Then he added: “I hope Bernstorff will be left. No

 

1It was Archibald’s intercepted baggage that furnished the docu-
ments which caused Dumba’s dismissal.
2Sir William Tyrrell, private secretary to Sir Edward Grey.DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 225

other human being could serve the English as well as
he is serving them.”

So, you see, even in his depression the Englishman
has some humor left—e. g., when that old sea dog
Lord Fisher heard that Mr. Balfour was to become
First Lord of the Admiralty, he cried out: ‘‘Damn
it! he won’t do: Arthur Balfour is too much of a
gentleman.” So John Bull is now, after all, rather
pathetic—depressed as he has not beer. depressed for
at least a hundred years. The nobility and the com-
mon man are doing their whole duty, dying on the
Bosphorus or in France without a murmur, or facing
an insurrection in India; but the labor union man and
the commercial class are holding back and hindering a
victory. And there is no great national leader.

Sincerely yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.SGPC sce

I
\
My
.

CEAVE aE Ri XonT

A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

To Edward M. House

London, December 7, 1915.
My DEAR House:

I hear you are stroking down the Tammany tiger
—an easier job than J have with the British lion. You
can find out exactly who your tiger is, you know the
house he lives in, the liquor he drinks, the company he
goes with. ‘The British lion isn’t so easy to find. At
times in English history he has dwelt in Downing
Street—not so now. So far as our struggle with him
is concerned, he’s all over the Kingdom; for he is pub-
lic opinion. The governing crowd in usual times and
on usual subjects can here overrun public opinion—
can make it, turn it, down it, dodge it. But it isn’t
sO now—as it affects us. Every mother’s son of ’em
has made up his mind that Germany must and shall be
starved out, and even Sir Edward’s scalp isn’t safe
when they suspect that he wishes to be lenient in that
matter. They keep trying to drive him out, on two
counts: (1) he lets goods out of Germany for the
United States ‘‘and thereby handicaps the fleet’’; and
(2) he failed in the Balkans. Sir Edward is too much
of a gentleman for this business of rough-riding over
all neutral rights and for bribing those Balkan bandits.

I went to see him to-day about the Hocking, etc.
He asked me: ‘‘Do you know that the ships of this

line are really owned, in good faith, by Americans ?”
226A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 227

“T’l] answer your question,” said I, “if I may then
ask you one. No, I don’t know of my own knowl-
edge. Now, do you know that they are not owned by
Americans ?”’

He had to confess that he, of his own knowledge,
didn’t know.

“Then,” I said, “for the relief of us both, I pray
you hurry up your prize court.”

When we'd got done quarreling about ships and I
started to go, he asked me how I liked Wordsworth’s
war poems. ‘The best of all war poems,” said he,
“because they don’t glorify war but have to do with its
philosophy.” Then he told me that some friend of
his had just got out a little volume of these war poems
selected from Wordsworth; “and I’m going to send
you a copy.”

“Tust in time,” said I, “for I have a copy of “The
Life and Letters of John Hay’? that I’m sending to
you.”

He’s coming to dine with me in a night or two: he'll
do anything but discuss our Note with me. And he’s
the only member of the Government who, I think,
would like to meet our views; and he can’t. Io use
the language of Lowell about the campaign of Gov-
ernor Kent—these British are hell-bent on starving the
Germans out, and neutrals have mighty few rights till
that job’s done.

The worst of it is that the job won’t be done for
a very long time. I’ve been making a sort of system-
atic round of the Cabinet to see what these fellows
think about things in general at this stage of the game.
Bonar Law (the Colonies) tells me that the news from
the Balkans is worse than the public or the newspapers

 

1 By William Roscoe Thayer, published in 1915.totais

 

228 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

know, and that still worse news will come. Germany
will have it all her own way in that quarter.

‘And take Egypt and the canal ?”

‘I didn’t say that,” he replied. But he showed that
he fears even that.

. . Christmas—that’s the thing now. Christ-
mas! What bloody irony it is on this side the world!
Still there will be many pleasant and touching things
done. An Englishman came in to see me the other
day and asked if I’d send $1,000 to Gerard ! to use in
making the English prisoners in Germany as happy
as possible on Christmas Day—only I must never tell
anybody who did it. A lady came on the same errand
—for the British prisoners in Turkey, and with a less
but still a generous sum. The heroism, the generosity,
the endurance and self-restraint and courtesy of these
people would melt a pyramid to tears. Of course
there are yellow dogs among ’em, here and there; but
the genuine, thoroughbred English man or woman is
the real thing—one of the realest things in this world.
So polite are they that not a single English person has
yet mentioned our Note to me—not one.

But everyone I’ve met for two days has mentioned
the sending of Von Papen and Boy-Ed ? home—not
that they expect us to get into the war, but because
they regard this action as maintaining our self-respect.

Nor do they neglect other things because of the
war. I went to the annual dinner of the Scottish
Corporation the other night—an organization which
for 251 years has looked after Scotchmen stranded in
London; and they collected $20,000 then and there.

 

1 James W. Gerard, American Ambassador to Germany, and, as
such, in charge of British interests in Germany.
“The German military and naval attachés, whose persistent and

outrageous violation of American laws led to their dismissal by
President Wilson.A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 229

There’s a good deal of Christmas in ’em yet. One
fellow in a little patriotic speech said that the Gov-
ernment is spending twenty-five million dollars a day
to whip the Germans.—‘‘Cheap work, very cheap
work. We can spend twice that if necessary. Why,
gentlemen, we haven’t exhausted our pocket change
Vets

Somehow I keep getting away from Christmas. It
doesn’t stay put. It'll be a memorable one here for
its sorrows and for its grim determination—an empty
chair at every English table. But nowhere in the
world will it be different except in the small neutral
states here and in the lands on your side the world.

How many Christmases the war may last, nobody’s
wise enough to know. That depends absolutely on
Germany. The Allies announced their terms ten
months ago, and nothing has yet happened to make
them change them. That would leave the Germans
with Germany and a secure peace—no obliteration or
any other wild nonsense, but only a secure peace.
Let ’em go back home, pay for the damage they've
done, and then stay there. I do hope that the actual
fichting will be ended by Christmas of next year. Of
course it may end with dramatic suddenness at any
time, this being the only way, perhaps, for the Kaiser
to save his throne. Or it may go on for two or three
years. My guess is that it’ll end next year—a guess
subject to revision, of course, by events that can’t be
foreseen.

And I see the most interesting work in the world
cut out for me for the next twenty-five or thirty years
—to get such courtesy into our dealings with these our
kinsmen here, public and private—as will cause them230 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

to follow us in all the developments of democracy and
—in keeping the peace of the world secure. I can’t
impress it on you strongly enough that the English-
speaking folk have got to set the pace and keep this
world in order. Nobody else is equal to the job. In
all our dealings with the British, public and private,
we allow it to be assumed that they lead: they don’t.
Welead. They’ll follow, if we do really lead and are
courteous to them. If we hold back, the Irishman
rears up and says we are surrendering to the English!
Suppose we go ahead and the English surrender to us,
what can your Irishman do then? Or your German?
The British Navy is a pretty good sort of dog to have
to trot under your wagon. If we are willing to have
ten years of thoughtful good manners, I tell you Jelli-
coe will eat out of your hand.

Therefore, cheer up! It’s not at all improbable
that Ford 1 and his cargo of cranks, if they get across
the ocean, may strike a German mine in the North Sea.
Then they’ll die happy, as martyrs; and the rest of
us will live happy, and it’ll be a Merry Christmas for
everybody.

Our love to Mrs. House.

Always heartily yours,
WE

To Frank N. Doubleday and Others

London, Christmas, 1915.
Dear D. P. & Co.

. . . Now, since we’re talking about the war, let
me deliver my opinion and leave the subject. They’re

 

‘Mr. Henry Ford at this time was getting together his famous
peace ship, which was to sail to Europe “to get the boys out of the
trenches by Christmas.”A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 231

killing one another all right; you needn’t have any
doubt about that—so many thousand every day,
whether there’s any battle or not. When there’s
“nothing to report” from France, that means the reg-
ular 5,000 casualties that happen every day. There
isn’t any way of getting rid of men that has been for-
gotten or neglected. Women and children, too, of
course, starve in Serbia and Poland and are massacred
in Turkey. England, though she has by very much
the largest army she ever had, has the smallest of all
the big armies and yet I don’t know a family that had
men of fighting age which hasn’t lost one or more
members. And the worst is to come. But you never
hear acomplaint. Poor Mr. Dent,’ for instance (two
sons dead), says: ‘‘It’s all right. England must be
saved.”

And this Kingdom alone, as you know, is spending
twenty-five million dollars a day. The big loan placed
‘n the United States 2 would last but twenty days! If
this pace of slaughter and of spending go on long
enough, there won’t be any men or any moncy left on
this side the world. Yet there will be both left, of
course; for somehow things never quite go to the ulti-
mate smash that seems to come. Read the history of
the French Revolution. How did the French nation
survive ?

It will go on, unless some unexpected dramatic mil-
itary event end it, for something like another year at
least—many say for two years more, and some, three
years more. It'll stop, of course, whenever Germany
will propose terms that the Allies can consider—or
something near such terms; and it won't stop before.

1J, M. Dent, the London publisher.
2 $500,000,000.232 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

By blockade pressure and by fighting, the Allies are
gradually wearing the Germans out. We can see here
the gradual pressure of events in that direction. My
guess is that they won’t go into a third winter.

Well, dear gentlemen, however you may feel about
it, that’s enough for me. My day—every day—is di-
vided into these parts: (1) two to three hours listen-
ing to Americans or their agents here whose cargoes
are stopped, to sorrowing American parents whose
boys have run away and gone into the English Army,
to nurses and doctors and shell-makers who wish to go
to France, to bereaved English men and women whose
sons are ‘‘missing’’: can I have them found in Ger-
many? (2) to answering letters about these same
cheerful subjects; (3) to going over cases and docu-
ments prepared about all these sorts of troubles and
forty other sorts, by the eight or ten secretaries of
the Embassy, and a conference with every one of
them; (4) the reading of two books of telegrams,
one incoming, the other outgoing, and the preparation
of a lot of answers; (5) going to the Foreign Office,
not every day but often, to discuss more troubles there;
(6) home to dinner at 8 o’clock—at home or some-
where else, and there is more talk about the war or
about the political troubles. That for a regular daily
routine for pretty nearly a year and a half!

As I say, if anybody is keeping the war up for my
entertainment, he now has my permission to stop.
No time to read, no time to write, little time to think,
little or no time to see the people you most wish to
see, I often don’t know the day of the week or of the
month: it’s a sort of life in the trenches, without the
immediate physical danger. Then I have my cabinet
meetings, my financial reports (money we spend for
four governments: I had till recently about a millionA PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 233

dollars subject to my check) ; then the commission for
the relief of Belgium; then the Ambassadors and Min-
isters of the other neutral states—our task is worse
than war!

Well, praise God for sleep. I get from seven to
nine hours a night, unbroken; and I don’t take Arma-
geddon to bed with me.

I don’t mind telling you (nobody else) that the
more I see just how great statesmen work and manage
great governments—the more I see of them at close
range—whether in Washington or London or Berlin
or Vienna or Constantinople (for these are my Capi-
tals), the more I admire the methods of the Long
Island farmers. Boys, I swear I could take our crowd
and do a better job than many of these great men do.
I have to spend a lot of time to correct their moves
before the other fellow finds out the mistake. For
instance I know I spent $2,000 in telegrams before
I could make the German Government understand the
British military age, and the British Government un-
derstand the German military age, for exchanging pris-
oners who had lost two legs or arms or both eyes; and
I’ve had to send a man to Berlin to get a financial re-
port from one man on one floor of a building there
and to take it to another man on the floor above.

Just yesterday I was reminded that I had made
eighteen requests for the same information of the
British Government, when the nineteenth request for it
came from Washington; and I have now telegraphed
that same thing nineteen times since the war began.
Of course everybody’s worked to death. But some-
thing else ails a lot of ’em all the way from Constanti-
nople to London. Leaving out common gutter lying
(and there’s much of it) the sheer stupidity of govern-
ments is amazing. They are all so human, so mighty234 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

human! I wouldn’t be a government for any earthly
consideration. I’d rather be a brindled dog and trot
under the wagon.

But it has been an inexpressibly interesting experi-
ence to find all this out for myself. ‘There’s a sort of
weary satisfaction in feeling that you’ve seen too much
of them to be fooled by ’em any more. And, al-
though most men now engaged in this game of gov-
ernment are mere common mortals with most of the
common mortal weaknesses, now and then a really big
man does stumble into the business. I have my doubts
whether a really big man ever deliberately goes into
it. And most of the men who the crowd for the mo-
ment thinks are big men don’t really turn out so. It’s
a game like bull fighting. The bull is likely to kill
you—pretty sure to do so if you keep at the business
long enough; but in the meantime you have some ex-
citing experiences and the applause of the audience.
When you get killed, they forget you—immediately.

There are two rather big men in this government,
and you wouldn’t guess in three rounds who they are.
But in general the war hasn’t so far developed very
big men in any country. Else we are yet too close to
them to recognize their greatness. Joffre seems to
have great stuff in him; and (I assure you) you needn’t
ever laugh at a Frenchman again. ‘They are a great
people. As for the British, there was never such a
race. It’s odd—lI hear that it happens just now to
be the fashion in the United States to say that the
British are not doing their share. There never was a
greater slander. ‘They absolutely hold the Seven Seas.
They have caught about seventy submarines and some
of them are now destroying German ships in the Bal-
tic Sea. They’ve sent to France by several times theA PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 235

largest army that any people ever sent over the sea.
They are financing most of their allies and they have
turned this whole island into gun and shell factories.
They made a great mistake at the Dardanelles and
they are slower than death to change their set methods.
But no family in the land, from charcoal burners to
dukes, hesitates one moment to send its sons into the
army. When the news comes of their death, they
never whimper.

When you come right down to hard facts, the cour-
age and the endurance of the British and the French
excel anything ever before seen on this planet. All
the old stories of bravery from Homer down are out-
done every day by these people. I see these British
at close range, full-dress and undress; and I’ve got to
know a lot of ’em as well as we can ever come to know
anybody after we get grown. ‘There is simply no end
to the silly sides of their character. But, when the
real trial comes, they don’t flinch; and (except the
thoroughbred American) there are no such men in the
world.

A seven-foot Kansas lawyer (Kansas all over him)
came to see me yesterday. He came here a month
ago on some legal business. He told me yesterday
that he had always despised Englishmen. He’s seen
a few with stud-horse clothes and white spats and
monocles on who had gone through Kansas to shoot
in the Rocky Mountains. He couldn't understand
‘em and he didn’t like ’em. ‘‘So infernally uppish,”’
said he.

“Well, what do you think of ’em now?”

“The very best people in the world,” said he. I
think he has a notion of enlisting!236 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

To come back to the war. (We always do.)
Since I wrote the first part of this letter, I spent an
evening with a member of the Cabinet and he told me
so much bad military news, which they prevent the
papers from publishing or even hearing, that to-night
I almost share this man’s opinion that the war will
last till 1918. That isn’t impossible. If that hap-
pens the offer that I heard a noble old buck make to a
group of ladies the other night may be accepted.
This old codger is about seventy-five, ruddy and saucy
yet. ‘My dear ladies,” said he, “if the war goes on
and on we shall have no young men left. A double
duty will fall on the old fellows. I shall be ready,
when the need comes, to take four extra wives, and
I daresay there are others of my generation who are
as patriotic as I am.”’

All of which is only my long-winded, round-about
diplomatic way of wishing you every one and every
one of yours and all the folk in the office, their assigns,
superiors, dependents, companions in labor—all,
everyone and sundry, the happiest of Christmases;
and when you take stock of your manifold blessings,
don’t forget to be thankful for the Atlantic Ocean.
That’s the best asset of safety that we have.

Affectionately yours,
W. H. P:

To Mrs. Charles G. Loring

6 Grosvenor Square,
London, December 7, 1915.

Dear Kitty:
This is my Christmas letter to you and Chud—a
poor thing, but the best I have to give you. At leastA PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 237

it carries my love, dear, and my wishes that every
Christmas under your own roof will be happier than
the preceding one. Since your starting point is on
the high level of your first Christmas in your own
home—that’s a good wish: isn’t it?

I’m beginning to think a good deal of your mother
and me. Here we are left alone by every one of you
—in a foreign land; and, contrary to all predictions
that any of you would have made about us four or
five years ago, we're faring pretty well, thank you,
and not on the edge of dying of loneliness at alle ak
tell you, I think we’re pretty brave and hardy.

We're even capable of becoming cocky and saucy to
every one of you. Be careful, then.

You see if you have a war to live with you don’t
necessarily need children: you'll have strife enough
without ’em. We'll console ourselves with such re-
flections as these.

And the truth is—at least about me—that there
‘sn’t time to think of what you haven't got. Of
course, I’m working as always, to soften the relations
between these two governments. So far, in spite of
the pretty deep latent feeling on both sides—far worse
than it ought to be and far worse than I wish it were
—I’m working all the time to keep things as smooth
as possible. Happily, nobody can prove it, but I be-
lieve it, that there is now and there has been all along
more danger of a serious misunderstanding than any-
body has known. The Germans have, of course,
worked in 1000 ways to cause misunderstanding be-
tween England and the United States.

Then, of course, there has been constant danger in
the English bull-headed insularity which sees nothing
but the Englishman’s immediate need, and in the Eng-
lish slowness. Add to these causes the American ig-238 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

norance of war and of European conditions. It has
been a God’s mercy for us that we have so far had a
man like Sir Edward Grey in his post. And in my
post, while there might well have been a better man,
this much at least has been lucky—that I do have a
consciousness of English history and of our common
origin and some sense of the inevitable destiny of the
great English-speaking race—so that, when we have
come to sharp corners in the road, I have known that
whatever happen we must travel in the right general
direction—have known that no temporary difference
must be allowed to assume a permanent quality.

I have thought several times that we had passed the
worst possible place, and then a still worse one would
appear. It does look now as if we had faced most
of the worst difficulties that can come, but I am not
sure what Congress may do or provoke. If we out-
last Congress, we shall be safe. Now to come
through this enormous war even with no worse feeling
than already exists between the two countries—that’ll
be a big thing to have done. But it’s work like the
work of the English fleet. Nobody can prove that
Jellicoe has been a great admiral. Yet the fleet has
done the whole job more successfully than if it had
had sea fights and lost a part of their ships.

Your mother and I are hearing much interesting
political talk. We dined last night with Mr. Bonar
Law. Sir Edward Carson was there. To-day we
lunched with Lady P.—the other side, you see.
There are fundamental differences continually arising.
They thought a few weeks ago that they had the Prime
Minister’s scalp. He proved too nimble for them.
Now one person after another says to you: “Kitch-
ener doesn’t deserve the reverence the people give
him.” More and more folks say he’s hard to workA PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 239

with—is domineering and selfish. Nobody seems
really to know him; and there are some signs that
there may be a row about him.

We've heard nothing from Harold in quite a little
while. We have, you know, three of our footmen in
the war. Allen was wounded at Loos—a flesh, bullet
wound. He’s about well now and is soon going back.
Leslie is in the trenches and a postal card came from
him the other day. The third one, Philip, is a pris-
oner in Germany. Your mother sent him a lot of
things, but we’ve never heard whether he received
them! or not; . = -

I keep forgetting Xmas, Kitty, and this is my Xmas
letter. You needn’t put it in your stocking, but you'd
really better burn it up. It would be the ruination of
the world if my frank comments got loose. It’s for
you and Chud only. You may fill your stocking full
of the best wishes you ever received—enough to fill

the polar bear skin. And I send you both my love.
WHR:

To Frank N. Doubleday and Others

Royal Bath and East Cliff Hotel,
Bournemouth, May 29, 1916.
DEAR! Ds Ei & Gor:

I always have it in mind to write you letters; but
there’s no chance in my trenches in London; and, since
I have not been out of London for nearly two years—
since the war began—only an occasional half day and
a night—till now—naturally I’ve concocted no letter.
I’ve been down here a week—a week of sunshine,
praise God—and people are not after me every
ten minutes, or governments either; and my most ad-ae "

 

24.0 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

mirable and efficient staff (now grown to one hundred
people) permit few letters and telegrams to reach me.

here never was a little rest more grateful. The
quiet sea out my window shows no sign of crawling
submarines; and, in general, it’s as quiet and peaceful
here as in Garden City itself.

I’m on the home stretch now in all my thoughts and
plans. Three of my four years are gone, and the
fourth will quickly pass. That’s not only the limit of
my leave, but it’s quite enough for me. I shouldn't
care to live through another such experience, if the
chance should ever come to me. It has changed my
whole life and my whole outlook on life; and, perhaps,
you'd like to hear some impressions that it has made
upon me.

The first impression—perhaps the strongest—is a
loss of permanent interest in Europe, especially all
Europe outside of this kingdom. I have never had
the illusion that Europe had many things that we
needed to learn. The chief lesson that it has had, in
my judgment, is the lesson of the art of living—the
comforts and the courtesies of life, the refinements
and the pleasures of conversation and of courteous
conduct. The upper classes have this to teach us;
and we need and can learn much from them. But
this seems to me all—or practically all. What we
Care most for are individual character, individual de-
velopment, and a fair chance for every human being.
Character, of course, the English have—immense
character, colossal character. But even they have not
the dimmest conception of what we mean by a fair
chance for every human being—not the slightest. In
one thousand years they may learn it from us. Now
on the continent, the only important nation that has
any character worth mentioning is the French. OfA PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 241

course the little nations—some of them—have charac-
ter, such as Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, etc. But
these are all. The others are simply rotten. In
giving a free chance to every human creature, weve
nothing to learn from anybody. In character, I bow
down to the English and Scotch; I respect the French-
man highly and admire his good taste. But, for our
needs and from our point of view, the English can
teach us only two great lessons—character and the
art of living (if you are rich).

The idea that we were brought up on, therefore,
that Europe is the home of civilization in general—
nonsense! It’s a periodical slaughter pen, with all
the vices that this implies. I’d as lief live in the Chi-
cago stockyards. There they kill beeves and pigs.
Here they kill men and (incidentally) women and
children. I should no more think of encouraging or
being happy over a child of mine becoming a European
of any nation than I should be happy over his fall
from grace in any other way.

Our form of government and our scheme of society
—God knows they need improving—are yet so im-
measurably superior, as systems, to anything on this
side the world that no comparison need be made.

My first strong impression, then, is not that Europe
‘s “effete’—that isn’t it. It is medieval—far back
toward the Dark Ages, much of it yet uncivilized, held
back by inertia when not held back by worse things.
The caste system is a constant burden almost as heavy
as war itself and often quite as cruel.

The next impression I have is, that, during the
thousand years that will be required for Europe to
attain real (modern) civilization, wars will come as
wars have always come in the past. The different
countries and peoples and governments will not and242 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

cannot learn the lesson of federation and codperation
so long as a large mass of their people have no voice
and no knowledge except of their particular business.
Compare the miles of railway 1 in proportion to popu-
lation with the same proportion in the United States—
or the telephones, or the use of the mails, or of bank
checks; or make any other practical measure you like.
Every time, you'll come back to the discouraging fact
that the masses in Europe are driven as cattle. So
long as this is true, of course, they’ll be driven periodi-
cally into wars. So many countries, so many races,
so many languages all within so small an area as
Europe positively invite deadly differences. If rail-
roads had been invented before each people had de-
veloped its own separate language, Europe could
somehow have been coordinated, linked up, federated,
made to look at life somewhat in the same way. As
it is, wars will be bred here periodically for about an-
other thousand years. The devil of this state of
things is that they may not always be able to keep
their wars at home.

For me, then, except England and the smaller ex-
ceptions that I have mentioned, Europe will cut no
big figure in my life. In all the humanities, we are a
thousand years ahead of any people here. So also
in the adaptabilities and the conveniences of life, in its
versatilities and in its enjoyments. Most folk are
stolid and sad or dull on this side of the world. Else
how could they take their kings and silly ceremonies
seriously ?

Now to more immediate and definite impressions.
I have for a year had the conviction that we ought to
get into the war—into the economic war—for the
following among many reasons.A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 243

1. That’s the only way to shorten it. We could
cause Germany’s credit (such as she has) instantly to
collapse, and we could hasten her hard times at home
which would induce a surrender.

2. That’s the only way we can have any real or im-
portant influence in adjusting whatever arrangements
can be made to secure peace.

3. That’s the best way we can inspire complete
respect for us in the minds of other nations and there-
by, perhaps, save ourselves from some wars in the
future.

4. That’s the best way we can assert our Own
character—our Americanism, and forever get rid of
all kinds of hyphens.

5. That’s the only way we shall ever get a real and
sensible preparedness, which will be of enormous edu-
cational value even if no military use should ever be
made of our preparation.

6. That’s the only way American consciousness
will ever get back to the self-sacrificing and patriotic
point of view of the Fathers of the Republic.

7. That’s the best way to emancipate ourselves
from cranks.

8. That’s the only way we'll ever awaken in our
whole people a foreign consciousness that will enable
us to assert our natural influence in the world—polit-
ical, financial, social, commercial—the best way to
make the rest of the world our customers and friends
and followers.

All the foregoing I have fired at the Great White
Chief for a year by telegraph and by mail; and I have
never fired it anywhere else till now. Be very quiet,
then.

No man with whom I have talked or whose writings244 A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR

I have read seems to me to have an adequate concep-
tion of the colossal changes that the war is bringing
and will bring. Of course, I do not mean to imply
that I have any adequate conception. Nobody can
yet grasp it. The loss of (say) ten million men from
production of work or wares or children; what a
changed world that fact alone will make! The pres-
ence in all Europe of (perhaps) fifteen or twenty
million more women than men will upset the whole
balance of society as regards the sexes. The loss of
most of the accumulated capital of Europe and the
vast burdens of debt for the future to pay will change
the financial relations of the whole world. From
these two great losses—men and money—God knows
the many kinds of changes that will come. Women
are doing and will continue to do many kinds of work
hitherto done by men.

Out of it all, one conviction and one purpose
grows and becomes clearer. The world isn’t yet half-
organized. In the United States we've lived in a
good deal of a fool’s paradise. The world isn’t half
so safe a place as we supposed. Until steamships and
telegraphs brought the nations all close together, of
course we could enjoy our isolation. We can’t do so
any longer. One mad fool in Berlin has turned the
whole earth topsy-turvy. We'd forgotten what our
forefathers learned—the deadly dangers of real mon-
archs and of castes and classes. There are a lot of
‘em left in the world yet. We've grown rich and—
weak; we've let cranks and old women shape our ideas.
We've let our politicians remain provincial and ig-
norant.A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 245

And believe me, dear D. P. & Co. with affectionate
greeting to every one of you and to every one of yours,

collectively and singly,
Yours heartily,
WilGEEAVP A EAR Xen

PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

N July Page received a cablegram summoning him

to Washington. This message did not explain
why his presence was desired, nor on this point was
Page ever definitely enlightened, though there were
more or less vague statements that a ‘change of
atmosphere” might better enable the Ambassador to
understand the problems which were then engrossing
the State Department.

The President had now only a single aim in view.
From the date of the so-called Sussex “pledge,” May
4, 1916, until the resumption of submarine warfare
on February 1, 1917, Mr. Wilson devoted all his en-
ergies to bringing the warring powers together and
establishing peace. Mr. Wilson was bent on keeping
the United States out of the war; he knew that there
was only one certain way of preserving peace in this
country, and that was by bringing the war itself to an
end. “‘An early peace is all that can prevent the Ger-
mans from driving us at last into the war,” Page
wrote at about this time; and this single sentence gives
the key to the President’s activities for the succeeding
nine months. The negotiations over the Sussex had
taught Mr. Wilson this truth. He understood that
the pledge which the German Government had made
was only a conditional one; that the submarine cam-
paign had been suspended only for the purpose of giv-

ing the United States a breathing spell during which
246PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 247

it could persuade Great Britain and France to make
peace.

This then was clearly the “atmosphere” which pre-
vailed in Washington at the time that Page was sum-
moned home.

Mr. Page’s memorandum of his visit to Washington
in August, 1910

The President was very courteous to me, in his way.
He invited me to luncheon the day after I arrived.
Present: the President, Mrs. Wilson, Miss Bones,
Tom Bolling, his brother-in-law, and I. The conver-
sation was general and in the main jocular. Not a
word about England, not a word about a foreign
policy or foreign relations.

Two weeks passed. Another invitation to lunch.
Sharp, the Ambassador to France, had arrived. He,
too, was invited. Present: the President, Mrs. Wil-
son, Mrs. Wallace, the Misses Smith of New Orleans,
Miss Bones, Sharp, and I. Not one word about for-
eign affairs.

[The President] had no idea of talking with me
now, if ever. Not at lunch nor after did he suggest
a conversation about American-British affairs or say
anything about my seeing him again.

‘A member of his cabinet told me that Mr. Wilson
had shown confidence in him, given him a wide range
of action in his own department and that he relies on
his judgment. This cabinet member of course attends248 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

the routine state dinners and receptions, as a matter
of required duty. But as for any social recognition
of his existence—he had never received a hint or nod.
Nor does any member of the Cabinet (except, no
doubt, Mr. McAdoo, his son-in-law). There is no
social sense nor reason in this. In fact, it works to a
very decided disadvantage to the President and to the
Nation.

By the way, that a notable man in our educational
life could form such a habit does not speak well for
our educational life.

What an unspeakably lamentable loss of oppor-
tunity! ‘This is the more remarkable and lamentable
because the President is a charming personality, an un-
commonly good talker, a man who could easily make
personal friends of all the world. He does his own
thinking, untouched by other men’s ideas. He re-
ceives nothing from the outside. His domestic life is
spent with his own, nobody else, except House occa-
sionally. His contact with his own cabinet is a busi-
ness man’s contact with his business associates and

kind—at his office.

The influence of this lone-hand way of playing the
game extends very far. [he members of the Cabinet
do not seem to have the habit of frankness with one
another. Each lives and works in a watertight com-
partment. I sat at luncheon (at a hotel) with Lan-
sing, Secretary of State; Lane, Secretary of the In-
terior; Gregory, Attorney-General; Baker, Secretary
of War; Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; and Sharp,
Ambassador to France; and all the talk was jocular or
semi-jocular, and personal—mere cheap chaff. NotPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 249

a question was asked either of the Ambassador to
France or of the Ambassador to Great Britain about
the war or about our foreign relations. The war
wasn’t mentioned. Sharp and I might have come
from Bungtown and Jonesville and not from France
and England. We were not encouraged to talk—the
local personal joke held the time and conversation.
This astounding fact must be the result of this lone-
hand, watertight compartment method and—of the
neutrality suppression of men. . - .

I can see it in no other way but this: the President
suppressed free thought and free speech when he in-
sisted upon personal neutrality. He held back the de-
liberate and spontaneous thought and speech of the
people except the pro-Germans, who saw their chance
and improved it! The mass of the American people
found themselves forbidden to think or talk, and this
forbidding had a sufficient effect to make them take
refuge in indifference. It’s the President’s job. He’s
our leader. Hle’ll attend to this matter. We must
not embarrass him. On this easy cushion of non-
responsibility the great masses fell back at their
intellectual and moral ease—softened, isolated,
lulled.

That wasn’t leadership in a democracy. Right
here is the President’s vast failure. From it there is
now no escape unless the Germans commit more sub-
marine crimes. They have kept the United States
for their own exploiting after the war. They have
thus had a real triumph of us.

I have talked in Washington with few men who
showed any clear conception of the difference between
the Germans and the British. To the minds of these
people and high Government officials, German anda

 

250 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

English are alike foreign nations who are now fool-
ishly engaged in war. Two of the men who look
upon the thing differently are Houston! and Logan
Waller Page.” In fact, there is no realization of the
war in Washington. Secretary Houston has a proper
perspective of the situation. He would have done
precisely what I recommended—paved the way for
claims and let the English take their course. ‘“‘Inter-
national law” is no strict code and it’s all shot to pieces
anyhow.

The Secretary [of State] betrayed not the slightest
curiosity about our relations with Great Britain. I
saw him several times—(1) in his office; (2) at his
house; (3) at the French Ambassador’s; (4) at Wal-
lace’s; (5) at his office; (6) at Crozier’s *—this dur-
ing my first stay in Washington. ‘The only remark he
made was that I’d find a different atmosphere in
Washington from the atmosphere in London. ‘Truly.
All the rest of his talk was about ‘‘cases.”” Would I
see Senator Owen? Would I see Congressman Sher-
ley? Would I take up this ‘‘case” and that? His
mind ran on “‘cases.”’

I proposed to Baker and Daniels that they send a
general and an admiral as attachés to London. ‘They
both agreed. Daniels later told me that Baker men-
tioned it to the President and he ‘“‘stepped on the
suggestion with both feet.’ I did not bring it up.
In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, both General
McClellan (or Sheridan?) and General Forsythe

1Secretary of Agriculture.

2In charge of government road building, a distant relative of the
Ambassador.

3 Major General William Crozier, U. S. A., Chief of Ordnance.PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 251

were sent to the German army. Our military ideas
have shrunk since then!

2

There is not a man in our State Department or in
our Government who has ever met any prominent
statesmen in any European government—except the
third Assistant Secretary of State, who has no author-
ity in forming policies; there is not a man who knows
the atmosphere of Europe. Yet when I proposed
that one of the under secretaries should go to England
on a visit of a few weeks for observation, the objec-
tion arose that such a visit would not be “neutral.”

The extraordinary feature of this experience was
that Page had been officially summoned home, presum-
ably to discuss the European situation, and that
neither the President nor the State Department appar-
ently had the slightest interest in his visit.

“The President,’ Page wrote to Mr. Laughlin,
“dominates the whole show in a most extraordinary
way. The men about him (and he sees them only on
‘business’) are very nearly all very, very small try, or
worse—the narrowest twopenny lot I’ve ever come
across. He has no real companions. Nobody talks
to him freely and frankly. I’ve never known quite
such a condition in American life.” Perhaps the
President had no desire to discuss inconvenient mat-
ters with his Ambassador to Great Britain, but Page
was certainly determined to have an interview with the
President. ‘I’m not going back to London,” he
wrote Mr. Laughlin, ‘‘till the President has said some-
thing to me or at least till I have said something to
him. Iam now going down to Garden City and New
York till the President send for me; or, if he do not252 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

send for me, I’m going to his house and sit on his
front steps till he comes out!’ Page had brought
from England one of the medals which the Germans
had struck in honor of the Lusitania sinking, and one
reason why he particularly wished to see the President
alone was to show him this memento.

Another reason was that in early September Page
had received important news from London concerning
the move which Germany was making for peace and
the attitude of Great Britain in this matter. ‘The
several plans which Germany had had under consid-
eration had now taken the form of a definite determi-
nation to ask for an armistice before winter set in.

Page waited five weeks before he succeeded in ob-
taining his interview with Mr. Wilson.

To the President

The New Willard, Washington, D. C.
Thursday, September 21, 1916.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

The situation between our government and Great
Britain seems to me most alarming; and (let me add)
easily removable, if I can get the ear of anybody in au-
thority. But I find here only an atmosphere of sus-
picion—unwarranted by facts and easily dissipated by
straight and simple friendly methods. I am sure of
this.

I have, besides, a most important and confidential
message for you from the British Government which
they prefer should be orally delivered.

And I have written out a statement of my own studyPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 253

of the situation and of certain proposals which, I
think, if they commend themselves to you, will go far
to remove this dangerous tension. I hope to go over
them with you at your convenience.
Yours faithfully,
WALTER H. PAGE.

Page’s urgent letter to Mr. Wilson brought a tele-
eram from Mr. Tumulty inviting the Ambassador to
spend the next evening and night with the President at
Shadow Lawn, the seaside house on the New Jersey
coast in which Mr. Wilson was spending the summer.
Mr. Wilson received his old friend with great courtesy
and listened quietly and with apparent interest to all
that he had to say. The written statement to which
Page refers in his letter told the story of Anglo-
American relations from the time of the Panama tolls
repeal up to the time of Page’s visit to Shadow Lawn.
The document was an eloquent plea for American co-
operation with the Allies—for the dismissal of Bern-
storfi, for the adoption of a manly attitude toward
Germany, and for the vindication of a high type of
Americanism.

Page showed the President the Lusitania medal, but
that did not especially impress him. “The President
said to me,” wrote Page in reference to this visit,
“that when the war began he and all the men he met
were in hearty sympathy with the Allies; but that now
the sentiment toward England had greatly changed.
He saw no one who was not vexed and irritated by the
arbitrary English course. ‘That is, 1 fear, true—that
he sees no one but has a complaint. So does the Sec-
retary of State, and the Trade Bureau, and all the
rest in Washington. But in Boston, in New York,
and in the South, and in Auburn, N. Y., I saw no one254 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

whose sympathy with the Allies had undergone any
fundamental change. I saw men who felt vexed at
such an act as the blacklist, but that was merely vexa-
tion, not a fundamental change of feeling. Of
course, there came to see me men who had ‘cases.’
Now these are the only kind of men, I fear, whom the
Government at Washington sees—these and the mem-
bers of Congress whom the Germans have scared or
have ‘put up’ to scare the Government—who are
‘twisting the lion’s tail,’ in a word.”

Page delivered his oral message about the German
determination to obtain an armistice. This was to
the effect that Great Britain would not grant it.
Page intimated that Britain would be offended if the
President proposed it.

“If an armistice, no,’ answered Mr. Wilson.
‘“That’s a military matter and is none of my business.
But if they propose an armistice looking toward peace
—yes, I shall be glad.”

The experience was an exceedingly trying one for
both men. The discussion showed how far apart
were the President and his ambassador on practically
every issue connected with the crisis. Naturally the
President’s reference to the causes of the war—that
there were many causes, some of them of long per-
sistence, and that Great Britain’s domination of the
“earth” was one of them—conflicted with the judg-
ment of a man who attributed the origin of the
struggle to German aggression. The President’s
Statement that American sympathy for the Allies had
now changed to irritation, and the tolerant attitude
toward Germany which Mr. Wilson displayed, af-
fected Page with the profoundest discouragement.
The President’s intimation that he would advance
Germany’s request for an armistice, if it lookedPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 255

toward peace—this in reply to Page’s message that
Great Britain would not receive such a proposal in a
kindly spirit—seemed to lay the basis of further mis-
understandings. The interview was a disheartening
one for Page.

Many people whom the Ambassador met in the
course of this visit still retain memories of his fervor
in what had now become with him a sacred cause.
With many friends and officials he discussed the Euro-
pean situation almost like a man inspired. The pres-
ent writer recalls two long conversations with Page
at this time: the recollection of his brilliant verbal
portraiture, his description of the determination of
Englishmen, his admiration for the heroic sacrifice of
Englishwomen, remain as about the most vivid mem-
ories of a lifetime.

And now the Ambassador had brought this same
eloquence to the President’s ear at Shadow Lawn. It
was in this interview that Page had hoped to show
Mr. Wilson the real merits of the situation, and per-
suade him to adopt the course to which the national
honor and safety pointed; he talked long and elo-
quently, painting the whole European tragedy with
that intensity and readiness of utterance and that
moral conviction which had so moved all others with
whom he had come into contact during this memorable
visit to the United States; but Mr. Wilson was utterly
cold, utterly unresponsive, interested only in ending
the war. The talk lasted for a whole morning; its
nature may be assumed from the many letters already
printed; but Page’s voice, when it attempted to fire
the conscience of the President, proved as ineffective
as his pen.

However, there was nothing rasping or contentious
about the interview. [he two men discussed every-256 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

thing with the utmost calmness and without the slight-
est indications of ill-nature. Both men had in mind
their long association, both inevitably recalled the
hopes with which they had begun their official relation-
ship three years before, at that time neither having
the faintest intimation of the tremendous problems
that were to draw them asunder. Mr. Wilson at this
meeting did not impress his Ambassador as a perverse
character, but as an extremely pathetic one. Page
came away with no vexation or anger, but with a real
feeling for a much suffering and a much perplexed
statesman. The fact that the President’s life was so
solitary, and that he seemed to be so completely out
of touch with men and with the living thoughts of the
world, appealed strongly to Page’s sympathies. “I
think he is the loneliest man I have ever known,”
Page remarked to his son Frank after coming away
from this visit.

Page felt this at the time, for, as he rose to say
good-by to the President, he put his hand upon his
shoulder. At this Mr. Wilson's eyes filled with tears
and he gave Page an affectionate good-by. The two
men never met again.

Soon after President Wilson’s reélection, Page sent
his resignation to Washington. He believed that his
work in London had been finished, that he had done
everything in his power to make Mr. Wilson see the
situation in its true light and that he had not suc-

ceeded.
To the President

London, November 24, 1916.

DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:
We have all known for many years that the rich and
populous and organized states in which the big citiesPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 257

are do not constitute the political United States. But,
I confess, I hardly expected so soon to see this fact
proclaimed at the ballot box. To me that’s the sur-
prise of the election. And your popular majority as
well as your clear majority in the Electoral College is
a great personal triumph fOr, YOUs 4-7

_. . Now, if you will permit me to say so, from my
somewhat distant view (four years make a long period
of absence) the big party task is to build up a clearer
and more positive foreign policy. We are in the
world and we’ve got to choose what active part we
shall play in it—I fear rather quickly. I have the
conviction, as you know, that this whole round globe
now hangs as a ripe apple for our plucking, if we use
the right ladder while the chance lasts. I do not
mean that we want or could get the apple for our-
selves, but that we can see to it that it is put to proper
uses.

What we have to do, in my judgment, is to go back
to our political fathers for our clue. If my long-time
memory be good, they were sure that their establish-
ment of a great free Republic would soon be imitated
by European peoples—that democracies would take
the place of autocracies in all so-called civilized coun-
tries: for that was the form that the fight took in their
day against organized Privilege. But for one reason
or another—in our lifetime partly because we chose
so completely to isolate ourselves—the democratic
idea took root in Europe with disappointing slowness.
It is, for instance, now perhaps for the first time, in
a thoroughgoing way, within sight in this Kingdom.
The dream of the American Fathers, therefore, 1s not
yet come true. They fought against organized Priv-
ilege exerted from over the sea. In principle it is the
same fight that we have made, in our domestic field,258 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

during recent decades. Now the same fight has come
on a far larger scale than men ever dreamed of before.

It isn’t, therefore, for merely doctrinal reasons that
we are concerned for the spread of democracy nor
merely because a democracy is the only scheme of
organization yet wrought out that keeps the door of
Opportunity open and invites all men to their fullest
development. But we are interested in it because
under no other system can the world be made an even
reasonably safe place to live in. For only autocracies
wage aggressive wars. Aggressive autocracies, espe-
cially military autocracies, must be softened down by
peace (and they have never been so softened) or de-
stroyed by war. The All-Highest doctrine of Ger-
many to-day is the same as the Taxation-without-
Representation of George II1I—only more virulent,
Stronger, and farther-reaching. Only by its end can
the German people recover and build up their charac-
ter and take the permanent place in the world that
they—thus changed—will be entitled to. They will
either reduce Europe to the vassalage of a military
autocracy, which may then overrun the whole world
or drench it in blood, or they must through stages of
Liberalism work their way toward some approach to
a democracy; and there is no doubt which event is
impending. The Liberal idea will win in this struggle,
and Europe will be out of danger of a general assault
on free institutions till some other autocracy which
has a military caste try the same Napoleonic game.
The defeat of Germany, therefore, will make for the
spread of the doctrine of our Fathers and our doctrine
yet. .

It has seemed to me, looking at the subject only
with reference to our country’s duty and safety, thatPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 259

somehow and at some early time our championship of
democracy must lead us to redeclare our faith and to
show that we believe in our historic creed.. Then we
may escape falling away from the Liberal forces of
the Old World and escape the suspicion of indifference
to the great scheme of government which was set up
by our fathers’ giving their blood for it. I see no
other way for us to take the best and biggest oppor-
tunity that has ever come.to prove true to our faith as
well as to secure our own safety and the safety of the
world. Only some sort of active and open identifica-
tion with the Allies can put us in effective protest
against the assassins of the Armenians and the assas-
sins of Belgium, Poland, and Serbia, and in friendly
attitude to the German people themselves, as distin-
guished from their military rulers. This is the atti-
tude surely that our fathers would have wished us to
take—and would have expected us to take—and that
our children will be proud of us for taking; for it is
our proper historic attitude, whether looked at from
the past or looked back at from the future. There
can be no historic approval of neutrality for years,
while the world is bleeding to death.

I write thus freely, Mr. President, because at no
time can I write in any other way and because I am
sure that all these things can quickly be brought to
pass under your strong leadership. The United
States would stand, as no other nation has ever stood
in the world—predominant and unselfish—on the
highest ideals ever reached in human government. It
is a vision as splendid as the Holy Grael. Nor have
I a shadow of doubt of the eager and faithful follow-260 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

ing of our people, who would thereby reéstablish once
for all our weakened nationality. We are made of
the stuff that our Fathers were made of.

And I write this now for the additional reason that
I am within sight of the early end of my service here.
When you called me I answered, not only because you
did me great honor and laid a definite patriotic duty
on me, but because also of my personal loyalty to you
and my pride in helping forward the great principles
in which we both believe. But I understood then (and
I am sure the subject lay in your mind in the same
way) that my service would be for four years at the
most. I made all my arrangements, professional and
domestic, on this supposition. I shall, therefore, be
ready to lay down my work here on March 4th or as
soon thereafter as meets your pleasure.

I am more than proud of the confidence that you
have shown in me. ‘To it I am indebted for the op-
portunity I have had to give such public service to my
country as I could, as well as for the most profitable
experience of my life. A proper and sympathetic un-
derstanding between the two English-speaking worlds
seems to me the most important duty of far-seeing
men in either country. It has taken such a profound
hold on me that I shall, in whatever way I can, work
for its complete realization as long as I can work for
anything.

I am, Mr. President, most faithfully and gratefully
yours,

WALTER H. PAGE.

This letter was written at a time when President
Wilson was exerting his best energies to bring about
peace. ‘The Presidential campaign had caused him to
postpone these efforts, for he believed that neither GersPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 261

many nor Great Britain could take seriously the activ-
‘ties of a President whose own political position was
‘nsecure. At the time Page’s letter was received, the
President was thinking only of a peace based upon a
stalemate; it was then his apparent conviction that
both sides to the struggle were about equally in the
wrong and that a decisive victory of either would not
be a good thing for the world. Yet it is interesting
to compare this letter of Mr. Page with the famous
speech which the President made six months afterward
when he asked Congress to declare the existence of a
state of war with Germany. Practically all the im-
portant reasons which Mr. Wilson then advanced for
this declaration are found in Page’s letter of the pre-
ceding November. ‘That autocracies are a constant
menace to world peace, that the United States owes it
to its democratic tradition to take up arms against the
enemy of free government, that in doing this, it was
not making war upon the German people, but upon its
imperialistic masters—these were the arguments which
Page laid before the President in his letter of resigna-
tion, and these were the leading ideas in Mr. Wilson’s
address of April 2nd. ‘There are even sentences in
Page’s communication which seem to foreshadow Mr.
Wilson’s assertion that ‘“The world must be made safe
for democracy.” This letter in itself sufficiently
makes it clear that Page’s correspondence, irritating in
its later phases as it may have been, strongly in-
fluenced Mr. Wilson in his final determination on war.

Page’s letter was practically a resignation and
therefore called for an immediate reply, but Mr. Wil-
son did not even acknowledge its receipt. For two
months the Ambassador was left in the dark as to the
attitude of Washington. Finally, in the latter part of
January, 1917, Page wrote urgently to Mr. Lansing,262 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

asking him to bring the matter to the President’s at-
tention. On February 5, 1917, Mr. Lansing’s reply
was received. ‘‘The President,” he said, “under ex-
treme pressure of the present situation, has been un-
able to consider your communication in regard to your
resignation. He desires me to inform you that he
hopes that, at the present time, you will not press to
be relieved from service; that he realizes that he is
asking you to make a personal sacrifice, but he believes
that you will appreciate the importance, in the crisis
which has developed, that no change should be made.
I hardly need to add my personal hope that you will
put aside any thought of resigning your post for the
present.”

At this time, of course, any idea of retiring was out
of the question. The President had dismissed Bern-
storff and there was every likelihood that the country
would soon be at war. Page would have regarded his
retirement at this crisis as little less than the desertion
of his post. Moreover, since Mr. Wilson had
adopted the policy which the Ambassador had been
urging for nearly two years, and had sent Bernstorff
home, any logical excuse that may have existed for his
resignation existed no longer. Mr. Wilson had now
adopted a course which Page could enthusiastically
support.

“I am happy to serve here at any sacrifice’’—such
was his reply to Mr. Lansing—“until after the end of

the war, and I am making my arrangements to stay
for this period.”

The so-called German “‘peace proposal” began with
the statement that the war “had been forced” upon
Germany, contained the usual reference to the military
might of the Central Powers, and declared that thePEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 263

Fatherland was fighting for “the honor and liberty of
national evolution.” It is therefore not surprising
that Lord Robert Cecil received it somewhat sardon-
ically, especially as the communication contained no
specific proposals, but merely a vague suggestion of
“negotiations.”

But another spectacular performance now drove the
German maneuver out of everybody’s mind. ‘That
President Wilson resented this German interference
with his own plans is well known; he did not drop
them, however, but on December 18th, he sent his
long-contemplated peace communication to all the
warring Powers. His appeal took the form of asking
that they state the objects for which they were fight-
ing, the President’s belief evidently being that, if they
did this, a common meeting ground might possibly be
found. The suggestion that the Allied war aims
were not public property, despite the fact that British
statesmen had been broadly proclaiming ‘them for
three years, caused a momentary irritation in England,
but this was not a serious matter, especially as the
British Cabinet quickly saw that this request gave
them a position of advantage over Germany, which
had always refused to make public the terms on which
it would end the war.

The main substance in this Presidential approach,
therefore, would have produced no ill-feeling; as
usual, it was a few parenthetical phrases—phrases
which were not essential to the main argument—which
set the allied countries seething with indignation.
The President, this section of his note ran, “takes the
liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects
which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides
have in mind in this war, are virtually the same, as
stated in general terms to their own people and to the264 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

world. Each side desires to make the rights and
privileges of weak peoples and small states as secure
against aggression and denial in the future as the
rights and privileges of the great and powerful states
now at war.’

It is true that a minute reading indicates that Mr.
Wilson was merely quoting, or attempting to para-
phrase, the statements of the leaders of both sides, but
there is such a thing as quoting with approval, and no
explanation could convince the British public that the
ruler of the greatest neutral nation had not declared
that the Allies and the Central Powers stood morally
upon the same level. The popular indignation which
this caused in Great Britain was so intense that it
alarmed the British authorities. The publication of
this note in the British press was withheld for several
hours, in order to give the Government an opportunity
to control the expression of editorial opinion; other-
wise it was feared that this would be so unrestrained
in its bitterness that relations with the United States
might be imperiled.

The Government took the same precautions with
its own press in England. When the note was finally
released the Foreign Office explicitly directed the Lon-
don newspapers to comment with the utmost caution
and in no case to question the President’s sincerity.
Most of them acquiesced in these instructions by main-
taining silence. From the first day of the war the
British people had declared that President Wilson did
not understand the issues at stake; and they now de-
clared that this note confirmed their worst forebod-
ings. The comments of the man-in-the-street were
unprintable, but more serious than these was the im-
pression which Mr. Wilson’s dubious remarks made
upon those Englishmen who had always been espe-PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 265

cially friendly to the United States and who had even
defended the President in previous crises.

Page’s interview with Lord Robert Cecil on Decem-
ber 26th, while the Presidential communication was
lying on his desk, discloses the real emotions of Eng-
lishmen. To this country and to its peaceful ideals
Lord Robert had always been extremely sympathetic,
and to Page especially he had never manifested any-
thing but cordiality. Yet it was evident, as Page
came into his office this morning, that to Lord Robert,
as to every member of the Government, the Presi-
dent’s note, with its equivocal phrases, had been a
terrible shock. His manner was extremely courteous,
as always, but he made no attempt to conceal his feel-
ings. Ordinarily Lord Robert did not wear his emo-
tions on the surface; but he took occasion on this visit
to tell Page how greatly the President's communica-
tion had grieved him.

“The President,” he said, ‘“‘has seemed to pass judg-
ment on the Allied cause by putting it on the same
level as the German. I am deeply hurt.”

Page conveyed Mr. Lansing’s message that no such
inference was justified. But this was not reassuring.

“Moreover,” Lord Robert added, “there is one sen-
tence in the note—that in which the President says
that the position of neutrals is becoming intolerable—
that seems almost a veiled threat.”

Page hastened to assure Lord Robert that no threat
was intended.

Lord Robert’s manner became increasingly serious.

“There is nothing that the American Government
or any other human power can do,” he remarked
slowly and solemnly, ‘“‘which will bring this war to a
close before the Allies have spent their utmost force
to secure a'victory. A failure to secure such a victory266 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

will leave the world at the mercy of the most arrogant
and the bloodiest tyranny that has ever been organ-
ized. It is far better to die in an effort to defeat that
tyranny than to perish under its success.”’

If we are to understand the full tragedy of this mo-
ment we must remember that, incredible as it now
seems, there was a fear in British officialdom that the
United States might not only not pursue a course
favorable to the Allies, but that it might even throw its
support to Germany. The fear, of course, was base-
less; any suggestion of such a policy in the United
States would have destroyed any official who had
brought it forward; but Lord Robert knew and Page
knew that there were insidious influences at work at
that time, both in the United States and in Great
Britain, which looked in this direction. A group of
Americans, whom Page used to refer to as “peace
spies,” were associated with English pacifists, for
the purpose of bringing about peace on almost any
terms. These “‘peace spies” had worked out a pro-
gram all their own. The purpose was to compel
Great Britain to accept the German terms for ending
the war. Unless she did accept them, then it was in-
tended that the American Government should place an
embargo on the shipment of foodstuffs and munitions
to the Allies.

There is little question that the United States, by
taking such action, could have ended the war almost
instantaneously. Should the food of her people and
the great quantities of munitions which were coming
from this country be suddenly cut off, there is little
likelihood that Great Britain could have long sur-
vived. The possibility that an embargo might shut
out these supplies had hung over the heads of British
statesmen ever since the war began; they knew thatPEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 267

the possession of this mighty power made the United
States the potential dictator of events; and the fear
that it might be used had never ceased to influence
their thoughts or their actions.

Startling as was the sensation caused by the Presi-
dent’s December note, it was mild compared with that
which was now to come. Page naturally sent prompt
reports of all these conversations to the President and
likewise kept him completely informed as to the state
of public feeling, but his best exertions apparently did
not immediately affect the Wilson policy. The over-
whelming fact is that the President's mind was fixed
on a determination to compel the warring powers to
make peace and in this way to keep the United States
out of the conflict. Even the disturbance caused by
his note of December 18th did not make him pause in
this peace campaign. To that note the British sent a
manly and definite reply, drafted by Mr. Balfour, giv-
ing in detail precisely the terms upon which the Allies
would compose their differences with the Central Pow-
ers. The Germans sent a reply consisting of ten or
a dozen lines, which did not give their terms, but
merely asked again for a conference.

Events were now moving with the utmost rapidity.
On January 9th, a council of German military chief-
tains was held at Pless; in this it was decided to re-
sume unrestricted submarine warfare. On January
16th the Zimmermann-Mexico telegram was intercep-
ted: this informed Bernstorff, among other things, that
this decision had been made. On January 16th, at
nine o’clock in the morning, the American Embassy
in London began receiving a long cipher despatch
from Washington. The preamble announced that
the despatch contained a copy of an address which
the President proposed to deliver before the Senate268 PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY

‘in a few days.” As the speech approached its end,
this sentence appeared: “It must be a peace without
victory.”

The words greatly puzzled the secretary in charge,
for they seemed almost meaningless. Suspecting that
an error had been made in transmission, the secretary
directed the code room to cable Washington for a
verification of the cipher groups. Very soon the an-
swer was received; there had been no mistake; the
Presidential words were precisely those which had
been first received: ‘‘Peace without victory.” The
slips were then taken to Page, who read the document,
especially these fateful syllables, with a consternation
which he made no effort to conceal. He immediately
wrote a cable to President Wilson, telling him of the
deplorable effect this sentence would produce and im-
ploring him to cut it out of his speech—with what suc-
cess the world now knows. On the day the speech
was received at the Embassy, about a week before it
was delivered in the Senate, Page made the following
memorandum:

The President’s address to the Senate, which was
received to-day (January 16th) ,! shows that he thinks
he can play peace-maker. He does not at all under-
stand, (or, if he do, so much the worse for him) that
the Entente Powers, especially Great Britain and
France, cannot make ‘“‘peace without victory.” If
they do, they will become vassals of Germany. In a
word, the President does not know the Germans; and
he is, unconsciously, under their influence in his
thought. His speech plays into their hands.

This address will give great offense in England,

1It was delivered and published on January 22nd.PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY 269

since it puts each side in the war on the same moral
level.

I immediately saw the grave danger to our relations
with Great Britain by the Peace-without-Victory plan;
and I telegraphed the President, venturing to advise
him to omit that phrase—with no result.

Afterward Page added this to the above:

Compare this Senate speech with his speech in April
calling for war: Just when and how did the Presi-
dent come to see the true nature of the German?
What made him change from Peace-Maker to War-
Maker? The Zimmermann telegram, or the February
U-boat renewal of warfare? Had he been so cred-
ulous as to believe the German promise? This prom-
‘se had been continuously and repeatedly broken.

Or was it the pressure of public opinion, the grow-
ing impatience of the people, that pushed him in?

This distressing peace move—utterly out of touch
with the facts of the origin of the war or of its con-
duct or of the mood and necessities of Great Britain
—a remote, academic deliverance, while Great Britain
and France were fighting for their very lives—made a
profoundly dejected feeling; and it made my place and
work more uncomfortable than ever. “Peace without
victory” brought us to the very depths of European
disfavor.Crear Wh Ry xy
THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

HE United States broke off diplomatic relations

with Germany on February 3, 1917. The oc-
casion was a memorable one in the American Embassy
in London. All day long a nervous and rather weary
company had waited in the Ambassador’s room for
the decisive word from Washington. Mr. and Mrs.
Page, Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin, Mr. Shoecraft, the
Ambassador’s secretary, sat there hour after hour,
hardly speaking to one another in their tense excite-
ment, waiting for the news that would inform them
that Bernstorff’s course had been run and that their
country had taken its decision on the side of the Allies.
Finally, at nine o’clock in the evening, the front door
bell rang. Mr. Shoecraft excitedly left the room;
halfway downstairs he met Admiral William Reginald
Hall, the head of the British Naval Intelligence, who
was hurrying up to the Ambassador. Admiral Hall,
as he spied Mr. Shoecraft, stopped abruptly and ut-
tered just two words:

“Thank God!”

Page well understood that the dismissal of Bern-
storff at that time meant war with the Central Empires.
Had this dismissal taken place in 1915, after the sink-
ing of the Lusitania, or in 1916, after the sinking of
the Sussex, Page believed that a simple break in rela-

tions would in itself have brought the war to an early
270THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 271

end. But by February, 1917; things had gone too
far. For Germany had now decided to stake every-
thing upon the chance of winning a quick victory
with the submarine. Our policy had persuaded the
Kaiser’s advisers that America would not intervene;
and the likelihood of rapidly starving Great Britain
was so great—indeed the Germans had reduced the
situation to a mathematical calculation of success—
that an American declaration of war seemed to Berlin
to be a matter of no particular importance. The
American Ambassador in London regarded Bern-
storfi’s dismissal much more seriously. It justified
the interpretations of events which he had been send-
ing to Mr. Wilson, Colonel House, and others for
nearly three years. If Page had been inclined to take
satisfaction in the fulfilment of his own prophecies,
Germany’s disregard of her promises and the Ameri-
can declaration of war would have seemed an ample
justification of his course as ambassador.

But Page had little time for such vain communings.
‘All that water,’ as he now wrote, “has flowed over
the dam.” Occasionally his mind would revert to the
dreadful period of “neutrality,” but in the main his
activities, mental and physical, were devoted to the
future. A letter addressed to his son Arthur shows
how quickly and how sympathetically he was adjusting
himself to the new prospect. His mind was now Oc-
cupied with ships, food, armies, warfare on sub-
marines, and the approaching resettlement of the
world. How completely he foresaw the part that the
United States must play in the actual waging of hostili-
ties, and to what an extent he himself was responsible
for the policies that ultimately prevailed, appears in
this letter:272 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

To Arthur W. Page

25 March, 1917, London.
DEAR ARTHUR:

It’s very hard, not to say impossible, to write in
these swiftly moving days. Anything written to-day
is out of date to-morrow—even if it be not wrong to
start with. The impression becomes stronger here
every day that we shall go into the war ‘‘with both
feet’’—that the people have pushed the President over
in spite of his vision of the Great Peacemaker, and
that, being pushed over, his idea now will be to show
how he led them into a glorious war in defense of
democracy. That’s my reading of the situation, and
I hope I am not wrong. At any rate, ever since the
call of Congress for April 2nd, I have been telegraph*
ing tons of information and plans that can be of use
only if we go to war. . . . If they do half the things
that I recommend we'll be in at the final lickin’ big,
and will save our souls yet.

There’s lots of human nature in this world. A note
Is now sometimes heard here in undertone (North-
cliffe strikes it)—that they don’t want the Americans
in the war. This means that if we come in just as
the Allies finish the job we'll get credit, in part, for
the victory, which we did little to win! But that’s a
minor note. The great mass of people do want us

in, quick, hard, and strong—our money and our guns
and our ships.

My mind keeps constantly on the effect of the war
and especially of our action on our own country. Of

course that is the most important end of the things for
us. I hope that—THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 273

1. It will break up and tear away our isolation;

2. It will unhorse our cranks and soft-brains;

3. It will make us less promiscuously hospitable to
every kind of immigrant;

4. It will reéstablish in our minds and conscience
and policy our true historic genesis, background, kin-
dred, and destiny—i. e., kill the Irish and the German
influence ;

5. It will revive our real manhood—put the molly-
coddles in disgrace, as idiots and dandies are:

6. It will make our politics frank and manly by re-
storing our true nationality;

7. It will make us again a great seafaring people.
It is this that has given Great Britain its long lead in
the world;

8. Break up our feminized education—make a boy
a vigorous animal and make our education rest on a
wholesome physical basis;

9. Bring men of a higher type into our political life.

We need waking up and shaking up and invigorat-
ing as much as the Germans need taking down.

There is no danger of “militarism” in any harmful
sense among any English race or in any democracy.

By George! all these things open an interesting out-
look and series of tasks—don’t they?

My staff and I are asking everybody what the
Americans can best do to help the cause along. The
views are not startling, but they are interesting.

Jellicoe: More ships, merchant ships, any kind of
ships, and take over the patrol of the American side
of the Atlantic and release the British cruisers there.

Balfour: American credits in the United States
big enough to keep up the rate of exchange.

Bonar Law: Same thing.

The military men: An expeditionary force, no274 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

matter how small, for the effect of the American Flag
in Europe. If one regiment marched through Lon-
don and Paris and took the Flag to the front, that
would be worth the winning of a battle.

If you wish to make a picture of the world as it will
be when the war ends, you must conjure up such scenes
as these—human bones along the Russian highways
where the great retreat took place and all that such
a sight denotes; Poland literally starved; Serbia,
blasted and burned and starved; Armenia butchered;
the horrible tragedy of Gallipoli, where the best sol-
diers in the world were sacrificed to politicians’ poli-
cies; Austria and Germany starved and whipped but
liberalized—perhaps no king in either country; Bel-
gium—belgiumized; northern France the same and
worse; more productive Frenchmen killed in propor-
tion to the population perhaps than any other country
will have lost; Great Britain—most of her best men
gone or maimed; colossal debts; several Teutonic
countries bankrupt; every atrocity conceivable com-
mitted somewhere—a hell-swept great continent hav-
ing endured more suffering in three years than in the
preceding three hundred. Then, ten years later,
most of this suffering a mere memory; governments
reorganized and liberalized; men made more efficient
by this strenuous three years’ work; the fields got back
their bloom, and life going on much as it did before—
with this chief difference—some kings have gone and
many privileges have been abolished. The lessons are
two—(1) that no government can successfully set out
and conquer the world; and (2) that the hold that
privilege-holders acquire costs more to dislodge than
anyone could ever have guessed. That’s the sum of it.THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 275

Kings and privilege-mongers, of course, have held the
parts of the world separate from one another. They
fatten on proyvincialism, which is mistaken for patri-
otism. As they lose their grip, human sympathy has
its natural play between nations, and civilization has a
chance. With any Emperor of Germany left the war
will have been half in vain.

If we (the U. S. A.) cultivate the manly qualities
and throw off our cranks and read our own history and
be true to our traditions and blood and get some poliu-
cal vigor; then if we emancipate ourselves from the
isolation theory and from the landlubber theory—get
into the world and build ships, ships, ships, ships, and
run them to the ends of the seas, we can dominate the
world in trade and in political thought.

You know I have moments when it occurs to me that
perhaps I'd better give whatever working years I may
have to telling this story—the story of the larger
meaning of the war. There’s no bigger theme—never
was one so big.

Affectionately,
W. Hiwe

“One thing pleases me,’ Page wrote to his son
Arthur, “I never lost faith in the American people. It
is now clear that I was right in feeling that they would
have gladly come in any time after the Lusitania
crime, Middle West in the front. . . . We are as
Anglo-Saxon as we ever were. If Hughes had had
sense and courage enough to say: ‘I’m for war, war
to save our honor and to save democracy,’ he would
now be President. If Wilson had said that, Hughes
would have carried no important states in the Union.
The suppressed people would have risen to either of
them. That’s God’s truth as I believe it. The real276 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

United States is made up of you and Frank and the
Page boys at Aberdeen and of the 10,000,000 other
young fellows who are ready to do the job and who
instinctively see the whole truth of the situation. But
of course what the people would not have done under
certain conditions—that water also has flowed over
the dam; I mention it only because I have resolutely
kept my faith in the people and there has been nothing
in recent events that has shaken it.”’

A letter which Page wrote on this same April ist
is interesting in that it outlines almost completely the
war policy that was finally carried out:

To David F. Houston '*

Embassy of the United States of America,

April 1. 1917.
DEAR Houston:

The Administration can save itself from becoming
a black blot on American history only by vigorous ac-
tion—acts such as these:

Putting our navy to work—vigorous work—wher-
ever and however is wisest. I have received the Gov-
ernment’s promise to send an admiral here at once for
a conference. We must work out with the British
Navy a program whereby we can best help; and we
must carry it without hesitancy or delay.

Sending over an expeditionary military force im-
mediately—a small one, but as large as we can, as an
earnest of a larger one to come. .This immediate
small one will have a good moral effect; and we need
all the moral reinstatement that we can get in the esti-

mation of the world: our moral stock is lower than,

1 Secretary of Agriculture in President Wilson’s Cabinet.THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 277

I fear, any of you at home can possibly realize. As
for a larger expeditionary force later—even that
ought to be sent quite early. It can and must spend
some time in training in France, whatever its training
beforehand may have been. All the military men
agree that soldiers in France back of the line can be
trained in at least half the time that they can be
trained anywhere else. . . . They can be trained into
fighting men—into an effective army—in about one
third of the time that would be required at home.

I suppose, of course, we shall make at once a large
loan to the Allies at a low rate of interest. That is
most important, but that alone will not save us. We
must also fight.

All the ships we can get—build, requisition, or con-
fiscate—are needed immediately.

Navy, army, money, ships—these are the first
things, but by no means all. We must make some ex-
pression of a conviction that there is a moral question
of right and wrong involved in this war—a question
of humanity, a question of democracy. So far we
have (officially) spoken only of the wrongs done to
our ships and citizens. Deep wrongs have been done
to all our moral ideas, to our ideals. We have sunk
very low in European opinion because we do not seem
to know even yet that a German victory would be less
desirable than (say) a Zulu victory of the world.

We must go in with the Allies, not begin a mere
single fight against submarines. We must sign the
pact of London—not make a separate peace.

We mustn’t longer spin dreams about peace, nor
leagues to enforce peace, nor the Freedom of the Seas.
These things are mere intellectual diversions of minds
out of contact with realities. Every political and so-
cial ideal we have is at stake. If we make them278 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

secure, we'll save Europe from destruction and save
ourselves, too.

I pray for vigor and decision and clear-cut resolute
action.

(1) The Navy—full strength, no “grapejuice”
action.

(2) An immediate expeditionary force.

(3) A larger expeditionary force very soon.

(4) A large loan at a low interest.

(5) Ships, ships, ships.

(6) A clear-cut expression of the moral issue.
Thus (and only thus) can we swing into a new era,
with a world born again.

Yours in strictest confidence,

Welikk:

A memorandum, written on April 3rd, the day after
President Wilson advised Congress to declare a state
of war with Germany:

The Day

When I went to see Mr. Balfour to-day he shook
my hand warmly and said: “It’s a great day for the
world.”” And so has everybody said, in one way or
another, that I have met to-day.

The President’s speech did not appear in the morn-
ing papers—only a very brief summary in one or two
of them; but the meaning of it was clear. The fact
that the House of Representatives organized itself in
one day and that the President addressed Congress
on the evening of that day told the story. The noon
papers had the President’s speech in full; and every-
body applauds.

My ‘Cabinet’? meeting this morning was unusuallyTHE UNITED STATES AT WAR 279

interesting; and the whole group has never before
been so delighted. I spoke of the suggestive, con-
structive work we have already done in making re-
ports on various war preparations and activities of
this kingdom. ‘‘Now we have greater need than ever,
every man to do constructive work—to think of plans
to serve. Weare in this excellent strategical position
in the capital of the greatest belligerent—a position
which I thank my stars, the President, and all the
powers that be for giving us. We can each strive to
justify our existence.”’

These jottings give only a faint impression of the
change which the American action wrought in Page.
The strain which he had undergone for twenty-nine
months had been intense; it had had the most un for-
tunate effect upon his health; and the sudden lifting
might have produced that reaction for the worse
which is not unusual after critical experiences of this
kind. But the gratification which Page felt in the
fact that the American spirit had justified his confi-
dence gave him almost a certain exuberance of con-
tentment. Londoners who saw him at that time
describe him as acting like a man from whose shoul-
ders a tremendous weight had suddenly been removed.
For more than two years Page had been compelled,
officially at least, to assume a “neutrality” with which
he had never had the slightest sympathy, but the neces-
sity for this mask now no longer existed. A well-
known Englishman happened to meet Page leaving his
house in Grosvenor Square the day after the Declara-
tion of War. He stopped and shook the Ambassa-
dor’s hand.

“Thank God,” the Englishman said, “that there is
one hypocrite less in London to-day.”280 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

“What do you mean?” asked Page.

“J mean you. Pretending all this time that you
were neutral! That isn’t necessary any longer.”

“You are right!’ the Ambassador answered as he
walked on with a laugh and a wave of the hand.

A few days after the Washington Declaration, the
American Luncheon Club held a feast in honor of the
event. This organization had a membership of rep-
resentative American business men in London, but its
behavior during the war had not been based upon Mr.
Wilson’s idea of neutrality. Indeed its tables had so
constantly rung with denunciations of the Lusitania
notes that all members of the American Embassy,
from Page down, had found it necessary to refrain
from attending its proceedings. When Page arose
to address his compatriots on this occasion, therefore,
he began with the significant words, ‘“‘I am glad to be
back with you again,’ and the mingled laughter and
cheers with which this remark was received indicated
that his hearers had caught the point.

The change took place not only in Page, but in Lon-
don and the whole of Great Britain. An England
that had been saying harsh things of the United States
for nearly two years now suddenly changed its atti-
tude. Both houses of Parliament held commemora-
tive sessions in honor of America’s participation; in
the Commons Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith, and
other leaders welcomed their new allies, and in the
Upper Chamber Lord Curzon, Lord Bryce, the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and others similarly voiced their
admiration. The Stars and Stripes almost instanta-
neously broke out on private dwellings, shops, hotels,
and theaters; street hucksters did a thriving business
selling rosettes of the American colors, which even
the most stodgy Englishmen did not disdain to wearTHE UNITED STATES AT WAR 281

in their buttonholes; wherever there was a band or an
orchestra, the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’”’ acquired a sud-
den popularity; and the day even came when the
American and the British flags flew side by side over
the Houses of Parliament—the first occasion in his-
tory that any other than the British standard had re-
ceived this honor.

The Ambassador’s mail underwent a complete trans-
formation. His correspondence of the preceding two
years, enormous in its extent, had contained letters, at
times sorrowful, at others abusive, even occasionally
threatening, varying in their style from cultivated Eng-
lish to the grossest illiteracy, now written in red ink
to emphasize their bitterness, now printed in large
block letters to preserve their anonymity; they aroused
in Page only a temporary amusement. But the let-
ters that began to pour in upon him after our Dec-
laration, many of them from the highest placed men
and women in the Kingdom, brought out more viv-
idly than anything else the changed position of his
country.

Probably the letter which gave Page the greatest
pleasure was that which came from the statesman
whose courtesy and broad outlook had eased the Am-
bassador’s task in the old neutrality days. In 1916,
Sir Edward Grey—now become Viscount Grey of
Fallodon—had resigned office, forced out, Page says
in one of his letters, mainly because he had refused
to push the blockade to a point where it might pro-
duce a break with the United States. When the great
occasion for which he had prepared had come, in
Grey’s mind this signified more than a help to Eng-
land in soldiers and ships: it meant bringing together
the two branches of a common race for the promotion
of common ideals.282 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

From Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Rosehall Post Office,
Sutherland,
April 8, 1917.
DEAR Mr. PAGE:

This is a line that needs no answer to express my
congratulations on President Wilson’s address. I
can’t express adequately all that I feel. Great grati-
tude and great hope are in my heart. I hope now
that some great and abiding good to the world will
yet be wrought out of all this welter of evil. Recent
events in Russia, too, stimulate this hope: they are a
good in themselves, but not the power for good in
this war that a great and firmly established free coun-
try like the United States can be. The President’s
address and the way it has been followed up in your
country is a splendid instance of great action finely in-
spired. I glow with admiration.

Yours sincerely,
GREY OF FALLODON.

To Frank N. Doubleday

American Embassy,
London, May 3, 1917.
DEAR EFFENDI:

I aim this at you. It may hit a German submarine.
But we’ve got to take our chances in these days of
risk. Your letter from the tropics—a letter from you
from any place is as scarce as peace !—gave me a pleas-
ant thrill and reminder of a previous state of exist-
ence, a long way back in the past. I wonder if, on
your side the ocean, you are living at the rate of a
century a year, as we are here? Here in bountifulTHE UNITED STATES AT WAR 283

England we are living on rations. I spent a night
with the King a fortnight ago, and he gave us only so
much bread, one egg apiece, and—lemonade. We are
to begin bread tickets next week. All this is perfectly
healthful and wholesome and as much as I ever eat.
But the hard part of it is that it’s necessary. We
haven’t more than six weeks’ food supply and the sub-
marines sunk eighty-eight ships—237,000 tons—last
week. These English do not publish these harrowing
facts, and nobody knows them but a few official people.
And'they are destroying the submarines at a most beg-
garly slow rate. They work far out at sea—tioo to
200 miles—and it’s as hard to find them as it would
be to find whales. The simple truth is we are in a
dangerous plight. If they could stop this submarine
warfare, the war would pretty quickly be won, for the
Germans are in a far worse plight for food and ma-
terials and they are getting much the worst of it on
land. The war would be won this summer or autumn
if the submarine could be put out of business. If it
isn’t, the Germans may use this success to keep their
spirits up and go on till next year.

We [the United States] have about 40 destroyers.
We are sending over 6! I’m doing my best to per-
suade the Government at Washington to send every
one we have. But, since the British conceal the facts
from their own press and the people and from all the
world, the full pressure of the situation is hard to
exert on Washington. Our Admiral [Sims] and I
are trying our best, and we are spending enough on
cables to build a destroyer. All this, you must, of
course, regard as a dark secret; but it’s a devilish black
secret.

I don’t mean that there’s any danger of losing the
war. Even if the British armies have to have their284. THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

food cut down and people here go hungry, they’ll win;
but the winning may be a long time off. Nothing but
their continued success can keep the Germans going.
Their people are war-weary and hungry. Austria is
knocked out and is starving. Turkey is done up but
can go on living on nothing, but not fighting much
more. When peace comes, there'll be a _ general
famine, on the continent at least, and no ships to haul
food. This side of the world will have to start life
all over again—with insufficient men to carry things
on and innumerable maimed men who'll have (more
or less) to be cared for. The horror of the whole
thing nobody realizes. We've all got used to it here;
and nobody clearly remembers just what the world
was like in peace times; those times were so far away.
All this I write not to fill you with horrors but to
prove that I speak the literal truth when I say that it
seems a hundred years since I had before heard from
you.

. . . It’s a literal fact that many a month I do not
have an hour to do with as I please nor to think about
what I please, from the time I wake up till I go to bed.
In spite of twenty-four secretaries (the best fellows
that ever were and the best staff that any embassy
ever had in the world) more and more work comes
to me. I thank Heaven we no longer have the inter-
ests of Germany, Austria, and Turkey to look after;
but with our coming into the war, work in general has
increased enormously. I have to spend very much
more time with the different departments of the Brit-
ish Government on war plans and such like things.
They have welcomed us in very handsomely; and one
form of their welcome is consulting with me about—
navy plans, war plans, loans of billions, ships, censor-
ship, secret service—everything you ever heard of.THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 285

At first it seemed a little comical for the admirals
and generals and the Governor of the Bank of Eng-
land to come and ask for advice. But when I gave it
and it worked out well, I went on and, after all, the
thing’s easier than it looks. With a little practice you
can give these fellows several points in the game and
play a pretty good hand. They don’t know half as
much as you might suppose they’d know. All these
years of lecturing the State Department and the Presi-
dent got my hand in! The whole game is far easier
than any small business. You always play with blue
chips better than you play with white ones.

This country and these people are not the country
and the people they were three years ago. They are
very different. They are much more democratic, far
less cocksure, far less haughty, far humbler. The
man at the head of the army rose from the ranks.
The Prime Minister is a poor Welsh schoolteacher’s
son, without early education. The man who controls
all British shipping began life as a shipping “‘clark,” at
ten shillings a week. Yet the Lords and Ladies, too,
have shown that they were made of the real stuff.
This experience is making England over again.
There never was a more interesting thing to watch
and to be a part of.

There are about twenty American organizations
here—big, little, rag-tag, and bobtail. When we de-
clared war, every one of ’em proceeded to prepare
for some sort of celebration. There would have been
an epidemic of Fourth-of-July oratory all over the
town—before we’d done anything—Americans spout-
ing over the edges and killing Kruger with their
mouths. I got representatives of ’em all together
and proposed that we hold our tongues till we’d won
the war—then we can take London.Jt
ee

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286 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR

And to give one occasion when we might all assemble
and dedicate ourselves to this present grim business,
I arranged for an American Dedicatory Service at St.
Paul’s Cathedral. The royal family came, the Gov-
ernment came, the Allied diplomats came, my Lords
and Ladies came, one hundred wounded American
(Canadian) soldiers came—the pick of the Kingdom;
my Navy and Army staff went in full uniform, the
Stars and Stripes hung before the altar, a double brass
band played the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’? and the
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and an American
bishop (Brent) preached a red-hot American sermon,
the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the benedic-
tion; and (for the first time in English history) a for-
eign flag (the Stars and Stripes) flew over the Houses
of Parliament. It was the biggest occasion, so they
say, that St. Paul’s ever had. And there’s been no
spilling of American oratory since! If you hac pub-
lished a shilling edition of the words and music of
the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ and the “Battle Hymn”
you could have sent a cargo of ’em here and sold them.
There isn’t paper enough in this Kingdom to get out
an edition here.

Give my love to all the Doubledays and to all the
fellows in the shop, and (I wonder if you will) try
your hand at another letter. You write very legibly
these days!

Sincerely yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.CHAPTER XV
PAGE—THE MAN

HE entrance of America into the war repre-
a sented for Page a personal triumph; there were
many things still to be done, it is true, and he, as al-
ways, was active in advancing the interests that were
nearest his heart; yet the mighty relief that followed
the American declaration was the kind that one expe-
riences after accomplishing the greatest task of a life-
time. Page’s letters have contained many references
to the sense of moral isolation which his country’s pol-
icy had forced upon him; he probably exaggerated his
feeling that there was a tendency to avoid him; this
was merely a reflection of his own inclination to keep
away from all but the official people.

He now had more leisure and certainly more inter-
est in cultivating the friends that he had made in Great
Britain. For the fact is that, during all these engross-
ing years, Page had been more than an ambassador ;
by the time the United States entered the war he had
attained an assured personal position in the life of
the British capital. He had long since demonstrated
his qualifications for a post, which, in the distinction
of the men who have occupied it, has few parallels in
diplomacy. The scholarly Lowell, the courtly Bay-
ard, the companionable Hay, the ever-humorous
Choate, had set a standard for American ambassadors
which had made the place a difficult one for their suc-

cessors. Though Page had characteristics in common
287288 PAGE—THE MAN

with all these men, his personality had its own distinc-
tive tang; and it was something new to the political
and social life of London. And the British capital,
which is extremely exacting and even merciless in its
demands upon its important personages, had found
him vastly entertaining. ‘I didn’t know there could
be anything so American as Page except Mark Twain,”
a British literary man once remarked; and it was
probably this strong American quality, this directness
and even breeziness of speech and of method, this ab-
sence of affectation, this almost openly expressed con-
tempt for finesse and even for tradition, combined with
those other traits which we like to think of as Ameri-
can—an upright purpose, a desire to serve not only
his own country but mankind—which made the British
public look upon Page as one of the most attractive
and useful figures in a war-torn Europe.

There was a certain ruggedness in Page’s exterior
which the British regarded as distinctly in keeping with
this American flavor. The Ambassador was not a
handsome man. To one who had heard much of the
liveliness of his conversation and presence a first im-
pression was likely to be disappointing. His figure
at this time was tall, gaunt, and lean—and he steadily
lost weight during his service in England; his head was
finely shaped—it was large, with a high forehead, his
thin gray hair rather increasing its intellectual aspect;
and his big frank brown eyes reflected that keen zest
for life, that unsleeping interest in everything about
him, that ever-working intelligence and sympathy
which were the man’s predominant traits. But a very
large nose at first rather lessened the pleasing effects
of his other features, and a rather weather-beaten,
corrugated face gave a preliminary suggestion of
roughness. Yet Page had only to begin talking andPAGE—THE MAN 289

the impression immediately changed. “He puts his
mind to yours,” Dr. Johnson said, describing the sym-
pathetic qualities of a friend, and the same was true
of Page. Hlalf-a-dozen sentences, spoken in his quick,
soft, and ingratiating accents, accompanied by the most
genial smile, at once converted the listener into a
friend. Few men have ever lived who more quickly
responded to this human relationship. The Ambas-
sador, at the simple approach of a human being, be-
came as a man transformed. ‘Tired though he might
be, low in spirits as he not infrequently was, the press
of a human hand at once changed him into an animated
and radiating companion. ‘This responsiveness de-
ceived all his friends in the days of his last illness.
His intimates who dropped in to see Page invariably
went away much encouraged and spread optimistic
reports about his progress. A few minutes’ conver-
sation with Page would deceive even his physicians.
The explanation was a simple one: the human presence
had an electric effect upon him, and it is a revealing
sidelight on Page’s character that almost any man or
woman could produce this result. As an editor, the
readiness with which he would listen to suggestions
from the humblest source was a constant astonishment
to his associates. The office boy had as accessible an |
approach to Page as had his partners. He never
treated an idea, even a grotesque one, with contempt;
he always had time to discuss it, to argue it out, and
no one ever left his presence thinking that he had made
an absurd proposal. Thus Page had a profound re-
spect for a human being simply because he was a human
being; the mere fact that a man, woman, or child lived
and breathed, had his virtues and his failings, consti-
tuted in Page’s imagination a tremendous fact. He
could not wound such a living creature any more thanpeared

—

 

290 PAGE—THE MAN

he could wound a flower or a tree; consequently he
treated every person as an important member of the
universe. Not infrequently, indeed, he stormed at
public men, but his thunder, after all, was not very
terrifying.

Page said ‘“Good-morning” to his doorman with
the same deference that he showed to Sir Edward
Grey, and there was not a little stenographer in the
building whose joys and sorrows did not arouse in him
the most friendly interest. Some of the most affect-
ing letters written about Page, indeed, have come from
these daily associates of more humble station. ‘We
so often speak of Mr. Page,” writes one of the Em-
bassy staff—all English servants, at the Embassy;
“we all loved him equally, and hardly a day passes
that something does not remind us of him, and I often
fancy that I hear his laugh, so full of kindness and
love of life.” And the impression left on those in
high position was the same. ‘I have seen ladies rep-
resenting all that is most worldly in Mayfair,” writes
Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, the editor of the Atlantic
Monthly, ‘“‘start at the sudden thought of Page’s ill-
ness, their eyes glistening with tears.”

Perhaps what gave most charm to this human side
was the fact that Page was fundamentally such a
scholarly man. This was the aspect which especially
delighted his English friends. He preached democ-
racy and Americanism with an emphasis that almost
suggested the backwoodsman—the many ideas on
these subjects that appear in his letters Page never
hesitated to set forth with all due resonance at Lon-
don dinner tables—yet he phrased his creed in lan-
guage that was little less than literary style, and illumi-
nated it with illustrations and a philosophy that were
the product of the most exhaustive reading. “YourPAGE—THE MAN 291

ambassador has taught us something that we did not
know before,”’ an English friend remarked to an Amer-
ican. ‘That is that a man can be a democrat and a
man of culture at the same time.’ Page likewise
spoke a brand of idiomatic English which immedi-
ately put him in a class by himself. He regarded
words as sacred things. He used them, in his writing
or in his speech, with the utmost care and discrimina-
tion; yet this did not result in a halting or stilted
style; he spoke with the utmost ease, going rapidly
from thought to thought, choosing invariably the one
needful word, lighting up the whole with whimsicali-
ties all his own, occasionally emphasizing a good point
by looking downward and glancing over his eyeglasses,
perhaps, if he knew his companion intimately, now
and then giving him a monitory tap on the knee.
Page, in fact, was a great and incessant talker; hardly
anything delighted him more than a companionable
exchange of ideas and impressions; he was seldom so
busy that he would not push aside his papers for a
chat: and he would talk with almost anyone, on almost
any subject—his secretaries, his stenographers, his of-
fice boys, and any crank who succeeded in getting by
the doorman—for, in spite of his lively warnings
against the breed, Page did really love cranks and
took a collector’s joy in uncovering new types.

Page’s voice was normally quiet; though he had
spent all his early life in the South, the characteristic
Southern accents were ordinarily not observable; yet
his intonation had a certain gentleness that was prob-
ably an inheritance of his Southern breeding. Thus,
when he first began talking, his words would ripple
along quietly and rapidly; a characteristic pose was to
sit calmly, with one knee thrown over the other, his
hands folded: as his interest increased, however, he292 PAGE—THE MAN

would get up, perhaps walk across the room, or stand
before the fireplace, his hands behind his back; a large
cigar, sometimes unlighted, at other times emitting
huge clouds of smoke, would oscillate from one side of
his mouth to the other; his talk would grow in earnest-
ness, his voice grow louder, his words come faster and
faster, until finally they would gush forth in a mighty
torrent.

All Page’s personal traits are explained by that one
characteristic which tempered all others, his sense of
humor. That he was above all a serious-minded man
his letters show; yet his spirits were constantly alert
for the amusing, the grotesque, and the contradictory;
like all men who are really serious and alive to the
pathos of existence, he loved a hearty laugh, especially
as he found it a relief from the gloom that filled his
every waking moment in England. Page himself re-
garded this ability to smile as an indispensable attri-
bute to a well-rounded life. ‘‘No man can be a gentle-
man,” he once declared, ‘“‘who does not have a sense of
humor.’’ Only he who possessed this gift, Page be-
lieved, had an imaginative insight into the failings and
the virtues of his brothers; only he could have a toler-
ant attitude toward the stupidities of his fellows, to
say nothing of his own. And humor with him as-
sumed various shades; now it would flash in an epi-
gram, or smile indulgently at a passing human
weakness; now and then it would break out into genial
mockery; occasionally it would manifest itself as sheer
horse-play; and less frequently it would become sar-
donic or even savage. It was in this latter spirit that
he once described a trio of Washington statesmen,
whose influence he abhorred as, ‘‘three minds that oc-
cupy a single vacuum.”’ He once convulsed a Scottish
audience by describing the national motto of ScotlandPAGE—THE MAN 293

—and doing so with a broad burr in his voice that
seemed almost to mark the speaker a native to the
heath—as “‘Liber-r-ty, fra-a-ternity and f-r-r-ugality.”’
The policy of his country occasioned many awkward
moments which, thanks to his talent for amiable rail-
lery, he usually succeeded in rendering harmless. Not
infrequently Page’s fellow guests at the dinner table
would think the American attitude toward Germany a
not inappropriate topic for small talk. “Mr. Page,”
remarked an exaltedly titled lady, in a conversational
pause, “‘when is your country going to get into the
war?’ ‘The more discreet members of the company
gasped, but Page was not disturbed. ‘Please give us
at least ninety days,” he answered, and an exceedingly
disagreeable situation was thus relieved by general
laughter.

On another occasion his repudiation of this flippant
spirit took a more solemn and even more effective
form. The time was a few days before the United
States had declared war. Bernstorff had been dis-
missed; events were rapidly rushing toward the great
climax; yet the behavior of the Washington Admin-
istration was still inspiring much caustic criticism.
The Pages were present at one of the few dinners
which they attended in the course of this crisis; certain
smart and tactless guests did not seem to regard their
presence as a bar to many gibes against the American
policy. Page sat through it all impassive, never be-
traying the slightest resentment.

Presently the ladies withdrew. Page found himself
sitting next to Mr. Harold Nicolson, an important of-
ficial in the Foreign Office. It so happened that Mr.
Nicolson and Page were the only two members of the
company who were the possessors of a great secret
which made ineffably silly all the chatter that had takenh
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294 PAGE—THE MAN

place during the dinner; this was that the United
States had decided on war against Germany and would
issue the declaration in a few days.

“Well, Mr. Nicolson,” said Page, “I think that you
and I will drink a glass of wine together.”’

The two men quietly lifted their glasses and drank
the silent toast. Neither made the slightest reference
to the forthcoming event. Perhaps the other men
present were a little mystified, but in a few days they
understood what it had meant, and also learned how
effectively they had been rebuked.

“Is it any wonder,” says Mr. Nicolson, telling this
story, ‘‘that I think that Mr. Page is perhaps the great-
est gentleman I have ever known? He has only one
possible competitor for this distinction—and that is
Arthur Balfour.”

An anecdote reminiscent of his editorial days was
his retort to S. S. McClure, the editor of McClure’s
Magazine.

“Page,” said Mr. McClure, ‘‘there are only three
great editors in the United States.”

‘“‘Who’s the third one, Sam?” asked Page.

The great service in St. Paul’s Cathedral, in com-
memoration of America’s entry into the war, has al-
ready been described. A number of wounded Amer-
icans, boys whose zeal for the Allies had led them to
enlist in the Canadian Army, were conspicuous partici-
pants in this celebration. After the solemn religious
ceremonies, the Ambassador and these young men be-
took themselves for lunch to a well-known London
restaurant. In an interval of the conversation one of
the Americans turned to Page.

“Mr. Ambassador, there was just one thing wrong
with that service.”’

“What was that?”PAGE—THE MAN 295

‘We wanted to yell, and we couldn’t.”

“Then why don’t you yell now?”

The boy jumped on a chair and began waving his
napkin. ‘“The Ambassador says we may yell,” he
enieda)  Wetis vellile

“And so,” said Page, telling the story, “they yelled
for five minutes and I yelled with them. We all felt
better in consequence.”

This geniality, this disposition not to take life too
solemnly, sometimes lightened up the sombre atmos-
phere of the Foreign Office itself. ‘“‘Mr. Balfour went
on a sort of mild rampage yesterday,’ Page records.
“The British and American navies had come to an
arrangement whereby the Brazilian ships that are
coming over to help us fight should join the American
unit, not the British, as was at first proposed. Wash-
ington telegraphed me that the British Minister at
Rio was blocking the game by standing out for the
first British idea—that the Brazilian ships should
join the British. It turned out in the conversation
that the British Minister had not been informed of the
British-American naval arrangement. Mr. Balfour
sent for Lord Hardinge. He called in one of the pri-
vate secretaries. Was such a thing ever heard of?

“Tid you ever know,’ said the indignant Mr. Bal-
four, turning to me, ‘of such a thing as a minister not
even being informed of his government’s decisions ?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if I ransack my memory diligently, I
think I could find such cases.’ The meeting went into
laughter !”’

Evidently the troubles which Page was having with
his own State Department were not unfamiliar to
British officialdom.

Greatly as Page loved England he never ceased to
preach his Americanism. That he preferred his own296 PAGE—THE MAN

country to any other and that he believed that it was
its greatest destiny to teach its institutions to the rest
of the world, Page’s letters show; yet this was with
him no cheap spread-eagleism; it was a definite phil-
osophy which the Ambassador had completely thought
out. He never hesitated to express his democratic
opinions in any company, and only once or twice were
there any signs that these ideas jarred a little in certain
strongholds of conservatism.

Even in the darkest period of American neutrality
Page’s faith in the American people remained com-
plete. After this country had entered the war and the
apparent slowness of the Washington Administration
had raised certain questionings, Page never doubted
that the people themselves, however irresolute and
lukewarm their representatives might be, would force
the issue to its only logical end. Even so friendly a
man as Mr. Balfour once voiced a popular apprehen-
sion that the United States might not get into the war
with all its strength or might withdraw prematurely.
This was in the early period of our participation.
“Who is going to stop the American people and how?”
Page quickly replied. ‘‘I think that was a good an-
swer,”’ he said, as he looked back at the episode in the
summer of 1918, when hundreds of thousands of
Americans were landing in France every month. A
scrap of his writing records a discussion at a dinner
party on this question: ‘If you could have a month
in any time and any country, what time and what coun-
try would you choose?’ The majority voted for
England in the time of Elizabeth, but Page’s prefer-
ence was for Athens in the days of Pericles. Then
came a far more interesting debate: “If you could
spend a second lifetime when and where would you
choose to spend it?’ On this Page had not a mo-PAGE—THE MAN 297

ment’s hesitation: ‘In the future and in the U. S.
A.!’ and he upheld his point with such persuasiveness
that he carried the whole gathering with him. His
love of anything suggesting America came out on all
occasions. One of his English hostesses once capti-
vated him by serving corn bread at a luncheon. “The
American Ambassador and corn bread!” he exclaimed,
with all the delight of a schoolboy. Again he was
invited, with another distinguished American, to serve
as godfather at the christening of the daughter of an
American woman who had married an Englishman.
When the ceremony was finished he leaned over the
font toward his fellow godfather. “Born on July
4th,” he exclaimed, ‘fof an American mother! And
we two Yankee godfathers! We'll see that this child
is taught the Constitution of the United States!”

The judgments which Page passed on men and
things were quick and they were not infrequently wise.
One of these judgments had historic consequences the
end of which cannot even yet be foreseen. On the
outbreak of hostilities, as already related, an Amer-
ican Relief Committee was organized in London to
look out for the interests of stranded Americans.
Page kept a close eye on its operations, and soon his
attention was attracted by the noiseless efhiciency of an
American engineer of whom he had already caught a
few fleeting glimpses in the period of peace. After he
had finished his work with the American Committee,
Mr. Herbert -C. Hoover began to make his arrange-
ments to leave for the United States. His private
affairs had been disorganized; he had already sent his
family home, and his one ambition was to get on the
first ship sailing for the United States. The idea of
Belgian relief, or of feeding starving people any-
where, had never occurred to him. At this moment298 PAGE—THE MAN

an American, Mr. Millard K. Shaler, came from Brus-
sels and gave the most harrowing account of conditions
in Belgium. Mr. Hoover took Mr. Shaler to Page,
who immediately became sympathetic. The Ambas-
sador arranged an interview between Mr. Hoover and
Sir Edward Grey, who likewise showed great interest
and promised government support. Soon afterward
three Belgians arrived and described the situation as
immediately alarming: Brussels had only food enough
to feed the people for thirty-six hours; after that,
unless help were forthcoming, the greatest distress
would set in. Five men—Page, the three Belgians,
and Mr. Hoover—at once got together at the Amer-
ican Embassy. Upon the result of that meeting hung
the fate of millions of people. Who before had ever
undertaken a scheme for feeding an entire nation for
an indefinite period? That there were great obstacles
in the way all five men knew; the British Admiralty in
particular were strongly opposed; there was a fear
that the food, if it could be acquired and sent to Bel-
gium, would find its way to the German Army. Un-
less the British Government could be persuaded that
this could be prevented, the enterprise would fail at
the start. How could it be done?

“There is only one way,’ said Page. “Some gov-
ernment must give its guarantee that this food will
get to the Belgian people.” ‘And, of course,’ he
added, ‘‘there is only one government that can do that.
It must be the American government.”

Mr. Hoover pointed out that any such guarantee
involved the management of transportation; only by
controlling the railroads could the American Govern-
ment make sure that this food would reach its destina-
tion.

And that, added Page, involved a director—somePAGE—THE MAN 299

one man who could take charge of the whole enter-
prise. Who should it be?

Then Page turned quickly to the young American.

“Hoover, you’re It!”

Mr. Hoover made no reply; he neither accepted nor
rejected the proposal. He merely glanced at the
clock, then got up and silently left the room. In a
few minutes he returned and entered again into the
discussion.

‘Hoover, why did you get up and leave us so
abruptly ?” asked Page, a little puzzled over this be-
havior.

“TI saw by the clock,” came the answer—and it was
a story that Page was fond of telling, as illustrating the
rapidity with which Mr. Hoover worked—“‘that there
was an hour left before the Exchange closed in New
York. So I went out and cabled, buying several mil-
lions of bushels of wheat—for the Belgians, of course.”’

One aspect of Page that remains fixed in the mem-
ory of his associates is his unwearied industry with the
pen. His official communications and his ordinary
correspondence Page dictated; but his personal letters
he wrote with his own hand. He himself deplored the
stenographer as a deterrent to good writing; the habit
of dictating, he argued, led to wordiness and general
looseness of thought. Practically all the letters pub-
lished in these volumes were therefore the painstaking
work of Page’s own pen. His handwriting was so
beautiful and clear that, in his editorial days, the
printers much preferred it as “‘copy’ to typewritten
matter. This habit is especially surprising in view
of the Ambassador’s enormous epistolary output. It
must be remembered that the letters included in the
present book are only a selection from the vast num-ee ”

 

300 PAGE—THE MAN

ber that he wrote during his five years in England;
many of these letters fill twenty and thirty pages of
script; the labor involved in turning them out, day af-
ter day, seems fairly astounding. Yet with Page
this was a labor of love. All through his Ambassa-
dorship he seemed hardly contented unless he had a
pen in his hand. As his secretaries would glance into
his room, there they would see the Ambassador bend-
ing over his desk—writing, writing, eternally writing;
sometimes he would call them in, and read what he had
written, never hesitating to tear up the paper if their
unfavorable criticisms seemed to him well taken. The
Ambassador kept a desk also in his bedroom, and here
his most important correspondence was attended to.
Page’s all-night self-communings before his wood fire
have already been described, and he had another
nocturnal occupation that was similarly absorbing.
Many a night, after returning late from his office or
from dinner, he would put on his dressing gown, sit
at his bedroom desk, and start pouring forth his in-
most thoughts in letters to the President, Colonel
House, or some other correspondent. His pen flew
over the paper with the utmost rapidity and the Am-
bassador would sometimes keep at his writing until
two or three o’clock in the morning. There is a fre-
quently expressed fear that letter-writing is an art
of the past; that the intervention of the stenographer
has destroyed its spontaneity; yet it is evident that in
Page the present generation has a letter-writer of the
old-fashioned kind, for he did all his writing with his
own hand and under circumstances that would assure
the utmost freshness and vividness to the result.
Besides his official activities Page performed great
services to the two countries by his speeches. The
demands of this kind on an American Ambassador arePAGE—THE MAN 301

always numerous, but Page’s position was an excep-
tional one; it was his fortune to represent America
at a time when his own country and Great Britain
were allies in a great war. He could therefore have
spent practically all his time in speaking had he been
so disposed. Of the hundreds of invitations received
he was able to accept only a few, but most of these oc-
casions became memorable ones. In any spectacular
sense Page was not an orator; he rather despised the
grand manner, with its flourishes and its tricks; the
name of public speaker probably best describes his
talents on the platform. Here his style was earnest
and conversational: his speech flowed with the utmost
readiness; it was invariably quiet and restrained; he
was never aiming at big effects, but his words always
went home. Of the series of speeches that stand to
his credit in England probably the one that will be
longest remembered is that delivered at Plymouth on
August 4, 1917, the third anniversary of the war.
This not only reviewed the common history of the two
nations for three hundred years, and suggested a pro-
gram for making the bonds tighter yet, but it brought
the British public practical assurances as to America’s
intentions in the conflict. Up to that time there had
been much vagueness and doubt; no official voice had
spoken the clear word for the United States; the Brit-
ish public did not know what to expect from their kins-
men overseas. But after Page’s Plymouth speech the
people of Great Britain looked forward with complete
confidence to the codperation of the two countries
and to the inevitable triumph of this cooperation.
And so for five busy and devastating years Page
did his work. The stupidities of Washington might
drive him to desperation, ill-health might increase his
periods of despondency, the misunderstandings that302 PAGE—THE MAN

he occasionally had with the British Government
might add to his discouragements, but a naturally
optimistic and humorous temperament overcame all
obstacles, and did its part in bringing about that united
effort which ended in victory. And that it was a great
part, the story of his Ambassadorship abundantly
proves. Page was not the soldier working in the
blood and slime of Flanders, or the sea-fighter spend-
ing day and night around the foggy coast of Ireland,
nor the statesman bending parliaments to his will and
manipulating nations and peoples in the mighty game
whose stake was civilization itself. But history will
indeed be ungrateful if it ever forget the gaunt and
pensive figure, clad in a dressing gown, sitting long into
the morning before the smoldering fire at 6 Grosve-
nor Square, seeking to find some way to persuade
a reluctant and hesitating President to lead his coun-
try in the defense of liberty and determined that, so
far as he could accomplish it, the nation should play
a part in the great assize that was in keeping with its
traditions and its instincts.CHA RAVER excvial
A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

To Arthur W. Page

American Embassy,
London, Sept. 3, 1917.
DEAR ARTHUR:

... The President has sent Admiral Mayo over
to study the naval situation. So far as I can learn
the feeling at Washington is that the British Navy has
done nothing. Why, it hasn’t attacked the German
naval bases and destroyed the German navy and ended
the war! Why not? I have a feeling that Mayo
will supplement and support Sims in his report. ‘Then
gradually the naval men at Washington may begin to
understand and they may get the important facts into
the President’s head. Meantime the submarine work
of the Germans continues to win the war, although the
Government and the people here and in the United
States appear not to believe it. They are still de-
stroying seventy-five British ships a month besides an
additional (smaller) number of allied and neutral
ships. And all the world together is not turning out
seventy-five ships a month; nor are we all destroying
submarines as fast as the Germans are turning them
out. Yet all the politicians are putting on a cheer-
ful countenance about it because the Germans are not
starving England out and are not just now sinking
passenger ships. They may begin this again at any
time. They have come within a few feet of torpedo-
ing two of our American liners. The submarine is the

303304 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

war yet, but nobody seems disposed to believe it.
They'll probably wake up with a great shock some
day—or the war may possibly end before the destruc-
tion of ships becomes positively fatal.

The President’s letter to the Pope gives him the
moral and actual leadership now. The Hohenzol-
lerns must go. Somehow the subjects and govern-
ments of these Old World kingdoms have not hitherto
laid emphasis on this. There’s still a divinity that
doth hedge a king in most European minds. ‘To me
this is the very queerest thing in the whole world.
What again if Germany, Austria, Spain should follow
Russia? Whether they do or not, crowns will not
henceforth be so popular. There is an unbounded en-
thusiasm here for the President’s letter and for the
President in general.

In spite of certain details which it seems impossible
to make understood on the Potomac, the whole Amer-
ican preparation and enthusiasm seem from this dis-
tance to be very fine. The people seem in earnest.
When I read about tax bills, about the food regula-
tion and a thousand other such things, I am greatly
gratified. And it proves that we were right when we
said that during the days of neutrality the people were
held back. It all looks exceedingly good from this
distance, and it makes me homesick.

To Frank N. Doubleday

London, November 9, 1917.

DEAR EFFENDI:

. . . This infernal thing drags its slow length along
so that we cannot see even a day ahead, not to say a
week, or a year. If any man here allowed the hor-
rors of it to dwell on his mind he would go mad, soA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 305

we have to skip over these things somewhat lightly
and try to keep the long, definite aim in our thoughts
and to work away distracted as little as possible by the
butchery and by the starvation that is making this
side of the world a shambles and a wilderness. ‘There
is hardly a country on the Continent where people are
not literally starving to death, and in many of them
by hundreds of thousands; and this state of things
is going to continue for a good many years after the
war. God knows we (I mean the American people)
are doing everything we can to alleviate it, but there
is so much more to be done than any group of forces
can possibly do, that I have a feeling that we have
hardly touched the borders of the great problem
itself.

Here in London we are away from all that. In
spite of the rations we get quite enough to eat and it’s
as good as it is usually in England, but we have no
right to complain. Of course we are subject to air
raids, and the wise air people here think that early
next spring we are going to be bombarded with thou-
sands of aéroplanes, and with new kinds of bombs and
gases in a well-organized effort to try actually to de-
stroy London. Possibly that will come; we must
simply take our chance, every man sticking to his job.
Already the slate shingles on my roof have been
broken, and bricks have been knocked down my chim-
ney; the skylight was hit and glass fell down all
through the halls, and the nose of a shrapnel shell,
weighing eight pounds, fell just in front of my door-
way and rolled in my area. This ts the sort of thing
we incidentally get, not of course from the enemy di-
rectly, but from the British guns in London which
shoot these things at German aéroplanes. What goes
up must come down. Between our own defensese

Ri
\j i

 

306 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

and the enemy, God knows which will kill us first!

In spite of all this I put my innocent head on my
pillow every night and get a good night’s sleep after
the bombing is done, and I thank Heaven that nothing
interrupts my sleep. ‘This, and a little walking, which
is all I get time to do in these foggy days, constitute my
life outdoors and precious little of it is outdoors.

Then on every block that I know of in London there
is a hospital or supply place and the ambulances are
bringing the poor fellows in all the time. We don’t
get any gasoline to ride so we have to walk. We
don’t get any white bread so we have to eat stuff
made of flour and corn meal ground so fine that it isn’t
good. While everybody gets a little thinner, the uni-
versal opinion is that they also get a little better, and
nobody is going to die here of hunger. We feel a
little more cheerful about the submarines than we did
some time ago. For some reason they are not get-
ting so many ships. One reason, I am glad to believe,
is that they are getting caught themselves. If I could
remember all the stories that I hear of good fighting
with the submarines I could keep you up two nights
when I get home, but in these days one big thing after
another crowds so in men’s minds that the Lord knows
if, when I get home, I shall remember anything.

Always heartily yours,
WereHP:

To Arthur W. Page

American Embassy,
London, December 23, 1917.
DEAR ARTHUR:
I sent you a Christmas cable yesterday for every-
body. That’s about all I can send in these days ofA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 307

slow mail and restricted shipping and enormously
high prices; and you gave all the girls each $100 for
me, for the babies and themselves ? That'll show ’em
that at least we haven’t forgotten them. Forgotten?
Your mother and I are always talking of the glad
day when we can go home and live among them. We
get as homesick as small boys their first month at a
boarding school. Do you remember the day I left you
at Lawrenceville, a forlorn and lonely kid?—It’s like
that.

A wave of depression hangs over the land like a
London fog. And everybody on this tired-out side
of the world shows a disposition to lean too heavily
on us—to depend on us so completely that the fear
arises that they may unconsciously relax their own ut-
most efforts when we begin to fight. Yet they can’t
‘n the least afford to relax, and, when the time comes,
I dare say they will not. Yet the plain truth is, the
French may give out next year for lack of men. I
do not mean that they will quit, but that their fighting
strength will have passed its maximum and that they
will be able to play only a sort of second part.

_. . Waves of depression and of hope—if not of
elation—come and go. I am told, and I think truly,
that waves of weariness come in London far oftener
and more depressingly than anywhere else in the King-
dom. There is no sign nor fear that the British will
give up; they'll hold on till the end. Winston Church-
‘Il said to me last night: ‘‘We can hold on till next
year. But after 1918, it'll be your fight. We'll have
to depend on you.” I told him that such a remark
might well be accepted in some quarters as a British
surrender. ‘Then he came up to the scratch: “Sur-
render? Never.’ But I fear we need—in some
practical and non-ostentatious way—now and then to308 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

remind all these European folk that we get no particu-
lar encouragement by being unduly leaned on.

It is, however, the weariest Christmas in all British
annals, certainly since the Napoleonic Wars. ‘The
untoward event after the British advance toward Cam-
brai caused the retirement of six British generals and
deepened the depression here. Still I can see it now
passing. Even a little victory will bring back a wave
of cheerfulness.

Depression or elation show equally the undue strain
that British nerves are under. I dare say nobody
is entirely normal. . . . Everybody is overworked.
Fewer people are literally truthful than ever before.
Men and women break down and fall out of working
ranks continuously. The number of men in the gov-
ernment who have disappeared from public view is
amazing, the number that would like to disappear is
still greater—from sheer overstrain. The Prime
Minister is tired. Bonar Law in a long conference
that Crosby and I had with him yesterday wearily ran
all round a circle rather than hit a plain proposition
with a clear decision. Mr. Balfour has kept his
house from overwork a few days every recent week.
I lunched with Mr. Asquith yesterday; even he seemed
jaded; and Mrs. Asquith assured me that “everything
is going to the devil damned fast.’’ . . . Overwork
and the loss of sons and friends—the list of the
lost grows—always make an abnormal strain. The
churches are fuller than ever before. So, too, are the
“parlors” of the fortune-tellers. So also the theaters
—in the effort to forget one’s self. There are after-
noon dances for young officers at home on leave: the
curtains are drawn and the music is muffled. More
marriages take place—blind and maimed, as well as
the young fellows just going to France—than wereA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 309

ever celebrated in any year within men’s memory.
Verse-writing is rampant. I have received enough
odes and sonnets celebrating the Great Republic and
the Great President to fill a folio volume. Several
American Y. M. C. A. workers lately turned rampant
Pacifists and had to be sent home. Colonial soldiers
and now and then an American sailor turn up at our
Y. M.C. A. huts as full as a goat and swear after the
event that they never did such a thing before. Emo-

tions and strain everywhere !
Affectionately,

Wie lal le

In March Page, a very weary man—as these letters
‘ndicate—took a brief holiday at St. Ives, on the coast
of Cornwall. As he gazed out on the Atlantic, the
yearning for home, for the sandhills and the pine
trees of North Carolina, again took possession of his
soul. Yet it is evident, from letters written at this
time, that his mind reveled in a variety of subjects,
ranging all the way from British food and vegetables
to the settlement of the war and from secret diplo-
macy to literary style. He wrote to his son Ralph:

This St. Ives is the finest spot in England that I've
ever seen. To-day has been as good as any March
day you ever had in North Carolina—a fine air, clear
sunshine, a beautiful sea—looking out toward the
United States: and this country grows—the best golf
links that I’ve ever seen in the world, and nothing else
worth speaking of but—tin. Tin mines are all about
here. Tin and golf are good crops in their way, but
they don’t feed the belly of man. As matters stand
the only people that have fit things to eat now in all
Europe are the American troops in France, and their310 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

food comes out of tins chiefly. Ach! Heaven! In
these islands man is amphibious and carnivorous. It
rains every day and meat, meat, meat is the only
human idea of food. God bless us, one acre of the
Sandhills is worth a vast estate of tin mines and golf
links to feed the innards of

Yours affectionately,

W.. HP:
To Ralph W. Page

Tregenna Castle Hotel,
St. Ives, Cornwall,
March 12, 1918.
My DEAR RALPH:

Arthur has sent me Gardiner’s thirty-seven-page
sketch of American-British Concords and Discords—
a remarkable sketch; and he has reminded me that
your summer plan is to elaborate (into a popular
style) your sketch of the same subject. You and
Gardiner went over the same ground, each in a very
good fashion. That’s a fascinating task, and it opens
up a wholly new vista of our History and of Anglo-
Saxon, democratic history. Much lies ahead of that.

And all this puts it in my mind to write you a little
discourse on style. Gardiner has no style. He put
his facts down much as he would have noted on a
blue print the facts about an engineering project that
he sketched. The style of your article, which has
much to be said for it as a magazine article, is not
the best style for a book.

Now, this whole question of style—well, it’s the
gist of good writing. There’s no really effective writ-
ing without it. Especially is this true of historical
writing. Look at X Y Z’s writings. He knows hisA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT el

American history and has written much on it. He’s
written it as an Ohio blacksmith shoes a horse—not
a touch of literary value in it all; all dry as dust—as
dry as old Bancroft.

Style is good breeding—and art—in writing. It
consists of the arrangement of your matter, first; then,
more, of the gait; the manner and the manners of
your expressing it. Work every group of facts, nat-
urally and logically grouped to begin with, into a cli-
max. Work every group up as a sculptor works out
his idea or a painter, each group complete in itself.
Throw out any superfluous facts or any merely minor
facts that prevent the orderly working up of the group
—that prevent or mar the effect ycu wish to present.

Then, when you’ve got a group thus presented, go
over what you’ve made of it, to make sure you've used
your material and its arrangement to the best effect,
taking away merely extraneous or superfluous or dis-
tracting facts, here and there adding concrete illus-
trations—putting,in a convincing detail here, and there
a touch of color.

Then go over it for your vocabulary. See that you
use no word in a different meaning than it was used
100 years ago and will be used 100 years hence. You
wish to use only the permanent words—words, too,
that will be understood to carry the same meaning to
English readers in every part of the world. Your
vocabulary must be chosen from the permanent, solid,
stable parts of the language.

Then see that no sentence contains a hint of ob-
scurity.

Then go over the words you use to see if they be
the best. Don’t fall into merely current phrases. If
you have a long word, see if a native short one can be
put in its place which will be more natural and stronger.312 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Avoid a Latin vocabulary and use a plain English
one—short words instead of long ones.

Most of all, use idioms—English idioms of force.
Say an agreement was ‘‘come to.’’ Don’t say it was
“consummated.” For the difference between idioms
and a Latin style, compare Lincoln with George Wash-
ington. One’s always interesting and convincing.
The other is dull in spite of all his good sense. How
most folk do misuse and waste words!

Freeman went too far in his use of one-syllable
words. It became an affectation. But he is the only
man I can think of that ever did go too far in that di-
rection. X would have written a great history
if he had had the natural use of idioms. As it is, he
has good sense and no style; and his book isn’t half
so interesting as it would have been if he had some
style—some proper value of short, clear-cut words
that mean only one thing and that leave no vagueness.

You'll get a good style if you practice it. It is in
your blood and temperament and way of saying things.
But it’s a high art and must be laboriously cultivated.

Yours affectionately,

VV ada:

 

A glimpse of a changing and chastened England
appears in a letter of this period:

The disposition shown by an endless number of such
incidents is something more than a disposition of
cratitude of a people helped when they are hard
pressed. All these things show the changed and
changing Englishman. It has already come to him
that he may be weaker than he had thought himself
and that he may need friends more than he had once
imagined; and, if he must have helpers and friends,A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 313

he’d rather have his own kinsmen. He’s a queer
“cuss,” this Englishman. But he isn’t a liar nor a
coward nor any sort of a “yellow dog.’ He’s true,
and he never runs—a possible hero any day, and, when
heroic, modest and quiet and graceful. The trouble
with him has been that he got great world power too
easily. In the times when he exploited the world for
his own enrichment, there were no other successful ex-
ploiters. It became an easy game to him. He or-
ganized sea traffic and sea power. Of course he be-
came rich—far, far richer than anybody else, and,
therefore, content with himself. He has, therefore,
kept much of his medieval impedimenta, his dukes and
marquesses and all that they imply—his outworn cere-
monies and his medieval disregard of his social in-
feriors. Nothing is well done in this Kingdom for
the big public, but only for the classes. The rail-
way stations have no warm waiting rooms. The
people pace the platform till the train comes, and
milord sits snugly wrapt up in his carriage till his
footman announces the approach of the train. And
occasionally discontent is relieved by emigration to
the Colonies. If any man becomes weary of his re-
strictions he may go to Australia and become a gentle-
man. The remarkable loyalty of the Colonies has in it
something of a servant’s devotion to his old master.

Now this trying time of war and the threat and
danger of extinction are bringing—have in fact already
brought—the conviction that many changes must come.
The first sensible talk about popular education ever
heard here is just now beginning. Many a gentleman
has made up his mind to try to do with fewer than
seventeen servants for the rest of his life since he now
has to do with less. Privilege, on which so large a part
of life here rests, is already pretty well shot to pieces.314 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

A lot of old baggage will never be recovered after this
war:that’scertain. During a little after-dinner speech
in a club not long ago I indulged in a pleasantry about
excessive impedimenta. Lord Derby, Minister of War
and a bluff and honest aristocrat, sat near me and he
whispered to me—‘‘That’s me.” “Yes,” I said,
“that’s you,’ and the group about us made merry at the
jest. The meaning of this is, they now joke about
what was the most solemn thing in life three years ago.

It is this steadfastness in them that gives me sound
hope for the future. They don’t forget sympathy or
help or friendship. Our going into the war has elim-
inated the Japanese question. It has shifted the virtual
control of the world to English-speaking peoples.
It will bring into the best European minds the American
ideal of service. It will, in fact, give us the lead and
make the English in the long run our willing followers
and allies. I don’t mean that we shall always have
plain sailing. But I do mean that the direction of
events for the next fifty or one hundred years has now
been determined.

To Frank L. Polk

London, March 22, 1918.
Dear Mr. POLK:

You are good enough to mention the fact that the
Embassy has some sort of grievance against the De-
partment. Of course it has, and you are, possibly, the
only man that can remove it. It is this: You don’t
come here to see the war and this government and these
people who are again saving the world as we are now
saving them. I thank Heaven and the AdministrationA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT ails

for Secretary Baker’s visit. It is a dramatic moment in
the history of the race, of democracy, and of the world.
The State Department has the duty to deal with foreign
affairs—the especial duty—and yet no man in the State
Department has been here since the war began. This
doesn’t look pretty and it won’t look pretty when the
much over-worked ‘‘future historian” writes it down in
a book. Remove that grievance.

The most interesting thing going on in the world
to-day—a thing that in History will transcend the war
and be reckoned its greatest gain—is the high leader-
ship of the President in formulating the struggle, in
putting its aims high, and in taking the democratic lead
in the world, a lead that will make the world over—and
in taking the democratic lead of the English-speaking
folk. Next most impressive to that is to watch the
British response to that lead. Already they have
doubled the number of their voters, and even more
important definite steps in Democracy will be taken.
My aim—and it’s the only way to save the world—is
to lead the British in this direction. They are the
most easily teachable people in our way of thinking
and of doing. Of course everybody who works to-
ward such an aim provokes the cry from a lot of fools
among us who accuse him of toadying to the English
and of “accepting the conventional English conclusion.”’
They had as well talk of missionaries to India accepting
Confucius or Buddha. Their fleet has saved us four or
five times. It’s about time we were saving them from
this bloody Thing that we call Europe, for our sake and
for theirs.

The bloody Thing will get us all if we don't fight our
level best; and it’s only by our help that we'll be saved.
That clearly gives us the leadership. Everybody sees
that. Everybody acknowledges it. The President= —_ "

 

316 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

authoritatively speaks it—speaks leadership on a
higher level than it was ever spoken before to the whole
world. As soon as we get this fighting job over, the
world procession toward freedom—our kind of free-
dom—will begin under our lead. This being so, can’t
you delegate the writing of telegrams about “‘facilitat-
ing the license to ship poppy seed to McKesson and
Robbins,’ and come over and see big world forces at
work?

I cannot express my satisfaction at Secretary Baker’s
visit. It was historic—the first member of the Cabi-
net, I think, who ever came here while he held office.
He made a great impression and received a hearty
welcome.

That’s the only grievance I can at the moment un-
load on you. We're passing out of our old era of
isolation. These benighted heathen on this island
whom we'll yet save (since they are well worth saving)
will be with us as we need them in future years and
centuries. Come, help us heighten this fine spirit.

Always heartily yours,
WALTER HINEs PAGE.

P.S. You'd see how big our country looks from a
distance. It’s gigantic, | assure you.

The above letter was written on what was perhaps
the darkest day of the whole war. The German at-
tack on the Western Front, which had been long
expected, had now been launched, and, at the moment
that Page was penning this cheery note to Mr. Polk,
the German armies had broken through the British
defenses, had pushed their lines forty miles ahead,
and, in the judgment of many military men, had Paris
almost certainly within their grasp. A great Ger-A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT a7

man gun, placed about seventy miles from the French
capital, was dropping shells upon the apparently
doomed city. This attack had been regarded as in-
evitable since the collapse of Russia, which had en-
abled the Germans to concentrate practically all their
armies on the Western Front.

The world does not yet fully comprehend the dev-
astating effect of this apparently successful attack
upon the allied morale. British statesmen and Brit-
‘sh soldiers made no attempt to conceal from official
Americans the desperate state of affairs. It was the
expectation that the Germans might reach Calais and
thence invade England. The War Office discussed
these probabilities most freely with Colonel Slocum,
the American military attaché. The simple fact was
that both the French and the British armies were prac-
tically bled white.

“Ror God’s sake, get your men over!’ they urged
General Slocum. ‘You have got to finish ita

Page was writing urgently to President Wilson to
the same purpose. Send the men and send them at
once. ‘I pray God,” were his solemn words to Mr.
Wilson, “that you will not be too late!”

One propitious event had taken place at the same
time as the opening of the great German offensive.
Mr. Newton D. Baker, the American Secretary of
War, had left quietly for France in late February,
1918, and had reached the Western Front in time to
obtain a first-hand sight of the great March drive.
No visit in history has ever been better timed, and no
event could have better played into Page’s hands. He
had been urging Washington to send all available
forces to France at the earliest possible date; he
knew, as probably few other men knew, the extent to
which the Allies were depending upon American318 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

troops to give the final blow to Germany; and the
arrival of Secretary Baker at the scene of action gave
him the opportunity to make a personal appeal.
Page immediately communicated with the Secretary
and persuaded him to come at once to London for a
consultation with British military and political leaders.
The Secretary spent only three days in London, but
the visit, brief as it was, had historic consequences.
He had many consultations with the British military
men; he entered into their plans with enthusiasm; he
himself received many ideas that afterward took shape
in action, and the British Government obtained from
him first-hand information as to the progress of the
American Army and the American determination to
cooperate to the last man and the last dollar.
“Baker went straight back to France,” Page wrote
to his son Arthur, ‘‘and our whole coéperation began.”
Page gave a dinner to Mr. Baker at the Embassy
on March 23rd—two days after the great March
drive had begun. This occasion gave the visitor a
memorable glimpse of the British temperament. Mr.
Lloyd George, Mr. Balfour, Lord Derby, the War
Secretary, General Biddle of the United States Army,
and Admiral Sims were the Ambassador’s cuests.
Though the mighty issues then overhanging the world
were not ignored in the conversation the atmosphere
hardly suggested that the existence of the British Em-
pire, indeed that of civilization itself, was that very
night hanging in the balance. Possibly it was the gen-
eral somberness of events that caused these British
statesmen to find a certain relief in jocular small talk
and reminiscence. For the larger part of the evening

not a word was said about the progress of the Ger-
man armies in France.A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 319

The whole talk was lively and bantering, and ac-
companied with much laughter; and all this time shells
from that long-distance gun were dropping at fifteen
minute intervals upon the devoted women and chil-
dren of Paris and the Germans were every hour
driving the British back in disorder. At times the
conversation took a more philosophic turn. Would
the men present like to go back twenty-five years and
live their lives all over again? The practically unani-
mous decision of every man was that he would not
wish to do so.

All this, of course, was merely on the surface; de-
spite the laughter and the banter, there was only one
thing which engrossed the Ambassador’s guests, al-
though there were not many references to it. That
was the struggle which was then taking place in
France. At intervals Mr. Lloyd George would send
one of the guests, evidently a secretary, from the
room. The latter, on his return, would whisper
something in the Prime Minister’s ear, but more fre-
quently he would merely shake his head. Evidently
he had been sent to obtain the latest news of the
battle.

At one point the Prime Minister did refer to the
great things taking place in France.

“This battle means one thing,” he said. “That is
a generalissimo. ”

“Why couldn’t you have taken this step long ago?”
Admiral Sims asked Mr. Lloyd George.

The answer came like a flash.

“Tf the Cabinet two weeks ago had suggested plac-
ing the British Army under a foreign general, it would
have fallen. Every cabinet in Europe would also
have fallen, had it suggested such a thing.”320 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Memorandum of Secretary Baker’s Visit

I have on my mantelpiece a statuette of Benjamin
Franklin, an excellent and unmistakable likeness which
was made here during his lifetime; and the inscription
burnt on its base is Geo. Washington. It serves me
many a good turn with my English friends. I use it
as a measure of their ignorance of us. Of course this
is a mere little error of a statuette-maker, an error,
moreover, of a hundred years ago. But it tells the
story of to-day also. If I had to name the largest and
most indelible impression that has been made on me
during my five years’ work here, I should say the igno-
rance and aloofness of the two peoples—not an igno-
rance of big essential facts but of personalities and
temperaments—such as never occur except between
men who had never seen one another.

But I was writing about Mr. Baker’s visit and I’ve
got a long way from that. I doubt if he knows him-
self what gratification it gave; for these men here
have spoken to me about it as they could not speak
to him.

Here is an odd fact: For sixty years, so far as I
know, members of the Administration have had per-
sonal acquaintance with some of the men in power in
Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, etc., etc., and
members of the British Government have had per-
sonal acquaintance with some men in authority in Port-
ugal, Serbia, Montenegro and Monte Carlo; but dur-
ing this time (with the single exception of John Hay)
I think no member of any Administration had a real
personal acquaintance while he held office with any
member of the British Government while he held of-
fice, and vice versa—till Mr. Balfour’s visit. Susp!-
cion grows out of ignorance.A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 321

The longer I live here the more astonished I be-
come at the fundamental ignorance of the British
about us and of our fundamental ignorance about
them. So colossal is this ignorance that every Amer-
ican sent here is supposed to be taken in, to become
Anglophile; and often when one undertakes to en-
lighten Englishmen about the United States one be-
comes aware of a feeling inside the English of unbelief,
as if he said, “Oh, well! you are one of those queer
people who believe in republican government.”

All this is simply amazing. Poor Admiral Sims
sometimes has a sort of mania, a delusion that nobody
at Washington trusts his judgment because he said
seven or eight years ago that he liked the English.
Yet every naval officer who comes here, I understand,
shares his views about practically every important
naval problem or question. I don’t deserve the com-
pliment (it’s a very high one) that some of my sec-
retaries sometimes pay me when they say that I am
the only man they know who tries to tell the whole
truth to our government in favor of the Englishman
as well as against him. It is certain that American
public opinion is universally supposed to suspect any
American who tries to do anything with the British
lion except to twist his tail—a supposition that I never
believed to be true—But it is true that the mutual
ignorance is as high as the Andes and as deep as the
ocean. Personal acquaintance removes it and nothing
else will.

To Ralph W. Page

London, April 7, 1918.
DEAR RALPH:
There used to be a country parson down in Wake
County who, when other subjects were talked out,322 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

always took up the pleasing topic of saving your soul.
That’s the way your mother and I do—with the sub-
ject of going home. We talk over the battle, we talk
over the boys, we talk over military and naval prob-
lems, we discuss the weather and all the babies, and
then take up politics, and talk over the gossip of the
wiseacres; but we seldom finish a conversation without
discussing going home. And we reach just about as
clear a conclusion on our topic as the country parson
reached on his. I’ve had the doctors going over me
(or rather your mother has) as an expert accountant
goes over your books; and I tried to bribe them to
say that I oughtn’t to continue my arduous duties here
longer. They wouldn’t say any such thing. ‘Thus
that device failed—dead. It looks as if I were des-
tined for a green old age and no martyr business at
all.

All this is disappointing; and I don’t see what to do
but to go on. I can’t keep from hoping that the big
battle may throw some light on the subject; but there’s
no telling when the big battle will end. Nothing ends
—that’s the trouble. I sometimes feel that the
war may never end, that it may last as the Na-
poleonic Wars did, for 20 years; and before that
time we'll all have guns that shoot 100 miles. We
can stay at home and indefinitely bombard the enemy
across the Rhine—have an endless battle at long
range.

So, we stick to it, and give the peach trees time to
grow up.

We had a big day in London yesterday—the anni-
versary of our entry into the war. I send you some
newspaper clippings about it.

The next best news is that we have a little actualA CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 22.3

sunshine—a very rare thing—and some of the weather
is now almost decent... .

Affectionately,
WEL P:

To Ralph W. Page

London, April 13, 1918.
DEAR RALPH:

We haven’t any news here, and I send you my
weekly note only to keep my record clear. The great
battle——no one talks or thinks of anything else. We
have suffered and still suffer a good deal of fear and
anxiety, with real reason, too. But the military men
are reassuring. Yet I don’t know just how far to
trust their judgment or to share their hopes. Cer-
tainly this is the most dangerous situation that
modern civilization was ever put in. If we can
keep them from winning any great objective, like
Paris or a Channel port, we ought to end the war
this year. If not, either they win or at the least pro-
long the war indefinitely. It's a hazardous and
trying time.

There were never such casualties on either side as
now. Such a bloody business cannot keep up all sum-
mer. But before everybody is killed or a decisive
conclusion is reached, the armies will, no doubt, dig
themselves in and take a period of comparative rest.
People here see and feel the great danger. But the
extra effort now may come too late. Still we keep up
good hope. The British are hard to whip. ‘They
never give up. And as for the French army, I always
remember Verdun and keep my courage up.— ees ar

 

Ht
i 324 A CRISIS ON THE WESTERN FRONT
The wounded are coming over by the thousand.
We are incomparably busy and in great anxiety about
the result (though still pretty firm in the belief that
the Germans will lose), and luckily we keep very well.
Affectionately,
WHEE:
|CHAPTER XVII
LAST DAYS

VERYTHING was not well with Page. All
kK through the winter of 1917-1918 his associates
at the Embassy had noticed a change for the worse in
his health. He seemed to be growing thinner; his
face was daily becoming more haggard; he tired
easily, and, after walking the short distance from his
house to his Embassy, he would drop listlessly into
his chair. His general bearing was that of a man
who was physically and nervously exhausted. It was
hoped that the holiday at St. Ives would help him; he
greatly enjoyed that visit, especially the westward—
homeward—outlook on the Atlantic which it gave
him; there was a temporary improvement also in his
health, but only a temporary one.

Page’s last few months in England, though full of
sad memories for his friends, contained little but satis-
faction for himself. He still spent many a lonely
evening by his fire, but his thoughts were now far more
pleasurable than in the old Lusitania days. The one
absorbing subject of contemplation now was that
America was “in.” His country had justified his deep
confidence. The American Navy had played a deter-
mining part in defeating the submarine, and American
shipyards were turning out merchant ships faster than
the Germans were destroying them. American troops
were reaching France at a rate which necessarily
meant the early collapse of the German Empire.

325326 LAST DAYS

Page’s own family had responded to the call and this
in itself was a cause of great contentment to a sick and
weary man. The Ambassador’s youngest son, Frank,
had obtained a commission and was serving in France;
his son-in-law, Charles G. Loring, was also on the
Western Front; while from North Carolina Page’s
youngest brother Frank and two nephews had sailed
for the open battle line. The bravery and success of
the American troops did not surprise the Ambassador
but they made his last days in England very happy.

Indeed, every day had some delightful experience
for Page. The performance of the Americans at
Cantigny especially cheered him. The day after this
battle he and Mrs. Page entertained Mr. Lloyd
George and other guests at lunch. The Prime Min-
ister came bounding into the room with his character-
istic enthusiasm, rushed up to Mrs. Page with both
hands outstretched and shook hands joyously.

“Congratulations!” he exclaimed. ‘The Amer-
icans have done it! They have met the Prussian
guard and defeated them!”

Mr. Lloyd George was as exuberant over the
achievement as a child.

This was now the kind of experience that had be-
come Page’s daily routine. Lively as were his spirits,
however, his physical frame was giving way. In fact,
Page, though he did not know it at the time, was suf-
fering from a specific disease—nephritis; and_ its
course, after Christmas of 1917, became rapid. His
old friend, Dr. Wallace Buttrick, had noted the
change for the worse and had attempted to persuade
him to go home.

“Quit your job, Page,’

’

he urged. ‘You have

other big tasks waiting you at home. Why don’t you
go back?”LAST DAYS 327

‘“No—no—not now.”

“But, Page,” urged Dr. Buttrick, “vou are going to
lay down your life.”

“T have only one life to lay down,’ was the reply.
“T can’t quit now.”

To Mary E. Page’

London, May 12, 1918.
DeaR Mary:

You'll have to take this big paper and this paint-
brush pen—it’s all the pen these blunt British have.
This is to tell you how very welcome your letter to
Alice is—how very welcome, for nobody writes us the
family news and nothing is so much appreciated. I'll
try to call the shorter roll of us in the same way:

After a miserable winter we, too, are having the
rare experience of a little sunshine in this dark, damp
world of London. ‘The constant confinement in the
city and in the house (that’s the worst of it—no out-
door life or fresh air) has played hob with my diges-
tion. It’s not bad, but it’s troublesome, and for some
time I’ve had the feeling of being one half well. It
occurred to me the other day that I hadn’t had leave
from my work for four years, except my short visit
home nearly two years ago. I asked for two months
off, and I’ve got it. We are going down by the shore
where there is fresh air and where I can live outdoors
and get some exercise. We have a house that we can
get there and be comfortable. To get away from
London when the weather promises to be good, and
to get away from people seemed a joyous prospect.

 

10f Aberdeen, N. C., the Ambassador’s sister.ek

ti
i}

 

328 LAST DAYS

I can, at any time I must, come to London in two
hours.

The job’s too important to give up at this juncture.
This, then, is the way we can keep it going. I’ve no
such hard task now as I had during the years of our
neutrality, which, praise God! I somehow survived,
though I am now suffering more or less from the phys-
ical effects of that strain. Yet, since I have had the
good fortune to win the confidence of this Government
and these people, I feel that I ought to keep on now
until some more or less natural time to change comes.

Yesterday a regiment of our National Army
marched through the streets of London and were re-
viewed by the King and me; and the town made a
great day of it. While there is an undercurrent of
complaint in certain sections of English opinion be-
cause we didn’t come into the war sooner, there is a
very general and very genuine appreciation of every-
thing we have done and of all that we do. Nothing
could be heartier than the welcome given our men here
yesterday. Nor could any men have made a braver
or better showing than they made. They made us all
swell with pride.

They are coming over now, as you know, in great
quantities. There were about 8,000 landed here last
week and about 30,000 more are expected this week.
I think that many more go direct to France than come
through England. On their way through England
they do not come to London. Only twice have we
had them here, yesterday and one day last summer
when we had a parade of a regiment of engineers.
For the army London is on a sidetrack—is an out of
the way place. For our navy, of course, it’s theLAST DAYS 329

European headquarters, since Admiral Sims has his
headquarters here. We thus see a good many of our
sailors who are allowed to come to London on leave.
A few days ago I had a talk with a little bunch of them
who came from one of our superdreadnaughts in the
North Sea. They had just returned from a patrol
across to the coast of Norway. ‘‘Bad luck, bad luck,”’
they said, ‘‘on none of our long patrol trips have we
seen a single Hun ship!”

One sad thing is certain: we shall at once begin to
have heavy American casualties. Our Red Cross and
our army here are getting hospitals ready for such
American wounded as are brought over to England—
the parts of our army that are fighting with the
British.

The Embassy now is a good deal bigger than the
whole State Department ever was in times of peace.
I have three buildings for offices, and a part of our
civil force occupies two other buildings. Even a gen-
eral supervision of so large a force is in itself a pretty
big job. The army and the navy have each about the
same space as the Embassy proper. Besides, our
people have huts and inns and clubs and hospitals all
over the town. Even though there be fewer vexing
problems than there were while we were neutral, there
‘s not less work—on the contrary, more. Nor will
there be an end to it for a very long time—long after
my time here. The settling of the war and the be-
ginning of peace activities, whenever these come, will
involve a great volume of work. But I’ve no ambi-
tion to have these things in hand. As soon as a natu-
ral time of relief shall come, I’ll go and be happier in
my going than you or anybody else can guess,330 LAST DAYS

Now we go to get my digestion stiffened up for an-
other long tug—unless the Germans proceed forth-
with to knock us out—which they cannot do.

With my love to everybody on the Hill,

Affectionately yours,

Wiki aes

Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf Astor—since become Vis-
count and Viscountess Astor—had offered the Pages
the use of their beautiful seaside house at Sandwich,
Kent, and it was the proposed vacation here to which
Page refers in this letter. He obtained a six weeks’
leave of absence and almost the last letters which he
wrote from England are dated from this place.
These letters have all the qualities of Page at his best;
but the handwriting is a sad reminder of the change
that was progressively taking place in his physical con-
dition. It is still a clear and beautiful script, but
there are signs of a less steady hand than the one that
had written the vigorous papers of the preceding four
years.

Memorandum
Sandwich, Kent, Sunday, 19 May, 1918.

We're at Rest Harrow and it’s a fine, sunny early
spring Carolina day. The big German drive has evi-
dently begun its second phase. We hear the guns dis-
tinctly. We see the coast-guard aéroplanes at almost
any time o’ day. What is the mood about the big
battle?

The soldiers—British and French—have confidence
in their ability to hold the Germans back from the
Channel and from Paris. Yet can one rely on theLAST DAYS 331

judgment of soldiers? They have the job in hand
and of course they believe in themselves. While one
does not like in the least to discount their judgment
and their hopefulness, for my part I am not quite so
sure of their ability to make sound judgments as I
wish I were. The chances are in favor of their suc-
tess; but—suppose they should have to yield and give
up Calais and other Channel ports? Well, they've
prepared for it as best they can. They have made
provision for commandeering most of the hotels in
London that are not yet taken over—for hospitals for
the wounded now in France.

And the war would take on a new phase. What-
ever should become of the British and American
armies, the Germans would be no nearer having Eng-
land than they now are. They would not have com-
mand of the sea. The combined British and American
fleets could keep every German ship off the ocean and
continue the blockade by sea—indefinitely; and, if the
peoples of the two countries hold fast, a victory would
be won at last—at sea.

To Ralph W. Page

Rest Harrow, Sandwich, Kent.
May 19, 1918.
DEAR RALPH:

.. . All your life and all my life, we have culti-
vated the opinion at home that we had nothing to do
with the rest of the world, nothing to do with Europe
in particular—and in our political life our hayseed
spokesmen have said this over and over again till
many people, perhaps most people, came really to be-
lieve that it was true. Now this aloofness, this ut-
terly detached attitude, was a pure invention of theR32 LAST DAYS

shirt-sleeve statesman at home. I have long con-
cluded, for other reasons as well as for this, that these
men are the most ignorant men in the whole world;
more ignorant—because they are viciously ignorant—
than the Negro boys who act as caddies at Pinehurst;
more ignorant than the inmates of the Morganton
Asylum; more ignorant than sheep or rabbits or idiots.
They have been the chief hindrances of our country—
worse than traitors, in effect. It is they, in fact, who
kept our people ignorant of the Germans, ignorant of
the English, ignorant of our own history, ignorant of
ourselves. Now your book, without mentioning the
subject, shows this important fact clearly, by showing
that our aloofness has all been a fiction. We've been
in the world—and right in the middle of the world—
the whole time.

And our public consciousness of this fact has enor-
mously slipped back. Take Franklin, Madison, Mon-
roe, Jefferson; take Hay, Root—and then consider
some of our present representatives! One good re-
sult of the war and of our being in it will be the resto-
ration of our foreign consciousness. Every one of
the half million, or three million, soldiers who go to
France will know more about foreign affairs than all
Congress knew two years ago.

A stay of nearly five years in London (five years
ago to-day I was on the ship coming here) with no
absence long enough to give any real rest, have got
my digestion wrong. I’ve therefore got a real leave
for two months. Your mother and I have a beautiful
house here that has been lent to us, right on the
Channel where there’s nothing worth bombing and
where as much sunshine and warmth come as come
anywhere in England. We got here last night and
to-day is as fine an early spring day as you ever hadLAST DAYS 333

‘n the Sandhills. I shall golf and try to find me an
old horse to ride, and I’ll stay out in the sunshine and
try to get the inside machinery going all right. We
may have a few interruptions, but I hope not many,
‘£ the Germans leave us alone. Your mother has got
to go to Newcastle to christen a new British warship
—a compliment the Admiralty pays her ‘‘to bind the
two nations closer together,” etc., etc. And I’ve got
to go to Cambridge to Feceive an Lie. D; fon the nest:
dent. Only such things are allowed to interrupt us.
And we are very much hoping to see Frank here.

We are in sound of the battle. We hear the big
guns whenever we go outdoors. A few miles down
the beach is a rifle range and we hear the practice
there. Almost any time of day we can hear aero-
planes which (1 presume) belong to the coast guard.
There’s no danger of forgetting the war, therefore,
unless we become stone deaf. But this decent air and
sunshine are blessings of the highest kind. I never
became so tired of anything since I had the measles as
I’ve become of London.

My Lord! it sounded last night as if we had jumped
from the frying pan into the fire. Just as we were
about to go to bed the big gun on the beach—yjust out-
side the fence around our yard—about fifty yards
from the house, began its thundering belch—five times
in quick succession, rattling the windows and shaking
the very foundation of things. Then after a pause of
a few minutes, another round of five shots. Then the
other guns all along the beach took up the chorus—
farther off—and the inland guns followed. They are
planted all the way to London—ninety miles. Hor
about two hours we had this roar and racket.

There was an air raid on, and there were supposed
to be twenty-five or thirty German planes on their wayi
i
H
%

 

334 LAST DAYS

to London. I hear that it was the worst raid that
London has had. Two of them were brought down
—that’s the only good piece of news I’ve heard about
it. Well, we are not supposed to be in danger.
They fly over us on the way to bigger game. At any
rate, Pll take the risk for this air and sunshine.
Trenches and barbed wire run all along the beach—I
suppose to help in case of an invasion. But an in-
vasion is impossible in my judgment. Holy Moses!
what a world!—the cannon in the big battle in France
roaring in our ears all the time, this cannon at our
door likely to begin action any night and all the rest
along the beach and on the way to London, and this is
what we call rest! The world is upside down, all
crazy, all murderous; but we’ve got to stop this bar-
baric assault, whatever the cost.

‘Ray Stannard Baker is spending a few days with us,
much to our pleasure.

With love to Leila and the babies,

Yours affectionately,

Warink:

To the President

Sandwich, May 24, 1918.
DEAR Mr. PRESIDENT:

Your speeches have a cumulative effect in cheering
up the British. As you see, if you look over the mass
of newspaper clippings that I send to the Department,
or have them looked over, the British press of all
parties and shades of opinion constantly quote them
approvingly and gratefully. They have a cumulative
effect, too, in clearing the atmosphere. Take, for in-
stance, your declaration in New York about standing
by Russia. All the Allied governments in EuropeLAST DAYS Zak

wish to stand by Russia, but their pressing business
with the war, near at hand, causes them in a way to
forget Russia; and certainly the British public, all in-
tent on the German ‘‘drive”’ in France had in a sense
forgotten Russia. You woke them up. And your
“Why set a limit to the American Army?” has had a
cheering effect. As leader and spokesman of the
enemies of Germany—by far the best trumpet-call
spokesman and the strongest leader—your speeches
are worth an army in France and more, for they keep
the proper moral elevation. All this iss eeatesally
recognized here. Public opinion toward us is whole-
some and you have a ‘good press’ in this Kingdom.
In this larger matter, all is well. The English faults
are the failings of the smaller men—about smaller
matters—not of the large men nor of the public, about
large matters.

In private, too, thoughtful Englishmen by their
fears pay us high tribute. I hear more and more con-
stantly such an opinion as this: ‘You see, when the
war is over, you Americans will have much the largest
merchant fleet. You will have much the largest share
of money, and England and France and all the rest of
the world will owe you money. You will have a large
share of essential raw materials. You will have the
machinery for marine insurance and for foreign bank-
ing. You will have much the largest volume of pro-
ductive labor. And you will know the world as you
have never known it before. What then is going to
become of the British trade ?”’

The best answer I can give Is: “Adopt American
methods of manufacture, and the devil take the hind-
most. There will be for a long time plenty for every-
body to do; and let us make sure that we both play
the game fairly: that’s the chief matter to look out336 LAST DAYS

)

for.” That's what I most fear in the decades follow-
ing the end of the war—trade clashes.

The Englishman’s pride will be hurt. I recall a
speech made to me by the friendliest of the British—
Mr. Balfour himself: “I confess that as an English-
man it hurts my pride to have to borrow so much even

from you. But I will say that I’d rather be in your
debt than in anybody else’s.”’

The last piece of writing from Sandwich is the fol-
lowing memorandum:

Sandwich, Kent,
June 10, 1918.

The Germans continue to gain ground in France—
more slowly, but still they gain. The French and
British papers now give space to plans for the final
defense—the desperate defense—of Paris. The Ger-
mans are only forty miles away. Slocum, military
attache, thinks they will get it and he reports the same
opinion at the War Office—because the Germans have
taken such a large number of guns and so much ammu-
nition. Some of these guns were meant for the
American troops, and they cannot now be replaced in
time if the German advance continues. But I do not
know enough facts at first hand to form an opinion.
But, if Paris be taken, the war will go on a long time—
unless the English-speaking rulers make a compro-
mise. And, then, in another form—and forms—it’ll
go on indefinitely—There has been no more perilous
or uncertain or anxious time than now.

The United States too late, too late, too late: what
if it should turn out so?

But it did not turn out so. Even while Page wasLAST DAYS 337

penning these lines great events were taking place in
France and the American troops were having a large
share in them. In June the Americans stopped the
German troops at Belleau Wood—a battle which
proved the mettle of these fresh levies not only for the
benefit of the’ Germans but of the Allies as well.
Thus Page had the great satisfaction of returning to
London while the city was ringing with the praise of
these achievements. He found that the atmosphere
had materially changed since he had last been in the
British capital; when he had left for Sandwich there
had been a general expectation that the Germans
would get Paris or the Channel ports; now, however,
there was every confidence of victory.

Greatly as Page rejoiced over the new prospect,
however, the fight at Belleau Wood brought him his
last great sorrow. His nephew, Allison M. Page, of
Aberdeen, North Carolina, the son of his youngest
brother, Frank, lost his life in that engagement. At
first the young man was reported ‘‘missing”’; the in-
vestigation set afoot by the Ambassador for some time
brought no definite information. One of the most
pathetic of Page’s papers is a brief note addressed by
him to Allison Page, asking him for news: “It’s been
a long time since we heard from you,” Page wrote his
nephew. ‘Write how it goes with you. Affection-
ately, Uncle Wat.” After traveling over a considers
able part of France, this note found its way back to
the Embassy. The boy—he was only nineteen—had
been killed in action near Belleau Wood, on June 25th,
while leading his detachment in an attack on a machine
gun. Citations and decorations for gallantry in ac-
tion were given posthumously by General Pershing,
Marshal Pétain, Major-General Omar Bundy, and
Major-General John A. LeJeune.Ht
A

 

338 LAST DAYS

And now the shadows began to close in rapidly on
Page. In early July Major Frank C. Page, the Am-
bassador’s youngest son, came over from France. A
brief glance at his father convinced him that he was
dying. By this time the Ambassador had ceased to
go to the Chancery, but was transacting the most im-
perative business propped up in a chair at home. His
mind was possessed by two yearnings: one was to re-
main in London until the end of the war, the other
was to get back to his childhood home in North Caro-
lina. Young Page urged his father to resign, but the
weary invalid insisted on sticking to his post. On this
point it seemed impossible to move him. Knowing
that his brother Arthur had great influence with his
father, Frank Page cabled, asking him to come to
England immediately. Arthur took the first boat,
reaching London late in July.

The Ambassador’s two sons then gently pressed
upon their father the fact that he must resign.
Weak as he was, the Ambassador was still obdurate.

“No,” he said. “It’s quitting on the job. I must
see the war through. I can’t quit until it’s over.”

But Sir William Osler, Page’s physician and de-
voted friend, exercised his professional authority and
insisted on the resignation. Finally Page consented.

To the President

American Embassy, London,
August I, 1918.
My pDEaAR Mr. PRESIDENT:
I have been struggling for a number of months
against the necessity to write you this note; for myLAST DAYS 339

doctors now advise me to give up all work for a period
—my London doctor says for six months. I have a
progressive digestive trouble which does not yield to
the usual treatment. It’s the war, five London win-
ters, and the unceasing labor which is now the common
lot. Iam ashamed to say that these have brought me
to something near a breakdown. I have had Sir
William Osler as well as two distinguished London
physicians for several months. The digestive trouble
has brought other ‘lis in its train; and 1 am assured
that they will yield to freedom from responsibility
and complete rest for a time in a dry, warm climate
and that they are not likely to yield to anything
else.

I see nothing else to do then but to bow to the in-
evitable and to ask you to be kind enough to relieve
me and to accept my resignation to take effect as soon
as I can go to Washington and make a somewhat ex-
tended report on the work here, which, I hope, will be
of some use to the Department; and I ought to go as
soon as possible—say, in September. I cannot tell
you how great my disappointment is that this request
has become necessary.

I send this, Mr. President, with more regret than I
can express and only after a struggle of more than six
months to avoid it.

Yours sincerely,
WaLTeER H. PAGE.

Arthur Page took his father to Banff, in Scotland,
for a little rest in preparation for the voyage. From
this place came Page’s last letter to his wife:340 LAST DAYS

To Mrs. Page

Duff House, Banff, Scotland.
Sunday, September 2, 1918.
My DEAR:

. .. I’ve put the period of our life in London, in
my mind, as closed. That epoch is ended. And I
am glad. It was time it ended. My job (that job)
is done. From the letters that Shoecraft has sent me
and from what the papers say, I think I couldn’t have
ended it more happily—or at a better time. I find
myself thinking of the winter down South—of a
Thanksgiving Day dinner for the older folks of our
family, of a Christmas tree for the kids, of frolics of
all sorts, of Rest, of some writing (perhaps not
much), going over my papers with Ralph—that’s
what he wants, you know; etc., etc., etc.

And I’ve got to eat more. J myself come into my
thinking and planning in only two ways—(1) I’m go-
ing to have a suit like old Lord N.’s and (2) I’m go-
ing to get all the good things to eat that there are!

Meantime, my dear, how are you? Don’t you let
this getting ready wear you out. Let something go
undone rather. Work Miss Latimer and the boys
and the moving and packing men, and Petherick and
the servants. Take it very easy yourself.

Nine and a half more days here—may they speed
swiftly. Comfortable as I am, I’m mortal tired of
being away from you—dead tired.

Praise God it’s only 9% days. If it were 934, I
should not stand it, but break for home prematurely.

Yours, dear Allie, with all my love,

W. H. P.

 

On August 24th came the President’s reply:LAST DAYS 341

I have received your communication of August Ist.
It caused me great regret that the condition of your
health makes it necessary for you to resign. Under
the circumstances I do not feel I have the right to in-
sist on such a sacrifice as your remaining in London.
Your resignation is therefore accepted. As you re-
quest it will take effect when you report to Washing-
ton. Accept my congratulations that you have no
reason to fear a permanent impairment of your
health and that you can resign knowing that you have
performed your difficult duties with distinguished suc-
cess.

Wooprow WILSON.

The news of Page’s resignation inspired tributes
from the British press and from British public men
such as have been bestowed upon few Americans.
The London Times headed its leader “A Great Am-
bassador” and this note was echoed in all sections of
Great Britain.

From the King

The information communicated to me yesterday
through Mr. Laughlin of Your Excellency’s resigna-
tion of the Post of Ambassador and the cause of this
step fill me with the keenest regret. During your
fern of office in days of peace and of war your yy
fluence has done much to strengthen the ties of friend-
ship and good will which unite the two English-
speaking nations of the world. I trust your health
will soon be restored and that we may have the
pleasure of seeing you and Mrs. Page before your de-
parture.

GeEorGE R. I.342 LAST DAYS

From the Prime Minister

10, Downing Street, Whitehall, S. W. 1.
30th August, 1918.
My DEAR AMBASSADOR:

It is with the deepest regret that my colleagues and
I have received the news that you have been forced
by ill health to resign your office and that the Presi-
dent has consented to your relinquishing your ambas-
sadorial duties. We are sorry that you are leaving
us, all the more because your tenure of office has co-
incided with one of the greatest epochs in the history
of our two countries and of the world, and because
your influence and counsel throughout this difficult
time have been of the utmost value to us all.

The power for good or evil which can be exerted
by the occupant of your high position is at all times
necessarily very great. That our peoples are now
fighting side by side in the cause of human freedom
and‘that they are manifesting an ever growing feeling
of cordiality to one another is largely attributable to
the exceptional wisdom and good will with which you
have discharged your duties. For the part you have
played during the past five years in bringing about this
happy result we owe you our lasting gratitude.

May I add that while you have always firmly pre-
sented the point of view of your own country, you have
succeeded in winning, not only the respect and admira-
tion of official circles, but the confidence, and I can say
without hesitation, the affection of all sections of our
people? It will be with universal regret that they
will learn that, owing to the strain of the great respon-
sibilities you have borne, you are no longer to remain
among us. I earnestly trust that a well-earned rest
will speedily restore you to complete health, and thatLAST DAYS 343

you have many years of public service still in store for

ou.

I should like also to say how much we shall miss
Mrs. Page. She has won a real place in all our
hearts. Through her unfailing tact, her genuine
kindliness, and her unvarying readiness to respond to
any call upon her time and energy, she has greatly con-
tributed to the success of your ambassadorship.

Ever sincerely,
D. LLtoyp GEORGE.

From Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Glen Innerleithen, Scotland.
September 2, 1918.
Dear Mr. PAGE:

I have been out of touch with current events for a
few days, but yesterday I read the two articles in the
Times on your retirement. I am very grieved to
think that you are going. ‘here was not a word of
eulogy in the Times articles that was not under rather
than over-stated, and reflecting thus I thought how
rare it is in public life to have an occasion that justifies
the best that can be said. But it is so now, and I am
filled with deep regret that you are going and with
deep gratitude that you came to US and were here
when the war broke out and subsequently. If the
United States had been represented here by anyone less
decided as to the right and wrong of the war and less
firm and courageous than yourself, the whole of the
relations between your country and ours would have
been in peril. And if the two countries had gone
apart instead of coming together the whole fate of the
world would be very different from what I hope it will
now be.h
i
|)
‘

1

 

344 LAST DAYS

I have often thought that the forces behind public
affairs are so tremendous that individuals have little
real, even when much apparent, influence upon the
course of events. But in the early years of the war
I think everything might have gone wrong if it had
not been that certain men of strong moral conviction
were in certain places. And you were preéminently
one of these. President Wilson I am sure was an-
other, though I know him only through you and Colo-
nel House and his own public utterances. Even so,
your influence must have counted in his action, by your
friendship with him as well as by the fact of your being
the channel through which communications passed be-
tween him and us.

I cannot adequately express what it was to me per-
sonally in the dark days of 1914, 1915, and 1916 to
know how you felt about the great issues involved in
the war.

I go to Fallodon at the end of this week and come
to London the first week of September—if you and
Mrs. Page have not left by then I hope I may see you.
I long to do so before you go. I wish you may re-
cover perfect health. My eyesight continues to fail
and I shall soon be absolutely dependent upon other
eyes for reading print. Otherwise I feel as well as a
schoolboy, but it is depressing to be so well and yet so
crippled in sight.

Please do not trouble to answer this letter—you
must have too many letters of the kind to be able to
reply to them separately—but if there is a chance of
my seeing you before you go please let me have a
message to say when and where.

Yours sincerely,
Grey OF F.LAST DAYS 345

The seriousness of Page’s condition was not under-
stood in London; consequently there were many at-
tempts to do him honor ‘n which he was unable to
participate. Custom demands that a retiring Ambas-
sador shall go to Windsor Castle to dine and to sleep;
but King George, who was very solicitous about Page’s
health, offered to spare the Ambassador this trip and
to come himself to London for this leave-taking.
However, Page insisted on carrying out the usual
program; but the visit greatly tired him and he found
it impossible personally to take part in any further
official farewells.

The last ceremony was a visit from the Lord Mayor
and Council of Plymouth, who came to the Ambassa-
dor’s house in September to present the freedom of
the city. Ever since Page’s speech of August 4, 1917;
Plymouth had been planning to do him this honor;
when the Council heard that the Ambassador’s health
would make it impossible for him to visit Plymouth,
they asked if they might not come to London. ‘The
proceeding was most impressive and touching and the
Ambassador’s five-minute speech, the last one which
he made in England, had all his old earnestness and
mental power, though the physical weakness of the
man saddened everybody present. The Lord Mayor
presented the freedom of the ancient borough in a
temporary holder, explaining that a more permanent
receptacle would follow the Ambassador to America.
When this arrived, it proved to be a beautiful silver
model of the Mayflower. Certainly there could have
been no more appropriate farewell gift to Page from
the English town whose name so closely links the old
country with the United States.

The last scene took place at Waterloo Station.346 LAST DAYS

Sir Arthur Walsh came representing the King, while
Mr. Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, and other Ministers
represented the Cabinet. The Government had pro-
vided a special railway carriage, and this was stationed
at a convenient place as Page’s motor drew up. So
weak was the Ambassador that it was with difficulty
that his companions, the ever devoted Mr. Laughlin,
on one side, and Page’s secretary, Mr. Shoecraft, on
the other, succeeded in supporting him to his chair.
Mr. Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, and the others then
entered the carriage, and, with all that sympathetic
dignity in which Englishmen of this type excel, said a
few gracious and affectionate words of good-by.
They all stood, with uncovered heads, as the train
slowly pulled out of the station, and caught their final

glimpse of Page as he smiled at them and faintly
waved his hand.

Perhaps the man most affected by this leave-taking
was Mr. Balfour. He knew, as did the others, that
that frail and emaciated figure had been one of the
greatest friends that Britain had had at the most
dreadful crisis in her history. He has many times
told of this parting scene at Waterloo Station and al-
ways with emotion.

“I loved that man,” he once said to an American
friend, recalling this event. “I almost wept when he

left England.”

Page came home only to die. In fact, at one time
it seemed improbable that he would live to reach the
United States. The voyage of the Olympic, on which
he sailed, was literally a race with death. The great-
hearted Captain, Sir Bertram Hayes, hearing of the
Ambassador’s yearning to reach his North CarolinaLAST DAYS 347

home, put the highest pressure upon his ship, which
almost leaped through the waves. But for a consid-
erable part of the trip Page was too ill to have much
consciousness of his surroundings. At times he was
delirious; once more he lived over the long period
of “neutrality”; again he was discussing intercepted
cargoes and “notes” with Sir Edward Grey; from this
his mind would revert to his English literary friends,
and then again he was a boy in North Carolina.

The Olympic reached New York more than a day
ahead of schedule; Page was carried down the gang-
plank on a stretcher, propped up with pillows; and
since he was too weak then to be taken to his Southern
home, he was placed temporarily in St. Luke’s Hos-
pital. Page arrived on a beautiful sunshiny October
day; Fifth Avenue had changed its name in honor of
the new Liberty Loan and had become the ‘“Avenue
of the Allies’; each block, from Forty-second Street
north, was decorated with the colors of one of the na-
tions engaged in the battle against Germany; the street
was full of Red Cross workers and other picturesquely
clad enthusiasts selling Liberty Bonds; in its animated
beauty and in its inspiring significance it formed an ap-
propriate setting for Page’s home-coming.

The American air seemed to act like a tonic on Page;
‘1 a short time he showed such improvement that his
recovery seemed not impossible. So far as his spir-
‘ts and his mind were concerned, he became his old
familiar self. He was able to see several of his old
friends, he read the newspapers and discussed the in-
ternational situation with his customary liveliness.
With the assistance of his daughter, Mrs. Loring, he
even kept track of his correspondence. Evidently the
serious nature of his illness was not understood, for in-
vitations to speak poured in from all quarters. Most348 LAST DAYS

of these letters Mrs. Loring answered, but there was
one that Page insisted on attending to himself. The
City of Cleveland was organizing some kind of a
meeting dedicated to closer relations with Great Brit-
ain, and the Mayor wrote Page asking him to speak.
The last thing which Page wrote with his own hand
was his reply to this invitation; and it is an impressive
fact that his final written word should have dealt with
the subject that had been so close to his heart for
the preceding five years.

To Harry L. Davis, Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio

I deeply regret my health will not permit me to at-
tend any public function for some time to come; for I
deeply appreciate your invitation on behalf of the
City of Cleveland for the meeting on December 7th,
and have a profound sympathy with its purpose to
bring the two great English-speaking worlds as close
together as possible, so that each shall thoroughly
understand the courage and sacrifice and ideals of the
other. ‘This is the greatest political task of the future.
For such a complete and lasting understanding is the
only basis for the continued progress of civilization.
I am proud to be associated in your thought, Mr.
Mayor, with so fitting and happy an occasion, and only
physical inability could cause absence.

Sincerely,
WALTER H. PAGE.

Page’s improvement was only temporary; a day or
two after this letter was written he began to sink
rapidly; it was therefore decided to grant his strong-
est wish and take him to North Carolina. He arrivedLAST DAYS 349

‘1 Pinehurst on December 12th, so weak that his son
Frank had to carry him in his arms from the train.

“Well, Frank,” said Page, with a slightly triumph-
ant smile, “I did get here after all, didn’t ew

He lingered for a few days and died, at eight o’clock
in the evening, on December 21st, in his sixty-fourth
year. He suffered no pain. He was buried in the
Page family plot in the Bethesda Cemetery near Aber-
deen.

He was as much of a war casualty as was his nephew
Allison Page, who lost his life with his face to the
German machine guns in Belleau Wood.

THE ENDii

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