Chapter XIV: The "lusitania"--And After (1)

I

The news of the _Lusitania_ was received at the American Embassy at four o'clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. At that time preparations were under way for a dinner in honour of Colonel and Mrs. House; the first _Lusitania_ announcement declared 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 extraordinary 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 postpone the dinner but that affair was one of the most tragic in the social history of London. The Ambassador was constantly receiving bulletins from his Chancery, and these, as quickly as they were received, he read to his guests. His voice was quiet and subdued; there were no indications of excitement in his manner or in that of his friends, and hardly of suppressed emotion. The atmosphere was rather that of dumb stupefaction. The news seemed to have dulled everyone's capacity for thought and even for feeling. If any one spoke, it was in whispers. Afterward, 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 engrossed by the harrowing and unbelievable facts which the Ambassador was reading from the little yellow slips that were periodically brought in. An irresistible fascination evidently kept everybody in the room; the guests stayed late, eager for every new item. When they finally left, one after another, their manner was still abstracted and they said their good-nights in low voices. There were two reasons for this behaviour. 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 second 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 personal 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 believed, left the United States no option. "We shall be at war with Germany within a month," he declared.

The feeling that prevailed in the Embassy this evening was the one that existed everywhere in London for several days. Emotionally the event acted like an anæsthetic. This was certainly the condition of all Americans associated with the American Embassy, especially Page himself. A day or two after the sinking the Ambassador went to Euston Station, at an early hour in the morning, to receive the American survivors. The hundred or more men and women who shambled from the train made a listless and bedraggled gathering. Their grotesque clothes, torn and unkempt--for practically none had had the opportunity of obtaining a change of dress--their expressionless faces, their lustreless eyes, their uncertain and bewildered walk, faintly reflected an experience such as comes to few people in this world. The most noticeable thing about these unfortunates was their lack of interest in their surroundings; everything had apparently been reduced to a blank; the fact that practically none made any reference to their ordeal, or could be induced to discuss it, was a matter of common talk in London. And something of this disposition now became noticeable in Page himself. He wrote his dispatches to Washington in an abstracted mood; he went through his duties almost with the detachment of a sleep-walker; like the _Lusitania_ survivors, he could not talk much at that time about the scenes that had taken place off the coast of Ireland. Yet there were many indications that he was thinking about them, and his thoughts, as his letters reveal, were concerned with more things than the tragedy itself. He believed that his country was now face to face with its destiny. What would Washington do?

Page had a characteristic way of thinking out his problems. He performed his routine work at the Chancery in the daytime, but his really serious thinking he did in his own room at night. The picture is still a vivid one in the recollection of his family and his other intimates. Even at this time Page's health was not good, yet he frequently spent the evening at his office in Grosvenor Gardens, and when the long day's labours were finished, he would walk rather wearily to his home at No. 6 Grosvenor Square. He would enter the house slowly--and his walk became slower and more tired as the months went by--go up to his room and cross to the fireplace, so apparently wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hardly greeted members of his own family. A wood fire was kept burning for him, winter and summer alike; Page would put on his dressing gown, drop into a friendly chair, and sit there, doing nothing, reading nothing, saying nothing--only thinking. Sometimes he would stay for an hour; not infrequently he would remain till two, three, or four o'clock in the morning; occasions were not unknown when his almost motionless figure would be in this same place at daybreak. He never slept through these nights, and he never even dozed; he was wide awake, and his mind was silently working upon the particular problem that was uppermost in his thoughts. He never rose until he had solved it or at least until he had decided upon a course of action. He would then get up abruptly, go to bed, and sleep like a child. The one thing that made it possible for a man of his delicate frame, racked as it was by anxiety and over work, to keep steadily at his task, was the wonderful gift which he possessed of sleeping.

Page had thought out many problems in this way. The tension caused by the sailing of the _Dacia_, in January, 1915, and the deftness with which the issue had been avoided by substituting a French for a British cruiser, has already been described. Page discovered this solution on one of these all-night self-communings. It was almost two o'clock in the morning that he rose, said to himself, "I've got it!" and then went contentedly to bed. And during the anxious months that followed the _Lusitania_, the _Arabic_, and those other outrages which have now taken their place in history, he spent night after night turning the matter over in his mind. But he found no way out of the humiliations presented by the policy of Washington.

"Here we are swung loose in time," he wrote to his son Arthur, a few days after the first _Lusitania_ note had been sent to Germany, "nobody knows the day or the week or the month or the year--and we are caught on this island, with no chance of escape, while the vast slaughter goes on and seems just beginning, and the degradation of war goes on week by week; and we live in hope that the United States will come in, as the only chance to give us standing and influence when the reorganization of the world must begin. (Beware of betraying the word 'hope'!) It has all passed far beyond anybody's power to describe. I simply go on day by day into unknown experiences and emotions, seeing nothing before me very clearly and remembering only dimly what lies behind. I can see only one proper thing: that all the world should fall to and hunt this wild beast down.

"Two photographs of little Mollie[1] on my mantelpiece recall persons and scenes and hopes unconnected with the war: few other things can. Bless the baby, she couldn't guess what a sweet purpose she serves."

* * * * *

The sensations of most Americans in London during this crisis are almost indescribable. Washington's failure promptly to meet the situation affected them with astonishment and humiliation. Colonel House was confident that war was impending, and for this reason he hurried his preparations to leave England; he wished to be in the United 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 newspaper. 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 and other important men at the American Embassy 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 jibes. Even in more serious quarters America was the subject of the most severe denunciation. 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." A day or two afterward Colonel House sailed for America.

II

And now came the period of distress and of disillusionment. Three _Lusitania_ notes were sent and were evasively answered, and Washington still seemed to be marking time. The one event in this exciting period which gave Page satisfaction was Mr. Bryan's resignation as Secretary of State. For Mr. Bryan personally Page had a certain fondness, but as head of the State Department the Nebraska orator had been a cause of endless vexation. Many of Page's letters, already printed, bear evidence of the utter demoralization which existed in this branch of the Administration and this demoralization became especially glaring during the _Lusitania_ crisis. No attempt was made even at this momentous period to keep the London Embassy informed as to what was taking place in Washington; Page's letters and cablegrams were, for the most part, unacknowledged and unanswered, and the American Ambassador was frequently obliged to obtain his information about the state of feeling in Washington from Sir Edward Grey. It must be said, in justice to Mr. Bryan, that this carelessness was nothing particularly new, for it had worried many ambassadors before Page. Readers of Charles Francis Adams's correspondence meet with the same complaints during the Civil War; even at the time of the _Trent_ crisis, when for a fortnight Great Britain and the United States were living on the brink of war, Adams was kept entirely in the dark about the plans of Washington[2]. The letters of John Hay show a similar condition during his brief ambassadorship to Great Britain in 1897-1898[3].

But Mr. Bryan's incumbency was guilty of diplomatic vices which were peculiarly its own. The "leaks" in the State Department, to which Page has already referred, were constantly taking place; the Ambassador would send the most confidential cipher dispatches to his superior, cautioning the Department that they must be held inviolably secret, and then he would pick up the London newspapers the next morning and find that everything had been cabled from Washington. To most readers, the informal method of conducting foreign business, as it is disclosed in these letters, probably comes as something of a shock. Page is here discovered discussing state matters, not in correspondence with the Secretary of State, but in private unofficial communications to the President, and especially to Colonel House--the latter at that time not an official person at all. All this, of course, was extremely irregular and, in any properly organized State Department, it would have been even reprehensible. But the point is that there was no properly organized State Department at that time, and the impossibility of conducting business through the regular channels compelled Page to adopt other means. "There is only one way to reform the State Department," he informed Colonel House at this time. "That is to raze the whole building, with its archives and papers, to the ground, and begin all over again."

This state of affairs in Washington explains the curious fact that the real diplomatic history of the United States and Great Britain during this great crisis is not to be found in the archives of the State Department, for the official documents on file there consist of the most routine telegrams, which are not particularly informing, but in the Ambassador's personal correspondence with the President, Colonel House, and a few other intimates. The State Department did not have the first requisite of a properly organized foreign office, for it could not be trusted with confidential information. The Department did not tell Page what it was doing, but it apparently told the whole world what Page was doing. It is an astonishing fact that Page could not write and cable the most important details, for he was afraid that they would promptly be given to the reporters.

* * * * *

"I shall not send another confidential message to the State Department," Page wrote to Colonel House, September 15, 1914; "it's too dangerous. Time and time again now the Department has leaked. Last week, I sent a dispatch and I said in the body of it, '_this is confidential and under no condition to be given out or made public, but to be regarded as inviolably secret_.' The very next morning it was telegraphed from Washington to the London newspapers. Bryan telegraphed me that he was sure it didn't get out from the Department and that he now had so fixed it that there could be no leak. He's said that at least four times before. The Department swarms with newspaper men, I hear. But whether it does or not the leak continues. I have to go with my tail between my legs and apologize to Sir Edward Grey and to do myself that shame and to do my very best to keep his confidence--against these unnecessary odds. The only way to be safe is to do the job perfunctorily, to answer the questions the Department sends and to do nothing on your own account. That's the reason so many of our men do their jobs in that way--or _one_ reason and a strong one. We can never have an alert and energetic and powerful service until men can trust the Department and until they can get necessary information from it. I wrote the President that of course I'd go on till the war ended and all the questions growing out of it were settled, and that then he must excuse me, if I must continue to be exposed to this danger and humiliation. In the meantime, I shall send all my confidential matter in private letters to him."

* * * * *

Page did not regard Mr. Bryan's opinions and attitudes as a joke: to him they were a serious matter and, in his eyes, Bryan was most interesting as a national menace. He regarded the Secretary as the extreme expression of an irrational sentimentalism that was in danger of undermining the American character, especially as the kind of thought he represented was manifest in many phases of American life. In a moment of exasperation, Page gave expression to this feeling in a letter to his son:

_To Arthur W. Page_

London, June 6, 1915.

DEAR ARTHUR:

... We're in danger of being feminized and fad-ridden--grape juice
(God knows water's good enough: why grape juice?); pensions;
Christian Science; peace cranks; efficiency-correspondence schools;
aid-your-memory; women's clubs; co-this and co-t'other and coddling
in general; Billy Sunday; petticoats where breeches ought to be and
breeches where petticoats ought to be; white livers and soft heads
and milk-and-water;--I don't want war: nobody knows its horrors or
its degradations or its cost. But to get rid of hyphenated
degenerates perhaps it's worth while, and to free us from 'isms and
soft folk. That's the domestic view of it. As for being kicked by a
sauerkraut caste--O Lord, give us backbone!

Heartily yours,
W.H.P.

In the bottom of this note, Page has cut a notch in the paper and against it he has written: "This notch is the place to apply a match to this letter."

* * * * *

"Again and ever I am reminded," Page also wrote in reference to Bryan's resignation, "of the danger of having to do with cranks. A certain orderliness of mind and conduct seems essential for safety in this short life. Spiritualists, bone-rubbers, anti-vivisectionists, all sort of anti's in fact, those who have fads about education or fads against it, Perfectionists, Daughters of the Dove of Peace, Sons of the Roaring Torrent, itinerant peace-mongers--all these may have a real genius among them once in forty years; but to look for an exception to the common run of yellow dogs and damfools among them is like opening oysters with the hope of finding pearls. It's the common man we want and the uncommon common man when we can find him--never the crank. This is the lesson of Bryan."

* * * * *

At one time, however, Mr. Bryan's departure seemed likely to have important consequences for Page. Colonel House and others strongly urged the President to call him home from London and make him Secretary of State. This was the third position in President Wilson's Cabinet for which Page had been considered. The early plans to make him Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Agriculture have already been described. 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 Ambassador whose sympathies for the Allies were so pronounced as were Page's, would have been an "un-neutral" act, and, therefore, Colonel House's recommendation was not approved.

_From Edward M. House_

Roslyn, Long Island,
June 25th, 1915.

DEAR PAGE:

The President finally decided to appoint Lansing to succeed Mr.
Bryan. In my opinion, he did wisely, though I would have preferred
his appointing you.

The argument against your appointment was the fact that you are an
Ambassador at one of the belligerent capitals. The President did
not think it would do, and from what I read, when your name was
suggested I take it there would have been much criticism. I am
sorry--sorrier than I can tell you, for it would have worked
admirably in the general scheme of things.

However, I feel sure that Lansing will do the job, and that you
will find your relations with him in every way satisfactory.

The President spent yesterday with me and we talked much of you. He
is looking well and feeling so. I read the President your letter
and he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I am writing hastily, for I am leaving for Manchester,
Massachusetts, where I shall be during July and August.

Your sincere friend,
E.M. HOUSE.

III

But, in addition to the _Lusitania_ crisis, a new terror now loomed on the horizon. Page's correspondence reveals that Bryan had more reasons than one for his resignation; he was now planning to undertake a self-appointed mission to Europe for the purpose of opening peace negotiations entirely on his own account.

_From Edward M. House_

Manchester, Massachusetts,
August 12th, 1915.

DEAR PAGE:

The Bryans have been stopping with the X's. X writes me that Bryan
told him that he intended to go to Europe soon and try peace
negotiations. He has Lloyd George in mind in England, and it is
then his purpose to go to Germany.

I take it he will want credentials from the President which, of
course, he will not want to give, but just what he will feel
obliged to give is another story. I anticipated this when he
resigned. I knew it was merely a matter of time when he would take
this step.

He may find encouragement in Germany, for he is in high favour now
in that quarter. It is his purpose to oppose the President upon the
matter of "preparedness," and, from what we can learn, it will not
be long before there will be open antagonism between the
Administration and himself.

It might be a good thing to encourage his going to Europe. He would
probably come back a sadder and wiser man. I take it that no one in
authority in England would discuss the matter seriously with him,
and, in France, I do not believe he could even get a hearing.

Please let me have your impressions upon this subject.

I wish I could be near you to-day for there are so many things I
could tell that I cannot write.

Your friend,
E.M. House.

_To Edward M. House_

American Embassy, London [Undated].

DEAR HOUSE:

Never mind about Bryan. Send him over here if you wish to get rid
of him. He'll cut no more figure than a tar-baby at a Negro
camp-meeting. If he had come while he was Secretary, I should have
jumped off London Bridge and the country would have had one
ambassador less. But I shall enjoy him now. You see some peace
crank from the United States comes along every week--some crank or
some gang of cranks. There've been two this week. Ever since the
Daughters of the Dove of Peace met at The Hague, the game has
become popular in America; and I haven't yet heard that a single
one has been shot--so far. I think that some of them are likely
soon to be hanged, however, because there are signs that they may
come also from Germany. The same crowd that supplies money to buy
labour-leaders and the press and to blow up factories in the United
States keeps a good supply of peace-liars on tap. It'll be fun to
watch Bryan perform and never suspect that anybody is lying to him
or laughing at him; and he'll go home convinced that he's done the
job and he'll let loose doves all over the land till they are as
thick as English sparrows. Not even the President could teach him
anything permanently. He can do no harm on this side the world.
It's only your side that's in any possible danger; and, if I read
the signs right, there's a diminishing danger there.

No, there's never yet come a moment when there was the slightest
chance of peace. Did the Emperor not say last year that peace would
come in October, and again this year in October? Since he said it,
how can it come?

The ambitions and the actions of men, my friend, are determined by
their antecedents, their surroundings, and their opportunities--the
great deeds of men before them whom consciously or unconsciously
they take for models, the codes they are reared by, and the chances
that they think they see. These influences shaped Alexander and
Cæsar, and they shaped you and me. Now every monarch on the
Continent has behind him the Napoleonic example. "Can I do that?"
crosses the mind of every one. Of course every one thinks of
himself as doing it beneficently--for the good of the world.
Napoleon, himself, persuaded himself of his benevolent intentions,
and the devil of it was he persuaded other people also. Now the
only monarch in Europe in our time who thought he had a chance is
your friend in Berlin. When he told you last year (1914) that of
course he didn't want war, but that he was "ready," that's what he
meant. A similar ambition, of course, comes into the mind of every
professional soldier of the continent who rises to eminence. In
Berlin you have both--the absolute monarch and the military class
of ambitious soldiers and their fighting machine. Behind these men
walks the Napoleonic ambition all the time, just as in the United
States we lie down every night in George Washington's feather-bed
of no entangling alliances.

Then remember, too, that the German monarchy is a cross between the
Napoleonic ambition and its inheritance from Frederick the Great
and Bismarck. I suppose the three damnedest liars that were ever
born are these three--old Frederick, Napoleon, and Bismarck--not, I
take it, because they naturally loved lying, but because the game
they played constantly called for lying. There was no other way to
play it: they _had_ to fool people all the time. You have abundant
leisure--do this: Read the whole career of Napoleon and write down
the startling and exact parallels that you will find there to what
is happening to-day. The French were united and patriotic, just as
the Germans now are. When they invaded other people's territory,
they said they were attacked and that the other people had brought
on war. They had their lying diplomats, their corruption funds;
they levied money on cities and states; they took booty; and they
were God's elect. It's a wonderful parallel--not strangely, because
the game is the same and the moral methods are the same. Only the
tools are somewhat different--the submarine, for example. Hence the
_Lusitania_ disaster (not disavowed, you will observe), the
_Arabic_ disaster, the propaganda, underground and above, in the
United States. And there'll be more. The Napoleonic Wars were
about eleven years long. I fancy that we shall have war and wars
from this attempt to dominate Europe, for perhaps as long a period.
The Balkans can't be quieted by this war only, nor Russia and Italy
perhaps. And Germany may have a series of earthquakes
herself--internal explosions. Then Poland and perhaps some of the
Scandinavian States. Nobody can tell.

I cannot express my admiration of the President's management, so
far at least, of his colossal task of leading us right. He has
shown his supreme wisdom up to this point and I have the
profoundest confidence in his judgment. But I hope he doesn't fool
himself about the future; I'm sure he doesn't. I see no possible
way for us to keep out, because I know the ignorance and falseness
of the German leaders. They'll drown or kill more Americans--on the
sea and in America. They _may_ at last even attack one of our own
passenger ships, or do something that will dramatically reveal them
to the whole American people. Then, of course, the tune will be
called. It's only a question of time; and I am afraid the war will
last long enough to give them time. An early peace is all that can
prevent them from driving us at last into war; and I can see no
chance of an early peace. You had as well prepare as fast as the
condition of public opinion will permit.

There could be no better measure of the immeasurable moral advance
that the United States has made over Europe than the incredulity of
our people. They simply can't comprehend what the Napoleonic legend
can do, nor the low political morality of the Continent--of Berlin
in particular. Hence they don't believe it. We have gone on for 100
years working might and main to better our condition and the
condition of people about us--the greatest effort made by the
largest number of people since the world began to further the mood
and the arts of peace. There is no other such chapter in human
history as our work for a hundred years. Yet just a hundred years
ago the Capitol at Washington was burned by--a political oligarchy
in the freest country of Europe--as damnable an atrocity as you
will find in history. The Germans are a hundred years behind the
English in political development and political morality.

So, let Willum J. come. He can't hurt Europe--nor help it; and you
can spare him. Let all the Peace-gang come. You can spare _them_,
too; and they can do no harm here. Let somebody induce Hoke Smith
to come, too. You have hit on a great scheme--friendly deportation.

And Bryan won't be alone. Daughters of the Dove of Peace and Sons
of the Olive Branch come every week. The latest Son came to see me
to-day. He said that the German Chancellor told him that he wanted
peace--wants it now and wants it bad, and that only one thing stood
in the way--if England would agree not to take Belgium, Germany
would at once make peace! This otherwise sensible American wanted
me to take him to see Sir Edward to tell him this, and to suggest
to him to go over to Holland next week to meet the German
Chancellor and fix it up. A few days ago a pious preacher chap
(American) who had come over to "fix it all up," came back from
France and called on me. He had seen something in France--he was
excited and he didn't quite make it clear what he had seen; but he
said that if they'd only let him go home safely and quickly he'd
promise not to mention peace any more--did I think the American
boats _entirely_ safe?--So, you see, I do have some fun even in
these dark days.

Yours heartily,
W.H. PAGE.

IV

This letter discloses that Page was pinning his faith in President Wilson, and that he still had confidence in the President's determination to uphold the national honour. Page was not one of those who thought that the United States should declare war immediately after the _Lusitania_. The President'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. The interest which he had shown in advocating Wilson's presidential candidacy has already been set forth; and many phases of the Wilson administration had aroused his admiration. The President's handling of domestic problems Page regarded as a masterpiece in reconciling statesmanship with practical politics, and his energetic attitude on the Panama Tolls had introduced new standards into American foreign relations. Page could not sympathize with all the details of the Wilsonian Mexican policy, yet he saw in it a high-minded purpose and a genuine humanitarianism. But the outbreak of war presented new aspects of Mr. Wilson's mind. The President's attitude toward the European struggle, his conception of "neutrality," and his failure to grasp the meaning of the conflict, seemed to Page to show a lack of fundamental statesmanship; still his faith in Wilson was deep-seated, and he did not abandon hope that the President could be brought to see things as they really were. Page even believed that he might be instrumental in his conversion.

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, in his own way and in his own time, would find a path out of his dilemma that would protect the honour and the safety of the United States. If any of the Embassy subordinates became impatient over the procedure 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 manifestations 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." Englishmen with whom the Ambassador came into contact soon learned that they could not become flippant or critical about Mr. Wilson in his presence; he would resent the slightest hostile remark, and he had a way of phrasing his rebukes that usually discouraged a second attempt. About this time Page began to keep closely to himself, and to decline invitations to dinners and to country houses, even those with which he was most friendly. The reason was that he could not meet Englishmen and Englishwomen, or even Americans who were resident in England, on his old easy familiar terms; he knew the ideas which everybody entertained about his country, and he knew also what they were saying, when he was not among them; the restraint which his presence necessarily put upon his friends produced an uncongenial atmosphere, and the Ambassador therefore gave up, for a time, those distractions which had ordinarily proved such a delightful relief from his duties. For the first time since he had come to England he found himself a solitary man. He even refused to attend the American Luncheon Club in London because, in speeches and in conversation, the members did not hesitate to assail the Wilson policies.

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 secretaries, such as Mr. Laughlin, in whom his confidence was strongest; his expressions, however, were never flippant or violent. That Page could be biting as well as brilliant in his comments on public personages his letters abundantly reveal, yet he never exercised his talent for sarcasm or invective at the expense of the White House. He never forgot that Mr. Wilson was President and that he was Ambassador; 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 disappointment 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 hesitated. 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 frankness. 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 unfavourable 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 Ambassadorship 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 surroundings, the fear of being recalled for "disloyalty" or insubordination never influenced him. The letters which he now wrote to Colonel House and to President 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 Englishmen thought of him and of the extent to which the United States was suffering in European estimation from the Wilson policy. His boldness sometimes astounded his associates. One day a friend and adviser of President Wilson's 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 had 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. That President Wilson did not like people about him whose views were opposed to his own is now no secret, and during the period when his policy was one of the great issues of the world there was probably no one except Page who intruded upon his solitude with ideas that so abruptly disagreed with the opinions of the White House. The letters which Page wrote Colonel House were intended, of course, for the President himself, and practically all of them Colonel House read aloud to the head of the nation. The two men would closet themselves in the old cabinet room on the second floor of the White House--that same room in which Lincoln had met his advisers during Civil War days; and here Colonel House would quietly read the letters in which Page so mercilessly portrayed the situation as it appeared in English and European eyes. The President listened impassively, giving no sign of approval or disapproval, and hardly, at times, of much interest. In the earlier days, when Page's letters consisted of pictures of English life and English men, and colourful descriptions of England under the stress of war, the President was vastly entertained; he would laugh loudly at Page's wit, express his delight at his graphic and pungent style and feel deeply the horrors of war as his Ambassador unfolded them. "I always found Page compelling on paper," Mr. Wilson remarked to Mr. Laughlin, during one of the latter's visits to Washington. "I could never resist him--I get more information from his letters than from any other single source. Tell him to keep it up." It was during this period that the President used occasionally to read Page's letters to the Cabinet, expressing his great appreciation of their charm and historical importance. "The President quoted from one of the Ambassador's letters to the Cabinet to-day," a member of the Cabinet wrote to Mrs. Page in February, 1915. "'Some day,' the President said, 'I hope that Walter Page's letters will be published. They are the best letters I have ever read. They make you feel the atmosphere in England, understand the people, and see into the motives of the great actors.'" The President repeated this statement many times, and his letters to Page show how greatly he enjoyed and profited from this correspondence. But after the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the _Arabic_ his attitude toward Page and his letters changed.

He now found little pleasure or satisfaction in the Page communications. When Mr. Wilson 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 friendship 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 dismissing 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 indispensable 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 sufficiently answered in subsequent chapters; at present it may be said that he did resign and only consented to remain at the urgent request of Washington. In fact, all during 1915 and 1916, there seemed to be a fear in Washington that Page would definitely abandon the London post. On one occasion, when the newspapers published rumours 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 especially discouraged over the Washington policy. "Representatives of the press," said Mr. Lansing, "have repeated rumours that you are planning to resign. These have been brought to the President's attention, and both he and I have denied them. Still these rumours 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 baseless. We trust that you will set both our minds at rest."

If Page had ever had any compunction about addressing the President in blunt phrases these expressions certainly convinced him that he was a free agent.

Yet Page himself at times had his doubts as to the value of this correspondence. He would frequently discuss the matter with Mr. Laughlin. "That's a pretty harsh letter," he would say. "I don't like to talk that way to the President, yet it doesn't express half what I feel."

"It's your duty to tell the President the real state of affairs," Mr. Laughlin would urge.

"But do you suppose it does any good?" Page would ask.

"Yes, it's bound to, and whether it does or not, it's your business to keep him informed."

If in these letters Page seems to lay great stress on the judgment of Great Britain and Europe on American policy, it must be remembered that that was his particular province. One of an Ambassador's most important duties is to transmit to his country the public opinion of the country to which he is accredited. It was Page's place to tell Washington what Great Britain thought of it; it was Washington's business to formulate policy, after giving due consideration to this and other matters.

_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) were drowned on the _Lusitania_ and we are still
writing notes about it--to the damnedest pirates that ever blew up
a ship. Anybody who knows the Germans 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--because 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 pusillanimous--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
realize 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 travellers without notice. And by dallying with them we do
not change the ultimate 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 confirms this....

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

W.H.P.

P.S. The London papers every day say that the President will send a
strong note, etc. And the people here say, "Damn notes: hasn't he
written enough?" Writing notes hurts nobody--changes nothing. The
Washington correspondents to the London papers say that Burleson,
the Attorney-General, and Daniels are Bryan men and are holding the
President back.

* * * * *

The prophecy contained in this letter was quickly fulfilled. A week or two after Colonel House had received it, the _Arabic_ was sunk with loss of American life.

Page was taking a brief holiday with his son Frank in Rowsley, Derbyshire, when this news came. It was telegraphed from the Embassy.

"That settles it," he said 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_

American Embassy, London, August 23, 1915.

DEAR HOUSE:

The sinking of the _Arabic_ is the answer to the President and to
your letter to me. And there'll be more such answers. You said to
me one day after you had got back from your last visit to Berlin:
"They are impossible." I think you told the truth, and surely you
know your German and you know your Berlin--or you did know them
when you were here.

The question is not what we have done for the Allies, not what any
other neutral country has done or has failed to do--such
comparisons, I think, are far from the point. The question is when
the right moment arrives for us to save our self-respect, our
honour, and the esteem and fear (or the contempt) in which the
world will hold us.

Berlin has the Napoleonic disease. If you follow Napoleon's
career--his excuses, his evasions, his inventions, the wild French
enthusiasm and how he kept it up--you will find an exact parallel.
That becomes plainer every day. Europe may not be wholly at peace
in five years--may be ten.

Hastily and heartily,
W.H.P.

I have your note about Willum J.... Crank once, crank always. My
son, never tie up with a crank.

W.H.P.

_To Edward M. House_

London, September 2nd, 1915.

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--especially the last time when she burnt our Capitol.
There's been no obligation since. The obligation is 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. Already 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--Holland or any other. This war is the direct
result of the over-polite, diplomatic, standing-aloof,
bowing-to-one-another in 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 business 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 efficacy 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 technical 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 because we ask so
many unimportant and nagging ones.

I've no sentiment--perhaps not enough. My gushing 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 must learn to say "No" even to a Gawdamighty
independent American citizen when he asks an improper or
impracticable question. Public Opinion in the United States
consists of something more than the threats of Congressmen and the
bleating of newspapers; it consists of the judgment of honourable
men on courageous and frank actions--a judgment that cannot be made
up till action is taken.

Heartily yours,
W.H.P.

_To Edward M. House_

American Embassy, London, Sept. 8, 1915.

(This is not prudent. It is only true--nothing more.)

DEAR HOUSE:

I take it for granted that Dumba[4] is going, of course. But I must
tell you that the President is being laughed at by our best friends
for his slowness in action. I hardly ever pick up a paper without
seeing some sarcastic remark. I don't mean they expect us to come
into the war. They only hoped we would be as good as our
word--would regard another submarine attack on a ship carrying
Americans as an unfriendly act and would send Bernstorff home. Yet
the _Arabic_ and now the _Hesperian_ have had no effect in action.
Bernstorff's personal _note to Lansing[5], even as far as it goes,
does not bind his Government_.

The upshot of all this is that the President is fast losing in the
minds of our best friends here all that he gained by his courageous
stand on the Panama tolls. They feel that if he takes another
insult--keeps taking them--and is satisfied with Bernstorff's
personal word, which is proved false in four days--he'll take
anything. And the British will pay less attention to what we say.
That's inevitable. If the American people and the President accept
the _Arabic_ and the _Hesperian_ and do nothing to Dumba till the
Government here gave out his letter, which the State Department had
(and silently held) for several days--then nobody on this side the
world will pay much heed to anything we say hereafter.

This, as I say, doesn't mean that these (thoughtful) people wish or
expect us to go to war. They wish only that we'd prove ourselves as
good as the President's word. That's the conservative truth; we're
losing influence more rapidly than I supposed it were possible.

Dumba's tardy dismissal will not touch the main matter, which is
the rights of neutrals at sea, and keeping our word in action.

Yours sincerely,
W.H.P.

P.S. They say it's Mexico over again--watchful waiting and nothing
doing. And the feeling grows that Bryan has really conquered, since
his programme seems to prevail.

_To Edward M. House_

London, Tuesday night, Sept. 8, 1915.

DEAR HOUSE: