We needn't talk any longer about keeping aloof. If Cecil Spring Rice would tell you the complaints he has already presented and if you saw the work that goes on here—more than in all the other posts in Europe—you'd see that all the old talk about keeping aloof is Missouri buncombe. We're very much "in," but not frankly in.

I wish you'd keep your eye on these things in cabinet meetings. The English and the whole English world are ours, if we have the courtesy to take them—fleet and trade and all; and we go on pretending we are afraid of "entangling alliances." What about disentangling alliances?

We're in the game. There's no use in letting a few wild Irish or cocky Germans scare us. We need courtesy and frankness, and the destinies of the world will be in our hands. They'll fall there anyhow after we are dead; but I wish to see them come, while my own eyes last. Don't you?

Heartily yours,

W.H.P.

To Robert N. Page[29]

London, December 22, 1913.

MY DEAR BOB:

. . . We have a splendid, big old house—not in any way pretentious—a commonplace house in fact for fashionable London and the least showy and costly of the Embassies. But it does very well—it's big and elegantly plain and dignified. We have fifteen servants in the house. They do just about what seven good ones would do in the United States, but they do it a great deal better. They pretty nearly run themselves and the place. The servant question is admirably solved here. They divide the work according to a fixed and unchangeable system and they do it remarkably well—in their own slow English way. We simply let them alone, unless something important happens to go wrong. Katharine simply tells the butler that we'll have twenty-four people to dinner to-morrow night and gives him a list of them. As they come in, the men at the door address every one correctly—Your Lordship or Your Grace, or what not. When they are all in, the butler comes to the reception room and announces dinner. We do the rest. As every man goes out, the butler asks him if he'll have a glass of water or of grog or a cigar; he calls his car, puts him in it, and that's the end of it. Bully good plan. But in the United States that butler, whose wages are less than the ramshackle nigger I had at Garden City to keep the place neat, would have a business of his own. But here he is a sort of duke downstairs. He sits at the head of the servants' table and orders them around and that's worth more than money to an Old World servile mind.

The "season" doesn't begin till the King comes back and Parliament opens, in February. But every kind of club and patriotic and educational organization is giving its annual dinner now. I've been going to them and making after-dinner speeches to get acquainted and also to preach into them some little knowledge of American ways and ideals. They are very nice—very. You could not suggest or imagine any improvement in their kindness and courtesy. They do all these things in some ways better than we. They have more courtesy. They make far shorter speeches. But they do them all too much alike. Still they do get much pleasure out of them and much instruction too.

Then we are invited to twice as many private dinners and luncheons as we can attend. At these, these people are at their best. But it is yet quite confusing. A sea of friendly faces greets you—you can't remember the names. Nobody ever introduces anybody to anybody; and if by accident anybody ever tries, he simply says "Uh-o-oh-Lord Xzwwxkmpt." You couldn't understand it if you had to be hanged.

But we are untangling some of this confusion and coming to make very real and very charming friends.

About December 20, everybody who is anybody leaves London. They go to their country places for about a fortnight or they go to the continent. Almost everything stops. It has been the only dull time at the Embassy that I've had. Nothing is going on now. But up to two days ago, it kept a furious gait. I'm glad of a little rest.

Dealing with the Government doesn't present the difficulties that I feared. Sir Edward Grey is in the main responsible for the ease with which it is done. He is a frank and fair and truthful man. You will find him the day after to-morrow precisely where you left him the day before yesterday. We get along very well indeed. I think we should get along if we had harder tasks one with the other. And the English people are even more friendly than the Government. You have no idea of their respect for the American Nation. Of course there is much ignorance, sometimes of a surprising sort. Very many people, for instance, think that all the Americans are rich. A lady told me the other night how poor she is—she is worth only $1,250,000—"nothing like all you Americans." She was quite sincere. In fact the wealth of the world (and the poverty, too) is centred here in an amazing way. You can't easily take it in—how rich or how many rich English families there are. They have had wealth for generation after generation, and the surprising thing is, they take care of it. They spend enormously—seldom ostentatiously—but they are more than likely to add some of their income every year to their principal. They have better houses in town and in the country than I had imagined. They spend vast fortunes in making homes in which they expect to live forever—generation after generation.

To an American democrat the sad thing is the servile class. Before the law the chimney sweep and the peer have exactly the same standing. They have worked that out with absolute justice. But there it stops. The serving class is what we should call abject. It does not occur to them that they might ever become—or that their descendants might ever become—ladies and gentlemen.

The "courts" are a very fine sight. The diplomatic ladies sit on a row of seats on one side the throne room, the Duchesses on a row opposite. The King and Queen sit on a raised platform with the royal family. The Ambassadors come in first and bow and the King shakes hands with them. Then come the forty or more Ministers—no shake for them. In front of the King are a few officers in gaudy uniform, some Indians of high rank (from India) and the court officials are all round about, with pages who hold up the Queen's train. Whenever the Queen and King move, two court officials back before them, one carrying a gold stick and the other a silver stick.

The ladies to be presented come along. They curtsy to the King, then to the Queen, and disappear in the rooms farther on. The Ambassadors (all in gaudy uniforms but me) stand near the throne—stand through the whole performance. One night after an hour or two of ladies coming along and curtsying and disappearing, I whispered to the Spanish Ambassador, "There must be five hundred of these ladies." "U-m," said he, as he shifted his weight to the other foot, "I'm sure there are five thousand!" When they've all been presented, the King and Queen go into a room where a stand-up supper is served. The royalty and the diplomatic folks go into that room, too; and their Majesties walk around and talk with whom they please. Into another and bigger room everybody else goes and gets supper. Then we all flock back to the throne room; and preceded by the backing courtiers, their Majesties come out into the floor and bow to the Ambassadors, then to the Duchesses, then to the general diplomatic group and they go out. The show is ended. We come downstairs and wait an hour for our car and come home about midnight. The uniforms on the men and the jewels on the ladies (by the ton) and their trains—all this makes a very brilliant spectacle. The American Ambassador and his Secretaries and the Swiss and the Portuguese are the only ones dressed in citizens' clothes.

At a levee, the King receives only gentlemen. Here they come in all kinds of uniforms. If you are not entitled to wear a uniform, you have a dark suit, knee breeches, and a funny little tin sword. I'm going to adopt the knee breeches part of it for good when I go home—golf breeches in the day time and knee breeches at night. You've no idea how nice and comfortable they are—though it is a devil of a lot of trouble to put 'em on. Of course every sort of man here but the Americans wears some sort of decorations around his neck or on his stomach, at these functions. For my part, I like it—here. The women sparkle with diamonds, the men strut; the King is a fine man with a big bass voice and he talks very well and is most agreeable; the Queen is very gracious; the royal ladies (Queen Victoria's daughters, chiefly) are nice; you see all the big Generals and all the big Admirals and the great folk of every sort—fine show.

You've no idea how much time and money they spend on shooting. The King has been shooting most of the time for three months. He's said to be a very good shot. He has sent me, on different occasions, grouse, a haunch of venison, and pheasants.

But except on these occasions, you never think about the King. The people go about their business as if he didn't exist, of course. They begin work much later than we do. You'll not find any of the shops open till about ten o'clock. The sun doesn't shine except once in a while and you don't know it's daylight till about ten. You know the House of Commons has night sessions always. Nobody is in the Government offices, except clerks and secretaries, till the afternoon. We dine at eight, and, when we have a big dinner, at eight thirty.

I like these people (most of 'em) immensely. They are very genuine and frank, good fighters and folk of our own sort—after you come to know them. At first they have no manners and don't know what to do. But they warm up to you later. They have abundant wit, but much less humour than we. And they know how to live.

Except that part of life which is ministered to in mechanical ways, they resist conveniences. They don't really like bathrooms yet. They prefer great tin tubs, and they use bowls and pitchers when a bathroom is next door. The telephone—Lord deliver us!—I've given it up. They know nothing about it. (It is a government concern, but so is the telegraph and the post-office, and they are remarkably good and swift.) You can't buy a newspaper on the street, except in the afternoon. Cigar-stores are as scarce as hen's teeth. Barber-shops are all "hairdressers"—dirty and wretched beyond description. You can't get a decent pen; their newspapers are as big as tablecloths. In this aquarium in which we live (it rains every day) they have only three vegetables and two of them are cabbages. They grow all kinds of fruit in hothouses, and (I can't explain this) good land in admirable cultivation thirty miles from London sells for about half what good corn land in Iowa brings. Lloyd George has scared the land-owners to death.

Party politics runs so high that many Tories will not invite Liberals to dinner. They are almost at the point of civil war. I asked the Prime Minister the other day how he was going to prevent war. He didn't give any clear answer. During this recess of Parliament, though there's no election pending, all the Cabinet are all the time going about making speeches on Ireland. They talk to me about it.

"What would you do?"

"Send 'em all to the United States," say I.

"No, no."

They have had the Irish question three hundred years and they wouldn't be happy without it. One old Tory talked me deaf abusing the Liberal Government.

"You do this way in the United States—hate one another, don't you?"

"No," said I, "we live like angels in perfect harmony except a few weeks before election."

"The devil you do! You don't hate one another? What do you do for enemies? I couldn't get along without enemies to swear at."

If you think it's all play, you fool yourself; I mean this job. There's no end of the work. It consists of these parts: Receiving people for two hours every day, some on some sort of business, some merely "to pay respects," attending to a large (and exceedingly miscellaneous) mail; going to the Foreign Office on all sorts of errands; looking up the oddest assortment of information that you ever heard of; making reports to Washington on all sorts of things; then the so-called social duties—giving dinners, receptions, etc., and attending them. I hear the most important news I get at so-called social functions. Then the court functions; and the meetings and speeches! The American Ambassador must go all over England and explain every American thing. You'd never recover from the shock if you could hear me speaking about Education, Agriculture, the observance of Christmas, the Navy, the Anglo-Saxon, Mexico, the Monroe Doctrine, Co-education, Woman Suffrage, Medicine, Law, Radio-Activity, Flying, the Supreme Court, the President as a Man of letters, Hookworm, the Negro—just get down the Encyclopaedia and continue the list. I've done this every week-night for a month, hand running, with a few afternoon performances thrown in! I have missed only one engagement in these seven months; and that was merely a private luncheon. I have been late only once. I have the best chauffeur in the world—he deserves credit for much of that. Of course, I don't get time to read a book. In fact, I can't keep up with what goes on at home. To read a newspaper eight or ten days old, when they come in bundles of three or four—is impossible. What isn't telegraphed here, I miss; and that means I miss most things.

I forgot, there are a dozen other kinds of activities, such as American marriages, which they always want the Ambassador to attend; getting them out of jail, when they are jugged (I have an American woman on my hands now, whose four children come to see me every day); looking after the American insane; helping Americans move the bones of their ancestors; interpreting the income-tax law; receiving medals for Americans; hearing American fiddlers, pianists, players; sitting for American sculptors and photographers; sending telegrams for property owners in Mexico; reading letters from thousands of people who have shares in estates here; writing letters of introduction; getting tickets to the House Gallery; getting seats in the Abbey; going with people to this and that and t'other; getting tickets to the races, the art-galleries, the House of Lords; answering fool questions about the United States put by Englishmen. With a military attache, a naval attache, three secretaries, a private secretary, two automobiles, Alice's private secretary, a veterinarian, an immigration agent, consuls everywhere, a despatch agent, lawyers, doctors, messengers—they keep us all busy. A woman turned up dying the other day. I sent for a big doctor. She got well. As if that wasn't enough, both the woman and the doctor had to come and thank me (fifteen minutes each). Then each wrote a letter! Then there are people who are going to have a Fair here; others who have a Fair coming on at San Francisco; others at San Diego; secretaries and returning and outgoing diplomats come and go (lunch for 'em all); niggers come up from Liberia; Rhodes Scholars from Oxford; Presidential candidates to succeed Huerta; people who present books; women who wish to go to court; Jews who are excited about Rumania; passports, passports to sign; peace committees about the hundred years of peace; opera singers going to the United States; artists who have painted some American's portrait—don't you see? I haven't said a word about reporters and editors: the city's full of them.

A Happy New Year.

Affectionately, WAT.

To Ralph W. Page[30] London, December 23, 1913.

DEAR RALPH:

. . . The game is pretty much as it has been. I can't think of any new kinds of things to write you. The old kinds simply multiply and repeat themselves. But we are beginning now really to become acquainted, and some life friendships will grow out of our experience. And there's no doubt about its being instructive. I get glimpses of the way in which great governments deal with one another, in ways that our isolated, and, therefore, safe government seldom has any experience of. For instance, one of the Lords of the Admiralty told me the other night that he never gets out of telephone reach of the office—not even half an hour. "The Admiralty," said he, "never sleeps." He has a telephone by his bed which he can hear at any moment in the night. I don't believe that they really expect the German fleet to attack them any day or night. But they would not be at all surprised if it did so to-night. They talk all the time of the danger and of the probability of war; they don't expect it; but most wars have come without warning, and they are all the time prepared to begin a fight in an hour.

They talk about how much Germany must do to strengthen her frontier against Russia and her new frontier on the Balkan States. They now have these problems in hand and therefore they are for the moment not likely to provoke a fight. But they might.

It is all pitiful to see them thinking forever about danger and defense. The controversy about training boys for the army never ends. We don't know in the United States what we owe to the Atlantic Ocean—safe separation from all these troubles. . . .

But I've often asked both Englishmen and Americans in a dining room where there were many men of each country, whether they could look over the company and say which were English and which were Americans. Nobody can tell till—they begin to talk.

The ignorance of the two countries, each of the other, is beyond all belief. A friend of Kitty's—an American—received a letter from the United States yesterday. The maid noticed the stamp, which had the head of George Washington on it. Every stamp in this kingdom bears the image of King George. She asked if the American stamp had on it the head of the American Ambassador! I've known far wiser people to ask far more foolish questions.

Affectionately, W.H.P.

To Mrs. Ralph W. Page

London, Christmas-is-coming, 1913.

MY DEAR LEILA:

. . . Her work [Mrs. Walter H. Page's] is all the work of going and receiving and—of reading. She reads incessantly and enormously; and, when she gets tired, she goes to bed. That's all there is about it. Lord! I wish I could. But, when I get tired, I have to go and make another speech. They think the American Ambassador has omniscience for a foible and oratory as a pastime.

In some ways my duties are very instructive. We get different points of view on many things, some better than we had before had, some worse. For instance, life is pretty well laid out here in water-tight compartments; and you can't let a stream in from one to another without danger of sinking the ship. Four reporters have been here to-day because Mr. and Mrs. Sayre[31] arrived this morning. Every one of 'em asked the same question, "Who met them at the station?" That's the chief thing they wished to know. When I said "I did"—that fixed the whole thing on the highest peg of dignity. They could classify the whole proceeding properly, and they went off happy. Again: You've got to go in to dinner in the exact order prescribed by the constitution; and, if you avoid that or confuse that, you'll never be able to live it down. And so about Government, Literature, Art—everything. Don't you forget your water-tight compartments. If you do, you are gone! They have the same toasts at every public dinner. One is to "the guests." Now you needn't say a word about the guests when you respond. But they've been having toasts to the guests since the time of James I and they can't change it. They had me speak to "the guests" at a club last night, when they wanted me to talk about Mexico! The winter has come—the winter months at least. But they have had no cold weather—not so cold as you have in Pinehurst. But the sun has gone out to sea—clean gone. We never see it. A damp darkness (semi-darkness at least) hangs over us all the time. But we manage to feel our way about.

A poor photograph goes to you for Xmas—a poor thing enough surely. But you get Uncle Bob[32] busy on the job of paying for an Ambassador's house. Then we'll bring Christmas presents home for you. What a game we are playing, we poor folks here, along with Ambassadors whose governments pay them four times what ours pays. But we don't give the game away, you bet! We throw the bluff with a fine, straight poker face.

Affectionately, W.H.P.

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. Moreover, we've just got the patriotic fervour flowing at high tide this morning. This is the President's birthday. We've put up the Stars and Stripes on the roof; and half an hour ago the King's Master of Ceremonies 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 greetings 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 imagine, 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 their knees and curse Lloyd George and enjoy themselves. They are a great people—even without mint juleps in summer or eggnog in winter; and I 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 fellows regard it as a bore. So it used to be before my entrance into the game! But it's everlastingly interesting. 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 London, the Japanese landed in California, the English took all the oil-wells in Central and South America and—"

"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 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 pressed his personality most strongly on the governing class here.

Yours heartily, W.H.P.

To the President

American Embassy, London [May 11, 1914.]

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The King of Denmark (I always think of Hamlet) having come to make his royal kinsman of these Isles a visit, his royal kinsman to-night gave a state dinner at the palace whereto the Ambassadors of the eight Great Powers were, of course, invited. Now I don't know how other kings do, but I'm willing to swear by King George for a job of this sort. The splendour of the thing is truly regal and the friendliness of it very real and human; and the company most uncommon. Of course the Ambassadors and their wives were there, the chief rulers of the Empire and men and women of distinction and most of the royal family. The dinner and the music and the plate and the decorations and the jewels and the uniforms—all these were regal; but there is a human touch about it that seems almost democratic.

All for His Majesty of Denmark, a country with fewer people and less wealth than New Jersey. This whole royal game is most interesting. Lloyd George and H.H. Asquith and John Morley were there, all in white knee breeches of silk, and swords and most gaudy coats—these that are the radicals of the Kingdom, in literature and in action. Veterans of Indian and South African wars stood on either side of every door and of every stairway, dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh dressed, like so many statues, never blinking an eye. Every person in the company is printed, in all the papers, with every title he bears. Crowds lined the streets in front of the palace to see the carriages go in and to guess who was in each. To-morrow the Diplomatic Corps calls on King Christian and to-morrow night King George commands us to attend the opera as his guests.

Whether it's the court, or the honours and the orders and all the social and imperial spoils, that keep the illusion up, or whether it is the Old World inability to change anything, you can't ever quite decide. In Defoe's time they put pots of herbs on the desks of every court in London to keep the plague off. The pots of herbs are yet put on every desk in every court room in London. Several centuries ago somebody tried to break into the Bank of England. A special guard was detached—a little company of soldiers—to stand watch at night. The bank has twice been moved and is now housed in a building that would stand a siege; but that guard, in the same uniform goes on duty every night. Nothing is ever abolished, nothing ever changed. On the anniversary of King Charles's execution, his statue in Trafalgar Square is covered with flowers. Every month, too, new books appear about the mistresses of old kings—as if they, too, were of more than usual interest: I mean serious, historical books. From the King's palace to the humblest house I've been in, there are pictures of kings and queens. In every house, too (to show how nothing ever changes), the towels are folded in the same peculiar way. In every grate in the kingdom the coal fire is laid in precisely the same way. There is not a salesman in any shop on Piccadilly who does not, in the season, wear a long-tail coat. Everywhere they say a second grace at dinner—not at the end—but before the dessert, because two hundred years ago they dared not wait longer lest the parson be under the table: the grace is said to-day before dessert! I tried three months to persuade my "Boots" to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every "Boots" in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: "It is now universally conceded by the French and the Americans that the decimal system is a failure," and he went on to concoct a scheme for our money that would be more "rational" and "historical." In this hot debate about Ulster a frequent phrase used is, "Let us see if we can't find the right formula to solve the difficulty"; their whole lives are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters and thistles and O.M.'s and K.C.B.'s and all manner of gaudy sinecures be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My servants sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid wouldn't yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal consideration—any more than a royal person of a certain rank would yield to one of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as doomsday. So you argue, till you remember that it is these same people who made human liberty possible—to a degree—and till you sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons, mercilessly pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they keep all these outworn things because they are incapable of changing anything, or do these outworn burdens keep them from becoming able to change anything? I daresay it works both ways. Every venerable ruin, every outworn custom, makes the King more secure; and the King gives veneration to every ruin and keeps respect for every outworn custom.

Praise God for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there are men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous stock.

A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy nut to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their thought on us. They never forget that we are 100 million strong and that we dare do new things; and they dearly love to ask questions about—Rockefeller! Our power, our adaptability, our potential wealth they never forget. They'll hold fast to our favour for reasons of prudence as well as for reasons of kinship. And, whenever we choose to assume the leadership of the world, they'll grant it—gradually—and follow loyally. They cannot become French, and they dislike the Germans. They must keep in our boat for safety as well as for comfort.

Yours heartily, WALTER H. PAGE.

The following extracts are made from other letters written at this time:

* * * * *

. . . To-night I had a long talk with the Duchess of X, a kindly woman who spends much time and money in the most helpful "uplift" work; that's the kind of woman she is.

Now she and the Duke are invited to dine at the French Ambassador's to-morrow night. "If the Duke went into any house where there was any member of this Government," said she, "he'd turn and walk out again. We thought we'd better find out who the French Ambassador's guests are. We didn't wish to ask him nor to have correspondence about it. Therefore the Duke sent his Secretary quietly to ask the Ambassador's Secretary—before we accepted."

This is now a common occurrence. We had Sir Edward Grey to dinner a little while ago and we had to make sure we had no Tory guests that night.

This same Duchess of X sat in the Peeresses' gallery of the House of Lords to-night till 7 o'clock. "I had to sit in plain sight of the wives of two members of the Cabinet and of the wife and daughter of the Prime Minister. I used to know them," she said, "and it was embarrassing."

Thus the revolution proceeds. For that's what it is.

* * * * *

. . . On the other hand the existing order is the most skilfully devised machinery for perpetuating itself that has ever grown up among civilized men. Did you ever see a London directory? It hasn't names alphabetically; but one section is "Tradesmen," another "The City," etc., etc., and another "The Court." Any one who has ever been presented at Court is in the "Court" section, and you must sometimes look in several sections to find a man. Yet everybody so values these distinctions that nobody complains of the inconvenience. When the Liberal party makes Liberals Peers in order to have Liberals in the House of Lords, lo! they soon turn Conservative after they get there. The system perpetuates itself and stifles the natural desire for change that most men in a state of nature instinctively desire in order to assert their own personalities. . . .

* * * * *

. . . All this social life which engages us at this particular season, sets a man to thinking. The mass of the people are very slow—almost dull; and the privileged are most firmly entrenched. The really alert people are the aristocracy. They see the drift of events. "What is the pleasantest part of your country to live in?" Dowager Lady X asked me on Sunday, more than half in earnest. "My husband's ancestors sat in the House of Lords for six hundred years. My son sits there now—a dummy. They have taken all power from the Lords; they are taxing us out of our lands; they are saving the monarchy for destruction last. England is of the past—all is going. God knows what is coming." . . .

* * * * *

. . . And presently the presentations come. Lord! how sensible American women scramble for this privilege! It royally fits a few of them. Well, I've made some rules about presentations myself, since it's really a sort of personal perquisite of the Ambassador. One rule is, I don't present any but handsome women. Pretty girls: that's what you want when you are getting up a show. Far too many of ours come here and marry Englishmen. I think I shall make another rule and exact a promise that after presentation they shall go home. But the American women do enliven London. . . .

* * * * *

That triumph with the tariff is historic. I wrote to the President: "Score one!" And I have been telling the London writers on big subjects, notably the editor of the Economist, that this event, so quiet and undramatic, will mark a new epoch in the trade history of the world. . . . This island is a good breeding place for men whose children find themselves and develop into real men in freer lands. All that is needed to show the whole world that the future is ours is just this sort of an act of self-confidence. You know the old story of the Negro who saw a ghost—"Git outen de way, Mr. Rabbit, and let somebody come who kin run!" Score one! We're making History, and these people here know it. The trade of the world, or as much of it as is profitable, we may take as we will. The over-taxed, under-productive, army-burdened men of the Old World—alas! I read a settled melancholy in much of their statesmanship and in more of their literature. The most cheerful men in official life here are the High Commissioners of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and such fellows who know what the English race is doing and can do freed from uniforms and heavy taxes and class feeling and such like. . . .

* * * * *

. . . The two things that this island has of eternal value are its gardens and its men. Nature sprinkles it almost every day and holds its moisture down so that every inch of it is forever green; and somehow men thrive as the lawns do—the most excellent of all races for progenitors. You and I[33] can never be thankful enough that our ancestors came of this stock. Even those that have stayed have cut a wide swath, and they wield good scythes yet. But I have moods when I pity them—for their dependence, for instance, on a navy (2 keels to 1) for their very bread and meat. They frantically resent conveniences. They build their great law court building (the architecture ecclesiastical) so as to provide an entrance hall of imposing proportions which they use once a year; and to get this fine hall they have to make their court rooms, which they must use all the time, dark and small and inaccessible. They think as much of that once-a-year ceremony of opening their courts as they think of the even justice that they dispense; somehow they feel that the justice depends on the ceremony.

This moss that has grown all over their lives (some of it very pretty and most of it very comfortable—it's soft and warm) is of no great consequence—except that they think they'd die if it were removed. And this state of mind gives us a good key to their character and habits.

What are we going to do with this England and this Empire, presently, when economic forces unmistakably put the leadership of the race in our hands? How can we lead it and use it for the highest purposes of the world and of democracy? We can do what we like if we go about it heartily and with good manners (any man prefers to yield to a gentleman rather than to a rustic) and throw away—gradually—our isolating fears and alternate boasting and bashfulness. "What do we most need to learn from you?" I asked a gentle and bejewelled nobleman the other Sunday, in a country garden that invited confidences. "If I may speak without offence, modesty." A commoner in the company, who had seen the Rocky Mountains, laughed, and said: "No; see your chance and take it: that's what we did in the years when we made the world's history." . . .

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Embassy in London.]

[Footnote 12: In about a year Page moved the Chancery to the present satisfactory quarters at No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.]

[Footnote 13: Mrs. Walter H. Page.]

[Footnote 14: Miss Katharine A. Page, the Ambassador's daughter.]

[Footnote 15: "Effendi" is the name by which Mr. F.N. Doubleday, Page's partner, is known to his intimates. It is obviously suggested by the initials of his name.]

[Footnote 16: A reference to William Sulzer, Governor of New York, who at this time was undergoing impeachment.]

[Footnote 17: See Chapter VIII, page 258.]

[Footnote 18: The Ambassador's son.]

[Footnote 19: Miss Katharine A. Page.]

[Footnote 20: Mr. Andrew Carnegie.]

[Footnote 21: Mrs. Walter H. Page is the daughter of a Scotchman from Ayrshire.]

[Footnote 22: The 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.]

[Footnote 23: 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 recollection of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt, after serving as Governor of New York State, became Vice-President, and may have concluded from this that the two offices were held by the same man.]

[Footnote 24: For 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 Office.]

[Footnote 25: The Rev. Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, the well-known Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick, poet and student of Wordsworth. President Wilson, who used occasionally to spend his vacation in the Lake region, was one of his friends.]

[Footnote 26: It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the Ambassador was thinking only of a diplomatic "fight."]

[Footnote 27: The Underwood Bill revising the tariff "downward" became a law October, 1913. It was one of the first important measures of the new Wilson Administration.]

[Footnote 28: Secretary of Agriculture in President Wilson's Cabinet.]

[Footnote 29: Of Aberdeen, North Carolina, the Ambassador's brother.]

[Footnote 30: Of Pinehurst, North Carolina, the Ambassador's eldest son.]

[Footnote 31: Mr. and Mrs. Francis B. Sayre, son-in-law and daughter of President Wilson, at that time on their honeymoon trip in Europe.]

[Footnote 32: Mr. Robert N. Page, the Ambassador's brother, was at this time a Congressman from North Carolina.]

[Footnote 33: This is from a letter to President Wilson.]



CHAPTER VI

"POLICY" AND "PRINCIPLE" IN MEXICO

I

The last days of February, 1913, witnessed one of those sanguinary scenes in Mexico which for generations had accompanied changes in the government of that distracted country. A group of revolutionists assailed the feeble power of Francisco Madero and virtually imprisoned that executive and his forces in the Presidential Palace. The Mexican army, whose most influential officers were General Blanquet and General Victoriano Huerta, was hastily summoned to the rescue of the Government; instead of relieving the besieged officials, however, these generals turned their guns upon them, and so assured the success of the uprising. The speedy outcome of these transactions was the assassination of President Madero and the seizure of the Presidency by General Huerta. Another outcome was the presentation to Page of one of the most delicate problems in the history of Anglo-American relations.

At almost any other time this change in the Mexican succession would have caused only a momentary disturbance. There was nothing new in the violent overthrow of government in Latin-America; in Mexico itself no president had ever risen to power except by revolution. The career of Porfirio Diaz, who had maintained his authority for a third of a century, had somewhat obscured this fundamental fact in Mexican politics, but Diaz had dominated Mexico for seven presidential terms, not because his methods differed from the accepted methods of his country, but because he was himself an executive of great force and a statesman of genius, and could successfully hold his own against any aspiring antagonist. The civilized world, including the United States, had long since become reconciled to this situation as almost a normal one. In recognizing momentarily successful adventurers, Great Britain and the United States had never considered such details as justice or constitutionalism: the legality of the presidential title had never been the point at issue; the only question involved was whether the successful aspirant actually controlled the country, whether he had established a state of affairs that approximately represented order, and whether he could be depended upon to protect life and property. During the long dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, however, certain events had taken place which had awakened the minds of Americans to the possibility of a new international relationship with all backward peoples. The consequences of the Spanish War had profoundly impressed Page. This conflict had left the United States a new problem in Cuba and the Philippines. Under the principles that for generations had governed the Old World there would have been no particular difficulty in meeting this problem. The United States would have candidly annexed the islands, and exploited their resources and their peoples; we should have concerned ourselves little about any duties that might be owed to the several millions of human beings who inhabited them. Indeed, what other alternatives were there?

One was to hand the possessions back to Spain, who in a four hundred years' experiment had demonstrated her unfitness to govern them; another was to give the islands their independence, which would have meant merely an indefinite continuance of anarchy. It is one of the greatest triumphs of American statesmanship that it discovered a more satisfactory solution. Essentially, the new plan was to establish in these undeveloped and politically undisciplined regions the fundamental conditions that may make possible the ultimate creation of democratic, self-governing states. It was recognized that constitutions and election ballots in themselves did not necessarily imply a democratic order. Before these there must come other things that were far more important, such as popular education, scientific agriculture, sanitation, public highways, railroads, and the development of the resources of nature. If the backward peoples of the world could be schooled in such a preliminary apprenticeship, the time might come when the intelligence and the conscience of the masses would be so enlightened that they could be trusted with independence. The labour of Leonard Wood in Cuba, and of other Americans in the Philippines, had apparently pointed the way to the only treatment of such peoples that was just to them and safe for mankind.

With the experience of Cuba and the Philippines as a guide, it is not surprising that the situation in Mexico appealed to many Americans as opening a similar opportunity to the United States. The two facts that outstood all others were that Mexico, in her existing condition of popular ignorance, could not govern herself, and that the twentieth century could not accept indefinitely a condition of disorder and bloodshed that had apparently satisfied the nineteenth. The basic difficulty in this American republic was one of race and of national character. The fact that was constantly overlooked was that Mexico was not a Caucasian country: it was a great shambling Indian Republic. Of its 15,000,000 people less than 3,000,000 were of unmixed white blood, about 35 per cent. were pure Indian, and the rest represented varying mixtures of white and aboriginal stock. The masses had advanced little in civilization since the days of Cortez. Eighty per cent. were illiterate; their lives for the most part were a dull and squalid routine; protection against disease was unknown; the agricultural methods were most primitive; the larger number still spoke the native dialects which had been used in the days of Montezuma; and over good stretches of the country the old tribal regime still represented the only form of political organization. The one encouraging feature was that these Mexican Indians, backward as they might be, were far superior to the other native tribes of the North American Continent; in ancient times, they had developed a state of society far superior to that of the traditional Redskin. Nevertheless, it was true that the progress of Mexico in the preceding fifty years had been due almost entirely to foreign enterprise. By 1913, about 75,000 Americans were living in Mexico as miners, engineers, merchants, and agriculturists; American investments amounted to about $1,200,000,000—a larger sum than that of all the other foreigners combined. Though the work of European countries, particularly Great Britain, was important, yet Mexico was practically an economic colony of the United States. Most observers agree that these foreign activities had not only profited the foreigners, but that they had greatly benefited the Mexicans themselves. The enterprise of Americans had disclosed enormous riches, had given hundreds of thousands employment at very high wages, had built up new Mexican towns on modern American lines, had extended the American railway system over a large part of the land, and had developed street railways, electric lighting, and other modern necessities in all sections of the Republic. The opening up of Mexican oil resources was perhaps the most typical of these achievements, as it was certainly the most adventurous. Americans had created this, perhaps the greatest of Mexican industries, and in 1913, these Americans owned nearly 80 per cent. of Mexican oil. Their success had persuaded several Englishmen, the best known of whom was Lord Cowdray, to enter this same field. The activities of the Americans and the British in oil had an historic significance which was not foreseen in 1913, but which assumed the greatest importance in the World War; for the oil drawn from these Mexican fields largely supplied the Allied fleets and thus became an important element in the defeat of the Central Powers. In 1913, however, American and British oil operators were objects of general suspicion in both continents. They were accused of participating too actively in Mexican politics and there were those who even held them responsible for the revolutionary condition of the country. One picturesque legend insisted that the American oil interests looked with jealous hostility upon the great favours shown by the Diaz Administration to Lord Cowdray's company, and that they had instigated the Madero revolution in order to put in power politicians who would be more friendly to themselves. The inevitable complement to this interpretation of events was a prevailing suspicion that the Cowdray interests had promoted the Huerta revolt in order to turn the tables on "Standard Oil," to make safe the "concessions" already obtained from Diaz and to obtain still more from the new Mexican dictator.

To determine the truth in all these allegations, which were freely printed in the American press of the time, would demand more facts than are at present available; yet it is clear that these oil and other "concessions" presented the perpetual Mexican problem in a new and difficult light. The Wilson Administration came into power a few days after Huerta had seized the Mexican Government. The first difficulty presented to the State Department was to determine its attitude toward this usurper.

A few days after President Wilson's inauguration Mr. Irwin Laughlin, then Charge d'Affaires in London—this was several weeks before Page's arrival—was instructed to ask the British Foreign Office what its attitude would be in regard to the recognition of President Huerta. Mr. Laughlin informed the Foreign Office that he was not instructed that the United States had decided on any policy, but that he felt sure it would be to the advantage of both countries to follow the same line. The query was not an informal one; it was made in definite obedience to instructions and was intended to elicit a formal commitment. The unequivocal answer that Mr. Laughlin received was that the British Government would not recognize Huerta, either formally or tacitly.

Mr. Laughlin sent his message immediately to Washington, where it apparently made a favourable impression. The Administration then let it be known that the United States would not recognize the new Mexican regime. Whether Mr. Wilson would at this time have taken such a position, irrespective of the British attitude, is not known, but at this stage of the proceedings Great Britain and the United States were standing side by side.

About three weeks afterward Mr. Laughlin heard that the British Foreign Office was about to recognize Huerta. Naturally the report astonished him; he at once called again on the Foreign Office, taking with him the despatch that he had recently sent to Washington. Why had the British Government recognized Huerta when it had given definite assurances to Washington that it had no intention of doing so? The outcome of the affair was that Sir Cecil Spring Rice, British Ambassador in Washington, was instructed to inform the State Department that Great Britain had changed its mind. France, Germany, Spain, and most other governments followed the British example in recognizing the new President of Mexico.

It is thus apparent that the initial mistake in the Huerta affair was made by Great Britain. Its action produced the most unpleasant impression upon the new Administration. Mr. Wilson, Mr. Bryan, and their associates in the cabinet easily found an explanation that was satisfactory to themselves and to the political enthusiasms upon which they had come into power. They believed that the sudden change in the British attitude was the result of pressure from British commercial interests which hoped to profit from the Huerta influence. Lord Cowdray was a rich and powerful Liberal; he had great concessions in Mexico which had been obtained from President Diaz; it was known that Huerta aimed to make his dictatorship a continuation of that of Diaz, to rule Mexico as Diaz had ruled it, that is, by force, and to extend a welcoming hand to foreign capitalists. An important consideration was that the British Navy had a contract with the Cowdray Company for oil, which was rapidly becoming indispensable as a fuel for warships, and this fact necessarily made the British Government almost a champion of the Cowdray interests. It was not necessary to believe all the rumours that were then afloat in the American press to conclude that a Huerta administration would be far more acceptable to the Cowdray Company than any headed by one of the military chieftains who were then disputing the control of Mexico. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan believed that these events proved that certain "interests," similar to the "interests" which, in their view, had exercised so baleful an influence on American politics, were also active in Great Britain. The Wilson election in 1912 had been a protest against the dominance of "Wall Street" in American politics; Mr. Bryan's political stock-in-trade for a generation had consisted of little except a campaign against these forces; naturally, therefore, the suspicion that Great Britain was giving way to a British "Standard Oil" was enough to arm these statesmen against the Huerta policy, and to intensify that profound dislike of Huerta himself that was soon to become almost an obsession.

With this as a starting point President Wilson presently formulated an entirely new principle for dealing with Latin-American republics. There could be no permanent order in these turbulent countries and nothing approaching a democratic system until the habit of revolution should he checked. One of the greatest encouragements to revolution, said the President, was the willingness of foreign governments to recognize any politician who succeeded in seizing the executive power. He therefore believed that a refusal to recognize any government "founded upon violence" would exercise a wholesome influence in checking this national habit; if Great Britain and the United States and the other powers would set the example by refusing to have any diplomatic dealings with General Huerta, such an unfriendly attitude would discourage other forceful intriguers from attempting to repeat his experiment. The result would be that the decent elements in Mexico and other Latin-American countries would at last assert themselves, establish a constitutional system, and select their governments by constitutional means. At the bottom of the whole business were, in the President's and Mr. Bryan's opinion, the "concession" seekers, the "exploiters," who were constantly obtaining advantages at the hands of these corrupt governments and constantly stirring up revolutions for their financial profit. The time had now come to end the whole miserable business. "We are closing one chapter in the history of the world," said Mr. Wilson, "and opening another of unimaginable significance. . . . It is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of a nation in the terms of material interests. . . . We have seen such material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the United States. Therefore we will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only within their borders, but from outside their borders."

In this way General Huerta, who, in his own eyes, was merely another in the long succession of Mexican revolutionary chieftains, was translated into an epochal figure in the history of American foreign policy; he became a symbol in Mr. Wilson's new scheme of things—the representative of the order which was to come to an end, the man who, all unwittingly, was to point the new way not only in Mexico, but in all Latin-American countries. The first diplomatic task imposed upon Page therefore was one that would have dismayed a more experienced ambassador. This was to persuade Great Britain to retrace its steps, to withdraw its recognition of Huerta, and to join hands with the United States in bringing about his downfall. The new ambassador sympathized with Mr. Wilson's ideas to a certain extent; the point at which he parted company with the President's Mexican policy will appear in due course. He therefore began zealously to preach the new Latin-American doctrine to the British Foreign Office, with results that appear in his letters of this period.

To the President

6 Grosvenor Square, London, Friday night, October 24, 1913.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

In this wretched Mexican business, about which I have read columns and columns and columns of comment these two days and turned every conceivable proposition back and forth in my mind—in this whole wretched waste of comment, I have not seen even an allusion to any moral principle involved nor a word of concern about the Mexican people. It is all about who is the stronger, Huerta or some other bandit, and about the necessity of order for the sake of financial interests. Nobody recalls our action in giving Cuba to the Cubans or our pledge to the people of the Philippine Islands. But there is reference to the influence of Standard Oil in the American policy. This illustrates the complete divorce of European politics from fundamental morals, and it shocks even a man who before knew of this divorce.

In my last talk with Sir Edward Grey I drove this home by emphasizing strongly the impossibility of your playing primary heed to any American business interest in Mexico—even the immorality of your doing so; there are many things that come before business and there are some things that come before order. I used American business interests because I couldn't speak openly of British business interests and his Government. I am sure he saw the obvious inference. But not even from him came a word about the moral foundation of government or about the welfare of the Mexican people. These are not in the European governing vocabulary.

I have been trying to find a way to help this Government to wake up to the effect of its pro-Huerta position and to give them a chance to refrain from repeating that mistake—and to save their faces; and I have telegraphed one plan to Mr. Bryan to-day. I think they ought now to be forced to show their hand without the possibility of evasion. They will not risk losing our good-will—if it seem wise to you to put them to a square test.

It's a wretched business, and the sordid level of European statecraft is sad.

I ran across the Prime Minister at the royal wedding reception[34] the other day.

"What do you infer from the latest news from Mexico?" he asked.

"Several things."

"Tell me the most important inference you draw."

"Well, the danger of prematurely making up one's mind about a Mexican adventurer."

"Ah!" and he moved on.

Very heartily yours, WALTER H. PAGE.

To the President

London, Sunday, Nov. 16, 1913.

. . . About the obligations and inferences of democracy, they are dense. They don't really believe in it; and they are slow to see what good will come of ousting Huerta unless we know beforehand who will succeed him. Sir Edward Grey is not dense, but in this matter even he is slow fully to understand. The Lord knows I've told him plainly over and over again and, I fear, even preached to him. At first he couldn't see the practical nature of so "idealistic" a programme. I explained to him how the immemorial "policy" that we all followed of recognizing momentarily successful adventurers in Latin-America had put a premium on revolution; that you had found something better than a policy, namely, a principle; that policies change, but principles do not; that he need not he greatly concerned about the successor to Huerta; that this is primarily and ultimately an American problem; that Great Britain's interest being only commercial is far less than the interest of the United States, which is commercial and also ethical; and so on and so on. His sympathies and his friendliness are all right. But Egypt and India were in his mind. He confessed to me that he was much impressed—"if you can carry it through." Many men are seeing the new idea (I wonder if you are conscious how new it is and how incredible to the Old World mind?) and they express the greatest and sincerest admiration for "your brave new President"; and a wave of friendliness to the United States swept over the Kingdom when the Government took its open stand. At the annual dinner of the oldest and richest of the merchants' guilds at which they invited me to respond to a toast the other night they proposed your health most heartily and, when I arose, they cheered longer and louder than I had before heard men cheer in this kingdom. There is, I am sure, more enthusiasm for the United States here, by far, than for England in the United States. They are simply dense about any sort of government but their own—particularly dense about the application of democracy to "dependencies" and inferior peoples. I have a neighbour who spent many years as an administrator in India. He has talked me deaf about the inevitable failure of this "idealistic" Mexican programme. He is wholly friendly, and wholly incredulous. And for old-time Toryism gone to seed commend me to the Spectator. Not a glimmering of the idea has entered Strachey's head. The Times, however, now sees it pretty clearly. I spent Sunday a few weeks ago with two of its editors in the country, and they have come to see me several times since and written fairly good "leaders" out of my conversation with them. So much for this head. For the moment at least that is satisfactory. You must not forget that they can't all at once take it in, for they do not really know what democracy is or whither it leads and at bottom they do not really believe in it as a scheme of government—not even this Liberal Cabinet.

The British concern for commercial interests, which never sleeps, will, I fear, come up continuously. But we shall simply do justice and stand firm, when this phase of the subject comes forward.

It's amusing, when you forget its sadness, that their first impulse is to regard an unselfish international act as what Cecil Rhodes called the English "unctuous rectitude." But this experience that we are having with them will be worth much in future dealings. They already feel very clearly that a different hand has the helm in Washington; and we can drive them hard, if need be, for they will not forfeit our friendship.

It is worth something to discover that Downing Street makes many mistakes. Infallibility dwells a long way from them. In this matter they have made two terrible blunders—the recognition of Huerta (they know that now) and the sending of Carden (they may already suspect that: they'll know it presently).

Yours always faithfully, WALTER H. PAGE.

P.S. By Jove, I didn't know that I'd ever have to put the British Government through an elementary course in Democracy!

To the President.

Occasionally Page discussed with Sir Edward Grey an alternative American policy which was in the minds of most people at that time:

To the President

. . . The foregoing I wrote before this Mexican business took its present place. I can't get away from the feeling that the English simply do not and will not believe in any unselfish public action—further than the keeping of order. They have a mania for order, sheer order, order for the sake of order. They can't see how anything can come in any one's thought before order or how anything need come afterward. Even Sir Edward Grey jocularly ran me across our history with questions like this:

"Suppose you have to intervene, what then?"

"Make 'em vote and live by their decisions."

"But suppose they will not so live?"

"We'll go in again and make 'em vote again."

"And keep this up 200 years?" asked he.

"Yes," said I. "The United States will he here two hundred years and it can continue to shoot men for that little space till they learn to vote and to rule themselves."

I have never seen him laugh so heartily. Shooting men into self-government! Shooting them into orderliness—he comprehends that; and that's all right. But that's as far as his habit of mind goes. At Sheffield last night, when I had to make a speech, I explained "idealism" (they always quote it) in Government. They listened attentively and even eagerly. Then they came up and asked if I really meant that Government should concern itself with idealistic things—beyond keeping order. Ought they to do so in India?—I assure you they don't think beyond order. A nigger lynched in Mississippi offends them more than a tyrant in Mexico.

To Edward M. House

London, November 2, 1913.

DEAR HOUSE:

I've been writing to the President that the Englishman has a mania for order, order for order's sake, and for—trade. He has reduced a large part of the world to order. He is the best policeman in creation; and—he has the policeman's ethics! Talk to him about character as a basis of government or about a moral basis of government in any outlying country, he'll think you daft. Bah! what matter who governs or how he governs or where he got his authority or how, so long as he keeps order. He won't see anything else. The lesson of our dealing with Cuba is lost on him. He doesn't believe that. We may bring this Government in line with us on Mexico. But in this case and in general, the moral uplift of government must be forced by us—I mean government in outlying countries.

Mexico is only part of Central America, and the only way we can ever forge a Central and South American policy that will endure is this way, precisely, by saying that your momentarily successful adventurer can't count on us anywhere; the man that rules must govern for the governed. Then we have a policy; and nobody else has that policy. This Mexican business is worth worlds to us—to establish this.

We may have a diplomatic fight here; and I'm ready! Very ready on this, for its own sake and for reasons that follow, to wit:

Extraordinary and sincere and profound as is the respect of the English for the American people, they hold the American Government in contempt. It shifts and doesn't keep its treaty, etc., etc.—They are right, too. But they need to feel the hand that now has the helm.

But one or two things have first to be got out of the way. That Panama tolls is the worst. We are dead wrong in that, as we are dead right on the Mexican matter. If it were possible (I don't know that it is) for the President to say (quietly, not openly) that he agrees with us—if he do—then the field would be open for a fight on Mexico; and the reenforcement of our position would he incalculable.

Then we need in Washington some sort of Bureau or Master of Courtesies for the Government, to do and to permit us to do those little courtesies that the English spend half their time in doing—this in the course of our everyday life and intercourse. For example: When I was instructed to inform this Government that our fleet would go to the Mediterranean, I was instructed also to say that they mustn't trouble to welcome us—don't pay no 'tention to us! Well, that's what they live for in times of peace—ceremonies. We come along and say, "We're comin' but, hell! don't kick up no fuss over us, we're from Missouri, we are!" And the Briton shrugs his shoulders and says, "Boor!" These things are happening all the time. Of course no one nor a dozen nor a hundred count; but generations of 'em have counted badly. A Government without manners.

If I could outdo these folk at their game of courtesy, and could keep our treaty faith with 'em, then I could lick 'em into the next century on the moral aspects of the Mexican Government, and make 'em look up and salute every time the American Government is mentioned. See?—Is there any hope?—Such is the job exactly. And you know what it would lead to—even in our lifetime—to the leadership of the world: and we should presently be considering how we may best use the British fleet, the British Empire, and the English race for the betterment of mankind.

Yours eagerly, W.H.P.

A word of caution is necessary to understand Page's references to the British democracy. That the parliamentary system is democratic in the sense that it is responsive to public opinion he would have been the first to admit. That Great Britain is a democracy in the sense that the suffrage is general is also apparent. But, in these reflections on the British commonwealth, the Ambassador was thinking of his old familiar figure, the "Forgotten Man"—the neglected man, woman, and child of the masses. In an address delivered, in June, 1914, before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Page gave what he regarded as the definition of the American ideal. "The fundamental article in the creed of the American democracy—you may call it the fundamental dogma if you like—is the unchanging and unchangeable resolve that every human being shall have his opportunity for his utmost development—his chance to become and to do the best that he can." Democracy is not only a system of government—"it is a scheme of society." Every citizen must have not only the suffrage, he must likewise enjoy the same advantages as his neighbour for education, for social opportunity, for good health, for success in agriculture, manufacture, finance, and business and professional life. The country that most successfully opened all these avenues to every boy or girl, exclusively on individual merit, was in Page's view the most democratic. He believed that the United States did this more completely than Great Britain or any other country; and therefore he believed that we were far more democratic. He had not found in other countries the splendid phenomenon presented by America's great agricultural region. "The most striking single fact about the United States is, I think, this spectacle, which, so far as I know, is new in the world: On that great agricultural area are about seven million farms of an average size of about 140 acres, most of which are tilled by the owners themselves, a population that varies greatly, of course, in its thrift and efficiency, but most of which is well housed, in houses they themselves own, well clad, well fed, and a population that trains practically all its children in schools maintained by public taxation." It was some such vision as this that Page hoped to see realized ultimately in Mexico. And some such development as this would make Mexico a democracy. It was his difficulty in making the British see the Mexican problem in this light that persuaded him that, in this comprehensive meaning of the word, the democratic ideal had made an inappreciable progress in Europe—and even in Great Britain itself.

II

These letters are printed somewhat out of their chronological order because they picture definitely the two opposing viewpoints of Great Britain and the United States on Mexico and Latin-America generally. Here, then, was the sharp issue drawn between the Old World and the New—on one side the dreary conception of outlying countries as fields to be exploited for the benefit of "investors," successful revolutionists to be recognized in so far as they promoted such ends, and no consideration to be shown to the victims of their rapacity; and the new American idea, the idea which had been made reality in Cuba and the Philippines, that the enlightened and successful nations stood something in the position of trustees to such unfortunate lands and that it was their duty to lead them along the slow pathway of progress and democracy. So far the Wilsonian principle could be joyfully supported by the Ambassador. Page disagreed with the President, however, in that he accepted the logical consequences of this programme. His formula of "shooting people into self-government," which had so entertained the British Foreign Secretary, was a characteristically breezy description of the alternative that Page, in the last resort, was ready to adopt, but which President Wilson and Secretary Bryan persistently refused to consider. Page was just as insistent as the Washington Administration that Huerta should resign and that Great Britain should assist the United States in accomplishing his dethronement, and that the Mexican people should have a real opportunity of setting up for themselves. He was not enough of an "idealist," however, to believe that the Mexicans, without the assistance of their powerful neighbours, could succeed in establishing a constitutional government. In early August, 1913, President Wilson sent Mr. John Lind, ex-Governor of Minnesota, to Mexico as his personal representative. His mission was to invite Huerta to remove himself from Mexican politics, and to permit the Mexican people to hold a presidential election at which Huerta would himself agree not to be a candidate. Mr. Lind presented these proposals on August 15th, and President Huerta rejected every one of them with a somewhat disconcerting promptitude.

That Page was prepared to accept the consequences of this failure appears in the following letter. The lack of confidence which it discloses in Secretary Bryan was a feeling that became stronger as the Mexican drama unfolded.

To Edward M. House

London, August 25, 1913.

MY DEAR HOUSE:

. . . If you find a chance, get the substance of this memorandum into the hands of two men: the President and the Secretary of Agriculture. Get 'em in Houston's at once—into the President's whenever the time is ripe. I send the substance to Washington and I send many other such things. But I never feel sure that they reach the President. The most confidential letter I have written was lost in Washington, and there is pretty good testimony that it reached the Secretary's desk. He does not acknowledge the important things, but writes me confidentially to inquire if the office of the man who attends to the mail pouches (the diplomatic and naval despatches in London[35]) is not an office into which he might put a Democrat.—But I keep at it. It would he a pleasure to know that the President knows what I am trying to do. . . .

Yours heartily, WALTER H. PAGE.

Following is the memorandum:

In October the provisional recognition of Huerta by England will end. Then this Government will be free. Then is the time for the United States to propose to England joint intervention merely to reduce this turbulent scandal of a country to order—on an agreement, of course, to preserve the territorial integrity of Mexico. It's a mere police duty that all great nations have to do—as they did in the case of the Boxer riots in China. Of course Germany and France, etc., ought to be invited—on the same pledge: the preservation of territorial integrity. If Germany should come in, she will thereby practically acknowledge the Monroe Doctrine, as England has already done. If Germany stay out, then she can't complain. England and the United States would have only to announce their intention: there'd be no need to fire a gun. Besides settling the Mexican trouble, we'd gain much—having had England by our side in a praise-worthy enterprise. That, and the President's visit[36] would give the world notice to whom it belongs, and cause it to be quiet and to go about its proper business of peaceful industry.

Moreover, it would show all the Central and South American States that we don't want any of their territory, that we will not let anybody else have any, but that they, too, must keep orderly government or the great Nations of the earth, will, at our bidding, forcibly demand quiet in their borders. I believe a new era of security would come in all Spanish America. Investments would be safer, governments more careful and orderly. And—we would not have made any entangling alliance with anybody. All this would prevent perhaps dozens of little wars. It's merely using the English fleet and ours to make the world understand that the time has come for orderliness and peace and for the honest development of backward, turbulent lands and peoples.

If you don't put this through, tell me what's the matter with it. I've sent it to Washington after talking and being talked to for a month and after the hardest kind of thinking. Isn't this constructive? Isn't it using the great power lying idle about the world, to do the thing that most needs to be done?

Colonel House presented this memorandum to the President, but events sufficiently disclosed that it had no influence upon his Mexican policy. Two days after it was written Mr. Wilson went before Congress, announced that the Lind Mission had failed, and that conditions in Mexico had grown worse. He advised all Americans to leave the country, and declared that he would lay an embargo on the shipment of munitions—an embargo that would affect both the Huerta forces and the revolutionary groups that were fighting them.

Meanwhile Great Britain had taken another step that made as unpleasant an impression on Washington as had the recognition of Huerta. Sir Lionel Edward Gresley Carden had for several years been occupying British diplomatic posts in Central America, in all of which he had had disagreeable social and diplomatic relations with Americans. Sir Lionel had always shown great zeal in promoting British commercial interests, and, justly or unjustly, had acquired the fame of being intensely anti-American. From 1911 to 1913 Carden had served as British Minister to Cuba; here his anti-Americanism had shown itself in such obnoxious ways that Mr. Knox, Secretary of State under President Taft, had instructed Ambassador Reid to bring his behaviour to the attention of the British Foreign Office. These representations took practically the form of requesting Carden's removal from Cuba. Perhaps the unusual relations that the United States bore toward Cuba warranted Mr. Knox in making such an approach; yet the British refused to see the matter in that light; not only did they fail to displace Carden, but they knighted him—the traditional British way of defending a faithful public servant who has been attacked. Sir Lionel Carden refused to mend his ways; he continued to indulge in what Washington regarded as anti-American propaganda; and a second time Secretary Knox intimated that his removal would he acceptable to this country, and a second time this request was refused. With this preliminary history of Carden as a background, and with the British-American misunderstanding over Huerta at its most serious stage, the emotions of Washington may well be imagined when the news came, in July, 1913, that this same gentleman had been appointed British Minister to Mexico. If the British Government had ransacked its diplomatic force to find the one man who would have been most objectionable to the United States, it could have made no better selection. The President and Mr. Bryan were pretty well persuaded that the "oil concessionaires" were dictating British-Mexican policy, and this appointment translated their suspicion into a conviction. Carden had seen much service in Mexico; he had been on the friendliest terms with Diaz; and the newspapers openly charged that the British oil capitalists had dictated his selection. All these assertions Carden and the oil interests denied; yet Carden's behaviour from the day of his appointment showed great hostility to the United States. A few days after he had reached New York, on his way to his new post, the New York World published an interview with Carden in which he was reported as declaring that President Wilson knew nothing about the Mexican situation and in which he took the stand that Huerta was the man to handle Mexico at this crisis. His appearance in the Mexican capital was accompanied by other highly undiplomatic publications. In late October President Huerta arrested all his enemies in the Mexican Congress, threw them into jail, and proclaimed himself dictator. Washington was much displeased that Sir Lionel Carden should have selected the day of these high-handed proceedings to present to Huerta his credentials as minister; in its sensitive condition, the State Department interpreted this act as a reaffirmation of that recognition that had already caused so much confusion in Mexican affairs.

Carden made things worse by giving out more newspaper interviews, a tendency that had apparently grown into a habit. "I do not believe that the United States recognizes the seriousness of the situation here. . . . I see no reason why Huerta should be displaced by another man whose abilities are yet to be tried. . . . Safety in Mexico can be secured only by punitive and remedial methods, and a strong man;"—such were a few of the reflections that the reporters attributed to this astonishing diplomat. Meanwhile, the newspapers were filled with reports that the British Minister was daily consorting with Huerta, that he was constantly strengthening that chieftain's backbone in opposition to the United States and that he was obtaining concessions in return for this support. To what extent these press accounts rested on fact cannot be ascertained definitely at this time; yet it is a truth that Carden's general behaviour gave great encouragement to Huerta and that it had the deplorable effect of placing Great Britain and the United States in opposition. The interpretation of the casual reader was that Great Britain was determined to seat Huerta in the Presidency against the determination of the United States to keep him out. The attitude of the Washington cabinet was almost bitter at this time against the British Government. "There is a feeling here," wrote Secretary Lane to Page, "that England is playing a game unworthy of her."

The British Government promptly denied the authenticity of the Carden interview, but that helped matters little, for the American public insisted on regarding such denials as purely diplomatic. Something of a storm against Carden arose in England itself, where it was believed that his conception of his duties was estranging two friendly countries. Probably the chief difficulty was that the British Foreign Office could see no logical sequence in the Washington policy. Put Huerta out—yes, by all means: but what then? Page's notes of his visit to Sir Edward Grey a few days after the latest Carden interview confirm this: