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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 régime 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 Chargé 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
régime. 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,
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