Now in diplomacy, as in other contests, there must be give and

take; it's our turn.

If you see your way clear, it would help the Liberal Government
(which needs help) and would be much appreciated if, before
February 10th, when Parliament meets, you could say a public word
friendly to our keeping the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty--on the tolls.
You only, of course, can judge whether you would be justified in
doing so. I presume only to assure you of the most excellent effect
it would have here. If you will pardon me for taking a personal
view of it, too, I will say that such an expression would cap the
climax of the enormously heightened esteem and great respect in
which recent events and achievements have caused you to be held
here. It would put the English of all parties in the happiest
possible mood toward you for whatever subsequent dealings may await
us. It was as friendly a man as Kipling who said to me the night I
spent with him: "You know your great Government, which does many
great things greatly, does _not_ lie awake o' nights to keep its
promises."

It's our turn next, whenever you see your way clear.

Most heartily yours,

WALTER H. PAGE.

From Edward M. House

145 East 35th Street,

New York City.

January 24, 1914.

DEAR PAGE:

I was with the President for twenty-four hours and we went over
everything thoroughly.

He decided to call the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the
White House on Monday and tell them of his intentions regarding
Panama tolls. We discussed whether it would be better to see some
of them individually, or to take them collectively. It was agreed
that the latter course was better. It was decided, however, to have
Senator Jones poll the Senate in order to find just how it stood
before getting the Committee together. The reason for this quick
action was in response to your letter urging that something be done
before the 10th of February. . . .

Faithfully yours,

E.M. HOUSE.

On March 5th the President made good his promise by going before
Congress and asking the two houses to repeal that clause in the Panama
legislation which granted preferential treatment to American coastwise
shipping. The President's address was very brief and did not discuss the
matter in the slightest detail. Mr. Wilson made the question one simply
of national honour. The exemption, he said, clearly violated the
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and there was nothing left to do but to set the
matter right. The part of the President's address that aroused the
greatest interest was the conclusion:

"I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the
Administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even
greater delicacy and nearer consequence, if you do not grant it to me in
ungrudging measure."

The impression that this speech made upon the statesman who then
presided over the British Foreign office is evident from the following
letter that he wrote to the Ambassador in Washington.

_Sir Edward Grey to Sir C. Spring Rice_
Foreign Office,

March 13, 1914.

SIR:

In the course of a conversation with the American Ambassador
to-day, I took the opportunity of saying how much I had been struck
by President Wilson's Message to Congress about the Panama Canal
tolls. When I read it, it struck me that, whether it succeeded or
failed in accomplishing the President's object, it was something to
the good of public life, for it helped to lift public life to a
higher plane and to strengthen its morale.

I am, &c.,

E. GREY.

Two days after his appearance before Congress the President wrote to his
Ambassador:

_From the President_
The White House, Washington,

March 7, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

I have your letters of the twenty-second and twenty-fourth of
February and I thank you for them most warmly. Happily, things are
clearing up a little in the matters which have embarrassed our
relations with Great Britain, and I hope that the temper of public
opinion is in fact changing there, as it seems to us from this
distance to be changing.

Your letters are a lamp to my feet. I feel as I read that their
analysis is searching and true.

Things over here go on a tolerably even keel. The prospect at this
moment for the repeal of the tolls exemption is very good indeed. I
am beginning to feel a considerable degree of confidence that the
repeal will go through, and the Press of the country is certainly
standing by me in great shape.

My thoughts turn to you very often with gratitude and affectionate
regard. If there is ever at any time anything specific you want to
learn, pray do not hesitate to ask it of me directly, if you think
best.

Carden was here the other day and I spent an hour with him, but I
got not even a glimpse of his mind. I showed him all of mine that
he cared to see.

With warmest regards from us all,

Faithfully yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

The debate which now took place in Congress proved to be one of the
stormiest in the history of that body. The proceeding did not prove to
be the easy victory that the Administration had evidently expected. The
struggle was protracted for three months; and it signalized Mr. Wilson's
first serious conflict with the Senate--that same Senate which was
destined to play such a vexatious and destructive rôle in his career. At
this time, however, Mr. Wilson had reached the zenith of his control
over the law-making bodies. It was early in his Presidential term, and
in these early days Senators are likely to be careful about quarrelling
with the White House--especially the Senators who are members of the
President's political party. In this struggle, moreover, Mr. Wilson had
the intelligence and the character of the Senate largely on his side,
though, strangely enough, his strongest supporters were Republicans and
his bitterest opponents were Democrats. Senator Root, Senator Burton,
Senator Lodge, Senator Kenyon, Senator McCumber, all Republicans, day
after day and week after week upheld the national honour; while Senators
O'Gorman, Chamberlain, Vardaman, and Reed, all members of the
President's party, just as persistently led the fight for the baser
cause. The debate inspired an outburst of Anglophobia which was most
distressing to the best friends of the United States and Great Britain.
The American press, as a whole, honoured itself by championing the
President, but certain newspapers made the debate an occasion for
unrestrained abuse of Great Britain, and of any one who believed that
the United States should treat that nation honestly. The Hearst organs,
in cartoon and editorial page, shrieked against the ancient enemy. All
the well-known episodes and characters in American history--Lexington,
Bunker Hill, John Paul Jones, Washington, and Franklin--were paraded as
arguments against the repeal of an illegal discrimination. Petitions
from the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other Irish societies were
showered upon Congress--in almost unending procession they clogged the
pages of the Congressional Record; public meetings were held in New York
and elsewhere where denouncing an administration that disgraced the
country by "truckling" to Great Britain. The President was accused of
seeking an Anglo-American Alliance and of sacrificing American shipping
to the glory of British trade, while the history of our diplomatic
relations was surveyed in detail for the purpose of proving that Great
Britain had broken every treaty she had ever made. In the midst of this
deafening hubbub the quiet voice of Senator McCumber--"we are too big in
national power to be too little in national integrity"--and that of
Senator Root, demolishing one after another the pettifogging arguments
of the exemptionists, demonstrated that, after all, the spirit and the
eloquence that had given the Senate its great fame were still
influential forces in that body.

In all this excitement, Page himself came in for his share of hard
knocks. Irish meetings "resolved" against the Ambassador as a statesman
who "looks on English claims as superior to American rights," and
demanded that President Wilson recall him. It has been the fate of
practically every American ambassador to Great Britain to be accused of
Anglomania. Lowell, John Hay, and Joseph H. Choate fell under the ban of
those elements in American life who seem to think that the main duty of
an American diplomat in Great Britain is to insult the country of which
he has become the guest. In 1895 the house of Representatives solemnly
passed a resolution censuring Ambassador Thomas F. Bayard for a few
sentiments friendly to Great Britain which he had uttered at a public
banquet. That Page was no undiscriminating idolater of Great Britain
these letters have abundantly revealed. That he had the profoundest
respect for the British character and British institutions has been made
just as clear. With Page this was no sudden enthusiasm; the conviction
that British conceptions of liberty and government and British ideals of
life represented the fine flower of human progress was one that he felt
deeply. The fact that these fundamentals had had the opportunity of even
freer development in America he regarded as most fortunate both for the
United States and for the world. He had never concealed his belief that
the destinies of mankind depended more upon the friendly coöperation of
the United States and Great Britain than upon any other single
influence. He had preached this in public addresses, and in his writings
for twenty-five years preceding his mission to Great Britain. But the
mere fact that he should hold such convictions and presume to express
them as American Ambassador apparently outraged those same elements in
this country who railed against Great Britain in this Panama Tolls
debate.

On August 16, 1913, the City of Southampton, England, dedicated a
monument in honour of the _Mayflower_ Pilgrims--Southampton having been
their original point of departure for Massachusetts. Quite appropriately
the city invited the American Ambassador to deliver an address on this
occasion; and quite appropriately the Ambassador acknowledged the debt
that Americans of to-day owed to the England that had sent these
adventurers to lay the foundations of new communities on foreign soil.
Yet certain historic truths embodied in this very beautiful and eloquent
address aroused considerable anger in certain parts of the United
States. "Blood," said the Ambassador, "carries with it that particular
trick of thought which makes us all English in the last resort. . . . And
Puritan and Pilgrim and Cavalier, different yet, are yet one in that
they are English still. And thus, despite the fusion of races and of the
great contributions of other nations to her 100 millions of people and
to her incalculable wealth, the United States is yet English-led and
English-ruled." This was merely a way of phrasing a great historic
truth--that overwhelmingly the largest element in the American
population is British in origin[51]; that such vital things as its
speech and its literature are English; and that our political
institutions, our liberty, our law, our conceptions of morality and of
life are similarly derived from the British Isles. Page applied the word
"English" to Americans in the same sense in which that word is used by
John Richard Green, when he traces the history of the English race from
a German forest to the Mississippi Valley and the wilds of Australia.
But the anti-British elements on this side of the water, taking
"English-led and English-ruled" out of its context, misinterpreted the
phrase as meaning that the American Ambassador had approvingly called
attention to the fact that the United States was at present under the
political control of Great Britain! Senator Chamberlain of Oregon
presented a petition from the _Staatsverband Deutschsprechender Vereine
von Oregon_, demanding the Ambassador's removal, while the
Irish-American press and politicians became extremely vocal.

Animated as was this outburst, it was mild compared with the excitement
caused by a speech that Page made while the Panama debate was raging in
Congress. At a dinner of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in early
March, the Ambassador made a few impromptu remarks. The occasion was one
of good fellowship and good humour, and Page, under the inspiration of
the occasion, indulged in a few half-serious, half-jocular references to
the Panama Canal and British-American good-feeling, which, when
inaccurately reported, caused a great disturbance in the England-baiting
press. "I would not say that we constructed the Panama Canal even for
you," he said, "for I am speaking with great frankness and not with
diplomatic indirection. We built it for reasons of our own. But I will
say that it adds to the pleasure of that great work that you will profit
by it. You will profit most by it, for you have the greatest carrying
trade." A few paragraphs on the Monroe Doctrine, which practically
repeated President Wilson's Mobile speech on that subject, but in which
Mr. Page used the expression, "we prefer that European Powers shall
acquire no more territory on this continent," alarmed those precisians
in language, who pretended to believe that the Ambassador had used the
word "prefer" in its literal sense, and interpreted the sentence to mean
that, while the United States would "prefer" that Europe should not
overrun North and South America, it would really raise no serious
objection if Europe did so.

Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, who by this time had apparently become
the Senatorial leader of the anti-Page propaganda, introduced a
resolution demanding that the Ambassador furnish the Senate a complete
copy of this highly pro-British outgiving. The copy was furnished
forthwith--and with that the tempest subsided.

_To the President_

American Embassy, London,
March 18, 1914.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

About this infernal racket in the Senate over my poor speech, I
have telegraphed you all there is to say. Of course, it was a
harmless courtesy--no bowing low to the British or any such
thing--as it was spoken and heard. Of course, too, nothing would
have been said about it but for the controversy over the Canal
tolls. That was my mistake--in being betrayed by the friendly
dinner and the high compliments paid to us into mentioning a
subject under controversy.

I am greatly distressed lest possibly it may embarrass you. I do
hope not.

I think I have now learned _that_ lesson pretty thoroughly. These
Anglophobiacs--Irish and Panama--hound me wherever I go. I think I
told you of one of their correspondents, who one night got up and
yawned at a public dinner as soon as I had spoken and said to his
neighbours: "Well, I'll go, the Ambassador didn't say anything that
I can get him into trouble about."

I shall, hereafter, write out my speeches and have them gone over
carefully by my little Cabinet of Secretaries. Yet something
(perhaps not much) will be lost. For these people are infinitely
kind and friendly and courteous.

They cannot be driven by anybody to do anything, but they can be
led by us to do anything--by the use of spontaneous courtesy. It is
by spontaneous courtesy that I have achieved whatever I have
achieved, and it is for this that those like me who do like me. Of
course, what some of the American newspapers have said is
true--that I am too free and too untrained to be a great
Ambassador. But the conventional type of Ambassador would not be
worth his salt to represent the United States here now, when they
are eager to work with us for the peace of the world, if they are
convinced of our honour and right-mindedness and the genuineness of
our friendship.

I talked this over with Sir Edward Grey the other day, and after
telling me that I need fear no trouble at this end of the line, he
told me how severely he is now criticized by a "certain element"
for "bowing too low to the Americans." We then each bowed low to
the other. The yellow press and Chamberlain would give a year's
growth for a photograph of us in that posture!

I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind understanding and your
toleration of my errors.

Yours always heartily,
WALTER H. PAGE.

To the President.

P.S. The serious part of the speech--made to convince the financial
people, who are restive about Mexico, that we do not mean to forbid
legitimate investments in Central America--has had a good effect
here. I have received the thanks of many important men.

W.H.P.

_From the President_

The White House, Washington,
March 25, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

Thank you for your little note of March thirteenth[52]. You may be
sure that none of us who knew you or read the speech felt anything
but admiration for it. It is very astonishing to me how some
Democrats in the Senate themselves bring these artificial
difficulties on the Administration, and it distresses me not a
little. Mr. Bryan read your speech yesterday to the Cabinet, who
greatly enjoyed it. It was at once sent to the Senate and I hope
will there be given out for publication in full.

I want you to feel constantly how I value the intelligent and
effective work you are doing in London. I do not know what I should
do without you.

The fight is on now about the tolls, but I feel perfectly confident
of winning in the matter, though there is not a little opposition
in Congress--more in the House, it strangely turns out, where a
majority of the Democrats originally voted against the exemption,
than in the Senate, where a majority of the Democrats voted for it.
The vicissitudes of politics are certainly incalculable.

With the warmest regard, in necessary haste,

Cordially and faithfully yours,
WOODROW WILSON.


HON. WALTER H. PAGE,
American Embassy,
London, England.

_To the President_

American Embassy, London,
March 2, 1914.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I have read in the newspapers here that, after you had read my
poor, unfortunate speech, you remarked to callers that you regarded
it as proper. I cannot withhold this word of affectionate thanks.

I do not agree with you, heartily as I thank you. The speech
itself, in the surroundings and the atmosphere, was harmless and
was perfectly understood. But I ought not to have been betrayed
into forgetting that the subject was about to come up for fierce
discussion in Congress. . . .

Of course, I know that the whole infernal thing is cooked up to
beat you, if possible. But that is the greater reason why you must
win. I am willing to be sacrificed, if that will help--for
forgetting the impending row or for any reason you will.

I suppose we've got to go through such a struggle to pull our
Government and our people up to an understanding of our own place
in the world--a place so high and big and so powerful that all the
future belongs to us. From an economic point of view, we _are_ the
world; and from a political point of view also. How any man who
sees this can have any feeling but pity for the Old World, passes
understanding. Our rôle is to treat it most courteously and to make
it respect our character--nothing more. Time will do the rest.

I congratulate you most heartily on the character of most of your
opposition--the wild Irish (they must be sat upon some time, why
not now?), the Clark[53] crowd (characteristically making a stand
on a position of dishonour), the Hearst press, and demagogues
generally. I have confidence in the people.

This stand is necessary to set us right before the world, to enable
us to build up an influential foreign policy, to make us respected
and feared, and to make the Democratic Party the party of honour,
and to give it the best reason to live and to win.

May I make a suggestion?

The curiously tenacious hold that Anglophobia has on a certain
class of our people--might it not be worth your while to make, at
some convenient time and in some natural way, a direct attack on
it--in a letter to someone, which could be published, or in some
address, or possibly in a statement to a Senate committee, which
could be given to the press? Say how big and strong and
sure-of-the-future we are; so big that we envy nobody, and that
those who have Anglophobia or any Europe-phobia are the only
persons who "truckle" to any foreign folk or power; that in this
tolls-fight all the Continental governments are a unit; that we
respect them all, fear none, have no favours, except proper favours
among friendly nations, to ask of anybody; and that the idea of a
"trade" with England for holding off in Mexico is (if you will
excuse my French) a common gutter lie.

This may or may not be wise; but you will forgive me for venturing
to suggest it. It is _we_ who are the proud and erect and patriotic
Americans, fearing nobody; but the other fellows are fooling some
of the people in making them think that _they_ are.

Yours most gratefully,

WALTER H. PAGE.

To the President.

_From the President_
The White House, Washington,

April 2, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

Please do not distress yourself about that speech. I think with you
that it was a mistake to touch upon that matter while it was right
hot, because any touch would be sure to burn the finger; but as for
the speech itself, I would be willing to subscribe to every bit of
it myself, and there can be no rational objection to it. We shall
try to cool the excited persons on this side of the water and I
think nothing further will come of it. In the meantime, pray
realize how thoroughly and entirely you are enjoying my confidence
and admiration.

Your letter about Cowdray and Murray was very illuminating and will
be very serviceable to me. I have come to see that the real
knowledge of the relations between countries in matters of public
policy is to be gained at country houses and dinner tables, and not
in diplomatic correspondence; in brief, that when we know the men
and the currents of opinion, we know more than foreign ministers
can tell us; and your letters give me, in a thoroughly dignified
way, just the sidelights that are necessary to illuminate the
picture. I am heartily obliged to you.

All unite with me in the warmest regards as always.

In haste,

Faithfully yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

HON. WALTER H. PAGE,
American Embassy,
London, England.

A note of a conversation with Sir Edward Grey touches the same point:
"April 1, 1914. Sir Edward Grey recalled to me to-day that he had waited
for the President to take up the Canal tolls controversy at his
convenience. 'When he took it up at his own time to suit his own plans,
he took it up in the most admirable way possible.' This whole story is
too good to be lost. If the repeal of the tolls clause passes the
Senate, I propose to make a speech in the House of Commons on 'The
Proper Way for Great Governments to Deal with One Another,' and use this
experience.

"Sir Edward also spoke of being somewhat 'depressed' by the fierce
opposition to the President on the tolls question--the extent of
Anglophobia in the United States.

"Here is a place for a campaign of education--Chautaqua and whatnot.

"The amount of Anglophobia _is_ great. But I doubt if it be as great as
it seems; for it is organized and is very vociferous. If you collected
together or thoroughly organized all the people in the United States who
have birthmarks on their faces, you'd be 'depressed' by the number of
them."

Nothing could have more eloquently proved the truth of this last remark
than the history of this Panama bill itself. After all the politicians
in the House and Senate had filled pages of the _Congressional Record_
with denunciations of Great Britain--most of it intended for the
entertainment of Irish-Americans and German-Americans in the
constituencies--the two Houses proceeded to the really serious business
of voting. The House quickly passed the bill by 216 to 71, and the
Senate by 50 to 35. Apparently the amount of Anglophobia was not
portentous, when it came to putting this emotion to the test of counting
heads. The bill went at once to the President, was signed--and the
dishonour was atoned for.

Mr. and Mrs. Page were attending a ball in Buckingham Palace when the
great news reached London. The gathering represented all that was most
distinguished in the official and diplomatic life of the British
capital. The word was rapidly passed from guest to guest, and the
American Ambassador and his wife soon found themselves the centre of a
company which could hardly restrain itself in expressing its admiration
for the United States. Never in the history of the country had American
prestige stood so high as on that night. The King and the Prime Minister
were especially affected by this display of fair-dealing in Washington.
The slight commercial advantage which Great Britain had obtained was not
the thought that was uppermost in everybody's mind. The thing that
really moved these assembled statesmen and diplomats was the fact that
something new had appeared in the history of legislative chambers. A
great nation had committed an outrageous wrong--that was something that
had happened many times before in all countries. But the unprecedented
thing was that this same nation had exposed its fault boldly to the
world--had lifted up its hands and cried, "We have sinned!" and then had
publicly undone its error. Proud as Page had always been of his country,
that moment was perhaps the most triumphant in his life. The action of
Congress emphasized all that he had been saying of the ideals of the
United States, and gave point to his arguments that justice and honour
and right, and not temporary selfish interest, should control the
foreign policy of any nation which really claimed to be enlightened. The
general feeling of Great Britain was perhaps best expressed by the
remark made to Mrs. Page, on this occasion, by Lady D----:

"The United States has set a high standard for all nations to live up
to. I don't believe that there is any other nation that would have done
it."

One significant feature of this great episode was the act of Congress in
accepting the President's statement that the repeal of the Panama
discrimination was a necessary preliminary to the success of American
foreign policy. Mr. Wilson's declaration, that, unless this legislation
should be repealed, he would not "know how to deal with other matters of
even greater delicacy and nearer consequence" had puzzled Congress and
the country. The debates show the keenest curiosity as to what the
President had in mind. The newspapers turned the matter over and over,
without obtaining any clew to the mystery. Some thought that the
President had planned to intervene in Mexico, and that the tolls
legislation was the consideration demanded by Great Britain for a free
hand in this matter. But this correspondence has already demolished that
theory. Others thought that Japan was in some way involved--but that
explanation also failed to satisfy.

Congress accepted the President's statement trustfully and blindly, and
passed the asked-for legislation. Up to the present moment this passage
in the Presidential message has been unexplained. Page's papers,
however, disclose what seems to be a satisfactory solution to the
mystery. They show that the President and Colonel House and Page were at
this time engaged in a negotiation of the utmost importance. At the very
time that the tolls bill was under discussion Colonel House was making
arrangements for a visit to Great Britain, France, and Germany, the
purpose of which was to bring these nations to some kind of an
understanding that would prevent a European war. This evidently was the
great business that could not be disclosed at the time and for which the
repeal of the tolls legislation was the necessary preliminary.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: The Committee to celebrate the centennial of the signing
of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. The plan to make
this an elaborate commemoration of a 100 years' peace between the
English-speaking peoples was upset by the outbreak of the World War.]

[Footnote 45: This was the designation Mr. Bryan's admirers sometimes
gave him.]

[Footnote 46: The reference is to President Roosevelt's speech at the
Guildhall in June, 1910.]

[Footnote 47: This refers to the declination of the British Government
to be represented at the San Francisco world exhibition, held in 1915.]

[Footnote 48: John Bassett Moore, at that time the very able counsellor
of the State Department.]

[Footnote 49: Mr. Root's masterly speech on Panama tolls was made in the
United States Senate, January 21, 1913.]

[Footnote 50: Ante: page 202.]

[Footnote 51: This is the fact that is too frequently lost sight of in
current discussions of the melting pot. In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for
August, 1920, Mr. William S. Rossiter, for many years chief clerk of the
United States Census and a statistician of high standing, shows that, of
the 95,000,000 white people of the United States, 55,000,000 trace their
origin to England, Scotland, and Wales.]

[Footnote 52: The Ambassador's letter is dated March 18th.]

[Footnote 53: Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
was one of the most blatant opponents of Panama repeal.]




CHAPTER IX

AMERICA TRIES TO PREVENT THE EUROPEAN WAR


Page's mind, from the day of his arrival in England, had been filled
with that portent which was the most outstanding fact in European life.
Could nothing be done to prevent the dangers threatened by European
militarism? Was there no way of forestalling the war which seemed every
day to be approaching nearer? The dates of the following letters,
August, 1913, show that this was one of the first ideas which Page
presented to the new Administration.

_To Edward M. House_
Aug. 28, 1913.

MY DEAR HOUSE:

. . . Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high. We're having a
fine time. Only, only, only--I do wish to do something constructive
and lasting. Here are great navies and armies and great withdrawals
of men from industry--an enormous waste. Here are kings and courts
and gold lace and ceremonies which, without producing anything,
require great cost to keep them going. Here are all the privileges
and taxes that this state of things implies--every one a hindrance
to human progress. We are free from most of these. We have more
people and more capable people and many times more territory than
both England and Germany; and we have more potential wealth than
all Europe. They know that. They'd like to find a way to escape.
The Hague programmes, for the most part, just lead them around a
circle in the dark back to the place where they started. Somebody
needs to _do_ something. If we could find some friendly use for
these navies and armies and kings and things--in the service of
humanity--they'd follow us. We ought to find a way to use them in
cleaning up the tropics under our leadership and under our code of
ethics--that everything must be done for the good of the tropical
peoples and that nobody may annex a foot of land. They want a job.
Then they'd quit sitting on their haunches, growling at one
another.

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

There's no future in Europe's vision--no long look ahead. They give
all their thought to the immediate danger. Consider this Balkan
War; all European energy was spent merely to keep the Great Powers
at peace. The two wars in the Balkans have simply impoverished the
people--left the world that much worse than it was before. Nobody
has considered the well-being or the future of those peoples nor of
their land. The Great Powers are mere threats to one another,
content to check, one the other! There can come no help to the
progress of the world from this sort of action--no step forward.

Work on a world-plan. Nothing but blue chips, you know. Is it not
possible that Mexico may give an entering wedge for this kind of
thing?

Heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

In a memorandum, written about the same time, Mr. Page explains his
idea in more detail:

Was there ever greater need than there is now of a first-class mind