DEAR ARTHUR:

It's very hard, not to say impossible, to write in these swiftly
moving days. Anything written to-day is out of date to-morrow--even
if it be not wrong to start with. The impression becomes stronger
here every day that we shall go into the war "with both feet"--that
the people have pushed the President over in spite of his vision of
the Great Peacemaker, and that, being pushed over, his idea now
will be to show how he led them into a glorious war in defense of
democracy. That's my reading of the situation, and I hope I am not
wrong. At any rate, ever since the call of Congress for April 2nd,
I have been telegraphing tons of information and plans that can be
of use only if we go to war. Habitually they never acknowledge the
receipt of anything at Washington. I don't know, therefore, whether
they like these pieces of information or not. I have my staff of
twenty-five good men getting all sorts of warlike information; and
I have just organized twenty-five or thirty more--the best business
Americans in London--who are also at work. I am trying to get the
Government at Washington to send over a committee of conference--a
General, an Admiral, a Reserve Board man, etc., etc. If they do
half the things that I recommend we'll be in at the final lickin'
big, and will save our souls yet.

There's lots of human nature in this world. A note is now
sometimes heard here in undertone (Northcliffe strikes it)--that
they don't want the Americans in the war. This means that if we
come in just as the Allies finish the job we'll get credit, in
part, for the victory, which we did little to win! But that's a
minor note. The great mass of people do want us in, quick, hard,
and strong--our money and our guns and our ships.

A gift of a billion dollars[52] to France will fix Franco-American
history all right for several centuries. Push it through. Such a
gift could come to this Kingdom also but for the British stupidity
about the Irish for three hundred years. A big loan to Great
Britain at a low rate of interest will do the work here.

My mind keeps constantly on the effect of the war and especially of
our action on our own country. Of course that is the most important
end of the thing for us. I hope that--

1. It will break up and tear away our isolation;

2. It will unhorse our cranks and soft-brains.

3. It will make us less promiscuously hospitable to every kind of
immigrant;

4. It will reëstablish in our minds and conscience and policy our
true historic genesis, background, kindred, and destiny--i.e., kill
the Irish and the German influence.

5. It will revive our real manhood--put the molly-coddles in
disgrace, as idiots and dandies are;

6. It will make our politics frank and manly by restoring our true
nationality;

7. It will make us again a great sea-faring people. It is this that
has given Great Britain its long lead in the world;

8. Break up our feminized education--make a boy a vigorous animal
and make our education rest on a wholesome physical basis;

9. Bring men of a higher type into our political life.

We need waking up and shaking up and invigorating as much as the
Germans need taking down.

There is no danger of "militarism" in any harmful sense among any
English race or in any democracy.

By George! all these things open an interesting outlook and series
of tasks--don't they?

My staff and I are asking everybody what the Americans can best do
to help the cause along. The views are not startling, but they are
interesting.

_Jellicoe_: More ships, merchant ships, any kind of ships, and take
over the patrol of the American side of the Atlantic and release
the British cruisers there.

_Balfour_: American credits in the United States big enough to keep
up the rate of exchange.

_Bonar Law_: Same thing.

_The military men_: An expeditionary force, no matter how small,
for the effect of the American Flag in Europe. If one regiment
marched through London and Paris and took the Flag to the front,
that would be worth the winning of a battle.

Think of the vast increase of territory and power Great Britain
will have--her colonies drawn closer than ever, the German
colonies, or most of them, taken over by her, Bagdad hers--what a
way Germany chose to lessen the British Empire! And these gains of
territory will be made, as most of her gains have been, not by any
prearranged, set plan, but as by-products of action for some other
purpose. The only people who have made a deliberate plan to conquer
the earth--now living--are the Germans. And from first to last the
additions to the British Empire have been made because she has been
a first-class maritime power.

And that's the way she has made her trade and her money, too.

On top of this the President speculates about the danger of the
white man losing his supremacy because a few million men get
killed! The truth is every country that is playing a big part in
the war was overpopulated. There will be a considerable productive
loss because the killed men were, as a rule, the best men; but the
white man's control of the world hasn't depended on any few million
of males. This speculation is far up in the clouds. If Russia and
Germany really be liberated from social and political and
industrial autocracy, this liberation will bring into play far more
power than all the men killed in the war could have had under the
pre-war régime. I observe this with every year of my
observation--there's no substitute for common-sense.

The big results of the war will, after all, be the freedom and the
stimulation of men in these weary Old-World lands--in Russia,
Germany itself, and in England. In five or ten years (or sooner,
alas!) the dead will be forgotten.

If you wish to make a picture of the world as it will be when the
war ends, you must conjure up such scenes as these--human bones
along the Russian highways where the great retreat took place and
all that such a sight denotes; Poland literally starved; Serbia,
blasted and burned and starved; Armenia butchered; the horrible
tragedy of Gallipoli, where the best soldiers in the world were
sacrificed to politicians' policies; Austria and Germany starved
and whipped but liberalized--perhaps no king in either country;
Belgium--belgiumized; northern France the same and worse; more
productive Frenchmen killed in proportion to the population perhaps
than any other country will have lost; Great Britain--most of her
best men gone or maimed; colossal debts; several Teutonic countries
bankrupt; every atrocity conceivable committed somewhere--a
hell-swept great continent having endured more suffering in three
years than in the preceding three hundred. Then, ten years later,
most of this suffering a mere memory; governments reorganized and
liberalized; men made more efficient by this strenuous three years'
work; the fields got back their bloom, and life going on much as it
did before--with this chief difference--some kings have gone and
many privileges have been abolished. The lessons are two--(1) that
no government can successfully set out and conquer the world; and
(2) that the hold that privilege holders acquire costs more to
dislodge than any one could ever have guessed. That's the sum of
it. Kings and privilege mongers, of course, have held the parts of
the world separate from one another. They fatten on provincialism,
which is mistaken for patriotism. As they lose their grip, human
sympathy has its natural play between nations, and civilization has
a chance. With any Emperor of Germany left the war will have been
half in vain.

If we (the U.S.A.) cultivate the manly qualities and throw off our
cranks and read our own history and be true to our traditions and
blood and get some political vigour; then if we emancipate
ourselves from the isolation theory and from the landlubber
theory--get into the world and build ships, ships, ships, ships,
and run them to the ends of the seas, we can dominate the world in
trade and in political thought.

You know I have moments when it occurs to me that perhaps I'd
better give whatever working years I may have to telling this
story--the story of the larger meaning of the war. There's no
bigger theme--never was one so big.

Affectionately,

W.H.P.

On April 1st, the day before President Wilson made his great address
before Congress requesting that body to declare the existence of a state
of war with Germany, Page committed to paper a few paragraphs which
summed up his final judgment of President Wilson's foreign policy for
the preceding two and a half years.

Embassy of the United States of America,
April 1, 1917.

In these last days, before the United States is forced into war--by
the people's insistence--the preceding course of events becomes
even clearer than it was before; and it has been as clear all the
time as the nose on a man's face.

The President began by refusing to understand the meaning of the
war. To him it seemed a quarrel to settle economic rivalries
between Germany and England. He said to me last September[53] that
there were many causes why Germany went to war. He showed a great
degree of toleration for Germany; and he was, during the whole
morning that I talked with him, complaining of England. The
controversies we had with England were, of course, mere by-products
of the conflict. But to him they seemed as important as the
controversy we had with Germany. In the beginning he had made--as
far as it was possible--neutrality a positive quality of mind. He
would not move from that position.

That was his first error of judgment. And by insisting on this he
soothed the people--sat them down in comfortable chairs and said,
"Now stay there." He really suppressed speech and thought.

The second error he made was in thinking that he could play a
great part as peacemaker--come and give a blessing to these erring
children. This was strong in his hopes and ambitions. There was a
condescension in this attitude that was offensive.

He shut himself up with these two ideas and engaged in what he
called "thought." The air currents of the world never ventilated
his mind.

This inactive position he has kept as long as public sentiment
permitted. He seems no longer to regard himself nor to speak as a
leader--only as the mouthpiece of public opinion after opinion has
run over him.

He has not breathed a spirit into the people: he has encouraged
them to supineness. He is _not_ a leader, but rather a stubborn
phrasemaker.

And now events and the aroused people seem to have brought the
President to the necessary point of action; and even now he may act
timidly.

*       *       *       *       *

"One thing pleases me," Page wrote to his son Arthur, "I never lost
faith in the American people. It is now clear that I was right in
feeling that they would have gladly come in any time after the
_Lusitania_ crime. Middle West in the front, and that the German hasn't
made any real impression on the American nation. He was made a bug-a-boo
and worked for all he was worth by Bernstorff; and that's the whole
story. We are as Anglo-Saxon as we ever were. If Hughes had had sense
and courage enough to say: 'I'm for war, war to save our honour and to
save democracy,' he would now be President. If Wilson had said that,
Hughes would have carried no important states in the Union. The
suppressed people would have risen to either of them. That's God's truth
as I believe it. The real United States is made up of you and Frank and
the Page boys at Aberdeen and of the 10,000,000 other young fellows who
are ready to do the job and who instinctively see the whole truth of the
situation. But of course what the people would not have done under
certain conditions--that water also has flowed over the dam; and I
mention it only because I have resolutely kept my faith in the people
and there has been nothing in recent events that has shaken it."

Two letters which Page wrote on this same April 1st are interesting in
that they outline almost completely the war policy that was finally
carried out:

_To Frank N. Doubleday_

Embassy of the United States of America,
April 1, 1917.

DEAR EFFENDI:

Here's the programme:

(1) Our navy in immediate action in whatever way a conference with
the British shows we can best help.

(2) A small expeditionary force to France immediately--as large as
we can quickly make ready, if only 10,000 men--as proof that we are
ready to do some fighting.

(3) A large expeditionary force as soon as the men can be organized
and equipped. They can be trained into an effective army in France
in about one fourth of the time that they could be trained anywhere
else.

(4) A large loan to the Allies at a low rate of interest.

(5) Ships, ships, ships--troop ships, food ships, munition ships,
auxiliary ships to the navy, wooden ships, steel ships, little
ships, big ships, ships, ships, ships without number or end.

(6) A clear-cut expression of the moral issue involved in the war.
Every social and political ideal that we stand for is at stake. If
we value democracy in the world, this is the chance to further it
or--to bring it into utter disrepute. After Russia must come
Germany and Austria; and then the King-business will pretty nearly
be put out of commission.

(7) We must go to war in dead earnest. We must sign the Allies'
agreement not to make a separate peace, and we must stay in to the
end. Then the end will be very greatly hastened.

It's been four years ago to-day since I was first asked to come
here. God knows I've done my poor best to save our country and to
help. It'll be four years in the middle of May since I sailed. I
shall still do my best. I'll not be able to start back by May 15th,
but I have a feeling, if we do our whole duty in the United States,
that the end may not be very many months off. And how long off it
may be may depend to a considerable degree on our action.

We are faring very well on army rations. None of us will live to
see another time when so many big things are at stake nor another
time when our country can play so large or important a part in
saving the world. Hold up your end. I'm doing my best here.

I think of you engaged in the peaceful work of instructing the
people, and I think of the garden and crocuses and the smell of
early spring in the air and the earth and--push on; I'll be with
you before we grow much older or get much grayer; and a great and
prosperous and peaceful time will lie before us. Pity me and hold
up your end for real American participation. Get together? Yes; but
the way to get together is to get in!

Affectionately,

W.H.P.

_To David F. Houston_[54]

Embassy of the United States of America,
April 1, 1917.

DEAR HOUSTON:

The Administration can save itself from becoming a black blot on
American history only by vigorous action--acts such as these:

Putting our navy to work--vigorous work--wherever and however is
wisest. I have received the Government's promise to send an Admiral
here at once for a conference. We must work out with the British
Navy a programme whereby we can best help; and we must carry it
without hesitancy or delay.

Sending over an expeditionary military force immediately--a small
one, but as large as we can, as an earnest of a larger one to come.
This immediate small one will have a good moral effect; and we need
all the moral reinstatement that we can get in the estimation of
the world; our moral stock is lower than, I fear, any of you at
home can possibly realize. As for a larger expeditionary force
later--even that ought to be sent quite early. It can and must
spend some time in training in France, whatever its training
beforehand may have been. All the military men agree that soldiers
in France back of the line can be trained in at least half the time
that they can be trained anywhere else. The officers at once take
their turn in the trenches, and the progress that they and their
men make in close proximity to the fighting is one of the
remarkable discoveries of the war. The British Army was so trained
and all the colonial forces. Two or three or four hundred thousand
Americans could be sent over as soon almost as they are organized
and equipped-provided transports and a continuous supply of food
and munition ships can be got. They can be trained into fighting
men--into an effective army--in about one third of the time that
would be required at home.

I suppose, of course, we shall make at once a large loan to the
Allies at a low rate of interest. That is most important, but that
alone will not save us. We must also _fight_.

All the ships we can get--build, requisition, or confiscate--are
needed immediately.

Navy, army, money, ships--these are the first things, but by no
means all. We must make some expression of a conviction that there
is a moral question of right and wrong involved in this war--a
question of humanity, a question of democracy. So far we have
(officially) spoken only of the wrongs done to our ships and
citizens. Deep wrongs have been done to all our moral ideas, to our
ideals. We have sunk very low in European opinion because we do not
seem to know even yet that a German victory would be less desirable
than (say) a Zulu victory of the world.

We must go in with the Allies, not begin a mere single fight
against submarines. We must sign the pact of London--not make a
separate peace.

We mustn't longer spin dreams about peace, nor leagues to enforce
peace, nor the Freedom of the Seas. These things are mere
intellectual diversions of minds out of contact with realities.
Every political and social ideal we have is at stake. If we make
them secure, we'll save Europe from destruction and save ourselves,
too. I pray for vigour and decision and clear-cut resolute action.

(1) The Navy--full strength, no "grapejuice" action.

(2) An immediate expeditionary force.

(3) A larger expeditionary force very soon.

(4) A large loan at a low interest.

(5) Ships, ships, ships.

(6) A clear-cut expression of the moral issue. Thus (and only thus)
can we swing into a new era, with a world born again.

Yours in strictest confidence,

W.H.P.

A memorandum, written on April 3rd, the day after President Wilson
advised Congress to declare a state of war with Germany:

_The Day_

When I went to see Mr. Balfour to-day he shook my hand warmly and
said: "It's a great day for the world." And so has everybody said,
in one way or another, that I have met to-day.

The President's speech did not appear in the morning papers--only a
very brief summary in one or two of them; but the meaning of it was
clear. The fact that the House of Representatives organized itself
in one day and that the President addressed Congress on the evening
of that day told the story. The noon papers had the President's
speech in full; and everybody applauds.

My "Cabinet" meeting this morning was unusually interesting; and
the whole group has never before been so delighted. I spoke of the
suggestive, constructive work we have already done in making
reports on various war preparations and activities of this kingdom.
"Now we have greater need than ever, every man to do constructive
work--to think of plans to serve. We are in this excellent
strategical position in the capital of the greatest belligerent--a
position which I thank my stars, the President, and all the powers
that be for giving us. We can each strive to justify our
existence."

Few visitors called; but enthusiastic letters have begun to come
in.

Nearly the whole afternoon was spent with Mr. Balfour and Lord
Robert Cecil. Mr. Balfour had a long list of subjects. Could we
help in (1)--(2)--(3)?--Every once in a while he stopped his
enumeration of subjects long enough to tell me how the action of
the United States had moved him.

To Lord Robert I said: "I pray you, give the Black List a decent
burial: It's dead now, but through no act of yours. It insulted
every American because you did not see that it was insulting:
that's the discouraging fact to me." He thanked me earnestly. He'll
think about that.


II

These jottings give only a faint impression of the change which the
American action wrought in Page. The strain which he had undergone for
twenty-nine months had been intense; it had had the most unfortunate
effect upon his health; and the sudden lifting might have produced that
reaction for the worse which is not unusual after critical experiences
of this kind. But the gratification which Page felt in the fact that the
American spirit had justified his confidence gave him almost a certain
exuberance of contentment. Londoners who saw him at that time describe
him as acting like a man from whose shoulders a tremendous weight had
suddenly been removed. For more than two years Page had been compelled,
officially at least, to assume a "neutrality" with which he had never
had the slightest sympathy, but the necessity for this mask now no
longer existed. A well-known Englishman happened to meet Page leaving
his house in Grosvenor Square the day after the Declaration of War. He
stopped and shook the Ambassador's hand.

"Thank God," the Englishman said, "that there is one hypocrite less in
London to-day."

"What do you mean?" asked Page.

"I mean you. Pretending all this time that you were neutral! That isn't
necessary any longer."

"You are right!" the Ambassador answered as he walked on with a laugh
and a wave of the hand.

A few days after the Washington Declaration, the American Luncheon Club
held a feast in honour of the event. This organization had a membership
of representative American business men in London, but its behaviour
during the war had not been based upon Mr. Wilson's idea of neutrality.
Indeed its tables had so constantly rung with denunciations of the
_Lusitania_ notes that all members of the American Embassy, from Page
down, had found it necessary to refrain from attending its proceedings.
When Page arose to address his compatriots on this occasion, therefore,
he began with the significant words, "I am glad to be back with you
again," and the mingled laughter and cheers with which this remark was
received indicated that his hearers had caught the point.

The change took place not only in Page, but in London and the whole of
Great Britain. An England that had been saying harsh things of the
United States for nearly two years now suddenly changed its attitude.
Both houses of Parliament held commemorative sessions in honour of
America's participation; in the Commons Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith,
and other leaders welcomed their new allies, and in the Upper Chamber
Lord Curzon, Lord Bryce, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others
similarly voiced their admiration. The Stars and Stripes almost
instantaneously broke out on private dwellings, shops, hotels, and
theatres; street hucksters did a thriving business selling rosettes of
the American colours, which even the most stodgy Englishmen did not
disdain to wear in their buttonholes; wherever there was a band or an
orchestra, the Star Spangled Banner acquired a sudden popularity; and
the day even came when the American and the British flags flew side by
side over the Houses of Parliament--the first occasion in history that
any other than the British standard had received this honour. The
editorial outgivings of the British press on America's entrance form a
literature all their own. The theatres and the music halls, which had
found in "notes" and "nootrality" an endless theme of entertainment for
their patrons, now sounded Americanism as their most popular refrain.
Churches and cathedrals gave special services in honour of American
intervention, and the King and the President began to figure side by the
side in the prayer book. The estimation in which President Wilson was
held changed overnight. All the phrases that had so grieved Englishmen
were instantaneously forgotten. The President's address before Congress
was praised as one of the most eloquent and statesmanlike utterances in
history. Special editions of this heartening document had a rapid sale;
it was read in school houses, churches, and at public gatherings, and it
became a most influential force in uplifting the hopes of the Allies and
inspiring them to renewed activities. Americans everywhere, in the
streets, at dinner tables, and in general social intercourse, could feel
the new atmosphere of respect and admiration which had suddenly become
their country's portion. The first American troops that passed through
London--a company of engineers, an especially fine body of men--aroused
a popular enthusiasm which was almost unprecedented in a capital not
celebrated for its emotional displays. Page himself records one
particularly touching indication of the feeling for Americans which was
now universal. "The increasing number of Americans who come through
England," he wrote, "most of them on their way to France, but some of
them also to serve in England, give much pleasure to the British
public--nurses, doctors, railway engineers, sawmill units, etc. The
sight of every American uniform pleases London. The other morning a
group of American nurses gathered with the usual crowd in front of
Buckingham Palace while the Guards band played inside the gates. Man
after man as they passed them and saw their uniforms lifted their hats."

[Illustration: The Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 1908-1915, Minister of Munitions, 1915-1916, Prime Minister
of Great Britain, 1916-1922]

[Illustration: The Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour (now the Earl of
Balfour) Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1916-1919]

The Ambassador's mail likewise underwent a complete transformation. His
correspondence of the preceding two years, enormous in its extent, had
contained much that would have disturbed a man who could easily get
excited over trifles, but this aspect of his work never caused Page the
slightest unhappiness. Almost every crank in England who disliked the
American policy had seemed to feel it his duty to express his opinions
to the American Ambassador. These letters, at times sorrowful, at others
abusive, even occasionally threatening, varying in their style from
cultivated English to the grossest illiteracy, now written in red ink to
emphasize their bitterness, now printed in large block letters to
preserve their anonymity, aroused in Page only a temporary amusement.
But the letters that began to pour in upon him after our Declaration,
many of them from the highest placed men and women in the Kingdom,
brought out more vividly than anything else the changed position of his
country. Sonnets and verses rained upon the Embassy, most of them
pretty bad as poetry, but all of them commendable for their admiring and
friendly spirit. Of all these letters those that came from the steadfast
friends of America perhaps gave Page the greatest satisfaction. "You
will have been pleased at the universal tribute paid to the spirit as
well as to the lofty and impressive terms of the President's speech,"
wrote Lord Bryce. "Nothing finer in our time, few things so fine." But
probably the letter which gave Page the greatest pleasure was that which
came from the statesman whose courtesy and broad outlook had eased the
Ambassador's task in the old neutrality days. In 1916, Sir Edward
Grey--now become Viscount Grey of Fallodon--had resigned office, forced
out, Page says in one of his letters, mainly because he had refused to
push the blockade to a point where it might produce a break with the
United States. He had spent the larger part of the time since that event
at his country place in Northumberland, along the streams and the
forests which had always given him his greatest pleasure, attempting to
recover something of the health that he had lost in the ten years which
he had spent as head of the British Foreign Office and bearing with
characteristic cheerfulness and fortitude the tragedy of a gradually
failing eyesight. The American Declaration of War now came to Lord Grey
as the complete justification of his policy. The mainspring of that
policy, as already explained, had been a determination to keep the
friendship of the United States, and so shape events that the support of
this country would ultimately be cast on the side of the Allies. And now
the great occasion for which he had prepared had come, and in Grey's
mind this signified more than a help to England in soldiers and ships;
it meant bringing together the two branches of a common race for the
promotion of common ideals.

_From Viscount Grey of Fallodon_

Rosehall Post Office,

Sutherland,

April 8, 1917.

DEAR MR. PAGE:

This is a line that needs no answer to express my congratulations
on President Wilson's address. I can't express adequately all that
I feel. Great gratitude and great hope are in my heart. I hope now
that some great and abiding good to the world will yet be wrought
out of all this welter of evil. Recent events in Russia, too,
stimulate this hope: they are a good in themselves, but not the
power for good in this war that a great and firmly established free
country like the United States can be. The President's address and
the way it has been followed up in your country is a splendid
instance of great action finely inspired. I glow with admiration.

Yours sincerely,

GREY OF FALLODON

One Englishman who was especially touched by the action of the United
States was His Majesty the King. Few men had watched the course of
America during the war with more intelligent interest than the head of
the British royal house. Page had had many interviews with King George
at Buckingham Palace and at Windsor, and his notes contain many
appreciative remarks on the King's high character and conscientious
devotion to his duties. That Page in general did not believe in kings
and emperors as institutions his letters reveal; yet even so profound a
Republican as he recognized sterling character, whether in a crowned
head or in a humble citizen, and he had seen enough of King George to
respect him. Moreover, the peculiar limitations of the British monarchy
certainly gave it an unusual position and even saved it from much of the
criticism that was fairly lavished upon such nations as Germany and
Austria. Page especially admired King George's frankness in recognizing
these limitations and his readiness to accommodate himself to the
British Constitution. On most occasions, when these two men met, their
intercourse was certainly friendly or at least not formidable. After all
formalities had been exchanged, the King would frequently draw the
Ambassador aside; the two would retire to the smoking room, and there,
over their cigars, discuss a variety of matters--submarines,
international politics, the Irish question and the like. His Majesty was
not averse even to bringing up the advantages of the democratic and the
monarchical system. The King and Ambassador would chat, as Page himself
would say, like "two human beings"; King George is an emphatic and
vivacious talker, fond of emphasizing his remarks by pounding the table;
he has the liveliest sense of humour, and enjoys nothing quite so much
as a good story. Page found that, on the subject of the Germans, the
King entertained especially robust views. "They are my kinsmen," he
would say, "but I am ashamed of them."

Probably most Englishmen, in the early days of the war, preferred that
the United States should not engage in hostilities; even after the
_Lusitania_, the majority in all likelihood held this view. There are
indications, however, that King George favoured American participation.
A few days after the _Lusitania_ sinking, Page had an audience for the
purpose of presenting a medal sent by certain societies in New Orleans.
Neither man was thinking much about medals that morning. The thoughts
uppermost in their minds, as in the minds of most Americans and
Englishmen, were the _Lusitania_ and the action that the United States
was likely to take concerning it. After the formalities of presentation,
the King asked Page to sit down and talked with him for more than half
an hour. "He said that Germany was evidently trying to force the United
States into the war; that he had no doubt we would soon be in it and
that, for his part, he would welcome us heartily. The King also said he
had reliable information from Germany, that the Emperor had wished to
return a conciliatory answer to our _Lusitania_ note, but that Admiral
von Tirpitz had prevented it, even going so far as to 'threaten' the
Kaiser. It appears that the Admiral insisted that the submarine was the
only weapon the Germans could use with effect against England and that
they could not afford to give it up. He was violent and the Kaiser
finally yielded[55]."

The statement from the King at that crisis, that he would "heartily
welcome the United States into the war," was interpreted by the
Ambassador as amounting practically to an invitation--and certainly as
expressing a wish that such an intervention should take place.

That the American participation would rejoice King George could
therefore be taken for granted. Soon after this event, the Ambassador
and Mrs. Page were invited to spend the night at Windsor.

"I arrived during the middle of the afternoon," writes Page, "and he
sent for me to talk with him in his office.

"'I've a good story on you,' said he. 'You Americans have a queer use of
the word "some," to express mere bigness or emphasis. We are taking that
use of the word from you over here. Well, an American and an Englishman
were riding in the same railway compartment. The American read his
paper diligently--all the details of a big battle. When he got done, he
put the paper down and said: "Some fight!" "And some don't!" said the
Englishman.'

"And the King roared. 'A good one on you!'

"'The trouble with that joke, sir,' I ventured to reply, 'is that it's
out of date.'

"He was in a very gay mood, surely because of our entry into the war.
After the dinner--there were no guests except Mrs. Page and me, the
members of his household, of course, being present--he became even
familiar in the smoking room. He talked about himself and his position
as king. 'Knowing the difficulties of a limited monarch, I thank heaven
I am spared being an absolute one.'

"He went on to enumerate the large number of things he was obliged to
do, for example, to sign the death warrant of every condemned man--and
the little real power that he had--not at all in a tone of complaint,