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<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2" FACE="Times">CHAPTER XV</FONT><FONT SIZE="+2"></FONT></center><br><br>

<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">THE AMBASSADOR AND THE LAWYERS</FONT></center>

<br><br>REFERENCES in the foregoing letters show that Page was still
having his troubles over the blockade. In the latter part of 1915,
indeed, the negotiations with Sir Edward Grey on this subject
had reached their second stage. The failure of Washington to force
upon Great Britain an entirely new code of naval warfare---the
Declaration of London---has already been described. This failure
had left both the British Foreign Office and the American State
Department in an unsatisfactory frame of mind. The Foreign Office
regarded Washington with suspicion, for the American attempt to
compel Great Britain to adopt a code of naval warfare which was
exceedingly unfavourable to that country and exceedingly favourable
to Germany, was susceptible of a sinister interpretation. The
British rejection of these overtures, on the other hand, had evidently
irritated the international lawyers at Washington. Mr. Lansing
now abandoned his efforts to revolutionize maritime warfare and
confined himself to specific protests and complaints. His communications
to the London Embassy dealt chiefly with particular ships and
cargoes. Yet his persistence in regarding all these problems from
a strictly legalistic point of view Page regarded as indicating
a restricted sense of statesmanship.

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Edward M. House</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, August 4, 1915.
  <br><br>MY DEAR HOUSE:
  <br><br>. . . The lawyer-way in which the Department goes on in its
  dealings with Great Britain is losing us the only great international
  friendship that we have any chance of keeping or that is worth
  having. Whatever real principle we have to uphold with Great
  Britain---that's all right. I refer only to the continuous series
  of nagging incidents---always criticism, criticism, criticism
  of small points---points that we have to yield at last, and never
  anything constructive. I'll illustrate what I mean by a few incidents
  that I can recall from memory. If I looked up the record, I should
  find a very, very much larger list.
  <br><br>(1) We insisted and insisted and insisted, not once but half
  a dozen times, at the very beginning of the war, on England's
  adoption of the Declaration of London entire in spite of the
  fact that Parliament had distinctly declined to adopt it. Of
  course we had to give in---after we had produced a distinctly
  unfriendly atmosphere and much feeling.
  <br><br>(2) We denied the British right to put copper on the contraband
  list---much to their annoyance. Of course we had at last to acquiesce.
  They were within their rights.
  <br><br>(3) We protested against bringing ships into port to examine
  them. Of course we had to give in---after producing irritation.
  <br><br>(4) We made a great fuss about stopped telegrams. We have
  no case at all; but, even after acknowledging that we have no
  case, every pouch continues to bring telegrams with the request
  that I ask an explanation why they were stopped. Such explanations
  are practically refused. I have 500 telegrams. Periodically I
  wire the state of the case and ask for more specific instructions.
  I never get an answer to these requests. But the Department continues
  to send the telegrams! We confessedly, have no case here; and
  this method can produce nothing but irritation.
  <br><br>I could extend this list to 100 examples---of mere lawyerlike
  methods---mere useless technicalities and objections which it
  is obvious in the beginning cannot be maintained. A similar method
  is now going on about cotton. Now this is not the way Sir Edward
  Grey takes up business. It's not the way I've done business all
  my life, nor that you have, nor other frank men who mean what
  they say and do not say things they do not mean. The constant
  continuation of this method is throwing away the real regard
  and confidence of the British Government and of the British public---very
  fast, too.
  <br><br>I sometimes wish there were not a lawyer in the world. I heard
  the President say once that it took him twenty years to recover
  from his legal habit of mind. Well, his Administration is suffering
  from it to a degree that is pathetic and that will leave bad
  results for 100 years.
  <br><br>I suspect that in spite of all the fuss we have made we shall
  at last come to acknowledge the British blockade; for it is pretty
  nearly parallel to the United States blockade of the South during
  our Civil War. The only difference is---they can't make the blockade
  of the Baltic against the traffic from the Scandinavian neutral
  states effective. That's a good technical objection; but, since
  practically all the traffic between those States and Germany
  is in our products, much of the real force of it is lost.
  <br><br>If a protest is made against cotton being made contraband---it'll
  amount to nothing and give only irritation. It will only play
  into Hoke Smith<ref>Senator Hoke Smith, of Georgia, was at this time-and afterward---conducting a bitter campaign against the British blockade and advocating an embargo as a retaliation.</ref>-German
  hands and accomplish nothing here. We make as much fuss about
  points which we have silently to yield later as about a real
  principle. Hence they all say that the State Department is merely
  captious, and they pay less and less attention to it and care
  less and less for American opinion--- if only they can continue
  to get munitions. We are reducing English regard to this purely
  mercenary basis. . .
  <br><br>We are-under lawyers' quibbling---drifting apart very rapidly,
  to our complete isolation from the sympathy of the whole world.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>Yours forever sincerely,
<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>


<br><br>.

<br><br>Page refers in this letter to the &quot;blockade&quot;; this
was the term which the British Government itself used to describe
its restrictive measures against German commerce, and it rapidly
passed into common speech. Yet the truth is that Great Britain
never declared an actual blockade against Germany. A realization
of this fact will clear up much that is obscure in the naval warfare
of the next two years. At the beginning of the Civil War, President
Lincoln laid an interdict on all the ports of the Confederacy;
the ships of all nations were forbidden entering or leaving them:
any ship which attempted to evade this restriction, and was captured
doing so, was confiscated, with its cargo. That was a blockade,
as the term has always been understood. A blockade, it is well
to keep in mind, is a procedure which aims at completely closing
the blockaded country from all commercial intercourse with the
world. A blockading navy, if the blockade is successful, or &quot;effective,&quot;
converts the whole country into a beleaguered fortress, just as
an army, surrounding a single town, prevents goods and people
from entering or leaving it. Precisely as it is the purpose of
a besieging army to starve a particular city or territory into
submission, so it is the aim of a blockading fleet to enforce
the same treatment on the nation as a whole. It is also essential
to keep in mind that the question of contraband has nothing to
do with a blockade, for, under this drastic method of making warfare,
everything is contraband. Contraband is a term applied to cargoes,
such as rifles, machine guns, and the like, which are needed in
the prosecution of war.

<br><br>That a belligerent nation has the right to intercept such munitions
on the way to its enemy has been admitted for centuries. Differences
of opinion have raged only as to the extent to which this right
could be carried---the particular articles, that is, that constituted
contraband, and the methods adopted in exercising it. But the
important point to be kept in mind is that where there is a blockade,
there is no contraband list---for everything automatically becomes
contraband. The seizure of contraband on the high seas is a war
measure which is availed of only in cases in which the blockade
has not been established.

<br><br>Great Britain, when she declared war on Germany, did not follow
President Lincoln's example and lay the whole of the German coast
under interdict. Perhaps one reason for this inaction was a desire
not unduly to offend neutrals, especially the United States; but
the more impelling motive was geographical. The fact is that a
blockade of the German seacoast would accomplish little in the
way of keeping materials out of Germany. A glance at the map of
northwestern Europe will make this fact clear. In the first place
the seacoast of Germany is a small affair. In the North Sea the
German coast is a little indentation, not more than two hundred
miles long, wedged in between the longer coastlines of Holland
and Denmark; in the Baltic it is somewhat more extensive, but
the entrances to this sea are so circuitous and treacherous that
the suggestion of a blockade here is not a practicable one. The
greatest ports of Germany are located on this little North Sea
coastline or on its rivers---Hamburg and Bremen. It might therefore
be assumed that any nation which successfully blockaded these
North Sea ports would have strangled the commerce of Germany.
That is far from being the case. The point is that the political
boundaries of Germany are simply fictions, when economic considerations
are involved. Holland, on the west, and Denmark, on the north,
are as much a part of the German transportation system as though
these two countries were parts of the German Empire. Their territories
and the territories of Germany are contiguous; the railroad and
the canal systems of Germany, Holland, and Denmark are practically
one. Such ports as Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen are just
as useful to Germany for purposes of commerce as are Hamburg and
Bremen, and, in fact, a special commercial arrangement with Rotterdam
has made that city practically a port of Germany since 1868. These
considerations show how ineffective would be a blockade of the
German coast which did not also comprehend the coast of Holland
and Denmark. Germany could still conduct her commerce through
these neighbouring countries. And at this point the great difficulty
arose. A blockade is an act of war and can be applied only to
a country upon which war has been declared. Great Britain had
declared war on Germany and could therefore legally close her
ports; she had not declared war on Holland and Denmark, and therefore
could not use the same measure against those friendly countries.
Consequently the blockade was useless to Great Britain; and so,
in the first six months of the war, the Admiralty fell back upon
the milder system of declaring certain articles contraband of
war and seizing ships that were suspected of carrying them to
Germany.

<br><br>A geographical accident had apparently largely destroyed the
usefulness of the British fleet and had guaranteed Germany an
unending supply of those foodstuffs without which she could not
maintain her resistance for any extended period. Was Great Britain
called upon to accept this situation and to deny herself the use
of the blockade in this, the greatest struggle in her history?
Unless the British fleet could stop cargoes which were really
destined to Germany but which were bound for neutral ports, Great
Britain could not win the war; if the British fleet could intercept
such cargoes, then the chances strongly favoured victory. The
experts of the Foreign Office searched the history of blockades
and found something which resembled a precedent in the practices
of the American Navy during the Civil War. In that conflict Nassau,
in the Bahamas, and Matamoros, in Mexico, played a part not unlike
that played by Rotterdam and Copenhagen in the recent struggle.
These were both neutral ports and therefore outside the jurisdiction
of the United States, just as Rotterdam and Copenhagen were outside
the jurisdiction of Great Britain. They were the ports of powers
with which the United States was at peace, and therefore they
could not be blockaded, just as Amsterdam and Copenhagen were
ports of powers with which Great Britain was now at peace.

<br><br>Trade from Great Britain to the Bahamas and Mexico was ostensibly
trade from one neutral port to another neutral port in the same
sense as was trade from the United States to Holland and Denmark.
Yet the fact is that the &quot;neutrality&quot; of this trade,
in the Civil War, from Great Britain to the Bahamas and Mexico,
was the most transparent subterfuge; such trade was not &quot;neutral&quot;
in the slightest degree. It consisted almost entirely of contraband
of war and was intended for the armies of the Confederate States,
then in arms against the Federal Government. What is the reason,
our Government asked, that these gentle and unwarlike inhabitants
of the Bahamas have so suddenly developed such an enormous appetite
for percussion caps, rifles, cannon, and other instruments of
warfare? The answer, of course, lay upon the surface; the cargoes
were intended for reshipment into the Southern States, and they
were, in fact, immediately so reshipped. The American Government,
which has always regarded realities as more important than logic,
brushed aside the consideration that this trade was conducted
through neutral ports, unhesitatingly seized these ships and condemned
both the ships and their cargoes. Its action was without legal
precedent, but our American courts devised a new principle of
international law to cover the case---that of &quot;continuous
voyage&quot; or &quot;ultimate destination.&quot; Under this new
doctrine it was maintained that cargoes of contraband could be
seized anywhere upon the high seas, even though they were going
from one neutral port to another, if it could be demonstrated
that this contraband was really on its way to the enemy. The mere
fact that it was transshipped at an intermediate neutral port
was not important; the important point was the &quot;ultimate
destination.&quot; British shippers naturally raged over these
decisions, but they met with little sympathy from their own government.
Great Britain filed no protest against the doctrine of &quot;continuous
voyage,&quot; but recognized its fundamental soundness, and since
1865 this doctrine has been a part of international law.

<br><br>Great Britain's good sense in acquiescing in our Civil War
practices now met its reward; for these decisions of American
courts proved a godsend in her hour of trial. The one neutral
from which trouble was anticipated was the United States. What
better way to meet this situation than to base British maritime
warfare upon the decisions of American courts? What more ideal
solution of the problem than to make Chief Justice Chase, of the
United States Supreme Court, really the author of the British
&quot;blockade &quot; against Germany? The policy of the British
Foreign Office was to use the sea power of Great Britain to crush
the enemy, but to do it in a way that would not alienate American
sympathy and American support; clearly the one way in which both
these ends could be attained was to frame these war measures upon
the pronouncements of American prize courts. In a broad sense
this is precisely what Sir Edward Grey now proceeded to do. There
was a difference, of course, which Great Britain's enemies in
the American Senate---such men as Senator Hoke Smith, of Georgia,
and Senator Thomas Walsh, of Montana---proceeded to point out;
but it was a difference of degree. Great Britain based her blockade
measures upon the American principle of &quot;ultimate destination,&quot;
but it was necessary considerably to extend that doctrine in order
to meet the necessities of the new situation. President Lincoln
had applied this principle to absolute contraband, such as powder,
shells, rifles, and other munitions of war. Great Britain now
proceeded to apply it to that nebulous class of commodities known
as &quot;conditional contraband,&quot; the chief of which was
foodstuffs. If the United States, while a war was pending, could
evolve the idea of &quot;ultimate destination&quot; and apply
it to absolute contraband, could not Great Britain, while another
war was pending, carry it one degree further and make it include
conditional contraband? Thus reasoned the British Foreign Office.
To this Mr. Lansing replied that to stop foodstuffs on the way
to Germany through a neutral port was simply to blockade a neutral
port, and that this was something utterly without precedent. Seizing
contraband is not an act of war against the nation whose ships
are seized; blockading a port is an act of war; what right therefore
had Great Britain to adopt measures against Holland, Denmark,
and Sweden which virtually amounted to a blockade?

<br><br>This is the reason why Great Britain, in the pronouncement
of March 1, 1915, and the Order in Council of March 11, 1915,
did not describe these measures as a &quot;blockade.&quot; President
Wilson described his attack on Mexico in 1914 as &quot;measures
short of war,&quot; and now someone referred to the British restrictions
on neutral commerce as &quot;measures short of blockade.&quot;
The British sought another escape from their predicament by justifying
this proceeding, not on the general principles of warfare, but
on the ground of reprisal. Germany declared her submarine warfare
on merchant ships on February 4, 1915; Great Britain replied with
her announcement of March 1st, in which she declared her intention
of preventing &quot;commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving
Germany.&quot; The British advanced this procedure as a retaliation
for the illegal warfare which Germany had declared on merchant
shipping, both that of the enemy and of neutrals. &quot;The British
and French governments will therefore hold themselves free to
detain and take into port ships carrying goods of presumed enemy
destination, ownership, and origin.&quot; This sentence accurately
describes the purposes of a blockade---to cut the. enemy off from
all commercial relations with the outside world; yet the procedure
Great Britain now proposed to follow was not that of a blockade.
When this interdict is classically laid, any ship that attempts
to run the lines is penalized with confiscation, along with its
cargo; but such a penalty was not to be exacted in the present
instance. Great Britain now proposed to purchase cargoes of conditional
contraband discovered on seized ships and return the ships themselves
to their owners, and this soon became the established practice.
Not only did the Foreign Office purchase all cotton which was
seized on its way to Germany, but it took measures to maintain
the price in the markets of the world. In the succeeding months
Southern statesmen in both Houses of Congress railed against the
British seizure of their great staple, yet the fact was that cotton
was all this time steadily advancing in price. When Senator Hoke
Smith made a long speech advocating an embargo on the shipment
of munitions as a punishment to Great Britain for stopping American
cotton on the way to Germany, the acute John Sharp Williams, of
Mississippi, arose in the Senate and completely annihilated the
Georgia politician by demonstrating how the Southern planters
were growing rich out of the war.

<br><br>That the so-called &quot;blockade&quot; situation was a tortuous
one must be apparent from this attempt to set forth the salient
facts. The basic point was that there could be no blockade of
Germany unless the neutral ports of contiguous countries were
also blockaded, and Great Britain believed that she had found
a precedent for doing this in the operations of the American Navy
in the Civil War. But it is obvious that the situation was one
which would provide a great feast for the lawyers. That Page sympathized
with this British determination to keep foodstuffs out of Germany,
his correspondence shows. Day after day the &quot;protests&quot;
from Washington rained upon his desk. The history of our foreign
relations for 1915 and 1916 is largely made up of an interminable
correspondence dealing with seized cargoes, and the routine of
the Embassy was an unending nightmare of &quot;demands,&quot;
&quot;complaints ... .. precedents ... .. cases,&quot; &quot;notes,&quot;
&quot;detentions &quot; of Chicago meats, of Southern cotton,
and the like. The American Embassy in London contains hundreds
of volumes of correspondence which took place during Page's incumbency;
more material has accumulated for those five years than for the
preceding century and a quarter of the Government's existence.
The greater part of this mass deals with intercepted cargoes.

<br><br>The following extract from a letter which Page wrote at this
time gives a fair idea of the atmosphere that prevailed in London
while this correspondence was engaging the Ambassador's mind:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <br><br>The truth is, in their present depressed mood, the United
  States is forgotten---everything's forgotten but the one great
  matter in hand. For the moment at least, the English do not care
  what we do---or what we think or whether we exist---except those
  critics of things-in-general who use us as a target since they
  must take a crack at somebody. And I simply cannot describe the
  curious effect that is produced on men here by the apparent utter
  lack of understanding in the United States of the phase the war
  has now entered and of the mood that this phase has brought.
  I pick up an American paper eight days old and read solemn evidence
  to show that the British Government is interrupting our trade
  in order to advance its own at our expense, whereas the truth
  is that the British Government hasn't given six seconds' thought
  in six months to anybody's trade---not even its own.
  <br><br>When I am asked to inquire why Pfister and Schmidt's telegram
  from New York to Schimmelpfenig and Johann in Holland was stopped
  (the reason is reasonably obvious), I try to picture to myself
  the British Minister in Washington making inquiry of our Government,
  on the day after Bull Run, why the sailing boat loaded with persimmon
  blocks to make golf clubs is delayed in Hampton Roads.
  <br><br>I think I have neither heard nor read anything from the United
  States in three months that didn't seem so remote as to suggest
  the captain of the sailing ship from Hongkong who turned up at
  Southampton in February and had not even heard that there was
  a war. All day long I see and hear women who come to ask if I
  can make inquiry about their sons and husbands, &quot;dead or
  missing,&quot; with an interval given to a description of a man
  half of whose body was splashed against a brick wall last night
  on the Strand when a Zeppelin bomb tore up the street and made
  projectiles of the pavement; as I walk to and from the Embassy
  the Park is full of wounded and their nurses; every man I see
  tells me of a new death; every member of the Government talks
  about military events or of Balkan venality; the man behind the
  counter at the cigar store reads me part of a letter just come
  from his son, telling how he advanced over a pile of dead Germans
  and one of them grunted and turned under his feet---they (the
  English alone) are spending $25,000,000 a day to keep this march
  going over dead Germans; then comes a telegram predicting blue
  ruin for American importers and a cheerless Christmas for American
  children if a cargo of German toys be not quickly released at
  Rotterdam, and I dimly recall the benevolent unction with which
  American children last Christmas sent a shipload of toys to this
  side of the world---many of them for German children ---to the
  tune of &quot;God bless us all &quot;---do you wonder we often
  have to pinch ourselves to find out if we are we; and what year
  of the Lord is it? What is the vital thing---the killing of fifty
  people last night by a Zeppelin within sight of St. Paul's on
  one side and of Westminster Abbey on the other, or is it making
  representations to Sir Edward Grey, who has hardly slept for
  a week because his despatches from Sofia, Athens, Belgrade, and
  Salonika come at all hours, each possibly reporting on which
  side a new government may throw its army---to decide perhaps
  the fate of the canal leading to Asia, the vast British Asiatic
  empire at stake---is it making representations to Sir Edward
  while his mind is thus occupied, that it is of the greatest importance
  to the United States Government that a particular German who
  is somewhere in this Kingdom shall be permitted to go to the
  United States because he knows how to dye sealskins and our sealskins
  are yet undyed and the winter is coming? There will be no new
  sealskins here, for every man and woman must give half his income
  to keep the cigarman's son marching over dead Germans, some of
  whom grunt and turn under his feet. Dumba is at Falmouth to-day
  and gets just two lines in the newspapers. Nothing and nobody
  gets three lines unless he or it in some way furthers the war.
  Every morning the Washington despatches say that Mr. Lansing
  is about to send a long note to England. England won't read it
  till there comes a lull in the fighting or in the breathless
  diplomatic struggle with the Balkans. London and the Government
  are now in much the same mood that Washington and Lincoln's administration
  were in after Lee had crossed the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg.
  Northcliffe, the Lord of Yellow Journals, but an uncommonly brilliant
  fellow, has taken to his bed from sheer nervous worry. &quot;The
  revelations that are imminent,&quot; says he, &quot;will shake
  the world---the incompetence of the Government, the losses along
  the Dardanelles, the throwing away of British chances in the
  Balkans, perhaps the actual defeat of the Allies.&quot; I regard
  Lord Northcliffe less as an entity than as a symptom. But he
  is always very friendly to us and he knows the United States
  better than any Englishman that I know except Bryce. He and Bryce
  are both much concerned about our Note's coming just &quot;at
  this most distressing time ... .. If it come when we are calmer,
  no matter; but now it cannot receive attention and many will
  feel that the United States has hit on a most unhappy moment---almost
  a cruel moment---to remind us of our sins.&quot; That's the substance
  of what they say.
  <br><br>Overwork, or perhaps mainly the indescribable strain on the
  nerves and vitality of men, caused by this experience, for which
  in fact men are not built, puts one of our staff after another
  in bed. None has been seriously sick: the malady takes some form
  of &quot;grip.&quot; On the whole we've been pretty lucky in
  spite of this almost regular temporary breakdown of one man after
  another. I've so far escaped. But I am grieved to hear that Whitlock
  is abed---&quot;no physical ailment whatever---just worn out,&quot;
  his doctor says. I have tried to induce him and his wife to come
  here and make me a visit; but one characteristic of this war-malady
  is the conviction of the victim that he is somehow necessary
  to hold the world together. About twice a week I get to the golf
  links and take the risk of the world's falling apart and thus
  escape both illness and its illusions.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>&quot;I cannot begin to express my deep anxiety and even uneasiness
about the relations of these two great governments and peoples,&quot;
Page wrote about this time. &quot;The friendship of the United
States and Great Britain is all that now holds the world together.
It is the greatest asset of civilization left. All the cargoes
of copper and oil in the world are not worth as much to the world.
Yet when a shipper's cargo is held up he does not think of civilization
and of the future of mankind and of free government; he thinks
only of his cargo and of the indignity that he imagines has been
done him; and what is the American Government for if not to protect
his rights? Of course he's right; but there must be somebody somewhere
who sees things in their right proportion. The man with an injury
rushes to the Department of State-----quite properly. He is in
a mood to bring England to book. Now comes the critical stage
in the journey of his complaint. The State Department hurries
it on to me-----very properly; every main's right must be guarded
and defended---a right to get his cargo to market, a right to
get on a steamer at Queenstown, a right to have his censored telegram
returned, any kind of a right, if he have a right. Then the Department,
not wittingly, I know, but humanly, almost inevitably, in the
great rush of overwork, sends his 'demands' to me, catching much
of his tone and apparently insisting on the removal of his grievance
as a right, without knowing all the facts in the case. The telegrams
that come to me are full of 'protests' and 'demands'---protest
and demand this, protest and demand that. A man from Mars who
should read my book of telegrams received during the last two
months would find it difficult to explain how the two governments
have kept at peace. It is this serious treatment of trifling grievances
which makes us feel here that the exactions and dislocations and
necessary disturbances of this war are not understood at home.

<br><br>&quot;I assure you (and there are plenty of facts to prove
it) that this Government (both for unselfish and selfish reasons)
puts a higher value on our friendship than on any similar thing
in the world. They will go---they are going---the full length
to keep it. But, in proportion to our tendency to nag them about
little things will the value set on our friendship diminish and
will their confidence in our sincerity decline.&quot;

<br><br>The note which Lord Bryce and Lord Northcliffe so dreaded reached
the London Embassy in October, 1915. The State Department had
spent nearly six months in preparing it; it was the American answer
to the so-called blockade established by the Order in Council
of the preceding March. Evidently its contents fulfilled the worst
forebodings:

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Edward M. House</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, November 12, 1915.
  <br><br>DEAR HOUSE:
  <br><br>I have a great respect for the British Navy. Admiral Jellicoe
  now has under his command 3,000 ships of all sorts---far and
  away the biggest fleet, I think, that was ever assembled. For
  the first time since the ocean was poured out, one navy practically
  commands all the seas: nothing sails except by its grace. It
  is this fleet of course that will win the war. The beginning
  of the end---however far off yet the end may be---is already
  visible by reason of the economic pressure on Germany. But for
  this fleet, by the way, London would be in ruins, all its treasure
  looted; every French seacoast city and the Italian peninsula
  would be as Belgium and Poland are; and thousands of English
  women would be violated---just as dead French girls are found
  in many German trenches that have been taken in France. Hence
  I greatly respect the British fleet.
  <br><br>We have a good navy, too, for its size, and a naval personnel
  as good as any afloat. I hear---with much joy---that we are going
  to make our navy bigger---as much bigger (God save the mark!)
  as Bryan will permit.
  <br><br>Now, whatever the future bring, since any fighting enterprise
  that may ever be thrust on us will be just and justified, we
  must see to it that we win, as doubtless we shall and as hitherto
  we always have won. We must be dead sure of winning. Well, whatever
  fight may be thrust on us by anybody, anywhere, at any time,
  for any reason---if it only be generally understood beforehand
  that our fleet and the British fleet shoot the same language,
  there'll be no fight thrust upon us. The biggest bully in the
  world wouldn't dare kick the sorriest dog we have.
  <br><br>Here, therefore, is a Peace Programme for you---the only basis
  for a permanent peace in the world. There's no further good in
  having venerable children build houses of sand at The Hague;
  there's no further good in peace organizations or protective
  leagues to enforce peace. We had as well get down to facts. So
  far as ensuring peace is concerned the biggest fact in the world
  is the British fleet. The next biggest fact is the American fleet,
  because of itself and still more because of the vast reserve
  power of the United States which it implies. If these two fleets
  perfectly understand one another about the undesirability of
  wars of aggression, there'll be no more big wars as long as this
  understanding continues. Such an understanding calls for no treaty---it
  calls only for courtesy.
  <br><br>And there is no other peace-basis worth talking about---by
  men who know how the world is governed.
  <br><br>Since I have lived here I have spent my days and nights, my
  poor brain, and my small fortune all most freely and gladly to
  get some understanding of the men who rule this Kingdom, and
  of the women and the customs and the traditions that rule these
  men---to get their trick of thought, the play of their ideals,
  the working of their imagination, the springs of their instincts.
  It is impossible for any man to know just how well he himself
  does such a difficult task---how accurately he is coming to understand
  the sources and character of a people's actions. Yet, at the
  worst, I do know something about the British: I know enough to
  make very sure of the soundness of my conclusion that they are
  necessary to us and we to them. Else God would have permitted
  the world to be peopled in some other way. And when we see that
  the world will be saved by such an artificial combination as
  England and Russia and France and Japan and Serbia, it calls
  for no great wisdom to see the natural way whereby it must be
  saved in the future.
  <br><br>For this reason every day that I have lived here it has been
  my conscious aim to do what I could to bring about a condition
  that shall make sure of this---that, whenever we may have need
  of the British fleet to protect our shores or to prevent an aggressive
  war anywhere, it shall be ours by a natural impulse and necessity---even
  without the asking.
  <br><br>I have found out that the first step toward that end is courtesy;
  that the second step is courtesy, and the third step---such a
  fine and high courtesy (which includes courage) as the President
  showed in the Panama tolls controversy. We have---we and the
  British---common aims and character. Only a continuous and sincere
  courtesy---over periods of strain as well as of calm---is necessary
  for as complete an understanding as will be required for the
  automatic guidance of the world in peaceful ways.
  <br><br>Now, a difference is come between us---the sort of difference
  that handled as between friends would serve only to bind us together
  with a sturdier respect. We send a long lawyer's Note, not discourteous
  but wholly uncourteous, which is far worse. I am writing now
  only of the manner of the Note, not of its matter. There is not
  a courteous word, nor a friendly phrase, nor a kindly turn in
  it, not an allusion even to an old acquaintance, to say nothing
  of an old friendship, not a word of thanks for courtesies or
  favours done us, not a hint of sympathy in the difficulties of
  the time. There is nothing in its tone to show that it came from
  an American to an Englishman: it might have been from a Hottentot
  to a Fiji-Islander.
  <br><br>I am almost sure---I'll say quite sure---that this uncourteous
  manner is far more important than its endless matter. It has
  greatly hurt our friends, the real men of the Kingdom. It has
  made the masses angry---which is of far less importance than
  the severe sorrow that our discourtesy of manner has brought
  to our friends---I fear to all considerate and thoughtful Englishmen.
  <br><br>Let me illustrate: When the Panama tolls controversy arose,
  Taft ceased to speak the language of the natural man and lapsed
  into lawyer's courthouse zigzagging mutterings. Knox wrote a
  letter to the British Government that would have made an enemy
  of the most affectionate twin brother---all mere legal twists
  and turns, as agreeable as a pocketful of screws. Then various
  bovine &quot;international lawyers&quot; wrote books about it.
  I read them and became more and more confused the further I went:
  you always do. It took me some time to recover from this word-drunk
  debauch and to find my own natural intelligence again, the common
  sense that I was born with. Then I saw that the whole thing went
  wrong from the place where that Knox legal note came in. Congressmen
  in the backwoods quoted cryptic passages from it, thought they
  were saying something, and proceeded to make their audiences
  believe that somehow England had hit us with a club---or would
  have hit us but for Knox. That pure discourtesy kept us apart
  from English sympathy for something like two years.
  <br><br>Then the President took it up. He threw the legal twaddle
  into the gutter. He put the whole question in a ten-minutes'
  speech to Congress, full of clearness and fairness and high courtesy.
  It won even the rural Congressmen. It was read in every capital
  and the men who conduct every government looked up and said,
  &quot;This is a real man, a brave man, a just man.&quot; You
  will recall what Sir Edward Grey said to me: &quot;The President
  has taught us all a lesson and set us all a high example in the
  noblest courtesy.&quot;
  <br><br>This one act brought these two nations closer together than
  they had ever been since we became an independent nation. It
  was an act of courtesy. . . .
  <br><br>My dear House, suppose the postman some morning were to leave
  at your door a thing of thirty-five heads and three appendices,
  and you discovered that it came from an old friend whom you had
  long known and greatly valued---this vast mass of legal stuff,
  without a word or a turn of courtesy in it---what would you do?
  He had a grievance, your old friend had. Friends often have.
  But instead of explaining it to you, he had gone and had his
  lawyers send this many-headed, much-appendiced ton of stuff.
  It wasn't by that method that you found your way from Austin,
  Texas, to your present eminence and wisdom. Nor was that the
  way our friend found his way from a little law-office in Atlanta,
  where I first saw him, to the White House.
  <br><br>More and more I am struck with this---that governments are
  human. They are not remote abstractions, nor impersonal institutions.
  Men conduct them; and they do not cease to be men. A man is made
  up of six parts of human nature and four parts of facts and other
  things---a little reason, some prejudice, much provincialism,
  and of the particular fur or skin that suits his habitat. When
  you wish to win a man to do what you want him to do, you take
  along a few well-established facts, some reasoning and such-like,
  but you take along also three or four or five parts of human
  nature---kindliness, courtesy, and such things---sympathy and
  a human touch.
  <br><br>If a man be six parts human and four parts of other things,
  a government, especially a democracy, is seven, or eight, or
  nine parts human nature. It's the most human thing I know. The
  best way to manage governments and nations---so long as they
  are disposed to be friendly---is the way we manage one another.
  I have a confirmation of this in the following comment which
  came to me to-day. It was made by a friendly member of Parliament.
  <br><br>&quot;The President himself dealt with Germany. Even in his
  severity he paid the Germans the compliment of a most courteous
  tone in his Note. But in dealing with us he seems to have called
  in the lawyers of German importers and Chicago pork-packers.
  I miss the high Presidential courtesy that we had come to expect
  from Mr. Wilson.&quot;
  <br><br>An American banker here has told me of the experience of an
  American financial salesman in the city the day after our Note
  was published. His business is to make calls on bankers and other
  financial men, to sell them securities. He is a man of good address
  who is popular with his clients. The first man he called on,
  on that day, said: &quot;I don't wish to be offensive to you.
  But I have only one way to show my feeling of indignation toward
  the United States, and that is, to have nothing more to do with
  Americans.&quot;
  <br><br>The next man said: &quot;No, nothing to-day, I thank you.
  No---nor to-morrow either; nor the next day. Good morning.&quot;
  <br><br>After four or five such greetings, the fellow gave it up and
  is now doing nothing.
  <br><br>I don't attach much importance to such an incident as this,
  except as it gives a hint of the general feeling. These financial
  men probably haven't even read our Note. Few people have. But
  they have all read the short and sharp newspaper summary which
  preceded it in the English papers. But what such an incident
  does indicate is the prevalence of a state of public feeling
  which would prevent the Government from yielding any of our demands
  even if the Government so wished. It has now been nearly a week
  since the Note was published. I have seen most of the neutral
  ministers. Before the Note came they expressed great eagerness
  to see it: it would champion their cause. Since it came not one
  of them has mentioned it to me. The Secretary of one of them
  remarked, after being invited to express himself: &quot;It is
  too--too--long!&quot; And, although I have seen most of the Cabinet
  this week, not a man mentioned it to me. People seem studiously
  to avoid it, lest they give offense.
  <br><br>I have, however, got one little satisfaction. An American---a
  half-expatriated loafer who talks &quot;art&quot;---you know
  the intellectually affected and degenerate type---screwed his
  courage up and told me that he felt ashamed of his country. I
  remarked that I felt sure the feeling was mutual. That, I confess,
  made me feel better.
  <br><br>As nearly as I can make out, the highwater mark of English
  good-feeling toward us in all our history was after the President's
  Panama tolls courtesy. The low-water mark, since the Civil War,
  I am sure, is now. The Cleveland Venezuela message came at a
  time of no nervous strain and did, I think, produce no long-lasting
  effect. A part of the present feeling is due to the English conviction
  that we have been taken in by the Germans in the submarine controversy,
  but a large part is due to the lack of courtesy in this last
  Note---the manner in which it was written even more than its
  matter. As regards its matter, I have often been over what I
  conceive to be the main points with Sir Edward Grey---very frankly
  and without the least offense. He has said: &quot;We may have
  to arbitrate these things,&quot; as he might say, &quot;We had
  better take a cab because it is raining.&quot; It is easily possible---or
  it was---to discuss anything with this Government without offense.
  I have, in fact, stood up before Sir Edward's fire and accused
  him of stealing a large part of the earth's surface, and we were
  just as good friends afterward as before. But I never drew a
  lawyer's indictment of him as a land-thief: that's different.
  <br><br>I suppose no two peoples or governments ever quite understand
  one another. Perhaps they never will. That is too much to hope
  for. But when one government writes to another it ought to write
  (as men do) with some reference to the personality of the other
  and to their previous relations, since governments are more human
  than men. Of course I don't know who wrote the Note. Hence I
  can talk about it freely to you without implying criticism of
  anybody in particular. But the man who wrote it never saw the
  British Government and wouldn't know it, if he met it in the
  road. To him it is a mere legal entity, a wicked, impersonal
  institution against which he has the task of drawing an indictment---not
  the task of trying to persuade it to confess the propriety of
  a certain course of conduct. In his view, it is a wicked enemy
  to start with ---like the Louisiana lottery of a previous generation
  or the Standard Oil Company of our time.
  <br><br>One would have thought, since we were six month preparing
  it, that a draft of the Note would have been sent to the man
  on the ground whom our Government keeps in London to study the
  situation at first hand and to make the best judgment he can
  about the most effective methods of approach on delicate and
  difficult matters. If that had been done, I should have suggested
  a courteous short Note saying that we are obliged to set forth
  such and such views about marine law and the rights of neutrals,
  to His Majesty's Government; and that the contention of the United
  States Government was herewith sent---etc., etc.---Then this
  identical Note (with certain court-house, strong, shirt-sleeve
  adjectives left out) could have come without arousing any feeling
  whatsoever. Of course I have no personal vanity in saying this
  to you.
  <br><br>I am sure I outgrew that foible many years ago. But such a
  use of an ambassador---of any ambassador---is obviously one of
  the best and most natural uses he could be put to; and all governments
  but ours do put their ambassadors to such a use: that's what
  they have 'em for.
  <br><br><I>Per contra: </I>a telegram has just come in saying that
  a certain Lichtenstein in New York had a lot of goods stopped
  by the British Government, which (by an arrangement made with
  their attorney here) agreed to buy them at a certain price: will
  I go and find out why the Government hasn't yet paid Lichtenstein
  and when he may expect his money? Is it an ambassadorial duty
  to collect a private bill for Lichtenstein, in a bargain with
  which our Government has had nothing to do? I have telegraphed
  the Department, quite calmly, that I don't think it is. I venture
  to say no ambassador ever had such a request as that before from
  his Government.
  <br><br>My dear House, I often wonder if my years of work here---the
  kind of high good work I've tried to do---have not been thrown
  away. I've tried to take and to <I>busy </I>myself with a long-range
  view of great subjects. The British Empire and the United States
  will be here long after we are dead, and their relations will
  continue to be one of the most important matters---perhaps the
  most important matter---in the world. Well, now think of Lichtenstein's
  bill!
  <br><br>To get back where I started---I fear, therefore, that, when
  I next meet the Admiral of the Grand Fleet (with whom I used
  to discuss everything quite freely before he sailed away to the
  war), he may forget to mention that we may have his 3,000 ships
  at our need.
  <br><br>Since this present difference is in danger of losing the healing
  influence of a kindly touch---has become an uncourteous monster
  of 35 heads and 3 appendices---I see no early end of it. The
  British Foreign Office has a lot of lawyers in its great back
  offices. They and our lawyers will now butt and rebut as long
  as a goat of them is left alive on either side. The two governments---the
  two human, kindly groups---have retired: they don't touch, on
  this matter, now. The lawyers will have the time of their lives,
  each smelling the blood of the other.
  <br><br>If more notes must come---as the English papers report over
  and over again every morning and every afternoon---the President
  might do much by writing a brief, human document to accompany
  the Appendices. If it be done courteously, we can accuse them
  of stealing sheep and of dyeing the skins to conceal the theft---without
  provoking the slightest bad feeling; and, in the end, they'll
  pay another <I>Alabama </I>award without complaint and frame
  the check and show it to future ambassadors as Sir Edward shows
  the <I>Alabama </I>check to me sometimes.
  <br><br>And it'll be a lasting shame (and may bring other Great Wars)
  if lawyers are now permitted to tear the garments with which
  Peace ought to be clothed as soon as she can escape from her
  present rags and tatters.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>Yours always heartily,
<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>P. S. My dear House: Since I have---in weeks and months past---both
telegraphed and written the Department (and I presume the President
has seen what I've sent) about the feeling here, I've written
this letter to you and not to the President nor Lansing. I will
not run the risk of seeming to complain---nor even of seeming
to seem to complain. But if you think it wise to send or show
this letter to the President, I'm willing you should. This job
was botched: there's no doubt about that. We shall not recover
for many a long, long year. The identical indictment could have
been drawn with admirable temper and the way laid down for arbitration
and for keeping our interpretation of the law and precedents
intact---all done in a way that would have given no offense.
<br><br>The feeling runs higher and higher every day---goes deeper
and spreads wider.
<br><br>Now on top of it comes the <I>Ancona.</I><ref>Torpedoed off Sardinia on Nov. 7, 1915, by the Austrians. There was a large loss of life, including many Americans.</ref> <I> </I>The English press, practically
unanimously, makes sneering remarks about our Government. After
six months it has got no results from the <I>Lusitania </I>controversy,
which Bernstorff is allowed to prolong in secret session while
factories are blown up, ships supplied with bombs, and all manner
of outrages go on (by Germans) in the United States. The English
simply can't understand why Bernstorff is allowed to stay. They
predict that nothing will come of the <I>Ancona </I>case, nor
of any other case. Nobody wants us to get into the war---nobody
who counts---but they are losing respect for us because we seem
to them to submit to anything.
<br><br>We've simply dropped out. No English person ever mentions
our Government to me. But they talk to one another all the time
about the political an&aelig;mia of the United States Government.
They think that Bernstorff has the State Department afraid of
him and that the Pacifists dominate opinion---the Pacifists-at-any-price.
I no longer even have a chance to explain any of these things
to anybody I know.
<br><br>It isn't the old question we used to discuss of our having
no friend in the world when the war ends. It's gone far further
than that. It is now whether the United States Government need
be respected by anybody.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<hr>

<references/>

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[[Main Page | WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XV'''
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