View source for XXIV A RESPITE AT ST. IVES

<p align="right">
[[Main Page | WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XXIV'''
</p><hr>


<center>[[Image: Walter_H._Page_Signature.gif]]</center> <br><br>


<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">CHAPTER XXIV</FONT></center><br><br>

<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">A RESPITE AT ST. IVES</FONT></center>

.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Edward M. House</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>Knebworth House<BR>
  Sunday, September, [sic] 1917.
  <br><br>DEAR HOUSE:
  <br><br>. . . By far the most important peace plan or utterance is
  the President's extraordinary answer to the Pope.<ref>On August 1, 1917, Pope Benedict XV sent a letter to the Powers urging them to bring the war to an end and outlining possible terms of settlement. On August 29th President Wilson sent his historic reply. This declared, in memorable language, that the Hohenzollern dynasty was unworthy of confidence and that the United States would have no negotiations with its representatives. It inferentially took the stand that the Kaiser must abdicate, or be deposed, and the German autocracy destroyed, as part of the conditions of peace.</ref>His flat and convincing refusal
  to take the word of the present rulers of Germany as of any value
  has had more effect here than any other utterance and it is,
  so far, the best contribution we have made to the war. The best
  evidence that I can get shows also that it has had more effect
  in Germany than anything else that has been said by anybody.
  That hit the bull's-eye with perfect accuracy; and it has been
  accepted here as <I>the </I>war aim and <I>the </I>war condition.
  So far as I can make out it is working in Germany toward peace
  with more effect than any other deliverance made by anybody.
  And it steadied the already unshakable resolution here amazingly.
  <br><br>I can get any information here of course without danger of
  the slightest publicity---an important point, because even the
  mention of peace now is dangerous. All the world, under this
  long strain, is more or less off the normal, and all my work---even
  routine work---is done with the profoundest secrecy: it has to
  be.
  <br><br>Our energetic war preparations call forth universal admiration
  and gratitude here on all sides and nerve up the British and
  hearten them more than I know how to explain. There is an eager
  and even pathetic curiosity to hear all the details, to hear,
  in fact, anything about the United States; and what the British
  do not know about the United States would fill the British Museum.
  They do know, however, that they would soon have been obliged
  to make an unsatisfactory peace if we hadn't come in when we
  did and they freely say so. The little feeling of jealousy that
  we should come in and win the war at the end has, I think, been
  forgotten, swallowed up in their genuine gratitude.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Sincerely yours,
    <br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>American Embassy,<BR>
  London, Sept. 3, 1917.
  <br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
  <br><br>. . . The President has sent Admiral Mayo over to study the
  naval situation. So far as I can learn the feeling at Washington
  is that the British Navy has done nothing. Why, it hasn't attacked
  the German naval bases and destroyed the German navy and ended
  the war! Why not? I have a feeling that Mayo will supplement
  and support Sims in his report. Then gradually the naval men
  at Washington may begin to understand and they may get the important
  facts into the President's head. Meantime the submarine work
  of the Germans continues to win the war, although the government
  and the people here and in the United States appear not to believe
  it.
  <br><br>They are still destroying seventy-five British ships a month
  besides an additional (smaller) number of allied and neutral
  ships. And all the world together is not turning out seventy-five
  ships a month; nor are we all destroying submarines as fast as
  the Germans are turning <I>them </I>out. Yet all the politicians
  are putting on a cheerful countenance about it because the Germans
  are not starving England out and are not just now sinking passenger
  ships. They may begin this again at any time. They have come
  within a few feet of torpedoing two of our American liners. The
  submarine is the war yet, but nobody seems disposed to believe
  it. They'll probably wake up with a great shock some day---or
  the war may possibly end before the destruction of ships becomes
  positively fatal.
  <br><br>The President's letter to the Pope gives him the moral and
  actual leadership now. The Hohenzollerns must go. Somehow the
  subjects and governments of these Old World kingdoms have not
  hitherto laid emphasis on this. There's still a divinity that
  doth hedge a king in most European minds. To me this is the very
  queerest thing in the whole world. What again if Germany, Austria,
  Spain should follow Russia? Whether they do or not crowns will
  not henceforth be so popular. There is an unbounded enthusiasm
  here for the President's letter and for the President in general.
  <br><br>In spite of certain details which it seems impossible to make
  understood on the Potomac, the whole American preparation and
  enthusiasm seem from this distance to be very fine. The <I>people
  </I>seem in earnest. When I read about tax bills, about the food
  regulation and a thousand other such things, I am greatly gratified.
  And it proves that we were right when we said that during the
  days of neutrality the people were held back. It all looks exceedingly
  good from this distance, and it makes me homesick.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Frank N. Doubleday</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>American Embassy.<BR>
  [Undated, but written about October 1, 1917]
  <br><br>DEAR EFFENDI:
  <br><br>. . . The enormous war work and war help that everybody seems
  to be doing in the United States is heartily appreciated here---most
  heartily. The English eat out of our hands. You can see American
  uniforms every day in London. Every ship brings them. Everybody's
  thrilled to see them. The Americans here have great houses opened
  as officers' clubs, and scrumptious huts for men where countesses
  and other high ladies hand out sandwiches and serve ice cream
  and ginger beer. Our two admirals are most popular with all classes,
  from royalty down. English soldiers salute our officers in the
  street and old gentlemen take of their hats when they meet nurses
  with the American Red Cross uniform. My Embassy now occupies
  four buildings for offices, more than half of them military and
  naval. And my own staff, proper, is the biggest in the world
  and keeps growing. When I go, in a little while, to receive the
  Freedom of the City of Edinburgh, I shall carry an Admiral or
  a General as my aide!
  <br><br>That's the way we keep a stiff upper lip.
  <br><br>And Good Lord! it's tiresome. Peace? We'd all give our lives
  for the right sort of peace, and never move an eyelid. But only
  the wrong sort has yet come within reach. The other sort is coming,
  however; for these present German contortions are the beginning
  of the end. But the weariness of it, and the tragedy and the
  cost. No human creature was ever as tired as I am. Yet I keep
  well and keep going and keep working all my waking hours. When
  it ends, I shall collapse and go home and have to rest a while.
  So at least I feel now. And, if I outlive the work and the danger
  and the weariness, I'll praise God for that. And it doesn't let
  up a single day. And I'm no worse off than everybody else.
  <br><br>So this over-weary world goes, dear Effendi; but the longest
  day shades at last down to twilight and rest; and so this will
  be. And poor old Europe will then not be worth while for the
  rest of our lives---a vast grave and ruin where unmated women
  will mourn and starvation will remain for years to come.
  <br><br>God bless us.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Sincerely yours, with my love to all the boys,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Frank N. Doubleday</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, November 9, 1917.
  <br><br>DEAR EFFENDI:
  <br><br>. . . This. infernal thing drags its slow length along so
  that we cannot see even a day ahead, not to say a week, or a
  year. If any man here allowed the horrors of it to dwell on his
  mind he would go mad, so we have to skip over these things somewhat
  lightly and try to keep the long, definite aim in our thoughts
  and to work away distracted as little as possible by the butchery
  and by the starvation that is making this side of the world a
  shambles and a wilderness. There is hardly a country on the Continent
  where people are not literally starving to death, and in many
  of them by hundreds of thousands; and this state of things is
  going to continue for a good many years after the war. God knows
  we (I mean the American people) are doing everything we can to
  alleviate it but there is so much more to be done than any group
  of forces can possibly do, that I have a feeling that we have
  hardly touched the borders of the great problem itself. Of course
  here in London we are away from all that. In spite of the rations
  we get quite enough to eat and it's as good as it is usually
  in England, but we have no right to complain. Of course we are
  subject to air raids, and the wise air people here think that
  early next spring we are going to be bombarded with thousands
  of aeroplanes, and with new kinds of bombs and gases in a well-organized
  effort to try actually to destroy London. Possibly that will
  come; we must simply take our chance, every man sticking to his
  job. Already the slate shingles on my roof have been broken,
  and bricks have been knocked down my chimney; the skylight was
  hit and glass fell down all through the halls, and the nose of
  a shrapnel shell, weighing eight pounds, fell just in front of
  my doorway and rolled in my area. This is the sort of thing we
  incidentally get, not of course from the enemy directly, but
  from the British guns in London which shoot these things at German
  aeroplanes. What goes up must come down. Between our own defences
  and the enemy, God knows which will kill us first!
  <br><br>In spite of all this I put my innocent head on my pillow every
  night and get a good night's sleep after the bombing is done,
  and I thank Heaven that nothing interrupts my sleep. This, and
  a little walking, which is all I get time to do in these foggy
  days, constitute my life outdoors and precious little of it is
  outdoors.
  <br><br>Then on every block that I know of in London there is a hospital
  or supply place and the ambulances are bringing the poor fellows
  in all the time. We don't get any gasolene to ride so we have
  to walk. We don't get any white bread so we have to eat stuff
  made of flour and corn meal ground so fine that it isn't good.
  While everybody gets a little thinner, the universal opinion
  is that they also get a little better, and nobody is going to
  die here of hunger.
  <br><br>We feel a little more cheerful about the submarines than we
  did some time ago. For some reason they are not getting so many
  ships. One reason, I am glad to believe, is that they are getting
  caught themselves. If I could remember all the stories that I
  hear of good fighting with the submarines I could keep you up
  two nights when I get home, but in these days one big thing after
  another crowds so in men's minds that the Lord knows if, when
  I get home, I shall remember anything.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Always heartily yours,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To the President</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>London, December 3, 1917.
  <br><br>DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
  <br><br>. . . Some of the British military men in London are not hopeful
  of an early end of the war nor even cheerful about the result.
  They are afraid of the war-weariness that overcame Russia and
  gave Italy a setback. They say the military task, though long
  and slow and hard, can be done if everybody will pull together
  and keep at the job without weariness<I>-be done by our help.
  </I>But they have fits of fear of France. They are discouraged
  by the greater part of Lord Lansdowne's letter.<ref>On November 29, 1917, the London Daily Telegraph published a letter from the Marquis of Lansdowne, which declared that the war had lasted too long and suggested that the British restate their war aims. This letter was severely condemned by the British press and by practically all representative British statesmen. It produced a most lamentable impression in the United States also.</ref>I myself do not set great value
  on this military feeling in London, for the British generals
  in France do not share it. Lord French once said to me and General
  Robertson, too, that when they feel despondent in London, they
  go to the front and get cheered up. But it does seem to be a
  long job. Evidently the Germans mean to fight to the last man
  unless they can succeed in inducing the Allies to meet them to
  talk it over without naming their terms in advance. That is what
  Lord Lansdowne favours, and no public outgiving by any prominent
  man in England has called forth such a storm of protest since
  the war began. I think I see the genesis of his thought, and
  it is this: there is nothing in his letter and there was nothing
  in the half dozen or more rather long conversations that I have
  had with him on other subjects to show that he has the slightest
  conception of democracy as a social creed or as a political system.
  He is, I think, the most complete aristocrat that I have ever
  met. He doesn't see the war at all as a struggle between democracy
  and its opposite. He sees it merely as a struggle between Germany
  and the Allies; and inferentially he is perfectly willing the
  Kaiser should remain in power. He is of course a patriotic man
  and a man of great cultivation. But he doesn't see the deeper
  meaning of the conflict. Add to this defect of understanding,
  a long period of bad health and a lasting depression because
  of the loss of his son, and his call to the war-weary ceases
  to be a surprise.
  <br><br>I am, dear Mr. President,</BLOCKQUOTE>
 
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Sincerely yours,
    <br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>American Embassy,<BR>
  London, December 23, 1917.
  <br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
  <br><br>I sent you a Christmas cable yesterday for everybody. That's
  about all I can send in these days of slow mail and restricted
  shipping and enormously high prices; and you gave all the girls
  each $100 for me, for the babies and themselves? That'll show
  'em that at least we haven't forgotten them. Forgotten? Your
  mother and I are always talking of the glad day when we can go
  home and live among them. We get as homesick as small boys their
  first month at a boarding school. Do you remember the day I left
  you at Lawrenceville, a forlorn and lonely kid? It's like that.
  <br><br>A wave of depression hangs over the land like a London fog.
  And everybody on this tired-out side of the world shows a disposition
  to lean too heavily on us---to depend on us so completely that
  the fear arises that they may unconsciously relax their own utmost
  efforts when we begin to fight. Yet they can't in the least afford
  to relax, and, when the time comes, I dare say they will not.
  Yet the plain truth is, the French may give out next year for
  lack of men. I do not mean that they will quit, but that their
  fighting strength will have passed its maximum and that they
  will be able to play only a sort of second part. Except the British
  and the French, there's no nation in Europe worth a tinker's
  damn when you come to the real scratch. The whole continent is
  rotten or tyrannical or yellow-dog. I wouldn't give Long Island
  or Moore County for the whole of continental Europe, with its
  kings and itching palms.
  <br><br>. . . Waves of depression and of hope---if not of elation---come
  and go. I am told, and I think truly, that waves of weariness
  come in London far oftener and more depressingly than anywhere
  else in the Kingdom. There is no sign nor fear that the British
  will give up; they'll hold on till the end. Winston Churchill
  said to me last night: &quot;We can hold on till next year. But
  after 1918, it'll be your fight. We'll have to depend on you.&quot;
  I told him that such a remark might well be accepted in some
  quarters as a British surrender. Then he came up to the scratch:
  &quot;Surrender? Never.&quot; But I fear we need---in some practical
  and non-ostentatious way---now and then to remind all these European
  folk that we get no particular encouragement by being unduly
  leaned on.
  <br><br>It is, however, the weariest Christmas in all British annals,
  certainly since the Napoleonic wars. The untoward event after
  the British advance toward Cambrai caused the retirement of six
  British generals and deepened the depression here. Still I can
  see it now passing. Even a little victory will bring back a wave
  of cheerfulness.
  <br><br>Depression or elation show equally the undue strain that British
  nerves are under. I dare say nobody is entirely normal. News
  of many sorts can now be circulated only by word of mouth. The
  queerest stories are whispered about and find at least temporary
  credence. For instance: The report has been going around that
  the revolution that took place in Portugal the other day was
  caused by the Germans (likely enough); that it was a monarchical
  movement and that the Germans were going to put the King back
  on the throne as soon as the war ended. Sensation-mongers appear
  at every old-woman's knitting circle. And all this has an effect
  on conduct. Two young wives of noble officers now in France have
  just run away with two other young noblemen---to the scandal
  of a large part of good society in London. It is universally
  said that the morals of more hitherto good people are wrecked
  by the strain put upon women by the absence of their husbands
  than was ever before heard of. Everybody is overworked. Fewer
  people are literally truthful than ever before. Men and women
  break down and fall out of working ranks continuously. The number
  of men in the government who have disappeared from public view
  is amazing, the number that would like to disappear is still
  greater---from sheer overstrain. The Prime Minister is tired.
  Bonar Law in a long conference that Crosby and I had with him
  yesterday wearily ran all round a circle rather than hit a plain
  proposition with a clear decision. Mr. Balfour has kept his house
  from overwork a few days every recent week. I lunched with Mr.
  Asquith yesterday; even he seemed jaded; and Mrs. Asquith assured
  me that &quot;everything is going to the devil damned fast.&quot;
  Some conspicuous men who have always been sober have taken to
  drink. The very few public dinners that are held are served with
  ostentatious meagreness to escape criticism. I attended one last
  week at which there was no bread, no butter, no sugar served.
  All of which doesn't mean that the world here is going to the
  bad---only that it moves backward and forward by emotions; and
  this is normally a most unemotional race. Overwork and the loss
  of sons and friends---the list of the lost grows---always make
  an abnormal strain. The churches are fuller than ever before.
  So, too, are the &quot;parlours&quot; of the fortune-tellers.
  So also the theatres---in the effort to forget one's self. There
  are afternoon dances for young officers at home on leave:. the
  curtains are drawn and the music is muffled. More marriages take
  place---blind and maimed, as well as the young fellows just going
  to France---than were ever celebrated in any year within men's
  memory. Verse-writing is rampant. I have received enough odes
  and sonnets celebrating the Great Republic and the Great President
  to fill a folio volume. Several American Y. M. C. A. workers
  lately turned rampant Pacifists and had to be sent home. Colonial
  soldiers and now and then an American sailor turn up at our Y.
  M. C. A. huts as full as a goat and swear after the event that
  they never did such a thing before. Emotions and strain everywhere!</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>.

<br><br>In March Page, a very weary man---as these letters indicate---took
a brief holiday at St. Ives, on the coast of Cornwall. As he gazed
out on the Atlantic, the yearning for home, for the sandhills
and the pine trees of North Carolina, again took possession of
his soul. Yet it is evident, from a miscellaneous group of letters
written at this time, that his mind revelled in a variety of subjects,
ranging all the way from British food and vegetables to the settlement
of the war and from secret diplomacy to literary style.

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Mrs. Charles G. Loring</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>St. Ives, Cornwall, March 3, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR KITTY:
  <br><br>Your mother of course needed a rest away from London after
  the influenza got done with her; and I discovered that I had
  gone stale. So she and I and the golf clubs came here yesterday---as
  near to the sunlit land of Uncle Sam as you can well get on this
  island. We look across the ocean---at least out into it---in
  your direction, but I must confess that Labrador is not in sight.
  The place is all right, the hotel uncommonly good, but it's Greenlandish
  in its temperature---a very cold wind blowing. The golf clubs
  lean up against the wall and curse the weather. But we are away
  from the hordes of people and will have a little quiet here.
  It's as quiet as any far-off place by the sea, and it's clean.
  London is the dirtiest town in the world.
  <br><br>By the way that picture of Chud came (by Col. Honey) along
  with Alice Page's adorable little photograph. As for the wee
  chick, I see how you are already beginning to get a lot of fun
  with her. And you'll have more and more as she gets bigger. Give
  her my love and see what she'll say. You won't get so lonesome,
  dear Kitty, with little Alice; and I can't keep from thinking
  as well as hoping that the war will not go on as long as it sometimes
  seems that it must. The utter collapse of Russia has given Germany
  a vast victory on that side and it may turn out that this will
  make an earlier peace possible than would otherwise have come.
  And the Germans may be---in fact, must be, very short of some
  of the essentials of war in their metals or in cotton. They are
  in a worse internal plight than has been made known, I am sure.
  I can't keep from hoping that peace may come this year. Of course,
  my guess may be wrong; but everything I hear points in the direction
  of my timid prediction.
  <br><br>Bless you and little Alice,</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>,

<br><br>Page's oldest son was building a house and laying out a garden
at Pinehurst, North Carolina, a fact which explains the horticultural
and gastronomical suggestions contained in the following letter:

<br><br>.


<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Ralph W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>Tregenna Castle Hotel, <BR>
  St. Ives, Cornwall, England, <BR>
  March 4, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR RALPH:
  <BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Asparagus<BR>
    Celery<BR>
    Tomatoes<BR>
    Butter Beans<BR>
    Peas<BR>
    Sweet Corn<BR>
    Sweet Potatoes<BR>
    Squash---the sort you cook in the rind<BR>
    Cantaloupe<BR>
    Peanuts<BR>
    Egg Plant<BR>
    Figs<BR>
    Peaches<BR>
    Pecans<BR>
    Scuppernongs<BR>
    Peanut-bacon, in glass jars<BR>
    Razor-back hams, divinely cured<BR>
    Raspberries<BR>
    Strawberries<BR>
    etc. etc. etc. etc.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>You see, having starved here for five years, my mind, as soon
  as it gets free, runs on these things and my mouth waters. All
  the foregoing things that grow can be put up in pretty glass
  jars, too.
  <br><br>Add cream, fresh butter, buttermilk, fresh eggs. Only one
  of all the things on page one grows with any flavour here at
  all---strawberries; and only one or two more grow at all. Darned
  if I don't have to confront Cabbage every day. I haven't yet
  surrendered, and I never shall unless the Germans get us. Cabbage
  and Germans belong together: God made 'em both the same stinking
  day.
  <br><br>Now get a bang-up gardener no matter what he costs. Get him
  started. Put it up to him to start toward the foregoing programme,
  to be reached in (say) three years ---two---if possible. He must
  learn to grow these things absolutely better than they are now
  grown anywhere on earth. He must get the best seed. He must get
  muck out of the swamp, manure from somewhere, etc. etc. He must
  have the supreme flavour in each thing. Let him take room enough
  for each---plenty of room. He doesn't want much room for any
  one thing, but good spaces between.
  <br><br>This will be the making of the world. Talk about fairs? If
  he fails to get every prize he must pay a fine for every one
  that goes to anybody else.
  <br><br>How we'll live! I can live on these things and nothing else.
  But (just to match this home outfit) I'll order tea from Japan,
  ripe olives from California, grape fruit. and oranges from Florida.
  Then poor folks will hang around, hoping to be invited to dinner!
  <br><br>Plant a few fig trees now; and pecans? Any good?
  <br><br>The world is going to come pretty close to starvation not
  only during the war but for five or perhaps ten years afterward.
  An acre or two <I>done </I>right---divinely right ---will save
  us. An acre or two on my land in Moore County ---no king can
  live half so well if the ground be got ready this spring and
  such a start made as one natural-born gardener can make. The
  old Russian I had in Garden City was no slouch. Do you remember
  his little patch back of the house? That far, far, far excelled
  anything in all Europe. And you'll recall that we jarred 'em
  and had good things all winter.
  <br><br>This St. Ives is the finest spot in England that I've ever
  seen. To-day has been as good as any March day you ever had in
  North Carolina---a fine air, clear sunshine, a beautiful sea---looking
  out toward the United States; and this country grows---the best
  golf links that I've ever seen in the world, and nothing else
  worth speaking of but ---tin. Tin mines are all about here. Tin
  and golf are good crops in their way, but they don't feed the
  belly of man. As matters stand the only people that have fit
  things to eat now in all Europe are the American troops in France,
  and their food comes out of tins chiefly. Ach! Heaven! In these
  islands man is amphibious and carnivorous. It rains every day
  and meat, meat, meat is the only human idea of food. God bless
  us, one acre of the Sandhills is worth a vast estate of tin mines
  and golf links to feed the innards of</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Yours affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>P. S. And cornfield peas, of just the. right rankness, cooked
  with just the right dryness.
  <br><br>When I become a citizen of the Sandhills I propose to induce
  some benevolent lover of good food to give substantial prizes
  to the best grower of each of these things and to the best cook
  of each and to the person who serves each of them most daintily.
  <br><br>We can can and glass jar these things and let none be put
  on the market without the approval of an expert employed by the
  community. Then we can get a reputation for Sandhill Food and
  charge double price.</BLOCKQUOTE>

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

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>St. Ives, Cornwall,<BR>
  England, March 8, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
  <br><br>Your letter, written from the University Club, is just come.
  It makes a very distinct impression on my mind which my own conclusions
  and fears have long confirmed. Let me put it at its worst and
  in very bald terms: The Great White Chief is at bottom pacifist,
  has always been so and is so now. Of course I do not mean a pacifist
  at any price, certainly not a cowardly pacifist. But (looked
  at theoretically) war is, of course, an absurd way of settling
  any quarrel, an irrational way. Men and nations are wasteful,
  cruel, pigheaded fools to indulge in it. Quite true. But war
  is also the only means of adding to a nation's territory the
  territory of other nations which they do not wish to sell or
  to give up---the robbers' only way to get more space or to get
  booty. This last explains this war. Every Hohenzollern (except
  the present Emperor's father, who reigned only a few months)
  since Frederick the Great has added to Prussian and German area
  of rule. Every one, therefore, as he comes to the throne, feels
  an obligation to make his addition to the Empire. For this the
  wars of Prussia with Austria, with Denmark, with France were
  brought on. They succeeded and won the additions that old William
  I made to the Empire. Now William II must make <I>his </I>addition.
  He prepared for more than forty years; the nation prepared before
  he came to the throne and his whole reign has been given to making
  sure that he was ready. It's a robber's raid. Of course, the
  German case has been put so as to direct attention from this
  bald fact.
  <br><br>Now the philosophical pacifists---I don't mean the cowardly,
  yellow-dog ones---have never quite seen the war in this aspect.
  They regard it as a dispute about something---about trade, about
  more seaboard, about this or that, whereas it is only a robber's
  adventure. They want other people's property. They want money,
  treasure, land, indemnities, minerals, raw materials; and they
  set out to take them.
  <br><br>Now confusing this character of the war with some sort of
  rational dispute about something, the pacifists try in every
  way to stop it, so that the &quot;issue&quot; may be reasoned
  out, debated, discussed, negotiated. Surely the President tried
  to reach peace---tried as hard and as long as the people would
  allow him. The Germans argued away time with him while they got
  their submarine fleet built. Then they carried out the programme
  they had always had in mind and had never thought of abandoning.
  Now they wish to gain more time, to slacken the efforts of the
  Allies, if possible to separate them by asking for &quot;discussions&quot;
  ---peace by &quot;negotiation.&quot; When you are about to kill
  the robber, he cries out, &quot;For God's sake, let's discuss
  the question between us. We can come to terms.&quot;---Now here's
  where the danger comes from the philosophical pacifist---from
  any man who does not clearly understand the nature of the war
  and of the enemy. To discuss the difference between us is so
  very reasonable in sound---so very reasonable in fact if there
  were a discussable difference. It is a programme that would always
  be in order except with a burglar or a robber.
  <br><br>The yet imperfect understanding of the war and of the nature
  of the German in the United States, especially at Washington---more
  especially in the White House---herein lies the danger.
  <br><br>. . . This little rest down here is a success. The weather
  is a disappointment---windy and cold. But to be away from London
  and away from folks---that's much. Shoecraft is very good.<ref>Eugene C. Shoecraft, the Ambassador's secretary.</ref>He sends
  us next to nothing. Almost all we've got is an invitation to
  lunch with Their Majesties and they've been good enough to put
  that off. It's a far-off country, very fine, I'm sure in summer,
  and with most beautiful golf links. The hill is now so windy
  that no sane man can play there.
  <br><br>We're enjoying the mere quiet. And your mother is quite well
  again.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Mrs. Charles G. Loring</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>St. Ives, Cornwall,<BR>
  March 10, 1918.
  <br><br>DEAR KITTY:
  <br><br>A week here. No news. Shoecraft says we've missed nothing
  in London. What we came for we've got: your mother's quite well.
  She climbs these high hills quite spryly. We've had a remarkable
  week in this respect we haven't carried on a conversation with
  any human being but ourselves. I don't think any such thing has
  ever happened before. I can stand a week, perhaps a fortnight
  of this now. But I don't care for it for any long period. At
  the bottom of this high and steep hill is the quaintest little
  town I ever saw. There are some streets so narrow that when a
  donkey cart comes along the urchins all have to run to the next
  corner or into doors. There is no side walk, of course; and the
  donkey cart takes the whole room between the houses. Artists
  take to the town, and they have funny little studios down by
  the water front in tiny houses built of stone in pieces big enough
  to construct a tidewater front. Imagine stone walls made of stone,
  each weighing tons, built into little houses about as big as
  your little back garden! There's one fellow here (an artist)
  whom I used to know in New York, so small has the world become!
  <br><br>On another hill behind us is a triangular stone monument to
  John Knill. He was once mayor of the town. When he died in 1782,
  he left money to the town. If the town is to keep the money (as
  it has) the Mayor must once in every five years form a procession
  and march up to this monument. There ten girls, natives of the
  town, and two widows must dance around the monument to the playing
  of a fiddle and a drum, the girls dressed in white. This ceremony
  has gone on, once in five years, all this time and the town has
  old Knill's money !
  <br><br>Your mother and I---though we are neither girls nor widows---danced
  around it this morning, wondering what sort of curmudgeon old
  John Knill was.
  <br><br>Don't you see how easily we fall into an idle mood?
  <br><br>Well, here's a photograph of little Alice looking up at me
  from the table where I write---a good, sweet face she has.
  <br><br>And you'll never get another letter from me in a time and
  from a place whereof there is so little to tell.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Affectionately, dear Kitty,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<br><br>.
  
<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Ralph W. Page</FONT></I></center>
<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>Tregenna Castle Hotel, <BR>
  St. Ives, Cornwall,<BR>
  March 12, 1918.
  <br><br>MY DEAR RALPH:
  <br><br>Arthur has sent me Gardiner's 37-page sketch of American-British
  Concords and Discords---a remarkable sketch; and he has reminded
  me that your summer plan is to elaborate (into a popular style)
  your sketch of the same subject. You and Gardiner went over the
  same ground, each in a very good fashion. That's a fascinating
  task, and it opens up a wholly new vista of our History and of
  Anglo-Saxon, democratic history. Much lies ahead of that. And
  all this puts it in my mind to write you a little discourse on
  <I>style. </I>Gardiner has no style. He put his facts down much
  as he would have noted on a blue print the facts about an engineering
  project that he sketched. The style of your article, which has
  much to be said for it as a magazine article, is not the best
  style for a book.
  <br><br>Now, this whole question of style---well, it's the gist of
  good writing. There's no really effective writing without it.
  Especially is this true of historical writing. Look at X Y Z's
  writings. He knows his American history and has written much
  on it. He's written it as an Ohio blacksmith shoes a horse---not
  a touch of literary value in it all; all dry as dust---as dry
  as old Bancroft.
  <br><br>Style is good breeding---and art---in writing. It consists
  of the arrangement of your matter, first; then, more, of the
  gait; the manner and the manners of your expressing it. Work
  every group of facts, naturally and logically grouped to begin
  with, into a climax. Work every group up as a sculptor works
  out his idea or a painter, each group complete in itself. Throw
  out any superfluous facts or any merely minor facts that prevent
  the orderly working up of the group---that prevent or mar the
  effect you wish to present.
  <br><br>Then, when you've got a group thus presented, go over what
  you've made of it, to make sure you've used your material and
  its arrangement to the best effect, taking away merely extraneous
  or superfluous or distracting facts, here and there adding concrete
  illustrations---putting in a convincing detail here, and there
  a touch of colour.
  <br><br>Then go over it for your vocabulary. See that you use no word
  in a different meaning than it was used 100 years ago and will
  be used 100 years hence. You wish to use only the permanent words---words,
  too, that will be understood to carry the same meaning to English
  readers in every part of the world. Your vocabulary must be chosen
  from the permanent, solid, stable parts of the language.
  <br><br>Then see that no sentence contains a hint of obscurity.
  <br><br>Then go over the words you use to see if they be the best.
  Don't fall into merely current phrases. If you have a long word,
  see if a native short one can be put in its place which will
  be more natural and stronger. Avoid a Latin vocabulary and use
  a plain English one---short words instead of long ones.
  <br><br>Most of all, use idioms---English idioms of force. Say an
  agreement was &quot;come to.&quot; Don't say it was &quot;consummated.&quot;
  For the difference between idioms and a Latin style, compare
  Lincoln with George Washington. One's always interesting and
  convincing. The other is dull in spite of all his good sense.
  How most folk do, misuse and waste words!
  <br><br>Freeman went too far in his use of one-syllable words. It
  became an affectation. But he is the only man I can think of
  that ever did go too far in that direction. X would have written
  a great history if he had had the natural use of idioms. As it
  is, he has good sense and no style; and his book isn't half so
  interesting as it would have been if he had some style---some
  proper value of short, clear-cut words that mean only one thing
  and that leave no vagueness.
  <br><br>You'll get a good style if you practice it. It is in your
  blood and temperament and way of saying things. But it's a high
  art and must be laboriously cultivated.</BLOCKQUOTE>
  
<BLOCKQUOTE>
    <br><br>Yours affectionately,
    <br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>


<br><br>.

<br><br>This glimpse of a changing and chastened England appears in
a letter of this period:

<br><br>&nbsp;

<BLOCKQUOTE>
  <br><br>The disposition shown by an endless number of such incidents
  is something more than a disposition of gratitude of a people
  helped when they are hard pressed. All these things show the
  changed and changing Englishman. It has already come to him that
  he may be weaker than he had thought himself and that he may
  need friends more than he had once imagined; and, if he must
  have helpers and friends, he'd rather have his own kinsmen. He's
  a queer &quot;cuss,&quot; this Englishman. But he isn't a liar
  nor a coward nor any sort of &quot;a yellow dog.&quot; He's true,
  and he never runs---a possible hero any day, and, when heroic,
  modest and quiet and graceful. The trouble with him has been
  that he got great world power too easily. In the times when he
  exploited the world for his own enrichment, there were no other
  successful exploiters. It became an easy game to him. He organized
  sea traffic and sea power. Of course he became rich---far, far
  richer than anybody else, and, therefore, content with himself.
  He has, therefore, kept much of his mediaeval impedimenta, his
  dukes and marquesses and all that they imply---his outworn ceremonies
  and his mediaeval disregard of his social inferiors. Nothing
  is well done in this Kingdom for the big public, but only for
  the classes. The railway stations have no warm waiting rooms.
  The people pace the platform till the train comes, and milord
  sits snugly wrapt up in his carriage till his footman announces
  the approach of the train. And occasional discontent is relieved
  by emigration to the Colonies. If any man becomes weary of his
  restrictions he may go to Australia and become a gentleman. The
  remarkable loyalty of the Colonies has in it something of a servant's
  devotion to his old master.
  <br><br>Now this trying time of war and the threat and danger of extinction
  are bringing---have in fact already brought ---the conviction
  that many changes must come. The first sensible talk about popular
  education ever heard here is just now beginning. Many a gentleman
  has made up his mind to try to do with less than seventeen servants
  for the rest of his life since he now has to do with less. Privilege,
  on which so large a part of life here rests, is already pretty
  well shot to pieces. A lot of old baggage will never be recovered
  after this war: that's certain. During a little after-dinner
  speech in a club not long ago I indulged in a pleasantry about
  excessive impedimenta. Lord Derby, Minister of War and a bluff
  and honest aristocrat, sat near me and he whispered to me---&quot;That's
  me.&quot; &quot;Yes,&quot; I said, &quot;that's you,&quot; and
  the group about us made merry at the jest. The meaning of this
  is, they now joke about what was the most solemn thing in life
  three years ago.
  <br><br>None of this conveys the idea I am trying to explain---the
  change in the English point of view and outlook---a half century's
  change in less than three years, radical and fundamental change,
  too. The mother of the Duke of X came to see me this afternoon,
  hobbling on her sticks and feeble, to tell me of a radiant letter
  she had received from her granddaughter who has been in Washington
  visiting the Spring Rices. &quot;It's all very wonderful,&quot;
  said the venerable lady, &quot; and my granddaughter actually
  heard the President make a speech!&quot; Now, knowing this lady
  and knowing her son, the Duke, and knowing how this girl, his
  daughter, has been brought up, I dare swear that three years
  ago not one of them would have crossed the street to hear any
  President that ever lived. They've simply become different people.
  They were very genuine before. They are very genuine now.
  <br><br>It is this steadfastness in them that gives me sound hope
  for the future. They don't forget sympathy or help or friendship.
  Our going into the war has eliminated the Japanese question.
  It has shifted the virtual control of the world to English-speaking
  peoples. It will bring into the best European minds the American
  ideal of service.
  <br><br><FONT FACE="Times">It will, in fact, give us the lead and
  make the English in the long run our willing followers and allies.
  I don't mean that we shall always have plain sailing. But I do
  mean that the direction of events for the next fifty or one hundred
  years has now been determined.</FONT>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>
Yet Page found one stolid opposition to his attempts to establish
the friendliest relations between the two peoples. That offish
attitude of the Washington Administration, to which reference
has already been made, did not soften with the progress of events.
Another experience now again brought out President Wilson's coldness
toward his allies. About this time many rather queer Americans
---some of the &quot; international&quot; breed---were coming
to England on more or less official missions. Page was somewhat
humiliated by these excursions; he knew that his country possessed
an almost unlimited supply of vivid speakers, filled with zeal
for the allied cause, whose influence, if they could be induced
to cross the Atlantic, would put new spirit into the British.
The idea of having a number of distinguished Americans come to
England and tell the British public about the United States and
especially about the American preparations for war, was one that
now occupied his thoughts. In June, 1917, he wrote his old friend
Dr. Wallace Buttrick, extending an invitation to visit Great Britain
as a guest of the British Government. Dr. Buttrick made a great
success; his speeches drew large crowds and proved a source of
inspiration to the British masses. So successful were they, indeed,
that the British Government desired that other Americans of similar
type should come and spread the message. In November, therefore,
Dr. Buttrick returned to the United States for the purpose of
organizing such a committee. Among the eminent Americans whom
he persuaded to give several months of their time to this work
of heartening our British allies were Mr. George E. Vincent, President
of the Rockefeller Foundation, Mr. Harry Pratt Judson, President
of Chicago University, Mr. Charles R. Van Hise, President of the
University of Wisconsin, Mr. Edwin A. Alderman, President of the
University of Virginia, Mr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, and Bishop
Lawrence of Massachusetts. It was certainly a distinguished group,
but it was the gentleman selected to be its head that gave it
almost transcendent importance in the eyes of the British Government.
This was ex-President William, H. Taft. The British lay greater
emphasis upon official rank than do Americans, and the fact that
an ex-President of the United States was to head this delegation
made it almost an historic event. Mr. Taft was exceedingly busy,
but he expressed his willingness to give up all his engagements
for several months and to devote his energies to enlightening
the British public about America and its purposes in the war.
An official invitation was sent him from London and accepted.

<br><br>Inasmuch as Mr. Taft was an ex-President and a representative
of the political party opposed to the one in power, he thought
it only courteous that he call upon Mr. Wilson, explain the purpose
of his mission, and obtain his approval. He therefore had an interview
with the President at the White House; the date was December 12,
1917. As soon as Mr. Wilson heard of the proposed visit to Great
Britain he showed signs of irritation. He at once declared that
it met with his strongest disapproval. When Mr. Taft remarked
that the result of such an enterprise would be to draw Great Britain
and the United States more closely together, Mr. Wilson replied
that he seriously questioned the desirability of drawing the two
countries any more closely together than they already were. He
was opposed to putting the United States in a position of seeming
in any way to be involved with British policy. There were divergencies
of purpose, he said, and there were features of the British policy
in this war of which he heartily disapproved. The motives of the
United States in this war, the President continued, &quot;were
unselfish, but the motives of Great Britain seemed to him to be
of a less unselfish character.&quot; Mr. Wilson cited the treaty
between Great Britain and Italy as a sample of British statesmanship
which he regarded as proving this contention. The President's
reference to this Italian treaty has considerable historic value;
there has been much discussion as to when the President first
learned of its existence, but it is apparent from this conversation
with ex-President Taft that he must have known about it on December
12, 1917, for President Wilson based his criticism of British
policy largely upon this Italian convention.<ref>As related in Chapter XXII, page 267, President Wilson was informed of the so-called "secret treaties" by Mr. Balfour, in the course of his memorable visit to the White House.</ref>

<br><br>The President showed more and more feeling about the matter
as the discussion continued. &quot;There are too many Englishmen,&quot;
he said, &quot;in this country and in Washington now and I have
asked the British Ambassador to have some of them sent home.&quot;

<br><br>Mr. Wilson referred to the jealousy of France at the close
relations which were apparently developing between Great Britain
and the United States. This was another reason, he thought, why
it was unwise to make the bonds between them any tighter. He also
called Mr. Taft's attention to the fact that there were certain
elements in the United States which were opposed to Great Britain---this
evidently being a reference to the Germans and the Irish---and
he therefore believed that any conspicuous attempts to increase
the friendliness of the two countries for each other would arouse
antagonism and resentment.

<br><br>As Mr. Taft was leaving he informed Mr. Wilson that the plan
for his visit and that of the other speakers had originated with
the American Ambassador to Great Britain. This, however, did not
improve the President's temper.

<br><br>&quot;Page,&quot; said the President, &quot;is really an Englishman
and I have to discount whatever he says about the situation in
Great Britain.&quot;

<br><br>And then he added, &quot;I think you ought not to go, and the
same applies to the other members of the party. I would like you
to make my attitude on this question known to those having the
matter in charge.&quot;

<br><br>Despite this rebuff Dr. Buttrick and Mr. Taft were reluctant
to give up the plan. An appeal was therefore made to Colonel House.
Colonel House at once said that the proposed visit was an excellent
thing and that he would make a personal appeal to Mr. Wilson in
the hope of changing his mind. A few days afterward Colonel House
called up Dr. Buttrick. and informed him that he had not succeeded.
&quot;I am sorry,&quot; wrote Colonel House to Page, &quot;that
the Buttrick speaking programme has turned out as it has. The
President was decidedly opposed to it and referred to it with
some feeling.&quot;
</blockquote>


<hr>


<references/>

<hr>
<p align="right">
[[Main Page | WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XXIV'''
</p>