The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Volume I Part 21

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

W.H.P.

_From the President_

The White House, Washington, March 25, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

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

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

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

The vicissitudes of politics are certainly incalculable.

With the warmest regard, in necessary haste,

Cordially and faithfully yours, WOODROW WILSON.

HON. WALTER H. PAGE, American Emba.s.sy, London, England.

_To the President_

American Emba.s.sy, London, March 2, 1914.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

May I make a suggestion?

The curiously tenacious hold that Anglophobia has on a certain cla.s.s of our people--might it not be worth your while to make, at some convenient time and in some natural way, a direct attack on it--in a letter to someone, which could be published, or in some address, or possibly in a statement to a Senate committee, which could be given to the press? Say how big and strong and sure-of-the-future we are; so big that we envy n.o.body, and that those who have Anglophobia or any Europe-phobia are the only persons who "truckle" to any foreign folk or power; that in this tolls-fight all the Continental governments are a unit; that we respect them all, fear none, have no favours, except proper favours among friendly nations, to ask of anybody; and that the idea of a "trade" with England for holding off in Mexico is (if you will excuse my French) a common gutter lie.

This may or may not be wise; but you will forgive me for venturing to suggest it. It is _we_ who are the proud and erect and patriotic Americans, fearing n.o.body; but the other fellows are fooling some of the people in making them think that _they_ are.

Yours most gratefully,

WALTER H. PAGE.

To the President.

_From the President_ The White House, Washington,

April 2, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

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

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

All unite with me in the warmest regards as always.

In haste,

Faithfully yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

HON. WALTER H. PAGE, American Emba.s.sy, London, England.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. and Mrs. Page were attending a ball in Buckingham Palace when the great news reached London. The gathering represented all that was most distinguished in the official and diplomatic life of the British capital. The word was rapidly pa.s.sed from guest to guest, and the American Amba.s.sador and his wife soon found themselves the centre of a company which could hardly restrain itself in expressing its admiration for the United States. Never in the history of the country had American prestige stood so high as on that night. The King and the Prime Minister were especially affected by this display of fair-dealing in Washington.

The slight commercial advantage which Great Britain had obtained was not the thought that was uppermost in everybody's mind. The thing that really moved these a.s.sembled statesmen and diplomats was the fact that something new had appeared in the history of legislative chambers. A great nation had committed an outrageous wrong--that was something that had happened many times before in all countries. But the unprecedented thing was that this same nation had exposed its fault boldly to the world--had lifted up its hands and cried, "We have sinned!" and then had publicly undone its error. Proud as Page had always been of his country, that moment was perhaps the most triumphant in his life. The action of Congress emphasized all that he had been saying of the ideals of the United States, and gave point to his arguments that justice and honour and right, and not temporary selfish interest, should control the foreign policy of any nation which really claimed to be enlightened. The general feeling of Great Britain was perhaps best expressed by the remark made to Mrs. Page, on this occasion, by Lady D----:

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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