The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Volume II Part 11

This is a little disappointing. And it means, of course, that we are likely to have periodical earthquakes like this present one till some radical change come. Republics have their faults, no doubt. But they have at least this virtue: that no country where the people really have the control of their government is likely to start out deliberately on any war of conquest--is not likely to run amuck--and will not regard its population as mere food for sh.e.l.l and powder.

Nor do I believe that our example of our government has, relatively to our strength and wealth and population, as much influence in the world as we had one hundred years ago. Our people have no foreign consciousness and I know that our government knows almost nothing about European affairs; nor do our people know. As regards foreign affairs our government lacks proper machinery. Take this as an ill.u.s.tration: The President wrote vigorous and proper notes about the _Lusitania_ and took a firm stand with Germany. Germany has paid no attention to the _Lusitania_ outrage. Yet (as I understand it) the people will not run the risk of war--or the Administration thinks they will not--and hence the President can do nothing to make his threat good. Therefore we stand in a ridiculous situation; and n.o.body cares how many notes we write. I don't know that the President could have done differently--unless, before he sent the _Lusitania_ notes, he had called Congress together and submitted his notes to Congress. But, as the matter stands, the Germans are merely encouraged to blow up factories and practically to carry on war in the United States, because they know we can (or will) do nothing. Mere notes break n.o.body's skin.

We don't seem to have any machinery to bring any influence to bear on foreign governments or on foreign opinion; and, this being so, it is little wonder that the rest of the world does not follow our republican example.

And this sort of impotence in influence has curious effects at home. For example, the ship-purchase bill, as it was at the last session of Congress, was an economic crime. See what has happened: We have waked up to the fact that we must have a big navy. Well, a navy is of no far-fighting value unless we have auxiliary ships and a lot of 'em. Admiral Jellicoe has 3,000 ships under his command; and he couldn't keep his fleet on the job if he didn't have them.

Most of them are commandeered merchant, pa.s.senger, and fishing ships. Now we haven't merchant, pa.s.senger, and fishing ships to commandeer. We've got to build and buy auxiliary ships to our navy.

This, to my mind, makes the new ship-purchase bill, or something like it, necessary. Else our navy, when it comes to the scratch, will be of no fighting value, however big it be. It's the price we've got to pay for not having built up a merchant marine. And we haven't built up a merchant marine because we've had no foreign consciousness. While our Irishmen have been leading us to twist the Lion's tail, we've been depending almost wholly on English ships--and, in late years, on German ships. You can't cross the ocean yet in a decent American ship. You see, we've declared our independence; and, so far as individual development goes, we've worked it out. But the governmental machinery for maintaining it and for making it visible to the world--we've simply neglected to build it or to shape it. Hence the President's notes hurt n.o.body and accomplish nothing; nor could our navy put up a real fight, for lack of colliers and supply ships. It's the same way all around the horizon. And these are the reasons we haven't made our democracy impress the world more.

A democracy is not a quick-trigger war-engine and can't be made into one. When the quick-trigger engines get to work, they forget that a democracy does not consider fighting the first duty of man.

You can bend your energies to peaceful pursuits or you can bend them to war. It's hard to do both at the same time. The Germans are the only people who have done both at the same time; and even they didn't get their navy big enough for their needs.

When the infernal thing's over--that'll be a glad day; and the European world won't really know what it has cost in men and money and loss of standards till it is over....

Affectionately,

W.H.P.

_To Walter H. Page, Jr._[32].

London, Christmas, 1915.

SIR:

For your first Christmas, I have the honour to send you my most affectionate greetings; and in wishing you all good health, I take the liberty humbly to indicate some of the favours of fortune that I am pleased to think I enjoy in common with you.

_First_--I hear with pleasure that you are quite well content with yourself--not because of a reasoned conviction of your own worth, which would be mere vanity and unworthy of you, but by reason of a philosophical disposition. It is too early for you to bother over problems of self-improvement--as for me it is too late; wherefore we are alike in the calm of our self-content. What others may think or say about us is a subject of the smallest concern to us.

Therefore they generally speak well of us; for there is little satisfaction in speaking ill of men who care nothing for your opinion of them. Then, too, we are content to be where we happen to be--a fact that we did not order in the beginning and need not now concern ourselves about. Consider the eternal coming and going of folk. On every road many are travelling one way and an equal number are travelling the other way. It is obvious that, if they were all content to remain at the places whence they set forth, the distribution of the population would be the same. Why therefore move hither and yon at the cost of much time and labour and money, since nothing is accomplished thereby? We spare ourselves by being content to remain where we are. We thereby have the more time for reflection. Nor can we help observing with a smile that all persons who have good reasons to see us themselves make the necessary journey after they discover that we remain fixed.

Again, people about us are continually doing this service and that for some other people--running errands, mending fences, bearing messages, building, and tearing down; and they all demand equal service in return. Thus a large part of mankind keeps itself in constant motion like bubbles of water racing around a pool at the foot of a water-fall--or like rabbits hurrying into their warrens and immediately hurrying out again. Whereas, while these antics amuse and sadden us, we for the most part remain where we are.

Hence our wants are few; they are generally most courteously supplied without our asking; or, if we happen to be momentarily forgotten, we can quickly secure anything in the neighbourhood by a little judicious squalling. Why, then, should we whirl as bubbles or scurry as rabbits? Our conquering self-possession gives a masterful charm to life that the victims of perpetual locomotion never seem to attain.

You have discovered, and my experience confirms yours, that a perpetual self-consciousness brings most of the misery of the world. Men see others who are richer than they; or more famous, or more fortunate--so they think; and they become envious. You have not reached the period of such empty vanity, and I have long pa.s.sed it. Let us, therefore, make our mutual vows not to be disturbed by the good luck or the good graces of others, but to continue, instead, to contemplate the contented cat on the rug and the unenvious sky that hangs over all alike.

This mood will continue to keep our lives simple. Consider our diet. Could anything be simpler or better? We are not even tempted by the poisonous victuals wherewith mankind destroys itself. The very first sound law of life is to look to the belly; for it is what goes into a man that ruins him. By avoiding murderous food, we may hope to become centenarians. And why not? The golden streets will not be torn up and we need be in no indecent haste to travel even on them. The satisfactions of this life are just beginning for us; and we shall be wise to endure this world for as long a period as possible.

And sleep is good--long sleep and often; and your age and mine permit us to indulge in it without the sneers of the lark or the c.o.c.k or the dawn.

I pray you, sir, therefore, accept my homage as the philosopher that you are and my a.s.surance of that high esteem indicated by my faithful imitation of your virtues. I am,

With the most distinguished consideration, With the sincerest esteem, and With the most affectionate good wishes, Sir, Your proud, Humble, Obedient GRANDDADDY.

To Master Walter Hines Page,

On Christmas, 1915.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: By William Roscoe Thayer, published in 1915.]

[Footnote 24: The Amba.s.sador had in mind _The Round Table_.]

[Footnote 25: James W. Gerard, American Amba.s.sador to Germany, and, as such, in charge of British interests in Germany.]

[Footnote 26: The German military and naval attaches, whose persistent and outrageous violation of American laws led to their dismissal by President Wilson.]

[Footnote 27: E.S. Martin, Editor of _Life_.]

[Footnote 28: Mr. Henry Ford at this time was getting together his famous peace ship, which was to sail to Europe "to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas."]

[Footnote 29: J.M. Dent, the London publisher.]

[Footnote 30: $500,000,000.]

[Footnote 31: The Amba.s.sador's Sons.]

[Footnote 32: The Amba.s.sador's infant grandson, son of Arthur W. Page.]

CHAPTER XVIII

A PERPLEXED AMBa.s.sADOR

The beginning of the new year saw no improvement in German-American relations. Germany and Austria continued to violate the pledge given by Bernstorff after the sinking of the _Arabic_--if that shifty statement could be regarded as a "pledge." On November 7, 1915, the Austrians sank the _Ancona_, in the Mediterranean, drowning American citizens under conditions of particular atrocity, and submarine attacks on merchant ships, without the "warning" or attempt to save pa.s.sengers and crew which Bernstorff had promised, took place nearly every day. On April 18, 1916, the _Suss.e.x_ was torpedoed in the English Channel, without warning and with loss of American life. This caused what seemed to be a real crisis; President Wilson sent what was practically an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that it "immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against pa.s.senger and freight carrying vessels," declaring that, unless it did so, the United States would sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire. In reply, Germany apparently backed down and gave the promise the President had demanded. However, it coupled this concession with an expression of its expectation that the United States would compel Great Britain to observe international law in the blockade. As this latter statement might be interpreted as a qualification of its surrender, the incident hardly ended satisfactorily.

_To Arthur W. Page_

Bournemouth

May 22, 1916.

DEAR ARTHUR:

I stick on the back of this sheet a letter that Sydney Brooks wrote from New York (May 1st) to the _Daily Mail_. He formulates a question that we have many times asked ourselves and that, in one way or other, comes into everybody's mind here. Of course the common fellow in Jonesville who has given most of his time and energy to earning a living for his wife and children has no foreign consciousness, whether his Jonesville be in the United States or in England or in France or in Zanzibar. The real question is, _Do_ these fellows in Jonesville make up the United States? or has there been such a lack of prompt leadership as to make all the Jonesville people confused? It's hard for me to judge at this distance just how far the President has led and just how far he has waited and been pushed along. Suppose he had stood on the front steps every morning before breakfast for a month after the _Lusitania_ went down and had called to the people in the same tone that he used in his note to Germany--had sounded a bugle call--would we have felt as we now feel? What would the men in Jonesville have done then?

Would they have got their old guns down from over the doors? Or do they so want peace and so think that they can have peace always that they've lost their spine? Have they really been Bryanized, Fordized, Janeaddamsized, Sundayschooled, and Chautauquaed into supine creatures to whom the United States and the ideals of the Fathers mean nothing? Who think a German is as good as an Englishman? Who have no particular aims or aspirations for our country and for democracy? When T.R. was in the White House he surely was an active fellow. He called us to exercise ourselves every morning. He bawled "Patriotism" loudly. We surely thought we were awake during those strenuous years. Were we really awake or did we only look upon him and his antics as a sort of good show?

All that time Bryan was peace-a-footing and prince-of-peacing. Now did he really have the minds of the people or did T.R.?

If we've really gone to sleep and if the United States stands for nothing but personal comfort and commercialism to our own people, what a job you and the patriotic men of your generation have cut out for you!

My own conviction (which I don't set great store by) is that our isolation and prosperity have not gone so far in softening us as it seems. They've gone a good way, no doubt; but I think that even the Jonesville people yet feel their Americanism. What they need is--leadership. Their Congressmen are poor, timid, pork-barrel creatures. Their governors are in training for the Senate. The Vice-President reads no official literature of the war, "because then I might have a conviction about it and that wouldn't be neutral." And so on. If the people had a _real_ leadership, I believe they'd wake up even in Jonesville.

Well, let's let these things go for the moment. How's the Amba.s.sador[33]? And the Amba.s.sador's mother and sister? They're nice folks of whom and from whom I hear far too little. Give 'em my love. I don't want you to rear a fighting family. But these kids won't and mustn't grow up peace-cranks--not that anybody objects to peace, but I do despise and distrust a crank, a crank about anything. That's the lesson we've got to learn from these troubled times. First, let cranks alone--the other side of the street is good enough for them. Then, if they persist, I see nothing to do but to kill 'em, and that's troublesome and inconvenient.

But, as I was saying, bless the babies. I can't begin to tell you how very much I long to see them, to make their acquaintance, to chuckle 'em and punch 'em and see 'em laugh, and to see just what sort of kids they be.