The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Volume II Part 13

I shall not forget how good you were to take time to write me a word about the meeting of the Board--_the_ Board: there's no other one in that cla.s.s--at Hampton[36], and I did most heartily appreciate the knowledge that you all remembered me. Alas! it's a long, long time ago when we all met--so long ago that to me it seems a part of a former incarnation. These three years--especially these two years of the war--have changed my whole outlook on life and foreshortened all that came before. I know I shall never link back to many things (and alas! too, to many people) that once seemed important and surely were interesting. Life in these trenches (five warring or quarrelling governments mining and sapping under me and shooting over me)--two years of universal amba.s.sadors.h.i.+p in this h.e.l.l are enough--enough I say, even for a man who doesn't run away from responsibilities or weary of toil.

And G.o.d knows how it has changed me and is changing me: I sometimes wonder, as a merely intellectual and quite impersonal curiosity.

Strangely enough I keep pretty well--very well, in fact. Perhaps I've learned how to live more wisely than I knew in the old days; perhaps again, I owe it to my old grandfather who lived (and enjoyed) ninety-four years. I have walked ten miles to-day and I sit down as the clock strikes eleven (P.M.) to write this letter.

You will recall more clearly than I certain horrible, catastrophic, universal-ruin pa.s.sages in Revelation--monsters swallowing the universe, blood and fire and clouds and an eternal crash, rolling ruin enveloping all things--well, all that's come. There are, perhaps, ten million men dead of this war and, perhaps, one hundred million persons to whom death would be a blessing. Add to these as many millions more whose views of life are so distorted that blank idiocy would be a better mental outlook, and you'll get a hint (and only a hint) of what the continent has already become--a bankrupt slaughter-house inhabited by unmated women. We have talked of "problems" in our day. We never had a problem; for the worst task we ever saw was a mere blithe pastime compared with what these women and the few men that will remain here must face. The hills about Verdun are not blown to pieces worse than the whole social structure and intellectual and spiritual life of Europe. I wonder that anybody is sane.

Now we have swung into a period and a state of mind wherein all this seems normal. A lady said to me at a dinner party (think of a dinner party at all!), "Oh, how I shall miss the war when it ends!

Life without it will surely be dull and tame. What can we talk about? Will the old subjects ever interest us again?" I said, "Let's you and me try and see." So we talked about books--not war books--old country houses that we both knew, gardens and gold and what not; and in fifteen minutes we swung back to the war before we were aware.

I get out of it, as the days rush by, certain fundamental convictions, which seem to me not only true--true beyond any possible cavil--truer than any other political things are true--and far more important than any other contemporary facts whatsoever in any branch of endeavour, but better worth while than anything else that men now living may try to further:

1. The cure for democracy is more democracy. The danger to the world lies in autocrats and autocracies and privileged cla.s.ses; and these things have everywhere been dangerous and always will be.

There's no security in any part of the world where people cannot think of a government without a king, and there never will be. You cannot conceive of a democracy that will unprovoked set out on a career of conquest. If all our religious missionary zeal and cash could be turned into convincing Europe of this simple and obvious fact, the longest step would be taken for human advancement that has been taken since 1776. If Carnegie, or, after he is gone, his Peace People could see this, his Trust might possibly do some good.

2. As the world stands, the United States and Great Britain must work together and stand together to keep the predatory nations in order. A League to Enforce Peace and the President's idea of disentangling alliances are all in the right direction, but vague and general and c.u.mbersome, a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.d children of Neutrality. _The_ thing, the _only_ thing is--a perfect understanding between the English-speaking peoples. That's necessary, and that's all that's necessary. We must boldly take the lead in that. I frankly tell my friends here that the English have got to throw away their d.a.m.ned arrogance and their insularity and that we Americans have got to throw away our provincial ignorance ("What is abroad to us?"), hang our Irish agitators and shoot our hyphenates and bring up our children with reverence for English history and in the awe of English literature. This is the only job now in the world worth the whole zeal and energy of all first-cla.s.s, thoroughbred English-speaking men. _We_ must lead. We are natural leaders. The English must be driven to lead. Item: We must get their lads into our universities, ours into theirs. They don't know how to do it, except the little driblet of Rhodes men.

Think this out, remembering what fools we've been about exchange professors with Germany! How much good could Fons Smith[37] do in a thousand years, on such an errand as he went on to Berlin? And the English don't know _how_ to do it. They are childish (in some things) beyond belief. An Oxford or Cambridge man never thinks of going back to his university except about twice a lifetime when his college formally asks him to come and dine. Then he dines as docilely as a scared Freshman. I am a D.C.L. of Oxford. I know a lot of their faculty. They are hospitality itself. But I've never yet found out one important fact about the university. They never tell me. I've been down at Cambridge time and again and stayed with the Master of one of the colleges. I can no more get at what they do and how they do it than I could get at the real meaning of a service in a Buddhist Temple. I have spent a good deal of time with Lord Rayleigh, who is the Chancellor of Cambridge University. He never goes there. If he were to enter the town, all the men in the university would have to stop their work, get on their parade-day gowns, line-up by precedent and rank and go to meet him and go through days of ceremony and incantations. I think the old man has been there once in five years. Now this mediaevalism must go--or be modified. You fellers who have universities must work a real alliance--a big job here. But to go on.

The best informed English opinion is ripe for a complete working understanding with us. We've got to work up our end--get rid of our ignorance of foreign affairs, our s.h.i.+rt-sleeve, complaining kind of diplomacy, our sport of twisting the lion's tail and such things and fall to and bring the English out. It's the _one_ race in this world that's got the guts.

Hear this in confirmation: I suppose 1,000 English women have been to see me--as a last hope--to ask me to have inquiries made in Germany about their "missing" sons or husbands, generally sons.

They are of every cla.s.s and rank and kind, from marchioness to scrubwoman. Every one tells her story with the same dignity of grief, the same marvellous self-restraint, the same courtesy and deference and sorrowful pride. Not one has whimpered--but one. And it turned out that she was a Belgian. It's the breed. Spartan mothers were theatrical and pinchbeck compared to these women.

I know a lady of t.i.tle, very well to do, who for a year got up at 5:30 and drove herself in her own automobile from her home in London to Woolwich where she worked all day long in a sh.e.l.l factory as a volunteer and got home at 8 o'clock at night. At the end of a year they wanted her to work in a London place where they keep the records of the Woolwich work. "Think of it," said she, as she shook her enormous diamond ear-rings as I sat next to her at dinner one Sunday night not long ago, "think of it--what an easy time I now have. I don't have to start till half-past seven and I get home at half-past six!"

I could fill forty pages with stories like these. This very Sunday I went to see a bedridden old lady who sent me word that she had something to tell me. Here it was: An English flying man's machine got out of order and he had to descend in German territory. The Germans captured him and his machine. They ordered him to take two of their flying men in his machine to show them a particular place in the English lines. He declined. "Very well, we'll shoot you, then." At last he consented. The three started. The Englishman quietly strapped himself in. There were no straps for the two Germans. The Englishman looped-the-loop. The Germans fell out. The Englishman flew back home. "My son has been to see me from France.

He told me that. He knows the man"--thus said the old lady and thanked me for coming to hear it! She didn't know that the story has been printed.

But the real question is, "How are you?" Do you keep strong? Able, without weariness, to keep up your good work? I heartily hope so, old man. Take good care of yourself--very.

My love to Mrs. Alderman. Please don't quote me--yet. I have to be very silent publicly about everything. After March 4th, I shall again be free.

Yours always faithfully,

W.H.P.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: A playful reference to the Amba.s.sador's infant grandson, Walter H. Page, Jr.]

[Footnote 34: Drowned on the Hamps.h.i.+re, June 5, 1916, off the coast of Scotland.]

[Footnote 35: President of the University of Virginia.]

[Footnote 36: Hampton Inst.i.tute, at Hampton, Va.]

[Footnote 37: C. Alphonso Smith, Professor of English, U.S. Naval Academy; Roosevelt Professor at Berlin, 1910-11.]

CHAPTER XIX

WAs.h.i.+NGTON IN THE SUMMER OF 1916

I

In July Page received a cablegram summoning him to Was.h.i.+ngton. This message did not explain why his presence was desired, nor on this point was Page ever definitely enlightened, though there were more or less vague statements that a "change of atmosphere" might better enable the Amba.s.sador to understand the problems which were then engrossing the State Department.

The President had now only a single aim in view. From the date of the so-called _Suss.e.x_ "pledge," May 4, 1916, until the resumption of submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, Mr. Wilson devoted all his energies to bringing the warring powers together and establis.h.i.+ng peace.

More than one motive was inspiring the president in this determination.

That this policy accorded with his own idealistic tendencies is true, and that he aspired to a position in history as the great "peace maker"

is probably the fact, but he had also more immediate and practical purposes in mind. Above all, Mr. Wilson was bent on keeping the United States out of the war; he knew that there was only one certain way of preserving peace in this country, and that was by bringing the war itself to an end. "An early peace is all that can prevent the Germans from driving us at last into the war," Page wrote at about this time; and this single sentence gives the key to the President's activities for the succeeding nine months. The negotiations over the _Suss.e.x_ had taught Mr. Wilson this truth. He understood that the pledge which the German Government had made was only a conditional one; that the submarine campaign had been suspended only for the purpose of giving the United States a breathing spell during which it could persuade Great Britain and France to make peace.

"I repeat my proposal," Bernstorff cabled his government on April 26,[38] "to suspend the submarine war at least for the period of negotiations. This would remove all danger of a breach [with the United States] and also enable Wilson to continue his labours in his great plan of bringing about a peace based upon the freedom of the seas--i.e., that for the future trade shall be free from all interference in time of war.

According to the a.s.surances which Wilson, through House, has given me, he would in that case take in hand measures directly against England. He is, however, of the opinion that it would be easier to bring about peace than to cause England to abandon the blockade. This last could only be brought about by war and it is well known that the means of war are lacking here. A prohibition of exports as a weapon against the blockade is not possible as the prevailing prosperity would suffer by it.

"The inquiries made by House have led Wilson to believe that our enemies would not be unwilling to consider peace. In view of the present condition of affairs, I repeat that there is only one possible course, namely, that Your Excellency [Von Jagow] empower me to declare that we will enter into negotiations with the United States touching the conduct of the submarine war while the negotiations are proceeding. This would give us the advantage that the submarine war, being over Mr. Wilson's head, like the sword of Damocles, would compel him at once to take in hand the task of mediation."

This dispatch seems sufficiently to explain all the happenings of the summer and winter of 1916-1917. It was sent to Berlin on April 26th; the German Government gave the _Suss.e.x_ "pledge" on May 4th, eight days afterward. In this reply Germany declared that she would now expect Mr.

Wilson to bring pressure upon Great Britain to secure a mitigation or suspension of the British blockade, and to this Mr. Wilson promptly and energetically replied that he regarded the German promise as an unconditional one and that the Government of the United States "cannot for a moment entertain, much less discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities for the rights of citizens of the United States upon the high seas should in any way or in the slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of any other government affecting the rights of neutrals and non-combatants. Responsibility in such matters is single not joint; absolute not relative."

This reply gave satisfaction to both the United States and the countries of the Allies, and Page himself regarded it as a master stroke. "The more I think of it," he wrote on May 17th, "the better the strategy of the President appears, in his latest (and last) note to Germany. They laid a trap for him and he caught them in their own trap. The Germans had tried to 'put it up' to the President to commit the first unfriendly act. He now 'puts it up' to them. And this is at last bound to end the controversy if they sink another s.h.i.+p unlawfully. The French see this clearly and so do the best English, and it has produced a most favourable impression. The future? The German angling for peace will prove futile. They'll have another fit of fury. Whether they will again become reckless or commit 'mistakes' with their submarines will depend partly on their fury, partly on their fear to make a breach with the United States, but mainly on the state of their submarine fleet. How many have the English caught and destroyed? That's the main question, after all. The English view may not be fair to them. But n.o.body here believes that they will long abstain from the luxury of crime."

It is thus apparent that when the Germans practically demanded, as a price of their abstention from indiscriminate submarine warfare, that Mr. Wilson should move against Great Britain in the matter of the blockade, they realized the futility of any such step, and that what they really expected to obtain was the presidential mediation for peace.

President Wilson at once began to move in this direction. On May 27th, three weeks after the Suss.e.x "pledge," he made an address in Was.h.i.+ngton before the League to Enforce Peace, which was intended to lay the basis for his approaching negotiations. It was in this speech that he made the statement that the United States was "not concerned with the causes and the objects" of the war. "The obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst forth we are not interested to search for or to explain." This was another of those unfortunate sentences which made the President such an unsympathetic figure in the estimation of the Allies and seemed to indicate to them that he had no appreciation of the nature of the struggle. Though this att.i.tude of non-partisans.h.i.+p, of equal balance between the accusations of the Allies and Germany, was intended to make the President acceptable as a mediator, the practical result was exactly the reverse, for Allied statesmen turned from Wilson as soon as those sentences appeared in print. The fact that this same oration specified the "freedom of the seas" as one of the foundation rocks of the proposed new settlement only accentuated this unfavourable att.i.tude.

This then was clearly the "atmosphere" which prevailed in Was.h.i.+ngton at the time that Page was summoned home. But Page's letters of this period indicate how little sympathy he entertained for such negotiations. "It is quite apparent," he had recently written to Colonel House, "that n.o.body in Was.h.i.+ngton understands the war. Come over and find out."

Extracts from a letter which he wrote to his brother, Mr. Henry A. Page, of Aberdeen, North Carolina, are especially interesting when placed side by side with the President's statements of this particular time. These pa.s.sages show that a two years' close observation of the Prussians in action had not changed Page's opinion of their motives or of their methods; in 1916, as in 1914, Page could see in this struggle nothing but a colossal buccaneering expedition on the part of Germany. "As I look at it," he wrote, "our dilly-dallying is likely to get us into war.

The Germans want somebody to rob--to pay their great military bills.

They've robbed Belgium and are still robbing it of every penny they can lay their hands on. They robbed Poland and Serbia--two very poor countries which didn't have much. They set out to rob France and have so far been stopped from getting to Paris. If they got to Paris there wouldn't be thirty cents' worth of movable property there in a week, and they'd levy fines of millions of francs a day. Their military scheme and teaching and open purpose is to make somebody pay for their vast military outlay of the last forty years. They must do that or go bankrupt. Now it looks as if they would go bankrupt. But in a little while they may be able to bombard New York and demand billions of dollars to refrain from destroying the city. That's the richest place left to spoil.

"Now they say that--quite openly and quite frankly. Now if we keep 'neutral' to a highwayman--what do we get for our pains? That's the mistake we are making. If we had sent Bernstorff home the day after the _Lusitania_ was sunk and recalled Gerard and begun to train an army we'd have had no more trouble with them. But since they have found out that they can keep us discussing things forever and a day, they will keep us discussing things till they are ready. We are very simple; and we'll get shot for it yet....

"The prestige and fear of the United States has gone down, down, down-disappeared; and we are regarded as 'discussors,' incapable of action, scared to death of war. That's all the invitation that robbers, whose chief business is war, want--all the invitation they need. These devils are out for robbery--and you don't seem to believe it in the United States: that's the queer thing. This neutrality business makes us an easy mark. As soon as they took a town in Belgium, they asked for all the money in the town, all the food, all the movable property; and they've levied a tax every month since on every town and made the town government borrow the money to pay it. If a child in a town makes a disrespectful remark, they fine the town an extra $1,000. They haven't got enough so far to keep them going flush; and they won't unless they get Paris--which they can't do now. If they got London, they'd be rich; they wouldn't leave a s.h.i.+lling and they'd make all the rich English get all the money they own abroad. This is the reason that Frenchmen and Englishmen prefer to be killed by the 100,000. In the country over which their army has pa.s.sed a crow would die of starvation and no human being has ten cents of real money. The Belgian Commission is spending more than 100 million dollars a year to keep the Belgians alive--only because they are robbed every day. They have a rich country and could support themselves but for these robbers. That's the meaning of the whole thing.

And yet we treat them as if they were honourable people. It's only a question of time and of power when they will attack us, or the Ca.n.a.l, or South America. Everybody on this side the world knows that. And they are 'yielding' to keep us out of this war so that England will not help us when they (the Germans) get ready to attack America.

"There is the strangest infatuation in the United States with Peace--the strangest illusion about our safety without preparation."

Several letters to Colonel House show the state of the British mind on the subject of the President's peace proposals:

_To Edward M. House_

Royal Bath and East Cliff Hotel, Bournemouth, 23 May, 1916.

DEAR HOUSE:

The motor trip that the Houses, the Wallaces, and the Pages took about a year ago was the last trip (three days) that I had had out of London; and I'd got pretty tired. The _China_ case having been settled (and settled as we wanted it), I thought it a good time to try to get away for a week. So here Mrs. Page and I are--very much to my benefit. I've spent a beautiful week out of doors, on this seash.o.r.e; and I have only about ten per cent. of the fatal diseases that I had a week ago. That is to say, I'm as sound as a dollar and feel like a fighting c.o.c.k.