HONOUR AND DISHONOUR IN PANAMA
In the early part of January, 1914, Colonel House wrote Page, asking
whether he would consider favourably an offer to enter President
Wilson's Cabinet, as Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. David F. Houston, who
was then most acceptably filling that position, was also an authority on
banking and finance; the plan was to make him governor of the new
Federal Reserve Board, then in process of formation, and to transfer
Page to the vacant place in the Cabinet. The proposal was not carried
through, but Page's reply took the form of a review of his
ambassadorship up to date, of his vexations, his embarrassments, his
successes, and especially of the very important task which still lay
before him. There were certain reasons, it will appear, why he would
have liked to leave London; and there was one impelling reason why he
preferred to stay. From the day of his arrival in England, Page had been
humiliated, and his work had been constantly impeded, by the almost
studied neglect with which Washington treated its diplomatic service.
The fact that the American Government provided no official residence for
its Ambassador, and no adequate financial allowance for maintaining the
office, had made his position almost an intolerable one. All Page's
predecessors for twenty-five years had been rich men who could advance
the cost of the Embassy from their own private purses; to meet these
expenses, however, Page had been obliged to encroach on the savings of a
lifetime, and such liberality on his part necessarily had its
limitations.
_To Edward M. House_
London, England,
February 13, 1914.
MY DEAR HOUSE:
. . . Of course I am open to the criticism of having taken the place
at all. But I was both uninformed and misinformed about the cost as
well as about the frightful handicap of having no Embassy. It's a
kind of scandal in London and it has its serious effect. Everybody
talks about it all the time: "Will you explain to me why it is that
your great Government has no Embassy: it's very odd!" "What a
frugal Government you have!" "It's a damned mean outfit, your
American Government." Mrs. Page collapses many an evening when she
gets to her room. "If they'd only quit talking about it!" The other
Ambassadors, now that we're coming to know them fairly well,
commiserate us. It's a constant humiliation. Of course this aspect
of it doesn't worry me much--I've got hardened to it. But it is a
good deal of a real handicap, and it adds that much dead weight
that a man must overcome; and it greatly lessens the respect in
which our Government and its Ambassador are held. If I had known
this fully in advance, I should not have had the courage to come
here. Now, of course, I've got used to it, have discounted it, and
can "bull" it through--could "bull" it through if I could afford to
pay the bill. But I shouldn't advise any friend of mine to come
here and face this humiliation without realizing precisely what it
means--wholly apart, of course, from the cost of it. . . .
My dear House, on the present basis much of the diplomatic
business is sheer humbug. It will always be so till we have our own
Embassies and an established position in consequence. Without a
home or a house or a fixed background, every man has to establish
his own position for himself; and unless he be unusual, this throws
him clean out of the way of giving emphasis to the right things. . . .
As for our position, I think I don't fool myself. The job at the
Foreign Office is easy because there is no real trouble between us,
and because Sir Edward Grey is pretty nearly an ideal man to get on
with. I think he likes me, too, because, of course, I'm
straightforward and frank with him, and he likes the things we
stand for. Outside this official part of the job, of course, we're
commonplace--a successful commonplace, I hope. But that's all. We
don't know how to try to be anything but what we naturally are. I
dare say we are laughed at here and there about this and that.
Sometimes I hear criticisms, now and then more or less serious
ones. Much of it comes of our greenness; some of it from the very
nature of the situation. Those who expect to find us brilliant are,
of course, disappointed. Nor are we smart, and the smart set (both
American and English) find us uninteresting. But we drive ahead and
keep a philosophical temper and simply do the best we can, and, you
may be sure, a good deal of it. It _is_ laborious. For instance,
I've made two trips lately to speak before important bodies, one at
Leeds, the other at Newcastle, at both of which, in different ways,
I have tried to explain the President's principle in dealing with
Central American turbulent states--and, incidentally, the American
ideals of government. The audiences see it, approve it, applaud it.
The newspaper editorial writers never quite go the length--it
involves a denial of the divine right of the British Empire; at
least they fear so. The fewest possible Englishmen really
understand our governmental aims and ideals. I have delivered
unnumbered and innumerable little speeches, directly or indirectly,
about them; and they seem to like them. But it would take an army
of oratorical ambassadors a lifetime to get the idea into the heads
of them all. In some ways they are incredibly far back in
mediævalism--incredibly.
If I have to leave in the fall or in December, it will be said and
thought that I've failed, unless there be some reason that can be
made public. I should be perfectly willing to tell the reason--the
failure of the Government to make it financially possible. I've
nothing to conceal--only definite amounts. I'd never say what it
has cost--only that it costs more than I or anybody but a rich man
can afford. If then, or in the meantime, the President should wish
me to serve elsewhere, that would, of course, be a sufficient
reason for my going.
Now another matter, with which I shall not bother the President--he
has enough to bear on that score. It was announced in one of the
London papers the other day that Mr. Bryan would deliver a lecture
here, and probably in each of the principal European capitals, on
Peace. Now, God restrain me from saying, much more from doing,
anything rash. But if I've got to go home at all, I'd rather go
before he comes. It'll take years for the American Ambassadors to
recover what they'll lose if he carry out this plan. They now laugh
at him here. Only the President's great personality saves the
situation in foreign relations. Of course the public here doesn't
know how utterly unorganized the State Department is--how we can't
get answers to important questions, and how they publish most
secret despatches or allow them to leak out. But "bad breaks" like
this occur. Mr. Z, of the 100-years'-Peace Committee[44], came
here a week ago, with a letter from Bryan to the Prime Minister! Z
told me that this 100-year business gave a chance to bind the
nations together that ought not to be missed. Hence Bryan had asked
him to take up the relations of the countries with the Prime
Minister! Bryan sent a telegram to Z to be read at a big 100-year
meeting here. As for the personal indignity to me--I overlook that.
I don't think he means it. But if he doesn't mean it, what does he
mean? That's what the Prime Minister asks himself. Fortunately Mr.
Asquith and I get along mighty well. He met Bryan once, and he told
me with a smile that he regarded him as "a peculiar product of your
country." But the Secretary is always doing things like this. He
dashes off letters of introduction to people asking me to present
them to Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, etc.
In the United States we know Mr. Bryan. We know his good points,
his good services, his good intentions. We not only tolerate him;
we like him. But when he comes here as "the American Prime
Minister" [45]--good-bye, John! All that we've tried to do to gain
respect for our Government (as they respect our great nation) will
disappear in one day. Of course they'll feel obliged to give him
big official dinners, etc. And--
Now you'd just as well abandon your trip if he comes; and (I
confess) I'd rather be gone. No member of another government ever
came here and lectured. T.R. did it as a private citizen, and even
then he split the heavens asunder[46]. Most Englishmen will regard
it as a piece of effrontery. Of course, I'm not in the least
concerned about mere matters of taste. It's only the bigger effects
that I have in mind in _queering_ our Government in their eyes. He
must be kept at home on the Mexican problem, or some other.
Yours faithfully,
WALTER H. PAGE.
P.S. But, by George, it's a fine game! This Government and ours are
standing together all right, especially since the President has
taken hold of our foreign relations himself. With such a man at the
helm at home, we can do whatever we wish to do with the English, as
I've often told you. (But it raises doubts every time the
shoestring necktie, broad-brimmed black hat, oratorical, old-time,
River Platte kind of note is heard.) We've come a long way in a
year--a very joyful long way, full of progress and real
understanding; there's no doubt about that. A year ago they knew
very well the failure that had saddled them with the tolls trouble
and the failure of arbitration, and an unknown President had just
come in. Presently an unknown Ambassador arrived. Mexico got worse;
would we not recognize Huerta? They send Carden. We had nothing to
say about the tolls--simply asked for time. They were very
friendly; but our slang phrase fits the situation--"nothin' doin'."
They declined San Francisco[47]. Then presently they began to see
some plan in Mexico; they began to see our attitude on the tolls;
they began to understand our attitude toward concessions and
governments run for profit; they began dimly to see that Carden was
a misfit; the Tariff Bill passed; the Currency Bill; the President
loomed up; even the Ambassador, they said, really believed what he
preached; he wasn't merely making pretty, friendly speeches.--Now,
when we get this tolls job done, we've got 'em where we can do any
proper and reasonable thing we want. It's been a great three
quarters of a year--immense, in fact. No man has been in the White
House who is so regarded since Lincoln; in fact, they didn't regard
Lincoln while he lived.
Meantime, I've got to be more or less at home. The Prime Minister
dines with me, the Foreign Secretary, the Archbishop, the Colonial
Secretary--all the rest of 'em; the King talks very freely; Mr.
Asquith tells me some of his troubles; Sir Edward is become a good
personal friend; Lord Bryce warms up; the Lord Chancellor is
chummy; and so it goes.
So you may be sure we are all in high feather after all; and the
President's (I fear exaggerated) appreciation of what I've done is
very gratifying indeed. I've got only one emotion about it
all--gratitude; and gratitude begets eagerness to go on. Of course
I can do future jobs better than I have done any past ones.
There are two shadows in the background--not disturbing, but
shadows none the less:
1. The constant reminder that the American Ambassador's homeless
position (to this Government and to this whole people) shows that
the American Government and the American people know nothing about
foreign relations and care nothing--regard them as not worth buying
a house for. This leaves a doubt about any continuity of any
American policy. It even suggests a sort of fear that we don't
really care.
The other is (2) the dispiriting experience of writing and
telegraphing about important things and never hearing a word
concerning many of them, and the consequent fear of some dead bad
break in the State Department. The clubs are full of stories of the
silly and incredible things that are _said_ to happen there.
After all, these are old troubles. They are not new--neither of
them. And we are the happiest group you ever saw.
W.H.P.
Page's letters of this period contain many references to his inability
to maintain touch with the State Department. His letters remained
unacknowledged, his telegrams unanswered; and he was himself left
completely in the dark as to the plans and opinions at Washington.
To Edward M. House
February 28, 1914.
DEAR HOUSE:
. . . _Couldn't the business with Great Britain be put into
Moore's[48] hands_? It is surely important enough at times to
warrant separate attention--or (I might say) attention. You know,
after eight or nine months of this sort of thing, the feeling grows
on us all here that perhaps many of our telegrams and letters may
not be read by anybody at all. You begin to feel that they may not
be deciphered or even opened. Then comes the feeling (for a
moment), why send any more? Why do anything but answer such
questions as come now and then? Corresponding with Nobody--can you
imagine how that feels?--What the devil do you suppose does become
of the letters and telegrams that I send, from which and about
which I never hear a word? As a mere matter of curiosity I should
like to know who receives them and what he does with them!
I've a great mind some day to send a despatch saying that an
earthquake has swallowed up the Thames, that a suffragette has
kissed the King, and that the statue of Cromwell has made an
assault on the House of Lords--just to see if anybody deciphers it.
Alter the Civil War an old fellow in Virginia was tired of the
world. He'd have no more to do with it. He cut a slit in a box in
his house and nailed up the box. Whenever a letter came for him,
he'd read the postmark and say "Baltimore--Baltimore--there isn't
anybody in Baltimore that I care to hear from." Then he'd drop the
letter unopened through the slit into the box. "Philadelphia? I
have no friend in Philadelphia"--into the box, unopened. When he
died, the big box was nearly full of unopened letters. When I get
to Washington again, I'm going to look for a big box that must now
be nearly full of my unopened letters and telegrams.
W.H.P.
The real reason why the Ambassador wished to remain in London was to
assist in undoing a great wrong which the United States had done itself
and the world. Page was attempting to perform his part in introducing
new standards into diplomacy. His discussions of Mexico had taken the
form of that "idealism" which he was apparently having some difficulty
in persuading British statesmen and the British public to accept. He was
doing his best to help bring about that day when, in Gladstone's famous
words, "the idea of public right would be the governing idea" of
international relations. But while the American Ambassador was preaching
this new conception, the position of his own country on one important
matter was a constant impediment to his efforts. Page was continually
confronted by the fact that the United States, high-minded as its
foreign policy might pretend to be, was far from "idealistic" in the
observance of the treaty that it had made with Great Britain concerning
the Panama Canal. There was a certain embarrassment involved in
preaching unselfishness in Mexico and Central America at a time when the
United States was practising selfishness and dishonesty in Panama. For,
in the opinion of the Ambassador and that of most other dispassionate
students of the Panama treaty, the American policy on Panama tolls
amounted to nothing less.
To one unskilled in legal technicalities, the Panama controversy
involved no great difficulty. Since 1850 the United States and Great
Britain had had a written understanding upon the construction of the
Panama Canal. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which was adopted that year,
provided that the two countries should share equally in the construction
and control of the proposed waterway across the Isthmus. This idea of
joint control had always rankled in the United States, and in 1901 the
American Government persuaded Great Britain to abrogate the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and agree to another--the Hay-Pauncefote--which
transferred the rights of ownership and construction exclusively to this
country. In consenting to this important change, Great Britain had made
only one stipulation. "The Canal," so read Article III of the Convention
of 1901, "shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and war of
all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that
there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its
citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of
traffic, or otherwise." It would seem as though the English language
could utter no thought more clearly than this. The agreement said, not
inferentially, but in so many words, that the "charges" levied on the
ships of "all nations" that used the Canal should be the same. The
history of British-American negotiations on the subject of the Canal had
always emphasized this same point. All American witnesses to drawing the
Treaty have testified that this was the American understanding. The
correspondence of John Hay, who was Secretary of State at the time,
makes it clear that this was the agreement. Mr. Elihu Root, who, as
Secretary of War, sat next to John Hay in the Cabinet which authorized
the treaty, has taken the same stand. The man who conducted the
preliminary negotiations with Lord Salisbury, Mr. Henry White, has
emphasized the same point. Mr. Joseph H. Choate, who, as American
Ambassador to Great Britain in 1901, had charge of the negotiations, has
testified that the British and American Governments "meant what they
said and said what they meant."
In the face of this solemn understanding, the American Congress, in
1912, passed the Panama Canal Act, which provided that "no tolls shall
be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United
States." A technical argument, based upon the theory that "all nations"
did not include the United States, and that, inasmuch as this country
had obtained sovereign rights upon the Isthmus, the situation had
changed, persuaded President Taft to sign this bill. Perhaps this line
of reasoning satisfied the legal consciences of President Taft and Mr.
Knox, his Secretary of State, but it really cut little figure in the
acrimonious discussion that ensued. Of course, there was only one
question involved; that was as to whether the exemption violated the
Treaty. This is precisely the one point that nearly all the
controversialists avoided. The statement that the United States had
built the Canal with its own money and its own genius, that it had
achieved a great success where other nations had achieved a great
failure, and that it had the right of passing its own ships through its
own highway without assessing tolls--this was apparently argument
enough. When Great Britain protested the exemption as a violation of the
Treaty, there were not lacking plenty of elements in American politics
and journalism to denounce her as committing an act of high-handed
impertinence, as having intruded herself in matters which were not
properly her concern, and as having attempted to rob the American public
of the fruits of its own enterprise. That animosity to Great Britain,
which is always present in certain parts of the hyphenated population,
burst into full flame.
Clear as were the legal aspects of the dispute, the position of the
Wilson Administration was a difficult one. The Irish-American elements,
which have specialized in making trouble between the United States and
Great Britain, represented a strength to the Democratic Party in most
large cities. The great mass of Democratic Senators and Congressmen had
voted for the exemption bill. The Democratic platform of 1912 had
endorsed this same legislation. This declaration was the handiwork of
Senator O'Gorman, of New York State, who had long been a leader of the
anti-British crusade in American politics. More awkward still, President
Wilson, in the course of his Presidential campaign, had himself spoken
approvingly of free tolls for American ships. The probability is that,
when the President made this unfortunate reference to this clause in the
Democratic programme, he had given the matter little personal
investigation; it must be held to his credit that, when the facts were
clearly presented to him, his mind quickly grasped the real point at
issue--that it was not a matter of commercial advantage or
disadvantage, but one simply of national honour, of whether the United
States proposed to keep its word or to break it.
Page's contempt for the hair-drawn technicalities of lawyers was
profound, and the tortuous effort to make the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty mean
something quite different from what it said, inevitably moved him to
righteous wrath. Before sailing for England he spent several days in the
State Department studying the several questions that were then at issue
between his country and Great Britain. A memorandum contains his
impressions of the free tolls contention:
"A little later I went to Washington again to acquaint myself with
the business between the United States and Great Britain. About
that time the Senate confirmed my appointment, and I spent a number
of days reading the recent correspondence between the two
governments. The two documents that stand out in my memory are the
wretched lawyer's note of Knox about the Panama tolls (I never read
a less sincere, less convincing, more purely artificial argument)
and Bryce's brief reply, which did have the ring of sincerity in
it. The diplomatic correspondence in general seemed to me very dull
stuff, and, after wading through it all day, on several nights as I
went to bed the thought came to me whether this sort of activity
were really worth a man's while."
Anything which affected British shipping adversely touched Great Britain
in a sensitive spot; and Page had not been long in London before he
perceived the acute nature of the Panama situation. In July, 1913, Col.
Edward M. House reached the British capital. A letter of Page's to Sir
Edward Grey gives such a succinct description of this new and
influential force in American public life that it is worth quoting:
To Sir Edward Grey
Coburg Hotel, London.
[No date.]
DEAR SIR EDWARD:
There is an American gentleman in London, the like of whom I do not
know. Mr. Edward M. House is his name. He is "the silent partner"
of President Wilson--that is to say, he is the most trusted
political adviser and the nearest friend of the President. He is a
private citizen, a man without personal political ambition, a
modest, quiet, even shy fellow. He helps to make Cabinets, to shape
policies, to select judges and ambassadors and suchlike merely for
the pleasure of seeing that these tasks are well done.
He is suffering from over-indulgence in advising, and he has come
here to rest. I cannot get him far outside his hotel, for he cares
to see few people. But he is very eager to meet you.
I wonder if you would do me the honour to take luncheon at the
Coburg Hotel with me, to meet him either on July 1, or 3, or 5--if
you happen to be free? I shall have only you and Mr. House.
Very sincerely yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.
The chief reason why Colonel House wished to meet the British Foreign
Secretary was to bring him a message from President Wilson on the
subject of the Panama tolls. The three men--Sir Edward, Colonel House,
and Mr. Page--met at the suggested luncheon on July 3rd. Colonel House
informed the Foreign Secretary that President Wilson was now convinced
that the Panama Act violated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and that he
intended to use all his influence to secure its repeal. The matter, the
American urged, was a difficult one, since it would be necessary to
persuade Congress to pass a law acknowledging its mistake. The best way
in which Great Britain could aid in the process was by taking no public
action. If the British should keep protesting or discussing the subject
acrimoniously in the press and Parliament, such a course would merely
reënforce the elements that would certainly oppose the President. Any
protests would give them the opportunity to set up the cry of "British
dictation," and a change in the Washington policy would subject it to
the criticism of having yielded to British pressure. The inevitable
effect would be to defeat the whole proceeding. Colonel House therefore
suggested that President Wilson be left to handle the matter in his own
way and in his own time, and he assured the British statesman that the
result would be satisfactory to both countries. Sir Edward Grey at once
saw that Colonel House's statement of the matter was simply common
sense, and expressed his willingness to leave the Panama matter in the
President's hands.
Thus, from July 3, 1913, there was a complete understanding between the
British Government and the Washington Administration on the question of
the tolls. But neither the British nor the American public knew that
President Wilson had pledged himself to a policy of repeal. All during
the summer and fall of 1913 this matter was as generally discussed in
England as was Mexico. Everywhere the Ambassador went--country houses,
London dinner tables, the colleges and the clubs--he was constantly
confronted with what was universally regarded as America's great breach
of faith. How deeply he felt in the matter his letters show.
To Edward M. House
August 25, 1913.
DEAR HOUSE:
. . . The English Government and the English people without regard to
party--I hear it and feel it everywhere--are of one mind about
this: they think we have acted dishonourably. They really think
so--it isn't any mere political or diplomatic pretense. We made a
bargain, they say, and we have repudiated it. If it were a mere
bluff or game or party contention--that would be one thing. We
could "bull" it through or live it down. But they look upon it as
we look upon the repudiation of a debt by a state. Whatever the
arguments by which the state may excuse itself, we never feel the
same toward it--never quite so safe about it. They say, "You are a
wonderful nation and a wonderful people. We like you. But your
Government is not a government of honour. Your honourable men do
not seem to get control." You can't measure the damage that this
does us. Whatever the United States may propose till this is fixed
and forgotten will be regarded with a certain hesitancy. They will
not fully trust the honour of our Government. They say, too, "See,
you've preached arbitration and you propose peace agreements, and
yet you will not arbitrate this: you know you are wrong, and this
attitude proves it." Whatever Mr. Hay might or could have done, he
made a bargain. The Senate ratified it. We accepted it. Whether it
were a good bargain or a bad one, we ought to keep it. The English
feeling was shown just the other week when Senator Root received an
honourary degree at Oxford. The thing that gave him fame here was
his speech on this treaty[49]. There is no end of ways in which
they show their feeling and conviction.
Now, if in the next regular session the President takes a firm
stand against the ship subsidy that this discrimination gives,
couldn't Congress be carried to repeal this discrimination? For
this economic objection also exists.
No Ambassador can do any very large constructive piece of work so
long as this suspicion of the honour of our Government exists. Sir
Edward Grey will take it up in October or November. If I could say
then that the President will exert all his influence for this
repeal--that would go far. If, when he takes it up, I can say
nothing, it will be practically useless for me to take up any other
large plan. This is the most important thing for us on the
diplomatic horizon.
To the President
Dornoch, Scotland,
September 10, 1913.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
I am spending ten or more of the dog days visiting the Englishman
and the Scotchman in their proper setting--their country
homes--where they show themselves the best of hosts and reveal
their real opinions. There are, for example, in the house where I
happen to be to-day, the principals of three of the Scotch
universities, and a Member of Parliament, and an influential
editor.
They have, of course--I mean all the educated folk I meet--the most
intelligent interest in American affairs, and they have an
unbounded admiration for the American people--their energy, their
resourcefulness, their wealth, their economic power and social
independence. I think that no people ever really admired and, in a
sense, envied another people more. They know we hold the keys of
the future.
But they make a sharp distinction between our people and our
Government. They are sincere, God-fearing people who speak their
convictions. They cite Tammany, the Thaw case, Sulzer, the
Congressional lobby, and sincerely regret that a democracy does not
seem to be able to justify itself. I am constantly amazed and
sometimes dumbfounded at the profound effect that the yellow press
(including the American correspondents of the English papers) has
had upon the British mind. Here is a most serious journalistic
problem, upon which I have already begun to work seriously with
some of the editors of the better London papers. But it is more
than a journalistic problem. It becomes political. To eradicate
this impression will take years of well-planned work. I am going to
make this the subject of one of the dozen addresses that I must
deliver during the next six months--"The United States as an
Example of Honest and Honourable Government."
And everywhere--in circles the most friendly to us, and the best
informed--I receive commiseration because of the dishonourable
attitude of our Government about the Panama Canal tolls. This, I
confess, is hard to meet. We made a bargain--a solemn compact--and
we have broken it. Whether it were a good bargain or a bad one, a
silly one or a wise one; that's far from the point. Isn't it? I
confess that this bothers me. . . .
And this Canal tolls matter stands in the way of everything. It is
in their minds all the time--the minds of all parties and all
sections of opinion. They have no respect for Mr. Taft, for they
remember that he might have vetoed the bill; and they ask,
whenever they dare, what you will do about it. They hold our
Government in shame so long as this thing stands.
As for the folly of having made such a treaty--that's now passed.
As for our unwillingness to arbitrate it--that's taken as a
confession of guilt. . . .
We can command these people, this Government, this tight island,
and its world-wide empire; they honour us, they envy us, they see
the time near at hand when we shall command the capital and the
commerce of the world if we unfetter our mighty people; they wish
to keep very close to us. But they are suspicious of our Government
because, they contend, it has violated its faith. Is it so or is it
not?
Life meantime is brimful of interest; and, despite this reflex
result of the English long-blunder with Ireland (how our sins come
home to roost), the Great Republic casts its beams across the whole
world and I was never so proud to be an American democrat, as I see
it light this hemisphere in a thousand ways.
All health and mastery to you!
WALTER H. PAGE.
The story of Sir William Tyrrell's[50] visit to the White House in
November, 1913, has already been told. On this occasion, it will be
recalled, not only was an agreement reached on Mexico, but President
Wilson also repeated the assurances already given by Colonel House on
the repeal of the tolls legislation. Now that Great Britain had accepted
the President's leadership in Mexico, the time was approaching when
President Wilson might be expected to take his promised stand on Panama
tolls. Yet it must be repeated that there had been no definite
diplomatic bargain. But Page was exerting all his efforts to establish
the best relations between the two countries on the basis of fair
dealing and mutual respect. Great Britain had shown her good faith in
the Mexican matter; now the turn of the United States had come.
_To the President_
London, 6 Grosvenor Square.
January 6, 1914.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
We've travelled a long way since this Mexican trouble began--a long
way with His Majesty's Government. When your policy was first flung
at 'em, they showed at best a friendly incredulity: what! set up a
moral standard for government in Mexico? Everybody's mind was fixed
merely on the restoring of order--the safety of investments. They
thought of course our army would go down in a few weeks. I recall
that Sir Edward Grey asked me one day if you would not consult the
European governments about the successor to Huerta, speaking of it
as a problem that would come up next week. And there was also much
unofficial talk about joint intervention.
Well, they've followed a long way. They apologized for Carden
(that's what the Prime Minister's speech was); they ordered him to
be more prudent. Then the real meaning of concessions began to get
into their heads. They took up the dangers that lurked in the
Government's contract with Cowdray for oil; and they pulled Cowdray
out of Colombia and Nicaragua--granting the application of the
Monroe Doctrine to concessions that might imperil a country's
autonomy. Then Sir Edward asked me if you would not consult him
about such concessions--a long way had been travelled since his
other question! Lord Haldane made the Thanksgiving speech that I
suggested to him. And now they have transferred Carden. They've
done all we asked and more; and, more wonderful yet, they've come
to understand what we are driving at.
As this poor world goes, all this seems to me rather handsomely
done. At any rate, it's square and it's friendly.
Now in diplomacy, as in other contests, there must be give and
take; it's our turn.
If you see your way clear, it would help the Liberal Government
(which needs help) and would be much appreciated if, before
February 10th, when Parliament meets, you could say a public word
friendly to our keeping the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty--on the tolls.
You only, of course, can judge whether you would be justified in
doing so. I presume only to assure you of the most excellent effect
it would have here. If you will pardon me for taking a personal
view of it, too, I will say that such an expression would cap the
climax of the enormously heightened esteem and great respect in
which recent events and achievements have caused you to be held
here. It would put the English of all parties in the happiest
possible mood toward you for whatever subsequent dealings may await
us. It was as friendly a man as Kipling who said to me the night I
spent with him: "You know your great Government, which does many
great things greatly, does _not_ lie awake o' nights to keep its
promises."
It's our turn next, whenever you see your way clear.
Most heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.
From Edward M. House
145 East 35th Street,
New York City.
January 24, 1914.
DEAR PAGE:
I was with the President for twenty-four hours and we went over
everything thoroughly.
He decided to call the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the
White House on Monday and tell them of his intentions regarding
Panama tolls. We discussed whether it would be better to see some
of them individually, or to take them collectively. It was agreed
that the latter course was better. It was decided, however, to have
Senator Jones poll the Senate in order to find just how it stood
before getting the Committee together. The reason for this quick
action was in response to your letter urging that something be done
before the 10th of February. . . .
Faithfully yours,
E.M. HOUSE.
On March 5th the President made good his promise by going before
Congress and asking the two houses to repeal that clause in the Panama
legislation which granted preferential treatment to American coastwise
shipping. The President's address was very brief and did not discuss the
matter in the slightest detail. Mr. Wilson made the question one simply
of national honour. The exemption, he said, clearly violated the
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and there was nothing left to do but to set the
matter right. The part of the President's address that aroused the
greatest interest was the conclusion:
"I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the
Administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even
greater delicacy and nearer consequence, if you do not grant it to me in
ungrudging measure."
The impression that this speech made upon the statesman who then
presided over the British Foreign office is evident from the following
letter that he wrote to the Ambassador in Washington.
_Sir Edward Grey to Sir C. Spring Rice_
Foreign Office,
March 13, 1914.
SIR:
In the course of a conversation with the American Ambassador
to-day, I took the opportunity of saying how much I had been struck
by President Wilson's Message to Congress about the Panama Canal
tolls. When I read it, it struck me that, whether it succeeded or
failed in accomplishing the President's object, it was something to
the good of public life, for it helped to lift public life to a
higher plane and to strengthen its morale.
I am, &c.,
E. GREY.
Two days after his appearance before Congress the President wrote to his
Ambassador:
_From the President_
The White House, Washington,
March 7, 1914.
MY DEAR PAGE:
I have your letters of the twenty-second and twenty-fourth of
February and I thank you for them most warmly. Happily, things are
clearing up a little in the matters which have embarrassed our
relations with Great Britain, and I hope that the temper of public
opinion is in fact changing there, as it seems to us from this
distance to be changing.
Your letters are a lamp to my feet. I feel as I read that their
analysis is searching and true.
Things over here go on a tolerably even keel. The prospect at this
moment for the repeal of the tolls exemption is very good indeed. I
am beginning to feel a considerable degree of confidence that the
repeal will go through, and the Press of the country is certainly
standing by me in great shape.
My thoughts turn to you very often with gratitude and affectionate
regard. If there is ever at any time anything specific you want to
learn, pray do not hesitate to ask it of me directly, if you think
best.
Carden was here the other day and I spent an hour with him, but I
got not even a glimpse of his mind. I showed him all of mine that
he cared to see.
With warmest regards from us all,
Faithfully yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
The debate which now took place in Congress proved to be one of the
stormiest in the history of that body. The proceeding did not prove to
be the easy victory that the Administration had evidently expected. The
struggle was protracted for three months; and it signalized Mr. Wilson's
first serious conflict with the Senate--that same Senate which was
destined to play such a vexatious and destructive rôle in his career. At
this time, however, Mr. Wilson had reached the zenith of his control
over the law-making bodies. It was early in his Presidential term, and
in these early days Senators are likely to be careful about quarrelling
with the White House--especially the Senators who are members of the
President's political party. In this struggle, moreover, Mr. Wilson had
the intelligence and the character of the Senate largely on his side,
though, strangely enough, his strongest supporters were Republicans and
his bitterest opponents were Democrats. Senator Root, Senator Burton,
Senator Lodge, Senator Kenyon, Senator McCumber, all Republicans, day
after day and week after week upheld the national honour; while Senators
O'Gorman, Chamberlain, Vardaman, and Reed, all members of the
President's party, just as persistently led the fight for the baser
cause. The debate inspired an outburst of Anglophobia which was most
distressing to the best friends of the United States and Great Britain.
The American press, as a whole, honoured itself by championing the
President, but certain newspapers made the debate an occasion for
unrestrained abuse of Great Britain, and of any one who believed that
the United States should treat that nation honestly. The Hearst organs,
in cartoon and editorial page, shrieked against the ancient enemy. All
the well-known episodes and characters in American history--Lexington,
Bunker Hill, John Paul Jones, Washington, and Franklin--were paraded as
arguments against the repeal of an illegal discrimination. Petitions
from the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other Irish societies were
showered upon Congress--in almost unending procession they clogged the
pages of the Congressional Record; public meetings were held in New York
and elsewhere where denouncing an administration that disgraced the
country by "truckling" to Great Britain. The President was accused of
seeking an Anglo-American Alliance and of sacrificing American shipping
to the glory of British trade, while the history of our diplomatic
relations was surveyed in detail for the purpose of proving that Great
Britain had broken every treaty she had ever made. In the midst of this
deafening hubbub the quiet voice of Senator McCumber--"we are too big in
national power to be too little in national integrity"--and that of
Senator Root, demolishing one after another the pettifogging arguments
of the exemptionists, demonstrated that, after all, the spirit and the
eloquence that had given the Senate its great fame were still
influential forces in that body.
In all this excitement, Page himself came in for his share of hard
knocks. Irish meetings "resolved" against the Ambassador as a statesman
who "looks on English claims as superior to American rights," and
demanded that President Wilson recall him. It has been the fate of
practically every American ambassador to Great Britain to be accused of
Anglomania. Lowell, John Hay, and Joseph H. Choate fell under the ban of
those elements in American life who seem to think that the main duty of
an American diplomat in Great Britain is to insult the country of which
he has become the guest. In 1895 the house of Representatives solemnly
passed a resolution censuring Ambassador Thomas F. Bayard for a few
sentiments friendly to Great Britain which he had uttered at a public
banquet. That Page was no undiscriminating idolater of Great Britain
these letters have abundantly revealed. That he had the profoundest
respect for the British character and British institutions has been made
just as clear. With Page this was no sudden enthusiasm; the conviction
that British conceptions of liberty and government and British ideals of
life represented the fine flower of human progress was one that he felt
deeply. The fact that these fundamentals had had the opportunity of even
freer development in America he regarded as most fortunate both for the
United States and for the world. He had never concealed his belief that
the destinies of mankind depended more upon the friendly coöperation of
the United States and Great Britain than upon any other single
influence. He had preached this in public addresses, and in his writings
for twenty-five years preceding his mission to Great Britain. But the
mere fact that he should hold such convictions and presume to express
them as American Ambassador apparently outraged those same elements in
this country who railed against Great Britain in this Panama Tolls
debate.
On August 16, 1913, the City of Southampton, England, dedicated a
monument in honour of the _Mayflower_ Pilgrims--Southampton having been
their original point of departure for Massachusetts. Quite appropriately
the city invited the American Ambassador to deliver an address on this
occasion; and quite appropriately the Ambassador acknowledged the debt
that Americans of to-day owed to the England that had sent these
adventurers to lay the foundations of new communities on foreign soil.
Yet certain historic truths embodied in this very beautiful and eloquent
address aroused considerable anger in certain parts of the United
States. "Blood," said the Ambassador, "carries with it that particular
trick of thought which makes us all English in the last resort. . . . And
Puritan and Pilgrim and Cavalier, different yet, are yet one in that
they are English still. And thus, despite the fusion of races and of the
great contributions of other nations to her 100 millions of people and
to her incalculable wealth, the United States is yet English-led and
English-ruled." This was merely a way of phrasing a great historic
truth--that overwhelmingly the largest element in the American
population is British in origin[51]; that such vital things as its
speech and its literature are English; and that our political
institutions, our liberty, our law, our conceptions of morality and of
life are similarly derived from the British Isles. Page applied the word
"English" to Americans in the same sense in which that word is used by
John Richard Green, when he traces the history of the English race from
a German forest to the Mississippi Valley and the wilds of Australia.
But the anti-British elements on this side of the water, taking
"English-led and English-ruled" out of its context, misinterpreted the
phrase as meaning that the American Ambassador had approvingly called
attention to the fact that the United States was at present under the
political control of Great Britain! Senator Chamberlain of Oregon
presented a petition from the _Staatsverband Deutschsprechender Vereine
von Oregon_, demanding the Ambassador's removal, while the
Irish-American press and politicians became extremely vocal.
Animated as was this outburst, it was mild compared with the excitement
caused by a speech that Page made while the Panama debate was raging in
Congress. At a dinner of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in early
March, the Ambassador made a few impromptu remarks. The occasion was one
of good fellowship and good humour, and Page, under the inspiration of
the occasion, indulged in a few half-serious, half-jocular references to
the Panama Canal and British-American good-feeling, which, when
inaccurately reported, caused a great disturbance in the England-baiting
press. "I would not say that we constructed the Panama Canal even for
you," he said, "for I am speaking with great frankness and not with
diplomatic indirection. We built it for reasons of our own. But I will
say that it adds to the pleasure of that great work that you will profit
by it. You will profit most by it, for you have the greatest carrying
trade." A few paragraphs on the Monroe Doctrine, which practically
repeated President Wilson's Mobile speech on that subject, but in which
Mr. Page used the expression, "we prefer that European Powers shall
acquire no more territory on this continent," alarmed those precisians
in language, who pretended to believe that the Ambassador had used the
word "prefer" in its literal sense, and interpreted the sentence to mean
that, while the United States would "prefer" that Europe should not
overrun North and South America, it would really raise no serious
objection if Europe did so.
Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, who by this time had apparently become
the Senatorial leader of the anti-Page propaganda, introduced a
resolution demanding that the Ambassador furnish the Senate a complete
copy of this highly pro-British outgiving. The copy was furnished
forthwith--and with that the tempest subsided.
_To the President_
American Embassy, London,
March 18, 1914.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
About this infernal racket in the Senate over my poor speech, I
have telegraphed you all there is to say. Of course, it was a
harmless courtesy--no bowing low to the British or any such
thing--as it was spoken and heard. Of course, too, nothing would
have been said about it but for the controversy over the Canal
tolls. That was my mistake--in being betrayed by the friendly
dinner and the high compliments paid to us into mentioning a
subject under controversy.
I am greatly distressed lest possibly it may embarrass you. I do
hope not.
I think I have now learned _that_ lesson pretty thoroughly. These
Anglophobiacs--Irish and Panama--hound me wherever I go. I think I
told you of one of their correspondents, who one night got up and
yawned at a public dinner as soon as I had spoken and said to his
neighbours: "Well, I'll go, the Ambassador didn't say anything that
I can get him into trouble about."
I shall, hereafter, write out my speeches and have them gone over
carefully by my little Cabinet of Secretaries. Yet something
(perhaps not much) will be lost. For these people are infinitely
kind and friendly and courteous.
They cannot be driven by anybody to do anything, but they can be
led by us to do anything--by the use of spontaneous courtesy. It is
by spontaneous courtesy that I have achieved whatever I have
achieved, and it is for this that those like me who do like me. Of
course, what some of the American newspapers have said is
true--that I am too free and too untrained to be a great
Ambassador. But the conventional type of Ambassador would not be
worth his salt to represent the United States here now, when they
are eager to work with us for the peace of the world, if they are
convinced of our honour and right-mindedness and the genuineness of
our friendship.
I talked this over with Sir Edward Grey the other day, and after
telling me that I need fear no trouble at this end of the line, he
told me how severely he is now criticized by a "certain element"
for "bowing too low to the Americans." We then each bowed low to
the other. The yellow press and Chamberlain would give a year's
growth for a photograph of us in that posture!
I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind understanding and your
toleration of my errors.
Yours always heartily,
WALTER H. PAGE.
To the President.
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 Embassy,
London, England.
_To the President_
American Embassy, 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, passes
understanding. Our rôle 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
class 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 nobody, 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 nobody; 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 Embassy,
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 Canal 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 passes 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
constituencies--the two Houses proceeded to the really serious business
of voting. The House quickly passed 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 passed from guest to guest, and the
American Ambassador 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 assembled 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 Japan was in some way involved--but that
explanation also failed to satisfy.
Congress accepted the President's statement trustfully and blindly, and
passed the asked-for legislation. Up to the present moment this passage
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.]
[Footnote 46: The reference is to President Roosevelt's speech at the
Guildhall in June, 1910.]
[Footnote 47: This refers to the declination of the British Government
to be represented at the San Francisco world exhibition, held in 1915.]
[Footnote 48: John Bassett Moore, at that time the very able counsellor
of the State Department.]
[Footnote 49: Mr. Root's masterly speech on Panama tolls was made in the
United States Senate, January 21, 1913.]
[Footnote 50: Ante: page 202.]
[Footnote 51: This is the fact that is too frequently lost sight of in
current discussions of the melting pot. In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for
August, 1920, Mr. William S. Rossiter, for many years chief clerk of the
United States Census and a statistician of high standing, shows that, of
the 95,000,000 white people of the United States, 55,000,000 trace their
origin to England, Scotland, and Wales.]
[Footnote 52: The Ambassador's letter is dated March 18th.]
[Footnote 53: Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
was one of the most blatant opponents of Panama repeal.]