A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR
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 passengers and crew
which Bernstorff had promised, took place nearly every day. On April 18,
1916, the _Sussex_ 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 passenger 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
Ambassador[33]? And the Ambassador'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.
I've written you how in my opinion there's no country in the world
fit for a modern gentleman and man-of-character to live in except
(1) the United States and (2) this island. And this island is
chiefly valuable for the breed of men--the right stock. They become
more valuable to the world after they go away from home. But the
right blood's here. This island's breed is the best there is. An
Englishman or a Scotchman is the best ancestor in this world, many
as his shortcomings are. Some Englishman asked me one night in
what, I thought, the Englishman appeared at his best. I said, "As
an ancestor to Americans!" And this is the fundamental reason why
we (two peoples) belong close together. Reasons that flow from
these are such as follows: (1) The race is the sea-mastering race
and the navy-managing race and the ocean-carrying race; (2) the
race is the literary race, (3) the exploring and settling and
colonizing race, (4) the race to whom fair play appeals, and (5)
that insists on individual development.
Your mother having read these two days 1,734 pages of memoirs of
the Coke family, one of whose members wrote the great law
commentaries, another carried pro-American votes in Parliament in
our Revolutionary times, refused peerages, defied kings and--begad!
here they are now, living in the same great house and saying and
doing what they darn please--we know this generation of 'em!--well,
your mother having read these two big volumes about the old ones
and told me 175 good stories out of these books, bless her soul!
she's gone to sleep in a big chair on the other side of the table.
Well she may, she walked for two hours this morning over hills and
cliffs and through pine woods and along the beach. I guess I'd
better wake her up and get her to go to bed--as the properer thing
to do at this time o'night, viz. 11. My golf this afternoon was too
bad to confess. But I must say that a 650 and a 730 yard hole
argues the audacity of some fellow and the despair of many more.
Nature made a lot of obstructions there and Man made more. It must
be seven or eight miles around that course! It's almost a three
hour task to follow my slow ball around it. I suggested we play
with howitzers instead of clubs. Good night!
W.H.P.
_To Frank N. Doubleday and Others_
Royal Bath and East Cliff Hotel,
Bournemouth, May 29, 1916.
DEAR D.P. & Co.:
I always have it in mind to write you letters; but there's no
chance in my trenches in London; and, since I have not been out of
London for nearly two years--since the war began--only an
occasional half day and a night--till now--naturally I've concocted
no letter. I've been down here a week--a week of sunshine, praise
God--and people are not after me every ten minutes, or Governments
either; and my most admirable and efficient staff (now grown to one
hundred people) permit few letters and telegrams to reach me. There
never was a little rest more grateful. The quiet sea out my window
shows no sign of crawling submarines; and, in general, it's as
quiet and peaceful here as in Garden City itself.
I'm on the home-stretch now in all my thoughts and plans. Three of
my four years are gone, and the fourth will quickly pass. That's
not only the limit of my leave, but it's quite enough for me. I
shouldn't care to live through another such experience, if the
chance should ever come to me. It has changed my whole life and my
whole outlook on life; and, perhaps, you'd like to hear some
impressions that it has made upon me.
The first impression--perhaps the strongest--is a loss of permanent
interest in Europe, especially all Europe outside of this Kingdom.
I have never had the illusion that Europe had many things that we
needed to learn. The chief lesson that it has had, in my judgment,
is the lesson of the art of living--the comforts and the courtesies
of life, the refinements and the pleasures of conversation and of
courteous conduct. The upper classes have this to teach us; and we
need and can learn much from them. But this seems to me all--or
practically all. What we care most for are individual character,
individual development, and a fair chance for every human being.
Character, of course, the English have--immense character, colossal
character. But even they have not the dimmest conception of what we
mean by a fair chance for every human being--not the slightest. In
one thousand years they _may_ learn it from us. Now on the
continent, the only important Nation that has any character worth
mentioning is the French. Of course the little nations--some of
them--have character, such as Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, etc.
But these are all. The others are simply rotten. In giving a free
chance to every human creature, we've nothing to learn from
anybody. In character, I bow down to the English and Scotch; I
respect the Frenchman highly and admire his good taste. But, for
our needs and from our point of view, the English can teach us only
two great lessons--character and the art of living (if you are
rich).
The idea that we were brought up on, therefore, that Europe is the
home of civilization in general--nonsense! It's a periodical
slaughter-pen, with all the vices that this implies. I'd as lief
live in the Chicago stock-yards. There they kill beeves and pigs.
Here they kill men and (incidentally) women and children. I should
no more think of encouraging or being happy over a child of mine
becoming a European of any Nation than I should be happy over his
fall from Grace in any other way.
Our form of government and our scheme of society--God knows they
need improving--are yet so immeasurably superior, as systems, to
anything on this side the world that no comparison need be made.
My first strong impression, then, is not that Europe is
"effete"--that isn't it. It is mediæval--far back toward the Dark
Ages, much of it yet uncivilized, held back by _inertia_ when not
held back by worse things. The caste system is a constant burden
almost as heavy as war itself and often quite as cruel.
The next impression I have is, that, during the thousand years that
will be required for Europe to attain real (modern) civilization,
wars will come as wars have always come in the past. The different
countries and peoples and governments will not and cannot learn the
lesson of federation and coöperation so long as a large mass of
their people have no voice and no knowledge except of their
particular business. Compare the miles of railway in proportion to
population with the same proportion in the United States--or the
telephones, or the use of the mails, or of bank checks; or make any
other practical measure you like. Every time, you'll come back to
the discouraging fact that the masses in Europe are driven as
cattle. So long as this is true, of course, they'll be driven
periodically into wars. So many countries, so many races, so many
languages all within so small an area as Europe positively invite
deadly differences. If railroads had been invented before each
people had developed its own separate language, Europe could
somehow have been coordinated, linked up, federated, made to look
at life somewhat in the same way. As it is, wars will be bred here
periodically for about another thousand years. The devil of this
state of things is that they may not always be able to keep their
wars at home.
For me, then, except England and the smaller exceptions that I have
mentioned, Europe will cut no big figure in my life. In all the
humanities, we are a thousand years ahead of any people here. So
also in the adaptabilities and the conveniences of life, in its
versatilities and in its enjoyments. Most folk are stolid and sad
or dull on this side of the world. Else how could they take their
kings and silly ceremonies seriously?
Now to more immediate and definite impressions. I have for a year
had the conviction that we ought to get into the war--into the
economic war--for the following among many reasons.
1. That's the only way to shorten it. We could cause Germany's
credit (such as she has) instantly to collapse, and we could hasten
her hard times at home which would induce a surrender.
2. That's the only way we can have any real or important influence
in adjusting whatever arrangements can be made to secure peace.
3. That's the best way we can inspire complete respect for us in
the minds of other nations and thereby, perhaps, save ourselves
from some wars in the future.
4. That's the best way we can assert our own character--our
Americanism, and forever get rid of all kinds of hyphens.
5. That's the only way we shall ever get a real and sensible
preparedness, which will be of enormous educational value even if
no military use should ever be made of our preparation.
6. That's the only way American consciousness will ever get back to
the self-sacrificing and patriotic point of view of the Fathers of
the Republic.
7. That's the best way to emancipate ourselves from cranks.
8. That's the only way we'll ever awaken in our whole people a
foreign consciousness that will enable us to assert our natural
influence in the world--political, financial, social,
commercial--the best way to make the rest of the world our
customers and friends and followers.
All the foregoing I have fired at the Great White Chief for a year
by telegraph and by mail; and I have never fired it anywhere else
till now. Be very quiet, then. No man with whom I have talked or
whose writings I have read seems to me to have an adequate
conception of the colossal changes that the war is bringing and
will bring. Of course, I do not mean to imply that I have any
adequate conception. Nobody can yet grasp it. The loss of (say) ten
million men from production of work or wares or children; what a
changed world that fact alone will make! The presence in all Europe
of (perhaps) fifteen or twenty million more women than men will
upset the whole balance of society as regards the sexes. The loss
of most of the accumulated capital of Europe and the vast burdens
of debt for the future to pay will change the financial relations
of the whole world. From these two great losses--men and money--God
knows the many kinds of changes that will come. Women are doing and
will continue to do many kinds of work hitherto done by men.
Of course there are some great gains. Many a flabby or abject
fellow will come out of the war a real man: he'll be nobody's slave
thereafter. The criminal luxury of the rich will not assert itself
again for a time. The unparalleled addition to the world's heroic
deeds will be to the good of mankind, as the unparalleled suffering
has eclipsed all records. The survivors will be in an heroic mood
for the rest of their lives. In general, life will start on a new
plane and a lot of old stupid habits and old party quarrels and
class prejudices will disappear. To get Europe going again will
call for new resolution and a new sort of effort. Nobody can yet
see what far-reaching effects it will have on government.
If I could make the English and Scotch over, I could greatly
improve them. I'd cut out the Englishman's arrogance and key him up
to a quicker gait. Lord! he's a slow beast. But he's worked out the
germ and the beginning of all real freedom, and he has character.
He knows how to conserve and to use wealth. He's a great John Bull,
after all. And as for commanding the sea, for war or trade, you may
properly bow down to him and pay him homage. The war will, I think,
quicken him up. It will lessen his arrogance--to _us_, at least. I
think it will make him stronger and humbler. And, whatever his
virtues and his faults, he's the only Great Power we can go hand in
hand with....
These kinds of things have been going on now nearly two years, and
not till these ten days down here have I had time or chance or a
free mind to think them over; and now there's nothing in particular
to think--nothing but just to go on, doing these 40,000 things (and
they take a new turn every day) the best I can, without the
slightest regard to consequences. I've long ago passed the place
where, having acted squarely according to my best judgment, I can
afford to pay the slightest attention to what anybody thinks. I see
men thrown on the scrap heap every day. Many of them deserve it,
but a good many do not. In the abnormal state of mind that
everybody has, there are inevitable innocent misunderstandings,
which are as fatal as criminal mistakes. The diplomatic service is
peculiarly exposed to misunderstandings: and, take the whole
diplomatic service of all nations as shown up by this great strain,
it hasn't stood the test very well. I haven't the respect for it
that I had when I started. Yet, God knows, I have a keen sympathy
for it. I've seen some of 'em displaced; some of 'em lie down; some
of 'em die.
As I've got closer and closer to big men, as a rule they shrink up.
They are very much like the rest of us--many of 'em more so. Human
nature is stripped in these times of most of its disguises, and men
have to stand and be judged as a rule by their real qualities.
Among all the men in high place here, Sir Edward Grey stands out in
my mind bigger, not smaller, than he stood in the beginning. He's a
square, honourable gentleman, if there is one in this world. And it
is he, of course, with whom I have had all my troubles. It's been a
truly great experience to work and to quarrel with such a man.
We've kept the best friendship--a constantly ripening one. There
are others like him--only smaller.
Yet they are all in turn set upon by the press or public opinion
and hounded like criminals. They try (somebody tries) to drive 'em
out of office every once in a while. If there's anything I'm afraid
of, it's the newspapers. The correspondents are as thick as flies
in summer--all hunting sensations--especially the yellow American
press. I play the game with these fellows always squarely,
sometimes I fear indiscreetly. But what is discretion? That's the
hardest question of all. We have regular meetings. I tell 'em
everything I can--always on the condition that I'm kept out of the
papers. If they'll never mention me, I'll do everything possible
for them. Absolute silence of the newspapers (as far as I can
affect it) is the first rule of safety. So far as I know, we've
done fairly well; but always in proportion to silence. I don't want
any publicity. I don't want any glory. I don't want any office. I
don't want nothin'--but to do this job squarely, to get out of this
scrape, to go off somewhere in the sunshine and to see if I can
slip back into my old self and see the world sane again. Yet I'm
immensely proud that I have had the chance to do some good--to keep
our record straight--as far as I can, and to be of what service I
can to these heroic people.
Out of it all, one conviction and one purpose grows and becomes
clearer. The world isn't yet half-organized. In the United States
we've lived in a good deal of a fool's paradise. The world isn't
half so safe a place as we supposed. Until steamships and
telegraphs brought the nations all close together, of course we
could enjoy our isolation. We can't do so any longer. One mad fool
in Berlin has turned the whole earth topsy-turvy. We'd forgotten
what our forefathers learned--the deadly dangers of real monarchs
and of castes and classes. There are a lot of 'em left in the world
yet. We've grown rich and-weak; we've let cranks and old women
shape our ideas. We've let our politicians remain provincial and
ignorant.
And believe me, dear D.P. & Co. with affectionate greeting to every
one of you and to every one of yours, collectively and singly,
Yours heartily,
W.H.P.
_Memorandum written after attending the service at St. Paul's in
memory of Lord Kitchener_[34].
American Embassy, London.
There were two Kitcheners, as every informed person knows--(1) the
popular hero and (2) the Cabinet Minister with whom it was
impossible for his associates to get along. He made his
administrative career as an autocrat dealing with dependent and
inferior peoples. This experience fixed his habits and made it
impossible for him to do team work or to delegate work or even to
inform his associates of what he had done or was doing. While,
therefore, his name raised a great army, he was in many ways a
hindrance in the Cabinet. First one thing and then another was
taken out of his hands--ordnance, munitions, war plans. When he
went to Gallipoli, some persons predicted that he would never come
back. There was a hot meeting of the Cabinet at which he was asked
to go to Russia, to make a sort of return visit for the visit that
important Russians had made here, and to link up Russia's military
plans with the plans of the Western Allies. He is said to have
remarked that he was going only because he had been ordered to go.
There was a hope and a feeling again that he might not come back
till after the war.
Now just how much truth there is in all this, one has to guess; but
undoubtedly a good deal. He did much in raising the army, but his
name did more. What an extraordinary situation! The great hero of
the Nation an impossible man to work with. The Cabinet could not
tell the truth about him: the people would not believe it and would
make the Cabinet suffer. Moreover, such a row would have given
comfort to the enemy. Kitchener, on his part, could not afford to
have an open quarrel. The only solution was to induce him to go
away for a long time. Both sides saw that. Such thoughts were in
everybody's mind while the impressive funeral service was said and
sung in St. Paul's. The Great Hero, who had failed, was celebrated
of course as a Great Hero--quite truly and yet far from true. For
him his death came at a lucky time: his work was done.
There is even a rumour, which I don't for a moment believe, that he
is alive on the Orkney Islands and prefers to disappear there till
the war ends. This is fantastic, and it was doubtless suggested by
the story that he did disappear for several years while he was a
young officer.
I could not help noticing, when I saw all the Cabinet together at
the Cathedral, how much older many of them look than they looked
two years ago. Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Balfour, who is
really an old man, Lloyd George--each of these seems ten years
older. And so does the King. The men in responsible places who are
not broken by the war will be bent. General French, since his
retirement to command of the forces in England, seems much older.
So common is this quick aging that Lady Jellicoe, who went to
Scotland to see her husband after the big naval battle, wrote to
Mrs. Page in a sort of rhapsody and with evident surprise that the
Admiral really did not seem older! The weight of this thing is so
prodigious that it is changing all men who have to do with it. Men
and women (who do not wear mourning) mention the death of their
sons in a way that a stranger might mistake for indifference. And
it has a curious effect on marriages. Apparently every young fellow
who gets a week's leave from the trenches comes home and marries
and, of course, goes straight back--especially the young officers.
You see weddings all day as you pass the favourite churches; and
already the land is full of young widows.
_To Edwin A. Alderman_[35]
Embassy of the U.S.A., London,
June 22, 1916.
MY DEAR ED ALDERMAN:
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 class--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
ambassadorship in this hell are enough--enough I say, even for a
man who doesn't run away from responsibilities or weary of toil.
And God 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 passages 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 classes; 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 cumbersome, a sort of bastard 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 damned 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-class, 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 mediævalism 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 shirt-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 class 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 title, 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 shell 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 Ambassador's infant grandson,
Walter H. Page, Jr.]
[Footnote 34: Drowned on the Hampshire, June 5, 1916, off the coast of
Scotland.]
[Footnote 35: President of the University of Virginia.]
[Footnote 36: Hampton Institute, at Hampton, Va.]
[Footnote 37: C. Alphonso Smith, Professor of English, U.S. Naval
Academy; Roosevelt Professor at Berlin, 1910-11.]