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Burton J. Hendrick - The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II

B >> Burton J. Hendrick >> The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II



[Illustration: Sir Edward Grey (now Viscount Grey of Fallodon),
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1905-1916]




THE
LIFE AND LETTERS OF
WALTER H. PAGE

BY

BURTON J. HENDRICK

VOLUME
II

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.




CONTENTS

VOLUME II


CHAPTER PAGE
XIV. THE "LUSITANIA" AND AFTER 1
XV. THE AMBASSADOR AND THE LAWYERS 53
XVI. DARK DAYS FOR THE ALLIES 81
XVII. CHRISTMAS IN ENGLAND, 1915 103
XVIII. A PERPLEXED AMBASSADOR 128
XIX. WASHINGTON IN THE SUMMER OF 1916 148
XX. "PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY" 189
XXI. THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 215
XXII. THE BALFOUR MISSION TO THE UNITED STATES 248
XXIII. PAGE--THE MAN 295
XXIV. A RESPITE AT ST. IVES 321
XXV. GETTING THE AMERICAN TROOPS TO FRANCE 349
XXVI. LAST DAYS IN ENGLAND 374
XXVII. THE END 404
APPENDIX 407
INDEX 425




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


Sir Edward Grey _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

Col. Edward M. House. From a painting by P.A.
Laszlo 88

The Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister
of Great Britain, 1908-1916 89

Herbert C. Hoover, in 1914 104

A facsimile page from the Ambassador's letter of
November 24, 1916, resigning his Ambassadorship 105

Walter H. Page, at the time of America's entry into
the war, April, 1917 216

Resolution passed by the two Houses of Parliament,
April 18, 1917, on America's entry into the war 217

The Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George, Prime Minister
of Great Britain, 1916-- 232

The Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour (now the Earl of
Balfour), Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
1916-1919 233

Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, 1916-1918,
Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
1918 344

General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of
the American Expeditionary Force in the Great
War 345

Admiral William Sowden Sims, Commander of
American Naval Forces operating in European
waters during the Great War 360

A silver model of the _Mayflower_, the farewell gift
of the Plymouth Council to Mr. Page 361




THE

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

WALTER H. PAGE




THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF

WALTER H. PAGE




CHAPTER XIV

THE "LUSITANIA"--AND AFTER


I

The news of the _Lusitania_ was received at the American Embassy at four
o'clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1915. At that time preparations were
under way for a dinner in honour of Colonel and Mrs. House; the first
_Lusitania_ announcement declared that only the ship itself had been
destroyed and that all the passengers and members of the crew had been
saved; there was, therefore, no good reason for abandoning this dinner.

At about seven o'clock, the Ambassador came home; his manner showed that
something extraordinary had taken place; there were no outward signs of
emotion, but he was very serious. The first news, he now informed Mrs.
Page, had been a mistake; more than one thousand men, women, and
children had lost their lives, and more than one hundred of these were
American citizens. It was too late to postpone the dinner but that
affair was one of the most tragic in the social history of London. The
Ambassador was constantly receiving bulletins from his Chancery, and
these, as quickly as they were received, he read to his guests. His
voice was quiet and subdued; there were no indications of excitement in
his manner or in that of his friends, and hardly of suppressed emotion.
The atmosphere was rather that of dumb stupefaction. The news seemed to
have dulled everyone's capacity for thought and even for feeling. If any
one spoke, it was in whispers. Afterward, in the drawing room, this same
mental state was the prevailing one; there was little denunciation of
Germany and practically no discussion as to the consequences of the
crime; everyone's thought was engrossed by the harrowing and
unbelievable facts which the Ambassador was reading from the little
yellow slips that were periodically brought in. An irresistible
fascination evidently kept everybody in the room; the guests stayed
late, eager for every new item. When they finally left, one after
another, their manner was still abstracted and they said their
good-nights in low voices. There were two reasons for this behaviour.
The first was that the Ambassador and his guests had received the
details of the greatest infamy which any supposedly civilized state had
perpetrated since the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. The second was the
conviction that the United States would at once declare war on Germany.

On this latter point several of the guests expressed their ideas and one
of the most shocked and outspoken was Colonel House. For a month the
President's personal representative had been discussing with British
statesmen possible openings for mediation, but all his hopes in this
direction now vanished. That President Wilson would act with the utmost
energy Colonel House took for granted. This act, he evidently believed,
left the United States no option. "We shall be at war with Germany
within a month," he declared.

The feeling that prevailed in the Embassy this evening was the one that
existed everywhere in London for several days. Emotionally the event
acted like an anaesthetic. This was certainly the condition of all
Americans associated with the American Embassy, especially Page
himself. A day or two after the sinking the Ambassador went to Euston
Station, at an early hour in the morning, to receive the American
survivors. The hundred or more men and women who shambled from the train
made a listless and bedraggled gathering. Their grotesque clothes, torn
and unkempt--for practically none had had the opportunity of obtaining a
change of dress--their expressionless faces, their lustreless eyes,
their uncertain and bewildered walk, faintly reflected an experience
such as comes to few people in this world. The most noticeable thing
about these unfortunates was their lack of interest in their
surroundings; everything had apparently been reduced to a blank; the
fact that practically none made any reference to their ordeal, or could
be induced to discuss it, was a matter of common talk in London. And
something of this disposition now became noticeable in Page himself. He
wrote his dispatches to Washington in an abstracted mood; he went
through his duties almost with the detachment of a sleep-walker; like
the _Lusitania_ survivors, he could not talk much at that time about the
scenes that had taken place off the coast of Ireland. Yet there were
many indications that he was thinking about them, and his thoughts, as
his letters reveal, were concerned with more things than the tragedy
itself. He believed that his country was now face to face with its
destiny. What would Washington do?

Page had a characteristic way of thinking out his problems. He performed
his routine work at the Chancery in the daytime, but his really serious
thinking he did in his own room at night. The picture is still a vivid
one in the recollection of his family and his other intimates. Even at
this time Page's health was not good, yet he frequently spent the
evening at his office in Grosvenor Gardens, and when the long day's
labours were finished, he would walk rather wearily to his home at No. 6
Grosvenor Square. He would enter the house slowly--and his walk became
slower and more tired as the months went by--go up to his room and cross
to the fireplace, so apparently wrapped up in his own thoughts that he
hardly greeted members of his own family. A wood fire was kept burning
for him, winter and summer alike; Page would put on his dressing gown,
drop into a friendly chair, and sit there, doing nothing, reading
nothing, saying nothing--only thinking. Sometimes he would stay for an
hour; not infrequently he would remain till two, three, or four o'clock
in the morning; occasions were not unknown when his almost motionless
figure would be in this same place at daybreak. He never slept through
these nights, and he never even dozed; he was wide awake, and his mind
was silently working upon the particular problem that was uppermost in
his thoughts. He never rose until he had solved it or at least until he
had decided upon a course of action. He would then get up abruptly, go
to bed, and sleep like a child. The one thing that made it possible for
a man of his delicate frame, racked as it was by anxiety and over work,
to keep steadily at his task, was the wonderful gift which he possessed
of sleeping.

Page had thought out many problems in this way. The tension caused by
the sailing of the _Dacia_, in January, 1915, and the deftness with
which the issue had been avoided by substituting a French for a British
cruiser, has already been described. Page discovered this solution on
one of these all-night self-communings. It was almost two o'clock in the
morning that he rose, said to himself, "I've got it!" and then went
contentedly to bed. And during the anxious months that followed the
_Lusitania_, the _Arabic_, and those other outrages which have now
taken their place in history, he spent night after night turning the
matter over in his mind. But he found no way out of the humiliations
presented by the policy of Washington.

"Here we are swung loose in time," he wrote to his son Arthur, a few
days after the first _Lusitania_ note had been sent to Germany, "nobody
knows the day or the week or the month or the year--and we are caught on
this island, with no chance of escape, while the vast slaughter goes on
and seems just beginning, and the degradation of war goes on week by
week; and we live in hope that the United States will come in, as the
only chance to give us standing and influence when the reorganization of
the world must begin. (Beware of betraying the word 'hope'!) It has all
passed far beyond anybody's power to describe. I simply go on day by day
into unknown experiences and emotions, seeing nothing before me very
clearly and remembering only dimly what lies behind. I can see only one
proper thing: that all the world should fall to and hunt this wild beast
down.

"Two photographs of little Mollie[1] on my mantelpiece recall persons
and scenes and hopes unconnected with the war: few other things can.
Bless the baby, she couldn't guess what a sweet purpose she serves."

* * * * *

The sensations of most Americans in London during this crisis are almost
indescribable. Washington's failure promptly to meet the situation
affected them with astonishment and humiliation. Colonel House was
confident that war was impending, and for this reason he hurried his
preparations to leave England; he wished to be in the United States, at
the President's side, when the declaration was made. With this feeling
about Mr. Wilson, Colonel House received a fearful shock a day or two
after the _Lusitania_ had gone down: while walking in Piccadilly, he
caught a glimpse of one of the famous sandwich men, bearing a poster of
an afternoon newspaper. This glaring broadside bore the following
legend: "We are too proud to fight--Woodrow Wilson." The sight of that
placard was Colonel House's first intimation that the President might
not act vigorously. He made no attempt to conceal from Page and other
important men at the American Embassy the shock which it had given him.
Soon the whole of England was ringing with these six words; the
newspapers were filled with stinging editorials and cartoons, and the
music halls found in the Wilsonian phrase materials for their choicest
jibes. Even in more serious quarters America was the subject of the most
severe denunciation. No one felt these strictures more poignantly than
President Wilson's closest confidant. A day or two before sailing home
he came into the Embassy greatly depressed at the prevailing revulsion
against the United States. "I feel," Colonel House said to Page, "as
though I had been given a kick at every lamp post coming down
Constitution Hill." A day or two afterward Colonel House sailed for
America.


II

And now came the period of distress and of disillusionment. Three
_Lusitania_ notes were sent and were evasively answered, and Washington
still seemed to be marking time. The one event in this exciting period
which gave Page satisfaction was Mr. Bryan's resignation as Secretary of
State. For Mr. Bryan personally Page had a certain fondness, but as head
of the State Department the Nebraska orator had been a cause of endless
vexation. Many of Page's letters, already printed, bear evidence of the
utter demoralization which existed in this branch of the Administration
and this demoralization became especially glaring during the _Lusitania_
crisis. No attempt was made even at this momentous period to keep the
London Embassy informed as to what was taking place in Washington;
Page's letters and cablegrams were, for the most part, unacknowledged
and unanswered, and the American Ambassador was frequently obliged to
obtain his information about the state of feeling in Washington from Sir
Edward Grey. It must be said, in justice to Mr. Bryan, that this
carelessness was nothing particularly new, for it had worried many
ambassadors before Page. Readers of Charles Francis Adams's
correspondence meet with the same complaints during the Civil War; even
at the time of the _Trent_ crisis, when for a fortnight Great Britain
and the United States were living on the brink of war, Adams was kept
entirely in the dark about the plans of Washington[2]. The letters of
John Hay show a similar condition during his brief ambassadorship to
Great Britain in 1897-1898[3].

But Mr. Bryan's incumbency was guilty of diplomatic vices which were
peculiarly its own. The "leaks" in the State Department, to which Page
has already referred, were constantly taking place; the Ambassador would
send the most confidential cipher dispatches to his superior, cautioning
the Department that they must be held inviolably secret, and then he
would pick up the London newspapers the next morning and find that
everything had been cabled from Washington. To most readers, the
informal method of conducting foreign business, as it is disclosed in
these letters, probably comes as something of a shock. Page is here
discovered discussing state matters, not in correspondence with the
Secretary of State, but in private unofficial communications to the
President, and especially to Colonel House--the latter at that time not
an official person at all. All this, of course, was extremely irregular
and, in any properly organized State Department, it would have been even
reprehensible. But the point is that there was no properly organized
State Department at that time, and the impossibility of conducting
business through the regular channels compelled Page to adopt other
means. "There is only one way to reform the State Department," he
informed Colonel House at this time. "That is to raze the whole
building, with its archives and papers, to the ground, and begin all
over again."

This state of affairs in Washington explains the curious fact that the
real diplomatic history of the United States and Great Britain during
this great crisis is not to be found in the archives of the State
Department, for the official documents on file there consist of the most
routine telegrams, which are not particularly informing, but in the
Ambassador's personal correspondence with the President, Colonel House,
and a few other intimates. The State Department did not have the first
requisite of a properly organized foreign office, for it could not be
trusted with confidential information. The Department did not tell Page
what it was doing, but it apparently told the whole world what Page was
doing. It is an astonishing fact that Page could not write and cable the
most important details, for he was afraid that they would promptly be
given to the reporters.

* * * * *

"I shall not send another confidential message to the State Department,"
Page wrote to Colonel House, September 15, 1914; "it's too dangerous.
Time and time again now the Department has leaked. Last week, I sent a
dispatch and I said in the body of it, '_this is confidential and under
no condition to be given out or made public, but to be regarded as
inviolably secret_.' The very next morning it was telegraphed from
Washington to the London newspapers. Bryan telegraphed me that he was
sure it didn't get out from the Department and that he now had so fixed
it that there could be no leak. He's said that at least four times
before. The Department swarms with newspaper men, I hear. But whether it
does or not the leak continues. I have to go with my tail between my
legs and apologize to Sir Edward Grey and to do myself that shame and to
do my very best to keep his confidence--against these unnecessary odds.
The only way to be safe is to do the job perfunctorily, to answer the
questions the Department sends and to do nothing on your own account.
That's the reason so many of our men do their jobs in that way--or _one_
reason and a strong one. We can never have an alert and energetic and
powerful service until men can trust the Department and until they can
get necessary information from it. I wrote the President that of course
I'd go on till the war ended and all the questions growing out of it
were settled, and that then he must excuse me, if I must continue to be
exposed to this danger and humiliation. In the meantime, I shall send
all my confidential matter in private letters to him."

* * * * *

Page did not regard Mr. Bryan's opinions and attitudes as a joke: to him
they were a serious matter and, in his eyes, Bryan was most interesting
as a national menace. He regarded the Secretary as the extreme
expression of an irrational sentimentalism that was in danger of
undermining the American character, especially as the kind of thought
he represented was manifest in many phases of American life. In a moment
of exasperation, Page gave expression to this feeling in a letter to his
son:

_To Arthur W. Page_

London, June 6, 1915.

DEAR ARTHUR:

... We're in danger of being feminized and fad-ridden--grape juice
(God knows water's good enough: why grape juice?); pensions;
Christian Science; peace cranks; efficiency-correspondence schools;
aid-your-memory; women's clubs; co-this and co-t'other and coddling
in general; Billy Sunday; petticoats where breeches ought to be and
breeches where petticoats ought to be; white livers and soft heads
and milk-and-water;--I don't want war: nobody knows its horrors or
its degradations or its cost. But to get rid of hyphenated
degenerates perhaps it's worth while, and to free us from 'isms and
soft folk. That's the domestic view of it. As for being kicked by a
sauerkraut caste--O Lord, give us backbone!

Heartily yours,
W.H.P.

In the bottom of this note, Page has cut a notch in the paper and
against it he has written: "This notch is the place to apply a match to
this letter."

* * * * *

"Again and ever I am reminded," Page also wrote in reference to Bryan's
resignation, "of the danger of having to do with cranks. A certain
orderliness of mind and conduct seems essential for safety in this short
life. Spiritualists, bone-rubbers, anti-vivisectionists, all sort of
anti's in fact, those who have fads about education or fads against it,
Perfectionists, Daughters of the Dove of Peace, Sons of the Roaring
Torrent, itinerant peace-mongers--all these may have a real genius
among them once in forty years; but to look for an exception to the
common run of yellow dogs and damfools among them is like opening
oysters with the hope of finding pearls. It's the common man we want and
the uncommon common man when we can find him--never the crank. This is
the lesson of Bryan."

* * * * *

At one time, however, Mr. Bryan's departure seemed likely to have
important consequences for Page. Colonel House and others strongly urged
the President to call him home from London and make him Secretary of
State. This was the third position in President Wilson's Cabinet for
which Page had been considered. The early plans to make him Secretary of
the Interior or Secretary of Agriculture have already been described. Of
all cabinet posts, however, the one that would have especially attracted
him would have been the Department of State. But President Wilson
believed that the appointment of an Ambassador at one of the belligerent
capitals, especially of an Ambassador whose sympathies for the Allies
were so pronounced as were Page's, would have been an "un-neutral" act,
and, therefore, Colonel House's recommendation was not approved.

_From Edward M. House_

Roslyn, Long Island,
June 25th, 1915.

DEAR PAGE:

The President finally decided to appoint Lansing to succeed Mr.
Bryan. In my opinion, he did wisely, though I would have preferred
his appointing you.

The argument against your appointment was the fact that you are an
Ambassador at one of the belligerent capitals. The President did
not think it would do, and from what I read, when your name was
suggested I take it there would have been much criticism. I am
sorry--sorrier than I can tell you, for it would have worked
admirably in the general scheme of things.

However, I feel sure that Lansing will do the job, and that you
will find your relations with him in every way satisfactory.

The President spent yesterday with me and we talked much of you. He
is looking well and feeling so. I read the President your letter
and he enjoyed it as much as I did.

I am writing hastily, for I am leaving for Manchester,
Massachusetts, where I shall be during July and August.

Your sincere friend,
E.M. HOUSE.


III

But, in addition to the _Lusitania_ crisis, a new terror now loomed on
the horizon. Page's correspondence reveals that Bryan had more reasons
than one for his resignation; he was now planning to undertake a
self-appointed mission to Europe for the purpose of opening peace
negotiations entirely on his own account.

_From Edward M. House_

Manchester, Massachusetts,
August 12th, 1915.

DEAR PAGE:

The Bryans have been stopping with the X's. X writes me that Bryan
told him that he intended to go to Europe soon and try peace
negotiations. He has Lloyd George in mind in England, and it is
then his purpose to go to Germany.

I take it he will want credentials from the President which, of
course, he will not want to give, but just what he will feel
obliged to give is another story. I anticipated this when he
resigned. I knew it was merely a matter of time when he would take
this step.

He may find encouragement in Germany, for he is in high favour now
in that quarter. It is his purpose to oppose the President upon the
matter of "preparedness," and, from what we can learn, it will not
be long before there will be open antagonism between the
Administration and himself.

It might be a good thing to encourage his going to Europe. He would
probably come back a sadder and wiser man. I take it that no one in
authority in England would discuss the matter seriously with him,
and, in France, I do not believe he could even get a hearing.

Please let me have your impressions upon this subject.

I wish I could be near you to-day for there are so many things I
could tell that I cannot write.

Your friend,
E.M. House.


_To Edward M. House_

American Embassy, London [Undated].

DEAR HOUSE:

Never mind about Bryan. Send him over here if you wish to get rid
of him. He'll cut no more figure than a tar-baby at a Negro
camp-meeting. If he had come while he was Secretary, I should have
jumped off London Bridge and the country would have had one
ambassador less. But I shall enjoy him now. You see some peace
crank from the United States comes along every week--some crank or
some gang of cranks. There've been two this week. Ever since the
Daughters of the Dove of Peace met at The Hague, the game has
become popular in America; and I haven't yet heard that a single
one has been shot--so far. I think that some of them are likely
soon to be hanged, however, because there are signs that they may
come also from Germany. The same crowd that supplies money to buy
labour-leaders and the press and to blow up factories in the United
States keeps a good supply of peace-liars on tap. It'll be fun to
watch Bryan perform and never suspect that anybody is lying to him
or laughing at him; and he'll go home convinced that he's done the
job and he'll let loose doves all over the land till they are as
thick as English sparrows. Not even the President could teach him
anything permanently. He can do no harm on this side the world.
It's only your side that's in any possible danger; and, if I read
the signs right, there's a diminishing danger there.

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