The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II | Page 9

was consistent and absolutely loyal. It was his duty to carry out the
Wilson instructions and he had too high a conception of the
Ambassadorial office to show to the world any unfavourable opinions
he may have held about his country's course. His duty to his post made
it just as imperative that he set forth to the President the facts exactly as
they were. And this the Ambassador now proceeded to do. For the mere
ornamental dignities of an Ambassadorship Page cared nothing; he was
wasting his health in his duties and exhausting his private resources;
much as he loved the English and congenial as were his surroundings,
the fear of being recalled for "disloyalty" or insubordination never
influenced him. The letters which he now wrote to Colonel House and

to President Wilson himself are probably without parallel in the
diplomatic annals of this or of any other country. In them he told the
President precisely what Englishmen thought of him and of the extent
to which the United States was suffering in European estimation from
the Wilson policy. His boldness sometimes astounded his associates.
One day a friend and adviser of President Wilson's came into the
Ambassador's office just as Page had finished one of his
communications to Washington.
"Read that!" the Ambassador said, handing over the manuscript to his
visitor.
As the caller read, his countenance displayed the progressive stages of
his amazement. When he had finished, his hands dropped helplessly
upon his knees.
"Is that the way you write to the President?" he gasped.
"Of course," Page replied, quietly. "Why not? Why shouldn't I tell him
the truth? That is what I am here for."
"There is no other person in the world who dare talk to him like that!"
was the reply.
This is unquestionably the fact. That President Wilson did not like
people about him whose views were opposed to his own is now no
secret, and during the period when his policy was one of the great
issues of the world there was probably no one except Page who
intruded upon his solitude with ideas that so abruptly disagreed with
the opinions of the White House. The letters which Page wrote Colonel
House were intended, of course, for the President himself, and
practically all of them Colonel House read aloud to the head of the
nation. The two men would closet themselves in the old cabinet room
on the second floor of the White House--that same room in which
Lincoln had met his advisers during Civil War days; and here Colonel
House would quietly read the letters in which Page so mercilessly
portrayed the situation as it appeared in English and European eyes.
The President listened impassively, giving no sign of approval or

disapproval, and hardly, at times, of much interest. In the earlier days,
when Page's letters consisted of pictures of English life and English
men, and colourful descriptions of England under the stress of war, the
President was vastly entertained; he would laugh loudly at Page's wit,
express his delight at his graphic and pungent style and feel deeply the
horrors of war as his Ambassador unfolded them. "I always found Page
compelling on paper," Mr. Wilson remarked to Mr. Laughlin, during
one of the latter's visits to Washington. "I could never resist him--I get
more information from his letters than from any other single source.
Tell him to keep it up." It was during this period that the President used
occasionally to read Page's letters to the Cabinet, expressing his great
appreciation of their charm and historical importance. "The President
quoted from one of the Ambassador's letters to the Cabinet to-day," a
member of the Cabinet wrote to Mrs. Page in February, 1915. "'Some
day,' the President said, 'I hope that Walter Page's letters will be
published. They are the best letters I have ever read. They make you
feel the atmosphere in England, understand the people, and see into the
motives of the great actors.'" The President repeated this statement
many times, and his letters to Page show how greatly he enjoyed and
profited from this correspondence. But after the sinking of the
Lusitania and the Arabic his attitude toward Page and his letters
changed.
He now found little pleasure or satisfaction in the Page
communications. When Mr. Wilson found that one of his former
confidants had turned out to be a critic, that man instantaneously passed
out of his life. And this was now Page's fate; the friendship and
associations of forty years were as though they had never been. Just
why Mr. Wilson did not recall his Ambassador is a question that has
puzzled Page's friends. He would sometimes refer to him as a man who
was "more British than the British," as one who had been taken
completely