The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Volume I Part 11

By thunder, he's doing _his_ job, isn't he? Whether you like the job or not, you've got to grant that. When I first came over here, I found a mild curiosity about Wilson--only mild. But now they sit up and listen and ask most eager questions. He has pressed his personality most strongly on the governing cla.s.s here.

Yours heartily, W.H.P.

_To the President_

American Emba.s.sy, London [May 11, 1914.]

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The King of Denmark (I always think of Hamlet) having come to make his royal kinsman of these Isles a visit, his royal kinsman to-night gave a state dinner at the palace whereto the Amba.s.sadors of the eight Great Powers were, of course, invited. Now I don't know how other kings do, but I'm willing to swear by King George for a job of this sort. The splendour of the thing is truly regal and the friendliness of it very real and human; and the company most uncommon. Of course the Amba.s.sadors and their wives were there, the chief rulers of the Empire and men and women of distinction and most of the royal family. The dinner and the music and the plate and the decorations and the jewels and the uniforms--all these were regal; but there is a human touch about it that seems almost democratic.

All for His Majesty of Denmark, a country with fewer people and less wealth than New Jersey. This whole royal game is most interesting. Lloyd George and H.H. Asquith and John Morley were there, all in white knee breeches of silk, and swords and most gaudy coats--these that are the radicals of the Kingdom, in literature and in action. Veterans of Indian and South African wars stood on either side of every door and of every stairway, dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh dressed, like so many statues, never blinking an eye. Every person in the company is printed, in all the papers, with every t.i.tle he bears. Crowds lined the streets in front of the palace to see the carriages go in and to guess who was in each.

To-morrow the Diplomatic Corps calls on King Christian and to-morrow night King George commands us to attend the opera as his guests.

Whether it's the court, or the honours and the orders and all the social and imperial spoils, that keep the illusion up, or whether it is the Old World inability to change anything, you can't ever quite decide. In Defoe's time they put pots of herbs on the desks of every court in London to keep the plague off. The pots of herbs are yet put on every desk in every court room in London. Several centuries ago somebody tried to break into the Bank of England. A special guard was detached--a little company of soldiers--to stand watch at night. The bank has twice been moved and is now housed in a building that would stand a siege; but that guard, in the same uniform goes on duty every night. Nothing is ever abolished, nothing ever changed. On the anniversary of King Charles's execution, his statue in Trafalgar Square is covered with flowers.

Every month, too, new books appear about the mistresses of old kings--as if they, too, were of more than usual interest: I mean serious, historical books. From the King's palace to the humblest house I've been in, there are pictures of kings and queens. In every house, too (to show how nothing ever changes), the towels are folded in the same peculiar way. In every grate in the kingdom the coal fire is laid in precisely the same way. There is not a salesman in any shop on Piccadilly who does not, in the season, wear a long-tail coat. Everywhere they say a second grace at dinner--not at the end--but before the dessert, because two hundred years ago they dared not wait longer lest the parson be under the table: the grace is said to-day _before_ dessert! I tried three months to persuade my "Boots" to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every "Boots" in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: "It is now universally conceded by the French and the Americans that the decimal system is a failure," and he went on to concoct a scheme for our money that would be more "rational" and "historical." In this hot debate about Ulster a frequent phrase used is, "Let us see if we can't find the right formula to solve the difficulty"; their whole lives are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters and thistles and O.M.'s and K.C.B.'s and all manner of gaudy sinecures be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My servants sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid wouldn't yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal consideration--any more than a royal person of a certain rank would yield to one of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as doomsday. So you argue, till you remember that it is these same people who made human liberty possible--to a degree--and till you sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons, mercilessly pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they keep all these outworn things because they are incapable of changing anything, or do these outworn burdens keep them from becoming able to change anything? I daresay it works both ways.

Every venerable ruin, every outworn custom, makes the King more secure; and the King gives veneration to every ruin and keeps respect for every outworn custom.

Praise G.o.d for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there are men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous stock.

A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy nut to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their thought on us. They never forget that we are 100 million strong and that we dare do new things; and they dearly love to ask questions about--Rockefeller! Our power, our adaptability, our potential wealth they never forget. They'll hold fast to our favour for reasons of prudence as well as for reasons of kins.h.i.+p. And, whenever we choose to a.s.sume the leaders.h.i.+p of the world, they'll grant it--gradually--and follow loyally. They cannot become French, and they dislike the Germans. They must keep in our boat for safety as well as for comfort.

Yours heartily, WALTER H. PAGE.

The following extracts are made from other letters written at this time:

. . . To-night I had a long talk with the d.u.c.h.ess of X, a kindly woman who spends much time and money in the most helpful "uplift" work; that's the kind of woman she is.

Now she and the Duke are invited to dine at the French Amba.s.sador's to-morrow night. "If the Duke went into any house where there was any member of this Government," said she, "he'd turn and walk out again. We thought we'd better find out who the French Amba.s.sador's guests are. We didn't wish to ask him nor to have correspondence about it. Therefore the Duke sent his Secretary quietly to ask the Amba.s.sador's Secretary--before we accepted."

This is now a common occurrence. We had Sir Edward Grey to dinner a little while ago and we had to make sure we had no Tory guests that night.

This same d.u.c.h.ess of X sat in the Peeresses' gallery of the House of Lords to-night till 7 o'clock. "I had to sit in plain sight of the wives of two members of the Cabinet and of the wife and daughter of the Prime Minister. I used to know them," she said, "and it was embarra.s.sing."

Thus the revolution proceeds. For that's what it is.

. . . On the other hand the existing order is the most skilfully devised machinery for perpetuating itself that has ever grown up among civilized men. Did you ever see a London directory? It hasn't names alphabetically; but one section is "Tradesmen," another "The City,"

etc., etc., and another "The Court." Any one who has ever been presented at Court is in the "Court" section, and you must sometimes look in several sections to find a man. Yet everybody so values these distinctions that n.o.body complains of the inconvenience. When the Liberal party makes Liberals Peers in order to have Liberals in the House of Lords, lo! they soon turn Conservative after they get there.

The system perpetuates itself and stifles the natural desire for change that most men in a state of nature instinctively desire in order to a.s.sert their own personalities. . . .

. . . All this social life which engages us at this particular season, sets a man to thinking. The ma.s.s of the people are very slow--almost dull; and the privileged are most firmly entrenched. The really alert people are the aristocracy. They see the drift of events. "What is the pleasantest part of your country to live in?" Dowager Lady X asked me on Sunday, more than half in earnest. "My husband's ancestors sat in the House of Lords for six hundred years. My son sits there now--a dummy.

They have taken all power from the Lords; they are taxing us out of our lands; they are saving the monarchy for destruction last. England is of the past--all is going. G.o.d knows what is coming." . . .

. . . And presently the presentations come. Lord! how sensible American women scramble for this privilege! It royally fits a few of them. Well, I've made some rules about presentations myself, since it's really a sort of personal perquisite of the Amba.s.sador. One rule is, I don't present any but handsome women. Pretty girls: that's what you want when you are getting up a show. Far too many of ours come here and marry Englishmen. I think I shall make another rule and exact a promise that after presentation they shall go home. But the American women do enliven London. . . .

That triumph with the tariff is historic. I wrote to the President: "Score one!" And I have been telling the London writers on big subjects, notably the editor of the _Economist_, that this event, so quiet and undramatic, will mark a new epoch in the trade history of the world. . . .

This island is a good breeding place for men whose children find themselves and develop into real men in freer lands. All that is needed to show the whole world that the future is ours is just this sort of an act of self-confidence. You know the old story of the Negro who saw a ghost--"Git outen de way, Mr. Rabbit, and let somebody come who _kin_ run!" Score one! We're making History, and these people here know it.

The trade of the world, or as much of it as is profitable, we may take as we will. The over-taxed, under-productive, army-burdened men of the Old World--alas! I read a settled melancholy in much of their statesmans.h.i.+p and in more of their literature. The most cheerful men in official life here are the High Commissioners of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and such fellows who know what the English race is doing and can do freed from uniforms and heavy taxes and cla.s.s feeling and such like. . . .

. . . The two things that this island has of eternal value are its gardens and its men. Nature sprinkles it almost every day and holds its moisture down so that every inch of it is forever green; and somehow men thrive as the lawns do--the most excellent of all races for progenitors. You and I[33] can never be thankful enough that our ancestors came of this stock. Even those that have stayed have cut a wide swath, and they wield good scythes yet. But I have moods when I pity them--for their dependence, for instance, on a navy (2 keels to 1) for their very bread and meat. They frantically resent conveniences. They build their great law court building (the architecture ecclesiastical) so as to provide an entrance hall of imposing proportions which they use once a year; and to get this fine hall they have to make their court rooms, which they must use all the time, dark and small and inaccessible. They think as much of that once-a-year ceremony of opening their courts as they think of the even justice that they dispense; somehow they feel that the justice depends on the ceremony.

This moss that has grown all over their lives (some of it very pretty and most of it very comfortable--it's soft and warm) is of no great consequence--except that they think they'd die if it were removed. And this state of mind gives us a good key to their character and habits.

What are we going to do with this England and this Empire, presently, when economic forces unmistakably put the leaders.h.i.+p of the race in our hands? How can we lead it and use it for the highest purposes of the world and of democracy? We can do what we like if we go about it heartily and with good manners (any man prefers to yield to a gentleman rather than to a rustic) and throw away--gradually--our isolating fears and alternate boasting and bashfulness. "What do we most need to learn from you?" I asked a gentle and bejewelled n.o.bleman the other Sunday, in a country garden that invited confidences. "If I may speak without offence, modesty." A commoner in the company, who had seen the Rocky Mountains, laughed, and said: "No; see your chance and take it: that's what we did in the years when we made the world's history." . . .

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Emba.s.sy in London.]

[Footnote 12: In about a year Page moved the Chancery to the present satisfactory quarters at No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.]

[Footnote 13: Mrs. Walter H. Page.]

[Footnote 14: Miss Katharine A. Page, the Amba.s.sador's daughter.]

[Footnote 15: "Effendi" is the name by which Mr. F.N. Doubleday, Page's partner, is known to his intimates. It is obviously suggested by the initials of his name.]

[Footnote 16: A reference to William Sulzer, Governor of New York, who at this time was undergoing impeachment.]

[Footnote 17: See Chapter VIII, page 258.]

[Footnote 18: The Amba.s.sador's son.]

[Footnote 19: Miss Katharine A. Page.]

[Footnote 20: Mr. Andrew Carnegie.]

[Footnote 21: Mrs. Walter H. Page is the daughter of a Scotchman from Ayrs.h.i.+re.]

[Footnote 22: The astonis.h.i.+ng thing about Page's comment on the leaders.h.i.+p of the United States--if it would only take this leaders.h.i.+p--is that these letters were written in 1913, a year before the outbreak of the war, and eight years before the Was.h.i.+ngton Disarmament Conference of 1921-22.]

[Footnote 23: Just what this critical Briton had in mind, in thinking that the removal of a New York governor created a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency, is not clear. Possibly, however, he had a cloudy recollection of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt, after serving as Governor of New York State, became Vice-President, and may have concluded from this that the two offices were held by the same man.]

[Footnote 24: For years this idea of the stenographer back of a screen in the Foreign Office has been abroad, but it is entirely unfounded.

Several years ago a Foreign Secretary, perhaps Lord Salisbury, put a screen behind his desk to keep off the draughts and from this precaution the myth arose that it s.h.i.+elded a stenographer who took a complete record of amba.s.sadorial conversations. After an amba.s.sador leaves, the Foreign Secretary, however, does write out the important points in the conversation. Copies are made and printed, and sent to the King, the Prime Minister, the British Amba.s.sador in the country to which the interview relates, and occasionally to others. All these records are, of course, carefully preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office.]

[Footnote 25: The Rev. Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, the well-known Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick, poet and student of Wordsworth. President Wilson, who used occasionally to spend his vacation in the Lake region, was one of his friends.]