Volume I Part 17 (1/2)

January 6, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

I have your letter of December twenty-first, which I have greatly enjoyed.

Almost at the very time I was reading it, the report came through the a.s.sociated Press from London that Carden was to be transferred immediately to Brazil. If this is true, it is indeed a most fortunate thing and I feel sure it is to be ascribed to your tactful and yet very plain representations to Sir Edward Grey. I do not think you realize how hard we worked to get from either Lind or O'Shaughnessy[39] definite items of speech or conduct which we could furnish you as material for what you had to say to the Ministers about Carden. It simply was not obtainable. Everything that we got was at second or third hand. That he was working against us was too plain for denial, and yet he seems to have done it in a very astute way which n.o.body could take direct hold of. I congratulate you with all my heart on his transference.

I long, as you do, for an opportunity to do constructive work all along the line in our foreign relations, particularly with Great Britain and the Latin-American states, but surely, my dear fellow, you are deceiving yourself in supposing that constructive work is not now actually going on, and going on at your hands quite as much as at ours. The change of att.i.tude and the growing ability to understand what we are thinking about and purposing on the part of the official circle in London is directly attributable to what you have been doing, and I feel more and more grateful every day that you are our spokesman and interpreter there. This is the only possible constructive work in foreign affairs, aside from definite acts of policy. So far as the policy is concerned, you may be sure I will strive to the utmost to obtain both a repeal of the discrimination in the matter of tolls and a renewal of the arbitration treaties, and I am not without hope that I can accomplish both at this session. Indeed this is the session in which these things must be done if they are to be done at all.

Back of the smile which came to my face when you spoke of the impenetrable silence of the State Department toward its foreign representatives lay thoughts of very serious concern. We must certainly manage to keep our foreign representatives properly informed. The real trouble is to conduct genuinely confidential correspondence except through private letters, but surely the thing can be changed and it will be if I can manage it.

We are deeply indebted to you for your kindness and generous hospitality to our young folks[40] and we have learned with delight through your letters and theirs of their happy days in England.

With deep regard and appreciation,

Cordially and faithfully yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

HON. WALTER H. PAGE,

American Emba.s.sy,

London, England.

Yet for the American Amba.s.sador the experience was not one of unmixed satisfaction. These letters have contained references to the demoralized condition of the State Department under Mr. Bryan and the succeeding ones will contain more; the Carden episode portrayed the stupidity and ignorance of that Department at their worst. By commanding Carden to cease his anti-American tactics and to support the American policy the Foreign Office had performed an act of the utmost courtesy and consideration to this country. By quietly ”promoting” the same minister to another sphere, several thousand miles away from Mexico and Was.h.i.+ngton, it was now preparing to eliminate all possible causes of friction between the two countries. The British, that is, had met the wishes of the United States in the two great matters that were then making serious trouble--Huerta and Carden. Yet no government, Great Britain least of all, wishes to be placed in the position of moving its diplomats about at the request of another Power. The whole deplorable story appears in the following letter.

_To Edward M. House_

January 8th, 1914.

MY DEAR HOUSE:

Two days ago I sent a telegram to the Department saying that I had information from a private, _unofficial_ source that the report that Carden would be transferred was true, and from another source that Marling would succeed him. The Government here has given out nothing. I know nothing from official sources. Of course the only decent thing to do at Was.h.i.+ngton was to sit still till this Government should see fit to make an announcement. But what do they do? Give my telegram to the press! It appears here almost verbatim in this morning's _Mail_.--I have to make an humiliating explanation to the Foreign Office. This is the third time I've had to make such an humiliating explanation to Sir Edward. It's getting a little monotonous. He's getting tired, and so am I. They now deny at the Foreign Office that anything has been decided about Carden, and this meddling by us (as they look at it) will surely cause a delay and may even cause a change of purpose.

That's the practical result of their leaking at Was.h.i.+ngton. On a previous occasion they leaked the same way. When I telegraphed a remonstrance, they telegraphed back to me that the leak had been _here_! That was the end of it--except that I had to explain to Sir Edward the best I could. And about a lesser matter, I did the same thing a third time, in a conversation. Three times this sort of thing has happened.--On the other hand, the King's Master of Ceremonies called on me on the President's Birthday and requested for His Majesty that I send His Majesty's congratulations. Just ten days pa.s.sed before a telegraphic answer came! The very hour it came, I was myself making up an answer for the President that I was going to send, to save our face.

Now, I'm trying with all my might to do this job. I spend all my time, all my ingenuity, all my money at it. I have organized my staff as a sort of Cabinet. We meet every day. We go over everything conceivable that we may do or try to do. We do good team work. I am not sure but I doubt whether these secretaries have before been taken into just such a relation to their chief. They are enthusiastic and ambitious and industrious and--_safe_. There's no possibility of any leak. We arrange our dinners with reference to the possibility of getting information and of carrying points.

Mrs. Page gives and accepts invitations with the same end in view.

We're on the job to the very limit of our abilities.

And I've got the Foreign Office in such a relation that they are frank and friendly. (I can't keep 'em so, if this sort of thing goes on.)

Now the State Department seems (as it touches us) to be utterly chaotic--silent when it ought to respond, loquacious when it ought to be silent. There are questions that I have put to it at this Government's request to which I can get no answer.

It's hard to keep my staff enthusiastic under these conditions.

When I reached the Chancery this morning, they were in my room, with all the morning papers marked, on the table, eagerly discussing what we ought to do about this publication of my dispatch. The enthusiasm and buoyancy were all gone out of them. By their looks they said, ”Oh! what's the use of our bestirring ourselves to send news to Was.h.i.+ngton when they use it to embarra.s.s us?”--While we are thus at work, the only two communications from the Department to-day are two letters from two of the Secretaries about--presenting ”Democratic” ladies from Texas and Oklahoma at court! And Bryan is now lecturing in Kansas.

Since I began to write this letter, Lord Cowdray came here to the house and stayed two and a half hours, talking about possible joint intervention in Mexico. Possibly he came from the Foreign Office. I don't know whether to dare send a despatch to the State Department, telling what he told me, for fear they'd leak. And to leak this--Good Lord! Two of the Secretaries were here to dinner, and I asked them if I should send such a despatch. They both answered instantly: ”No, sir, don't dare: _write_ it to the President.” I said: ”No, I have no right to bother the President with regular business nor with frequent letters.” To that they agreed; but the interesting and somewhat appalling thing is, they're actually afraid to have a confidential despatch go to the State Department.