Volume I Part 18 (1/2)
. . . And, as for war with Mexico--I confess I've had a continually growing fear of it for six months. I've no confidence in the Mexican leaders--none of 'em. We shall have to Cuba-ize the country, which means thras.h.i.+ng 'em first--I fear, I fear, I fear; and I feel sorry for us all, the President in particular. It's inexpressibly hard fortune for him. I can't tell you with what eager fear we look for despatches every day and twice a day hurry to get the newspapers. All England believes we've got to fight it out.
Well, the English are with us, you see. Admiral Cradock, I understand, does not approve our policy, but he stands firmly with us whatever we do. The word to stand firmly with us has, I am very sure, been pa.s.sed along the whole line--naval, newspaper, financial, diplomatic. Carden won't give us any more trouble during the rest of his stay in Mexico. The yellow press's abuse of the President and me has actually helped us here.
Heartily yours, W.H.P.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 38: This was another manifestation of British friendliness.
When the American excitement was most acute, it became known that British capitalists had secured oil concessions in Colombia. At the demand of the British Government they gave them up.]
[Footnote 39: Mr. Nelson O'Shaughnessy, Charge d'Affaires in Mexico.]
[Footnote 40: Mr. and Mrs. Francis B. Sayre.]
[Footnote 41: Colonel House succeeded in preventing it.]
[Footnote 42: Senator Augustus O. Bacon, of Georgia who was reported to nourish ill-feeling toward Page for his authors.h.i.+p of ”The Southerner.”]
[Footnote 43: Probably an error for John Reed, at that time a newspaper correspondent in Mexico--afterward well known as a champion of the Bolshevist regime in Russia.]
CHAPTER VIII
HONOUR AND DISHONOUR IN PANAMA
In the early part of January, 1914, Colonel House wrote Page, asking whether he would consider favourably an offer to enter President Wilson's Cabinet, as Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. David F. Houston, who was then most acceptably filling that position, was also an authority on banking and finance; the plan was to make him governor of the new Federal Reserve Board, then in process of formation, and to transfer Page to the vacant place in the Cabinet. The proposal was not carried through, but Page's reply took the form of a review of his amba.s.sadors.h.i.+p up to date, of his vexations, his embarra.s.sments, his successes, and especially of the very important task which still lay before him. There were certain reasons, it will appear, why he would have liked to leave London; and there was one impelling reason why he preferred to stay. From the day of his arrival in England, Page had been humiliated, and his work had been constantly impeded, by the almost studied neglect with which Was.h.i.+ngton treated its diplomatic service.
The fact that the American Government provided no official residence for its Amba.s.sador, and no adequate financial allowance for maintaining the office, had made his position almost an intolerable one. All Page's predecessors for twenty-five years had been rich men who could advance the cost of the Emba.s.sy from their own private purses; to meet these expenses, however, Page had been obliged to encroach on the savings of a lifetime, and such liberality on his part necessarily had its limitations.
_To Edward M. House_
London, England, February 13, 1914.
MY DEAR HOUSE:
. . . Of course I am open to the criticism of having taken the place at all. But I was both uninformed and misinformed about the cost as well as about the frightful handicap of having no Emba.s.sy. It's a kind of scandal in London and it has its serious effect. Everybody talks about it all the time: ”Will you explain to me why it is that your great Government has no Emba.s.sy: it's very odd!” ”What a frugal Government you have!” ”It's a d.a.m.ned mean outfit, your American Government.” Mrs. Page collapses many an evening when she gets to her room. ”If they'd only quit talking about it!” The other Amba.s.sadors, now that we're coming to know them fairly well, commiserate us. It's a constant humiliation. Of course this aspect of it doesn't worry me much--I've got hardened to it. But it is a good deal of a real handicap, and it adds that much dead weight that a man must overcome; and it greatly lessens the respect in which our Government and its Amba.s.sador are held. If I had known this fully in advance, I should not have had the courage to come here. Now, of course, I've got used to it, have discounted it, and can ”bull” it through--could ”bull” it through if I could afford to pay the bill. But I shouldn't advise any friend of mine to come here and face this humiliation without realizing precisely what it means--wholly apart, of course, from the cost of it. . . .
My dear House, on the present basis much of the diplomatic business is sheer humbug. It will always be so till we have our own Emba.s.sies and an established position in consequence. Without a home or a house or a fixed background, every man has to establish his own position for himself; and unless he be unusual, this throws him clean out of the way of giving emphasis to the right things. . . .
As for our position, I think I don't fool myself. The job at the Foreign Office is easy because there is no real trouble between us, and because Sir Edward Grey is pretty nearly an ideal man to get on with. I think he likes me, too, because, of course, I'm straightforward and frank with him, and he likes the things we stand for. Outside this official part of the job, of course, we're commonplace--a successful commonplace, I hope. But that's all. We don't know how to try to be anything but what we naturally are. I dare say we are laughed at here and there about this and that.
Sometimes I hear criticisms, now and then more or less serious ones. Much of it comes of our greenness; some of it from the very nature of the situation. Those who expect to find us brilliant are, of course, disappointed. Nor are we smart, and the smart set (both American and English) find us uninteresting. But we drive ahead and keep a philosophical temper and simply do the best we can, and, you may be sure, a good deal of it. It _is_ laborious. For instance, I've made two trips lately to speak before important bodies, one at Leeds, the other at Newcastle, at both of which, in different ways, I have tried to explain the President's principle in dealing with Central American turbulent states--and, incidentally, the American ideals of government. The audiences see it, approve it, applaud it.
The newspaper editorial writers never quite go the length--it involves a denial of the divine right of the British Empire; at least they fear so. The fewest possible Englishmen really understand our governmental aims and ideals. I have delivered unnumbered and innumerable little speeches, directly or indirectly, about them; and they seem to like them. But it would take an army of oratorical amba.s.sadors a lifetime to get the idea into the heads of them all. In some ways they are incredibly far back in mediaevalism--incredibly.
If I have to leave in the fall or in December, it will be said and thought that I've failed, unless there be some reason that can be made public. I should be perfectly willing to tell the reason--the failure of the Government to make it financially possible. I've nothing to conceal--only definite amounts. I'd never say what it has cost--only that it costs more than I or anybody but a rich man can afford. If then, or in the meantime, the President should wish me to serve elsewhere, that would, of course, be a sufficient reason for my going.
Now another matter, with which I shall not bother the President--he has enough to bear on that score. It was announced in one of the London papers the other day that Mr. Bryan would deliver a lecture here, and probably in each of the princ.i.p.al European capitals, on Peace. Now, G.o.d restrain me from saying, much more from doing, anything rash. But if I've got to go home at all, I'd rather go before he comes. It'll take years for the American Amba.s.sadors to recover what they'll lose if he carry out this plan. They now laugh at him here. Only the President's great personality saves the situation in foreign relations. Of course the public here doesn't know how utterly unorganized the State Department is--how we can't get answers to important questions, and how they publish most secret despatches or allow them to leak out. But ”bad breaks” like this occur. Mr. Z, of the 100-years'-Peace Committee[44], came here a week ago, with a letter from Bryan to the Prime Minister! Z told me that this 100-year business gave a chance to bind the nations together that ought not to be missed. Hence Bryan had asked him to take up the relations of the countries with the Prime Minister! Bryan sent a telegram to Z to be read at a big 100-year meeting here. As for the personal indignity to me--I overlook that.
I don't think he means it. But if he doesn't mean it, what does he mean? That's what the Prime Minister asks himself. Fortunately Mr.
Asquith and I get along mighty well. He met Bryan once, and he told me with a smile that he regarded him as ”a peculiar product of your country.” But the Secretary is always doing things like this. He dashes off letters of introduction to people asking me to present them to Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, etc.