To the President

     American Embassy, London,
     March 18, 1914.

     DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: 

About this infernal racket in the Senate over my poor speech, I have telegraphed you all there is to say.  Of course, it was a harmless courtesy—­no bowing low to the British or any such thing—­as it was spoken and heard.  Of course, too, nothing would have been said about it but for the controversy over the Canal tolls.  That was my mistake—­in being betrayed by the friendly dinner and the high compliments paid to us into mentioning a subject under controversy.

     I am greatly distressed lest possibly it may embarrass you.  I do
     hope not.

I think I have now learned that lesson pretty thoroughly.  These Anglophobiacs—­Irish and Panama—­hound me wherever I go.  I think I told you of one of their correspondents, who one night got up and yawned at a public dinner as soon as I had spoken and said to his neighbours:  “Well, I’ll go, the Ambassador didn’t say anything that I can get him into trouble about.”

I shall, hereafter, write out my speeches and have them gone over carefully by my little Cabinet of Secretaries.  Yet something (perhaps not much) will be lost.  For these people are infinitely kind and friendly and courteous.

They cannot be driven by anybody to do anything, but they can be led by us to do anything—­by the use of spontaneous courtesy.  It is by spontaneous courtesy that I have achieved whatever I have achieved, and it is for this that those like me who do like me.  Of course, what some of the American newspapers have said is true—­that I am too free and too untrained to be a great Ambassador.  But the conventional type of Ambassador would not be worth his salt to represent the United States here now, when they are eager to work with us for the peace of the world, if they are convinced of our honour and right-mindedness and the genuineness of our friendship.

I talked this over with Sir Edward Grey the other day, and after telling me that I need fear no trouble at this end of the line, he told me how severely he is now criticized by a “certain element” for “bowing too low to the Americans.”  We then each bowed low to the other.  The yellow press and Chamberlain would give a year’s growth for a photograph of us in that posture!

     I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind understanding and your
     toleration of my errors.

     Yours always heartily,
     WALTER H. PAGE.

     To the President.

P.S.  The serious part of the speech—­made to convince the financial people, who are restive about Mexico, that we do not mean to forbid legitimate investments in Central America—­has had a good effect here.  I have received the thanks of many important men.

     W.H.P.