III

The extraordinary feature of this experience was that Page had been officially summoned home, presumably to discuss the European situation, and that neither the President nor the State Department apparently had the slightest interest in his visit.

“The President,” Page wrote to Mr. Laughlin, “dominates the whole show in a most extraordinary way.  The men about him (and he sees them only on ‘business’) are very nearly all very, very small fry, or worse—­the narrowest twopenny lot I’ve ever come across.  He has no real companions.  Nobody talks to him freely and frankly.  I’ve never known quite such a condition in American life.”  Perhaps the President had no desire to discuss inconvenient matters with his Ambassador to Great Britain, but Page was certainly determined to have an interview with the President.  “I’m not going back to London,” he wrote Mr. Laughlin, “till the President has said something to me or at least till I have said something to him.  I am now going down to Garden City and New York till the President send for me; or, if he do not send for me, I’m going to his house and sit on his front steps till he come out!” Page had brought from England one of the medals which the Germans had struck in honour of the Lusitania sinking, and one reason why he particularly wished to see the President alone was to show him this memento.

Another reason was that in early September Page had received important news from London concerning the move which Germany was making for peace and the attitude of Great Britain in this matter.  The several plans which Germany had had under consideration had now taken the form of a definite determination to ask for an armistice before winter set in.  A letter from Mr. Laughlin, Charge d’affaires in Page’s absence, tells the story.

     From Irwin Laughlin

     Embassy of the United States of America. 
     London, August 30, 1916.

     DEAR MR. PAGE: 

For some little time past I have heard persistent rumours, which indeed are more than rumours, since they have come from important sources, of an approaching movement by Germany toward an early armistice.  They have been so circumstantial and so closely connected—­in prospect—­with the President, that I have examined them with particular attention and I shall try to give you the results, and my conclusions, with the recommendation that you take the matter up directly with the President and the Secretary of State.  I have been a little at a loss to decide how to communicate what I have learned to the Government in Washington, for the present conditions make it impossible to set down what I want to say in an official despatch, but the fortunate accident of your being in the United States gives me the safe opportunity I want, and so I send my information to you, and by the pouch, as time is of less importance