We can now begin a distinctly New Era in the world’s history and in its management if we rise to the occasion:  there’s not a shadow of doubt about that.  And the United States can play a part bigger than we have yet dreamed of if we prove big enough to lead the British and the French instead of listening to Irish and Germans.  Neither England nor France is a democracy—­far from it.  We can make them both democracies and develop their whole people instead of about 10 per cent. of their people.  We have simply to conduct our affairs by a large national policy and not by the complaints of our really non-American people.  See how a declaration of war has cleared the atmosphere!

We’re happy yet, on rations.  There are no potatoes.  We have meatless days.  Good wheat meantime is sunk every day.  The submarine must be knocked out.  Else the earth will be ruled by the German bayonet and natural living will be verboten.  We’ll all have to goose-step as the Crown Prince orders or—­be shot.  I see they now propose that the United States shall pay the big war indemnity in raw materials to the value of hundreds of billions of dollars!  Not just yet, I guess!

     As we get reports of what you are doing, it’s most cheerful.  I
     assure you, God has yet made nothing or nobody equal to the
     American people; and I don’t think He ever will or can.

     Sincerely yours,
     WALTER H. PAGE.

One of the curious developments of this Balfour Mission was a request from President Wilson that Great Britain should take some decisive step for the permanent settlement of the Irish question.  “The President,” this message ran, “wishes that, when you next meet the Prime Minister, you would explain to him that only one circumstance now appears to stand in the way of perfect cooeperation with Great Britain.  All Americans who are not immediately connected with Germany by blood ties find their one difficulty in the failure of Great Britain so far to establish a satisfactory form of self-government in Ireland.  In the recent debates in Congress on the War Resolution, this sentiment was especially manifest.  It came out in the speeches of those enemies of the Declaration who were not Irish themselves nor representatives of sections in which Irish voters possessed great influence—­notably members from the Southern States.

“If the American people were once convinced that there was a likelihood that the Irish question would soon be settled, great enthusiasm and satisfaction would result and it would also strengthen the cooeperation which we are now about to organize between the United States and Great Britain.  Say this in unofficial terms to Mr. Lloyd George, but impress upon him its very great significance.  If the British Government should act successfully on this matter, our American citizens of Irish descent and to a great extent the German sympathizers who have made common cause with the Irish, would join hands in the great common cause.”