London, Tuesday night, Sept. 8, 1915.

     DEAR HOUSE: 

The Germans seem to think it a good time to try to feel about for peace.  They have more to offer now than they may have again.  That’s all.  A man who seriously talks peace now in Paris or in London on any terms that the Germans will consider, would float dead that very night in the Seine or in the Thames.  The Germans have for the time being “done-up” the Russians; but the French have shells enough to plough the German trenches day and night (they’ve been at it for a fortnight now); Joffre has been to see the Italian generalissimo; and the English destroy German submarines now almost as fast as the Germans send them out.  I am credibly told that several weeks ago a group of Admiralty men who are in the secret had a little dinner to celebrate the destruction of the 50th submarine.

While this is going on, you are talking on your side of the water about a change in German policy!  The only change is that the number of submarines available becomes smaller and smaller, and that they wish to use Uncle Sam’s broad, fat back to crawl down on when they have failed.

Consequently, they are laughing at Uncle Sam here—­it comes near to being ridicule, in fact, for seeming to jump at Bernstorff’s unfrank assurances.  And, as I have telegraphed the President, English opinion is—­well, it is very nearly disrespectful.  Men say here (I mean our old friends) that with no disavowal of the Lusitania, the Falaba, the Gulflight, or the Arabic or of the Hesperian, the Germans are “stuffing” Uncle Sam, that Uncle Sam is in the clutches of the peace-at-any-price public opinion, that the United States will suffer any insult and do nothing.  I hardly pick up a paper that does not have a sarcastic paragraph or cartoon.  We are on the brink of convincing the English that we’ll not act, whatever the provocation.  By the English, I do not mean the lighter, transitory public opinion, but I mean the thoughtful men who do not wish us or expect us to fire a gun.  They say that the American democracy, since Cleveland’s day, has become a mere agglomeration of different races, without national unity, national aims, and without courage or moral qualities.  And (I deeply regret to say) the President is losing here the high esteem he won by his Panama tolls repeal.  They ask, why on earth did he raise the issue if under repeated provocation he is unable to recall Gerard or to send Bernstorff home?  The Hesperian follows the Arabic; other “liners” will follow the Hesperian, if the Germans have submarines.  And, when Sackville-West[6] was promptly sent home for answering a private citizen’s inquiry about the two political parties, Dumba is (yet awhile) retained in spite of a far graver piece of business.  There is a tone of sad disappointment here—­not because the most thoughtful men want us in the