an aim provokes the cry from a lot of fools among us who accuse him of toadying to the English and of “accepting the conventional English conclusion.”  They had as well talk of missionaries to India accepting Confucius or Buddha.  Their fleet has saved us four or five times.  It’s about time we were saving them from this bloods Thing that we call Europe, for our sake and for theirs.

The bloody Thing will get us all if we don’t fight our level best; and it’s only by our help that we’ll be saved.  That clearly gives us the leadership.  Everybody sees that.  Everybody acknowledges it.  The President authoritatively speaks it—­speaks leadership on a higher level than it was ever spoken before to the whole world.  As soon as we get this fighting job over, the world procession toward freedom—­our kind of freedom—­will begin under our lead.  This being so, can’t you delegate the writing of telegrams about “facilitating the license to ship poppy seed to McKesson and Robbins,” and come over and see big world-forces at work?

I cannot express my satisfaction at Secretary Baker’s visit.  It was historic—­the first member of the Cabinet, I think, who ever came here while he held office.  He made a great impression and received a hearty welcome.

That’s the only grievance I can at the moment unload on you.  We’re passing out of our old era of isolation.  These benighted heathen on this island whom we’ll yet save (since they are well worth saving) will be with us as we need them in future years and centuries.  Come, help us heighten this fine spirit.

     Always heartily yours,

     WALTER HINES PAGE.

     P.S.  You’d see how big our country looks from a distance.  It’s
     gigantic, I assure you.

The above letter was written on what was perhaps the darkest day of the whole war.  The German attack on the Western Front, which had been long expected, had now been launched, and, at the moment that Page was penning this cheery note to Mr. Polk, the German armies had broken through the British defenses, had pushed their lines forty miles ahead, and, in the judgment of many military men, had Paris almost certainly within their grasp.  A great German gun, placed about seventy miles from the French capital, was dropping shells upon the apparently doomed city.  This attack had been regarded as inevitable since the collapse of Russia, which had enabled the Germans to concentrate practically all their armies on the Western Front.

The world does not yet fully comprehend the devastating effect of this apparently successful attack upon the allied morale.  British statesmen and British soldiers made no attempt to conceal from official Americans the desperate state of affairs.  It was the expectation that the Germans might reach Calais and thence invade England.  The War Office discussed these probabilities most freely with Colonel Slocum, the American military attache.  The simple fact was that both the French and the British armies were practically bled white.