the top of the house and went into the cellar.  I think they’ve already gone back.  You can’t imagine how little excitement it caused.  It produces less fright than any other conceivable engine of war.

We came back as soon as the Zeppelin was out of sight and the firing had ceased; we played our game of cards; and here I am writing you the story-all within about half an hour.—­There was a raid over London last night, too, wherein a dozen or two women and children and a few men were killed.  I haven’t the slightest idea what harm this raid to-night has done.  For all I know it may not be all done.  But of all imaginable war-experiences this seems the most futile.  It interrupted a game of cards for twenty minutes!)

Now—­to go on with my story:  I have wondered ever since the war began why the Allies were not better prepared—­especially England on land.  England has just one big land gun—­no more.  Now it has turned out, as you have doubtless read, that the British Government were as good as told by the German Government that Germany was going to war pretty soon—­this in 1912 when Lord Haldane[7] was sent to make friends with Germany.

The only answer he brought back was a proposition that England should in any event remain neutral—­stand aside while Germany whipped Russia and France.  This insulting proposal was kept secret till the other day.  Now, why didn’t the British Cabinet inform the people and get ready?  They were afraid the English people wouldn’t believe it and would accuse them of fomenting war.  The English people were making money and pursuing their sports.  Probably they wouldn’t have believed it.  So the Liberal Cabinet went on in silence, knowing that war was coming, but not exactly when it was coming, and they didn’t make even a second big gun.

Now here was the same silence in this “democracy” that they now complain of in ours.  Rather an interesting and discouraging parallel—­isn’t it?  Public opinion has turned Lord Haldane out of office because he didn’t tell the public what he declares they wouldn’t have believed.  If the English had raised an army in 1912, and made a lot of big guns, Austria would not have trampled Serbia in the earth.  There would have been no war now; and the strong European Powers might have made then the same sort of protective peace-insurance combine that they will try to make after this war is ended.  Query:  A democracy’s inability to act—­how much is this apparently inherent quality of a democracy to blame for this war and for—­other things?

     When I am asked every day “Why the United States doesn’t do
     something—­send Dumba and Bernstorff home?”—­Well, it is not the
     easiest question in the world to answer.

     Yours heartily,
     W.H.P.