American Embassy,
     London, April 7, 1918.

     DEAR ARTHUR: 

     I daresay you remember this epic: 

     Old Morgan’s wife made butter and cheese;
       Old Morgan drank the whey. 
     There came a wind from West to East
       And blew Old Morgan away.

I’m Old Morgan and your mother got ashamed of my wheyness and made the doctor prescribe cream for me.  There’s never been such a luxury, and anybody who supposes that I am now going to get fat and have my cream stopped simply doesn’t know me.  So, you see why I’m intent on shredded wheat biscuits.  That’s about the best form of real wheat that will keep.  And there’s no getting real wheat-stuff, pure and simple, in any other form.

There’s no use in talking about starving people—­except perhaps in India and China.  White men can live on anything.  The English could fight a century on cabbage and Brussels sprouts.  I’ve given up hope of starving the Germans.  A gut of dogmeat or horse flesh and a potato will keep them in fighting trim forever.  I’ve read daily for two years of impending starvation across the Rhine; but I never even now hear of any dead ones from hunger.  Cold steel or lead is the only fatal dose for them.

     Therefore I know that shredded wheat will carry me through.

You’ll see, I hope, from the clippings that I enclose that I’m not done for yet anyhow.  Two speeches a day is no small stunt; and I did it again yesterday—­hand running; and I went out to dinner afterward.  It was a notable occasion—­this celebration of the anniversary of our coming into the war[74].

Nobody here knows definitely just what to fear from the big battle; but everybody fears more or less.  It’s a critical time—­very.  I am told that that long-range gunning of Paris is the worst form of frightfulness yet tried.  The shells do not kill a great many people.  But their falling every fifteen minutes gets on people’s nerves and they can’t sleep.  I hear they are leaving Paris in great numbers.  Since the big battle began and the Germans have needed all their planes and more in France, they’ve let London alone.  But nobody knows when they will begin again.

     Nobody knows any future thing about the war, and everybody faces a
     fear.

     Secretary Baker stayed with me the two days and three nights he was
     here.  He made a good impression but he received a better one.  He
     now knows something about the war.  I had at dinner to meet him: 

     Lloyd George, Prime Minister.

     Balfour, Foreign Secretary.

     The Chief of Staff.

     Lord Derby, War Secretary.

     General Biddle, U.S.A., in command in London.

     Admiral Sims, U.S.N.

The talk was to the point—­good and earnest.  Baker went straight back to France and our whole cooeperation began.  With the first group of four he had conferences besides for two days.  His coming was an admirable move.

     Yours affectionately,
     W.H.P.