side.  The two governments—­the two human, kindly groups—­have retired:  they don’t touch, on this matter, now.  The lawyers will have the time of their lives, each smelling the blood of the other.

If more notes must come—­as the English papers report over and over again every morning and every afternoon—­the President might do much by writing a brief, human document to accompany the Appendices.  If it be done courteously, we can accuse them of stealing sheep and of dyeing the skins to conceal the theft-without provoking the slightest bad feeling; and, in the end, they’ll pay another Alabama award without complaint and frame the check and show it to future ambassadors as Sir Edward shows the Alabama check to me sometimes.

And it’ll be a lasting shame (and may bring other Great Wars) if lawyers are now permitted to tear the garments with which Peace ought to be clothed as soon as she can escape from her present rags and tatters.

     Yours always heartily,

     W.H.P.

P.S.  My dear House:  Since I have—­in weeks and months past—­both telegraphed and written the Department (and I presume the President has seen what I’ve sent) about the feeling here, I’ve written this letter to you and not to the President nor Lansing.  I will not run the risk of seeming to complain—­nor even of seeming to seem to complain.  But if you think it wise to send or show this letter to the President, I’m willing you should.  This job was botched:  there’s no doubt about that.  We shall not recover for many a long, long year.  The identical indictment could have been drawn with admirable temper and the way laid down for arbitration and for keeping our interpretation of the law and precedents intact—­all done in a way that would have given no offense.

     The feeling runs higher and higher every day—­goes deeper and
     spreads wider.

Now on top of it comes the Ancona[15].  The English press, practically unanimously, makes sneering remarks about our Government.  After six months it has got no results from the Lusitania controversy, which Bernstorff is allowed to prolong in secret session while factories are blown up, ships supplied with bombs, and all manner of outrages go on (by Germans) in the United States.  The English simply can’t understand why Bernstorff is allowed to stay.  They predict that nothing will come of the Ancona case, nor of any other case.  Nobody wants us to get into the war—­nobody who counts—­but they are losing respect for us because we seem to them to submit to anything.

We’ve simply dropped out.  No English person ever mentions our Government to me.  But they talk to one another all the time about the political anaemia of the United States Government.  They think that Bernstorff has the State Department afraid of him and that the Pacifists dominate opinion—­the Pacifists-at-any-price.