nd they
freely say so. The little feeling of jealousy that we should come
in and win the war at the end has, I think, been forgotten,
swallowed up in their genuine gratitude.

Sincerely yours,

WALTER H. PAGE.

_To Arthur W. Page_

American Embassy,
London, Sept. 3, 1917.

DEAR ARTHUR:

... The President has sent Admiral Mayo over to study the naval
situation. So far as I can learn the feeling at Washington is that
the British Navy has done nothing. Why, it hasn't attacked the
German naval bases and destroyed the German navy and ended the war!
Why not? I have a feeling that Mayo will supplement and support
Sims in his report. Then gradually the naval men at Washington may
begin to understand and they may get the important facts into the
President's head. Meantime the submarine work of the Germans
continues to win the war, although the government and the people
here and in the United States appear not to believe it. They are
still destroying seventy-five British ships a month besides an
additional (smaller) number of allied and neutral ships. And all
the world together is not turning out seventy-five ships a month;
nor are we all destroying submarines as fast as the Germans are
turning _them_ out. Yet all the politicians are putting on a
cheerful countenance about it because the Germans are not starving
England out and are not just now sinking passenger ships. They may
begin this again at any time. They have come within a few feet of
torpedoing two of our American liners. The submarine _is_ the war
yet, but nobody seems disposed to believe it. They'll probably wake
up with a great shock some day--or the war may possibly end before
the destruction of ships becomes positively fatal.

The President's letter to the Pope gives him the moral and actual
leadership now. The Hohenzollerns must go. Somehow the subjects and
governments of these Old World kingdoms have not hitherto laid
emphasis on this. There's still a divinity that doth hedge a king
in most European minds. To me this is the very queerest thing in
the whole world. What again if Germany, Austria, Spain should
follow Russia? Whether they do or not crowns will not henceforth be
so popular. There is an unbounded enthusiasm here for the
President's letter and fo