I was only too glad for
him to have the manuscript. I forget just how many chapters I had
completed. But it was not quite in order. Could I get it so in a few
hours? In that case he would send a messenger for it from the hotel.
Yes, I could. Very good! A little further talk and he left with a strong
handshake. Three or four hours later he had the manuscript and took it
with him from Birmingham that night."

Page's enterprising visit had put into his hands the half-finished
manuscript of a story, "To Have and to Hold," which, when printed in the
_Atlantic_, more than doubled its circulation, and which, when made into
a book, proved one of the biggest successes since "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Page's most independent stroke in his _Atlantic_ days came with the
outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Boston was then the headquarters
of a national mood which has almost passed out of popular remembrance.
Its spokesmen called themselves anti-imperialists. The theory back of
their protest was that the American declaration of war on Spain was not
only the wanton attack of a great bully upon a feeble little country: it
was something that was bound to have deplorable consequences. The
United States was breaking with its past and engaging in European
quarrels; as a consequence of the war it would acquire territories and
embark on a career of "imperialism." Page was impatient at this kind of
twaddle. He declared that the Spanish War was a "necessary act of
surgery for the health of civilization." He did not believe that a
nation, simply because it was small, should be permitted to maintain
indefinitely a human slaughter house at the door of the United States.
The _Atlantic_ for June, 1898, gave the so-called anti-imperialists a
thrill of horror. On the cover appeared the defiantly flying American
flag; the first article was a vigorous and approving presentation of the
American case against Spain; though this was unsigned, its incisive
style at once betrayed the author. The _Atlantic_ had printed the
American flag on its cover during the Civil War; but certain New
Englanders thought that this latest struggle, in its motives and its
proportions, was hardly entitled to the distinction. Page declared,
however, that the Spanish War marked a new period in history; and he
endorsed the McKinley Administration, not only in the war itself, but in
its consequences, particularly the annexation of the Philippine Islands.

Page greatly enjoyed life