International Law--Protest, protest: (I've done nothing else since
the world began!) One hour with a sensible ship captain does more
than a month of cross-wrangling with Government Departments.

I am trying my best, God knows, to keep the way as smooth as
possible; but neither government helps me. Our Government merely
sends the shipper's ex-parte statement. This Government uses the
Navy's excuse. . . .

At present, I can't for the life of me see a way to peace, for the
one reason I have told you. The Germans wish to whip England, to
invade England. They started with their army toward England. Till
that happened England didn't have an army. But I see no human power
that can give the English now what they are determined to
have--safety for the future--till some radical change is made in
the German system so that they will no longer have a war-party any
more than England has a war-party. England surely has no wish to
make conquest of Germany. If Germany will show that she has no wish
to make conquest of England, the war would end to-morrow.

What impresses me through it all is the backwardness of all the Old
World in realizing the true aims of government and the true
methods. I can't see why any man who has hope for the progress of
mankind should care to live anywhere in Europe. To me it is all
infinitely sad. This dreadful war is a logical outcome of their
condition, their thought, their backwardness. I think I shall never
care to see the continent again, which of course is committing
suicide and bankruptcy. When my natural term of service is done
here, I shall go home with more joy than you can imagine. That's
the only home for a man who wishes his horizon to continue to grow
wider.

All this for you and me only--nobody else.

Heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

Probably Page thought that this statement of the case--and it was
certainly a masterly statement--would end any attempt to get what he
regarded as an unsatisfactory and dangerous peace. But President Wilson
could not be deterred from pressing the issue. His conviction was firm
that this winter of 1914-1915 represented the most opportune time to
bring the warring nations to terms, and it was a conviction from which
he never departed. After the sinking of the _Lusitania_ the
Administration gazed back regretfu