succeed, America will fall within the menace. We and all the rest of the world must remain armed, as they will remain, and must make ready for the next step in their aggression; if they fail, the world may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union.

the stage and talk of her ambition to assert economic dominion throughout the world; appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation in the politics of the nations; and seek to undermine the government with false professions of loyalty to its principles.

But they will make no headway. The false betray themselves always in

Do you not now understand the new intrigue, the intrigue for peace, and 10 every accent. It is only friends and

why the masters of Germany do not
hesitate to use any agency that prom-
ises to effect their purpose, the deceit
of the nations? Their present particu-
lar aim is to deceive all those who
throughout the world stand for the
rights of peoples and the self-govern-
ment of nations; for they see what im-
mense strength the forces of justice and
of liberalism are gathering out of this 20
war. They are employing liberals in
their enterprise. They are using men,
in Germany and without, as their
spokesmen whom they have hitherto
despised and oppressed, using them for
their own destruction.-Socialists, the
leaders of labor, the thinkers they have
hitherto sought to silence. Let them
once succeed, and these men, now their
tools, will be ground to powder beneath 30
the weight of the great military empire
they will have set up; the revolutionists
in Russia will be cut off from all suc-
cor or coöperation in western Europe,
and a counter-revolution fostered and
supported; Germany herself will lose
her chance of freedom; and all Europe
will arm for the next, the final
struggle.

partisans of the German Government whom we have already identified who utter these thinly disguised disloyalties. The facts are patent to all the world, and nowhere are they more plainly seen than in the United States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts and not with sophistries; and the great fact that stands out above all the rest is that this is a people's war, a war for freedom and justice and self-government amongst all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the peoples who live upon it and have made it their own, the German people themselves included; and that with us rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies and patent cheats and masks of brute force and help set the world free, or else stand aside and let it be dominated a long age through by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters, by the nation which can maintain the biggest armies and the most irresistible armaments,-a power to which the world has afforded no parallel and in the face of which political freedom must wither and

The sinister intrigue is being no less 40 perish. actively conducted in this country than in Russia and in every country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial German Government can get access. That government has many spokesmen here, in places high and low. They have learned discretion. They keep within the law. It is opinion they utter now, not sedition. They proclaim the liberal purposes of 50 their masters; declare this a foreign war which can touch America with no danger to either her lands or her institutions; set England at the center of

For us there is but one choice. We have made it. Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people.

God save us! What a week it has been! Last Sunday I was down at the cottage 2 I have taken for the summer-an hour out of London-uneasy because of the apparent danger and 10 of what Sir Edward Grey had told me. During the day people began to go to the Embassy, but not in great numbers

You'll be interested in these pamphlets by Sir Max Waechter, who has opened an office here and is spending much money to "federate" Europe. I enclose also an article about him from the Daily Telegraph, which tells how he has interviewed most of the Old World monarchs. Get also, immediately, the new two-volume life of Lord Lyons, Minister to the United 20 States during the Civil War, and subsequently Ambassador to France. You will find an interesting account of the campaign of about 1870 to reduce armaments, when old Bismarck dumped the whole basket of apples by marching against France. You know I sometimes fear some sort of repetition of that experience. Some government (probably Germany) will see bankruptcy staring it in the face, and the easiest way out will seem a great war. Bankruptcy before a war would be ignominious; after a war, it could be charged to "glory."

Always heartily yours,

W. H. P.

P.S._ There's nothing like the President. By George! the passage of the arbitration treaty (renewal) almost right off the bat, and apparently the tolls discrimination coming presently to its repeal! Sir Edward Grey remarked to me yesterday: "Things are clearing up!" I came near saying to him: "Have you any miracles in mind that you'd like to see worked?" Wilson stock is at a high premium on this side of the water, in spite of the momentary impatience caused by Benton's death.

W. H. P.

'From The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, by Burton J. Hendrick. Copyright, Doubleday, Page & Company.

merely to ask what to do in case of war. The Secretary whom I had left in charge on Sunday telephoned me every few hours and laughingly told funny experiences with nervous women who came in and asked absurd questions. Of course, we all knew the grave danger that war might come, but nobody could by the wildest imagination guess at what awaited us. On Monday I was at the Embassy earlier than I think I had ever been there before, and every member of the staff was already on duty. Before breakfast time the place was filled-packed like sardines. This was two days before war was declared. There was no 30 chance to talk to individuals, such was the jam. I got on a chair and explained that I had already telegraphed to Washington-on Saturday-suggesting the sending of money and ships, and asking them to be patient. I made a speech to them several times during the

40

50

day, and kept the Secretaries doing so

at intervals. More than 2,000 Americans crowded into those offices (which are not large) that day. We were kept there till two o'clock in the morning. The Embassy has not been closed since.

Mr. Kent, of the Bankers Trust Company in New York, volunteered to form an American Citizens' Relief Committee. He and other men of experience and influence organized themselves at the Savoy Hotel. . . . We now have an orderly organization at four places: The Embassy, the Consul-General's Office, the Savoy, and the American Society in London, and everything is going well. Those two at Ockham, Surrey

first days, there was, of course, great
confusion. Crazy men and weeping
women were imploring and cursing and
demanding God knows it was bedlam
turned loose. I have been called a man
of the greatest genius for an emergency
by some, by others a damned fool, by
others every epithet between these ex-
tremes. Men shook English banknotes
in my face and demanded United 10
States money and swore our Govern-
ment and its agents ought all to be
shot. Women expected me to hand
them steamship tickets home. When
some found out they could not get
tickets on the transports (which they
assumed would sail the next day) they
accused me of favoritism.

Then came the declaration of war,
most dramatically. Tuesday night, five 20
minutes after the ultimatum had ex-
pired, the Admiralty telegraphed to the
fleet "Go." In a few minutes the an-
swer came back, "Off." Soldiers be-
gan to march through the city, going
to the railway stations. An indescrib-
able crowd so blocked the streets about
the Admiralty, the War Office, and the
Foreign Office, that at one o'clock in
the morning I had to drive in my car 30
by other streets to get home.

English servants that were left there. He has the job well in hand now, under my and Laughlin's supervision. But this has brought still another new lot of diplomatic and governmental problems a lot of them. Three enormous German banks in London have, of course, been closed. Their managers pray for my aid. Howling women come and say their innocent German husbands have been arrested as spies. English, Germans, Americans

everybody has daughters and wives and invalid grandmothers alone in Germany. In God's name, they ask, what can I do for them? Here come stacks of letters sent under the impression that I can send them to Germany.

I am having a card catalogue, each containing a sort of who's who, of all Americans in Europe of whom we hear. This will be ready by the time the Tennessee comes. Fifty or more stranded Americans-men and women -are doing this work free.

I have a member of Congress in the general reception room of the Embassy answering people's questions-three other volunteers as well.

We had a world of confusion for two or three days. But all this work is now well organized and it can be continued without confusion or cross purposes. I meet committees and lay plans and read and write telegrams from the time I wake till I go to bed. But, since it is now all in order, it is easy. Of course I am running up the expenses of the Embassy-there is no help for that; but the bill will be really exceedingly small because of the volunteer work for a while. I have not and shall not consider the expense of whatever it seems absolutely necessary to do of other things I shall always consider the expense most critically. Everybody is working with everybody else in the finest possible spirit. I have

The next day the German Embassy was turned over to me. I went to see the German Ambassador at three o'clock in the afternoon. He came down in his pajamas, a crazy man. I feared he might literally go mad. He is of the anti-war party, and he had done his best and utterly failed. This interview was one of the most pathetic 40 experiences of my life. The poor man had not slept for several nights. Then came the crowds of frightened Germans, afraid that they would be arrested. They besieged the German Embassy and our Embassy. I put one of our naval officers in the German Embassy, put the United States seal on the door to protect it, and we began business there, too. Our naval 50 made out a sort of military order to the officer has moved in-sleeps there. He has an assistant, a stenographer, a messenger: and I gave him the German automobile and chauffeur and two

Embassy staff, detailing one man with clerks for each night, and forbidding the others to stay there till midnight. None of us slept more than a few

weeping and crying out, "My dear Colleague, my dear Colleague."

Along with all this tragedy came two reverend American peace delegates who got out of Germany by the skin of their teeth and complain that they lost all the clothes they had except what they had on. they had on. "Don't complain," said I, "but thank God you saved your 10 skins." Everybody has forgotten what war means-forgotten that folks get hurt. But they are coming around to it now. A United States Senator telegraphs me: "Send my wife and daughter home on the first ship." Ladies and gentlemen filled the steerage of that ship-not a bunk left; and his wife and daughter are found three days later sitting in a swell hotel waiting for me to bring them stateroom tickets on a silver tray! One of my young fellows in the Embassy rushes into my office saying that a man from Boston with letters of introduction from Senators and Governors and Secretaries, et. al., was demanding tickets of admission to a picture-gallery, and a Secretary to escort him there.

hours last week. It was not the work
that kept them after the first night or
two, but the sheer excitement of this
awful cataclysm. All London has been
awake for a week. Soldiers are march-
ing day and night; immense throngs
block the streets about the government
offices. But they are all very orderly.
Every day Germans are arrested on
suspicion; and several of them have
committed suicide. Yesterday one
poor American woman yielded to the
excitement and cut her throat. I find
it hard to get about much. People stop
me on the street, follow me to lun-
cheon, grab me as I come out of any
committee meeting-to know my opin-
ion of this or that-how can they get
home? Will such-and-such a boat fly
the American flag? Why did I take 20
the German Embassy? I have to fight
my way about and rush to an automo-
bile. I have had to buy me a second
one to keep up the racket. Buy?
no-only bargain for it, for I have not
any money. But everybody is con-
siderate, and that makes no matter
for the moment. This little cottage in
an out-of-the-way place, twenty-five
miles from London, where I am trying 30
to write and sleep, has been found by
people today, who come in automo-
biles to know how they may reach their
sick kinspeople in Germany. I have
not had a bath for three days: as soon
as I got in the tub, the telephone rang
an "urgent" call.

"What shall I do with him?"

"Put his proposal to a vote of the 200 Americans in the room, and see them draw and quarter him."

I have not yet heard what happened. A woman writes me four pages to prove how dearly she loves my sister and invites me to her hotel-five miles away -"please to tell her about the sailing of the steamships." Six American preachers pass a a resolution unani

Upon my word, if one could forget the awful tragedy, all this experience would be worth a lifetime of common- 40 mously "urging our Ambassador to place. One surprise follows another so rapidly that one loses all sense of time: it seems an age since last Sunday.

telegraph our beloved, peace-loving President to stop this awful war"; and they come with simple solemnity to present their resolution. Lord save us, what a world!

And this awful tragedy moves on to-what? We do not know what is really happening, so strict is the censorship. But it seems inevitable to me that Germany will be beaten, that the horrid period of alliances and armaments will not come again, that England will gain even more of the earth's surface, that Russia may next play

the menace; that all Europe (as much
as survives) will be bankrupt; that
relatively we shall be immensely
stronger financially and politically
there must surely come many great
changes-very many, yet undreamed
of. Be ready; for you will be called
on to compose this huge quarrel. I
thank Heaven for many things-first,
the Atlantic Ocean; second, that you
refrained from war in Mexico; third,
that we kept our treaty-the canal tolls
victory, I mean. Now, when all this
half of the world will suffer the un-
speakable brutalization of war, we
shall preserve our moral strength, our
political powers, and our ideals.
God save us!

W. H. P.

TO ARTHUR W. PAGE

WILSFORD MANOR, SALISBURY,
July 8, 1917.

Dear Arthur:

Since admirals and generals began to come from home, they and the war have taken my time so completely, day and night, that I haven't lately written you many things that I should like to tell you. I'll try here-a house of a friend where the only other guest besides your mother and me is Edward Grey. This is the first time I've seen him since he left office.

10

kee completeness of organization-with duplicate parts of all their machinery, tents, cooks, pots, and pans, and everything ship-shape. The only question they asked was, "Say, where the hell are them trees you want sawed up?" That's the way to do a job! Yankee stock is made high here by such things as that.

The chief fact that grows upon me is that all the facts must be brought out to show the kinship in blood and ideals of the two great English-speaking nations. . . . The truth should be forcibly and convincingly told and retold to the end of the chapter, and our national life should proceed on its natural historic lines, with its proper historic outlook and background. We 20 can do something to bring this about. Affectionately, W. H. P.

30

H. L. MENCKEN (1880--)

THE POET AND HIS ART1

"A good prose style," says Dr. Otto Jespersen in his great monograph, The Growth and Structure of the English Language, "is everywhere a late acquirement, and the work of whole. generations of good authors is needed Sims is the idol of the British Ad- to bring about the easy flow of written miralty, and he is doing his job just prose." The learned philologian is here as well as any man could with the speaking of Old English, or, as it used tools and the chance that he has. He to be called when you and I were at has made the very best of the chance, the breast of enlightenment, Angloand he has completely won the confi- 40 Saxon. An inch or so lower down the dence and admiration of this side of page he points out that what he says the world. of prose is by no means true of verse Pershing made an admirable impres--that poetry of very respectable qualsion here, and in France he has simply set them wild with joy. His coming and his little army have been worth what a real army will be worth later. It is well he came to keep the French in line.

ity is often written by peoples and individuals whose prose is quite as crude and graceless as that, say, of a latterday American statesman-that even the so-called Anglo-Saxons of Beowulf's time, a race as barbarous as the

The army of doctors and nurses have 50 modern Jugo-Slavs or Mississippians, had a similar effect.

Even the New England saw-mill units have caused a furor of enthusiasm. They came with absolute Yan

were yet capable, on occasion, of writ

Reprinted from Prejudices, by H. L.
Inc., authorized publishers.
Mencken, by permission of Alfred H. Knopf,