the commerce of all nations, at the same rates of toll which were imposed on vessels of the United States." 1

President Wilson, without admitting that Mr. Taft's view of article III of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was wrong, was nevertheless ready to waive the American claim, in order to satisfy Great Britain and in order to remove the slightest suspicion of bad faith from the United States. But Congress seemed determined to enforce differential tolls in order to afford advantage and protection to American shipping. Senator Lodge, however, the powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (usually a severe critic of Great Britain), supported the President's policy, and gave his influence on behalf of the repeal of section 5 of the Taft Act. "Largely through the energy of Senator Root, a sentiment was created in favour of the repeal of this section of the Act, which gained irresistible momentum by President Wilson's advocacy of this measure. "2 In the Message in which Mr. Wilson in person asked Congress to consent to the repeal the great President first showed that blending of idealism and practicality which was to be the strength of his statesmanship. Referring to the proposed privilege to coast-wise shipping (which he now thought to be against the Treaty), he said:

In my own judgment, very fully considered and maturely formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken economic policy from every point of view, and is, moreover, in plain contravention of the treaty with Great Britain concerning the Canal concluded on November 18, 1901. But I have not come to urge upon you my personal views. I have come to state to you a fact and a situation. Whatever may be

our differences of opinion concerning this much-debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty: its language we accepted, if we did not originate it; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation.

1 Not italicised in the original. Text in Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay, II, 260.

President Wilson's Foreign Policy, by James Brown Scott (1918), p. 31.

I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure.1

Thus the last problem in Anglo-American diplomacy was solved just before the guns began to boom across the Danube.

In the early summer Mr. Wilson, as if perceiving the imminence of a world war, had made an earnest attempt to forestall European hostilities by a pact of disarmament or non-aggression. It was to this that Mr. Wilson guardedly referred when he spoke of "other matters of even greater delicacy." The man whom the President encharged with the task of trying to keep peace in Europe was Colonel House.

Edward Mandell House was born at Houston, Texas, in 1858. His father was a wealthy banker, and the young House received a good education in the Eastern States, ending with the University of Cornell. After this he did not seek to increase his modest wealth (his father had seven children) either by entering business or standing for public office. Yet he became enormously influential in his native State of Texas, and, after his friend Wilson became President, in America at large. It is not too much to call him Wilson's constant adviser and right-hand man, although he never held any office. His sole reward was the honorary style of Colonel: after this he "spent the better part of a lifetime attempting to rid himself of his military title, but uselessly." 2 He became the "mysterious Texan" of American politics, but he is merely a hard-working, broad-minded citizen whose ambition for the public good takes the form of keeping his hands free, and of working by personal contact, not by administration or legislation.

In the autumn of 1913, Sir William Tyrrell, a high official of the Foreign Office, and private secretary to Sir Edward Grey, had paid a friendly visit to Washington as the guest of the British Ambassador, Cecil Spring-Rice. He had conversations with Wilson, Bryan, and House, chiefly on the Mexican question, but also on the European situation. House appreciated the sincerity of the British Government in its peace policy, and he took Sir William Tyrrell's advice on

1 Complete text in President Wilson's Foreign Policy, pp. 31-2. 2 Life of Page, I, 291.

* See The Real Colonel House, by A. D. Howden Smith (undated), especially chaps. III and XXV.

the subject of his coming visit to Europe. Tyrrell suggested that House should go direct to Germany.1 House did so at the end of May, 1914, but made no headway at Berlin. There was, apparently, no sympathy for President Wilson's idea of an international compact between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany for reducing armaments.

The American came away from Berlin with the conviction that the most powerful force in Germany was the militaristic clique, and, second, the Hohenzollern dynasty. He has always insisted that this represented the real precedence in power. So long as the Kaiser was obedient to the will of militarism, so long could he maintain his standing. He was confident, however, that the militaristic oligarchy was determined to have its will, and would dethrone the Kaiser the moment he showed indications of taking a course that would lead to peace. Colonel House was also convinced that this militaristic oligarchy was determined on war.2

At the beginning of June, House came to London, and spoke with Asquith, Grey, and Lloyd George. "The difficulty, however, was that none of these men apprehended an immediate war." He could not get them to move quickly; although it is difficult to see what they could have done. They had already made all the obvious moves in the direction of peace by Lord Haldane's Berlin Mission in 1912, and Mr. Churchill's proposal for a naval holiday in the same year a proposal which was still open. Before he left London, House lunched with Grey, Tyrrell, and Page at the American Embassy.

"I feel as though I had been living near a mighty electric dynamo," Colonel House told his friends. "The whole of Germany is charged with electricity. Everybody's nerves are tense. It needs only a spark to set the whole thing off."

The "spark" came two weeks afterward with the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. 3

Four years later a bowed figure with the shadow of death on his countenance stepped from the gangway on to the deck of the Olympic, bound for New York, happy in the knowledge that his country was in the battle. It was the American Ambassador. British Cabinet Ministers had seen him off at Waterloo. "They all stood with uncovered heads as the train slowly pulled out of the station, and caught their final glimpse of Page as he smiled at them and faintly waved his hand."

1 Life of Page, I, 289.

2

Ibid., I, 295-6.

* Ibid., I, 299.

INDEX