at peace closely resembled war. The President then said we must shut out arms from Mexico and to do that a blockade would be necessary but he did not wish to declare war. I said that unless war was formally declared no blockade could be established, for a general blockade was purely a belligerent right. He said he would ask the lawyers at the State Dept. It seems incredible that he should not have known, for it is the A B C of international law. He then said that we might say to other nations that we should regard it as an unfriendly act to permit the export of arms to Mexico. I said that course seemed to me likely to lead to many serious complications as we were at that moment exporting arms and munitions of war to Europe. He said Yes, he feared so, that he was just thinking aloud. He did not know how many men Pershing had with him; said he left all that to the War Dept. He did not know how far Pershing was from Chihuahua, the place he proposed to capture. It seemed to me odd that the Commander-in-chief should not have enough curiosity to know these facts. He wanted evidently to do just enough to allay public feeling and avoid war. He was willing to commit one or two acts of war but not declare war. He was torn between fear of losing votes and fear of war. He was in a nervous condition, as when I saw him after Vera Cruz, although not so collapsed as he was then."

This memorandum in regard to my conversation with the President after the affair at Carrizal is the last memorandum I made in regard to Mexico. It is shown by the date to have occurred nearly two years after the beginning of the Great War in Europe and it seemed to me better to conclude the Mexican question, so far as I had any personal conversations with the President in regard to it, before beginning on the history of the Great War so far as that war concerned the United States.

At this point, however, I think it is well that I should

explain why I have given a brief account of my action on the Panama Canal tolls and of my personal relations with Mr. Wilson at the beginning of his Administration, in order to show the personally friendly character of those relations. I do this because in this connection I wish to take occasion now to say once for all that I never had the slightest personal hostility to Mr. Wilson. During the protracted contest of the League, it was constantly said by the newspapers which were supporting Mr. Wilson and the League that I was actuated in my attitude by a personal hostility to the President. Nothing could be more absolutely untrue. I never had any personal hostility to Mr. Wilson, as I have just said, and there was no possible reason why I should have any personal hostility. In all the speeches and debates of that time I never attacked him personally or otherwise than courteously and always on public questions. He had never crossed my path in any way and never had inflicted any personal injury upon me; in fact, it was impossible for him to do so. My opposition to Mr. Wilson in connection with the war and the League rested entirely on public grounds, which I shall explain fully before I complete this brief account of the events of that time so far as they concern me. The questions involved in the war and the League were altogether too serious to be decided on any ground of personal feeling or to be caused by any personal hostility, even had such hostility existed. In the war with Germany and the events growing out of the war, the very highest interests of the people of the United States were deeply concerned and also, as I shall later explain, as it seemed to me, the character and the methods of our Government under the Constitution were involved and perhaps imperiled. In dealing with issues of such moment, I do not believe that there was a single man among Mr. Wilson's opponents in the Senate who was moved to take the position which he took by

any personal feeling whatever. Those who opposed Mr. Wilson and the League, not only the Senators who voted for the League with the reservations which bore my name but those who would not vote for it in any form or under any consideration, were determined by the deepest convictions of duty and were not influenced by any other consideration than that of the public weal and the safety of the United States.

CHAPTER III

BEGINNING OF THE WORLD WAR

I HAPPENED to be abroad during the summer of 1914 and was in England when the war began. The crowding events of those days as they came upon us in London, so near to the scene of action and involving as they did the safety of the British Empire, made an impression upon all who watched the developments of the days as they passed, which no one, I think, could ever forget. My sympathies were from the very first strongly with the Allies. I believed then, as I have continued to believe ever since, that nothing less was at stake on the result of the conflict than the freedom and civilization of the Western world. While I was in London during the first six weeks of the war, I gave a statement to the correspondent of the New York Sun which was printed in that newspaper in New York on August 23, 1914, and which is as follows:

"I will not comment on the war except to say that no other such calamity has ever befallen humanity or civilization. The mind recoils even from an attempt to picture the sacrifice of life and the misery and suffering which those who began this war have brought on mankind.

"My interest is in regard to my own country and her attitude in this great conflict of nations. Fortunately the United States is outside the widespread circle of the war The United States is at peace with all nations and I trust will remain so. From such a convulsion as this we have already suffered severely financially and by the

loss of some of our best markets and commerce, and are bound to suffer still more. This cannot be helped.

"What we should remember above all is that we have a national duty to perform. That duty is the observance of strict neutrality as between the belligerents, with all of whom we are at peace. But strict neutrality is not enough. It must be an honest neutrality, as honest as it is rigid. Neutrality, while preserving its name, can often be so managed as to benefit one belligerent and injure another. This is no time for neutrality of this kind on the part of the United States. Our neutrality now, as I have said, must not only be strict but rigidly honest and fair. Honor and interest alike demand it.

"President Wilson's Administration, in its eagerness to maintain neutrality, has made one new departure from practices which have hitherto been unbroken. Heretofore Governments have not undertaken to interfere with private persons or institutions who desired to lend money to belligerents. If we had been unable to borrow money or obtain supplies from abroad while we were cut off from all supplies from the South during the Civil War the boundaries of the country of which Mr. Wilson is President might possibly be far different today. But the Administration in its earnestness to maintain strict neutrality during the present war has thought fit to make this new departure by preventing, as far as it can, private individuals from lending money to belligerents. This makes it difficult to understand what theory of neutrality it favors. If the despatches are correct in regard to the purchase by the United States Government of certain German ships now lying useless in New York harbor, the Administration regards as impairing strict neutrality permission to private persons to lend a hundred million dollars to France to be spent in the purchase of supplies in the United States, while at the same time it appears to think it is consonant with honest neutrality to give