attach to it. As everybody now knows, Senator Borah was wholly right. Familiarity with history is a useful equipment to any statesman or politician, and this Senator Borah has to a degree approached by few other public men. FOREIGN RELATIONS T THE time I write it is not possible to foresee to what degree our foreign relations will engage the interest of the American people during the coming months. I am writing just as the results of the Armament Conference are beginning to receive the attention of the Senate. That this Senate debate contains possibilities, at least, of creating political issues attended with high feeling, can hardly be doubted. The primaries which will begin in some states as early as March and will continue through the months until September, and the elections which will occur in November, make this year second only in political importance to a Presidential election. The entire membership of the Lower House, 435 in all, will come up in these primaries and elections. Of the membership of the Senate, one-third, or 32 in all, will be determined. Those Senators who come up for reëlection include some of the most important, from the point of view of the leadership of both parties. Senator Lodge will ask Massachusetts to add one more term to the twenty-nine years which give him the distinction of the longest continuous service among living Senators. The state of Indiana, which for some reason has a way of providing the country with its most interesting and exciting political situations, may fill that rôle again this year. Senator New comes up in the primaries in the spring. It is common political gossip-although at this writing it is no more authentic than gossip—that Senator New may be opposed by ex-Senator Albert J. Beveridge. Such a contest need only be named to indicate its vitality. Senator Beveridge, in addition to the well-known distinction of the two terms he has already spent in the Senate, has devoted his retirement to one of the most striking and useful pieces of literary and historical work ever done in America. If ex-Senator Beveridge were nothing more than the author of the Life of John Marshall alone, his participation in a Senatorial primary would be an event of great public importance. There is also political gossip to the effect that whoever wins the Republican Senatorial primary in Indiana may be opposed in the elections by ex-Vice President Marshall as the Democratic candidate. In California, Hiram Johnson comes up for renomination, and, if renominated, for reëlection. If either the primary or the election should turn on our foreign relations, it is obvious that certain aspects of the work of the Armament Conference contain especial possibilities of political excitement for the Pacific Coast. Senator Atlee Pomerene is a Democratic veteran who must submit his fate to the electorate of Ohio. Senator Hitchcock, who led the League of Nations fight on behalf of Wilson in the Senate, comes up in Nebraska. Senator Hale will be up for return to the Senate in Maine, Senator McLean in Connecticut, Senator Kellogg in Minnesota, Senator Poindexter in Washington. In New York there is some expectation that Senator Calder will be opposed by the popular Democratic ex-Governor whom everybody speaks of as "Al" Smith. In New Jersey, Senator Frelinghuysen comes up for reëlection, and there is some possibility that the opposition may take such a form as to revive the "wet" issue, which is particularly potent in that state. The veteran LaFollette will test once more his remarkable dominance in Wisconsin. James A. Reed of Missouri, who eighteen months ago was almost outlawed by his own party for his dissent from Wilson and the Democratic issue of the League of Nations, is expected again to challenge the electorate with opposition to foreign entanglements as his dominant plea. The Attempts of the German Government After the First Copyrighted in the United States, Great Britain, New Foundland, and other countries by Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922 More hitherto unwritten history of the war is contained in the present instalment of the Page letters. It sheds light not only on Germany's desire to obtain a Prussian peace after the Battle of the Marne, but upon Germany's diplomatic methods. The Straus and Speyer incident, as here related, discloses Germany deliberately starting afoot peace proposals, and then, when the situation did not develop in her interests, calmly repudiating the whole proceeding. This instalment contains several letters which disclose the purposes of Colonel House's visit to Europe in the winter of 1915 and the reasons why that visit inevitably resulted in failure. It reveals the fact that the most important details of the League of Nations had taken shape in President Wilson's mind as early as October, 1914. It contains also the first record of the "Freedom of the Seas."-THE EDITORS. T HE Declaration of London was not the only problem that distracted Page in these early months of the war. Washington's apparent determination to make peace also added to his daily anxieties. That any attempt to end hostilities should have distressed so peace-loving and humanitarian a statesman as Page may seem surprising; it was, however, for the very reason that he was a man of peace that these Washington endeavors caused him endless worry. In Page's opinion they indicated that President Wilson did not have an accurate understanding of the war. The inspiring force back of them, as the Ambassador well understood, was a panic-stricken Germany. The real purpose was not a peace, but a truce; and the cause which was to be advanced was not democracy but Prussian absolutism. Between the Battle of the Marne and the sinking of the Lusitania four attempts were made to end the war; all four were set afoot by Germany. President Wilson was the man to whom the Germans appealed to rescue them from their dilemma. It is no longer a secret that the Germans at this time regarded their situation as a tragic one; the success which they had anticipated for forty years had proved to be a disaster. The attempt to repeat the great episodes of 1864, 1866, and 1870, when Prussia had overwhelmed Denmark, Austria, and France in three brief campaigns, had ignominiously failed. Instead of beholding a conquered Europe at her feet, Germany awoke from her illusion to find herself encompassed by a ring of resolute and powerful foes. The fact that the British Empire, with its immense resources, naval, military, and economic, was now leading the alliance against them, convinced the most intelligent Germans that the Fatherland was face to face with the greatest crisis in its history. Peace now became the underground Germanic programme. Yet the Germans did not have that inexorable respect for facts which would have persuaded them to accept terms to which the Allies could consent. The military oligarchy were thinking not so much of saving the Fatherland as of saving themselves; a settlement which would have been satisfactory to their enemies would have demanded concessions which the German people, trained for forty years to expect an unparalleled victory, would have regarded as a defeat. The collapse of the militarists and of Hohenzollernism would have ensued. What they desired was a peace which they could picture to their deluded people as a triumph, one which would enable them to extricate themselves at the smallest possible cost from what seemed a desperate position, which would enable them to escape the penalties of their crimes, to emerge from their failure with a Germany still powerful, both in economic resources and in arms, and to set to work again industriously preparing to renew the struggle at a more favorable time. If negotiations resulted in such a truce, the German purpose would be splendidly served; even if they failed, however, the gain for Germany would still be great. Germany could appear as the belligerent which desired peace and the Entente could perhaps be manoeuvred into the position of the side responsible for continuing the war. The consideration which was chiefly at stake in these tortuous proceedings was public opinion in the United States. Americans do not yet understand the extent to which their country was regarded as the determining power. Both the German and the British Foreign Offices clearly understood, in August, 1914, that the United States, by throwing its support, especially its economic support, to one side or the other, could settle the result. Probably Germany grasped this point even more clearly than did Great Britain, for, from the beginning, she constantly nourished the hope that she could embroil the United States and Great Britain-a calamity which would In have given victory to the German arms. every German move there were thus several motives, and one of the chief purposes of the subterranean campaigns which she now started for peace, was the desire of putting Britain in the false light of prolonging the war for aggressive purposes, and thus turning to herself that public opinion in this country which was so outspoken on the side of the Allies. Such public opinion, if it could be brought to regard Germany in a tolerant spirit, could easily be fanned into a flame by the disputes over blockades and shipping, and the power of the United States might thus be used for the advancement of the Fatherland. On the other hand, if Germany could obtain a peace which would show a profit for her tremendous effort, then the negotiations could have accomplished their purpose. Conditions at Washington favored operations of this kind. Secretary Bryan was an ultrapacifist; like men of one idea, he saw only the fact of a hideous war, and he would have welcomed anything that would end hostilities. The cessation of bloodshed was to him the great end to be attained: in the mind of Secretary Bryan it was more important that the war should be stopped than that the Allies should win. To President Wilson the European disaster appeared to be merely a selfish struggle for power, in which both sides were almost equally to blame. He never accepted Page's obvious interpretation that the single cause was Germany's determination to embark upon a war of world conquest. From the beginning, therefore, Page saw that he would have great difficulty in preventing intervention from Washington in the interest of Germany, yet this was another great service to which he now unhesitatingly directed his efforts. The Ambassador was especially apprehensive of these peace moves in the early days of September, when the victorious German armies were marching on Paris. In London, as in most parts of the world, the capture of the French capital was then regarded as inevitable. September 3, 1914, was one of the darkest days in modern times. The population of Paris was fleeing southward; the Government had moved its headquarters to Bordeaux; and the moment seemed to be at hand when the German Emperor would make his long anticipated entry into the capital of France. It was under these circumstances that the American Ambassador to Great Britain sent the following message directly to the Pres- always worked underground and that it apident: Mr. Page to The President American Embassy, London, Sep. 3, 4 A. M. Everybody in this city confidently believes that the Germans, if they capture Paris, will make a proposal for peace, and that the German Emperor will send you a message declaring that he is unwilling to shed another drop of blood. Any proposal that the Kaiser makes will be simply the proposal of a conqueror. His real purpose will be to preserve the Hohenzollern dynasty and the imperial bureaucracy. The prevailing English judgment is that, if Germany be permitted to stop hostilities, the war will have accomplished nothing. There is a determination here to destroy utterly the German bureaucracy and Englishmen are prepared to sacrifice themselves to any extent in men and money. The preparations that are being made here are for a long war; as I read the disposition and the character of Englishmen they will not stop until they have accomplished their purpose. There is a general expression of hope in this country that neither the American Government nor the public opinion of our country will look upon any suggestion for peace as a serious one which does not aim, first of all, at the absolute destruction of the German bureaucracy. From such facts as I can obtain, it seems clear to me that the opinion of Europe-excluding of course, Germany-is rapidly solidifying into a severe condemnation of the German Empire. The profoundest moral judgment of the world is taking the strongest stand against Germany and German methods. Such incidents as the burning of Louvain and other proached its negotiations in a way that would make the other side appear as taking the initiative. This was a phase of German diplomatic technique with which every European Foreign Office had long been familiar. Count Bernstorff arrived in the United States from Germany in the latter part of August, evidently with instructions from his governStates. There were two unofficial men in ment to secure the intercession of the United New York who were ideally qualified to serve the part of intermediaries. Mr. James Speyer had been born and had spent his early life at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany. As the head of the American branch of a great German banking house, his interests and sympathies were strong on the side of the Fatherland; indeed, he made no attempt to conceal his strong pro-German enthusiasm. Mr. Oscar S. Straus, like Mr. Speyer, had been born in Germany, but his antecedents were quite different. Mr. Straus's father had been a German revolutionist of '48; like Carl Schurz, Abraham Jacobi, and Franz Sigel, he had come to America to escape Prussian militarism and the Prussian autocracy, and his children had been educated in a detestation of the things for which the German Empire stood. Mr. Oscar Straus was only two years old when he was brought to this country; he had given the best evidences of his Americanism in a distinguished public career. Three times he had served the United States as Ambassador of Commerce and Labor in President Rooseto Turkey; he had filled the post of Secretary velt's cabinet, and had held other important ities, Mr. Straus had played an important part public commissions. Among his other activin the peace movement of the preceding quarter of a century and he had been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the places, the slaughter of civilian populations, Hague. Mr. Straus was on excellent_terms the outrages against women and childrenoutrages of such a nature that they cannot be printed, but which form a matter of common conversation everywhere-have had the result of arousing Great Britain to a mood of the grimmest determination. PAGE. This message had hardly reached Washington when the peace effort of which it warned the President began to take practical form. In properly estimating these manœuvres it must be borne in mind that German diplomacy with the German, the British, and the French ambassadors at Washington. As far back as 1888, when he was American Minister at Constantinople, Bernstorff, then a youth, was an attaché at the German Embassy; the young German was frequently at the American Legation and used to remind Mr. Straus, whenever he met him in later years, how pleasantly he remembered his hospitality. With Sir Cecil Spring Rice, the British Ambassador, and M. Jules Jusserand, the French Ambassador, Mr. Straus had also become recent decades. Now the same domestic fired, during come fore. on a far larger scale than man ever. dreamed of fight han be. doctrinal ressons that we are nor merely because am It isn't, therefore, for merely concerned for the spread of deciseracy denisersey is the only ocheme of organization. yet wrought route that Keeps the door of opportunity open and invites all men to their fullest orvslopment. But we are interested in it because under no other system can the world be made an even res reasonably safe place to live in. For autocracing (only) wage aggressive wars. Aggressive autocracies, especially military autocracies, must be softened down by peace (and they have never been as softened) or destroyed by war, The All. Highest doctrine of Germany today is the same as the Taxation without - Reprearutation of George III — only mors virulent, stronger, and further-reaching. Only by it's and can the German people recover and build-up their character and take the permanent place in the world that they - thus changed - will be entitled to. They will either reduce Europe to the resoclage of a militory autocracy, may then overrun the whole world or dreach it in blood, or they must through stages of Liberalism work towordd some approach to a their doubt way which decrerasy, and there is no hich event is impending. The Liberal idea will win mis struggle, and Europe will be out of danger of A FACSIMILE of one of mr. page's lettERS Mr. Page's letters lose some of their charm by being transferred to print, for they are as beautiful in their handwriting as in their English. This is a page from a letter written to President Wilson in November, 1916, giving the Ambassador's reasons why the United States should sever diplomatic relations with Germany. The reasons given in this communication were identically those which President Wilson incorporated in his famous speech of April 2, 1917, asking Congress to declare war on Germany |