seem to foreshadow Mr. Wilson's assertion
that "The world must be made safe for democracy." This letter in itself
sufficiently makes it clear that Page's correspondence, irritating in
its later phases as it may have been, strongly influenced Mr. Wilson in
his final determination on war.

On one point, indeed, Colonel House afterward called the Ambassador to
account. When America was preparing to raise armies by the millions and
to spend its treasure by the billions, he reminded Page of his statement
that the severance of diplomatic relations "would probably not cost us a
man in battle nor any considerable treasure." Page's statement in this
November letter merely reiterated a conviction which for more than a
year he had been forcing upon the President and Colonel House--that the
dismissal of Bernstorff would not necessarily imply war with Germany,
but that it would in itself be enough to bring the war to an end. On
this point Page never changed his mind, as is evident from the letter
which he wrote to Colonel House when this matter was called to his
attention:

_To Edward M. House_

London, June 29, 1917.

MY DEAR HOUSE:

I never put any particular value on my own prophecies nor on
anybody else's. I have therefore no pride as a prophet. Yet I do
think that I hit it off accurately a year or a year and a half ago
when I said that we could then have ended the war without any
appreciable cost. And these are my reasons:

If we had then come in and absolutely prevented supplies from
reaching Germany, as we are now about to do, the war would then
have been much sooner ended than it can now be ended:

(1) Our supplies enabled her to go on.

(2) She got time in this way to build her great submarine fleet.
She went at it the day she promised the President to reform.

(3) She got time and strength to overrun Rumania whence she got
food and oil; and continues to get it.

(4) During this time Russia fell down as a military force and gave
her more time, more armies for France and more supplies. Russian
guns have been sold to the Germans.

If a year and a half ago we had starved her out, it would have been
over before any of these things happened. This delay is what will
cost us billions and billions and men and men.

And it cost us one thing more. During the neutrality period we
were as eager to get g