s the sensation caused by the President's December note,
it was mild compared with that which was now to come. Page naturally
sent prompt reports of all these conversations to the President and
likewise kept him completely informed as to the state of public feeling,
but his best exertions apparently did not immediately affect the Wilson
policy. The overwhelming fact is that the President's mind was fixed on
a determination to compel the warring powers to make peace and in this
way to keep the United States out of the conflict. Even the disturbance
caused by his note of December 18th did not make him pause in this peace
campaign. To that note the British sent a manly and definite reply,
drafted by Mr. Balfour, giving in detail precisely the terms upon which
the Allies would compose their differences with the Central Powers. The
Germans sent a reply consisting of ten or a dozen lines, which did not
give their terms, but merely asked again for a conference. Events were
now moving with the utmost rapidity. On January 9th, a council of German
military chieftains was held at Pless; in this it was decided to resume
unrestricted submarine warfare. On January 16th the Zimmermann-Mexico
telegram was intercepted; this informed Bernstorff, among other things,
that this decision had been made. On January 16th, at nine o'clock in
the morning, the American Embassy in London began receiving a long
cipher despatch from Washington. The preamble announced that the
despatch contained a copy of an address which the President proposed to
deliver before the Senate "in a few days." Page was directed to have
copies of the address "secretly prepared" and to hand them to the
British Foreign Office and to newspapers of the type of the Nation, the
Daily News, and the Manchester Guardian--all three newspapers well known
for their Pacifist tendencies. As the speech approached its end, this
sentence appeared: "It must be a peace without victory." The words
greatly puzzled the secretary in charge, for they seemed almost
meaningless. Suspecting that an error had been made in transmission, the
secretary directed the code room to cable Washington for a verification
of the cipher groups. Very soon the answer was received; there had been
no mistake; the Presidential words were precisely those which had been
first received: "Peace without victory." The slips were then taken to
Page, who read the document, especially these fateful syllables, with a
consternatio