[Footnote 62: The Navy Department had taken the position that arming
merchantmen was the best protection against the submarine. This
statement was intended to refute this belief.]

[Footnote 63: Dr. Wallace Buttrick, President of the General Education
Board, who was sent at this time to deliver lectures throughout Great
Britain on the United States.]

CHAPTER XXIII

PAGE--THE MAN

The entrance of America into the war, followed by the successful
promotion of the Balfour visit, brought a period of quiet into Page's
life. These events represented for him a personal triumph; there were
many things still to be done, it is true, and Page, as always, was
active in advancing the interests that were nearest his heart; yet the
mighty relief that followed the American declaration was the kind that
one experiences after accomplishing the greatest task of a lifetime.
Page's letters have contained many references to the sense of moral
isolation which his country's policy had forced upon him; he probably
exaggerated his feeling that there was a tendency to avoid him; this was
merely a reflection of his own inclination to keep away from all but the
official people. He now had more leisure and certainly more interest in
cultivating the friends that he had made in Great Britain. For the fact
is that, during all these engrossing years, Page had been more than an
Ambassador; by the time the United States entered the war he had
attained an assured personal position in the life of the British
capital. He had long since demonstrated his qualifications for a post,
which, in the distinction of the men who have occupied it, has few
parallels in diplomacy. The scholarly Lowell, the courtly Bayard, the
companionable Hay, the ever-humorous Choate, had set a standard for
American Ambassadors which had made the place a difficult one for their
successors. Though Page had characteristics in common with all these
men, his personality had its own distinctive tang; and it was something
new to the political and social life of London. And the British capital,
which is extremely exacting and even merciless in its demands upon its
important personages, had found it vastly entertaining. "I didn't know
there could be anything so American as Page except Mark Twain," a
British literary man once remarked; and it was probably this strong
American quality, this directness and even breeziness of speech and of
method, this absence of affectation, this al