I don't think there is any breed of them that didn't haunt my
office while I was an editor. Now I am surely punished for all my
past sins by having those fellows descend on me here. I know them,
nearly all, from past experience and now just for the sake of
keeping the world as quiet as possible I have to give them time
here far out of proportion to their value.

Now, out of your great wisdom, I wish you would explain to me why
the deuce we let all this crew come over here instead of sending a
shipload of perfectly normal, dignified, and right-minded
gentlemen. These thug reformers!--Baker will be here in a day or
two and if I can remember it I am going to suggest to him that he
round them all up and put them in the trenches in France where
those of them who have so far escaped the gallows ought to be put.

I am much obliged to have the illuminating statement about our
crops. I am going to show it to certain gentlemen here who will be
much cheered by it. By gracious, you ought to hear their
appreciation of what we are doing! We are not doing it for the sake
of their appreciation, but if we were out to win it we could not do
it better. Down at bottom the Englishman is a good fellow. He has
his faults but he doesn't get tired and he doesn't suffer spasms of
emotion.

Give my love to Mrs. Houston, and do sit down and write me a
good long letter--a whole series of them, in fact.

Believe me, always most heartily yours,

WALTER HINES PAGE.

[Illustration: From a painting by Irving R. Wiles Admiral William Sowden
Sims, Commander of American naval forces operating in European waters
during the Great War]

[Illustration: A silver model of the _Mayflower_, the farewell gift of
the Plymouth Council to Mr. Page]

_To Frank L. Polk_

London, March 22, 1918.

DEAR MR. POLK:

You are good enough to mention the fact that the Embassy has some
sort of grievance against the Department. Of course it has, and you
are, possibly, the only man that can remove it. It is this: You
don't come here to see the war and this government and these people
who are again saving the world as we are now saving them. I thank
Heaven and the Administration for Secretary Baker's visit. It is a
dramatic moment in the history of the race, of democracy, and of
the world. The