Bully for the kids! Kiss 'em for me and Mollie too.

Affectionately,
W.H.P.

Make Shoecraft tell you everything. He's one of the best boys and truest
in the world.

_To Ralph W. Page_

Rest Harrow, Sandwich, Kent.
June 7, 1918.

MY DEAR RALPH:

... I have all along cherished an expectation of two things--(1)
That when we did get an American Army by conscription, if it should
remain at war long enough to learn the game, it would become the
best army that the world ever saw, for the simple reason that its
ranks would contain more capable men than any other country has
ever produced. The proof of this comes at once. Even our new and
raw troops have astonished the veterans of the French and British
armies and (I have no doubt) of the German Army also. It'll be our
men who will whip the Germans, and there are nobody else's men who
could do it. We've already saved the Entente from collapse by our
money. We'll save the day again by our fighting men. That is to
say, we'll save the world, thank God; and I fear it couldn't have
been saved in any other way. (2) Since the people by their mood
command and compel efficiency, the most efficient people will at
last (as recent events show) get at the concrete jobs, in spite of
anybody's preferences or philosophy. And this seems at last to be
taking place. What we have suffered and shall suffer is not failure
but delays and delays and bunglings. But they've got to end by the
sheer pressure of the people's earnestness. These two things, then,
are all to the good.

I get the morning papers here at noon. And to-day I am all alone.
Your mother went early on her journey to launch a British
battleship. I haven't had a soul to speak to all day but my
servants. At noon, therefore, I was rather eager for the papers. I
saw at a glance that a submarine is at work off the New Jersey
coast! It's an awful thing for the innocent victims, to be
drowned. But their deaths have done us a greater service than 100
times as many lives lost in battle. If anybody lacked earnestness
about the war, I venture to guess that he doesn't lack it any
longer. If the fools would now only shell some innocent town on the
coast, the journey to Berlin would be shortened.

If the Germans had practised a chivalrous human