given up hope
that we will ever take any action. So deeply rooted (and, I fear,
permanent) is this feeling that every occurrence is made to fit
into and to strengthen this supposition. When Dumba was dismissed,
they said: "Dumba, merely the abject tool of German intrigue. Why
not Bernstorff?" When the Anglo-French loan[11] was oversubscribed,
they said: "The people's sympathy is most welcome, but their
Government is paralyzed." Their respect has gone--at least for the
time being.

It is not that they expect us to go to war: many, in fact, do not
wish us to. They expected that we would be as good as our word and
hold the Germans to accountability. Now I fear they think little of
our word. I shudder to think what our relations might be if Sir
Edward Grey were to yield to another as Foreign Minister, as, of
course, he must yield at some time.

The press has less to say than it had a few weeks ago. _Punch_, for
instance, which ridiculed and pitied us in six cartoons and
articles in each of two succeeding numbers, entirely forgets us
this week. But they've all said their say. I am, in a sense,
isolated--lonely in a way that I have never before been. I am not
exactly avoided, I hope, but I surely am not sought. They have a
polite feeling that they do not wish to offend me and that to make
sure of this the safest course is to let me alone. There is no
mistaking the great change in the attitude of men I know, both in
official and private life.

It comes down and comes back to this--that for five months after
the sinking of the _Lusitania_ the Germans are yet playing with us,
that we have not sent Bernstorff home, and hence that we will
submit to any rebuff or any indignity. It is under these
conditions--under this judgment of us--that we now work--the
English respect for our Government indefinitely lessened and
instead of the old-time respect a sad pity. I cannot write more.

Heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.

"I have authoritatively heard," Page writes to President Wilson in early
September, "of a private conversation between a leading member of the
Cabinet and a group of important officials all friendly to us in which
all sorrowfully expressed the opinion that the United States will submit
to any indignity and that no effect is now to be hoped for from its