treaty faith with 'em, then I could lick 'em into the next
century on the moral aspects of the Mexican Government, and make
'em look up and salute every time the American Government is
mentioned. See?--Is there any hope?--Such is the job exactly. And
you know what it would lead to--even in our lifetime--_to the
leadership of the world_: and we should presently be considering
how we may best use the British fleet, the British Empire, and the
English race for the betterment of mankind.

Yours eagerly,
W.H.P.

A word of caution is necessary to understand Page's references to the
British democracy. That the parliamentary system is democratic in the
sense that it is responsive to public opinion he would have been the
first to admit. That Great Britain is a democracy in the sense that the
suffrage is general is also apparent. But, in these reflections on the
British commonwealth, the Ambassador was thinking of his old familiar
figure, the "Forgotten Man"--the neglected man, woman, and child of the
masses. In an address delivered, in June, 1914, before the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, Page gave what he regarded as the
definition of the American ideal. "The fundamental article in the creed
of the American democracy--you may call it the fundamental dogma if you
like--is the unchanging and unchangeable resolve that every human being
shall have his opportunity for his utmost development--his chance to
become and to do the best that he can." Democracy is not only a system
of government--"it is a scheme of society." Every citizen must have not
only the suffrage, he must likewise enjoy the same advantages as his
neighbour for education, for social opportunity, for good health, for
success in agriculture, manufacture, finance, and business and
professional life. The country that most successfully opened all these
avenues to every boy or girl, exclusively on individual merit, was in
Page's view the most democratic. He believed that the United States did
this more completely than Great Britain or any other country; and
therefore he believed that we were far more democratic. He had not found
in other countries the splendid phenomenon presented by America's great
agricultural region. "The most striking single fact about the United
States is, I think, this spectacle, which, so far as I know, is new in
the world: On that great agricultural area are about seven million farms
of an average