had done it when I saw it in the papers, but I
did not know just how. You could not have brought it about in a more
diplomatic and effectual way."

And the following came from the President:

From President Wilson

Pass Christian,

January 6, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

I have your letter of December twenty-first, which I have greatly
enjoyed.

Almost at the very time I was reading it, the report came through
the Associated Press from London that Carden was to be transferred
immediately to Brazil. If this is true, it is indeed a most
fortunate thing and I feel sure it is to be ascribed to your
tactful and yet very plain representations to Sir Edward Grey. I do
not think you realize how hard we worked to get from either Lind or
O'Shaughnessy[39] definite items of speech or conduct which we
could furnish you as material for what you had to say to the
Ministers about Carden. It simply was not obtainable. Everything
that we got was at second or third hand. That he was working
against us was too plain for denial, and yet he seems to have done
it in a very astute way which nobody could take direct hold of. I
congratulate you with all my heart on his transference.

I long, as you do, for an opportunity to do constructive work all
along the line in our foreign relations, particularly with Great
Britain and the Latin-American states, but surely, my dear fellow,
you are deceiving yourself in supposing that constructive work is
not now actually going on, and going on at your hands quite as much
as at ours. The change of attitude and the growing ability to
understand what we are thinking about and purposing on the part of
the official circle in London is directly attributable to what you
have been doing, and I feel more and more grateful every day that
you are our spokesman and interpreter there. This is the only
possible constructive work in foreign affairs, aside from definite
acts of policy. So far as the policy is concerned, you may be sure
I will strive to the utmost to obtain both a repeal of the
discrimination in the matter of tolls and a renewal of the
arbitration treaties, and I am not without hope that I can
accomplish both at this session. Indeed this is the session in
which these things must be done if they are to be done at all.

B