except as an example of
how-not-to-do-it. It has no lessons for us except as a warning.
When the whole continent has to go fighting--every blessed one of
them--once a century, and half of them half the time between and
all prepared even when they are not fighting, and when they shoot
away all their money as soon as they begin to get rich a little and
everybody else's money, too, and make the whole world poor, and
when they kill every third or fourth generation of the best men and
leave the worst to rear families, and have to start over afresh
every time with a worse stock--give me Uncle Sam and his big farm.
We don't need to catch any of this European life. We can do without
it all as well as we can do without the judges' wigs and the court
costumes. Besides, I like a land where the potatoes have some
flavour, where you can buy a cigar, and get your hair cut and have
warm bathrooms.

Build the farm, therefore; and let me hear at every stage of that
happy game. May the New Year be the best that has ever come for
you!

Affectionately,

W.H.P.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 68: Evidently the battle of Heligoland Bight of August 28,
1914.]

[Footnote 69: The reference in all probability is to Mr. Charles L.
Hoover, at that time American Consul at Carlsbad.]

[Footnote 70: German Ambassador in Washington.]

[Footnote 71: Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, whose
openly expressed pro-Germanism was making him exceedingly unpopular in
the United States.]

[Footnote 72: Evidently written in the latter part of September, 1914.]

[Footnote 73: Miss Katharine A. Page, the Ambassador's daughter.]

[Footnote 74: The _Hague_, the _Cressy_, and the _Aboukir_ were
torpedoed by a German submarine September 22, 1914. This exploit first
showed the world the power of the submarine.]

[Footnote 75: Princess Lichnowsky, wife of the German Ambassador to
Great Britain.]

[Footnote 76: Private Secretary to Mrs. Page.]

[Footnote 77: Mr. Harold Fowler, the Ambassador's Secretary.]

[Footnote 78: Probably a reference to Mr. Charles M. Schwab, President
of the Bethlehem Steel Company, who was in London at this time on this
errand.]

[Footnote 79: No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.]

[Footnote 80: Miss Katharine A. Page had just returned from a visit to
the United States.]

[Footnote 81: Mr. Arthur W. Page's country home on Long Island.]