rvice. With characteristic German tactlessness the German Foreign
Office attempted to be as dictatorial to Page as though he had been one
of its own junior secretaries. The business of the German Embassy in
London was conducted with great ability; the office work was kept in the
most shipshape condition; yet the methods were American methods and the
Germans seemed aggrieved because the routine of the Imperial bureaucracy
was not observed. With unparalleled insolence they objected to the
American system of accounting--not that it was unsound or did not give
an accurate picture of affairs--but simply that it was not German. Page
quietly but energetically informed the German Government that the
American diplomatic service was not a part of the German organization,
that its bookkeeping system was American, not German, that he was doing
this work not as an obligation but as a favour, and that, so long as he
continued to do it, he would perform the duty in his own way. At this
the Imperial Government subsided. Despite such annoyances Page refused
to let his own feelings interfere with the work. The mere fact that he
despised the Germans made him over-scrupulous in taking all precautions
that they obtained exact justice. But this was all that the German cause
in Great Britain did receive. His administration of the German Embassy
was faultless in its technique, but it did not err on the side of
over-enthusiasm.

His behaviour throughout the three succeeding years was entirely
consistent with his conception of "neutrality." That conception, as is
apparent from the letters already printed, was not the Wilsonian
conception. Probably no American diplomat was more aggrieved at the
President's definition of neutrality than his Ambassador to Great
Britain. Page had no quarrel with the original neutrality proclamation;
that was purely a routine governmental affair, and at the time it was
issued it represented the proper American attitude. But the President's
famous emendations filled him with astonishment and dismay. "We must be
impartial in thought as well as in action," said the President on August
19th[90], "we must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every
transaction that might be construed as a prejudice of one party to the
prejudice of another." Page was prepared to observe all the traditional
rules of neutrality, to insist on American rights with the British
Government, and to do full legal justice to the Germans, but