The New York herald., 1922-10-08
Continued from First Page.

possible to give even a summary of Walter
Pages ambassadorial career. All that can
be said is that the story related by himself
in his own intimate and private letters,
which have been woven into a coherent
narrative with SKILL appreciation and good
taste by his biographer, Mr.. Burton Hen
drick, makes delightful reading. Not only
that his letters shed more light on the per.
picking enigma of President Wilson's per-
sonality and administration than the most
studied and philosophical analysis could
possibly do. Woodrow Wilson and Walter
Page had been personal friends since their
university days. They were both South
erners; they were both members by birth
and early association of the Democratic
party; they both believed in the political
rights of the plain people and that the
plain people should be given every oppor-
tunity for the best kind of material, intel
lectual and spiritual development. But
Walter Page was never a blind partisan.
Only few weeks before he was appointed
Ambassador he wrote to his old friend, DIR.
Alderman, president of the University of
Virginia:
1 have new amusement, a new ex-
citement, a new study, as you have, and
as we all have who really believe in
democracy-a new study. new hope, and
sometimes new fear; and its name Is
Wilson 1 didn't suppose I'd ever
become so interested in a general pro-
position or in governmental hope
Will he do it? Can he do it? Can any,
body do it? How can we help him do
it? Now that the task is on him, does
ha 7
him. and he me? There is certain un-
reality about it. The man himself find
that nobody quite knows him now. Alas!
1 wonder if he quite knows himself.
Temperamentally very shy, having lived
too much alone and far too much with
women chow / wish two of his daugh-
ters were sons!) this Big Thing having
descended upon him before he knew, or
was quite prepared for it, thrown into a
whirl of self-seeking men, even while he
is trying to think out the duties that
press, knowing the necessity of silence,
surrounded by small people-well,
made up my mind that his real friends
owed it to him and to what We all hope
for, to break over his reserve and to
volunteer help.
This is what Page tried to DO as Am
bassador and the tragedy of it all is that
even the authority and prestige of his
Ambassador position, added to the au-
thority of an old friendship, did not save
his efforts to help the President from being
unsuccessful. AS his letters from London
to friends and even to the State Depart
ment go on during the years of the war
practically their only complaint-for rage
was an accomplishing man with delight
fpl sense of humor--was that he could not
get response from the President or from
the State Department.
w.
In the autumn of 1916 Ambassador Page
visited washington to report to the Presi-
dent personally the progress of the war
and the dangers which threatened the
United States. He has left memorandum
of this visit. which will be found on page
III of the biography, that probably with
out conscious intention is a searching con-
demnation of the "lamentable failure of
the President really to lead the nation"
But in the most hopeless and discouraging
situation that any Ambassador ever found
himself. believing that the democratic in
stitutions which were to him kind of re-
ligion were in imminent danger of de-
struction, Page. sick at heart, went on
painfully doing his duty-"waging neutral
ity," as he called it. He was scrupulously
correct in all his official actions while this
country was still neutral. Neutrality"
he once exclaimed. There is nothing in
the world so neutral as this embassy.