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 size of about 140 acres, most of which are tilled by the owners themselves, a population that varies greatly, of course, in its thrift and efficiency, but most of which is well housed, in houses they themselves own, well clad, well fed, and a population that trains practically all its children in schools maintained by public taxation.”  It was some such vision as this that Page hoped to see realized ultimately in Mexico.  And some such development as this would make Mexico a democracy.  It was his difficulty in making the British see the Mexican problem in this light that persuaded him that, in this comprehensive meaning of the word, the democratic ideal had made an inappreciable progress in Europe—­and even in Great Britain itself.

II

These letters are printed somewhat out of their chronological order because they picture definitely the two opposing viewpoints of Great Britain and the United States on Mexico and Latin-America generally.  Here, then, was the sharp issue drawn between the Old World and the New—­on one side the dreary conception of outlying countries as fields to be exploited for the benefit of “investors,” successful revolutionists to be recognized in so far as they promoted such ends, and no consideration to be shown to the victims of their rapacity; and the new American idea, the idea which had been made reality in Cuba and the Philippines, that the enlightened and successful nations stood something in the position of trustees to such unfortunate lands and that it was their duty to lead them along the slow pathway of progress and democracy.  So far the Wilsonian principle could be joyfully supported by the Ambassador.  Page disagreed with the President, however, in that he accepted the logical consequences of this programme.  His formula of “shooting