In haste,

     Faithfully yours,

     WOODROW WILSON.

     HON.  WALTER H. PAGE,
     American Embassy,
     London, England.

A note of a conversation with Sir Edward Grey touches the same point:  “April 1, 1914.  Sir Edward Grey recalled to me to-day that he had waited for the President to take up the Canal tolls controversy at his convenience.  ’When he took it up at his own time to suit his own plans, he took it up in the most admirable way possible.’  This whole story is too good to be lost.  If the repeal of the tolls clause passes the Senate, I propose to make a speech in the House of Commons on ’The Proper Way for Great Governments to Deal with One Another,’ and use this experience.

“Sir Edward also spoke of being somewhat ‘depressed’ by the fierce opposition to the President on the tolls question—­the extent of Anglophobia in the United States.

“Here is a place for a campaign of education—­Chautaqua and whatnot.

“The amount of Anglophobia is great.  But I doubt if it be as great as it seems; for it is organized and is very vociferous.  If you collected together or thoroughly organized all the people in the United States who have birthmarks on their faces, you’d be ‘depressed’ by the number of them.”

Nothing could have more eloquently proved the truth of this last remark than the history of this Panama bill itself.  After all the politicians in the House and Senate had filled pages of the Congressional Record with denunciations of Great Britain—­most of it intended for the entertainment of Irish-Americans and German-Americans in the constituencies—­the two Houses proceeded to the really serious business of voting.  The House quickly passed the bill by 216 to 71, and the Senate by 50 to 35.  Apparently the amount of Anglophobia was not portentous, when it came to putting this emotion to the test of counting heads.  The bill went at once to the President, was signed—­and the dishonour was atoned for.

Mr. and Mrs. Page were attending a ball in Buckingham Palace when the great news reached London.  The gathering represented all that was most distinguished in the official and diplomatic life of the British capital.  The word was rapidly passed from guest to guest, and the American Ambassador and his wife soon found themselves the centre of a company which could hardly restrain itself in expressing its admiration for the United States.  Never in the history of the country had American prestige stood so high as on that night.  The King and the Prime Minister were especially affected by this display of fair-dealing in Washington.  The slight commercial advantage which Great Britain had obtained was not the thought that was uppermost in everybody’s mind.  The thing that really moved these assembled statesmen and diplomats was the fact that something new had appeared in the history of legislative chambers.  A great nation had committed an outrageous wrong—­that