does or not the leak continues. I have to go with my tail between my
legs and apologize to Sir Edward Grey and to do myself that shame and to
do my very best to keep his confidence--against these unnecessary odds.
The only way to be safe is to do the job perfunctorily, to answer the
questions the Department sends and to do nothing on your own account.
That's the reason so many of our men do their jobs in that way--or _one_
reason and a strong one. We can never have an alert and energetic and
powerful service until men can trust the Department and until they can
get necessary information from it. I wrote the President that of course
I'd go on till the war ended and all the questions growing out of it
were settled, and that then he must excuse me, if I must continue to be
exposed to this danger and humiliation. In the meantime, I shall send
all my confidential matter in private letters to him."

* * * * *

Page did not regard Mr. Bryan's opinions and attitudes as a joke: to him
they were a serious matter and, in his eyes, Bryan was most interesting
as a national menace. He regarded the Secretary as the extreme
expression of an irrational sentimentalism that was in danger of
undermining the American character, especially as the kind of thought
he represented was manifest in many phases of American life. In a moment
of exasperation, Page gave expression to this feeling in a letter to his
son:

_To Arthur W. Page_

London, June 6, 1915.

DEAR ARTHUR: