I take it for granted that Dumba[4] is going, of course. But I must
tell you that the President is being laughed at by our best friends
for his slowness in action. I hardly ever pick up a paper without
seeing some sarcastic remark. I don't mean they expect us to come
into the war. They only hoped we would be as good as our
word--would regard another submarine attack on a ship carrying
Americans as an unfriendly act and would send Bernstorff home. Yet
the _Arabic_ and now the _Hesperian_ have had no effect in action.
Bernstorff's personal _note to Lansing[5], even as far as it goes,
does not bind his Government_.

The upshot of all this is that the President is fast losing in the
minds of our best friends here all that he gained by his courageous
stand on the Panama tolls. They feel that if he takes another
insult--keeps taking them--and is satisfied with Bernstorff's
personal word, which is proved false in four days--he'll take
anything. And the British will pay less attention to what we say.
That's inevitable. If the American people and the President accept
the _Arabic_ and the _Hesperian_ and do nothing to Dumba till the
Government here gave out his letter, which the State Department had
(and silently held) for several days--then nobody on this side the
world will pay much heed to anything we say hereafter.

This, as I say, doesn't mean that these (thoughtful) people wish or
expect us to go to war. They wish only that we'd prove ourselves as
good as the President's word. That's the conservative truth; we're
losing influence more rapidly than I supposed it were possible.

Dumba's tardy dismissal will not touch the main matter, which is