formal request that this metal should be shown to our naval attaché, who
(since Symington is with the British fleet and McBride has been ordered
home) is Lieutenant Towers. Towers was sent for and everything that the
Admiralty knows was shown to him and I am sending that piece of metal by
this mail. But to such a pass has the usual courtesy of a British naval
officer come. There are many such instances of changed conduct. They are
not hard to endure nor to answer and are of no consequence in themselves
but only for what they denote. They're a part of war's bitterness. But
my mind runs ahead and I wonder how Englishmen will look at this subject
five years hence, and it runs afield and I wonder how the Germans will
regard it. A sort of pro-German American newspaper correspondent came
along the other day from the German headquarters; and he told me that
one of the German generals remarked to him: 'War with America? Ach no!
Not war. If trouble should come, we'd send over a platoon of our
policemen to whip your little army.' (He didn't say just how he'd send
'em.)"


_To the President_

American Embassy, London, Oct. 5, 1915.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I have two letters that I have lately written to you but which I
have not sent because they utterly lack good cheer. After reading
them over, I have not liked to send them. Yet I should fail of my
duty if I did not tell you bad news as well as good.

The high esteem in which our Government was held when the first