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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00025333103 
 
 This book may be kept out one month unless a recall 
 notice is sent to you. It must be brought to the North 
 Carolina Collection (in Wilson Library) for renewal. 
 
 A/^ A 0£^/-i 
 
MEMORIAL MEETING 
 WALTER HINES PAGE 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY LAZLO IN THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, LONDON 
 
MEMORIAL MEETING 
 WALTER HINES PAGE 
 
 HELD AT THE BRICK PRESBYTERIAN 
 CHURCH, FIFTH AVENUE AND THIRTY- 
 SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK, ON 
 APRIL THE TWENTY-FIFTH, I9I9 
 
 ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 TEXT OF ADDRESSES 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COiMPANY 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK LONDON 
 1920 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Memorial Meeting was held in 
 the Brick Presbyterian Church in New 
 York, on the afternoon of April 25, 
 1919, at four o'clock. Dr. Edwin A. 
 Alderman, President of the University 
 of Virginia, presided and introduced the 
 speakers who were the Earl of Reading, 
 Ambassador of Great Britain to the 
 United States, Hon. WiUiam Gibbs 
 McAdoo, Ex-Secretary of the Treasury, 
 and Dr. L3nnan Abbott, Editor of The 
 Outlook. Their addresses, full of dis- 
 cerning appreciation of Mr. Page's 
 character and dehvered with impressive 
 simplicity, were listened to by a great 
 company of Mr. Page's friends. 
 
 These appreciations, as well as the 
 messages read at the meeting, have been 
 
 Hi 
 
 50 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 gathered together in these pages by the 
 committee, and are presented to Am- 
 bassador Page's friends both in England 
 and America as a keepsake to his mem- 
 ory. The form chosen for this httle 
 volimie is itself a memorial, for it has 
 been made identical with the form of 
 "The Rebuilding of Old Common- 
 wealths," the book into which Walter 
 Hines Page poured his soul. He wrote 
 in one of its pages: "I believe in the 
 perpetual regeneration of society, in the 
 immortaHty of democracy, and in growth 
 everlasting." 
 
 This great and true American, as 
 firm in his simple faith in democracy as 
 was Lincoln, lived to see Germany strike 
 her colors on November ii, 1918, and 
 his friends are glad to believe that as a 
 "Happy Warrior" he went forward, to 
 use his own words, to "growth everlast- 
 ing.'' . 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Prayer 3 
 
 By Dr. William Pierson Merrill 
 
 Address -5 
 
 By Dr. Edwin A. Alderman 
 
 Message 21 
 
 From President Wilson 
 
 Message 22 
 
 From Secretary Lansing 
 
 Address 25 
 
 By Lord Reading 
 
 Address 36 
 
 By Hon. William G. McAdoo 
 
 Address 46 
 
 By Dr. Lyman Abbott 
 
MEMORIAL MEETING 
 WALTER HINES PAGE 
 
THE PRAYER BY DR. WILLIAM 
 PIERSON MERRILL 
 
 DR. .ALDERMAN introduced the 
 Rev. Dr. William P. Merrill,pas- 
 tor of the Brick Presbyterian 
 Church who offered the following prayer: 
 
 Let us ask the blessing of God: Oh, God, 
 our father, God of our fathers and God 
 of all humanity, we give Thee thanks 
 for Thy servant who, serving faithfully 
 his country and his race, truly served 
 Thee. We beseech Thee that Thy 
 presence may be with us, meeting here 
 in memory of this. Thy servant, and a 
 servant of this nation. We fervently 
 and humbly pray to Thee that by Thy 
 grace, working in the hearts of men, 
 Thou wilt preserve and strengthen that 
 
4 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 feeKng of concord, of peace and good will 
 which exists between the two countries 
 which this man served, and that Thou 
 wilt grant that throughout all the world 
 there may be extended those principles 
 of righteousness and of justice to which 
 he devoted so much of the strength of 
 his life. 
 
 Grant Thou, by Thy Spirit, working 
 upon the hearts of the men in whose 
 hands are the great destinies of this 
 coming time, that there may be brought 
 and confirmed, a peace that shall be 
 established upon righteousness and faith 
 and truth, in order that Thy Kingdom 
 may come here in the world, and Thy 
 will be done in the affairs of men. 
 Amen. 
 
ADDRESS OF DR. .\LDERMAN 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIR- 
 GINIA, AND chair:man of the memorial 
 
 MEETING 
 
 THE praise which a free and 
 thoughtful people feel impelled 
 to bestow upon high character 
 and good deeds is one way the race hag 
 of uttering its own eternal aspirations, 
 and constitutes a sort of spiritual food 
 with which men would fain nourish 
 themselves. ''Death hath this also," 
 said Lord Bacon, ''that it openeth the 
 gate to good fame," by which the old 
 wise man meant, I think, that when any 
 man of renown passes by in life, and es- 
 pecially in death, a certain wave of 
 emotion follows along, touching ahke the 
 old who see in him the fulfiller of their 
 
6 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 dreams, the young, the inspirer of their 
 dreams, the girl, that her lover, the 
 mother that her son, may become such 
 as he. Thus it is that a company of 
 friends is here to-day to speak of a man 
 whom they loved, a citizen who had 
 faith in ideas and rare power to see and 
 promote the lines of true progress in his 
 day, and a pubHc servant who served 
 modestly but notably and well the in- 
 terests of his country and of mankind. 
 
 I could not, even if it were my proper 
 function so to do, speak of Walter 
 Page in the note of old-time memorial 
 statehness. I can imagine him in his 
 bluff, explosive way checking me and 
 bidding me restrain my loquacity and 
 curb my oratorical instincts. But cer- 
 tain intimate things I may, with pro- 
 priety and deep love, briefly utter before 
 presenting to you those who would an- 
 alvze and evaluate his career. 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 7 
 
 Walter Page and I were brought up in 
 the same old Southern state of North 
 CaroHna, and essentially in the same era 
 of sacrifice and seriousness which swept 
 over a land smitten by war and revolu- 
 tion and grimly struggling back into 
 the field of national consciousness and 
 modern democracy. The sense of social 
 duty lived in the air he early breathed 
 and caused him to have for his undi- 
 vided country and for the section whose 
 strivings and tragedies he witnessed 
 an attachment almost romantic in its 
 tenderness and brooding concern. 
 
 I saw him for the first time thirty- 
 nine years ago, and during that long 
 period I have known and loved few men 
 better. As a young student at college, 
 I stumbled into a meeting of teachers 
 at my University and saw standing on a 
 platform a young man expounding to 
 them, in a most unconventional way, 
 
8 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 the dignity and beauty of the discipUnes 
 involved in the study of the Greek 
 language and literature. I was not 
 deeply moved by the Greek appeal, 
 but I was arrested quickly by the young 
 editor who seemed to be flouting the 
 oratorical pomposities current at the 
 time by his manner and dress and who 
 seemed charged with fierce eagerness, 
 defiant optimism, and intellectual con- 
 fidence. 
 
 I saw him for the last time in October, 
 1 914, standing in the doorway of the old 
 American Embassy, on Victoria Street, 
 in London, bidding me good-bye and 
 Godspeed on my homeward voyage. 
 The marks of care and toil were upon 
 him, but also of proud, steadfast devo- 
 tion and purpose, for he was just begin- 
 ning the duties of a mission destined to 
 be historical in the annals of American 
 diplomacy and peculiarly distinguished 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 9 
 
 in the story of Anglo-American rela- 
 tions. The young attorney for the 
 Greek disciphne, of the late 'seventies, 
 had indeed traveled a long distance be- 
 tween the cotton fields of North Caro- 
 lina and the Court of St. James's. The 
 journey had not been tempestuous but 
 steady and fonvard, as if certain con- 
 stant trade winds of energy and clear- 
 thinking and forceful writing and down- 
 right purpose had driven him on. There 
 was no subtlety or cunning or mystery 
 or seK delusion about Walter Page. 
 He had faith in his profession of pub- 
 licist, and his convictions marched on 
 ahead of him, and he shouted out the 
 thing he was after and the methods he 
 meant to use. He was a big, whole- 
 some, human being. He was not es- 
 pecially logical; in fact, he resented 
 the logician and the formal-minded man. 
 He may be called an impressionist 
 
lo MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 whose impressions went deep and whose 
 eye discerned the essence of things. 
 There were certain quahties inherent 
 in his character about which one may 
 venture to use that most dangerous 
 form of phrase — the superlative. I have 
 never known a more persistent and in- 
 teUigent radical — ^in the best sense of 
 that incisive word. His eyes never 
 beheld anything, whether a venerable 
 human institution, a manuscript, a 
 piece of social organization, or a me- 
 chanical device, that he did not ask him- 
 self these questions : ^^Can this thing be 
 made better than it is? and who and 
 where is the man to tackle the job? and 
 how soon can I tie the job and the man 
 together? ' ' He was thus upon an unend- 
 ing quest for practical excellence and a 
 furious crusader against vain pretension. 
 His passion was to build or rebuild old 
 commonwealths, rural life, old educa- 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE ii 
 
 tional systems — whatever it was. Until 
 the duties of the world war overshad- 
 owed all things, he always claimed that 
 the most satisfactory and important 
 service of his life was the service he 
 rendered upon the Southern Education 
 Board and the General Education Board. 
 I have never known a more perfect 
 democrat than Walter Page. He wasted 
 no time in defining that great Hope, 
 as he called it. The conception thrilled 
 and exalted and stimulated and guided 
 him as religion used to guide its devotees 
 in the age of Faith. He had thought 
 the thing out and talked it out and or- 
 dered it into a creed. "It^s the end of 
 the year," he wrote me at Christmas 
 in 191 2. " Mrs. Page and I (alone) have 
 been talking of democracy. I do pro- 
 foundly hold the democratic faith and 
 beUeve that it can be worked into action 
 among men." And in the same letter, 
 
12 MEMORIAL ]\IEETING 
 
 he added: ^^I have a new amusement, a 
 new excitement, a new study, as you 
 have and as we all have who really be- 
 lieve in a democracy — a new study, a 
 new hope, and sometimes a new fear; 
 and its name is Wilson. I have for 
 many years regarded myself as an 
 interested, but always a somewhat de- 
 tached, outsider, believing that the 
 democratic idea was real and safe and 
 lifting, if we could ever get it put into 
 action, contenting myself ever with 
 such patches of it as time and accident 
 and occasion now and then sewed on our 
 gilded or tattered garments. But now 
 it is come — the real thing; at any rate 
 a man whose thought and aim and 
 dream are our thought and aim and 
 dream. That's enormously exciting! I 
 didn't suppose I'd ever become so in- 
 terested in a general proposition or in 
 a governmental hope." As the tragic 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 13 
 
 years went by it is needless to say that 
 this interest and hope, whose name was 
 Wilson, grew into confidence and faith 
 and affection. 
 
 I have known no man of wider and 
 tenderer sympathies, of greater joy in 
 praise of others, and greater genius in 
 discovering the best in others. There 
 are many noble men in America who 
 found themselves because he first found 
 them. Wlien his Memoirs come to be 
 written, I prophesy that the number of 
 the letters that he wrote and the con- 
 tacts that he maintained with all sorts 
 of men wiU astonish his biographer. 
 And such letters! beautiful in hand- 
 writing, fresh in thought, turbulent 
 with strident common sense and radiant 
 hope and virile humor. If he shall be 
 not adjudged the best letter writer of 
 his generation, I shall be much mis- 
 taken. About the time of his appoint- 
 
14 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 ment to the English post, a certain 
 menace of disease condemned me to in- 
 activity in the great, cold, north country 
 of New York. Week by week beautiful 
 letters came to me from him — all in his 
 engraved-like handwriting. They were 
 sent primarily to beguile my sickness and 
 silence, but they fairly throbbed with 
 interest and bold opinions and poetical 
 insights and praise of friends and now 
 and then Gargantuan merriment and 
 laughter. I often read them with min- 
 gled laughter and tears, remembering 
 the motive that moved the busy man, 
 and stirred by their sense and substance. 
 The letters didn't cease until the ship 
 bearing him to his great task v/as ap- 
 proaching Liverpool. Writing in De- 
 cember, 191 2, amidst all sorts of conceit 
 and mounting enthusiasms, I find these 
 noble sentences spoken to strengthen 
 a lonely man's courage. *'IVe a book 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 15 
 
 or two more to send you. If they in- 
 terest you, praise the gods. If they 
 bore you, fling 'em in the snow and 
 think no worse of me. You can't tell 
 what a given book may be worth to a 
 given man in an unknown mood. They 
 become such a commodity to me that I 
 thank my stars for a month away from 
 them when I may come at 'em at a dif- 
 ferent angle and really read a few old 
 ones — ^Wordsworth, for instance. When 
 you get old enough, you'll wake up some 
 day with the feeling that the world is 
 much more beautiful than it was when 
 you were young, that a landscape has a 
 clearer meaning, that the sky is more 
 companionable, that outdoor color and 
 motion are more splendidly audacious 
 and beautifully rhythmical than you 
 had ever thought. That's true. The 
 gently snow-clad little pines out my 
 window are more to me than the whole 
 
i6 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Taft Administration. They'll soon be 
 better than the year's dividends. And 
 the few great craftsmen in words, who 
 can confirm this feehng — they are the 
 masters you become grateful for. Then 
 the sordidness of the world lies far be- 
 neath you and your great democracy 
 is truly come — the democracy of na- 
 ture. To be akin to a tree, in this sense, 
 is as good as to be akin to a man. I 
 have a grove of little long-leaf pines 
 down in the old country, and I know 
 they'U have some consciousness of me 
 after all men have forgotten me: I've 
 saved 'em, and they'll sing a century of 
 gratitude if I can keep 'em saved." 
 
 Intense, dynamic, practical patriotism 
 was incarnated in Walter Page. There 
 was nothing provincial about him in this 
 manifestation, for his mind was a world 
 mind and his interests cosmic interests, 
 though, as I have said, he brooded over 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 17 
 
 the region that gave him birth like a 
 mother over her children, trpng always 
 to aid it even if he had thereby to incur 
 unpopularity and outspoken criticism^. 
 
 His interest in the Negro, for instance, 
 was keen and cathohc, not from any 
 romantic emotionalism, but because he 
 saw the African as the stage where 
 democracy could really hope to play 
 its heroic part, if it were freed from hin- 
 dering obstacles. He saw the weak- 
 nesses of democracy and sought to 
 remedy them, not by turgid eulogy, 
 but by practical efforts to abohsh ignor- 
 ance and disease and to promote com- 
 munity effort and social organization. 
 
 When the great war came and Page 
 had settled down to a world task, I find a 
 soberer note in forming his letters to me. 
 The old flavor of daring humor and 
 soaring talk dropped out of his style. 
 He saw the supreme test awaiting him, a 
 
1 8 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 test which had faced Frankhn and Jef- 
 ferson and Adams in other days, and 
 which no one of them compassed more 
 nobly than he. He must become the 
 voice of the New World cheering for- 
 ward the Old in its struggle for freedom. 
 And he did so become. He saw, too, 
 his beloved Democracy put to its su- 
 preme test — cross-examined mercilessly 
 by all the forces of society and assailed 
 by a colossal foe. There was no waver- 
 ing or lack of brain or faith, only sober- 
 ness and girding of the loins. He saw 
 afresh and at first hand the greatness 
 and constancy of the English race and 
 beheld anew the oneness of their ideals 
 with our own, and hence the essential 
 unity and permanency of their destiny 
 with the destiny of his country — and so 
 he grew in power as an interpreter be- 
 tween the two kindred democracies 
 struggling for existence at Armageddon. 
 
WALTER MINES PAGE 19 
 
 I had dreamed of my old friend com- 
 ing home, hearing in his ears the acclaim 
 of his friends and countrymen, and so 
 living to old age accompanied by love 
 and honor and troops of friends. 
 When he actually came home broken in 
 body to die, while the bells of victory 
 were everywhere pealing, my heart 
 was bitter at what seemed the savage 
 cruelty of such a fate. But I now know 
 that my emotion was the natural human 
 reaction to loss and pain, and I now see 
 the grandeur surrounding the end of this 
 tired, faithful servant of the state, who 
 had fought to the finish and won the 
 fight in a crisis of the world, and who 
 must have had acquaintance with the 
 things that are not seen, and must have 
 heard about him the rustling of the 
 pinions of victory and the ''well done" of 
 just men in all lands. And there was 
 infinite beauty and fitness in carrying 
 
20 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 him back to lie under ''the long-leaf 
 pines down in the old country '^ where 
 the sands are white and the air clean. 
 And those who cared for him rejoiced 
 that the great Ambassador rests among 
 his forbears, amid childhood scenes, 
 content, I dare say, on some mount of 
 faith, to know that 
 
 " His part, in all the pomp that fills 
 The circuit of the summer hills 
 Is, that his grave is green." 
 
PRESIDENT WILSON'S MESSAGE 
 
 DOCTOR ALDERMAN, after his 
 own address, introduced Mr. 
 Herbert S, Houston, Secretary 
 of the Committee, who read the follow- 
 ing messages from the President of the 
 United States, and from Secretary of 
 State Lansing. 
 
 **It is a matter of sincere regret to 
 me that I cannot be present to add my 
 tribute of friendship and admiration 
 for Walter Page. He crowned a life of 
 active usefulness by rendering his coun- 
 try a service of unusual distinction, and 
 deserves to be held in the affectionate 
 memory of his fellow countrymen. In a 
 time of exceeding difficulty he acquitted 
 himself with discretion, unwavering 
 fidelity and admirable intelligence. 
 
 ''WooDRow Wilson." 
 
 21 
 
SECRETARY LANSING'S 
 MESSAGE 
 
 THE passing of Walter Hines 
 Page from the world in which 
 he played so conspicuous a part 
 was an event casting a shadow over his 
 country in the very hours when victory 
 for the cause to which he had devoted 
 his energies, his very life, was assured. 
 With a vision, which he converted 
 into effort. Doctor Page from the first 
 perceived the meaning of the war and 
 the peril to those fundamental principles 
 for which the United States has stood 
 throughout its Hfe as a nation. EQs 
 influence was ceaselessly exerted in be- 
 half of the cause of the Allies and it was 
 largely through his sympathetic spirit 
 
 22 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 23 
 
 and through the confidence and good will 
 which he inspired that many of the 
 vexatious questions between the United 
 States and Great Britain were removed 
 and the peoples of the two countries 
 were united in common thought and 
 common purposes. 
 
 The patriotic service which he ren- 
 dered in the critical years and the sacri- 
 ficial impulse with which he gave himself 
 to the work of his ofhce makes his career 
 as an ambassador distinguished and his 
 name memorable among the famous 
 Americans who have represented their 
 country at the Court of St. James's. 
 
 It is with mingled feelings of sorrow 
 and admiration that I am privileged to 
 bear witness to the greatness of Doctor 
 Page's service, to his loyal devotion to 
 American principles, and to the zeal and 
 earnestness with which he performed 
 his arduous duties. It is in the record 
 
24 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 of such a life that Americans find their 
 loftiest ideals translated into fact and 
 are given inspiration to serve their 
 country to the very end. This is the 
 lesson we should learn from the life of 
 Walter Hines Page, a great diplomat, 
 and a great patriot. 
 
 Robert Lansing. 
 
LORD READING'S ADDRESS 
 
 IORD reading, the British High 
 Commissioner and Special Am- 
 bassador to the United States, 
 was introduced by Doctor Alderman in 
 the following words : 
 
 The deepest conviction held by the 
 late Ambassador from the United States 
 to Great Britain was the conviction 
 that the British Empire and the United 
 States of America should know each 
 other and understand each other, and 
 as kindred peoples act together for the 
 promotion of peace and justice in the 
 world. There is, therefore, pecuhar fit- 
 ness and graciousness in the presence 
 here to-day of His Excellency, the Earl 
 of Reading, British Ambassador to the 
 
 25 
 
26 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 United States, who on this side of the 
 water has done so much to promote this 
 unity and to reaUze this conviction. 
 
 I have great honor in presenting to 
 you, the Earl of Reading. 
 
 Lord Reading's address was as follows : 
 
 It is indeed a graceful act to have af- 
 forded the opportunity to the British 
 Ambassador to the United States to ex- 
 press the tribute of respect, admiration, 
 and affection that the British people feel 
 for Walter Hines Page. 
 
 To-day I speak to you as British Am- 
 bassador, by special command of His 
 Majesty, the King; by the request of 
 the Government; and at the earnest 
 desire of the British people. The Gov- 
 ernment and people speak with one 
 voice when they speak of Doctor Page. 
 I noted that Doctor Alderman referred 
 to his last meeting with Doctor Page in 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 27 
 
 October, 1914. With us in England, 
 knowledge of Doctor Page may almost 
 be said to have begun when he first came 
 to our country as the accredited repre- 
 sentative of the United States to our 
 Nation. He came as an interpreter of 
 the thoughts and the sentiments of 
 America to Britain. Pie was with us 
 a little over a year before the great war 
 began. During this early period we 
 learned to know more of him perhaps 
 than is usually learned in so short a 
 time. He made himself acquainted, 
 and indeed, had become on friendly 
 terms with all of our leading Statesmen, 
 men of letters, men engaged in Art, 
 Science, and indeed in all professions 
 and one might say, all avocations of life. 
 WTien the war came in 1 914, he was in 
 a difficult and a very responsible position. 
 Those of us who were in my country 
 during that period, will recall the many 
 
28 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 difficult, anxious, contentious questions 
 that arose during the early part of the 
 war. It was not vouchsafed to him to 
 express, in public, his thoughts upon 
 the war which had started. He rep- 
 resented his country and observed 
 throughout that strict neutrality which 
 of course became his duty. He was a 
 true American; never for one moment 
 during the whole period of that neu- 
 trality did he forget that he represented 
 a neutral administration; but, neverthe- 
 less, he did conduct the affairs of his 
 country with our authorities in England 
 so as to smooth away difficulties, to 
 remain on the friendliest terms, and to 
 convince us of sympathy notwithstand- 
 ing that it was his duty to insist and 
 most strenuously to insist upon the point 
 of view of his Government. 
 
 I doubt very much whether we have 
 ever brought home to you, or whether 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 29 
 
 any words that I could use would con- 
 vey to you the deep debt of gratitude 
 that we British people feel for the work 
 of Doctor Page, during that period of the 
 war. It was his counsel, it was his acts, 
 it was generally his thought that helped 
 always to clear away some of the com- 
 plexities that were constantly arising. 
 
 In private life, he was far too out- 
 spoken a man (candor was part and 
 parcel of him) to conceal from those who 
 had the high privilege of intimate inter- 
 course with him, that the whole soul of 
 the man was centred in the victory of 
 the Allied cause. He never allowed that 
 sympathy to interfere with his duty; 
 but almost the crowning moment of his 
 life, I should think, was when America 
 entered the war — ^when the restraints 
 were removed from him; when he could 
 speak his thoughts; when he could give 
 public utterance to them; when he could 
 
30 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 aid by his public efforts, in the work 
 for the x\Uied cause. 
 
 During all this time, he had been gain- 
 ing the affections of our people increas- 
 ingly, as time progressed. After Amer- 
 ica had entered the war; when he threw 
 himself so whole-heartedly into our 
 life in England; when with the joy of 
 the removal of the restraint that had 
 cabined and confined him for so long, 
 he was able to lend his energies, his ac- 
 tivities and the value of his judgment to 
 the common work in which we were en- 
 gaged, he vowed to us that he was only 
 a worker in the democracy of the Eng- 
 lish speaking nations. He longed to 
 take his part as a soldier in the field of 
 battle, fighting for right, for justice, 
 for liberty, for that democracy he loved. 
 
 I could not use language which could 
 properly be described as exaggerated 
 when I speak of the impression that he 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 31 
 
 made upon us in England. There will 
 be a golden chapter in the history of 
 England entitled '' Walter Hines Page." 
 There will be another in the history of 
 Anglo-American cooperation for the jus- 
 tice and liberty of the world. 
 
 He had an unfaltering faith in the 
 victory of our cause. Whatever the 
 difficulties were, he never allowed the 
 light to be obscured. He had a singu- 
 larly original mind. He had a specially 
 outspoken way of expressing himself. 
 His thoughts were lofty; his language 
 was distinguished. His ideals were no- 
 ble and he never was weary of devoting 
 himself to carrying them into practical 
 realization. 
 
 I will now speak to you, the names of 
 the great men of my country who have 
 been associated with him and who 
 would love to be associated at this mo- 
 ment as I am, speaking I think just for 
 
32 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 one moment only — those with whom he 
 served during the earUer days of the 
 war, when Mr. Asquith was Prime Min- 
 ister and Sir Edward Grey was Foreign 
 Secretary; and of the later days, when 
 Mr. Lloyd George was Prime Minister 
 and Mr. Balfour the Foreign Secretary; 
 of Lord Crew at one time handling the 
 affairs of the Foreign Office; of Lord 
 Curzon who has done the same in later 
 time. I speak of these politicians — 
 men who played a great part during the 
 war, only for the purpose of giving ut- 
 terance for them, through the tribute 
 of admiration and of love for the man. 
 His work throughout the latter period 
 of his life was avowedly given to making 
 these great English speaking peoples 
 better acquainted with each other. 
 
 I recall as I address you, a speech he 
 made in the House of Commons, if my 
 memory serves me aright, at the end of 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 33 
 
 191 7, when he said that he would devote 
 the remaining years of his Hfe to bring- 
 ing about a more fundamental and 
 lasting acquaintance and friendship be- 
 tween our two countries. He has in- 
 deed done noble work in that direction. 
 
 He labored so hard that he strained 
 his physical capacities to the uttermost, 
 as some of us who had the advantage of 
 seeing him often, realize. He did it, I 
 beheve, knowingly. He refused to spare 
 himself because he was determined that 
 all that there was in him should be 
 given to the cause of the country he 
 represented in such grave and anxious 
 times, and that it should be devoted also 
 to that other nation where he was then 
 residing, so closely associated with 
 America. 
 
 To all those who were engaged in the 
 common cause, those labors of his 
 have borne fruit, and I believe will bear 
 
34 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 even richer fruit in the future. His 
 memory will ever be recalled with rever- 
 ence; remembered with the Anglo- 
 American relations during the last few 
 eventful years. To all who studied 
 what has happened during the great war, 
 it will ever be kept alive by devotion 
 and loyalty to the great ideals which 
 Walter Hines Page always set to liimself, 
 and of which he was never tired of speak- 
 ing to us in England. 
 
 He came to us comparatively un- 
 known. He left us, so shortly before 
 his death, with a name renowned and 
 revered by all those who had learned 
 to know him, and that w^as by all the 
 English speaking peoples of the world. 
 He was beloved by all who had the hon- 
 or of intimacy or private intercourse 
 with him — they who had garnered some 
 of the rich harvest of the beautiful 
 thoughts to which he so constantly 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 35 
 
 gave utterance, and he will ever remain 
 with us, among the most distinguished 
 of the distinguished representatives you 
 have sent to our country. 
 
 We of Great Britain, and of that ag- 
 gregation of British nations known as 
 the British Empire, will always love 
 and revere the memory and the works 
 of Walter Hines Page. 
 
HON. WILLIAM G. McADOO^S 
 ADDRESS 
 
 H 
 
 ON. WILLIAM G. McADOO 
 
 was introduced in the following 
 words by Doctor Alderman: 
 
 I am glad that these exercises go 
 forward in the presence of the acting 
 head of the State Department, Mr. 
 Frank Polk, under which Walter Page 
 did his work, and of former Secretary 
 of the Treasury, Mr. William G. 
 McAdoo who was the friend of Mr. 
 Page, and his government colleague. 
 
 I have the honor and the very great 
 pleasure to present Secretary McAdoo. 
 
 Responding to Doctor Alderman's 
 36 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 37 
 
 introduction Mr. McAdoo delivered the 
 following address : 
 
 It is a genuine privilege to join the 
 friends of Walter Hines Page in this 
 tribute to his memory, evidencing as it 
 does the affection and respect in which 
 his friends and his countrymen held 
 him. 
 
 It would be impossible for me to con- 
 tribute anything to the eloquent ad- 
 dresses which have been made by Doctor 
 Alderman and by His Excellency, the 
 British Ambassador, and I shall not 
 attempt therefore to speak at any great 
 length about our distinguished friend, 
 but merely to recall a few incidents in 
 his Hfe which are not known to the 
 public. 
 
 I had known Mr. Page somewhat casu- 
 ally before the year 191 1, but in 1911 
 I became intimately acquainted with 
 
SS MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 him. We were brought together by a 
 sort of mutual attraction — growing out 
 of a community of ideas or identity of 
 purpose. 
 
 Doctor Alderman described Mr. Page 
 very accurately when he said that he 
 was essentially a democrat and that 
 he was intelligently a radical. It was 
 for those reasons no doubt that Mr. 
 Page threw himself with such fervor 
 into the effort to have nominated for the 
 presidency of the United States, the 
 man who represented not only the prin- 
 ciples for which he stood and in which 
 he believed with such ardor, but the 
 ideals which Mr. Page so fervently 
 cherished. And as I, myself, was very 
 much interested in effectuating the same 
 object, we found ourselves in complete 
 sympathy with each other, and became 
 earnest companions in an effort at 
 political cooperation in a field which was 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 39 
 
 entirely new to each of us, and which we 
 entered with the daring and enthusiasm 
 of the innocents. We used to meet 
 about once a week at a small ofhce down 
 tow^n to consider the best means of 
 furthering the interests of our ideal can- 
 didate for the presidency. As we pro- 
 ceeded, I was struck with the incisive- 
 ness of Air. Page's mind; with the deep 
 and abiding faith he had in his country 
 and in the principles of democracy; 
 with the loyalty and devotion of his 
 friendships and of the sincerity and 
 depth of his feelings and convictions. 
 We were associated together in the pre- 
 liminary work which led up to the Balti- 
 more Convention in 191 2, and we had 
 the pleasure of meeting after that con- 
 vention and of feUcitating each other 
 not so much upon the work we had 
 done — a work to which we hoped that 
 we had contributed something — but 
 
40 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 upon the happy fruition of our great 
 adventure, the nomination for the Pres- 
 idency of Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 I learned during that time to know 
 him intimately and to appreciate him 
 deeply. Then was formed the sincere 
 and ardent friendship which has abided 
 ever since; and when the time came to 
 consider an Ambassador to the Court 
 of St. James's, I found myself, wholly 
 unexpectedly, occupying a Cabinet po- 
 sition in Washington, where it became 
 my privilege to discuss the appointment 
 with the President and the Secretary 
 of State and to suggest my friend, Walter 
 Hines Page as the man who should be 
 chosen for that great post. 
 
 It was not anticipated at that time, 
 of course, that such a calamity as the 
 Great War would overtake the world, 
 and yet we all realized how essential it 
 was that a man should be chosen to rep- 
 
WALTER MINES PAGE 41 
 
 resent America at the Court of St. 
 James's, who not only represented the 
 ideals of democracy but who also had 
 the intellectual force, the high purpose, 
 and the patriotism which would enable 
 him to uphold the best traditions of that 
 great and honorable post — a post 
 which had been filled by some of the 
 most eminent men in American history, 
 and it was with the greatest pleasure 
 that I urged as the man best fitted, 
 of all those with whom I was acquainted, 
 Walter Hines Page, for that distin- 
 guished honor. 
 
 I remember that I feared, as I thought 
 about it at the time, that his somewhat 
 abrupt manner — due to the great sin- 
 cerity and fervor of his views, which 
 Doctor Alderman has so happily de- 
 scribed as '^ explosive"- — might perhaps 
 be a bit foreign to the ways of diplomacy, 
 and yet, even at that time, I think it 
 
42 MEMORI.\L MEETING 
 
 was rather vaguely in the minds and 
 consciousness of the people that the 
 days of secret and circuitous diplomacy 
 were on the wane and that the direct 
 diplomacy, the open diplomacy, the 
 diplomac}' of sincerity and of honesty 
 and candor were about to be ushered 
 in. As I reflected upon that, I could 
 not but believe that the selection of Mr. 
 Page for this great ofhce was singularly 
 appropriate, and that it gave promise 
 of an adventure in diplomacy which 
 might perhaps produce wonderful re- 
 sults in the progress of the world. 
 
 It was not my good fortune to see 
 much of him after he left for London. 
 Those were busy days in Washington, 
 even before the war broke out, and, after 
 hostilities began, the occasional letters 
 which I had from him grew less and less 
 frequent, and I found myself less and 
 less able to keep up the correspondence. 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 43 
 
 Doctor Alderman has most happily 
 and fittingly described the wonderful 
 charm of Walter Hines Page's letters. 
 I believe with him, that Mr. Page will 
 be accorded, if his letters are ever pub- 
 lished — as I hope they may be — the dis- 
 tinction of having been one of the 
 most scholarly and delightful corres- 
 pondents of modern times. 
 
 As the ^var progressed I detected in 
 his letters a note of poignant feeling 
 for the misery^ and suffering which the 
 war had produced. It was the very 
 natural expression of Mr. Page, because 
 he had that warmth of heart, that broad 
 humanity, that great love for his fellow 
 men, which made him peculiarly sus- 
 ceptible to human suffering. But never, 
 in his letters, was there a note of com- 
 plaint, no matter what the difficulties 
 were. They were filled with an increas- 
 ing fervor and reverence and a firm 
 
44 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 determination to meet the difficulties 
 which confronted his country in the ex- 
 tremely delicate situation which her po- 
 sition as a great neutral made inevitable ; 
 but always there was the expression of a 
 hope that some day America would 
 come into the war as a belligerent and 
 join with the Allies in vindicating the 
 principles of justice and liberty for 
 which they were fighting. 
 
 He lived, I am glad to say, to see the 
 realization of his hopes. He lived to 
 see the Allies victorious and to see his 
 country crowned with glory ; and while I 
 never had the pleasure of seeing him 
 again, I knew the grateful emotions 
 with which he viewed that wonderful 
 consummation of all that he most 
 hoped for. 
 
 Walter Hines Page stood by his post 
 with the fervor of true patriotism, 
 stricken in health, and knowing, I am 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 45 
 
 sure, that to continue in London prob- 
 ably meant the last great sacrifice for 
 him. He faced it, nevertheless, with 
 the courage and determination of a 
 true soldier; and he was a participant 
 in, as well as a contributor to, the vic- 
 tory which his country had such a noble 
 part in winning. 
 
 He has made a shining page in the 
 history of America, and all Americans 
 will do him honor. 
 
DR. LYMAN ABBOTT'S 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DR. LYMAN ABBOTT was intro- 
 duced by Doctor Alderman, who 
 presented him in the following 
 words : 
 
 It is fitting that these exercises should 
 close with a brief address on the moral 
 and social forces of these times by one 
 who knew Walter Hines Page as a fel- 
 low craftsman; who shared with him 
 his leaning toward democracy and who 
 spurred him on by his own example, 
 in the interest of men and women every- 
 where. 
 
 I have pleasure in presenting Dr. 
 Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook. 
 
 46 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 47 
 
 Doctor Abbott, in response, spoke 
 as follows : 
 
 The admirable addresses to which we 
 have listened have come from members 
 of the party of v^hich Mr. Page was a 
 member. It is perhaps fitting that a 
 word should be added to those tributes 
 by one who has been all his life a demo- 
 crat but never a member of the Demo- 
 cratic party — a life-long Independent 
 wdth Republican prejudices. I am glad 
 to speak for those outside of all party 
 relations, representing this common tes- 
 timony to a great service by a great 
 man. 
 
 It is singular, is it not, that we find 
 it so difficult to get the men we want 
 for public service, and yet, we do not 
 give to them the rewards for which we 
 all of us are working. For most of us 
 at least, work for some kind of reward — 
 
48 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 money — fame — the joy of working. And 
 all three of these are denied to our 
 public men. We pay them less than 
 private enterprise pays them. The mo- 
 ment a man rises to any high position, 
 the newspapers criticize him, which is 
 right — rob him of character, which is 
 wrong. And as for the joy of working, 
 our American Nation has adopted a 
 policy of checks and balances which 
 hampers and hinders the honest public 
 servant and makes him feel that he is 
 always subject to suspicion. And yet it 
 is the glory of Democracy that, in spite 
 of this, it finds noble men to serve it. 
 For my part, I do not hesitate, looking 
 over the history of the recent past, to 
 put, on one side, the history of Europe 
 and, on the other side, the history of our 
 country during the same time; the his- 
 tory of America does not suffer in the 
 comparison. I am willing — are we not 
 
WALTER HINES PAGE 49 
 
 all of us willing — to put Abraham Lin- 
 coln and Gladstone side by side; to 
 put Chief Justice Marshall and Lord 
 Mansfield side by side; and to put the 
 ambassadors who have served us abroad 
 in critical times by the side of the am- 
 bassadors of any other country. Where 
 shall we find names more worthy of the 
 world's reverence than the names of 
 Benjamin Franklin who served us in 
 the Revolutionary period; John Bige- 
 low and Charles Francis Adams who 
 served us in the time of the Civil War; 
 John Hay and Andrew D. White who 
 served us in the time of the Spanish- 
 American War; or Mr. Herrick and 
 Walter Hines Page who served us in 
 the time of the Great World War. 
 
 Every now and then, I come across a 
 man, sometimes in the spoken conversa- 
 tion, sometimes in the printed page, 
 who thinks ambassadors are rather 
 
50 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 ornamental appendages to the country; 
 that they are no longer necessar}-; that 
 they are not much needed. They dress 
 well; they eat well; they give good 
 food to other people ; and they are pleas- 
 ant companions and sometimes useful 
 to inexperienced, perplexed, or impecu- 
 nious travelers. 
 
 Do we realize what an ambassador 
 really is? Do we realize what it means 
 for us to have a true representative of 
 America in a foreign country; what it 
 means to have such a representative 
 in England? Lord Reading, I am sure, 
 will pardon me if I say that a great 
 many English readers have gotten their 
 notion of what an American is from the 
 pictures in Punch; from the caricatures 
 in Martin Chuzzlewit; from the pen 
 portrait of the American, drawn by 
 Kiphng; from the Yankee on the stage; 
 and from the American travelers whom 
 
W.\LrER HINES PAGE 51 
 
 they have met sometimes in Oxford 
 Street and sometimes in the cheaper 
 boarding houses. Do we reaHze what 
 it is to have a cultivated gentleman, a 
 scholar, reverenced, as Lord Reading 
 has told us Mr. Page was reverenced in 
 England, holding himself in close re- 
 straint, as Lord Reading has told us he 
 did hold himself while he was repre- 
 senting a neutral country; and who 
 poured out his enthusiasm for liberty 
 and justice when he had permission to 
 express himself. Do we know what it 
 is to have such a man standing for us in 
 the country of our kinsfolk? 
 
 The successful ambassador must have 
 certain contradictory qualities. He 
 must be a thorough-going American 
 and yet he must be an InternationaHst. 
 He must be an aristocrat, and yet a 
 democrat; he must be a man of tact; 
 and he must be a man of force. Walter 
 
52 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Page was all of these six men in one. 
 He was a native American — thoroughly 
 American. Born in the South; edu- 
 cated in Baltimore, midway between 
 the South and the North; taking what 
 I may call his post graduate course in 
 journalism in the Middle West and in 
 New England. He knew every part of 
 America and understood it. America 
 was in ever}^ drop of his blood and in 
 every tingling nerve of his body. He 
 was an American, fired with the enthu- 
 siasm of the American spirit. And yet 
 he was also an Internationalist. He was 
 an American but not a provincial Amer- 
 ican. Our ambassador must represent 
 his own country abroad. And he must 
 not only know the language, but the 
 life of the people, that he may interpret 
 America to the people. Very shortly 
 after he went over, provincial Ameri- 
 cans cried out with indignation against 
 
W.\LTER HINES PAGE 53 
 
 him because he was reported as saying 
 that we were ruled by English ideas 
 and led by English ideas. And yet, 
 is it not true that the great fundamental 
 ideas of justice and law and order on 
 which the British Empire has been built, 
 rule in America? I hope it is. And is 
 it not true that the men who have fought 
 the battles out of which our own liber- 
 ties have grown, have fought them on 
 English soil and so by the happy acci- 
 dent of having been born before us, 
 have been our leaders? 
 
 He was both an aristocrat and a dem- 
 ocrat! What it is to have a country 
 governed by what we are apt to call 
 the best citizens — by which we generally 
 mean the worthiest, the most powerful, 
 the highest bred or the best educated; 
 what it is to have a country governed 
 by those without any sympathy with or 
 understanding for the plain people. 
 
54 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Russia has shown us under the Czar; 
 and what it is to have a country gov- 
 erned by proletarians without any sym- 
 pathy for the rights of the rich, the 
 powerful, the intellectual, Russia is 
 showing us under the Bolsheviki. God 
 grant that we may learn the lesson and, 
 in this country, reaUze that there can 
 be no peace and no prosperity unless 
 capital and labor work in unity and 
 clasp hands in a common effort for a 
 common welfare. 
 
 Mr. Page was a Siamese twin. He 
 was a democrat and an aristocrat. He 
 beheved in the best; not in the best class, 
 but in the best in any class and in the 
 best in every man in every class. He 
 was not a democrat that leveled down; 
 he leveled up. He was a man of cul- 
 ture, what culture President Alderman 
 has already intimated to us. I have 
 had a fairh^ large acquaintance with 
 
Wx\I.TER MINES PAGE SS 
 
 cultured men — college graduates — I 
 have known but two men that wrote 
 their private memoranda in the Greek 
 language. Mr. Page w^as one of them. 
 All the culture of the past he was fa- 
 mihar wdth; that splendid past which 
 we are gradually forgetting, more is the 
 pity. But with that culture, there w^ent 
 a profound sympathy and a practical 
 fellowship with the men of affairs. 
 
 When he went into journaKsm, it 
 was into TJie World^s Work. He was a 
 world's man and he had a hearty sym- 
 pathy with the workers of the world. 
 He believed in the past; but he also 
 believed in the future and in the prog- 
 ress of the past into the future. It 
 was characteristic of him to entitle 
 one department in his review ^'The 
 March of Events." 
 
 He died for his country as truly as 
 any soldier whose body lies under the 
 
56 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 sod of France. He laid down his life 
 for his fellow men. Do you remember 
 what John says: ^'Christ laid down His 
 life for us and we ought to lay down 
 our lives for our brothers." I do not 
 know what his church was. I do not 
 know whether he belonged to any 
 church. But I do know he followed 
 Christ to the uttermost, for he laid 
 down his life for his fellow men. 
 
 We have no war cross we can give 
 him. We have no title we can give him. 
 How shall we honor him? How but 
 by following his example and by de- 
 manding of our country that it honor 
 the men who are continuing the work 
 he did for us. This is the honor we 
 desire to pay to him. This is the 
 crown we desire to put upon his head: 
 the crown of service, by continuing 
 for our country by our lives, the spirit 
 of his consecrated sacrifice.