To most readers, the informal method of conducting foreign business, as it is disclosed in these letters, probably comes as something of a shock.

Page is here discovered discussing state matters, not in correspondence with the Secretary of State, but in private unofficial communications to the President, and especially to Colonel House--the latter at that time not an official person at all.

All this, of course, was extremely irregular and, in any properly organized State Department, it would have been even reprehensible.

But the point is that there was no properly organized State Department at that time, and the impossibility of conducting business through the regular channels compelled Page to adopt other means.

"There is only one way to reform the State Department," he informed Colonel House at this time.