It has taken such a profound hold on me that I shall, in whatever way I can, work for its complete realization as long as I can work for anything.
I am, Mr.President, most faithfully and gratefully yours, WALTER H.PAGE.
This letter was written at a time when President Wilson was exerting his best energies to bring about peace.

The Presidential campaign had caused him to postpone these efforts, for he believed that neither Germany nor Great Britain could take seriously the activities of a President whose own political position was insecure.

At the time Page's letter was received, the President was thinking only of a peace based upon a stalemate; it was then his apparent conviction that both sides to the struggle were about equally in the wrong and that a decisive victory of either would not be a good thing for the world.

Yet it is interesting to compare this letter with the famous speech which the President made six months afterward when he asked Congress to declare the existence of a state of war with Germany.

Practically all the important reasons which Mr.Wilson then advanced for this declaration are found in Page's letter of the preceding November.