"The President," he said, "under extreme pressure of the present situation, has been unable to consider your communication in regard to your resignation.

He desires me to inform you that he hopes that, at the present time, you will not press to be relieved from service; that he realizes that he is asking you to make a personal sacrifice, but he believes that you will appreciate the importance, in the crisis which has developed, that no change should be made.

I hardly need to add my personal hope that you will put aside any thought of resigning your post for the present." At this time, of course, any idea of retiring was out of the question.
The President had dismissed Bernstorff and there was every likelihood that the country would soon be at war.

Page would have regarded his retirement at this crisis as little less than the desertion of his post.
Moreover, since Mr.Wilson had adopted the policy which the Ambassador had been urging for nearly two years, and had sent Bernstorff home, any logical excuse that may have existed for his resignation existed no longer.

Mr.Wilson had now adopted a course which Page could enthusiastically support.
"I am happy to serve here at any sacrifice"-- such was his reply to Mr.
Lansing--"until after the end of the war, and I am making my arrangements to stay for this period." The months that intervened between the Presidential election and the declaration of war were especially difficult for the American Embassy in London.