Walter Hines Page to Woodrow Wilson

You know Lord Reading and have taken measure of him, but the following facts and gossip may interest you: He is one of the ablest Englishmen living everybody concedes that. But, with that, agreement about him here ends. The very general Conservative view of him is that he cannot be trusted. See and compare the view taken of Disreali, the other Hebrew Earl, by his political enemies. As between the two, my judgment would be in favor of Reading. He is not so spectacular as old Dizzy was, but he is far sounder. I doubt if Dizzy was honest and I think that Reading is. As Rufus Isaacs he began life as a stockbroker. A high-sporting Jew named Joel caused Isaacs's bankruptcy by some stockbroker's trick. A bankrupt in England is likely to remain a down-and-out for the rest of his life. He suffers a far severer penalty than an American bankrupt. Joel was and is rich and he had much to do with the turf a common highway whereon brilliant nobodies travel to association with the nobility and sometimes even with royalty. Isaacs forsook the stock-exchange and took up the law. Soon after his admission to the bar, Joel became involved in a lawsuitabout something, I don't know what. When the case came to trial, lo! Isaacs appeared in court as the lawyer of the other party to the quarrel; and Joel recalled Isaacs's threat to "get even with him." Well, he did. When that law-suit ended, Joel had to give up all his social ambitions, and he has lived in retirement ever since. And the event was the making of Rufus Isaacs. It soon became apparent that he was one of the most brilliant and able members of the bar. He has himself told me that for years he worked from early hours to early hours again, day in and day out, for years a prodigy of industry. When he left the bar gossip has it that his income was not less than $200,000 a year. He became skillful especially in financial cases, and his fees were prodigious.

He is, of course, a Liberal, and under the Asquith Ministry his advancement was most rapid. He was made Solicitor-General 1910, Attorney-General 1910-13, a knight in 1910, Privy Councilor 1911, Baron 1914, Viscount 1916, Lord Chief Justice in 1913. He is the son of a London merchant and he married a daughter of a merchant named Cohen. The Isaacs and the Cohen are now swallowed up in the Earl and Viscountess, and "Reading" gives no hint of Jewry.Lord Reading does not give up the Lord Chief-Justiceship. He remarked to me the other day that his Ambassadorship would be temporary. Lady Reading told Mrs. Page that they expected to be gone only three months. But, I take it, that he will not return till the end of the war.

I have reason to believe (although I do not know) that an effort was made to induce Mr. Balfour and then Lord Grey to go as Ambassador to Washington. I know that the appointment was offered to Northcliffe. He didn't care to be away from London so long lest he should lose his grip on the general management of things, which in his inmost soul he thinks he holds and which, to a degree, he does hold. The belief, moreover, is wide-spread that he may become Prime Minister if Lloyd George should not last till peace come. I think there is no doubt that to do a concrete job Lord Reading will succeed, during war-time, better than any man who was considered for the post. But if when the war is over Lord Greyshd go, we should have the best possible representative of English tradition and English character. Yet I think he never will, although he is going after the war to deliver lectures at Yale and elsewhere.

Of course the immediate problems to be met in the relations of the two Governments will continue to be financial till we have to slacken our pace. The British, God knows, need money, but God knows also that they are not slow in making their wants known. I doubt if anybody, but the Germans, will ever wage war on less than twice what it ought to cost. But, if it could be more extravagantly conducted than they [the British] conduct it, I can't imagine how it could be done.There is going on a visit to the US on the invitation of some of our ecclesiastical organizations the Most Revd and Rt Honble His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, whose name (which is never used) is Cosmo Gordon Lang, D. D., LL. D., DCL, D.Litt. &c. &c. &c. &c. , and he signs his name Cosmo Ebor. In spite of all this he's a man and a brother quite as much as he wd be if his name were Sandy McPherson. He comes of Scotch-Irish stock. He is the best representative of the best English clerical life a simple, humble, learned, right-minded man of charm and fine manners and fine feeling. He and I have come to be great friends which says much for him and, I think, something also for me. He is most eager to meet you and you will enjoy him. Of course his proper approach (he's a Peer Spiritual) is through his Ambassador. To mortals of humble rank, such as Pres't Eliot, &c., I have given him letters. The Archbishop at one end of the line and Reading at the other they make good representatives of Notable England. All they have in common is their seats in the House of Lords. One can link one's self up very close in genuine companionship, in sympathy, in philosophy, in admiration and genuine high regard with Britons like the Archbishop, Balfour and Grey and enjoy their confidence and friendship as among the chief prizes of life; and one can profit by and enjoy and admire such men as Reading and Northcliffe and Lloyd George without wishing to sleep in the same bed with them. There's a lack of mellowness in their background. They are "sports" of nature rather than thoroughbreds.There is a very general uneasiness here about the expected offensive by the Germans in France, for the feeling is that they are willing to sacrifice their whole army for Paris or Calais and that they are going to make their most desperate effort, regardless of the cost in men or in anything else. How true this is everybody can guess for himself. But it seems probable to say the least. Their chance is better than it will be after we get a great trained army in France. There is a sense, too, in which such a decisive effort will be welcomed here. Nothing is printed and little is said in public about the constant danger of labour troubles in this Kindgom, but such a danger has always to be taken into account. The Briton, nobleman or laborer, is not going to give out nor give up, but it costs him more & more in money and in anxiety to keep his whole force in the field in the factory in the mine and on the land going at full strength than it wd cost but for this constant Labour burden."After the war" hasn't come yet. But I recall a remark that Edward Grey made to me before the war that Labour would in a decade control many governments. A frequent prediction now made here by well-informed Englishmen is that it will control the Government of Great Britain. The Labour Party is already playing for supremacy.

It's a quieter, sadder, more serious time and mood than we have before had in England. Everybody feels that we are approaching great and perhaps decisive events; and they all thank God for the US and its President.