Page:The North Carolina Historical Review - Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/23

Rh has enabled many Americans, when suddenly confronted with official tasks, lo meet every situation adequately. Mr. Page had served on the Country Life Commission by appointment of President Roosevelt under the chairmanship of Gifford Pinchot, now Governor of Pennsylvania, and in association with such a noble American as the late Henry Wallace, father of the present Secretary of Agriculture. This service had greatly increased his knowledge of what may be called "open country" conditions, not only in the South but throughout the entire country. At a later period, as a member of the General Education Board, together with Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Page had been especially active in promoting that work of practical farm demonstration which Dr. Seaman Knapp under Secretary Wilson was carrying on through the Department of Agriculture.

Walter Page had known Woodrow Wilson for a long time, and had the courage and the zeal to offer much useful advice to his academic friend who had so unexpectedly become the chief of a great party in 1912, and the President of the United States in a period of the utmost historical significance. It was by the merest chance that Page was not made a member of the Cabinet. This chance having failed, there was no thought on his part of any other position. The British Ambassadorship was offered to several men, certainly to Mr. Richard Olney, formerly Secretary of State, and to Dr. Charles W. Eliot, both of whom had declined it, burdened as they were with years and honors. Page, at fifty-eight, was still a young man in the very vigor of his rugged manhood, successful as publisher and editor, but turning more and more to the thought of an old-age home in the midst of his own kindred on broad farm lands in North Carolina.

Thus it was not in the due course of things, but rather a fortuitous political circumstance that made Page an Ambassador at London. He may, or he may not, at some time have turned the pages of a book of international law. This to him would not have mattered in the least. There were plenty of lawyers in the Department at Washington; and councillors and secretaries of technical training were always available for the Ambassador at London. What was wanted for that post was a genuine American of common sense, strong character, quick