The intimate papers of Colonel House arranged as a narrative by Charles Seymour.

190 INTIMATE PAPERS OF COLONEL HOUSE

Department under Mr. Bryan as worse than unfortunate.
And yet at the conclusion of almost every long letter came
the assurance that in the main he was enjoying his task, and
the intimation that the vexations were minor by-products.
'As for this Embassy,' he wrote April 27, 1914, 'we're getting
on better. We now get answers to questions, and if I had
ever been disposed to complain, there's no excuse for complaining now.'
All the difficulties with which the State Department had
to contend, House explained: the need of a period of experience, the pressure of political factors, the lack of funds.
'Please bear in mind too,' he wrote to Page, 'that just now
the State Department is working day and night and is all too
short of help. They expect a bill of relief from Congress
shortly, and then you will get more secretaries and they will
get more help.' With serpentine wisdom, he replied to Page's
criticism of individuals in Washington by repeating complimentary remarks which those very individuals had recently
passed regarding the Ambassador. Thus, on October 29,
1914, in a letter to Page: 'Your criticism of X came to me
the day that Wallace was telling me of a talk he had with him
the day before, in which he, X, said: "Y and Z together have
not done as much as Walter Page, and yet they advertise
themselves so well that the American people think that comparatively no one else has done anything." This is to be
forgotten.'
The relations of House with the American Ambassadors
abroad were paralleled closely by those which he maintained with foreign diplomatists in Washington. Before the
outbreak of the war he was on intimate, almost confidential, terms with Spring-Rice and Bernstorff, Jusserand and
Dumba. He was thus admirably equipped to study plans
for developing the positive foreign policy upon which he
hoped President Wilson would soon embark.