We can
imagine what it was like in Europe when we recall the conditions at
home.
In New York, when I started for the seat of war, three banks in which
for years I had kept a modest balance refused me a hundred dollars
in gold, or a check, or a letter of credit. They simply put up the
shutters and crawled under the bed. So in Europe, where there
actually was war, the women tourists, with nothing but a worthless
letter of credit between them and sleeping in a park, had every
reason to be panic-stricken. But to explain the hysteria of the hundred
thousand other Americans is difficult--so difficult that while they live
they will still be explaining. The worst that could have happened to
them was temporary discomfort offset by adventures. Of those they
experienced they have not yet ceased boasting.
On August 5th, one day after England declared war, the American
Government announced that it would send the Tennessee with a
cargo of gold. In Rome and in Paris Thomas Nelson Page and Myron
T. Herrick were assisting every American who applied to them, and
committees of Americans to care for their fellow countrymen had
been organized.
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