But I must tell you that the President is being laughed at by our best friends for his slowness in action.

I hardly ever pick up a paper without seeing some sarcastic remark.

I don't mean they expect us to come into the war.

They only hoped we would be as good as our word--would regard another submarine attack on a ship carrying Americans as an unfriendly act and would send Bernstorff home.

Yet the _Arabic_ and now the _Hesperian_ have had no effect in action.
Bernstorff's personal _note to Lansing[5], even as far as it goes, does not bind his Government_.
The upshot of all this is that the President is fast losing in the minds of our best friends here all that he gained by his courageous stand on the Panama tolls.