The reception of these various missions formed the occasion for a number of state functions which placed the Administration in the role of a national host to many distinguished guests from foreign countries with which the United States was now allied for the first time in a devastating war. The honors paid to them produced remarkable proceedings in Congress without parallel in that body's deliberations; but then the great world war had shattered precedents wherever it touched. The spectacle was witnessed of a British statesman, in the person of Mr. Balfour, addressing the House and Senate, an event which became an enduring memory. Congress also heard addresses from M. Viviani, Baron Moncheur, and the Prince of Udine. They told why their countries were in the war--a familiar story whose repetition within the halls of Congress had considerable point in that the national legislature itself had sanctioned war on Germany for the same reasons. American and Allied statesmen thus met on common ground in a common cause. The numerous conferences between the various sections of the Allied missions and American officials--beginning with that between the President and Mr. Balfour--were councils of war. They symbolized the joining of hands across the sea in a literal sense--across a sea infested with German submarines, which the envoys, incidentally, escaped both in coming and returning. In the public ceremonials that marked their visit the leading envoys freely and repeatedly expressed their grateful recognition to the United States for unselfishly entering the war at last on the side which was fighting for civilization--a disinterested action without parallel in the history of wars, as Mr. Asquith had called it. Their gratitude might well be taken for granted; but, like the Allies' aims in the war, it bore repetition, because American aid was sorely needed, and they had, in fact, come to accept as much assistance as the United States had to give. The immediate need was money, food, ships--all the accessories of war outside the fighting zone. Funds for loans having become available, the American Treasury proceeded to distribute its largesse generously. Great Britain received $200,000,000 as the first installment of a number of loans; France and Italy received $100,000,000 each; Serbia got $3,000,000; Russia $175,000,000; France another $60,000,000; and Great Britain $300,000,000 more. Further credits to the various countries brought the amount loaned to $1,525,000,000 by the close of July, 1917, or more than half of the $3,000,000,000 sanctioned by Congress for financing the Allies. By these transactions the United States Government displaced the banking firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., who had been acting as fiscal agent for the Allies since they began to purchase huge supplies in America on American credits.