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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1918)
THE BEE: OMAHA. SATURDAY, MARCH 23. .1918. KING OF SPAIN IN INTERVIEW TELLS OF LIFE Young Monarch Very Popwla in England; Holds Ideals of King Edward; Will Not Ex press War Sympathies. New York, March 22. The follow mg interview with the king of Spain, written for the London Daily Mail is, by special arrangement with that paper, made available for members of the Associated Press: The first time I saw the king of Spain he was running up the steps of the Ritz hotel in London, and the cabman to whom I was paying my fare remarked, "Good old Alfonso." He was certainly not old, and it is possible that at the moment he was not particularly good; but the words expressed faithfully enough the atti tude of mind, sympathetic, half-pro prietary, wholly indulgent, qt the Brit ish public toward the boyish mon arch of a friendly but foreign land- It was enough that he was coming to England for a wife, and that he was the friend and protege of King Ed ward; he was one of us. The next time I saw him was at his mother's palace of Miramar, in Se bastian, where he did me the honor to receive me in private audience. The first touch of autumn was on the roses . and (it must be confessed) the gera niums of the palaee garden, but the sunshine lay hot and brigKt on the blue waters of the sheH-mce bay, w'here, under the very windows of the palace, the great yacht Giwrlda was rouing ai us moorings. Makes Impressive Sight. On the walls of the room wfcere I waited there was but one picture an ' enlarged photograph of a little boy on a horse; little boy sitting firm and Upright in his saddle, his face turned to look you straight in the eyes with an expression of keyed-up courage, of anxious boldness, as though to meet whatever destinies might ne before him. I thought as I regarded the picture, . that some good influences must have af work moulding the Httle mind that, looked out through the windows of these smiling, fearless eyes; and - the words of the London cabby came back to my mind and gave me the sense that in a foreign country and amid the uncustomary environ ment of roval state, I was about to familiar friend. Just at first, on being Ushered into his presence, that sense forsook me. The young man who came forward, ; with just a touch of formality, to greet me, seemed to be a denizen ot the historical rather than the actual world; and the arched eyebrows, long HapSburg chin and the divided mus tache, a la Philip IV, under the long ..Bourbon nose, produced strangely foreign Impression which it tooK. a few momenta of the easiness of the modern manner and the well mod ulated English of the quiet voice" to dispel, isut only a tew minuies. i Velasauez faded, and the little boy bn the horse and the youth enjoying himself in London became so real that presently I told him-about-the cabby's remark. It was-'obvious- that it represented just the kind of feeling the sportsman in him would wish'to inspire; and the wide, slow smne spread over his facevas we talked of London and Engtend especially of King Edward, of whom he spoke witn an affection and regret that were very touching to an Englishman. The love ot lite that enaearea tawara xo jiis world found a ready echo in the vnunflr heart of Don Alfonso. "He was my professor," he said, and the boy who had never known a fathervfoun J in the worldly wisdom 'of the English king a supplement to the loving, tnough stricter, influences K'of his own circle. He told me of . the dozen ways in which King Edward, by snowing a ready sympathy 'with vouthful high . spirits, could hold Ahem back irom follies or excesses ?by a single word or hint, and at the same time win the heart of his young fellow traveler on the difficult road of royalty. Loyal to Edward. 4 t "I was his most -loyal subject," said ,King Alfonso, and very gracefully on ithe part of his Catholic majesty. " I have had other talks with his majesty in the same and other sur roundings among them in, those of ihe royal palace in Madrid, perhaps the most magnificent of the inhabited jhouses of kings. There the setting is 5so elaborate that one could hardly be surprised to find the man being a ittle obliterated by the monarch. But it was not so in my experience. When, after being passed from hand to hand, pne traversed alone the great cham ber under the glowing canopy of Tiepolo.'it was the same friendly and unaffected graciousness that waited for one and led the wav to the little "ante-room where chairs and "- cig . . . ..... e . .. arettes were suDsmutea tor inclina tions and formalities. By dwelling 7 on what he has in common with you, and seeming to ignore the rest, - he throws a light bridge across what ever gulfs of training, race or estate .may separate you from him; and so makes it possible for one . whose knowledge of. him is as limited as mine to form some living acquaint ance with the mind and character that lie beneath the smiliner surface The first thing that strikes one in King Alfonso, apart from the fact that he is a young man of extremely agreeable manners, is a certain mod esty of mind which I imagine is un usual; in ruling monarchs. It is' true that he is the king of Spain; but you feel also that he regards that position as furnishing him with the means of his life's work, rather than as being itself the end; that he values it much less for the sake of its privileges than of its opportunities. In every serious word he says ; you realize his own sense, that. besides geing king he is a human being, in a position of great responsibility toward other human beings; that his lot is cast in a dif ficult time, in which all true men are called upon to exert their whole w strength and pull their whole weight King Has No Snap. "These are not easy times in which to be a king," he said to me; "one has to know a great deal more and work a great deal harder than in any other time. And if you fail, your failure means a great deal more. I may not be good enough for the post," he added, "but anyhow I mean to try my- best." I quote his remark because I believe .represents n6 mere affection., but a genuine sense of his responsibilities aud of the difficulty of discharging them aright. It is. not that he has an obsession as to the greatness of his position; rather that he has arrivejd at i the conclusion alone with most men j of sense and spirit that it is none too easy a task to fulfill one s whole ob ! ligations in any walk of life, and that the complications of constitutional sovereignty are not exactly things that make it easier. His conversation is, I thrnk, less an expression of his own mind than a search and angling exploration into the mind of the person he is talking to. He wants to know things, you feel; to inform himself, to fish out and ex tract the note of truth from that changing tune of voices, all modulated to one more or less deferential key, with which it is the royal lot to be surrounded. And his methods are very clever. He has a trick of starting a subject by suddenly expressing a view, probably rather a startling view, and possibly not at all his own view, in order to hear what you have to say. He is much more interested if you disagree with him than if you agree; and I am sure he takes a sly pleasure in the embarrassments of those who desire,-but are afraid, to disagree with him. And, he is success ful in his method. At' the end of a conversation he will probably know much more about you than you know about him. But there shines through the inter course, certainly as I have found it, a certain clear . preference for the truth, even though it may not be agreeable, which courtiers are per haps not very quick to gratify. It is difficult for an ordinary person, to whom the source of information on things in general are open and who approaches them by the common access, to realize the difference be tween his views of them and that of a monarch, to whom they are always interpreted in the light of his own position. The very minds of men are as difficult for Mm to know as the streets of his, own capital. Both are self-conscious in his presence; they are turned, as it were, to him, ana present the aspect which they deem suitable. He sees everything in full face, and nothing in profile. He hardly, ever . overhears or over looks; what he hears is spoken to him, what he sees is prepared for him to look at. Has Royal Disadvantages. The king of Spain is perfectly aware of this royal disadvantage, and does what he can to overcome it, partly by seeing as many kinds of people as he can and partly by the exercise of his own very considerable intelligence. It is his character, moreover, to be sympathetic, and this, too, has its pitfalls, for in matters outside his immediate knowledge he is readily open to persuasion. Per haps too open, for he seems some times to be influenced by views and ideas the basis and origin of whfch cannot be really congenial to his own candid mind. It is the weakness of graceful natures, and in Don Alfonso there is an essential' grace of char acter outwardly . matched . by the gracefulness of attitude and move ment which is remarkable even in a country . where - gracefulness is a masculine rather than a feminine attribute. Whether one woujd say that, he is more open to persuasion than to conviction, and the voice of the latest persuader seems to have most influence with him, I say seems," because whether this susceptibility to influence is based; in the case of the king, on real weakness or strength I do not'pretend to know. The young tree swings and sways to the wincL but only the storm can prove the depth of its roots or the strength of their anchorage in the soil. It is possible, indeed, that in some things he is too modest. Where his own instinct or judgment would "be a true guide to him, he seemsat times to act on the advice of those whom he possibly feels to be better informed than himself, and besides whose judgment he perhaps deems his own to be insecurely founded. The fear of acting indiscreetly is always being installed in the mind of the occupant of a throne, but King Alfonso is in a unique position, in which he can do more to influence his country by his own character and example than any other among the diminishing number of consti tutional monarchs. We talked about this one day, and he was remarkably frank and clear minded about it He loves his Spain, there is no doubt about that; more than once in our talks he has sa:d: Remember, I am a Spaniard first, a Spanish soldier next, and a king" or a pro-this or anti-that "after wards." His first anxiety is to do wisely and rightly for Spain: how to do it and wherein wisdom consists is' naturally not always clear. The army is what he knows best in beam. M'htarv science has been his special study. and in his role of soldier he takes him self very seriously indeed. BuJ the millions in his country are necessarily cut off from him personally; between their lives and his life, their difficulties and his difficulties, is interposed a peculiar system of government, over which, in fact, neither they nor he have much actual control; although I like to think that the crowds of poor people who- loat all day m the. sun in the very shadpw of the palace walls, who bring ..their meals there and'tlay their games there, symbolize an in timacy tbat exists in the heart, even if it finds ftp; other outward expression. , Loves Active Sport. Don Alfonso has this attribute of kingship;' that in more than cne respect he is in advance of his neon'e. In this . attitude towards sport, for example he comes nearer to the Eng lish ideal than possibly any other Spaniard. He has little use for the kind of sport that consists in looking on at bull fights and betting on pelota matches. He loves the active role. In polo his is a courageous, dashing, hard-riding, and rather rough game, variegated by a streak of stunt sii its. In polo, as in motor-driving, it is the danger y and the pace that he loes. He is one of the best partridge shots' living'apd an implacable killer. Here also it is the pace that he loves and the danger in this case to' the par tridge. - I once said to him that the real danger to a king in his position lay not in the poor people who haa not enough to eat not in the stiikers against economic injustice, but it the idle youne men of the uoner clarses who do nothing, sacrifice nothing. create nothing for the good of their country. I quite agree with vou. he said. and proved ;t bv tellinor me of some of his schemes for training and in- uucing mis wie ciassto take some real part in the work of the eountrv I His influencs on them can only be for good: but it is an annallinir task even fftr a king to undertakealmost single handed the reformation of a whole class. But here, also, whether J he succeeds tr not, it will not be for lack of courageous effort. Of course we talked of the war; but here lie asked questions more than expressed opinions, and I can honestly say that on no occasion diti he say anything as to where his pri vate sympathies lay. But I am en titled to my own opinion, and it was of a nature to make me like, and not dislike, telling him about the war as I have seen it by sea and land. His courage is perhaps the noblest and the most conspicuous thing about King Alfonso. It is the courage of the very finest temper. I spoke of the young tree swaying in the wjnds, un tried as yet by the tempest. Really I have no doubt as to the result ot the trial. Courage like his can bend almost infinitely, but it can also stand firm as a well-rooted tree in the storm. And the storm is coming. When or how, from what direction; I am wise enough not to predict. I can only say that in Spain are all the elements, ripe and over-ripe, for a commotion of the first magnitude. It is often threatened. I have seen him in one moment when it seemed immi nent, and found him ready to meet it with the smiling gravity, the calm but alert courage that has visualized the worst that can happen and finds it neither terrifying or unbearable. When the trial does come, whether it takes the form of a violent' crisu or the long-drawn agony of the birth of a new Spain, it will find King Al- ionso ready and resourceful. He is not afraid of the coming storm. Per hapswho knows he may find in it nis true nour, nis supreme opportun uy. At any rate, to hope so is to wish him well in the highest and best sense. Boy's Passion for Chemistry Ends in Suicide - A verdict of Suicide during tetn porary insanity" was returned on Sat urday at Mornsey at an inquest on the body of Arthur Easterbrook of yuernmoreroad, Stroud Green, a school boy, aged 14, who died after taking cyanide of potassium. It was stated that the bov. the inn of a retired civil servant, was a pupil at tne nornsey county school, and that he had shown extraordinary apti tude in the study of chemistry. He was found dying in an attic where he carried on his studies. In a letter found in the room the boy had writ ten: . ) . jg "I have lived and died for chemis try. Farwell, my beloved chemistry. I am removing myself to another planet, where I can carry on my studies unaisturoea. Mr. Arthur E. Easterbrook said that his son often brought hbme chemicals, and the witness believed that he purchased them. On Wednes day two masters of the school came to the house and inquired about some valuable weights which had. been taken from the school, and the wit- ness soon after found the boy dying in his room. Dr. Lockhead stated that death was due to cyanide of potassium poison ing. . ' Mr. Gibbon, senior physics master at Hornsey county school, said that he missed some articles from the school laboratory, and that in 'the boys laboratory he found some ex pensive scales-which belonged to the school. The boy said that they were given to him by another boy, but he would not give the bdy's name. Robert John Price,": chemist, of Stroud Green, said thaf on Wednes day evening the boy bought some cyanide of potassium. The Coroner Did he sign for it? The witness No, he had signed on previous occasions, but not this time. But that is not sufficient? Not technically. He. did not sign on this occasion because he was very fre quently buying drugs. The Coroner That has nothing to do with it. This is a Schedule A poison and ought to be signed for. The police had better take note o the fact that this witness sold to a boy of 14 a poison without asking for his signature. Addressing the jury, the Coroner said that no one could think that such an act could be committed by any person who was sane. He and the jury expressed their sincere sympathy wim uic lamny. xonaon cnroniue, Store THE STORE Closes at 6 P. M. UlJ V SATURDAY SHOP EARLY x CO. EASTER IS NEAR The Finest of Spring Clothes Ready-to-Wear for Men and Young Men Clothes that stand absolutely alone for smartness in style, perfection of workmanship and quality of fabric. You'll need to inspect our immense spring stocks personally in order to realize fully what a wonderful showing we have assembled for the season. Whatever needs replenishing in your furnishing reserve you'll get here in everythihg new and the best. 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