LATE IE ROOSEVELT

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 31 July 1920, Page 8

LATE IE ROOSEVELT

HIS IMPRESSIONS OF KINGS HE KNEW.

One of the most interesting features of President Roosevelt* account of his European tour, as told in the letter to ton- George Treveylau recently published |m Slnbners, is the frank, friendly whimsical way in which he speaks of "-the various royalties who were his hosts*. : Almost alone of those who have written of kings, Roosevelt considered them not as demigods or demons, but simply as i plain, everyday, human beings with as l many faults and virtues as the rest of us. I thoroughly liked and respected almost all the various kings and queens I met, he says. They struck me as serious people, with charming manners, devoted to their people and anxious to justify their own position by the way they did their duty—it is no disparagement to their good intentions and.disJ interestedness to add that each sovereign was obviously conscious that he was looking a-possible republic in the face, which was naturally an incentive to good conduct. Apparently what is needed in a constitutional king is that he shall be a kind of sublimated American vice-pre-sident • plus being socially at the head of that part of his people which you have called 'the freemasons of fashion.' Politically ho can never rise to, and socially he can never descend t,o the level of the really able men of the nation. I cannot, imagine a more appallingly dreary life for a man of ambition and power. . . All these small kings had vague ambitions, which they knew would never be gratified, for military distinction, and hunting'dangerous game, and they always had questionsto put about the Spanish war raid the African trip. They also stood distinctly in awe of the German Kaiser, who evidently likedib drill them; and both the big and the small one felt much-jealousy of one another, and at the same time I felt joined together and sundered from all other people by their social position. There was no use trying to talk of books with any of the royalties, excepting the Italians and the Queen of Belgium. The Austrian Emperor. He did not strike me as a very able man, but he was a gentleman. . . He said.Una he had been particularly interested in seeing me because he was the last representative of the old system, whereas 1 embodied the new movement of the ■ present and .the future. The King of Italy. The King showed that he was deeply ,and intelligently interested in every movement for social reform, and was not only astomshiy liberal, but even radical, sympathising with many of the purposes and doctrines of the Socialists. He took me into to see his children, who were well behaved and simple. When I spoke of how well the Queen was bringing them up, he laughed and said, yes, he wished, his son to be so trained that if necessary he would be fit to be the First President of the Italian Republic. .• . I do not see how Italy could have a more intelligent, devoted, and sympathetic ruler. King and Queen of Belgium. -The King was a huge fair young man, j evidently a thoroughly good fellow, with excellent manners. . » The Queen i proved really delightful, really cultivated and intellectual, so much so that we made special enquiries about her. j Norwegian Royal Family. / . . They were as simple and unpretentious as they were good and charming. Olaf was a dear little boy, and the people at large were immensely pleased with him. He, was not a bit spoilt ; his delight was a ronip with his father, and he speedily pressed Kerinit and Ethel, whom he adored, into the games. In the end I too succumbed and romped with him as I used to romn with my own children when they were small. . . Princess Beatrice toid me that Olaf had announced to her: 'I would like to marry Ethel; but I know I never shall!' | German Hatred of United States. The Germans did not like me, and did not like my country; and under the Circumstances they behaved entirely correctly, showing me every civility and making no pretence of an enthusiasm which was not present. It was evident that, next to England, America was very unpopular in Germany. The upperclasses, stiff, domineering, formal, with the organised army, the organised bureaucracy, the organised industry of their great, highly-civilised and admir-ably-administered country behind them, regarded America with a dislike which was all the greater because they could not make it merely contempt. The German Kaiser. He is entirely modest about the many things which he thoroughly knows, such i as the industrial and military conditions and needs of Germany. But lacks, all sense of humour when he comes to discuss the things that he does not know, and which he prides himself on knowing, such as matters artistic and scientific. As is inevitable with such a man brought up in the school of Fredrick the Great and Bismarck—in contrast to any one whose heroes are men like Timoleon, John Hampdon, Washington, and Lincoln —there were many points in international morality where he and I were completely asunder. . . In international affairs he at times acts as a bully, and moreover as a bully who bluffs and then backs down; I Mould not regard him—nor Germany—as a pleasant national neighbour.