| Show W wat ip s B rt has any queen a greater chance to make her individuality felt than we each in her home edith mccormick daughter of john D rockefeller in the pride of motherhood put the question in a recent expression of her a opinion as to the dignity of motherhood and the often quoted flee maternity entails with it she touched nearly upon another question and one which has done as much in the swaying of the empires as all the statesmen and politicians of the past have been able to accomplish with the prestige of monarchs and the force of mighty armies who are the real queens of the world does it indeed lie in any power except those of birth and prerogative to invest a woman with the essential attributes of a queen omitting only the title and the crown la much to be said tor THERE the contention of the daugh ter of the world s most famous millionaire that every worthy mother la a queen among women every thing except this that she isal for to be a queen a woman must rule by whatever meana she can corn mand over a whole people not over a family or a few individuals merely and over her people her sway must en dure undisputed such preeminence pre eminence and such rule while it does eliminate the simple ma remains far from debarring from admission many a woman who can never wear a crown and it does out not a few who wear crowns today to day for there are queens who are obvious nonentities non entities on their august thrones even as there are untitled women whose sway is as potent and as broad as that ever wielded by the most tyrannous of kings over the most subservient of peoples in the first group appear a number of the reigning majesties of the pres nt foremost among them the queen of the most stable kingdom and the empress of the most extensive empire the world BOW knows and in all its history has contained alexandra of great britain in praise of alexandra she la tamed for every attribute of beautiful and admirable motherhood she comes of the most widely en thrones royal race she Is all that Is lovely and excellent and gracious yet her power her real power as a ruler remains practically nil her bus band after career which british loyalty reminiscent of his of wales finds it impossible to forget and under a constitutional era that ties such monarchs to the innocuous cess of automata has proved himself a king in the full reality of the cun ning and ability in which cargyle discovered the origin and significance of the title it Is a strange anomaly a son sue beeding a mother whose dominant spirit kept his gray beard almost a mockery of his destiny to power and with which a consort like alexandra hears the flattering title queen far worse the case ot the czarina of russia whose whole existence Is one series of terrors for the safety of her husband and her children and no more queenly although much happier la the station of the empress of germany relegated practically to the office of haus frau a basis on which every other german wife and mother la fully her equal these are the three most mighty thrones in the world today to day and these the women who are in reality least among queens for the real queens enthroned in the possession of real power the quest must turn to the les ser kingdoms where the head that wears the crown need but nod to compel obedience such a real queen Is of holland the only woman living today to day whose maternity earns her the royal rank mrs mccormick has so claimed tor all her lovely sex upon the ability for motherhood in wll helmina helm lna the dutch realized their na existence depended and to her they give with the acclaim of ing independence the stanch royalty which implies all the power a modern queen can covet gals unfortunate queen so too does little portugal own a queen abelle whose courage crowned amid the tragedy that made her dowager queen the force of character with which she long combated the weaknesses of her husband carlos portugal for all its ferocious social plotters realizes that it has a genuine queen amid its sullen growls it whimpers under her remnants of power and italy after a period of distrust accepted queen helena amid the chaos she so devotedly faced in the ruins pt messina but there ends the brief listing of the feal queens whose crowns are more than gewgaws gew gaws tor the greatest most genuine of them all the modern semiramis of power who made all plotting china bend before her will and wielded the scepter of her irresistible sis tible might while she gasped in the agonies of death has vanished with instantly exercising more potent in fluence upon the affairs of the world than any of his predecessors for a hundred years while be Is hampered with restrictions of growing damoc racy such as they would have spurned with contempt in their haughty royal reigns on three great thrones and beside him a consort succeed ing victoria and lacking the power to offended sight a worn banish from her aa whose relations with would have made that all powerful old lady almost exile both him and hia fair from england itself it must be often a cruel bitterness aha the gracious pra cious smile only a towering place in history to tell how very possible it has been for a poor and pretty slave girl to govern people by her own unaided brain what then Is the reality of the queenly office aa it Is enjoyed upon the modern thrones when compared with the power of the uncrowned queens whose sway Is acknowledged in many lands today to day it it be a question of the actuality exercised over numerous of power and influential subjects only that famous dowager empress of china now dead and done for could have presumed to rival the silent imperturbable tur bable sway which goes with the a ft of hetty green as she sits in her decent black dress in her mod est office in the chemical rational bank the real monarchs every statesman in europe and every monarch non tessea that the ac icings with power to make and forbid wars are the whose immense wealth controls the treasuries that are wars vital sin aws if by some unbelievable turn of fate such a one tor instance aa befell samson of old hetty green were moved to abandon all her call all her loans and try her strength just once the whole united states would feel that a giants strength was shaking the pillars of its finance no queen that silent old woman alio was once new england a toasted belle but no queen except her con temporary in distant china has in the century past and present so made men bend before her in tribute to her rule while riches are power and the power most sensibly felt abroad ae well as here they do not afford the sole domain that is open to the lead ers of mankind both the intellect and the emotions serve as foundations for allegiance often more stanch and more extensive than can be won b the anointed queens disraelly course if before a jury expert in weighing of evidence the relative powers ol 01 practical pertaining to queen alexandra and mrs humphry avard could be submitted for trial nothing but the notorious up loyalty of the englishman could give the ver diet in favor of the reigning queen with victoria of course the dispute would have been too unequal for she was an imperious young lady and old lady and all the literary lights of her era except perhaps thackeray fall to show so pronounced an impression as she made on the manners and mor als of her times while india became her empire because disraeli as he prime minister comprehended how much she longed for the title albeit great britain already enjoyed the sub stance yet that very title aured from thin air to add another crown has in the end served to rivet the chains of ownership upon halt a continent in asia but as things go soberly at present the odds of power all lie with the woman novelist whose influence all england admits freely As things go too in prance the drama gives to the world another queen whose dominance no one dares deny sara bernhardt can still lay her slender bands upon the inmost souls of men and hale them forth until their owners are her humble slaves and this by no wiles 0 beau ty and no ravishment of form her position won she won her distinguished position through such mazes of rivalries and cabals as few queens excepting those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have encountered deeply laid schemes of astute schemers whose hatreds did not flinch at the most detestable attacks she has endured and Is now more prized by her republican compatriots than are the queens of europe by their nominally loyal subjects italy has its stage queen as well france a woman whose whole life has been a romance her rise to great ness having been marked by as am press lve a discrepancy as that which attended the beggar maid whom king loved until the titular queen of italy bold ly conquered the affections of her subjects by braving death and sustain ing injury after the terrible sicilian earthquake there was small doubt to the woman to whom the bulk of italy s allegiance was passionately given and that in spite of the equally passionate manner in which the tarn ous actress duse had for some years been repelling her compatriots devo alon for the sake of her affection for the ingrate d annunzio it Is rarely very rarely that the stage queen enjoys like bernhardt a life tenure of office usually her sub ejects fall away with the decadence of her beauty but sometimes among the charming dolls of the theater there appears the woman of genius like bernhardt and duse the inspiration of whose divine flame compels loyalty to the last that has been tha endowment of some few of the en thrones queens ana history has faaui aured them with romance la every tint with which it flimns limns careers duse tor the sake ot on oua devotee neglected her audiences and dragged her sublime talents into the oblivion of dull stagecraft she survives today to day a of the future but tor the present a queen in abdication who save her all for love the regal melba the irresistible sway over the emotions which constitutes on the stage a more potently royat power than all but a few of those who wear the crown can exercise extends to music every age brings its queen ot song some wondrously gifted creature on whose parted lips the thousands bang entranced like the actress no orlan Is too low no birthplace too distant to keep her from destiny australia gave to the world the regal melba f but multitudes the world over have testified to her power over the senses and the emotions of the peoples with the one exception of wilhel mina of holland in which her people J gratitude for heir rescued in depend ence remains still warm there live probably not a queen whose passing from her throne would so move to anxiety or mourning the very subjects who protest allegiance as would the loss of one of the uncrowned queens of this modern day that Is because this modern day ao A S cents ita kings very much on toler ance its queens only as inevitable at tach ments and its real leaders in thought and art as rare possessions it cannot afford to lose |
