Show rp da RK 91 ah has any queen a greater chance to make her ind v dual ty felt than we each in her home mrs ed th mccorm ck daughter of john D rockefeller in the pride of motherhood put the quest on in a recent express on of her op nion as to the d anity of motherhood and the often quoted baci fee matern t ty y enta Is with i she touched nearly upon another question and one wh ch has done as much in the way ng of the emp res as all the states 4 i men and pol tic ans of the past have been able to sh with the prest ge of monarchs and the force of m gaty arm es 1 who are the real queens of the world does it indeed I 1 e in any power except those of b rth and pre A rogat ve to invest a woman with the essential autes of a queen A 19 S om eting only the title and the crown 4 fry HERE is much to be said for the contention of the daugh T ter of the world s most famous mIl liona re that every worthy mother au 6 a queen among women every thing except this that she isn t for to be a queen a woman must N rule by whatever mea s she can corn com mand over a whole people not over a family or a few maiv duals merely and avei her people her sway must en lure dure undisputed such preeminence pre eminence and such rule while rt it does eliminate the simple ma remains far from debarring from admission many a woman who can never wear a crown and it does shut out not a few who wear crown today to day for there are queens who are ob nonentities 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 ent foremost among them the queen of the most stable kingdom and the empress of the most extensive empire the world now knows and in all its history has contained alexandra ot of great britain in pra se of alexandra she Is famed for every attribute ot of beautiful and admirable motherhood ehe 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 a 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 ness of automata has proved himself a king in the full real ty of the cun ning and ability in wh ch eh carlyle dis covered the origin and significance of the title it is a strange anomaly a son sue beeding a mother whose dominant spirit kept his ariy beard almost a mockery of his destiny to power and instantly exercising more potent in fluence upon the affairs of the world than any of his predecessors for a hundred years while he 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 banish from her offended sight a worn wom an whose relations with edward would have made that all powerful old lady almost exile both him and his far fal from england itself it must be often a cruel bitterness that underlies the gracious smile with which a consort like alexandra hears the fluttering title queen far worse orse the case of 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 is the station of the empress of ger many relegated practically to the of flee fice of haus frau a basis on which every other german wife and moth mother r is fully her eq al these are the three most mighty thrones in the world to today 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 wilhelmina Wll helmina of holland the only w v oman living today to day whose maternity earns her the royal rank mrs mccormick has so fu in liely claimed for all her lovely sex upon the abil ty for motherhood in wil helmina the dutch realized their na lional existence depended and to her they give with the acclaim of rejoin ing independence the stanch loyalty which implies all the power a modern queen can covet portugal gals s unfortunate queen so too does little portugal own i i queen amelie whose courage crowned amid the tragedy that made her dow ager 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 ne 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 of messina but there ends the brief listing of the real queens whose crowns are more than gewgaws for 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 irre sis tible in while she gasped in the agonies of death has van shed with 77 1 lz r CW a e e n 3 Q A lay r I 1 ed igeez 01 40 atawa 6 A ee i only a covering to vering 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 as it is enjoyed upon the modern thrones when compared with the power of the uncrowned queens whose sway la Is acknowledged in many lands to day it if it be a question of the actuality of power exercised over numerous and influential subjects only that famous dowager empress of china now dead and done tor for could have presumed to rival the silent imper tur bable sway which goes with the mil ions u of hetty green as she sits ig 1 her decent black dress in her mod est office in the chemical national bank the real monarchs every statesman in europe and every monarch confesses that the ac kings with power to make and forbid wars are the Poth whose immense wealth controls the treasuries that are war wars s vital sin aws if by some avable turn of fate uch a one for instance as be fell simson of hetty green were vere moved to abandon all her alliances call ill her loans and try her strength jut ju ut t once the whole united states would feel that a gants strength was shaking the pillars of its finance 0 zo o queen that s lent old woman w 0 was once new england s toasted brile but no queen except her con ti in di tant china has in il d e century pas and present so made men bend before her in tribute to her r I 1 while riches are power and the power most sensibly felt abroad as well as here they do not afford the sole domain that is open to 0 the lead ers of mankind both the intellect and the emotions serve as foundations for al allegiance often more mote stanch and more extensive than can be won baij bij b the anointed queens D israeli s cour course e if before a jury epert expert in weighing of evidence the relative powers of or I 1 e practical effI clensy pertaining to queen alexandra and mrs airs humphry ward could be submitted for trial nothing but the notorious lip 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 fail 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 her 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 ith the woman novelist whose influence all england admits freely As things go too in france the drama gives to the world another queen whose dominance no one dares deny sara bernhardt can st still 11 laa la her slender bands hands upon the inmost sou s of men and hale them forth until their owners are her humble slaves and this by no N wi I 1 es of beau ty and no ravishment of form her poston pos t on won she won her dasting dished position through such mazes of rivalries and cabals as few queens excepting those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have encountered deeply la d schemes of astute schemers v I 1 ose hatreds did not fl at the brot detestable attacks she has en d red and is now more prized by her bep er bl can compatriots than are the queens of europe by their nominally loyal subjects italy has its stage queen as well as arance j ranee a woman whose whole life h s been a romance her ler rise to great nebs having been marked by as fm vp 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 as to the woman to whom tle th e bulk of italy s allegiance was passionately given and that in spite of the equally passionate manner in which the fam ous actress duse hid had for some years been repelling her compatriots dey tion for the sake sale of her affection tor for the ingrate d annunzio dannunzio it is rarely very rarely that the stage q een 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 inspire tion of whose divine flame com compola lisis loyalty to the last that has been the tha endowment of some few of the en thrones qu queens ens and history bas glam glaw aured them biti romance in every ever tint with which it I 1 ans tl F f r careers duse for the sake of one ous devotee neglected ted her audiences and dragged he sublime talents into the oblivion of his dull stagecraft she survives today a possibility of the future but tor for the present a queen in abdication who gave her all for love the regal melba the irresistible sway over the emo bious which cons on the stage a more potently royal power than all b t a few of those who wear the cron can exercise extends to music every age brings its queen of song some wondrously gifted creature on whose parted lips the thousands hang entranced like the actress no ong n Is too low no birthplace too distant to keep her from destiny austral a gave to the the regal melba yelba but multitudes the horld 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 gratitude for their rescued in depend ence remains still warm there live probably not a queen whose passing from her throne would so move to anxiety or mo aning the very subject who protest allegiance as would the loss of one of the uncrowned queena of this modern day that is because this modern day ac 1 iii 7 e 4 P I 1 cents its kings very much on toler ance its queens only as inevitable at tach ments and its real leaders join thought and art as rare possession it cannot afford to lose |