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Show . cecil j. rhodes!: In a current number of the American Ameri-can Review of Reviews we find a sketch, of the present hero (or villain) of South Africa, by w. T. Stead. Mr. Stead, the editor of the London edition of the Review of Reviews, is, to say the least, a decidedly, funny fellow. fel-low. Hia career reads like a romance. No one doubts his honesty or his intelligence,, intel-ligence,, but many of his acts and much of his writing in the past lead one to ( suspect his. prudence and judgment. Some years ago he published a criticism criti-cism of the acts of the'English nobility which, v.-e believe, landed him In jail. The principal Instrument he made use of in colecting his fact was the infamous in-famous Margaret Shepherd, who has since polluted two continents with' her filthy .'utterances, and who rewarded Mr. Stead . by deceiving 'him and swindling him at every opportunity. Mr. Stead came to this country several sev-eral years ago, and as a result of his visit in the west he wrote a lurid book entitled "If Christ Came to Chicago." In it he gave the location; of all the worst dens in the central portion of the city, with the names of the owners ot the buildings. He first had informed inform-ed these owners that it was his intention inten-tion to publish their connection with these vile resorts unless they took steps tq eject the tenants from their property. prop-erty. In his own quixotic way Mr. Stead evidently imagined he could purge Chicago Chi-cago in this way. His efforts were, of course, uselesst c "ate nu uuuoi mac wufn villus), came, to Jerusalem he-'found, much of human vice that could only be eradiT cated by persuasion or the abolishment of free will. He tried the1 former course, and in consequence, even in Jerusalem, Je-rusalem, met with only partial success. Mr. Stead recently brought upon himself him-self the attention of the civilized world by sending out the hysterical question: "Shall I kill my brother Boer?" He sent the question! to the leading journalists jour-nalists and clergymen, public men of the world's metropolis, and in return was forced to the sad conclusion that his countrymen were out for just that very purpose at the present time. One witty journalist frankly confessed that the family quarrels of the author in question did not concern him. We have no doubt in the world that the same journalist in the columns col-umns of his paper today is advocating and upholding every means made use nf tw Vila n-ni-ornmarvf in t rvhi cr r, trill the Dutchman in South Africa, and in robbing him of his fatherland. The present sketch of . Mr. Rhodes, written by William T.Stead, gives one an entirely different idea of the man who, more than any one else, is to blame' for the present war, than one could gather from less quixotic writers than Mr. Stead. The editor of the Re-' view ofReviews starts his article with a comparison between General Gordon and Mr. Rhodes. He says that each of them has dedicated hia life in the pursuit of .a lofty ideal over which both had brooded for long years, in the solitude soli-tude of the African desert. We are willing to grant Mr. Stead's claim as far as it refers to General Gordon. As to the subject '-of- the present eketch it is, to say the least, not quite so apparent. It would be hard to convince con-vince the- general public that the, scheme to connect English possessions in South Africa with those in Egypt, no matter whose interests, national or Individual, should suffer thereby, was j a lofty and praiseworthy ideal. Mr. Rhodes stands convicted in the opinion of the world of having made a plan j to bring the South "African statesmen into war in order to despoil him of his possesions. All other reasons alleged are but pretexts. It seems to be quite. well established now that Secretary Chamberlain has in his possession letters from Mr. Rhodes which would brand them both as having hav-ing connived together to bring on war, j and that the very fact of the pxistonce I of these letters was the principle reason rea-son why parliament was dismissed after af-ter the. shortest session In some hundreds hun-dreds of years, lest disagreeable questions ques-tions might be asked. Mr. Stead pictures Mr. Rhodes as a moral hero in submitting to Investigation Investiga-tion and censure by the British house of parliament rather than betray his accomplice, Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. I Rhodes' knew perfectly well that he had nothing to fear from the British tribunal which was packed to exoner- j ate and which was prepared to criticize I and punish only failure, in case he did fail to steal the property of the sturdy I Dutchmen in the Transvaal. After) reading Mr. Stead's grandiloquent phrases as to the lofty purposes which filled the soul of his hero, some of his sentences in .the same article strike the reader as quite amusing; as, for example:' ex-ample:' "His life at Oxford was more social han intellectual. "It is not necessary here to enter into detail as, to the way In which Mr. Rhodes built up his fortune. It did not probably .differ much from the methods in which other millionaires have made their pile. "If you could imagine an emperor of old Rome crossed with one of Cromwell's Crom-well's ironsides, and the result brought up at the feet of Ignatius Loyola, you would have an amalgam not unlike that, which men call Cecil Khodes." Mr. Stead frankly admit3 that in the management of various companies which Mr, Rhodes was Interested In he usually had his own way, right or wrong, and freely set apart large portions por-tions of the profits for political or Imperial Im-perial purposes. This is probably his hour of disbursement. He tells us also that Mr. Rhodes is a socialist and firmly believes that all money should be used for the benoJit of the community. Unfortunately, he leaves us in doubt as to whether the community referred to is located in the northern or southern hemisphere. Tie inform. us also that Mr. Rhodes does not. believe in a divinity. He is not quite sure that there is a God. Mr. Stead here gravely tells his readers read-ers -that he thinks Mr. Rhodes really half believes In the existence of a God, and adds, apparently in all seriousness,' that a 50. per cent chance God fully believed in Is worth more than a 40 per cent faith' in the whole Christian creed. And In the event that there be one Mr. Stead tells, us that his hero has the high ideal of working out all by himself him-self the designs which that . God, if there be one, may . have held fr&m all dternity. , , . "Therefore," said Mr. Rhodes to himself, him-self, in his curious way, there be a God and He cares anything about what I clo-.-I think it is clear that He would like to do what He is doing Himself. And he has manifestly fashioned the English speaking race' as thc chosen instrument in-strument by which He will bring in a state of society based upon justice,' liberty lib-erty and peace, lie must obviously wish me to do what I can to give as much scope and power to that race as possible. "Hnce," so he concludes this long argument, "if there be a God, I think that what He would like me to do is to paint as much of the map of Africa British red as posible, and to do what I can elsewhere to promote and unite and extend the influence of the English speaking race." All of which leads us to repeat that ..Mr. Stead is a very funny fellow. If Oom Paul gets his hands oni Mr. Stead's ideal hero, some of the map of Africa may be colored with a British red, not evolved from the designs of Mr. Rhodes' 50 per cent God.' |