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Show JOHN HAY. John; Hay, secretary of state, died at his summer sum-mer home 'm New Hampshire. He Avas buried at Cleveland on Wednesday. The diplomats of the world express regret over his unexpected demise, together with unstinted praise of his statesmanlike abilities. Statecraft sounds praise for all men who die iu state harness, because it is the proper thing for diplomats to do. John Hay never did an act for which he ought to be hanged. He was a use- ful man' for those who overestimated his intellectual intellec-tual strength. A good man in the cabinet to keep the mercurial president steady; ;md the very best man that England could have in the American cabinet, barring the last American minister to tho court of Great Britain. Hay's death is a set-back to the prpposed Anglo-American alliance. .The best thing that may be said of John Hay is his love of the simple life; and this is ihe inheritance in-heritance of inost men of letters. As a literary secretary ot state his style and analyses were un-j un-j like the solid compositions' of Jefferson and Madi-I Madi-I son and Seward. He wrote something about Spain which aroused tire ire of Catholics tired of the Rocsevelt adulation during the hist campaign; but on that score Hay should have been absolved. It is no easy matter to defend Spain when criticised or assaulted by non-Catholic writers. Hay, then, was the literary gem of the cabinet. The president assumes to be another such gem, but he is of the Marie Corelli order. He never could write a poem as John I lay could. So longMs one remembers Lincoln, he unconsciously recalls Lincoln's Lin-coln's historian John Hay. So long as one can repeat re-peat "Little. Breeches." that one Avill not forget John Hay. , -v- |
