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Show America T 1 v C' II Queer. "0 U Mw II Bet9an Ruler's- i'r yrf' Democratic Ideas i Xu i Traced to Year s V MMl 4J J Sojourn in United wpC states "M" ! t$00infi Albert m --M-- fed Uniform 1- T ING ALBERT of Belgium celebrated the forty-third anniversary of his birth re-cently re-cently and ma,ny hearts went out to that little corner of Belgian territory to which he withdrew with the remnants of his gallant army close upon four years ago, converting It Into an Impregnable stronghold, from which the Germans have sought in vain to drive him. He might have joined his ministers In the French seaport of Havre, where the seat of the Belgian government has been established since the Germans Ger-mans took possession first of Brussels and then of Antwerp. Or he could have followed the example of King Nicholas of Montenegro and taken up his residence in Paris, where he is an object of popular admiration by reason rea-son of the heroic resistance which he offered to the German armies when the kaiser invaded France via Belgium. But he, chose to stay with his army. The odds that confronted King Albert Al-bert when the Germans undertook to traverse his territory into France were overwhelming. He bravely faced them, and it was the unexpected obstacles ob-stacles which the Germans encountered encounter-ed in Belgium, especially at Liege, that delayed their advance sufficiently to give time to the French and English Eng-lish to prepare for their reception and to stem the Hun drive upon Calais and Paris. Had it not been for the fight put up by King Albert in the early days of the war there is no doubt that the kaiser would have accomplished his design of reaching Paris and Calais before the end of August, 1914. Under the circumstances cir-cumstances it Is no exaggeration to assert that Paris owes her safety in the present war and her immunity from siege and possible capture to King Albert, without whose resistance in Belgium in the beginning of August there would have been no battle of the Marne in September. That is why the Parisians have a particularly warm place In their hearts for King Albert. Welcome though he would be among them, he has preferred to remain among his troops in that little corner of Belgian seacoast territory where' he has made his home with his admirable admira-ble consort for close upon four years and where the daily and nightly booming boom-ing of the German guns alternates with the thunder of the waves on the seashore. Idolize King Despite Nation's Woe. What the sufferings of the people of Belgium have been since the greater great-er part of their native land has been subject to Teuton thraldom is known here in the new world. Not a week passes without some new story reaching reach-ing us of German barbarity in the invaded in-vaded regions of King Albert's dominions. domini-ons. Bestial savagery and outrage, famine and pillage, forced labor and Indescribable tortures have been the daily fare of the unhappy Belgians. And yet, in the very lowest depths of their unutterable despair, they still continue to Idolize their king and to extol him for having sacrificed everything every-thing to the national honor of Belgium by declining to permit the free passage of the Teuton armies through Belgian territory for the invasion of France. Never one word of reproach do they utter against him for having refused with Indignation to come to an understanding under-standing with the kaiser about the matter, which would have averted many of the evils which have fallen to their share. They are more proud of their king than ever, and the fact that they are now quivering under the kaiser's heel has rendered them more than ever devoted to the rule and person per-son of their own sovereign. No monarch is more deserving of the admiration of the American people than Albert of Belgium. Alone among the occupants of the thrones of the old world he insisted, prior to his accession ac-cession to the crown, upon paying a prolonged visit to the United States, declaring that without it his education would be Incomplete. He held that a knowledge of thl3 country and of Its people was an indispensable equipment equip-ment for the duties of rulership and that he would be better qualified to serve his privileges as their king if his training received an American finish. fin-ish. His sojourn in the United States differed dif-fered from that of all other royal and imperial visitors in that it was in deference to his own demands entirely entire-ly devoid of all fuss and feathers. After Af-ter paying his respects in due form to the president at Washington he laid aside his royal state, enveloped himself him-self in the strictest of incognitos and then devoted himself to a quiet and entirely en-tirely unobtrusive tour of the entire Union. It was the great industrial centers that excited his chief interest and in which he made the longest stays. He accorded more time and attention to Pittsburgh than to Philadelphia, and to Buffalo and Rochester than to New York ; to Lynn and to Worcester, Mass., than to Boston, and to Providence than to Newport, R. I. At most of the places where he stayed the people remained re-mained unaware of his identity, regarding re-garding him as a foreign engineer, for he has a strong bent toward every kind of engineering. His experiences in America, extending extend-ing over a period of nearly twelve months, seem to have opened his eyes to the advantages of journalism. For after his return home he commenced to write under an assumed name for weekly papers and monthly publications publica-tions devoted to industrial and maritime mari-time engineering. Eventually he secured from one of these weekly newspapers a card made out in the name which he had taken as member of its staff. In the capacity ca-pacity of its representative and reporter report-er be thereupon visited all the principal princi-pal shipbuilding and marine engiivr- ing concerns in Great Britain, Franfe, Italy and Germany, traveling alone and exciting some interest by reason of his possession of technical knowledge unusual in the ordinary newspaper man, though no one seems to have suspected sus-pected him of being a prince of the blood. His letters to his paper were i remarkable for their sound sense and American "understanding. It was not until some years afterward that their authorship was revealed. Shortly before Albert's succession to the throne he made a prolonged tour in Africa characterized by the same simplicity and unobtrusiveness that had marked his sojourn in the United States. He entered the dark continent conti-nent at Cape Town and then made his way by rail, by boat and by caravan to Lake Tanganyika and thence through the former Congo free state, now Belgium's great African dependency, depend-ency, down the Congo river to its mouth on the Atlantic coast. Ended Abuses In the Congo. His visit to Congoland was of incalculable in-calculable value to Belgium. For aside from the encouragement which he was able to give to lonely servants of the Belgian crown working for their sovereign sov-ereign in spots wholly remote from civilization civ-ilization and often under the most discouraging dis-couraging circumstances he was able to rectify and put an end to thousands of abuses and to initiate all sorts of reforms. Another thing in King Albert which appeals strongly to his people and to their friends and sympathizers here in America has been the singularly blameless blame-less nature of his private life, which has remained both prior to his marriage mar-riage and ever since untouched by any breath of scandal. The Belgians had suffered from the shortcomings in this respect of their first king and also of his eldest son and successor, the late King Leopold II, whose indiscretions were so flagrant and notorious as to become a source of shame and of mortification mor-tification to his subjects. King Albert's Al-bert's life, like that of his parents, the late count and countess of Flanders, Flan-ders, has been entirely above reproach and an example to his people. He owes this largely to the training of his clever clev-er mother, who, although a daughter of the Roman Catholic and nonreign-lng nonreign-lng branch of the house of Hohenzol-lern, Hohenzol-lern, had a strong strain of Frerifch blood in her veins through her grandmother, grand-mother, the grand duchess of Baden. His Marriage a Love Match. King Albert's Irreproachable itfe is also due to his wife, Queen Elizabeth. Royal marriages as a rule are the result re-sult of arrangements, international internation-al policy and diplomatic negotiation. negotia-tion. His was a love match pure and simple and such it has remained ever , since, the trials, the sorrows, the hardships hard-ships and the dangers which they have shared in common during the Inst four years having served to bring them even more closely together. The queen is a daughter of that Duke Charles Theodore of Bavaria who acquired celehrity as an oculist and who devoted his entire life to administering ad-ministering to the poor free of cost, rescuiug many thousands from blindness. blind-ness. But Queen Elizabeth, like King Albert, has closed her doors forever to her German relatives and cut herself entirely adrift from them not only for the duration of the war but for all time. For neither one nor the other of ibis royal couple can ever forget or forgive what their loyal people have suffered at German hands since July, l'J14. |
