| Show baw moma D n bot ah S C baw n b 2 rs VIM V VIP 4 1 Q 4 zy 0 A by ELMO SCOTT WATSON A COLUMBUS Is one of f the few names in fit our school book histories which every eory american re members along alth with that name he remembers the date UW and the fact that in that year vear tills this man discovered america from the information gleaned in those school histories too lie he has a somewhat hazy impression that columbus 4 was mas a romantic adventurer who braved the terr terrors of the unknown which before his time had kept lesser men from venturing fario far out in the atlantic ocean and who finally achieved the success due such a dauntless soul but how many americans really really know anything about columbus the man or what w alt the sum total of his career actually vast ii as As the day approaches for our celebration of his discovery of amerlee october 32 12 it Is worthy of note that it a new biographer has discovered columbus for us as at least this biographer presents pie the famous navigator in a new light ile he Is a german jacob lV asserman and the result of fits 20 years study of the career of christopher columbus Is al hook book published recently by little ili brown own und and company under the title of columbus don quixote of the seas if as one reviewer has declared lie he probably has come as near the real columbus as Is possible with the material aval available lable then tile the school book idea of this hero in american Amei ican history needs meeds to be revised instead of being the rd romantic mantle adventurer such as we nye have thought him columbus stands out nut in this study as an impractical dreamer with little littie sense of reality and except when inspired by ills his one big idea pitifully weak a man who frit away ills his opportunities by ills his continual search for gold and who failed to live up to the promise shown by ills his single great achievement for which lie he Is remembered in short he was a man who figuratively tilted with windmills throughout ills his life hence the characterization of don quixote of the seas A certain nays tery almost suspicion hovers around the figure of columbus front from the lie very beginning says sas in the first chapter of ills his book everything is disputed lits his character cliar acter ills its achievement his development the events of ills its life and his origin seven towns in genoese territory contend for the honor of having lin vIng housed its his cradle corsica and france have also made similar claims it may ile be assumed with tolerable certainty that its his father was wag a poor weaver although lie himself tried to suppress this fatt such humble origin seemed to him a handicap for in the days of ills his glory lie he used to talk of fits noble neble ancestors 11 1 I am not the first of my faintly 1 lie in would assert who has stilled sailed the sens sells as an admiral on tills this account some of its ills enemies called him a liar har those who to do so have little imagination and a sorry notion of tills this deep sit ill most unfathomable nature the course of ills life bears much resemblance to a medieval legend over a period of 20 years with certain intervals I 1 have been engaged on the study of ills fits history and every time I 1 took it up lip again I 1 hao to ask myself Is this authentic Is not tills this merely legend are not such and such events phal and these others tio more than probable ne he rose from nothing a vagabond italian adventurer to become grand Adir admiral dral of spain and viceroy of a mighty empire lie paid for seven years of glory and power by sudden ruin and such humiliation as few men have known and after it a feeble afterglow of fame he died a lonely death almost forgotten it Is as says truly a strange destiny and considering all the mystery that shrouds this man it Is not remarkable perhaps ups that we should have many mistaken nil ideas about him one mistake lies iles in the fact that we to do riot not even spell nor pronounce ills name correctly for the man whom we know as christopher columbus was in reality cristobal Crl il colon we do not know when lie was born it was some time between 1430 and 1416 1446 and although lie seems to have gone to sea at about the age of fourteen virtually nothing Is known of life early history lil story there Is evidence to indicate that eliat lie he wandered in many places laces suffered many hardships and an endured great poverty which made him prematurely i ely old for it is recorded that in his comparatively younger years lie he war already gray grav haired it if we know very little about ills his early life it Is mainly ills his own fault for some reason lie he wiver revealed much about those years and declares that whenever lie makes any statement about his past it la Is always aari ays with the pur not V cm A arzac pose of dealing creating a hero myth ile he never knew who he be was ft as lie only knew who lve ire wanted minted to be but it Is in developing the thaine of columbus ns as a don quixote that assern ins study of the great navigator na gator Is most interesting ue ile does it in part in these words what gives the figure of columbus its don quixotic outline Is not the lie central error that tant made jilin him passionately deny until the lie lay of ills his death that lie had discovered a nw new continent and n new world it Is putting the mutter broadly bio idly th alie e orientation mid constitution bof of ills fits inner s self elf with nil all its shifts arid pleadings its pre prejudice judic Cs self defenses stipulations and extravagances so much so that I 1 cabaot rid myself tit of the finar linares slon that cervantes must lime have been infill encee lit in ills his conception of ills immortal h by this actual prototype it Is not to he be bell believed eved tint that so distinguished a genius created ills his world famous figure in what may ma he dr ns as a private literary caprice the people of the nation lae have no less a part in such n magnificent vision than the immediate creator alio ho brings it to tile the light of lay day the centuries labor nt at it in silence until the chosen brain hinlo gives it valad gilld form ills most remarkable trait arnit and the one most suggesting dm den quixote Is ills his pride even een arro gance in ills his destiny undeniably a I 1 florip or ce 1 hut ut 11 very isolating force the most catill eff effect oct or of which holcli Is to make its possessor misunderstood stood and art to set jilin him apart from life who could love ne a don quixote except fis as a figure of rom inre who could understand him except three hundred years cirs after its ills death I 1 could not have a city with jilin him I 1 should hue have found his fits holni nations intolerable and everything lie he did repugnant ad I 1 yet let what an abiding prototype 0 t f humanity of human folly foil delu delusion glon tin and gren here ills his pride in ills fits destiny or whit vital lie thought to he be ills his destiny destan Is based base ultimately on it profound redis position of stern spanish Cat casholle holle through which the char character acler us file essence of tile the national entity appears appt irs gre i nith breall all sublimated and softened and rich tit in pross ellit lights ll lit ulso also points out the fact that it Is a strange paradox tint tills this nun mati nr narrow mind was vas the man who MIS its to enlarge the intellectual of if ills age ij to I its horld jf f idras lind had one big iden idea to which lie ho licud fanatically something which we e usually begal I 1 as tile char of a grout great mun mail yet et the german blog eapher says lie he bowed to t every from alth out listened to t every ml fell it lelm in to every fraud fiand another paradox in file lie ase of columbus Is the fact that although lie was as ionic tient astute tanil lit in ills plans he showed shorted himself amateurish hort sighted aind ani caprI capricious clous in out mit consides ing the hardships which ij IK in ills his youth eiith tin and the all which lie suffered lit in later years it Is nt sarali e perhaps that tie lie should he be ace according to ino ina rose its as a monk crafty us it a Iwa hiis sant int without a glimmer of humor it hv by a single ray of s A man or ir sighs and lamentations misery and gl otini hut but for till nil of that his fits capalto capa ltv elty for ring ond ills his patience in the bearing oi of it vere eie and sire lire strangely touching like stories froni thai life of a saint ile he learnt almost nothing not lilii anil and knew 1 new almost everything eveaj tiling that might billit m serif me ahls ends lip ile vas HIIS sickly and bore the most inc hardships with iron endurance endi irume lie HP sprang from the lowest level if society nind had the man mantiera tiers of if u grande gran iloe e and the lie style of a ile he knew no of life iffe it home mount meant ikrath ing to him ills his wants hants wel wele nele e as fw few as those of a dervish yet lie he died of worry because lie could not get the forty thousand thou pesos apesos owed him film by the colonial administration it was tills this characteristic of 0 utter confidence lit in himself of unbending iyall ill pure stubbornness nneka some might call it which lilli made it difficult for him to obtain aid tor for his grout great venture sen ture nut flat it was this characteristic also which finally won for mm him and enabled him to talk tails the monarchs monar clis of spain lato into outwitting outfitting out fitting lila him tor for ills his voerge they began ty ly chasing him away calling liin liim a rascal and a fool says then when 1 I 1 I 1 4 5 4 X 4 ax iw lie did not budge they grew uneasy and gave way point by point until tit lit last they yielded everything lie asked 1 and ills demands certainly exactly modest estl but shoy were what might be expected from froma such a diameter character us its columbus consider this list the position or of viceroy and governor general over till nl tile islands and continents that he might discover and occupy for spain all appointment as aa or of the world sea it a tenth part of oil all treasured res reg pearls diamonds gold silver spices fruits and properties of sill nil kinds that might t be found in the landd exclusive ownership of one eighth of if the lie lands hinds to be discovered including nil revenues accruing and finally the of till nil these hese rights titles and dignities by his fits successors from first horn born to first born just us its the lie legends legend which have a accumulated lu fouce aen 1 I around Coluin bus over H R period of four centuries aurles have invested him with tin an sturn of romance nce so lins there grown up it a popular iden idea that tile men wlm went with min wore were a hird hanly h ird annd of addon adventurers IL ors frily sll sli less inting int ing than the lender blin self the firt la Is however that ivirty ninny of them went on in this voyage its aa on lewer lesper of two evils when tried to ill recruit it 11 crew for his fits enterprise lis lie found how bow strolls was the superstitious terror of the hip dark atlantic unions the sailors and other folk it finally took a royal stating that all criminal pro would lip Fw against anyone who was willing villing to take service on the ships of bf file he captein omera cristobal colon to ret get the necessary number of if illari ihen it dvells unnecessary it to say that men were hound found in plenty writes ninn the joost i most infamous company of if ruf flaws presented themselves em pirt ites escaped prisoners gallows birds thieves murderers col colkers coiners co iners ners branded convict 9 from the hie whole kIng dona columbus had bad lit no choice lie enrolled them tin an odd reminder of the berne e in whirl dun dan quixote knocks rs on d the lie 9 sli ives talks to them like a IMI lit errant and Is laughed at for ills his pil ns with sue such a 11 calce set of if companions BS as these and in three fruit littia ships judged by modern standards th alii 1 ellipse ell t captain set aft forth upon ills quixotic Ili of if ills voyage Is 13 it ii familiar one mid depending as bave previous prey lima it I 1 lipon lie of colum bils himself much the same panie account as they liale have ghen gen lii jub subsequent sequent carper lifter after the discovery and und tin tho clurn to spain was lias has already beon well dol tp to A don quixote he lived and it DO vite ile he died according to wasser mun jiin iho writes wilen lie he felt his djs last just hour was near he sent seat for a notary id witnesses intending to cancel tile will of and draw up another nn other it begins with the non don quixotic dictum As I 1 am making a free gift of inilla to tile ali KIn kinland gand queen I 1 lie he continues in tile hie same fiame style it Is the sam same the hip same nime pompous grandiosity th the sa tile estravo ga nee with which lie hadin former days lie e prior of lat la ile he wn wa now my addressing posterity and posterity did alie best tiling it could do la in the circumstances it burled his words fit i n silence and only kept his name tind fits id deed 11 in remembrance on slay may 19 lip he nave gave ills last hist instructions and on may billy SO 10 1 1600 1500 the hie eve ir if ascension day he died AM G by b newspaper New paper union |
