The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-12-14
THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG.

There was an aphroism once. 1t
was absolutely untrue. 1t was ride
ulous, and yet it held mems minds,
and men were foolish enough to break
one another's heads over it, and break
women's hearts over it, and wreck hui
man happiness over it, as they have
done, and still do, and perhaps may
ever do until the millennium comes.
The aphorism was "The King can do
no wrong" Looked at, as we here
look at it today, what an absurd
phrase it is. What is King but a
man. The same foibles, the same de-
sires, the same organism as the peas
ant that works in the field. A turn
of the kaleidoscope and the peasant
might, and many time has been,
the King, and the subservient noble
of forty quarterings is crool<ing his
back, and, may-hap, scheming for
left-handed progeny from the royal
line.
. lDut llluSI DC SolhCtlilhS
mankind has set up in this puppet Of
monarchy which it chooses to worship,
which it pleases itself to endow with
the best of its wealth, with the choic-
est of its beauty, the SMILES from
which the republican has on his lips
when he kneels to worship at the
footstool of his Creator. What is it
that he adulates? What is it that has
made him put his intellect even at its
best beneath such a vapid thraldom?
How pitiful it seems to read of Wal
ter Scott, the true Wizard of the
North, whose magic words have sooth-
ed sick pillows, whose bright thoughts
have fired noble hearts, whose delinea-
tions of character are unryalled. who
stands today as a king of men, intel
lectually, before whom any nationali-
ty may bow-how pitiful it seems TO
see that great man preserving the
glass out of which dissolute and
brainless George " drank and almost
shedding tears because he broke it in
his coat-tail pocket.
Great as Scott was, his bringing up
had ingrained in him the idea that
1.-The King could do no wrong and
true gentleman as he was, he lowered
his honored head before the worthless
prince.
What men really honor when they
get carried away by the aphorism is
after all the power. And men holding
power, even who are not kings, who
have but the brief authority which is
given them by "a chance vote, at times
begin to think that not only Kings,
but Presidents and others 'can do no
wrong" 1t is one of the misfortunes
that they can use it to mould people
to their way of thinking. Kings, af-
:, ter dynasty or so get rudely awak-
ened. Like the Roman Emperor who
wished that Roman people had but
one neck, they awake with staring
eyes and fear trembling limbs, to find
- that some outraged member of their
downtrodden subjects has one strong
arm and sharp blade, which cuts
the thread of life and smashes the
aphorism. The King has done wrong
and the wrong is avenged.
But under free governments there
is no need for such measures. After
all man who is in office, President,
Minister, or what he may be, will not
stay thereforever. If he gets into his
head the idea that the king or ruler
can do no wrong" he has very soon
people who are quite ready to tell him
that such assumption is baseless, that
he is after all but man, as other
men are, that his ideas are no better,
and have no more wit than theirs,
and that the sooner he loses sight of
what he pleases to call his power, and
comes off his autocratic seat, the
sooner he will gain the respect of
those who laugh at his assumption of
power, and his solemn air of infalli-
bility. The true republican-by this IS
meant not the republican of politics,
but the believer in republican as OPP
posed to monarchial government-be
lieves in the equality of man, and
though the monarchist may believe in
the antiquated, and illogical, apho-
rism, that the king can do no
wrong" the republican believes, firm
~ and irrevocably, that Presidents
andMinister can do wrong, and is not
afraid TO tell them so.