The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-03

! II VIII surprise few Am orleans who
| know anything about him to learn
that William Waldorf Astor has
been naturalized a British subject. For
years he has not felt kindly towards
the land of his birth. He has received
a more liberal share of newspaper
criticism than falls to the lot of most
men. He has been charged with mean
and sordid motives, he has been re-
| ported insane, he has been held up to
| scorn and ridicule. Yet, wha may
be his faults and weaknesses, there is
some pretty good stuff in William
! Waldorf Aston. As a member of the
| New York legislature three years, his
record was entirely creditable. He
served three years as minister to Italy
| under President Arthur and did we'll
no man could have done better. He
ran for congress against Roswell p.
| Flower and was beaten after cam
| paign memorable for its unique and
bitter features. The New York Sun
| pursued Aston, literally as we'll as
| fguratively Every day that newspa-
| per published columns of matter pur-
| every move Aston had made the day
| before-the saloons he had visited, the
money he had spent buying drinks, the
talks he had made to the barroom
crowds.
| After Aston was beaten his thoughts
turned to England as a place of resi-
dence. He went to London in 1889, and
| hac
ducts the Pail Mall Gazette, a magazine
| of much literary and artistic merit, in
| which he has occasionally exploited
himself and the Aston family in man
ner that perhaps has excited more
| mirth than admiration. In the June
| number he published a family biogra-
| ply connecting the Aston family with
| the d'Astorgas, one of the most dis
tinguished families of the French no.
! bility. The Comte d'Astorgas refuses
| to accept it as authentic, and points
to several flaws, at least one of which
| is fatal. With a somewhat ironical
pen, the comte the other day wrote a
! statement for the press, in which he
said:
When we reach the year 1864 under your
Mr.. Astor's guidance, a certain Jean
| Jacques d'Astorga Is supposed to be born.
| He-still according to the ingenious Mr.
| Astor-fed to Germany, and there his son
| suddenly resolved to call himself Felix
Aston and prepared himself to become
| grandfather of the American peletier,
| John Jacob Aston. Unluckily for Mr. W.
| w. Astor, the seventeenth century is less
| remote than the times of 'Yusuf Tasha-
| fin" and | happen to have the authentic
| genealogical tables of the d As;orgas, Off
| cially drawn up by the court heraldry,
| and all the family papers. Never and no
| where could l discover in them the Jean
Jacques, born in France, 1864" who hav-
ing alone of his house become Hugue-
not, fled to Germany" nor can I make
| ont why his son should have suddenly cut
off the head and tail of his name!
There. indeed. lies the gap in Mr. As
tors fantastic genealogy, the devilish gap,
the missing link that made Darwin's hair
| grow white. l am genuinely sorry that my
| connection with the Aston family proves
to be so shaky. and that I do not feel en-
| titled to treat the descendant of Felix
Aston" born at Nusloch, as a dear
cousin.
| A proud. vain, supersensitive man is
William Waldorf Aston. If he chooses
to live in England and be an English
man, it is his own affair; there will be
no regrets on this side of the water
Mr.. Aston is 81 years old. 1t is said
that he is about to marry a second
wife in the person of Lady Randolph
Churchill. That's all right, too. Mr..
| Astor's private affairs do not concern
the American people, who have long
regarded him as a foreigner anyhow.
| There is no danger that the example
he has set in becoming a British sub
ject will be followed to a marked eX-
tent by our eastern aristocracy. AS a
rule. the four hundred are good loyal
| Americans-that was proved in the
Santiago campaign last summer.