Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-11-24
THE WELCOME TO KRUGER.

THE w EL(OME III hhNUh
French characteristics, French love
of liberty and French hatred of Eng
land, were blended in the welcome
extended to President Paul Kruger at
Marseilles, Thursday, and in the course
of his journey to Paris yesterday. An
emotional people, France is always IN
clined to go to extremes when the
populace is aroused, and the demon
STATIONS of the past two days have
well illustrated that tendency OF the
people; but amid it all, and giving due
weight to animosity towards England
and for a disposition to be enthusiast
tic over anything at hand of an I'M
usual nature, there remains, apparent
ly, decided preponderance of genuine
admiration for the aged official of an
all but conquered people, and this was
best manifested, not by the acclains
of multitude temporarily carried
away by sentiment, but by the careful
preparations extending over several
weeks, by the scores of populations
from every considerable town il
France, and the patience of tens Of
thousands who, at much personal it,
convenience, thronged the streets of
the seaport city for days and who sur
rounded Kruger's hotel during the
hours of darkness as well as those cf
light. 1t was an ovation of which any
man might be proud, and it is probable
that no man living on earth could
travel from his own country to anoth-
er and receive such welcome. He
was a stranger in strange land
he could got even understand what
people, and he could not respond save
through a translation of his remarks,
and yet he was a friend among friends.
and it YVES made manifest that the
cause of the burghers in arms in the
mountains and on the velts of South
Africa is both understood and appIe-
ciated by mankind to the uttermost
parts of the earth.
President Kruger is still the lion at
bay. In his brief utterances at Mar
seilles there is no indication of falt-
ering and no uncertain tone. He pro
claims, that neither he nor his coun-
trymen have any thought of compro-
mise. Like the Spanish at Saragossa
in 1903, under the intripid Palafox
Melzi it is "guorre cuchillo, war to
the knife. In his address at the Hotel
Noailles, at Marseilles, Mr. Kruger
said:
L believe England, had she been
better informed. would never have con-
scented to this war, and since the expe-
dltion of jameson, who wished to seize
the two republics without the necessity
OF firing rifle shot, | have never
ceased to demand a tribunal of arbi-
tration, which, up to now, has always
been refused
The war waged on us in the two re-
publics reached the last limits of bar
barism. During my life l have had
TO fight many times the savages of the
tribes of Africa, but the barbarians
we have to fight now are worse than
the others They even urge the KafIirs
against US They burn the farms we
worked so hard to construct and they
drive out our women and children
whose husbands and brothers they
have killed or taken prisoners, leaving
them unprotected and roofess and Of
ten without bread to eat
'But whatever they may do, we will
never surrender. We will fight to the
end
Our great, imperishable confidence
reposes in the Eternal, in our God.
We know our cause is just, and if the
Justice of men is wanting to US, He,
the Eternal, who is Master O all peo-
pies and to whom belongs the future,
will never abandon us.
Il assure you that if the Transvaal
and the Orange Free State must lose
their independence, it will be because
all the Boer people have been Destroy
Cd with their women and children"
Here Dom Paul voices and breathes
the spirit OF the Old Guard, which
knew how to die but not how to sur
render. The Boer cause is hopeless.
but brave men will ever command re-
spect, and the Dutch burghers are the
counterparts of the old time Greeks
and of those old Romans who would
never treat with a successful foe