St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-01-17
Paul Kruger's Real Quality.

Sir | am very glad to see that The Tri.
bune and other genuinely American Jour.
nails Go not allow themselves to be die
tated to by Molly Maguires, on the one
hand, or respectable but irate Hollanders
oil the other. The Tribune is perfectly
correct in saying that the defeat oil the
British in South Africa would be disas-
ter to the United States OF America.
am especially glad to see that even an
advocate OF the Beers like Mr.. Robert B.
Roosevelt has the intelligence to see, and
frankness to admit, that this is the fact.
If there is any business man who has
not had sense enough to see this long
ago his eyes ought surely to be opened
by the events of the last few days. The
three British defeats in South Africa have
already cost the United States at least
500, 100000 in the tremendous down
fall of prices, the breaking up of conf
dence and the certainty that but for ex-
traordinory efforts on the part of BAN
kers our country would have been iu-
VOWED IN ruin as great as that of 1898.
1t is most astonishing that intelligent
business men who know anything OF the
history of our country should ignore the
inextricabe involvement of all our fnan-
cial affairs with those Of Great Britain
and forget the lessons of our history
which show that whenever Great Britain
has been involved in serious war as in
1854 and 1857 panic and disaster have
occurred in the United States and that
when there was even a slight shadow of
a war cloud arising between the two
countries as in December, 1895, the panic
and disaster in this country were vastly
greater than thev were in Great Britain.
The pious Paul Kruger has given us
more evidence of his real quality. He
has just forbidden the water to be pump
ed out of any johannesburg gold mines
belonging to the British stockholders;
these OF course constituting the larger
number of mines. This means a stop
page of the principal world supply of
gold during the entire Transvaal war
and for six or eight months after the
restoration of peace. little incident
which happened the other evening is also
instructive. The Rev. F. E. Clark after
relating with great satisfaction Mr..
Kruger's unctuous declarations of at
tachment to his dear Lord Jesus went
on to tell that when he was introduced
to Kruger as an American that illustri.
Gus gentleman asked him brusquely:
Are you one of those Americans who
run to the Queen whenever they get into
trouble?" Some of your correspondents
who INDUCED in abusive language may
think that this is language which Amer.
cans ought not to resent. But Mr..
Robert B. Roosevelt will hardly agree to
that.
The plain, obvious truth, which no one
can fail to see who uses his own eyes, is
that Paul Kruger is corrupt, utscrupu-
lous, treacherous despot, who, no doubt,
has certain amount OF sincere religion,
precisely as Philip OF Spain or the Duke
of Alva, and many other similar pious
souls had, but who, like them, never
allows his religion to stand in the way
OF his personal spites or to intercept any
tide of gold which would otherwise flow
into his pocket. Mr.. Kruger hates Am
orleans, just as much as he does the Eng
lish, although it suits his purpose just
now to pretend occasionally that this is
not so. AS for Irish Catholics, he hates
them so much that he has never allowed
them to have the right of gaining vote
or ever holding an office under any cir
cumstances. / suppose that this is why
your Irish correspondents are so full of
love for Mr.. Kruger.
But, moreover, Mr.. Kruger suspects,
and apparently hates, even his own EEL
low Dutchmen in South Africa. He has
never allowed them the privilege OF nat
uralization, any more than the hated
Outlandefs. And when he was COMPEL
ed to have twenty or thirty honest and
really capable officials to attend to pub
lie affairs (being unable to find even half
a dozen such among his own loyal Trans
vaal Beers he would not employ any of
the Dutch who resided in adjoining teri.
tories, but send to Holland for that pur-
pose. Nevertheless. the Dutchmen Of the
Orange State and Cape Colony have
rallied to the support of Mr.. Kruger,
simply because their race sympathies
overcame all their common sense and
Some people seem to think that the
fighting qualities of the Beers atone for
all their ignorance, prejudice and oppres.
sion. certainly never doubted that the
Beers would make splendid fighters.
But, even yet, they have not displayed
half the courage strategy or fighting
capacity OF the Apache or Modoc In
dians. am not willing to put the Mo-
docs in the forefront OF the ranks of
Time" simply because it required ten
American trained soldiers to capture one
Thomas G. Shearman in Tri-
bune.