The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-18

yer, with the soul of a Cromwell and
the education of a red Indian.
But there are Beers and Beers. And
Martin Steyn is also Boer, proud of
his Dutch pedigree, proud of his Or
ange Free State, proud to stand Shout
der to shoulder with his Puritan
burghers, and proud of the education
which raises his fellow citizens far
| above the average prevailing in the
sister republic.
President Steyn is one of the best
all round types of manhood it has been
my fortune to meet. He has a calm,
penetrating eye, full of human inter-
est and at the same time suggestive
of latent fire. In a way he reminds me
of the late Governor Buckingham of
Connecticut, who, when | was boy,
passed for the grandest of living
Americans, with q possible rival in
Charles Sumner. Steyn seemed to me
about six feet high, with broad Shout
ders slightly STOPPING; not the stoop
that comes from desk work, but rath-
err from carrying a gun after game.
have met many Americans who re-
minded me of Steyn-deliberate men
and Observation-Disclosures to mere dis
play, yet careful as to their personal
appearance. Everything about Steyn
and his house spoke of cleanliness, It'd
mess, good taste Everything about
Kruger's house suggested slovenly
housekeep ping, if not dirty personal
habits.
HE BELIEVES HE is RIGHT.
While the war Is on it is idle to dis
cuss why Steyn threw in his lot with
Kruger To me 1t is sufficient to be-
lieve that the president of the Orange
Free State acted in this crisis from as
lofty motives as ever actuated Stone
wall Jackson or Robert e. Lee when
they drew sword against the Stars and
Stripes.
In 1896 | had long talks with MI.
Steyn-indeed the executive mansion
at Boemfontein was by far the most
interesting intellectual center of South
Africa-to me at least. The Free
State president discussed the pro-
blems of the day from the standpoint
of a trained lawyer and practical
statesman. He has studied in Europe,
has seen the world, and has that pecu-
liar gift, so conspicuous in successful
statesmen, of seeking only the attain
able-of leading only where his con-
stituents can follow. With Kruger 1
felt as though talking politics with
shepherd out of the seventeenth CEN
fury. With Steyn I was talking as
with a fellow countryman on ques-
lions of ways and means
Steyn is politically clean man at
the head of clean community. Kru-
ger is chief of a state where much cor
ruption in high places exists and
where his own name even is not al
ways spared Nowhere in South At
RIGA did | hear Steyn's name men
toned save~in terms Of the highest re-
spect.
These two men were to me of pecu-
liar interest, because In their persons
they marked so wildly the radical
difference in the two lines of Boer pol
lev. Kruger represents the Chinese
method of protection. by surrounding
himself with high wall and hiring
mercenaries to do his legal business
for him. Steyn frankly grapples with
the enemy, invites immigration, gives
equality to all before the law, relies
upon the SDOu sense VI tHe HidJoiiey
rather than upon big fortresses and
German drill sergeants; declines to
persecute the English language-on
the contrary, thinks 1t well for all
Beers to know English as well as
Dutch In other words, Steyn looks to
the future of South Africa as to a
white mans republic, In which the i'm
portant questions shall be not those of
one language more or less, but of good
administration, internal development, |
general education. and, above all, At
RIGA for the Afrikanders-an express
sion roughly analogous to ours of |
America for the Americans.
In other words, in the mind of Steyn
the important question is not whether
there be in the country so many Of
English birth or so many of Dutch
blood, but whether the people of diff
ferent races are willing to sink their
several national jealousles for the
great purpose of becoming Afrikand
ers-that is to say identifying them
selves with the prosperity of their
adopted country.
Had wiser man than Kruger led
he Beers in the last ten years he
would have discovered in irrigation