Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-02-23
The QUEEN AND AMERICA
STRIKING EVIDENCES OF RESPECT
ON THIS SIDE.
In England at Lin
coins Death Cited-Victoria's Per-
sonaI Interest in Our Presidents.

From the London Spectator.
Nothing has been more striking. nothing
more moving to the British as nation.
than the way in which the queen has been
mourned and her memory reverenced In the
United States. The English-speaking peo-
nile of America almost with one voice have
ioined the English-speaking people Of the
British empire in their expressions Of af-
lection for the queen. The outside world
has wondered at the spectacle, and has
asked how it comes about that people
who are always anxious to proclaim their
republicanism and their Indifference to the
claims of monarchy have held a national
mourning for a foreign queen. Even En-
plishmen have not quite understood the true
nature of American feeling, and have sought
about for special explanations of the way
in which the people OF the United states
have been moved Some have thought to
find an explanation in the fact that the
queen took the side of the Union in the
civil war anad was always politically f1rm
friend of America; others declare that the
queens domestic virtues specially appealed
to the American people; while others, again,
trace Americas grief to the fact that
Americans honor womanhood beyond other
nations and that the queen was the repre-
sentative of all that is best in woman.
No doubt in sense all these reasons are
true but they are not by themselves suf-
ficient. The true explanation lies much
The American people have felt the queens
death so deeply because they and we be-
long to the same race, speak the same Ian
guage, follow the same ideals. moral, social,
and political-because, In brief. truth, JUS
tice, freedom, honor. honesty, sincerity and
1.-THE conduct of gentleman" mean not
something that needs shade OF dlHerence
in translation, but exactly the same things
to them and to US. Americans and English
men are, as Carlyle said. all subjects OF
King Shakespeare. They all vibrate to the
deep elemental emotion Of Wordsworth to
the passion of Byron, to the magic splen-
dor OF Scott. These are the essential rea-
sons why the American people felt the
death Of the queen as we felt 1t ourselves.
and not as foreigners. They were sharers
in our sorrow, while the foreigner, how
ever much he was struck by the queens
high character and however anxious he was
to show his respect, was merely an ex-
ternal sympathizer.
for they are Of the house. The feeling ex-
pressed by the American people is. in fact,
a proof of the essential oneness of the En-
glish-speaking race. It is impossible for
any person. sovereign or president, poet or
divine, philosopher or weaver of romance,
to rise to the very highest place in either
land without becoming the common prop
erty of both peoples. Say what we will, we
are sharers in the really great. The small
er men are sectional, and may belong ex-
clusively to one nation, but In the highest
beth have share. We English felt this
in the case of Mr.. Lincoln. For time he
belonged only to America, and was ignored
and misunderstood by q large part OF our
people. But gradually his transcendent
qualities of. heart and head won their way
among u.s. and when he died We realized
that he belonged to the whole race. In
the famous lines in Punch, written on MT.
Lincoln's death, even '.the ribald lester
claimed right to stand In sorroW by the