The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-26
PRINCE HENRY's PREDECESSORS.
How This Hospitable Country Treated
 Them.

How This Hospitable Country Treated
 Them.
 The New Yorker who burst forth in the sputtering coarseness Of insult when asked to be gracious enough to surrender his box at the opera TOT night in order that Henry and ms par ty might be most advantageously seat ed is a far worse offender against com- mon sense and decent manners than the most groveling snobs are likely to be. The general derision which hls rudeness has caused is creditable to the American instinct of hospitality. It means that the compliment which the German emperor pays this country III sending over his brother with mes sage of amity will be appreciated m generous, hearty spirit of good VIII, anu with all the welcome which the courte- sy of gallant democratic manhood can inspire James. Buchanan when ne was in the presidency, received the Prince or Wales. lodged him in the White House. and exerted himself to give pleasure to his guest. Yet Buchanan sacriiced none of his reput ation as an upholuer ol democratic simplicity because ne pe- haved as @ gentleman and an alaple host toward his royal guest. It ls true that Albert Edward was jeered at ana insulted by the rowdies of Richmond. But by the great body of the people the truculent offense to the prince at the Virginia capital was resented as a mis- erable meahness. if not a national dis grace.
 l Nor have the republican institu- lions" in this country grown weaker since that time; certainly not so weak that they will be in danger when | young man who bears reputation or being intelligent and honorable ana whose chief offense in the eyes Of ms critics here is simply that he IS mem ber of the ruling family supported py the German state, may choose to tarry with US for two or three weeks. Let us suppose that Grover Cleveland were to take a notion to visit Germany. Doubt less a man who is as wide awake and hospitable as the Kaiser is believed to he would see that so distinguished an 1 American should have good tune at Berlin; be might offer perhaps even more than the attention which grained us all when we learned years ago how agreeable Bismarck in the days of the old Kaiser had entertained Genefal | Grant But would we not be amused were we to hear that William had been admonished that Cleveland's presence was dangerous to imperial institutions of Berlin, and that it would not do to De too polite to him? What would we ! think too. if some resident of the Prus- 1 sian capital with privilege at the op- ara house were to refuse to put him. self to a slight inconvenience, and were to defend his churlness on the ground that this man Cleveland was after all, simply Ia fat old American hog ?' Doubtless there are Berhners who would say that, as there are New York CTS who are ready to join MT. Thomas Hitchcock in hailing the Kalser's broth CT as "a young little snip. But our opinion of their poiteness and of lnsti- tutions which might be injured by the presence of an American democrat on friendly social visit would be far from fatterng.
 The fact is that there has always been a lively spirit of hospitality in this country for eminent men of all foreign lands who have come hither as visitors, whether they have been royaists or re- publicans When the American people went wild over Lafayette in his old age, he was again a French monarchist as he had been when they first Knew nm in his youth When Joseph Bonapafte came to this country incognlto, It IS true that there were some Americans who could not become reconclled to ms presence until the great captive at St. Helena had passed away; and yet, Phll- adelphia probably had no quleter gen. tlemen among it's residents than the once royal Joseph was when ne llVed here or came from his home Ill Borden town. Indeed when Philadelphia saw him enjoying life as farmer ana hop- nobbing with his neighbor Bones, near the present Fairmount Park on agfl- cultural pursuits. the illusions of royal ty soon become to vanish. This eXpe- rience was perhaps not altogether un- like that of the English country lad who had heard so much of ''the Queen, and who, after saving all his shillings, when up to London to see the sover- | ''S''N SN'N home, however, thinking that he had wated his money, and when he was asked what he thought of the queen,
 exclaimed in disgust, "PshaW! why she's only woman!" When Iturbide, the last emperor of Mexico, was de- throned and eXiled it was to Phlladel- phia that his empress came to live and rear her children and the community never had the slightest thought that It might be tainted with 'tmperahsm py the family. The sons of Louis Philippe of France and especially the Count o1 Paris gave no concern to our country men when they travelled among us. eX- cept the concern of performing the kindly offices of hospitality. The same people that exhausted themselves in the generosity of their welcome to kossutf were not less exuberant when they