New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-02-26
THE PRINCE AND THE CITY.

Prince Henry of Prussia is now an honorary
citizen of this metropolis of the Western Hem
isphere. That is the result Of yesterdays cere-
mony at the City Hall. 1t is fitting feature or
his visit TO these shores. His name is approprl-
ately added to a list which already bore that OF
his countryman Steuben, and-since he is a
sailor prince-thOse of such captains as Decatur,
Hull. Banbridge Perry and FaTagut. The city
could pay him no higher compliment than TO en-
roll him by the side of Washington and Ham
ilton, of Jay and Lafayette. The giving of the
freedom of the city of New-York has not the
technical purport of a like beStowal in some
other cities. As an expression of civic and pop
ular esteem and in its association of the recip-
lent with illustrious freemen of the past it Is
nowhere surpassed. As the representative of
the sovereign of a nation second TO none in en-
Iightenment and a nation bound fast to our own
with ties of peculiar tenderness and vital
strength, Prince Henry is a worthy recipient of
the best that New York has TO give.
A strange contrast is presented to Prince
Henry between some features of New-York and
some of Berlin, and, indeed. between different
features of this city itself. Our City Hall Park
is certainly much unlike Inter den Linden, and
the little old hall itself would look strange be-
side the Imperial Schloss or the Parliament
House in Berlin On the other hand. New
York is nearly twice the size of Berlin in popu-
lation. and in some of its details far surpasses
that imperial capital. even AS the Hudson does
the Spree. If the City Hall. especially in the
gloom of yesterdays lowering and sodden skies.
seemed small and dingy. the great opera house
last night must have seemed proportionately
brilliant and splendid Nor are the contrasts
confined TO the city itself and to the works of
its builders The uncomfortable elements them
1,ax-
possible varieties and contrasts Prince Henry
approached our haTbor amid a furious arctic
storm. He landed on a day of springlike
geniality. He saw New-York on Sunday flooded
with the crystalline atmosphere and the white
sunlight which are its glory. and again on Tues
day he saw it dimly through fog and rain and
reek, with clouds above and mud below. Truly
he will charge US with no wearsome monotony!
Not the least of his impressions of New-York
will be its magnitude as a German city. It is
in fact one of the three or four largest German
cities in the world. He will find here his coun-
rymen conducting the industries and commerce
of the city, participating in its politics, leading
in its society directing its business and finance,
contributing to its literature, music drama and
art, its education, and its whole intellectual
life and. in brief. making themselves a domi
nant factor in all the best activities of our civil
lZdUIOl ne VIII uuu C06In possessing ana prdC-
Using here the sturdy virtues which have for
ages been the strength of the German people,
and at the same time adapting themselves to
their new environments and becoming politi-
cally. mentally and morally acclimated into the
truest of American citizens. In this amalgama-
ton of a vast German population into the
heterogeneous but harmonious whole of the
American nation is to be perceived one of the
most impressive of object lessons in the practi-
cal establishment of the brotherhood of man"
With its hundreds Of thousands of respected
German citizens. New-York could never be wan
tonly hostile to the German Fatherland. With
similar conditions prevailing throughout the
land. this nation must ever he drawn toward
Germany In friendship and in mutual benef-
cence. In that view Of the case. this latest
honorary freeman Of New-York may fittingly
regard himself to-day as a guest in a city Of
his countrymen and in nation of his kin.