Omaha daily bee., 1902-06-22
TRAITS OF CEN. KITCHENER
characteristics Of the Man Who Was In ct
the Death Of the BOer Republics.
HIS REMARKABLE GIFT or SILENCE
An UnIoveIy Personality, but wonder
fully strong and Compelling
Ills Record as q
Soldier.

This is a peculiar figure that steps for
ward to take its place in the front ranks
In the March Of the Conquerors.
Even now. with the laurels Of his achieve
ments fresh. men acclaim him not nearly
60 much for what he did as for the way he
did It.
This is a conqueror whose men do not go
mad with love and alteration Of him when
he rides over the stricken field.
A frightening. silent MAXWELL fitted to
go down In British history as The silent
Destroyer. Less man than soldier. less
man than slayer. less man than machine
mark him as he moves through the dead
routine OF field survey. the dead routine Of
drilling hopeless native troops, the dead
routine Of a practice march. Iron-jawed,
wordless, expressionless. emotionless. mark
him moving living men toward other living
men on the battlehelds. Dongola, Atbara,
omdurman! Move after move, check,
checkmatel For all that any man knows
this man moved other men, discarded them,
took them, lost them with as calm method
as the chess player loses and takes the
chessmen.
All the world saw the man, with his I'M
readable. still face. move to his place on
the vast, bloody chessboard Of the Trans
vaal-a chessboard from which E~ngland's
pieces were being swept fast; all the world
saw him move the pieces. All the world
saw the game still wavering. going here and
going there, with Englsnd's pawns still be-
ing swept away. And theni Checkmate!
Look back a quarter Of a century. In the
bible lands Of Palestine. in Galilee, is a
tall, gaunt, bony subaltern, with a hard
face, burned brick red. laying the lines Of
survey. mapping the country where a figure
once went through the Passion for the
world. Standing there on stored hills did
that young Englishman, looking out over
the scenes Of the most wonderful history
that ever was. see himself to be one day
lord OF Khartoum7
who Was HeF
Men who know him as we'll as he permits
men to know him say emphatically, Yes"
They say that this man is a man con-
sumed with ambition, consumed the more
that he keeps its fires deep pent within him
and does not let the world see so much as
q CLEAN of their flames. They say that
from his youth he moved steadily, unrest
ingly, never to be turned aside, toward the
prize that his ambition had marked out
for him. II he did not dream Of being lord
OF khartoum. be sure he dresmed-nay,
knew, that he was to be a lord OF men
SOuCtInAnk all
which speculation. what reply will you get
from Horatio Herbert Kitchener? NJ
smile, no frown-nothing but that same
level, still. unmoved glance that has been
cast over drill grounds in little villages,
over battle scenes and over crowds OF
shouting, enthusiasm-drunken multitudes,
striking their ardor cool within them.
II any man in England had asked any
other we'll Informed man in England TWEEN
ty-fve years ago, who is Kitchener" the
answer probably would have been a polite
shrug OF the shoulders. There were ter
times ten hundred young Englishmen like
him scattered around the world and It's
seas, and doing the work Of the empire
we'll or Ill, and in either case unknown and
unheeded, except for the heavy oficial ma
chine that fed them out and checked them
of and kept records of them as they gave
bone and sinew and life for the thing that
men call a government and a country.
His history up to that time was that
Of most Of the other young men whom
England sends away from home to build
for her greatness. His father was a sol.
der Of no very high rank. He managed
TO climb to the lieutenant colency OF a
dragon regiment, the Thirteenth. a good
hard riding, straight fighting band. Little
kitchener was born in ireland. but he "a
more French than Irish, for Lieutenant
Colonel Kitchener was a Suffolk man ant
Mrs. Kitchener was a Cavalier anC
descended straight from patrician French
Huguenots.
The boy grew up like all English boyI
OF his class. One day he was sent ava
from home TO learn to be a royal engineer
And an engineer he became and an engi
neer he remained and an engineer he Is.
great, steady, unfaltering piston rod Of
man this-driving along in absolute con
sonance with the throbbing OF the vas
machine of fate. What is there in enEt
Aeering that produces so nan fighting
men? We have had them here and England
is full Of them there.
Certainly there was little In Kitchener
early surroundings to provoke fighting
blood. AS a royal engineer. he was trotte,
around to various unendingly peaceabl
lands to view them through the glass 4
his theodolite and measure them with IN
steel tape and otherwise disport himself
So We see him doing in the four years from
1874 to 1878. 1t is hard to conceive nov
ST.