The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-03-27
RHODES WAS TRULY GREAT.
John Hays HammOnd's Estimate of the
Commonwealth Builder.

NEW YORK, March 26.-John Hays Ham
mond, who was for many years and up TO
the time of the death of Cecil Rhodes, init
mately associated with him in the develop
ment of South Africa, and who was con-
sulting engineer of the British South Africa
Chartered Company and the consolidated
gold fields of South Africa, in which Mr..
Rhodes held important interests. had this
to say of Mr.. Rhodes:
'Mr. Rhodes, whose sun went down when
it was yet day, dies in the forty-seventh
year Of his age. He leaves no posterity,
but leaves his name on the map of Africa
Rhodesia), sponsor for a commonwealth
nearly as large as our Western States. Had
he lived he would have devoted the remain
ing years of his life and would have spent
every dollar of his fortune in equipping
tina commonwealth.
Unfortunately. his character has been
misunderstood in America. Judged by
American standards, Mr.. Rhodes was truly
a great man. He was not only a great en-
pire builder, but also a captain of industry
He was oftener reported as a shifty, un-
scrupulOuS inancier, in league with capl-
talists TO coax the Transvaal into a hope
less war I'm order to steal the mines OF the
country. He was also reported as giving his
entire life to the amassing or large wealth
and ready to employ the most unScrupu-
lous methods to that end. But by even the
most bitter Of his enemies conversant with
the facts, such allegations are repudiated.
1.-The truth is that Rhodes cared little for
money beyond the power IL gave him 10 as
sist in the development of South Africa.
From a most Intimate connection with him
in his business enterprises, i am able TO
state that his methods of finance were not
only scrupulously honorable. but were
characterized by unusual liberality. He was
known to South Africans as a man of I'M
bounded generosity and one on whom they
could depend for the furtherance of any
deserving local enterprise or worthy char-
ity:
in his tastes. and a colonial in his political
and social bias. He was fond of the simp-
Ter and better pleasures of life, devoted
especially to Out-of-dOor life on the veldt
and had a contempt for and dislike of social
conventionalities. He was a man of innate
refinement and culture and a graduate or
oxford. Rhodes had an indomitable spirit
and logged perseverance. He was imagina-
tive, but was not a mere visionary. He was
built on broad lines and he abhOrred petty
politics, which he contemptuously desig-
and he deprecated quite as strongly what
he termed the 'unctuOuS rectitude' of GER
tain statesmen. Politically, he was a great
admirer of democratic Institutions, but at
the same time he was a loyal imperiallst.
Rhodes had his defects and faults, but
these will not obscure the glory of his name.
Great men, il is said, are made of faults.
OF one thing there can be no doubt. that
Rhodes's ideals were pure and lofty; and L
believe that history will deal rather with
his ideals than with his achievements and
methods; and that he will. therefore, rank
high among the great men Of the nineteenth
century. Cecil Rhodes found in the medita-
lions of Marcus Aurelius many aspirations
for his own career.
Until the unfortunate Jameson raid, for
which he has received far more blame than
he deserved, as history will prove. he was
very popular with the Dutch of South
Africa. Within a very short time there
would have been a revulsiOn of feeling,
and, strange as it may sound to-day,
Rhodes would have been able to re-estab-
lish his influence with the Dutch: and he
of the situation, and would have passed
into history as the great paciicator of
South Africa. This estimate of Rhodes is
shared even to-day by many of the progress
siVe Dutchmen in the country"