The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-05-13
MR.. sTEAD's SKETCH OF CECIL JOHN
RHODES.

Mr.. w. T. Stead was an intimate
friend and oonfdant of Cecil Rhodes,
and for years was ~intrusted with the
great South Africans imperial
secrets. Only a part of Mr.. Stead's
disclosures made since the death of
Rhodes has been given to the daily
press, but the whole story is told for
the first time in the May number of
the American Monthly Review of
Reviews. There will be found the
full text of the remarkable notes on
world politics written by Mr.. Rhodes
in 1890, commenting with the great
est freedom on current American
affairs, and giving some suggestion
of the ideas which underly the Ok
ford scholarship scheme. Nowhere
else has been published so complete
and authoritative an estimate of this
modern Colossus of the English
speaking world.
From Mr.. Stead's article we make
the following extracts:
THE CATASTROPHE IN CECIL RHODES
CAREER.
South Africa was at peace. Every
where Mr.. Rhodes was in the ascend
ant. de was the trusted leader of
the Afrikander Dutch, and, as such,
as absolute in Cape Town as he was
in Kimberley. At home he was the
idol of the imperialists, wEile the
Irish regarded him as the man who
financed Mr.. Parnell. Liberals and
Conservative YES alike did him honor.
The Queen, on the advice of Lord
Rosebery, made him a member of
her Privy Council. Never had any
colonist, seldom had any British sub.
jeot, achieved in his fortieth year so
commanding a position az that which
Mr.. Rhodes occupied in the summer
of 1895
1t was the eliminating point of his
career. In six months the imposing
pedestal on which he stood crashed
beneath his feet and although moth
ing could obliterate the work which
he had done, OF destroy the indie,
struotible greatness of his character
and the influence which it exerted
among those who knew him, he was
never again the master of events. Is
is easy to see how he made lis fatal
blunder. Pride, Rs usual, went be-
fore she fall, and the haughtiness
bred by continued ucoess and almost
miraculous achievement paved the
way to'hIs destruction. DIR. Jameson
had triumphed over the Matabele
horde. Why should he not be trusted
when he reported that Johannesburg
was ripe for revolution shat Kruger's
rule was so detested that at leas6
one half of the Beers themselves
only waited for an opportunity to
tLro is off and that if Mr.. Rhodes
did not seize the moment in order to
direct the movement, the insurrec-
ton would take place without him,
with a result more deadly to British
ambitions than the continuance of
President Ringers rule?
MI. Rhodes believed that he had
the Dutch of the Cape and of the
Free State at his back. They sup
ported him against Kruger in the
Drifts question. Why not trust
them to condone the rough lnsurrec-
tionary remedy by which Kruger
was to be upset, and an honest presi-
dent established in his place? If he
had been left to himself, he would
have either discovered his mistake in
time, or he would have carried the
thing through. The whole blame for
the miscarriage of the plot lies at the
door of a colonial policy that first
wrecked the ~insurrection by insisting
upon the annexation of the republic,
and then precipitated the raid by in
spring kilograms 80 the Cape urging
the need for immediate action.
THE AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIPS PRO
vIDED BY HIS WILL.
His original conception of his will
was TO leave the whole of his prop.
erty, without any restrictions, to be
administered by the sole discretion
of one, two, or three personal friends.
As for eight years l was n of three
to whom his millions were left in
joint tenancy, 1 have perhaps as
good opportunities of knowing his
mind on this matter as any one. 1t
was while on board the steamer,
midway between Cape Town and