Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-21

once went through the passion for the
world Standing there on stOried 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 khartOum?
Men who know him as we'll as he permits
men to know him say emphat icaIly Yes"
They say that this man is a man consumed
with ambition. consumed the more that he
Keeps its fires deep pent within him and
does not let the world see so much as a
CLEAN of their flames. They say that from
his youth he moved steadily, unrestingly
never to be turned aside. toward the prize
that his ambition had marked out for him.
II ne did not dream of being Lord of Khar-
tourn, be sure he dreamed-nay knew that
he was to be a lord of men somewhere
somehow Concerning all which specula-
ton. what reply Will you get from Horatio
Herbert Kitchener? No 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.
Who Was Hep
II any man in England had asked any
other well informed man in England twen-
ty-five years ago who is Kitchener" the
answer probably would have been a polite
shrug of the shoulders. There We're ten
times ten hundred young Englshmen ike
him scattered around the world and its
seas, and doing the work of the empire
well or i'll. and in either case unknown and
UNDECIDED, except for the heavy official ma
chine that fed them out and checked them
off and kept records of them as they gave
bone and sinew and life for the thing that
men call a government and country
HIS history up to that time was that of
most Of the other young men whom Eng
land sends away from home to build for
her greatness. His father was a soldier of
no very nigh rank He managed to climb
to the lieutenant colonelcy of a dragon
regiment, the 18th, good, hard-riding
strengthening band. Little Kitchener
was born in Ireland. but he is more French
than irish, for Lieutenant Colonel Kitch-
ener was Suffolk man and Mrs Kitchener
was a chevalier and descended straight
from patrician French Huguenots
The boy grew up like all English boys OF
MS class one day he was sent away from
nome 10 learn to be royal engineer And
an engineer he became, and AN engineer he
remained, and an engineer he is. A great,
steady, unfaltering piston rod of a man this
driving along In absolute consonance with
the throbbing of the vast machine of fate
what is there in engineering that produces
so many fighting men? We have had them
here. and England is full Of them there
certainly there was little in kitchener's
early surroundings to provoke fighting
blood As Royal Engineer he was trotte6
around TO various unendingly peaceabIe
iandS 20 view them through the glass in his
theodOhte and measure them with a steel
tape and otherwise disport himself So we
See him doing in the four years from 1874
10 1919 III is hard to conceive now that
much of the typographical knowledge of
the Holy Land that is possessed by the world
Today Is owing TO the work of the man who
since then has been depicted in European
prints as hanger of men, a slayer of abes
and scourger of women.
II Cyprus.
In 1873 England, in the methodical move
ment of her red tape machine sent him to
Cyprus, where he did something or an
other about the organization of the land
courts England had only Just acquired
Cyprus, and there was lots OF dull deadly
monotonous work to do. He remained
there, off and on. until 1882
Imagine the man who was to be Nv Lord
khartoum. sitting in his hot office in that
year, listening to the drone of a sleepy COM
plainant, and a still more sleepy defendant
both quarreling about a matter concerning
which truth lay at the bottom of a well far
too deep for human sounding-and not three
hundred miles away British guns roaring
and British shells laundering at Alexandra
and young Condor Beresford lying under
fire and having the time of his life and
big history making all around.
Now II Is almost an established fact that
one Kitchener did witness the lombard
ment Of Alexandria. 1t Is a completely es-
tablished fact that there is no official rec
ord Of giving any Kitchener leave to go
away from Cyprus. But Cyprus did not
suffer. nor did the bombardment.
Ihen things began to happen fast and
furious IN Egypt. And then did a certain
brick red, bony and almost unpleasantly ST.
leat youth rage In high quarters against
law courts and civil organization and office
work IN Cyprus, where man had to wear