The New York herald., 1922-12-31

Captain Coghlan was not reprimanded,
after ALL
But neither Wilhelm ii. nor the Ger
man Ambassador, nor Secretary Hay, nor
the Navy Department, nor all of them
combined could suppress "Hoch der
KAISER That masterpiece had been
lifted suddenly into immortality. 1t had
found fit interpreter at a supremely fl:
moment, and it's fame was secure. Yet
nobody knew the name of it's author, or
where it had first appeared 1t was just
one of those fugitive poems, those name
less orphans, which drift through the col
umns of the press, their origin shrouded
in mystery, and which eventually drop
from sight unless preserved for posterity
by some such accident as had befallen
this one.
Rodney Blake, which was a pseudonym
used by William Montgomery Clemens,
included it in a collection of After dinner
Verse;" and for a while he was credited
with being its author. Then somebody
claimed that it had been written by a
wandering newspaperman named A. VI. r.
Gordon but presently it was discovered
ever, it was the pseudonym of the real
author, Alexander Macgregor Rose, and
the whole story at last came out of
Montreal. Canada, where Rose had written
the poem during the last year of his life.
and where he had died.
1t is an everlasting pity that "Hoch!
der KAISER does not belong to American
ifar at11ra hut n Ixya
man, and first appeared in the columns
of the Daily Herald of Montreal, Canada.
1t is to the editor of the Herald that the
present writer is indebted for most of the
following information about Roses life.
Alexander Macgregor Rose was born
in the village of Tomantoul. South Banff-
shire, Scotland, on August Z, 1876. After
attending the village school, he went 20
the grammar school at Aberdeen, where in
1868 he gained the Macpherson bursary
of twenty pounds. He entered the Uni
versity of Aberdeen the same year, and
finished his arts course in the spring
of 1867 During the next three years he
was classical master at boarding schools
in different parts of England and in 1870
was appointed master of the Free Church
School of Gairlock, Rossshire. Soon after
ward he began the study of divinity, and
in 1875 was licensed as a minister His
reputation seems to have been excellent.
for almost Immediately on September 3,
1875, he was ordained as minister of the
Free Church of Evie and Randall at
Orkney.
And here we come to the great tragedy
of Roses life.
Up to this point his life reads like a
chapter out of the biography of any en-
inent Scotsman: an orderly progress, per-
sistent, thoroughly Scotch through school
and college to the natural and inevitable
haven of the church; studious and labor
iOus years leading to the ministry at the
age Of twenty -nine-a good age, neither
so young as to be foolish, nor so old as to
feel oneself slipping behind in the battle
of life; position respected and influential,
assuring a comfortable livelihood, and
thoroughly congenial to one of scholarly
tastes. So the future of the Reverend
Alexander Macgregor Rose seemed to
stretch fair and straight before him, along
a predestined and thoroughly Presbyterian
path.
But four years later he cast all this
aside, changed his name to Gordon, for
swore the ministry, and became a wan
derer upon the face of the earth
No one knew why-at least no one I'm
America. In Orkney, of course, the affair
created an immense sensation, as any
scandal connected with the church was