Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1936-01-26
New Ruler Real Asset


on a dusty country road along which
he was motoring alone. The man
thanked him and asked him his name.
Il am the Prince of Wales" said
H. R. H. You don't say?" exclaimed
the motorcyclist. We'll, meet the
King of England
Next day there was reception in
big city and the motorcyclist was in
the line to shade hands as a war
veteran. He blushed. But the prince
grinned Glad to meet you. Dad he
murmured, and shook the king"
warmly by the hand.
Life's Routine Changed.
He was camping in the wilds of
central Africa when the jungle tele-
graph brought him news of his fathers
first serious illness, and back he came,
by car, steamship, rail. battle cruiser
and airplane, faster than anyone had
ever covered that trail before
The shock of that illness of his
father forced him for the first time
definitely and seriously to confront
the prospect of an early accession to
the throne. Obviously. it meant a new
and more restricted life for him. With
in the scaffolding Of his public duties
he had been accustomed to doing
pretty well as he liked. Overnight he
changed his whole mode of life.
He gave up steeplechasing, sold his
hunters, left the hunting box he had
Oh 1x-,t 80
hard-riding fox-hunting country Of
Leicestershire. 1t must nave been hard
when the foxes began to run and
hounds were out and mis- friends came
back in the evening, flushed and ex-
cited, with talk of good hunts. But
he had learned resource and self
management. and next season he
eased things for himself by clearing
of to Africa to shoot big game as soon
as the fox-hunting season opened.
He took council on the subject of
exercise and adipose tissue. He had
been taking too much out of himself
with exhauSting sweats and long
games of squash rackets. He replaced
them by bout of physical jerks night
and morning. and golf. He acquired
his own country house 80 miles out
side London close to Windsor Castle
and one Of Englands finest golf
courses, and served by a private land
ing field which he had made for his
planes Che has six now He had his
bachelor quarters in York House. st.
James Palace, done over He culti-
tJofod ty,fo tn, VII
dening.
Nervousness Fades.
And the net result of this reorien-
tation of pastimes and games and
habits was a marked increase in his
reserves of energy and the disappear
ance Of those nervous symptoms which
upo noccasion would become quite dis
tressing to watch-the restless glance,
the hand necessarily plucking at his
tie, the jerky movement Of the head;
all signs of a tight-strung nervous sys-
tenn too highly taxed.
He grew steadily calmer, more as
sured, less restless, stronger, and. one
would say, comparing the look of the
prince in his new phase to that of the
pIAhSC VI Vic OlN piiASO, lldPPASA oIlu
more equable.
He also improved out of all recog-
milton as a speaker. There were no
more read, blah-blah or formal
speeches. He nearly always had some
thing to say, and he said it concisely,
in clear decisive voice which ex-
pressed stronger and more pungent
personality, and came as vigorously
over the radio as Bernard Shaws
land that is saying lot).
If you trace him back in the record,
against the background of England's
political and economic life, you find it
was somewhere around 1880, and his
36th year, that he achieved the real
stature of national spokesman and
leader. England was in a bad mess
at this time, and increasingly one
heard the suggestion, in public and
private, that if things go much worse
the. only escape from collapse or fas-
cism would be national coalition
with the Prince of Wales as leader.
This notion of royal Mussolini to
save England from quarreling politi-
clans and an ineffective Parliament
was widely discussed prior to the for
nation of the Baldwin Macdonald
national coalition (Which might never
Continued on Eighth Pase).