The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1937-01-21

Behind this " the TACT that Tor
the first time in years the faith
Of the British people IN the Grown
has been shaken profoundly.
Their monarch, once held up to
them as b sacred symbol, Is now
revealed as subject to all the
human frailties, possibly more
frail than some other humans.
70 the little group Of aristo.
Gratis, the ruling class IN Britain,
this approaches tragedy. Sudden
~ they looked over the precipice
to see the possibility Of their
system, their fol-de-rol and court
trappings, their right TO New
Years honors and assured IN.
comes. slipping beneath them.
Edward Taboo
Result Is that In England to-
day the name Of Edward VIII Is
almost taboo. In the side streets
Of London you may hear small
boys singing:
'Hark the herald angels sing.
Mrs. simpson pinched our
King!'
But aside from this, Edward
VIII Is as dead as william the
Conqueror, as far as England Is
concerned.
The press Of Europe may be be-
sieging the ex.king at the gates
Of the Rothschild estate. Mrs.
Simpson may be threatening law
suits against her newspaper
biographers, the Continent may be
specializing regarding the matr!-
monial intentions Of the Duke
but in England there Is grim
and frigid silence.
Correct circles in England have
put out the idea that Edward was
a weakling who did not play the
game, and the British public has
turned on Its idol.
George vi
However, building up George
VI TO be a grand and glorious
King of England Is harder Job
than the British aristocracy reck-
oned with. =
AS Duke. Of York, George Yves
never popular. People made no
secret about 1t. They considered
him a dumbbell.
Worse than that, he was hem
pecked. He married q woman
who IL an aristocrat Of the
aristocrats, whose father at first
objected to the marriage because
he considered IL . comed0wn
for his family. The father,
es-Lyon, not only heads the
oldest family in Scotland but is
the forrest Tory in the United
Kingdom. He believes that
change Is akin TO evil. And his
daughter, who inherits her faith
er's conservatism, completely
dominates the new King Of
England.
The British ruling classes are
making the best Of a bad job. So
far they have done fairly well.
They are painting George vi as
the perfect constitutional monarch,
the image Of his father. Stories,
photographs, news hints constantly
are being fed out to the press
that George is safe, sane, solid,
always to be depended upon, sure
to obey the beck and call Of Par
lament and what Is more import
tant Of the little group of aris-
tocrats who really rule England.
George vi will spend his life
laying cornerstones and making
speeches carefully prepared for
him In advance-AND THAT Is
ALL.
Inside Reason?
People outside of England still
are specializing about the real be-
hind-the-scenes reason for Ed
wards abdication. For once, how
ever, there is none. His abdica-
tion was caused chiefly by two
forces which were as plain as the
nose on your face:
/. The Church and the strong
sense of moral conventionality
which prevails in England.
2. The constitutional issue
the fact that the British public
clings tenaciously to the prin-
ciple that the King must obey
his Cabinet and Parliament.
There was one inside factor,
however, which while not suffiv
Client TO Dust the King, was i'm
portant. This was the distrust Of
the English aristocracy for Ed
ward. They knew they could not
control him. They never could
tell what he was going to do.
He shocked them profoundly
when he visited the Karl Marx
Hof in Vienna, socialist tenement
erected In honor Of the man
who preached class revolution.
He upset the Foreign Office
when, while vacationing with Mrs.
Simpson along the Adriatic last
summer, he paid q visit to Mus
tapha Renal Aataturk. dictator
of Turkey. This started rumors
Of q British Turkish alliance.
Argentine AffrOnt
He was always throwing away
carefully prepared speeches and
improvising OF, his own. He did
this once, much to the embarrass-
ment Of the Foreign Office, dur
ing . visit Of an Argentine en-
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