Evening star., 1944-02-06
H. 6. Wells Urges
|Democracies 10 Spurn
'Riff-Raff' Royalty

III. @. Wells, Great Britains
distinguished nouelist and his
toridn, urges the Allied democ-
r1cies to close the door os. the
/ great majority of kings, princes
and selt-Gppointed leaders, ,Dhons
he terms undesirable human
| rif-ra1.")
BY H. G. WELLS,
Written for North American Newspaper
/ Alliance.
LONDON.-There is a huge and
overwhelming reality facing us to-
day, which nowadays we speak of
as science" That relentless, skep-
tical inquiry into accepted beliefs
and methods has. almost entirely
abolished distance and made events
simultaneous throughout the world,
while at the same time putting such
a stupendous amount of physical
power, for good or evil, into the
hands Of mankind-still infantile,
still unawakened-as completely to
change the human outlook. To
those who can see reality plain, it
is fiat cloice between mans going
up to new stage of existence, or
blowing himself up altogether.
That is where growing minority
of us are torn between impatience
and anger and a desperate hope.
We are urgent to see those first
creative words fully implemented for
all men: Let there be light; and
we view with a mounting resent
ment the lawless miscellany of
kings, princes, fuehrers, dictators,
self-appointed leaders, infallible
teachers and the like, who are strug-
Cling even now to exploit the child
ish trustfulness and loyalty" of un-
enlightened men.
| Excepts British Crown.
When I say kings" I except the
British crown. I happen to be a
republican myself-as countryman
of Cromwell, Milton, Shelley and a
multitude of others-but 1 recognize
that the British monarchy has long
been in theory and is nowadays also
Loyalty and practically under the
law. The King acts only upon the
advice of his responsible Ministers,
and that is the essence of the Brit
ish position.
We forget that this is quite excep-
tional and that the kings and so
forth that our tories bolster up
abroad are essentially different
from the British monarchy. Most
OF these other kings, princes,
claimants and pretenders, usually
with the support of some gang of
financial adventures, with their
little bogus courts and their dynas-
tic claims, are now an unmitigated
nuisance.
Mostly they are Germans at one
or two removes. Maybe the Nor
wegian and the Swedish monarchies
are practically harmless and honest,
and, since there are. people who
seem to like to kiss hands, see no
reason why there shouldn't be clean
hands available for the. purpose, but
the rest of these Peters and Georges
and Pauls and Carlos and prince
and princess this and the grand
duchess of that are entirely un-
desirable human riff-raff.
As to Stand BY Press.
1t is high time the united democ-
racies, the press that more or less
voices their views and the foreign
offices that profess to serve them
made it plain to these royalties that
the safest career before them is to
get out OF our light.
Just as the new lovelies, who are
exhibiting their charms as leaders"
the various revivalists Of the Bou-
langer tradition, who are pester-
ing now to be given military equip
ment OF their very own, which they
manifestly intend to use against us,
will be wise to try vanishing cream
While it is still available. Their
antics endanger the lives and hap
plress of hundreds of millions. Life
grows grim and realistic everywhere.
and certain ruthleSsness is creep
ing into the behavior of long-suffer-
ing common men.
tCopyrisht 1914, by H. G. Wells Transla-
tion rights reserved)