Evening Star Newspaper, September 19, 1926, Page 80

2 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. _C. SEPTEMBER 19, 1926—PART 5. Great Washington Editor Helped to Lay Unitarian Foundations BY MARGARITA SPALDING GERRY. HE national convention of the Unitarian Layman's League. now in progress in this city calls attention to the value. both to the Natlon and to ‘Vrashington itself, of the group of men -who were the founders of that eral church In this city. Of the 27 who organized that first congregation, ‘Willlam Winston Seaton. nine times mayor of Washington and for half a century cevn'ed to {ts service, prob ably did more for this city than any other man. And since those who knew him best couid not conceive of him without the faith that pervaded his whole lite, it seems fitting to retrace the steps of & very noble life while so many who think as he thought are mesting in the city of his devotion. There when an évolutionist can discover, Jn hereditary traits, the modifying effect of environment. If there wna uality that tent in W, saton ft wa< lovalty. And W For “the Seatons lineal de. were al- very name. whom our mAyor was a scendant in the old coun ways devoted adherents And that Henry Seaton of (ta who emigrated to this country left his own land only when it was evi: y dent tha! there would he no retrial of the Stuart cause. In loyalty attached itsel: well as to persons From tke first the a new country RKeatnne held a high place among the ~olonial gen- in King Onr mayer's try. Henry Seaton settled William County. Virginia. mother was a sister of Col. Winston of Revolutionary fame. whose tiful_estate was in Stokas N. C.. and the “Winsion™ served in the nephew’s name enthusiasms of voung Seaton’s boy- Poad were about equally d'vided he tween study and the chage. and this balance hetween Intellertual interes and wholesome pleasures was charac- intic of his whole life The hoy was very young when he began his rhosen work of .|’m| nalism. first in Richmoend. then St. Petersburg, Va. But evén In h first independent venture in 1807 editor of a paper in Halifax, N n- he showed the qualities of hravery. rectitude and 1easonahleness tha: was pre doubly remarkable In so young and | vivid a man, were to hecome- the dominating forces of an amazingly syfmmetrical personality. Courage =n often degenerates Into rashness, hurling {tself against too great oh stacles, is impotent. But with vouny Seaton the cavalier spirit enforced success because of its uprightnes: and succese hecause of an unde standing of the point of view of other men. The pitfall of almest spectacular good looke, alwo, falled 1o} trip up hia busy feet, and an en gaging vouthful difidence made very evident ability disarming, instead of as sometimes happens when youth 18 to the fore—almost an offense. Certainly every possible gifi. native | and acquired, was needed for this par ticular post. politics in the early days of the re- public is today almest impossibie to comprehend. Men wera moved to the height of passion, often to murderons passion. Newspapers were hostile manifestoes; an editor was a salient of personal danger. This was the pe riod of transition from the almost pure federalism of the eariy —emphasizing the necessity of a strong national governmeni—to that doctrine of the sovereignty of the common man. which, whether called “republicaniem,” a8 it was at that early period, or ‘‘democracy,” as it has since been linked with the name | of Jefferson, has alwavs contended against the force of centraliization to produce that still experimental ba ance of opposing forces which we term & republic. I North Carolina W. W volced Republican principies in a Btate which was preponderantly eral. Some of the party leadera were more of the nature of wnat we call “gunmen” today than of the politi- clan whose legérdemaln is effective with votes rather than with bulle * x x % The task to which Seaton dedicated | himeelf was “to eurh the fiery opposi- | tion, to_obtain from his opponents a candid discussion of the political ques- tions at {&sue, to charge valorously againet the pure federalism of which this region has been Reretofore the stronghold and to transfer its alle- giance to republicanism.” One must admit that to do this re. quired a stout arm and a cool head. alwave a sense of triumph one there i the speli of old-world lovaliles in his from the Stuarts, r-Mitton, in 1888, to principles as heau- County, The or. | The virulence af party | republic | Seaton w. W, EATON. No one who had hunted with young aton would doubt the strong arm the cool head, either. But the task required siill more - lie contagion fire of youth for the fdeal into which | it has poured all of ite generons he. | 1ief in humaenity. With all this am munition in the sling.shot of voun, David—and such singilar gond looks and such prepossessing manners —how 11d the wobb!y federalist Goliath failt to tumble? “There can ne no doubt." ays the Atlantic Monthly in summar {izing his ecaveer in 1860 for our | Mayor Seaton was then of national importance - “that he who made a | change so radical conducted paper | | with spirit. vet he must have done %o | | with that wise and winning modera tion and fairness which have since dis. | tinguished him.* One might be inclined to place this | youth, so afire with zeal, i the never- | intriguing class of prigs, if there were | not extant appealing evidence of hoth | vouthful indiscretion and yvouthful candor. Personal pepularity drew him | into all the amusements of the day ir Roger de Coverly (who remembers that isa dance?), following the hound: private theatricals, whist —that naiv progeniior of bridge—and punch- that ruddy ancestor of present.day pale, strance brews. And sometimes these had disconcerting effects “A rubber and punch Iast evening," he wrote his sweetheart. Sarah Gales in a mood proverblally appropriate to | the occasion. (His account hook that same “morning after” confirms the statement with “medicine. 25 cents.”) “Suffering with a headache, hypo- chondria. ennui, home or rather heart | sickness——I must have sent vou a re- | freshing account of my recent peram- bulations and adventures. However, I might as well attribute all my af- flictions to the primary causes—wine | and_tobacco.” | Theatricals he shone 1n. And on one occaslon, when Aaron Rurr was {in the a nee, Chief Justice Mar- { shall actually shed tears over the | tragedy, then laughed until, again, the tears ran down his face over Seaton's | comedy. But soon after this Halifax experlence, Seaton married the sym- | pathetic girl to whom he had confess- ed himself and came to Washington to live. The major work of his life be- gan when, with Joseph Gales, his brother-in-law, he pubnshed a tri- weekly paper, first called the Intelli gencer and Natlonal Advertiser, later the National Intellizencer. The Gales family, into which young W. W. Seaton married, was o insep- arably connected with his career and n | 5| &l i | wine | be true and proclaimed only that some titution, locally and nationally mention must here be made o its distinguighing pointe. Gales, its founder in this country, had heen n fepriese exponent of Hheral thought and a protesier ngainst huses in Fngiand. His paper, the wefffeld Regisier. was ohnoXiots to George 111 hecavse it printed fres the revolutionary pamphieis of Thomas Pa Thus, while Seaton had ex- paiviated himself for motives o SOy loyalty, Gales bho an for opinion’s ‘sake, W sor scops n thia country, Galea » A man great influonce and finallv esiab- hed the Regisior in Phitadeiphia. On paper voung Seaton worked, and throuzh this connectios he made the acquicntance Joseph Gales, jr., iricnd hip wae o merge into brotherhood and hecome I ing throughont liie: and of Sarah Gales, with whom ha made a mar- riage whose “loveliness and good re- Dol were treasured as a personal pride and possession hy the commu- nity.” v por- exile hoeay * x % ’rluj assoclation of these two fami- lies, and their unity, is of o in- spiring a character that a digression in which one dwells upon it is really an elucidation. Joseph Galeg, ji married the'davghier of Gen. Harry Lee. Gales was well read, an accom- plished elocut and—what was 1ather an i 2wt that time—a stenographer, in: -ummug irto Wash- ington the ‘sienographic report of congressional debaies. Most that is now known of congressional elo- quence durlng ihoss early days was due to Gales and Seaton. Most im- portant of all was Gales' insistence at the condict of affairs must be ace cording to principie: ‘It is the dears est right and ought to be cherished as the proudest prerogative of the fres man to be guided by the unbiased conviction of his own judgment. This right it = my firm purpose to main- tain and to preserve invinlate the In- dependence of the print, now commit- ted to my hand.” The most extraordinary this proclamation is that it was ac- tually carried into effect, year bv year; word by word: precept hy pre- cept. The Intelligencer published only what the two men helieved to that in be- feature of wh , with all their force, they lieved. Thus hegan the inspiring history of the tri-weekly paper that Is generally and afféctionately spoken of as the was, in itself, so outstanding an in- Intelligencer, a publication that main- Joseph | tained for 50 vears a dignity and an influence in this country that was cer- | tainly unique, even if the character of | journalism has 2o changed that it is | impossible to find & common basis on | which to found a comparison with | | Inter publications. Certainly. for a | | long period, it had no cotempora whose rivalry it need fear. One mem- ber of -the Gales-Seaton partnership | | sat at the right hand of the Vie President ‘during Senate proceedings: | the other at the vight hand of the Speaker of the House. Prevent, more- over. at informal discussions of publte | topies, in urbane session over the | &nuffhox, their unoffivial infAluence was | potent in national affairs and secured | | a degree of consideration for local af- fairs that has never since been equal- ed. Their Influence was founded solely on the unanestioned integrity of these | men as well ar on their clearness snd sanity of judgment. on bellef in thelr public spirit and admiration for their unhounded charity. “As men they have given away tn the poor money almost to build a city: and to the un fortunate snoken words enough 1o fill a librars,” says one cotemporary. There is a story that makes of them a curions living parallel of Dick ens' Cherryble brothers. A" jou nalist down on his luck came | to the Intelligencer for a job. After the formal interview in the office. Seaton tank the man aside to say: “We have no position for you; Intelligencer funds are at low ehh. | But out of my private purse Tl be | glad to advance you something—but | | don't tell Gales:” As he wus the huilding { after this interview « hurrind recon- noiter of Gales resilted in o whisper- | ed: “Can't draw on Intelligencer. Bad timea. But—If yowll promise not to tell Reaton, whom I've heen trying hard to keep from elving eversthing he had away—here's a trifie that may help out.” And this unity of two familles, sharing a common pursé — sometimes ful'. sometimes Almort empty—lasted for more than 40 years, during 30 of | which there was no accounting! When the very recently married Seatons reached Washington in 1812, however, achievement existed only in their two hiuovant and happy imagi- nations—and at that, as different in choracter as f& invariably the lite that Iz planned from the structure that I reaved with the hard facts of Lfe n& huilding hlocks. The Wash- [ Ingica of that day, too, could do| i ot of the same kind of im- | | ninative giamonr! It was the seat ot Goversment of a potentially great | repubic, i1 48 trne, but In itx physica | Ipaving e last- | | were welcome: | in | had ramped out tn an unfinished. un- manifestaticn it was desolate in the extreme. Th> not yet united wings of the Capitol were at one extreme.’| the President's i{ouse at the other: acattered between 2 few public hnild- inge and a score «r so of private | awellings, from Gréenleaf's Point to Georgetown, over rurcl hills and along the banks of a sluggish stream --"Goose-Creek once and Tyher now." It was forlornness itself, with its unopensd streets and avenues, its deep morasses and its vast area red with trees instead of houses. Put Mr. and” Mrs. Seaton by a'l'that was beat of peculinr interest to their keen Intelligence, hecause it wa# In the making. They were not s much concerned with the topog- Aphy And architecture of their new 10me Ak with paople and possibilities. | Youne. supremely happy. endowed | with the charm of the &outh and | with the hest in the way of educa- | ion that the country had to offer, | hey plunged with enthusinsm into | he iniellectual and social lite of the | city, This neriod wos the first of any- | hing like hril'fancy in the new capital of the Nitlon. The Adams | younz a sociery furnished, only partially heated barn | of a “rresilent’s House™ for bharely two months in 1801: the successor practice of “Jeffersonian s mplicity" | ouiraged the diplomatic representa f tives. and was hard on the furniture; | 1t remained for the Madiaons to re- | Store something of the appropriate | form and dignity established by Washington, & * X k% | RS, 8F 1\1 often g TON'S letters, which | fhe cotemporary the most valuable of | arcounts of the co-| cial life of tne time, heing keen, un- affected and without constraint, also | reflact vivid enjoyment of the festiv ities and hoth iiking and respect for | “‘Her Majesty,” as she entitles Mr: Madison. The President's house, alsc, | has hecome “The Pelace.” and form and etiquette are de rigueur. “As I| have not yet heen presented to her | majesty,” Mrs, Seaton writes to her mother, “and it not being etiquette | to appear in publfe until that cere.| mony he performed. he (Mr. Seaton) preferred to remain with me.” Of | Hon. Sir Charles and Lady Bagot. the British Minister and his wife, she comments: “Very handsome, both of them.” But in a further description of the same hall in which these digni- tavies fignred together with her hus-- band: “William looked uncommonly handsome. and. a8 it was a matter of general remark, vou will not accuse me of wifely partiality when I say that. THE OLD ALL SOU ALL SOULS' Out of the numberless acts of puh lic service in which W. W. Seaton's long life waa passed it is possible to choose only the most sigrificant. For there was no worthy movement in the early life of the city of which he was not an important part. For Unitarians, his part in the organiza. tion of their liberal faith and in the erection of the First Unitarian Church is particularly inspiring. This wAa on Sixth and D streets. Quite apart from its religious tenets, the ehurch had an important place in the Wash | ington of those days. For there were | but two or three other places of wor- ship and none of ite dignity or beauty. Charles BRulfinch, one of the hest architects of the day. dexigned it; and ita bell, cast fn the Revere Foundry, rang the whole neighborhood to sery CHURCH, FOURTEENTH AND L b : ‘*il«:x & e i t n | whose "eloquence { among tance to the Natlon | rian Chureh was Lwith W {when Lafavette. n warm friend. paid A visit to this eity in 1824, M wrote 1o her mother with ce—the only bell within & great 4 ance. Its membership ineludi many lifelong friends of the Seatons, thess men of prime impor The Firet Unita b strong A factor W. Seaton and his wife that Seaton “Lafayette goes us to church nest Sunday, he. ng desirous of hearing Mr. Little, of he has heard «o | much.” e SEATON ‘also promoted indefatizn bly the project of the Washington Monument, the corner stone of which was laid during his mayoralty -the intense heat of the day, by the wav. proving a_contributory death was, | agent | fund. | Englishman while he had never heen to thix conn tr ing to the fact that the indicated piy canse of the Taylor. And he strongest single the Smithsonian by an who, of President perhaps. the in resening donated to this country named Smithson, felt its great opportunities. Ow | pose of the gift “for the advancement ‘I‘RFET NORT HWFbT as he waltzed the Spanish dance-with Mrs. John Quincy Adams, he was the | most elegant man in the assembly not excepting the guest of the eve. ning.” Of & later period. when political up- heaval put another type of executive in the saddle, Mrs. Seaton comments: “I suppose there has never heen in the city so many plain women in every sense of the word as are now here among the families of official personages. T have heard it asserted | without contradiction that nothing | No doubt ! " CHURCH. lof an attack on Washington. easiar than to learn to he a fin Iady, but I hegin to think differently The voung publishers had barely had time to make the sveight of their | fearlessness and Integrity felt in the | National Capmital when the War of | 1812 broke. amd with it the fear At the first hint of danger, hoth W. W. Sea- ton and Joseph Gales enrolied them- selves as privates In a volunteer In- fantry company, and alternaied in performing milftary service. It is de lghtfully natural that young Mr. Seaton's adoring young wife should enthusiastically approve of this pa- triotic miiitary badv. “As brave and handsomely disciplined corps as any | in the District, and appear united as | & band of brothers encouraging each other in activity and good spirite.’ it was for no gault of the Seaton partners that the lam- entable rort of Rladensburg oc- curred. When the elty was hombed by the British Mr. Seaton left hi editorial post and played a brave part in the engagement at Eastern Branch But while as a member of a mill tary organization h's individual serv fce” could not greatly affect events, | that he had scoved against the Brit | ish through the dafly issue of hi: | paper was proved by the fact that Cockburn, in command of the Br. ish, included the Intellizencer with the | Government property to he destroved. | | This was the only private proper y as far as there is racord (o be o dle tinguished. Cockburn ordered the Fooks and other papers of t burned on the hanks of the the type scattered on the dernenth the window. lincer, which had vizorously incited W o pat stand, v i ntly ranked as one of the helliarents, | T was not many vears after this when enton was first asked to serve yor, but he felt that the paper demanded all his time. Aga'n | story out of the past stamps the joint editorship with an. endewr ng humor. A series of articles had heen appearing which had scored tremen dously against one of the cabinet of- ficers who was in opposition to the Intelligencer policy. Joseph Gales was | found one day in a state of high in dignation. Shakinzg a cotemporary sheet In the face of his visitor, he sald. his paper in praising our late mas terly series of artcles sayve they were written by me. Now, I say it is false! Every one ot these articles was wr ten by Mr. Seaton, and 1 never could write as well as he does! wa Gales. nund un. The Intel Mr. < w | of xeneral an finally successful. the debt, | of tax supported schools: intellectual progress” was a v wne. indecision mads possihls entirely improper use of the W. W. Seaton campalgned money. | through the columns of his papsr and | tn his official capacity. to have Con gress assume obligation for the fund. Tie and other public-spirited men were Congress assumed and it was declared to he a permanent deposit in the Treasury for the objects of the trust, with in terest allowed from the time of its receipt In this country Rut this service was merely the initlation of Mavor Seaton’s activitiss for the Smithsanfan Institution. He was for nearly 20 years one of the board of regents, the treasurer and a member of the building committes, serving faithfully without pay and constantly furthering the plans of the secretary, loseph Henry. for the en couragement of original ressareh. In addition to the more public part of Seaton’s serviee was the private and unofficial ministey of hospitality which he teok upen himself. In his own dalightful home, on tha south side of E street northwest hstwesn Seventh and Eighth streets. he enter- tained visiting scientists, who were ‘ttracted by the growing fame of the Smithsonian Institution. The eatah- lishment of this project was the firet step toward making Washington the center of sclentifie activity in this country that it Ia teday. A= far as his own city is concerned there can be no doubt that Mavor Senton’s greatest service was his long {and vallant fight for the development in the Nation's Capital of the prinei- ple of nublle school education. As a resnit of this he brought the eity out a disgrac ful condition of juvenile Avaer. where only 25 per cent of the ehild-on of school age were heing taught at all.and where the only tem of eduration for those whose parents con'd not afford to hove them atoly taught was in twe pauper chools. He secured the organizi tlon, on paper At least. of dern hool system: the establishment of definite schaol tax: the rededicat of two existing hiildings to the svst, the erection of two mor: lulldings, the first ever erected in Wehington eut of public funds, and & deubling of the percent zo of childien in the schools. 1t interesting to observe in passinz that the champlon who arese 1o save the rthrizht of the children wis not one of the mechanics. small «honkoapers not even of the Government em- ployes, whe helped ta city's ‘permanent popnlation it w A scion of cavaliers, a descenden: colonial aneest who fought 1t citv fathers who opposed every (Continued on Sixth Page.) of form Exploring The perils encountered by &ponge divers in the Mediter- ranean Sea, and his own har rowing experience in descending to the gea’s bed, were recounted last week by Count de Prorok. Noted for his work in uncover- ing the ruins of ancient Car- thage, Rome's great rival on the north African coast, the explorer and archeologist was searching for a submerged citv near the fabled isle of the lotus-eaters. Evidences of the existence of this city had been brought up by divers, and Count de Prorok determined to go down to check up on their investigations. It was his fiyst descent, and his unfamiliarity with deep-sea div- ing played him a que i Finding himeelf unahic move because of the pres the water and the w < in his shoes and on his shoulders, he imagined he could make progress by crawling. But once on his hands and knees, he could neither move nor raire himself to a standing position. His frantic tuge on the line were geemingly ignored by those above, but finally he was hauled up. What had seemed to Count de Prorok a full two hours that he was below the surface was Actually only five minutes. BY COUNT BYRON DE PROROK, F. R. G. 8. ANATICIEM has heen the strength of Africa, as well s it undoing. ' When the last reasoning s finithed, it probably safe to sayv that the nations that fight with cool, the less emotional peoples. fight to success. They may for a while be carried oft their feet by the impetuous rushes of the frenzied peoples, but they come back steadily and finally win That is one of the causes Iving be- Bind the present situation in Africa. Her warriors have been too. fanatical to take long views, in the past. At the same time that frenzy has carried them through incidental warfare from time to time, and has won many sig pal if not terrible victories. Fundamentally, fanaticism will per- st in many parts of Africa for gen- erations vet, and where fanaticism is, there is risk. It is useless to ignore it; useless—and worse, it is foolish to belittle it. It is by far better to take it into acconnt, and prepare for it. At times the wiser course is to avoid the fa. naties, speaking as an individual for the moment. At times it hatter to hide from it. 1 have been to of in contact with the fanatics occasionally: sometimes by choice, looking for the survival of ancient practices, sometimes by accl- dent when it has swept upon me™ and fortunately past me, in uncon trolled rage. Other people have not beea so fortunate. their heads | 1 remember one case in point where | A voung man intent on recording the music of a particularly wild crowd of peopie went out alone to the land of the Troglodytes, and that was the last that was heard of Imag- ination serves for the res: Throughout the Dark Continent, this day, and throughout the of the continont from the time &an to have a recorded histor are particuiarly lurid patche treme fanaticism which serve terpret the people with whom one deals in Africa. They are all of a | piece. from the priests of the ancient sanctuary of Tanit, hundreds of vears hefore Christ, to the dread Ais saouas of 1oday. The followers of | the Mahdi, the dervishes on holy war. fare bhent. and the followers of Ahd El Krim have a common hevitage, a hysterical dementia that finds iis ex pression hest in ruthless warfare; and, when the green hannsrs wav then let him who is wice take care of himeelf. To get the full significance of a certain happening in which at first T was a willing participanc and then decidedly unwilling, it is ell to have a sense of the Dark Continent Jump from piace to place on its sur- face as you w vou iand it will be fai 1 evidence of that pen that proceeds from a heritzge of. apprehension and | finds vent in killing. | Take the region where the artist, | of whom 1 spoke earlier, went, the | region of Matmata. Here ore goes | back to prehistoric man' i* quite | | true, one goes back to livinx prehis- | toric man, where civilizat hardly even impinged. } X x % to their forefathers’ forefathers lived these people live today. They | raise for themselves mud villages, | with houses—one-roomed houses | piled irregulariy one on top of the | | other. all facing on to a common | square. with unbroken walls facing | i the outlving country. Seven stories | ! high Medenine rises. and looks as | { though it was undecided which way to fall, so consents to remain upright. The houtes are built that way to| repel invaston. Invasion has_been their lot since | the Carthaginians hunted for slav and the Romans and Saracens de. | spoiled the land.. Por unending cen. | turiex they hLave known no outside influence that did not contain a {threat. \What wonder that they have | developed a constant enmity | stranger, and look upon him | only when he is dead Or climb the yr\vnln(a ns nearby, or ook at the surface of the earth. In the mountains you will find the cave. dwellers, and below the the earth you will find whoie villages stories deep, all dominated by one in fluence, the need for self-protection born of fear of strangers. Civilization finds the going very hard A as for the | as safe surface. of | r Party | hot {eult of infan | posed as a gihe trees In their own sacred zr thase peopla. Thar prefer death to medicine administered by strangers, and their medicine men work on their fear and superstition with cunning and set purpose. 1 r member that when there was an out- break of smallpox heve the French authorities decided that the should he vaccinated. “The result wae a local war, not sig nificant from elther military or other on hit a sure indication of the u naing mentality of the people. ather than permit the strangers to touch thers, thelr country, or their people, the inhabitanis of this wild region fought tooth and nail, trying to murder their visitors, The warfare was sneedily quelled, of course, and we nitimately used some of the worat workmen in archeological research. They were cony and well guardsd, The Matmatas can be duplicaied for «pirit nearly everywhere in North Africa. Watch an Arab funeral in Tunis, even. and you will understand much. Emotion, pent-up emotion, makes of the procession a menace. It is hard to »mes, but as the irregular throng passes, chanting seemingly meaning- | less dirges, it is not difficult to trans- form the panoplied stretcher into a hanner, or to hezr in the chant the muffied droning of frenzied men inciting to war, And the mourners are oblivious to a1l that paszes. They wander near the traffic with the ut- most unconcern. T trable. unreachable. So much of this undercurrent of re. pressed fervor ie there that in time one hecomes perhaps a litrle used to |1t and to forget even that it exists Yet 1 have seen so many outhreaks of hysteria, in o many places, that the thought seldom gets far away from me, the thought of what might happen. of what does happen in times of holy warfare. Men cease to be hu- man. and women encourage their men, For a long time the world ‘was rather uncertain whether the. reporced sncrifice in Africa was founded cn fiiet or nol. There were, it is true, historical vefersnces to practice in Carthage, references to custom of uffering livire children the goddess in the temple of Tanit. We knew that the Greeks had condition of peace the ces saifon of the practice of burning little children alive and the eating of liitle dogs. We knew also that tha Rowans had proseribed the cult when they among e to im- | took possession of the territory, and to enforce their orders had hange the disobedient priests to the branches of Bu: it was not until the pick dislodged the first Indication of the actual sanctuary, and the army of workmen had uncovered the sacrificial urns that lay below vards of alluyial deposit that we were ablé to appre- ciate the frenzy that attended their » natives | offenders as our | why the impression | are inpene- ; the | had | | orgies, or the extent of their sacrifices. | At the sanctuary of Tanit we have | uncovered the urne containing the remains of some 6,000 little children offered by hysterical mothers to pro- pitiate the gods in times of nationar crisis_or overflowing emotion. ook ox MODERN history is too full of ref- erénces to subsequent happenings to need much amplication. The der- vishes are known. but what happened to “Chinese” Gordon ix read with faint comprehension by most school chii drer. It Is far away from us, and, he- inz far away, is blurred. Oceasions come when the blur goes, and nakea reality is seen, It (akes but & straw to change the courge of events in some parts of Africa. A straw that may he either A breach of etiquette or a spreading rumor.ia fiction of those who wish to_use other people’s emotions for selfish ends. These straws blow ahout, singly from time to time. What would hap- nen if forment came among the peo- ple everywhere at the same time is hevond ' imagination. It reaches ywhére; the same spirit domi- nates widely separated peoples. Around our campfire in the Hog- gar, not so lonz ago, the Tuaregs |danced for us their dance of peace. In an amazingly short time they were in a frenzy. They threw them- selves about and contorted, and T perforce remembhered that that was {the way they began when subtle intrigne turned them against that mnst peacetnl man, Pere de Foucauld. When they had reached their cli- max it was quite easy to understand why de Foucauld died, and wh when the frenzy was passed, they could stand with us by his grave, doing homage to the great saint. Oceagional lapses are perhaps for- givable: at least they are under- standable and do not reach inter national importance very often, but trouble in Africa gathers its strength from the seme forces that permittad gentle women to throw their own | flesh sna blood to the flames, cen- turles azo. The cult_of fanaticism has by ne means died out. It comes to the surface unexpectedly, but I suppose the two tribes who keep it at the hoil most steadily nre the Senussi and the Alssaouas. My own contact with the Iatter tribe lenves me still able to| take a deep breath of thanksgivin, though i+ can still send a chill down my spin The vifying, t contact was not so though it was enough wike rapid thoughts even in a xlow moving mind. We wera axploring in & certain region, just a few of us, lookinz for iracas which would have archeological significance, and com- pletely engrossed in our task, when we heard an unfamiliar sound in the distane | disputed knowledge commanded hoth | =tand in Africa Meets Frenzie From the gorge we were examining we could see an advancing proces- sion. It looked like a monster cara- van with outriders and scouting | parties. It should have heen peace- ful, but it looked distinctly the re- verse. Across the clear alr we heard the long chanting, the chanting of dirges that never fafl to awaken the fever in the hlood and the chill in the flesh of the people of Afriea. P w 3 could imagine the desperate re- treat of the Moore from Gra- nada: we ecould imagine as well that this was an advancing horde bent upon the extermination of the infidel. In the main body of the procession, massed together and swaying as one, Wwere people too numerous to count. In the dust on either side were gy- rating figures, and occasionally we could see an individual fall pros- trate on the ground, writhing in agony while the others passed on. All the time the chant continued, the army drew nearer. Men with the dread green banners passed back- ward and forward up and down the line, doubtless inciting their people, and at last the full volume of the songs swelled to the promise of vic- tory. The crowd was intoxicated, ripe for war, ripe for such scenes as can »nly be devised by the demented. It might have hoded ill with who lay in their way of march was not of them. We remained hid- den until the long procession was gone. Happlly, they went on unaware of our presence. that time, and we were secure, though possibly a little, chaken, The next time I came into contact with them was not quite so pleasant, though it was closer and the events e more detailed. It. happened that a certain man, of considerable impcrtance, hecame inter- ested in our excavations at the temple of Tanit. and speedily became an en- thustastic amateur, and his imagina- tion was stirred by the discovery of the sacrificial urns. We had, I re. member, many long conversations on the frame bf mind that could eithe demand or submit to such orgies, and one of us remarked that such a thing would be incredible today. Our visitor rather doubted that. He knew the minds of the primitive peo. ples, knew their fire, their utter disre- gard for pain or torture, knew fairly well to what lengths they could go. for they nre a strange people, and, though we were most of us inclined to disa- gree with him, his position and his un- any and respect and acceptance. Not only Is it possible to under- he maid to us, “but it is easy to understand—that_is, I think any of you could be brought to know that under certain eonditions this orgy of child-sacrifice is not only possible, but almost inevitable. Either that sacri- fice or some other equally unbe- lievable." Probably no one ever fully under- stands any country, or any people, un- less he he of their own nationality, so we may he forgiven if there still re- mained a little doubt in our minds, de- spite the certainty of our guest. You see. though we had had a very wide experience, all told, of the place, we had hardly penetrated the thought processes or the emotional reactions of the people of the continent. What had happened in the eighth and ninth centuries hefore Christ irely could have neither counterpart nor relation to the present time, either in_actualities or in poscibilities. We helieved the world had gone forward to_self-restraint. Yet we might have heen wiser. There are many nations capable of the sublimest things for the sake of either religious faith or patriotism. Devotion, wherever it is, and what ever its object, can. and does. sur- mount all possibilities and hoth pe forms and accomplishes the impx ble. We didn’t think through, then— that is all. I remember the voung Prince de Waldeck, my lifelong friend, who was killed in a motor accident soon after we discovered a curse stone at Car- thage, was particularly impressed by the quiet insistence of our guest, and | we talked long and eften on the mat- | ter, so that when the ohject lesson | came we were both very much con cerned in it. | * kX X HE leson came about in this way. Our new friend visited us fre- quently and on one occasion he laughingly told us that there would perhaps be an opportunity to test our theories, or at least to witness the pre- steps in the waking of He had learned that on a cer- tain day a certain part of the Ais- saoua tribe was to visit a leading of- ficial to present themselves, and to to prevail upon him to protest i the administratiogp of | | | | The ‘country is well and peacefully administered by the French authori- ties, but there are always some mal- contents, some fanatics, who are rest- lessly laoking for an opening to de- clare a holy war and raise the stand- ard to summon all to gather around | it. We naturally accepted the invita- | tion to witness the event, and, what was mueh more important, when we were told what sort of a ceremony it was likely to be, we decided to take a motion picture of it. Therefore, long before the ap- pointed time, the young Prince de Waldeck and myself, with some other members of the party, installed our- selves in a convenient place, and waited, 1 ought to say that we were pro- vided with guards, both political and | 1 | mands brought forth amazing and ter- | pleaded for his collahoration. | de Waldeck began to_turn the handle the | Charge of Aissaouas, and in addition provided " with a bodygyard that seemed capable of holding off any of the trihesmen who threatensd to be awkward. We mounted our camera in a nar- row doorway, where it could quickly be withdrawn, and through which we ourselves could pe, should flight hecome necersary. That was. as it happened, a wise move, though the motion picture camera would not be likely to rouse the suspicion of the Aissaouas a8 does an ordinary cam era. They have a distinct antipathy | to being photographeds i We waited, but did not hawe long to wait. Just as on the previous m‘-‘ casion, the swirling crowd was her aided by a cloud of dust, and, imme. diately that dust arose, women on the house-tops nearby hegan their | traditional chanting, urging the men to war. Their monotonous “le-le." chanted irregularly and almost in- cessantly, was negligible at firat. It had no effect on us, but little hy little we caught the hypnotic Influ- ence. It got into our blood, though it | had no racial association. We half knew what it would mean to the ad- vancing horde, for their own women were chanting their own battle-cry. Just as before, the procession was flanked by solitary figures who marched up and down the line, gestic- ulating. urging. \We learned later that they weré the priests, the only ones who kept calm during the per- formance. The priests were masters in their craft. Their lean, ascetic, hurning faces drew men to them, their words fired men'a minds, their com- we were rifying results. Straight into the presence of the | man_they sought the tribe_came, and Prince 6f the camera. the dance began and little by little T became bloogdless, root- ed to the place. If they had charged then I could have hoped to withstand their onrush. Forsaking - thelr arguments, th | priests walked slowly up and down the line. Giant men stood still, un- pertiirbed at the edge of the crowd. They were_the drum-bearers. Strap- ped to their backs were the drums which marked the rhythm of the dance. Othér men drummed, but how they withstood the fascination of the moment, how they could keep their heads and skillfully follow the priests’ commands, T do not know. Yot they plaved their part. But I hegan to realize how it was that priests in the temple of Tanit could “remain unmoved while shrieking mothers threw their children to the | fames and the chants of the temple rose to crown the tortured scréeams of burning victims. At the command of the priests, the dancers swayed in unison; the rhythm powerful, were to be shielded by people who were held sacred by the was changed, the drums beat faster, ever faster, and the bodies kept time , IFanatics madness. The dance became an orgy. and participants be gan to foam at the mouth. Shrieks #nd meaningless moans tore into the air, and then, one by one, the dancers reached scetasy. I remember that the end man went first: there seemed to he a lot of negro blood in him. He fell to the ground and tore himself in contortion. He wae joined by another, and vet an other. The prissts continied their walk up_and down, exhorting to greater effort From somewhere handfuls of hroken glase appeared. The glase was given to the dancers and they chew as though it were so much rice. drums were by this time makinz # continuons roar, and more men fell to the ground foaming at the mouth. The priests were not satisfied, and huge pails were given to the men, and they thrust these through their cheeks, into their legs and their bodies. No blood came. ‘They must been grievously wounded, but they paid no attention to their hurt. Tt seemed as though the nails and the glass were meeting dead, hloodless fiesh, that there was no possibility of pain. that circulation had ceased, and the dancers were impervious to feeling. Yet the priests were not appeased. Of such must have heen the minis ters to Baal and Moloch and the goda of the Phoenicians, relentleas, un- moved, blind to men and deaf to the cries of agony, men of no heart but of unhendable will. with whom cruelty was genius. Finally they gave live scorpions to the epileptica on the earth, and they were snatched eag- erly by the dancers, and tasted, and eaten. " I was faint with it all, and T heard the hoarse whisper of Prince de Waldeck, “T can stand no more." His words seemed to bring me to and it was just in time, for #mong the crowd in the background some one had seen us. We were not completely hidden. Instantly there was a mad rush for us. We should have received no mercy at the hands of the fanatics. For one terrible, age-long moment it was given to us to reafize some- thing of what would be our fate if we weFe enveloped by that wild wav One moment—and then we were able to fling open the narrow door behind us. In we slipped—even snatching the machine along with us. The door slammed shut. We were safe. Hut {s was an ex- perience so dreadful that it left me A wreck for days to come. It also enabled me to understand how it was that men could do as the priests of Tanit did, and also to understand. if only slightly, the spirit that still pre. valls in many places on the ‘dark continent. until it was only have (Copyrizht. 1928.)