The whole of these days were filled with flittings hither and thither on the Grand Trunk line (the passage of the Prince being smoothly manipulated by another of Canada's fine railway men, and a genius in good fellowship, Mr. H. R. Charlton), as the Prince called at the pretty and vigorous towns on the tongue of Ontario that stretches between Lake Huron and Lake Erie to the American border.
Stratford, with something of the comely grace of Shakespeare's town in its avenues of neat homes and fine trees, gave him as warm a reception as anywhere in Canada on the evening of October 21st. On Wednesday, October 22nd, the same hearty welcome was extended by those singularly English towns, Woodstock and Chatham.
On the afternoon of the same day London gave him a mass welcome mainly of children in its big central park. London, Ontario, is an echo of London, Thames. It has its Blackfriars and Regent Street, its Piccadilly and St. James'. It is industrial and crowded, as the English London is. Its public reception to the Prince was remarkable. It had managed it rather well. It had stated that all who wished to be present must apply for tickets of admission. Thousands did, and they passed before the Prince in a motley and genial crowd of top hats and gingham skirts, striped sweaters and satin charmeuse. But though they came in thousands, the numbers of ticket-holders were ultimately exhausted. When the last one had passed, the Prince looked at his wrist watch. There was half an hour to spare before the reception was due to close. He told those about him to open the doors of the building and let the unticketed public in.
From London the Grand Trunk carried us to Windsor on Thursday, October 23rd, where crowds were so dense about the station that they overflowed on to the engine until one could no longer see it for humanity and little boys. From the engine eager sightseers even scrambled along the tops of the great steel cars until they became veritable grandstands.
Crowds were in the virile streets, and they were not all Canadians either. A ferry plies from Windsor to the United States, and America, which at no time lost an opportunity of coming across the border to see the Prince, had come across in great numbers. Canadians there were in Windsor, thousands of them, but quite a fair volume of the cheering had a United States timbre.
A city with an electric fervour, Windsor. That comes not merely from the towering profile of Detroit's skyscrapers seen across the river, but from the spirit of Windsor itself. Detroit is America's "motoropolis," and from the air of it Windsor will be Canada's motoropolis of tomorrow. It is already thrusting its way up to the first line of industrial cities; it is already a centre for the manufacture of the ubiquitous Ford car and others, and it is learning and profiting a lot from its American brother.
The Canadian and American populations are, in a sense, interchangeable. The United States comes across to work in Windsor, and Windsor goes across to work in America. The ferry, not a very bustling ferry, not such a good ferry, for example, as that which crosses the English Thames at Woolwich, carries men and women and carts, and, inevitably, automobiles between the two cities.
Detroit took a great interest in the Prince. It sent a skirmishing line of newspapermen up the railway to meet him, and they travelled in the train with us, and failed, as all pressmen did, to get interviews with him. We certainly took an interest in Detroit. It was not merely the sense-capturing profile of Detroit, the sky-scrapers that give such a sense of soaring zest by day, and look like fairy castles hung in the air at night, but the quick, vivid spirit of the city that intrigued us.
We went across to visit it the next morning, and found it had the delight of a new sensation. It is a city with a sparkle. It is a city where the automobile is a commonplace, and the horse a thing for pause and comment. It contained a hundred points of novelty for us, from the whiteness of its buildings, the beauty of its domestic architecture, the up-to-date advertising of its churches, to its policemen on traffic duty who, on a rostrum and under an umbrella, commanded the traffic with a sign-board on which was written the laconic commands, "Go" and "Stop."
And, naturally, we visited the Ford Works. A place where I found the efficiency of effort almost frighteningly uncanny. One of these days those inhumanly human machines will bridge the faint gulf that separates them from actual life, then, like Frankenstein's monster, they will turn upon their creators.
Galt (Friday, October 24th) gave the Prince another great reception; then, passing through Toronto, he travelled to Kingston, which he reached on Saturday, October 25th.
Kingston, though it had its beginnings in the old stone fort that Frontenac built on the margin of Lake Ontario to hold in check the English settlers in New York and their Iroquois allies, is unmistakably British. With its solid stone buildings, its narrow fillet of blue lake, its stone fortifications on the foreshore, and its rambling streets, it reminded me of Southampton town, especially before Southampton's Western Shore was built over. Its air of being a British seaport arises from the fact that it is a British port, for it was actually the arsenal and yard for the naval forces on the Great Lakes during the war of 1812.
And it also gets its English tone from the Royal Military College which exists here. The bravest function of the Prince's visit was in this college, where he presented colours to the cadets and saw them drill. The discipline of these boys on parade is worthy of Sandhurst, Woolwich or West Point, and their physique is equal to, if not better, than any shown at those places. It is not exactly a military school, though the training is military, for though some of the cadets join Imperial or Canadian forces, and all serve for a time in the Canadian Militia, practically all the boys join professions or go into commerce after passing through.
The Prince's reception at the college was fine, but his reception in the town itself was remarkable. The Public Park was black with people at the ceremony of welcome, and though he was down to "kick off" in the first of the Association League football matches, his kick off was actually a toss-up. That was the only way to get the ball moving in the dense throng that surged between the goal posts.
Kingston, too, gave the Prince the degree of Doctor of Laws. It is a proud honour, for Kingston boasts of being one of the oldest universities in Canada. But though its tradition is old, its spirit is modern enough; for its Chancellor is Mr. E. W. Beatty, the President of the Canadian Pacific Railways. It was from the Railway President-Chancellor the Prince received his degree.
The Prince had had a brief but lively experience of Montreal earlier in his tour. It was but a hint of what was to happen when he returned on Monday, October 27th. It was not merely that Montreal as the biggest and richest city in Canada had set itself the task of winding up the trip in befitting manner; there was that about the quality of its entertainment which made it both startling and charming.
Even before the train reached Windsor Station the Prince was receiving a welcome from all the smaller towns that make up outlying Montreal. At these places the habitant Frenchmen and women crowded about the observation platform of the train to cry their friendliness in French, where English was unknown. And the friendliness was not all on the side of the habitants.
"They tole me," said one old habitant in workingman overalls, "they tole me I could not shake 'is han'. So I walk t'ro' them,Oui. An' 'e see me. A' 'e put out 'is 'an', an' 'e laf—so. I tell you 'e's a real feller, de kin' that shake han' wis men lak me."
Montreal itself met the Prince in a maze of confetti and snow. Montreal was showing its essential self by a happy accident. It was the Montreal of old France, gay and vivacious and full of colour mated to the stern stuff of Canada.
It is true there was not very much snow, merely a fleck of it in the air, that starred the wind-screens of the long line of automobiles that formed the procession; but Canada and Montreal are not all snow, either. It was as though the native spirit of the place was impressing upon us the feeling that underneath the gaiety we were encountering there was all the sternness of the pioneers that had made this fine town the splendid place it is.
There was certainly gaiety in the air on that day. The Prince drove out from the station into a city of cheering. Mighty crowds were about the station. Mighty crowds lined the great squares and the long streets through which he rode, and crowds filled the windows of sky-climbing stores. It was an animated crowd. It expressed itself with the unaided throat, as well as on whistles and with eerie noises on striped paper horns. It used rattles and it used sirens.
And mere noise being not enough, it loosed its confetti. As the Prince drove through the narrow canyon of the business streets, confetti was tossed down from high windows by the bagful. Streamers of all colours shot down from buildings and up from the sidewalks, until the snakes of vivid colour, skimming and uncoiling across the street, made a bright lattice over flagpole and telephone wire, and, with the bright flutter of the flags, gave the whole proceedings a vivid and carnival air.
Strips of coloured paper and torn letter headings fluttered down, too, and in such masses that those who were responsible must have got rid of them by the shovelful. Prince and car were very quickly entangled in fluttering strips and bright streamers, that snapped and fluttered like the multi-tinted tails of comets behind him as he sped.
There was an air of cheery abandon about this whole-hearted friendliness. The crowd was bright and vivacious. There was laughter and gaiety everywhere, and when the Prince turned a corner, it lifted its skirts and with fresh laughter raced across squares and along side streets in order to get another glimpse of this "real feller."
Bands of students, Frenchmen from Laval in velvet berets, and English from McGill, made the sidewalks lively. When they could, they rushed the cars of the procession and rode in thick masses on the footboards in order to keep up with the Royal progress. When policemen drove them off footboards, they waited for the next car to come along and got on to the footboards of that.
When the Prince went into the City Hall they tried to take the City Hall by storm, and succeeded, indeed, in clambering on to all those places where human beings should not go, and from there they sang to the vast crowd waiting for the exit of the Prince, choosing any old tune from "Oh, Canada," in French, to "Johnny's in Town," in polyglot.
It was a great reception, a reception with electricity in it. A reception where France added a colour and a charm to Britain and made it irresistible.
And it was only a sample, that reception.
Tuesday, October 28th, as a day, was tremendous. For the Prince it began at lunch, but a lunch of great brilliance. At the handsome Place Viger Hotel he was again the centre of crowds. Crowds waited in the streets, in spite of the greyness, the damp and the cold. Crowds filled the lobbies and galleries of the hotel to cheer him as he came.
In the great dining-room was a great crowd, a crowd that seemed to be growing out of a wilderness of flowers. There was an amazing profusion and beauty of flowers all through that room. And not merely were there flowers for decoration, but with a graceful touch the Mayor and the City Fathers, who gave that lunch, had set a perfect carnation at the plate of every guest as a favour for his buttonhole.
The gathering was as vivid as its setting. Gallic beards wagged amiably in answer to clean-shaven British lips. The soutane and amethyst cross sat next the Anglican apron and gaiters, and the khaki of two tongues had war experiences on one front translated by an interpreter.
It was an eager gathering that crowded forward from angles of the room or stood up on its seats in order to catch every word the Prince uttered, and it could not cheer warmly enough when he spoke with real feeling of the mutual respect that was the basis of the real understanding between the French-speaking and the English-speaking sections of the Canadian nation.
The reality of that mutual respect was borne out by the throngs that gathered in the streets when the Prince left the hotel. It was through a mere alley in humanity that his car drove to La Fontaine Park, and at the park there was an astonishing gathering.
In the centre of the grass were several thousand veteran soldiers who had served in the war. They were of all arms, from Highlanders to Flying Men, and, ranked in battalions behind their laurel-wreathed standards, they made a magnificent showing. Masses of wounded soldiers in automobiles filled one side of the great square, humanity of both sexes overflowed the other three sides. Ordinary methods of control were hopeless. The throng of people simply submerged all signs of authority and invaded the parade ground until on half of it it was impossible to distinguish khaki in ranks from men and women and children sightseers in chaos.
In the face of this crowd Montreal had to invent a new method of authority. The mounted men having failed to press the spectators back, tanks were loosed.... Oh, not the grim, steel Tanks of the war zone, but the frail and mobile Tanks of civilization—motor-cycles. The motor-cycle police were sent against the throng. The cycles, with their side-cars, swept down on the mass, charging cleverly until the speeding wheels seemed about to drive into civilian suitings. Under this novel method of rounding up, the thick wedges of people were broken up; they yielded and were gradually driven back to proper position.
Again the throngs in the park were only hints of what the Prince was to expect in his drive through the town. Leaving the grounds and turning into the long, straight and broad Sherbrooke Street, the bonnet of his automobile immediately lodged in the thickets of crowds. The splendid avenue was not big enough for the throngs it contained, and the people filled the pavements and spread right across the roadway.
Slowly, and only by forcing a way with the bonnet of the automobile, could the police drive a lane through the cheerful mass. The ride was checked down to a crawl, and as he neared his destination, the Art Gallery, progress became a matter of inches at a time only. It was a mighty crowd. It was not unruly or stubborn; it checked the Prince's progress simply because men and women conform to ordinary laws of space, and it was physically impossible to squeeze back thirty ranks into a space that could contain twenty only.
I suppose I should have written physically uncomfortable, for actually a narrow strip, the width of a car only, was driven through the throng. The people were jammed so tightly back that when the line of cars stopped, as it frequently had to, the people clambered on to the footboards for relief.
In front of the classic portico of the Art Gallery the scene was amazing. The broad street was a sea of heads. Before this wedge of people the Prince's car was stopped dead. Here the point of impossibility appeared to have been reached, for though he was to alight, there was no place for alighting, and even very little space for opening the door of the car. It was only by fighting that the police got him on to the pavement and up the steps of the gallery, and though the crowd was extraordinarily good-tempered, the scuffling was not altogether painless, for in that heaving mass clothes were torn and shins were barked in the struggle.
The Prince was to stand at the top of the steps of the Art Gallery to take the salute of the soldiers he had reviewed in La Fontaine Park, as they swung past in a Victory March. He stood there for over an hour waiting for them. The head of the column had started immediately after he had, but it found the difficulties of progress even more apparent than the Prince. The long column, with the trophies of captured guns and machines of war, could only press forward by fits and starts. At one time it seemed impossible that the veterans would ever get through the pack of citizens, and word was given that the march had been postponed. But by slow degrees the column forced a way to the Art Gallery, and gave the Prince the salute amid enthusiasm that must remain memorable even in Montreal's long history of splendid memories.
Montreal had set to excel itself as a host, and every moment of the Prince's days was brilliantly filled. There were vivid receptions and splendid dances at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the big and comfortable Hotel Windsor. Montreal is the centre of most things in Canada; in it are the head offices of the great railways and the great newspapers and the leading financial and commercial concerns. The big men who control these industries are hospitable with a large gesture. In the hands of these men, not only the Prince, but the members of his entourage had a royal time.
Personally, though I found Montreal a delightful city, a city of vividness and vivacity, I was, in one sense, not sorry to leave it, for I felt myself rapidly disintegrating under the kindnesses showered upon us.
This kindness had its valuable experience: it brought us into contact with many of the men who are helping to mould the future of Canada. We met such capable minds as those who are responsible for the organization of such great companies as the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk Railways. We met many of the great and brilliant newspaper men, such as Senator White, of theMontreal Gazette, who with his exceedingly able right-hand man, Major John Bassett, was our good friend always and our host many times. All these men are undoubtedly forces in the future of Canada. We were able to get from them a juster estimate of Canada, her prospects and her potentialities, than we could have obtained by our unaided observation. And, more, we got from contact with such men as these an appreciation of the splendid qualities that make the Canadian citizen so definite a force in the present and future of the world.
During his stay in Montreal the Prince was brought in contact with every phase of civic life. On Wednesday, October 29th, he went by train through the outlying townships on Montreal Island, calling at the quaint and beautifully decorated villages of the habitants, that usually bear the names of old French saints. The inhabitants of these places, though said to be taciturn and undemonstrative, met the train in crowds, and in crowds jostled to get at the Prince and shake his hand, and they showed particular delight when he addressed them in their own tongue.
On Thursday, October 30th, the Prince drove about Montreal itself, going to the docks where ocean-going ships lie at deep-water quays under the towering elevators and the giant loading gear. Amid college yells, French and English, he toured through the great universities of Laval and McGill—famous for learning and Stephen Leacock. He also toured the districts where the working man lives, holding informal receptions there.
He opened athletic clubs and went to dances. At the balls he was at once the friend of everybody by his zest for dancing and his delightfully human habit of playing truant in order to sit out on the stairs with bright partners.
As ever his thoughtfulness and tact created legends. I was told, and I believe it to be true, that after one dinner he was to drive straight to a big dance; but, hearing that a great number of people had collected along the route to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where he was staying, under the impression that he was to return there, he gave orders that his car was to go to the hotel before going to the dance. It was an unpleasant night, and the drive took him considerably out of his way; but, rather than disappoint the people who had gathered waiting, he took the roundabout journey—and he took it standing in his car so that the people could see him in the light of the lamps.
It was at Montreal, too, that the Prince went to his first theatrical performance in Canada. A great and bright gala performance on music-hall lines had been arranged at one of the principal theatres, and this the Prince attended. The audience with some restraint watched him as he sat in his box, wondering what their attitude should be. But a joke sent him off in a tremendous laugh, and all, realizing that he was there to enjoy himself, joined with him in that enjoyment. He declared as he left the theatre that it was "A scrumptious show."
On Sunday, November 3rd, Montreal, after winding up the tour with a mighty week, gave the Prince a mighty send-off. Officially the tour in Canada was ended, though there were two or three extraordinary functions to be filled at Toronto and Ottawa. The chief of these was at Toronto on Tuesday, November 4th, when the Prince made the most impressive speech of the whole tour at Massey Hall.
This hall was packed with one of the keenest audiences the Prince had faced in Canada. It was made up of members of the Canadian and Empire Clubs, and every man there was a leader in business. It was both a critical gathering and an acute one. It would take nothing on trust, yet it could appreciate every good point. This audience the Prince won completely.
It was the longest speech the Prince had made, yet he never spoke better; he had both mastered his nervousness and his need for notes. Decrying his abilities as an orator, he yet won his hearing by his very lack of oratorical affectation.
He spoke very earnestly of the wonderful reception he had had throughout the breadth of Canada, from every type of Canadian—a reception, he said, which he was not conceited enough to imagine was given to himself personally, but to him as heir to the British throne and to the ideal which that throne stood for. The throne, he pointed out, consolidated the democratic tradition of the Empire, because it was a focus for all men and races, for it was outside parties and politics; it was a bond which held all men together. The Empire of which the throne was the focal point was different from other and ancient Empires. The Empires of Greece and Rome were composed of many states owing allegiance to the mother state. That ideal was now obsolete. The British Empire was a single state composed of many nations which give allegiance not so much to the mother country, but to the great common system of life and government. That is, the Dominions were no longer Colonies but sister nations of the British Empire.
Every point of this telling speech was acutely realized and immediately applauded, though perhaps the warmest applause came after the Prince's definition of the Empire, and after his declaration that, in visiting the United States of America, he regarded himself not only as an Englishman but as a Canadian and a representative of the whole Empire.
In a neat and concise speech the Chairman of the meeting had already summed up the meaning and effect of the Prince's visit to Canada. The Prince, he said, had passed through Canada on a wave of enthusiasm that had swept throughout and had dominated the country. That enthusiasm could have but one effect, that of deepening and enriching Canadian loyalty to the Crown, and giving a new sense of solidarity among the people of Canada. "Our Indian compatriots," he concluded, "with picturesque aptness have acclaimed the Prince as Chief Morning Star. That name is well and prophetically chosen. His visit will usher in for Canada a new day full of wide-flung influence and high achievements."
This summary is the best comment on the reason and effect of the tour.
The last phase of this truly remarkable tour through Canada was staged in Ottawa. As far as ceremonial went, it was entirely quiet, though the Prince made this an occasion for receiving and thanking those Canadians whose work had helped to make his visit a success. Apart from this, the Prince spent restful and recreative days at Government House, in preparation for the strenuous time he was to have across the American border.
But before he reached Ottawa there was just one small ceremony that, on the personal side, fittingly brought the long travel through Canada to an end. At a siding near Colburn on the Ottawa road the train was stopped, and the Prince personally thanked the whole staff of "this wonderful train" for the splendid service they had rendered throughout the trip. It was, he said, a record of magnificent team work, in which every individual had worked with untiring and unfailing efficiency.
He made his thanks not only general but also individual, for he shook hands with every member of the train team; chefs in white overalls, conductors in uniform, photographers, the engineers in jeans and peaked caps, waiters, clerks, negro porters and every man who had helped to make that journey so marked an achievement, passed before him to receive his thanks.
And when this was accomplished the Prince himself took over the train for a spell. He became the engine-driver.
He mounted into the cab and drove the engine for eighteen miles, donning the leather gauntlets (which every man in Canada who does dirty work wears), and manipulating the levers. Starting gingerly at first, he soon had the train bowling along merrily at a speed that would have done credit to an old professional.
At Flavelle the usual little crowd had gathered ready to surround the rear carriage. To their astonishment, they found the Prince in the cab, waving his hat out of the window at them, enjoying both their surprise and his own achievement.
On Wednesday, November 5th, the journey ended at Ottawa, and the train was broken up to our intense regret. For us it had been a train-load of good friends, and though many were to accompany us to America, many were not, and we felt the parting. Among those who came South with us was our good friend "Chief" Chamberlain, who had been in control of the C.P.R. police responsible for the Prince's safety throughout the trip. He was one of the most genial cosmopolitans of the world, with the real Canadian genius for friendship—indeed so many friends had he, that the Prince of Wales expressed the opinion that Canada was populated by seven million people, mainly friends of "the Chief."
My own first real impression of the United States lay in my sorrow that I had been betrayed into winter underclothing.
When the Prince left Ottawa on the afternoon of November 10th in the President's train, the weather was bitterly cold. I suppose it was bitterly cold for most of the run south, but an American train does not allow a hint of such a thing to penetrate. The train was steam-heated to a point to which I had never been trained. And at Washington the station was steam-heated and the hotel was steam-heated, and Washington itself was, for that moment, on the steam-heated latitude. America, I felt, had rather "put it over on me."
It was at 8.20 on the night of Monday the 10th that the Prince entered the United States at the little station of Rouses Point. There was very little ceremony, and it took only the space of time to change our engine of Canada to an engine of America. But the short ceremony under the arc lamps, and in the centre a small crowd, had attraction and significance.
On the platform were drawn up ranks of khaki men, but khaki men with a new note to us. It was a guard of honour of "Doughboys," stocky and useful-looking fellows, in their stetsons and gaiters. Close to them was a band of American girls, holding as a big canopy the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes joined together to make one flag, joined in one piece to signify the meeting-place of the two Anglo-Saxon peoples also.
With this company were the officials who had come to welcome the Prince at the border. They were led by Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, Major-General Biddle, who commanded the Americans in England, and who was to be the Prince's Military aide, and Admiral Niblack, who was to be the Naval aide while the Prince was the guest of the United States.
The Prince in a Guard's greatcoat greeted his new friends, and inspected the Doughboys, laughing back at the crowd when some one called: "Good for you, Prince." To the ladies who held the twin flags he also expressed his thanks, telling them it was very nice of them to come out on so cold a night to meet him. Feminine America was, for an instant, non-plussed, and found nothing to answer. But their vivacity quickly came back to them, and they very quickly returned the friendliness and smiles of the Prince, shook his hand and wished him the happiest of visits in their country.
The interchange of nationalities in engines being effected, the train swung at a rapid pace beside the waters of Lake Champlain, pushing south along the old marching route into and out of Canada.
On the morning of November 11th it was raining heavily and the train ran through a depressing greyness. We were all eager to see America, and see her at her best, but a train journey, especially in wet weather, shows a country at its worst. The short stops, for instance, in the stations of great cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore were the sort of things to give a false impression. The stations themselves were empty, a novelty to us, who had had three months of crowded stations, and, also, about these stations we saw slums, for the first time on this Western continent. After having had the conviction grow up within me that this Continent was the land of comely and decent homes, the sight of these drab areas and bad roads was, personally, a shock. Big and old cities find it hard to eliminate slums, but it seemed to me that it would be merely good business to remove such places from out of sight of the railways, and to plan town approaches on a more impressive scale. America certainly can plan buildings on an impressive scale. It has the gift of architecture.
The train went through to Washington in what was practically a non-stop run, and arrived in the rain. The Prince was received in the rain at the back of the train, though that reception was truncated, so that the great Americans who were there to meet him could be presented in the dryness under the station roof.
Heading the group of notable men who met the Prince was the Vice-President, Mr. Marshall, and with him was the British Ambassador, Lord Grey, and General Pershing, a popular figure with the waiting crowd and a hero regarded with rapture by American young womanhood—which was willing to break the Median regulations of the American police to get "just one look at him."
Outside the station there was a vast crowd of American men and women who had braved the downpour to give the Prince a welcome of that peculiarly generous quality which we quickly learnt was the natural expression of the American feeling towards guests.
I was told, too, that crowds along the streets caught up that very cheerful greeting, so that all through his ride along the beautiful streets to the Belmont House in New Hampshire Avenue, which was to be his home in Washington, the Prince was made aware of the hospitality extended to him.
But of this fact I can only speak from hearsay. The Press Correspondents were unable to follow His Royal Highness through the city. We were told that a car was to be placed at our disposal, as one had been elsewhere, and we were asked to wait our turn. Wait we certainly did, until the last junior attaché had been served. By that time, however, His Royal Highness had outdistanced us, for, without a car and without being able to join the procession at an early interval, we lost touch with happenings.
By the time we were able to get on to the route the streets were deserted; all we could do was to admire through the rain the architecture of one of the most beautiful cities of the world.
Apart from the rain on the first day, there was another factor which handicapped Washington in its welcome to the Prince—the warmth of which could not be doubted when it had opportunity for adequate expression. This was the fact that no program of his doings was published. For some reason which I do not pretend to understand, the time-table of his comings and goings about the city was not issued to the Press, so that the people of Washington had but vague ideas of where to see him. The Washington journalists protested to us that this was unfair to a city that has such a great and just reputation for its public hospitality.
However, where the Prince and the Washington people did come together there was an immediate and mutual regard. There was just such a "mixing" that evening, when he visited the National Press Club.
He had spent the day quietly, receiving and returning calls. One of these calls was upon President Wilson at the White House, the Prince driving through this city of an ideal in architecture come true, to spend ten minutes with Mrs. Wilson in a visit of courtesy.
The National Press Club at Washington is probably unique of its kind. I don't mean by that that it is comfortable and attractive; all American and Canadian clubs are supremely comfortable and attractive, for in this Continent clubs have been exalted to the plane of a gracious and fine art; I mean that the spirit of the club gave it a distinguished and notable quality.
America being a country extremely interested in politics—Americans enter into politics as Englishmen enter into cricket—and Washington being the vibrant centre of that intense political concern, the most acute brains of the American news world naturally gravitate to the Capital. The National Press Club at Washington is a club of experts. Its membership is made up of men whose keen intelligence, brilliance in craft and devotion to their calling has lifted them to the top of the tree in their own particularmétier.
There was about these men that extraordinary zest in work and every detail of that work that is the secret of American driving power. With them, and with every other American I came into contact with, I felt that work was attacked with something of the joy of the old craftsman. My own impression after a short stay in America is that the American works no harder, and perhaps not so hard as the average Briton; but he works with infinitely more zest, and that is what makes him the dangerous fellow in competition that he is.
The Prince had met many journalists at Belmont House in the morning, and had very readily accepted an invitation to visit them at their club, and after dinner he came not into this den of lions, but into a den of Daniels—a condition very trying for lions. Arriving in evening dress, his youth seemed accentuated among so many shrewd fellows, who were there obviously not to take him or any one for granted.
From the outset his frankness and entire lack of affectation created the best of atmospheres, and in a minute or two his sense of humour had made all there his friends. Having met a few of the journalist corps in the morning, he now expressed a wish to meet them all. The President of the Club raised his eyebrows, and, indicating the packed room, suggested that "all" was, perhaps, a large order. The Prince merely laughed: "All I ask is that you don't grip too hard," he said, and he shook hands with and spoke to every member present.
The Prince certainly made an excellent impression upon men able to judge the quality of character without being dazzled by externals, and many definite opinions were expressed after he left concerning his modesty, his manliness and his faculty for being "a good mixer," which is the faculty Americans most admire.
Wednesday, November 13th, was a busy day. The Prince was out early driving through the beautiful avenues of the city in a round of functions.
Washington is one of the most attractive of cities to drive in. It is a city, one imagines, built to be the place where the architects' dreams come true. It has the air of being a place where the designer has been able to work at his best; climate and a clarified air, natural beauty and the approbation of brother men have all conspired to help and stimulate.
It has scores of beautiful and magnificently proportioned buildings, each obviously the work of a fine artist, and practically every one of those buildings has been placed on a site as effective and as appropriate as its design. That, perhaps, was a simple matter, for the whole town had been planned with a splendid art. Its broad avenues and its delightful parks fit in to the composite whole with an exquisite justness. Its residences have the same charm of excellent craftsmanship one appreciates in the classic public buildings; they are mellow in colouring, behind their screen of trees; nearly all are true and fine in line, while some—an Italianate house on, I think, 15th Avenue, which is the property of Mr. McLean of theWashington Post, is one—are supremely beautiful.
The air of the city is astonishingly clear, and the grave white buildings of the Public Offices, the splendid white aspiration of the skyscrapers, have a sparkling quality that shows them to full advantage. There may, of course, be more beautiful cities than Washington, but certainly Washington is beautiful enough.
The streets have an exhilaration. There is an intense activity of humanity. Automobiles there are, of course, by the thousand, parked everywhere, with policemen strolling round to chalk times on them, or to impound those cars that previous chalk-marks show to have been parked beyond the half-hour or hour of grace. The sidewalks are vivid with the shuttling of the smartest of women, women who choose their clothes with a crispness, aflairof their own, and which owes very little to other countries, and carry them and themselves with a vivid exquisiteness that gives them an undeniable individuality. The stores are as the Canadian stores, only there are more of them, and they are bigger. Their windows make a dado of attractiveness along the streets, but, all the same, I do not think the windows are dressed quite as well as in London, and I'm nearly sure not so well as in Canada—but this is a mere masculine opinion.
Through this attractive city the Prince drove in a round of ceremonies. His first call was at the Headquarters of the American Red Cross, then wrung with the fervours of a "tag" week of collecting. From here he went to the broad, sweet park beside the Potomac, where a noble memorial was being erected to the memory of Lincoln. This, as might be expected from this race of fine builders, is an admirable Greek structure admirably situated in the green of the park beside the river.
The Prince went over the building, and gained an idea of what it would be like on completion from the plans. He also surprised his guides by his intimate knowledge of Lincoln's life and his intense admiration for him.
At the hospital, shortly after, he visited two thousand of "My comrades in arms," as he called them. Outside the hospital on the lawns were many men who had been wounded at Château Thierry, some in wheeled chairs. Seeing them, the Prince swung aside from his walk to the hospital entrance and chatted with them, before entering the wards to speak with others of the wounded men.
On leaving the hospital he was held up. A Red Cross nurse ran up to him and "tagged" him, planting the little Red Cross button in his coat and declaring that the Prince was enrolled in the District Chapter. The Prince very promptly countered with a dollar bill, the official subscription, saying that his enrolment must be done in proper style and on legal terms.
In the afternoon, the Prince utilized his free time in making a call on the widow of Admiral Dewey, spending a few minutes in interesting conversation with her.
The evening was given over to one of the most brilliant scenes of the whole tour. At the head of the splendid staircase of white marble in the Congress Library he held a reception of all the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, their wives and their families.
Even to drive to such a reception was to experience a thrill.
As the Prince drove down the straight and endless avenues that strike directly through Washington to the Capitol, like spokes to the hub of a vast wheel, he saw that immense, classic building shining above the city in the sky. In splendid and austere whiteness the Capitol rises terrace upon terrace above the trees, its columns, its cornices and its dome blanched in the cold radiance of scores of arc lights hidden among the trees.
Like fireflies attracted to this centre of light, cars moved their sparkling points of brightness down the vivid avenues, and at the vestibule of the Library, which lies in the grounds apart from the Capitol, set down fit denizens for this kingdom of radiance.
Senators and parliamentarians generally are sober entities, but wives and daughters made up for them in colour and in comeliness. In cloth of gold, in brocades, in glowing satin and flashing silk, multi-coloured and ever-shifting, a stream of jewelled vivacity pressed up the severe white marble stairs in the severe white marble hall. There could not have been a better background for such a shining and pulsating mass of living colour. There was no distraction from that warm beauty of moving humanity; the flowers, too, were severe, severe and white; great masses of white chrysanthemums were all that was needed, were all that was there.
And at the head of the staircase a genius in design had made one stroke of colour, one stroke of astounding and poignant scarlet. On this scarlet carpet the Prince in evening dress stood and encountered the tide of guests that came up to him, were received by him, and flowed away from him in a thousand particles and drops of colour, as women, with all the vivacity of their clothes in their manner, and men in uniforms or evening dress, striving to keep pace with them, went drifting through the high, clear purity of the austere corridors.
It was a scene of infinite charm. It was a scene of infinite significance, also. For close to the Prince as he stood and received the men and women of America, were many original documents dealing with the separation of England and the American colonies. There was much in the fact that a Prince of England should be receiving the descendants of those colonies in such surroundings, and meeting those descendants with a friendliness and frankness which equalled their own frank friendliness.
Thursday, November 14th, was a day of extreme interest for the Prince. It was the day when he visited the home of the first President of America, and also visited, in his home, the President in power today.
The morning was given over to an investiture of the American officers and nurses who had won British honours during the war. It was held at Belmont House, and was a ceremony full of colour. Members of all the diplomatic corps in Washington in their various uniforms attended, and these were grouped in the beautiful ballroom full of splendid pictures and wonderful china. The simplicity of the investiture itself stood out against the colourful setting as generals in khaki, admirals in blue, the rank and file of both services, and the neat and picturesque Red Cross nurses came quietly across the polished floor to receive their decorations and a comradely hand-clasp from the Prince.
It was after lunch that the Prince motored out to Mount Vernon, the home and burial-place of Washington, to pay his tribute to the great leader of the first days of America. It is a serene and beautiful old house, built in the colonial style, with a pillared verandah along its front. The visit here was of the simplest kind.
At the modest tomb of the great general and statesman, which is near the house, the Prince in silence deposited a wreath, and a little distance away he also planted a cedar to commemorate his visit. He showed his usual keen curiosity in the house, whose homely rooms of mellow colonial furniture seemed as though they might be filled at any moment with gentlemen in hessians and brave coats, whose hair was in queues and whose accents would be loud and rich in condemnation of the interference of the Court Circle overseas.
Showing interest in the historic details of the house, the picture of his grandfather abruptly filled him with anxiety. He looked at the picture and asked if "Baron Renfrew" (King Edward) had worn a top hat onhisvisit, and from his nervousness it seemed that he felt that his own soft felt hat was not quite the thing. He was reassured, however, on this point, for democracy has altered many things since the old days, including hats.
Both on his way out, and his return journey, the Prince was the object of enthusiasm from small groups who recognized him, most of whom had trusted to luck or their intuition for their chance of seeing him. About the entrance of the White House, to which he drove, there was a small and ardent crowd, which cheered him when he swept through the gates with his motor-cycle escort, and bought photographs of him from hawkers when he had passed. The hawker, in fact, did a brisk trade.
There had been much speculation whether His Royal Highness would be able to see President Wilson at all, for he was yet confined to his bed. The doctors decided for it, and there was a very pleasant meeting which seems to have helped the President to renew his good spirits in the youthful charm of his visitor.
After taking tea with Mrs. Wilson, His Royal Highness went up to the room of the President on the second floor, and Mr. Wilson, propped up in bed, received him. The friendship that had begun in England was quickly renewed, and soon both were laughing over the Prince's experiences on his tour and "swopping" impressions.
Mr. Wilson's instinctive vein of humour came back to him under the pleasure of the reunion, and he pointed out to the Prince that if he was ill in bed, he had taken the trouble to be ill in a bed of some celebrity. It was a bed that made sickness auspicious. King Edward had used it when he had stayed at the White House as "Baron Renfrew," and President Lincoln had also slept on it during his term of office, which perhaps accounted for its massive and rugged utility.
The visit was certainly a most attractive one for the President, and had an excellent effect; his physician reported the next morning that Mr. Wilson's spirits had risen greatly, and that as a result of the enjoyable twenty minutes he had spent with the Prince. On Friday, November 15th, the Prince went to the United States Naval College at Annapolis, a place set amid delightful surroundings. He inspected the whole of the Academy, and was immensely impressed by the smartness of the students, who, themselves, marked the occasion by treating him to authentic college yells on his departure.
The week-end was spent quietly at the beautiful holiday centre of Sulphur Springs. It was a visit devoted to privacy and golf.