amazing few are the people outside his kingdom who do not know him who appreciate the unusual personality of this precocious young king. indeed, he must be known to be appreciated.
a tall, athletic young man of narrow but muscular physique, with a smooth, olive skin, dartling black-brown eyes and a kaleidoscopic expression,—don alfonso is one to command attention, interest and respect. he sits a horse superbly. he excels in everything he undertakes. he is the surest shot in spain; the most skilful as well as the most reckless motorist, a capable yachtsman, an efficient, dependable polo-player,—above all he has infinite pluck and daring. the world is familiar with his courage not only at the time of the bomb on his wedding day but on many other occasions when he has displayed iron nerve and superb poise. the first time i had a formal audience with his majesty, i gathered my real impressions of the man. after this audience, i saw him many times and under varied circumstances, but always the impressions of the first day were deepened and confirmed. as i entered his study in the palace of madrid, he came with quick, nervous step toward{55} me and grasping me firmly by the hand, spoke words of greeting in the spanish language.
“your majesty has no objection to english?” i asked, as he still tightly held my hand.
“objection? rather not, provided you can stand for my wretched english.” this was the only note of affectation in king alfonso’s entire conversation. he speaks english fluently, correctly and idiomatically.
“put aside your hat and gloves and sit down. let us talk,” he continued. i placed my hat aside as he bade me and started to seat myself opposite the chair his majesty had already taken.
“not there, not so far away,” he exclaimed. “come here,” and he patted with the palm of his hand the sofa which was in juxtaposition to his chair.
“have a cigarette,” he added, as i moved close to him and he held out a silver cigarette case with a small monogram in the upper left hand corner.
“may i smoke?” i queried, i must confess, in some surprise.
“naturally, why not? here”—and before i had fairly taken the cigarette, his majesty, with characteristic quickness had struck a wax vesta and was holding it toward my mouth that i might get my light.
my slow wits happily returned in time for me to catch the match from the royal fingers, to offer it first to him and then light my own. these were the preliminaries. they were over in a{56} minute. after we had lighted our cigarettes, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees and the joints of his fingers closed against each other before him. he spoke rapidly but thoughtfully, and in his voice was the ring of a man of enthusiasms.
beneath the smooth, olive skin and the flashing black eyes, one felt a strong, passionate nature. one got instantly behind the glamour of royalty and saw only the man, the man of conviction and of courage,—the man of destiny.
no photograph has ever portrayed king alfonso. he is unphotographable. the man is not in his features but in his expressions, his manners, his atmosphere of charming manliness; above all in the scintillating glints of his flashing eyes.
“you have come at a very interesting moment in our history,” he said, “because it is a moment of change for spain. we are just recovering from our long era of costly wars, ending with the disastrous war with america, and our recent colonial wars.” he paused and smiled genially as he added, “in the war with america, we were badly beaten, but that is a matter which has now passed into history and that page of our history we have turned over. i think i can speak for everyone in spain when i say that not the slightest feeling of rancour remains with us; and i have ample evidence that the american people have none but the best of wishes for spain.” i replied that many americans were ready to congratulate spain in being well rid{57} of cuba and the philippines, those frightfully expensive drains on the resources of spain—which are proving a by no means light drain upon the resources of america.
his majesty’s eyes twinkled merrily as he looked directly into my face. after a brief pause, he went on: “however that may be, a new era for spain began with the close of the war. the recent war in africa cost us heavily—fifty-three million pesetas ($10,600,000).”
“surely that is not much as the cost of wars go nowadays,” i interrupted.
“no, quite true—for a modern war, it was not so expensive,” he returned, “especially in view of the results we have obtained.”
then he sketched the present lines of spanish influence in morocco and outlined the policy of spain for the development of this influence and the increase of trade. incidentally, he paid a high tribute to the courage and marksmanship of the moors. “they don’t fire till they see the whites of the eyes of the approaching troops and they pick the officers first of all with amazing accuracy.”
“that war being now over,” he went on, “we have entered a period of peace and it is my aim to further the development of spain in every way possible. it would be interesting to realise all that we have already begun, what we are about to do and what we hope to do in the next years before us.{58}”
i lighted another cigarette and the king, without shifting his position, began afresh.
“first of all, we are giving our attention to each branch of the state separately. i have my ambitions for the army, the re?stablishment of the navy, the general education of the people and how we hope to deal with other internal problems, the republicans, the socialists, the anarchists and others.”
during the last decade i have listened to statesmen and leaders of men in almost every country of europe and in america, but i have never met any man who could say as much in an hour as did king alfonso; i have never met a politician or statesman who was so intimately familiar with small details, and i have never met anyone who could talk so succinctly to the point. he elucidated each question with graphic clearness. each subject that he took up in turn, he summarised. as a feat of intellectual conversation, it was without parallel so far as my experience extends. he expressed himself very rapidly, in clear, incisive language, showing toward each topic an enthusiasm and personal interest almost incredible. at the same time, he watched my expression carefully and at the least shadow of question which i betrayed, he delved deeper into details in order to make everything perfectly clear. i touched upon the question of the church in spain and found his majesty’s views as liberal and as clear as they were upon the secular subjects. he went on, however,{59} to explain that any hasty reform was impractical, although it was the project of his government to undertake all of them as circumstances would permit. if he were to introduce liberal and progressive measures at once, the opposition would throw the whole country into a turmoil.
politically, the attitude of the king is for all that makes for the common weal of spain in the platforms of all parties and movements—even those that are opposed to his monarchy.
the amazing development of spain during the last decade is directly due to the extraordinary dynamic spirit which has been exhibited by this remarkable young king. no department of national life has been neglected by him.
the iberian peninsula has long been regarded as a doubtful, not to say dangerous proposition from a financial standpoint. spain and portugal have been judged more or less alike. no greater mistake could ever have been made. portugal has long been in the hands of aristocratic buccaneers, pirates in broadcloth, but none the less rascals of a most desperate character. the portugal ship of state was looted and scuttled by the very class who constituted her monarchy. nowhere could one find a dominant personality.
spain on the other hand is well equipped with statesmen, with diplomats, with politicians of large calibre and more so now than in any decade of recent centuries and all because of the personal attention given to the affairs of state by king al{60}fonso. don alfonso is the hero and the idol of the whole spanish army. from earliest boyhood, he devoted a large part of his time to building and strengthening the army and increasing its esprit de corps. two forenoons of every week, he devotes to military audiences. he never tires of reviewing troops, often leaving the palace at six o’clock in the morning to visit some outlying garrison. when he is caught overnight in some remote town, he is sure to be up early the next morning to inspect any body of troops which may be quartered in the neighbourhood. i recall once seeing the king overtake a body of infantry in the street called arenal, in madrid. as soon as the royal automobile came up even with the rear rank, the order was given to the troops to have them swing round so as to face the sovereign in salute as he went past. the king at once rose to his feet in the car, at the same time uncovering, and as the car swept by the regiment, his piercing, intelligent eyes seemed to dart an individual glance to each soldier along the entire line. not once did his eyes wander from the troops, although a hurrahing crowd blocked the pavement on the other side of the street. ask any soldiers of the mellila campaign who wore the cool sun helmets that the king presented from his private purse, speak the name of the king to any officer of the spanish army and see him square his shoulders.
king alfonso does not trust entirely to military supremacy, however, for he believes in the peaceful
[image unavailable.]
king alfonso and his heir.
{61}
progression of his country and appreciates to the full the necessity of economic development. at the time of the spanish-american war when cuba and the philippines were lost to spain, it seemed as if her greatest markets had been taken from her, but during recent years, since don alfonso has extensively taken up the reins of sovereignty, he has stimulated commerce and trade in other parts of the world. spain has seaports which give her splendid natural commercial advantages. a few years since, spain went quietly but earnestly to work to build up an exchange trade with the new countries of the world which seemed to offer the greatest opportunity for large commercial expansion,—trade with the argentine republic, paraguay, brazil, chili, peru and mexico. during the last few years, under the wise counsel of the king, these states have been courted diplomatically and socially to the incalculable stimulus of trade; and with what result? in ten years, spanish bonds have doubled in value. spain now sends $12,000,000 worth of textiles, minerals and wines to the argentine while only six years ago, 1905, the amount was only $6,000,000. in uruguay, almost a proportionate increase has been witnessed since 1905 when $9,000,000 worth of exports went from spain and it is probable that within the near future, spain will be sending $20,000,000 worth of stuffs to uruguay alone.
spain’s trade with mexico has been particularly happy because the credit system is practically{62} non-existent. of $7,000,000 worth of goods shipped to mexico in one recent year, 90 per cent. was paid for in cash. to the united states, spain sends annually approximately $8,000,000 worth of minerals, cork, olives, malaga grapes, etc., and in return purchases from us nearly $30,000,000 worth of goods. raw cotton is the chief import from the united states, but modern machinery forms a big item. spain, however, buys most of her goods from great britain and the amount shipped annually to the iberian kingdom averages $80,000,000. this is the result of long years of trade study, nursed and built up and consequently it is less significant than the trade with south america which has received such extraordinary stimulus, not in ten but in five years, or in other words, since king alfonso has been personally concerned with this phase of the development of his kingdom. spain is a country in which the people went in a single bound from petroleum to electricity and this is indicative of her entire development. she is rapidly skipping through the gas stage of progress through which the rest of the world has so long toiled.
the keynote of king alfonso’s character is in his courageous determination. once convinced of what is right, i believe he would be as steadfast as the rugged crags of the pyrenees, that he could be swayed by neither favourites nor ministers, threats nor prayers.
the sense of duty has been highly developed in{63} him, thanks to the careful training he received at the hands of queen maria cristina, and his sense of moral obligation is absolute.
the general idea of the king is to encourage the industrial and economic development of the country, at the same time he is upholding the state, and to strengthen at every point the bulwarks of the state until its whole fibre is of the strongest character. commercial development without a thoroughly grounded state, he believes to be worthless.
don alfonso xiii believes in spain. he glories in her proud past and he has the conviction that greater glories and prosperity are still awaiting her. it is toward her greater future that he is ever looking, and with that greater future in view, so he is building. he wants the world to know spain. he wants tourists from every country to come and see her natural beauties, her resources and her possibilities. to stimulate interest abroad he is now giving special attention to the seemingly trivial, but after all most important matter, namely, better roads throughout the kingdom and improved hotels. till now, many of the roads of spain are utterly wretched. when spain can vie with france in her road beds, the sovereign believes that many more tourists will come, especially in view of the increasing use of automobiles. and having come to the country he wants people made comfortable.
there are, at this time, but few first-class hotels in spain. there is one at granada,{64} built by the duke of san pedro, and others at algiciras and ronda. the hotels of madrid are all rather bad and excessively expensive. the prices are paramount to the best hotels of london and paris and the rooms are small, poorly equipped and in general comfort are decidedly lacking. the king manifested his interest to the extent of asking me many minute details about the hotel where i was lodged, the size of my room, number of windows, was there running water (which there was not), the kind of bed, etc., etc. he knew quite well, however, the actual conditions before he asked the questions. a new ritz-carlton was therefore built in madrid through the personal interest and influence of the king, and it is the aim of his majesty to make this the first of a chain of good hotels all over spain. this practical interest in details of this character indicates that he is no mere dreamer of empires, no idealist who lives in the future because he is looking forward. like all strong men of history, king alfonso is a practical idealist who gives heed to each step of the road he is travelling, conscious that on the work of to-day the work of to-morrow must stand.
history will ultimately place him, but at twenty-four he has already taken his place among the signal figures of his time and his promise for the future is immeasurable.
an estimate of king alfonso’s statecraft at so{65} early a period is not possible. but there is great promise in the young sovereign. don alfonso does everything that he undertakes. it is a bred-in-the-bone characteristic with him to excel in all things.
king alfonso, like king george in england, is one of the best shots in his kingdom. this, at least, is a matter of merit, and cannot be said as a courtesy to the king. this year, king alfonso came out second best at the annual pigeon shoot, having taken nineteen birds out of twenty-one. the high record was twenty-one out of twenty-three. previous years, the king has captured the first prize.
the english princess who became a spanish queen, therefore, came to a land of extraordinary activity. spain’s development is proceeding with greater rapidity than in any other country in europe during the present decade. king alfonso is the most wideawake, alert, progressive man in spain and he is controlled by a tremendous ambition to bring spain into line with the most modern of nations. he is kept well informed as to what all parties in his kingdom are doing—what they want and why they want it. he is as quick to accept a plank from the platform of the republicans or socialists as from the liberals or monarchists. by nature, don alfonso is a radical. it is by virtue of his personality and what he has accomplished for spain that he is the most popular man{66} in his kingdom. republicans to whom i have put the question: “if a republic were declared in spain, who would be the first national leader—the first president?” the answer has been “probably don alfonso. he is the most popular man in the country.{67}”
