A QUEER PRESIDENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1013, 31 December 1910, Page 6

A QUEER PRESIDENT.

PORTUGAL'S NEW HEAD, A NICE OLD GENTLEMAN WHO TALKS THE CLOCK ROUND. TRYING times for pressmen. The President's room in the Ministcrio (writes a New York pressman of Portugal s new head), looking out on the Praca do Commercio, is that of his predecessor, Sonhor 'feixeira de Sousa, premier, two weeks ago of his .Majesty, King Manuel. It is an enormous hall, rather than a room, and at the eild of it Dr. Theophilo Braga works on innumerable papers at a table covered with green baize, and also with books, directories, mountainous piles of documents, and one well-used (or ill-used, if you will) leather - handbag, which looks as if somebody had-sat on it, and which would on that account fetch in the open market less, perhaps; than its original price or ! s .ay ("ugh l ? s Peaking) a dollar and a.hall. ..This handbag, which would lose an English bank clerk his job if ho were seen in company with. it on his way to business, belongs to the new President, who, on the. score of republican simplicity, certainly leaves nothing to be desired. I admire him for it. The President is a medium-sized man, of slight-build, 1 and between sixty and • seventy years of age. The yellow- faco was very much wrinkled when this revolution started, and it is getting more and. more wrinkled every day, owing to t-IIQ fresh perplexities that each hour brings,'owing to the strangeness of the ■position;, in-which the alleged President finds: himself.- The. soft brown Portu-guese-eyes,. such'eyes as, in an Indian or Chinese-setting, 1 liave often' seen in Goa,'and'Macao, express dreaminess, .enthusiasm, good nature, but it is easy to-see that they look put on a world of which they linow nothing.. They are the eyes of a gentle recluse, a devoted scholar, -a tenth-rate•• poet, an absentminded professor, an innocent old man who really. should be pottering about, an unconscious pensioner of the state, or of some religious order in some royal library, or in the shaded garden of some wealthy Benedictine Abbey, -: *

• SIMPLE LIFE. ' I never; really understood the use of monastic congregations .until I gazed on the face of this amiable old gentleman, and realised tile necessity.of dcjicately shielding such people from the rude .blasts of a .matter-of-fact world. In every possible way (save one), President Braga was designed for the monastic life —not-, 'perhaps,: for the! Jesuits! who need brisker and more worldly men,, but certainly, for the learned Benedictines. Ho told." me "himself that ho has no passions, that he despises money,. that.,he.'lives,.6n' a'little coffee; in the morning,, a cup of bouillon and some 'bread in the course of the. day. . This I firmly believe. The old gentleman is -siiworldlylo an extraordinary degree. The oho tiling ..which, in my opinion, 'would debar 'hijrr .from- receiving :. the monastic habit and. perhaps subsequent canonisation, in his little: anti-Christian hobby. On Christianity and inona'rchism lie is not only, unreasonable—be. is maniacal. His books breathe fire against Christians and Kings.'. He seems to think-that Christianity has blighted the world,,has , stunted the stature of men, .has corrupted the virtue of .women, has blasted the peace of humanity!. Theso. , wild views are set forth in all his' addresses and conferences, but unfortunately! these, masterpieces of literature are ony'to' be bad in Portuguese. No foreign publisher has yet thought it worth while to have them translated, and,- verily, the matter is so poor, the manner so inferior,-that , the . venture ■would never pay.:.- ■-, Frenchmen would .bear in such 'translations only a dull echo of '-Rousseau. . • Englishmen and Americans • would see a poor' imitation of Ingersoll and -Paine, v There, is, indeed, a tradition, that ', one Italian publisher, gently.daring, did issue a.translation, of several worlis by President ,-Braga, but of that unfortunate publisher's" subsequent fate no; clear, and connected account can now be obtained. .'•HOW TO OBSERVE. ■ : . .The President has, as his' photographs show, a scanty moustache on, his up-' per' lip,' balanced ,by a 'scanty _patch of hair- on the lower lip; ■ both being of a colour which may be described'as ;_a dark^grey.- : "The.hair on his head is, ■quiteVgrey. 'It' is plentiful, and 1 ,*it "stands iiip- in tangled masses several inches above the t-op of his head. . Evidently the, professor frequently moves 'his. fingers ' through, it. Perhaps lie" sometimes attempts, in his perplexity, to'lift himself by the hair of his_ head.-. However tliat; may be, his hair is certainly; in a stat-e. of. terrible confusion, and entanglement. It reminds me .of the':fearful and wonderful heads ■ of revolutionary; hair I used to '.see -in Russia. . ••'

■ Professor Braga has a black coat and baggy grey trousers. Beside him sits his.-secretary, a 'Moorish-Jew, smoking a cigarei/te. . Standing close , by, with legs wide; apart' ; in ..the.; fiercely independent attitud'o ; of'a -mail who is. about to be .' put out of' a. public-house,-. and who haughtily challenges the landlord: to "conie>on," is: a ferocious-looking* one-eyed., ..citizen smoking 'the , very exiguous Vstump of a cigar, which., is extremely'strong, and was probably in-; expensive. . The one-eyed man is looking foiv his "hat and umbrella (I had an umbrella stolen, in tho -Presidential Presence myself),, and he seems by his glance' to accuse, the President of having' "swiped"' them. . .On this subject I refrain from comment, but -there cer.tainly is, in ft corner of the'room, close .'to "the President's elbow; a collection .of three.or four bulgy.umbrellas arid'several hats, one of hats being a countryman's broad-brimmed sombrero..

. Seated at the samp; table'as the President, and'with his" liack turned .towards the august chief.of tie State is another secretary, who is 'discussing'something •in very loud' tones ,'witli, a number of Spanish anarchists and Portuguese "patriots.". Excellent people in their way these revolutionary journalists may. be, but for niy .own part X cannot quite understand them. One of them looks very clerical; with his clean-shaven face, black suit, and black straw hat, but oven Prince Kropotkin would shudder' at the views he holds. To his extreme disgust/and despite his terrifying curses and blasphemies, ho was mistaken yesterday for a monk and arrestqd. ,~ \ All these south European anarchist journalists have got. a violent hatred of Christianity; policemen, church beadles, and civilisation generally. They .talk ,of the Holy Inquisition,' but if ever they get the upper hand in Spain the inquisition will soon, bo outdone. - "With the exception of the mild, clericallooking party (the. most dangerous ' of them all), thoy are ill-dressed. Some have bushy, blackfcyebrows, and a weeis's,growth of intensely black hair on their'faces. A .London policemen" consider it,his bounden duty to keep liis eye'oil them till they disgorged the bombs. The President is talking to an Italian deputy, a Republican with tho fleshy voice of a man who has over-eaten himself and is just able to articulate. As other people go to the seasido to recruit, as . devout Catholics go to'tho shrines of saints, as aviators go to aviation meetings,, so this deputy goes to every place where there are" bombs, revolution, and trouble. I havo met him in several hot corners before. He is the sort ; of man who will cheerfully lend his: passport to people who are going'to blow up the. .Tsar, and bestow 'his benediction on hair-brained young men who Want to; plant a stiletto in the Popei Nevertheless) he is only a bore,

monotonous, good-natured,, and not dangerous at all. Ho professes a ferocious political creed because otherwise peoplo would pay no attention to him. Standing in the centre of the room are two sallow, anti-Clerical Portuguese journalists.- They arc watching the President as. a cat might watch a mouse-hole, for. they want to interview him. These men are "our own correspondents," our very own, our well-in-formed "specials," our "representatives on the spot who to-day such a graphic and unbiased account of the Clerical question and of tho latest Jesuit intrigues." One of them ' represents seventeen different papers—English, French, and German—and the other only eight. Besido me are seated a number of Russian journalists. Encore the same merry 9'd gang of revolutionists and anarchists which we meet wherever kings are to be blown up and thrones battered down 1 Among them is an avowed anarchist, with such loose ideas on the delicate subject of dynamite that even tho first Duma--refused in horror to admit him to the press gallery.

A TRYING INTERVIEW. - Finally our turn comes. We are introduced to the President. Wo speak 'to liim, or, rather;-we listen. We listen for hours and hours to a stream, of babble' covered bv a driftwood .of technical Socialistic and pseudo-philosophic terms. . I have a strong personal regard for the President, and 1 know that he would be the first ,to recognise the truths of the above remarks if he ever had time to see them in.print or to hear about tliem. Of course he never will have time. A man who talks uninterruptedly .for twenty hours a day could not possibly have time. Besides, the old professor : President has now reached that/stage when a man closes up as it were, becomes introspective, gets absorbed in.his own theories, and no longer pays any attention to what goes on in the outer world. He .is certainly aware that the .revolution has taken place and that he is President of the Republic, but I am, doubtful if he knows much beyond that. He pours forth his- description of an ideal world which exists only in his own imagination,"a world-in .which there are no priests, no religion, no. funeral services, no baptisms, no prisons, no poor, no ambassadors, no soldiers, no policemen, no capitalists, no kings. Qf' the present, the actual, he seems to take little note. ,

I am,convinced that if-his .two secretaries were to suddenly stand on their heads ' oil l|is writing tablo and' all the other patriots in the room were to simultaneously dance the cake-walk, lie would pay no attention whatever to their proceedings, but., would continue to elaborate whatever wild theory ho happened, at the moment to be engaged upon. He might be proving by references to ancient bones that the Portuguese were the tallest people in Europe before they' came., under the stunting.and degrading., influence of the _ Jesuits. Ho might be inveighing against the Portuguese representative in London for giving expensive dinners, when ho might j'ust as'.well invite' Sir lidward G-rey _ and • the.. Corps . Diploma- 1 tique to •a' fried fish shop.. -But- nomatter on what theory he was hammering away, nothing-perhaps but a replica of the groat earthquake 'at Lisbon could distract his attention. I do.not,, of course, maintain that he is •_ literally - always- "at ; it. ,J Sometimes during tho course ,of . the day lie'has to be forcibly stopped, in order'that he may sign death, warrants, decrees confiscating monasteries, and such trifles. Die-modus operandi on. such occasions reminds mo of that which is sometimes employed in the case of a water-tap which a child .can- open, but 1 which ,it takes three men and a sledge-hammer to close., His secretary, shakes him, shouts-into his car, and finally (after desperate efforts) prevents him : from' signing tho paper upside-down.

HIS PET THEORIES. ' [ The President plunges back again, into somo wild,theory -about, the. Portuguese being ethliolo'gically the purest and the" least adulterated, race ... in fcuropc, or about England being really a branch of,the Latin world.' . ' .. These two theories tho President actually expounded to ■ the present writer, with great learning, verbositv', iand detail; and probably they are both wrong.. , , • - . .... ..'v. I have often had my little difficulties in my interviews with important peo-. ' pie, but I never suspected that I would' have a difficulty like this-a chef aetat delaying witli talk .a journalist,' .who glances anxiously towards tho door, praying, but hardly • hoping; for escape; a diplomatist,, who insults and offends every nation in Europe, including his own,, until the very exuberance of . his, onslaughts makes .the whole thing, useless for the press; The President, told me, for example, that he would caTry the' revolutionary, propaganda into all the; Latin countries,- so 'that- these countries, including Eng- ... > wol 'W fornr'a. barrier against the, militarism and Imperialism of i Germany.'. At length and with infinite deta.il,he explained to: .the.Russran journalist) including the Red Revolutionist, how they can get rid of. the Tsar. Instead of being impressed the journalistic revolutionist too'c out his. watch and. gazed at it. significantly, for' tho tenth time. I looked tho d00r... But. the President would not take tho hint, and, like a giant .'refreshed, he plunged gayly into a. most recondite scientific theory of revolution. Some time after this . his secretary managed to make him. understand -that a;justly, important personage was wait.irig to see him on a matter of life and death. We' thought that this would end the interview. But 110, the, Presidont said that he would soon bo-back, and he made his secretary stand-guard over, us, so that wo should not escape.

, WHAT HE WANTS TO DO. ..As to the drift of this nightmare interview I can only say that the President promises every reform , that ever was dreamed of since tho world began. ,Ho 'will abolish all the, legations and replace the - . fninisters by charges d'affaires.. He will, of course; abolish" the legation to the Pope. He will bring to an'end ill the .colonies tho' reign of tho militarist and tho official.' Ho. will have manhood suffrage, but is not. yet quite certain whether or not he will give'the. vote to women, this year. He says that the women of the douhtry. are still dazzled by the-.; now ; light, that, has broken in in -Portugal, probably meaning that the majority of them aro clericalist and reactionary. Of course, it does not matter in the least what 110 says. He has 110 moro influence over the course . of events, tlian tlio weathercock on tho. Nccessidades Palaco. A pathetic , figurehead, lie is not even consulted by the . Secret Society which now rules the country. Interviews., with -him are,' I am', told, cut down and mutilated by tho censor at the telegraph office. His own subordinates do not pay'the slightest respect, to him in his own presence.