AMERICA AND THE KING

Hokitika Guardian, 11 June 1929, Page 5

AMERICA AND THE KING

SYMPATHY IN ILLNESS. “We found courage, enterprise, and vision in the United States,” says Sir George Armstrong, the English journalist; in a remarkable account of his visit to the United States, from which he lias lately returned to London after an extensive tour , with other British journalists. Sir George Armstrong describes a number of personal experiences to show the generosity and kind-

ness of the American towards Bri-

tain One thing which struck him especially was the general sympathy for the British people in their concern regarding the King. “It was left to the King’s illness,” he says, “to lift the curtain of ignorance and reveal, to the world something whereof it had hitherto little or no cognisance.” He exemplifies this by what lie saw in Philadelphia when the King’s condition was critical. “One evening about midnight,” he says, “I purchased' a newspaper front a rough-looking fellow

who stood outside the main - entrance of our hotel, and returned to the armchair just inside the main lounge to read it. A few minutes afterwards, to my .astonishment, the man suddenly pushed through the swing doors, and before I realised what he was doing he had snatched the paper from my hands and thrust a fresh edition in its

place: ‘Look, sir!’ lie exclaimed, ‘the King’s better! Isn’t that fine?’ Before I had recovered my surprise he

had disappeared through the door and was gone. By the inflection of my voice he had guessed I was British, and he wanted to show me something which he knew was of great importance to me. I glanced at the news, and then sat and pondered upon all that the

little incident conveyed. It was an epitome of that sympathy for the Old Country which, despite everything that might he said to the contrary, • lies deep down in the hearts of the Ameiican people.” Sir George Armstrong mentions the courtesy arid consideration shown by the vast congregation in 'New York Cathedral in the, Thanksgiving Day service, in rising and standing with bowed heads at Bishop Manning’s request, while a prayer was made for the King’s Recovery. He also describes William Randolph Hearst’s action in travelling 300 miles by specia* train to a banquet in Los Angeles given to the English journalists by the newspaper publishers of California.