The first American King

by George Gordon Hastings

“With pleasure,” answered the Colonel. “As I have just remarked, Goldstream draws attention to the fact that the history of the past all pointed to the Empire. By this he refers to the history of all the old-time republics. What has that history been? First, a republic, and honest, sturdy simplicity; next, a growth of wealth, followed by a constantly increasing luxury. And what was the outcome of these conditions in all these republics? Class distinction, founded upon a plutocratic basis; and official and industrial corruption born of the wild scramble after wealth and its ostentatious fooleries. These conditions have ever proved the soil from which a ruling class has sprung, followed by a monarchy and an aristocracy. Read the ancient histories, and there you find it recorded again and again.”

“That is quite true in many respects,” said the Professor; “but what signs do you discover in our times which foreshadowed the passing of the Republic and the installing of the monarchical institution?”

“The very first signs,” answered the Colonel, “are to be traced to the close of the nineteenth century. As can be gleaned from the literature of that period, sons of the rich men were beginning to ape the dress, the manners and the modes of speech of the gilded youth of England. A wave of what was then called Anglomania swept over the country. If a foreign nobleman, even a poverty-stricken German baron, or a beggarly Italian count, came into the country, he was fêted, entertained and run after by your Society and toadied to in a manner of which the smallest London shopkeeper, or the humblest bourgeois of the Paris faubourgs would have been ashamed. If an adventurer of that period called himself my Lord This or Sir Henry That, people straightway lost their heads and their money. I ask you if this has, or has not, been correctly reported?”

Kearns laughed. “What memories your words bring to me!” he said. “I could tell you of some extraordinary cases. But don’t let me interrupt.”

“The beginning of this century,” continued the Colonel, “found your Republic of the United States growing rapidly in wealth, in luxury, and in class distinctions. The literature of the times points clearly to the existence of a class which considered itself superior to the ordinary citizen. Some of the writers of the period seem to have placed the numbers of this class at four hundred, but this originally limited number must certainly have largely increased later on, as new fortunes were made and new millionaires sprang into existence.”

“The Four Hundred!” exclaimed Kearns. “Why, that was originally regarded as a species of joke sprung by one Ward McAllister.”

“It evidently turned out a pretty grim joke for the Republic!” retorted the Professor dryly.

“All these things were straws clearly indicating the direction to which the wind was veering,” resumed the Colonel. “A large percentage of the members of this class, denominated even in the days of the Republic as ‘High Society,’ lived in Europe, where they could bask in the sunshine of aristocracy and at times even creep within the shadow of a throne. The one dream of the members possessed of marriageable daughters in this ‘High Society’ was to marry off such daughters to European aristocrats. The multi-millionaires of the period aspired to a match with an English Duke or Earl; those of lesser millions were compelled to put up with a French Count, or a German Baron. No woman was too beautiful, no dot too great, provided a title were involved. No personality was too repulsive, no reputation or character too vile, provided they were gilded over by a patent of nobility. Do the chronicles that tell of these things lie, or do they record the truth?”

“The frozen truth!” answered Kearns curtly.

“Then how can you say,” cried the Colonel triumphantly, “that the coming events did not cast their shadows before? What meant these things if not an aching and a longing for aristocracy? And you can’t very well have an aristocracy without a monarchy! It is the most natural sequence of events in the world,” continued the Colonel argumentatively; “first wealth, next luxury, then a desire to be distinguished above the common herd. After all the physical appetites are satisfied comes the craving for honors and distinction, for decorations and titles!”