National Affairs: Who Would Be King

Word came to the U. S. that William Henry Ellis, who preferred to style himself Guillermo Enrique Eliseo, died in Mexico City. Mr. Ellis was one of the most remarkable men who ever acted as agent for the State Department. He was known chiefly for the famous incident in which he delivered a commercial Treaty from this country to King Menelik of Abyssinia. But his unusual history began much earlier.

He was born in Victoria, Tex., in 1864 and claimed to be of Cuban parentage, on account of which he used the Spanish form of his name. He was first a cowboy, then an inspector of customs, cattle trader, cotton raiser.From the cotton and wool business he branched into a scheme for colonizing Mexico with southern Negroes. The colony failed, but he went on; he entered the brokerage business, and went to New York. There he became head of a $10,000,000 water company which served various towns now incorporated in New York City and known as the Bronx. After some difficulty he sold the water company to the city and was said to have made $500,000 by the transaction.

Then, in 1904, came the Abyssinia affair. He desired, it is declared, to become King of Abyssinia. He induced the State Department to draw up a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with King Menelik. Kent J. Loomis, brother of the then Assistant Secretary of State (under President Roosevelt) was commissioned to take the treaty to Abyssinia. Ellis accompanied him. Aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm II in the English Channel Loomis disappeared. His body was later washed up on the English coast.

Ellis went on, and delivered the treaty to King Menelik. He gave the King heavily jeweled saddles and other gorgeous presents. In return Menelik made him Duke of Harrar and Hawash, a duchy of 1,600,000 acres in extent. But if he had plans to exploit Abyssinia, they came to naught. He returned to the U. S. and had a home at Mt. Vernon, N. Y., still maintaining his interests in Mexico. In 1903 he had married Ida Lefferts Sherwood, and at his death left her and four sons, Guillermo Enrique, Jr., Carlos Sherwood, Porfirio Diaz and Sherwood. His death leaves few men living who have played so gaily, freely for the stakes of business and statecraft —Zaharoff and d’Annunzio, perhaps.