Foreign News: Eagle into Crow

“One of my black subjects can fly as well as any white man!”

Thus recently spoke the King of Kings, the Conquering Lion of Judah and the Elect of God who last week was crowned as Power of Trinity I, Emperor of Abyssinia (see above).

To prove his patriotic contention the Emperor had imported and naturalized as one of his subjects “The Black Eagle of Harlem,” Colonel Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, “The Negro Lindbergh” (TIME, Nov. 3). Before the white Coronation guests, including George V’s pallid third son, the Duke of Gloucester, the black ace was to take off and do stunts with an airplane presented to His Majesty by the daughter of H. Gordon Selfridge, London drygoods tycoon. “But don’t you try to fly that airship before my Coronation day, Colonel!” commanded His Majesty, Power of Trinity I.

To chocolate-brown Julian the olive-skinned Emperor’s command seemed unreasonable, sinister. How could he stunt successfully a ship he had never flown before? He decided that the lesser risk was to brave imperial wrath, go up for at least one practice flight.*

Stealthily the “Black Eagle” moved, was off with a roar before his intention was suspected. In the Abyssinian capital, New Flower, the sound of one airplane is enough to make everyone run out of doors, even the Emperor. Thus the wrathful monarch was watching when his Black Eagle turned into a Black Crow, lost control of his ship at an altitude of 100 ft., crashed in a mass of tangled wreckage. “Spite work!” cried Colonel Julian emerging uninjured from the mess. “That Frenchman who commanded the Abyssinian Air Force before I took command tampered with my ship. Spite work!”

In Abyssinia, black men who break the law—and the Emperor’s word is law—are frequently punished by lopping off both hands, both feet. Colonel Julian was, moreover, an Abyssinian subject. What should be done with him?

Fortunately, during the Coronation period, Abyssinia is trying to appear as civilized as possible. The Duke of Gloucester would certainly blanch at any penal amputation. Therefore Colonel Julian was allowed to scuttle out of Abyssinia—a man without a country. Wrote one of his white admirers, Colyumist Beverly Smith of Manhattan’s Herald Tribune: “Julian [on Sept. i, the day he sailed for Abyssinia] was one of the happiest men I have ever seen. His whole heart was set on the glory of the imperial Abyssinian Coronation . . . when he was to direct the aerial maneuvers from the new imperial plane. And a boundless future lay before him, as officer and statesman of the great Ethiopian Empire.

“Last night the sad news came in . . . high tragedy, I think. . . . Abyssinia’s loss is New York’s gain.”

*Col. Julian’s personal motto: “Personality and Power—that’s the alpha and the axle of success.”