ABYSSINIA: Coronation

(See front cover.)

With the cross of Jesus on his breast, Taffari Makonnen, already King of Kings, Conquering Lion of Judah and the Elect of God, proceeded last week to his Second Coronation, this time as Power of Trinity the First, Emperor of Ethiopia.

The complexion and features of Haile Selassie, or Power of Trinity, resemble those of a Spanish Jew. But throughout the world last week Negro newsorgans hailed him as their own, recalled the honors conferred by His Majesty on “The Black Eagle of Harlem,” Colonel Hubert Julian, “The Negro Lindbergh” (see cut).* Matter of fact the people of Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, are of every color from coal black through tawny brown to olive, include many non-Afric races. Centuries ago scornful Arabs nicknamed them Abyssinians (“mixed peoples”). Today members of the Royal House are strongly Semitized, claim descent from Hebrew King Solomon’s Queen of Sheba, profess the religion of Coptic Christianity, acknowledge as their pope the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria.

Ben Hur & Admiral Byrd. Twelve nations sent envoys to the Coronation. First to arrive was Special Ambassador Herman Murray Jacoby. Born 38 years ago in Germany, two years ago he sold out his Manhattan bond house, announced that he had retired “to cultivate my hobbies,” proceeded to explore Brazil’s Amazon, turned up in Abyssinia last week as President Hoover’s representative.

Landing at Jibuti on the Gulf of Aden, Ambassador & Mrs. Jacoby and their suite entered a private train for the 780-mi. journey to New Flower, the tin-roofed capital of the King of Kings. New Flower, or Addis Ababa, is hidden among mighty mountains at an altitude of more than 6,000 ft. To this barbaric stronghold the Jacobys carried officially an autographed photograph of President Hoover, described as “handsomely framed.” Unofficial, privately-paid-for U. S. Coronation gifts include :

One electric refrigerator.

One red typewriter emblazoned with the Ethiopian Royal Arms.

One radio set with phonograph attachment.

One hundred records of “distinctly American music.”

Five hundred rose bushes, including several dozen President Hoovers.

A new kind of amaryllis developed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

A bound set of National Geographic Society publications.

A bound report of the Chicago Field Museum’s expedition to Abyssinia.

Three moving picture films: Ben Hur, The King of Kings, With Byrd at the South Pole.

Off Plate of Gold. When the U. S. special puffed into New Flower, a coal-black band with an olive-skinned conductor blared “The Star Spangled Banner.” Amid a 17-gun salute Abyssinia’s Crown Prince greeted the beaming U. S. Ambassador and his stern escort, Brig.-General William W. Harts, U. S. A. Smartly escorted by native cavalry the U. S. party clattered off to their hotel, dined there that night on the King of Kings’ own gold plate, loaned for the occasion as an especial mark of Royal favor.

Bright and early Ambassador Jacoby greeted the Conquering Lion of Judah in English, listened to a reply which the Elect of God pronounced in Amharic, most official of Abyssinia’s many languages.

“Proud and Free!” No. 1 Royal guest at the Coronation was George V’s third son the Duke of Gloucester. France sent Marshal Franchet d’Esperey, Italy, Rear Admiral Prince Udine, cousin of King Vittorio Emanuele.

As everyone knows, the African colonies and “spheres” of Britain, France and Italy completely surround Abyssinia, cutting her off from the sea. (Jibuti, where the Jacobys landed, is in French Somaliland.) This state of affairs explains why the King of Kings sent a personal envoy to Calvin Coolidge three years ago, begged the President to re-establish a U. S. diplomatic mission in Abyssinia, where none had existed for almost 20 years. The wish was granted, and J. G. White Engineering Corp., Manhattan Engineers, got a $15,000,000 dam building contract in Abyssinia for which British firms would have given their eyeteeth.

In a circular letter to member states of the League of Nations, protesting Anglo-French-Italian encroachments, the King of Kings then wrote: “We Abyssinians have seldom met foreigners who did not desire to possess themselves of Abyssinian territory. . . . With God’s help, and thanks to the courage of our soldiers, we have always, come what might, stood proud and free upon our native mountains.”

Pomp & Gifts. Her Majesty the Queen of Sheba presented to His Majesty King Solomon gifts worth more than $4,000,000 before they began the intimacy from which sprang Abyssinia’s Royal House. Recently their alleged descendant bought from European jewelers for $1,000,000 jewels and gold for a set of crowns over which Coptic priests began some weeks ago 21 days of prayer.

Every lion killed in Abyssinia is the property of the Conquering Lion of Judah (each loyal lion-killer being allowed to keep a small tuft of fur as a mark of prowess), and months ago in London a bale of lion skins was delivered to a Bond Street tailor with instructions to “fashion them into suitable garments for a coronation.”

Along with the Bond Street lion clothes there arrived in Abyssinia last week the Royal & Imperial coach of Kaiser Wilhelm II (picked up cheap in Germany for $6,000), a team of the famed Habsburg white horses and an Austrian coachman who used to drive the late, great Franz Josef.

Compared to such costly pomp even the expensive gifts of European governments seemed cheap. What if the Duke of Gloucester brought an English coronation cake weighing one ton?* What if President von Hindenburg sent 500 bottles of fine Rhine wine? What if the French gift was an airplane which flew from Paris to New Flower in short hops?

“Bad Coffee.” Abyssinians sip the Coffee of Peace instead of smoking the Peace Pipe. When someone is poisoned the well-bred Abyssinian thing to murmur is “mm, bad coffee.”

This was murmured after the death of the late Empress Zauditu (TIME, April 14). But it was never proved that the present King of Kings really did bad-coffee his cousin. He said she died “of shock” when one of his bombing planes blew up her Imperial consort.

Certainly the new Emperor is the greatest Abyssinian ruler of modern times. Grandeur and a fine sensitiveness are blended in his person. He is educating likely Abyssinian youths at schools and colleges throughout the world, but particularly in the U. S. His way with the priestly and feudal classes, bitter foes of modernization, can only be called masterly. Little by little, as he can, he is introducing farm machinery, building roads, waking up a land which has slept for 5,000 years. For his Coronation on Nov. 2 he decreed this striking ceremony: the people to stand all night in a vast multitude around the Coptic Cathedral of St. George, each standee holding a lighted candle; the Emperor and Empress to pass an all-night vigil inside St. George’s, then to be crowned amid solemn chanting by the Coptic Abuna (Our Father) Egyptian Archbishop of Abyssinia.

*Originally a parachute jumper famed for playing the saxophone during his jumps, the Black Eagle said, on his return to Harlem from Ethiopia last July:

“When I arrived in Ethiopia the King was glad to see me. … I took off with a French pilot. . . . We climbed to 5,000 ft. as 50,000 people cheered, and then I jumped out and tugged open my parachute. … I floated down to within 40 ft. of the King, who incidentally is the greatest of all modern rulers. . . . He rushed up and pinned the highest medal given in that country on my breast, made me a colonel and the leader of his air force—and here I am!”

Taking off from the Harlem River in his seaplane Ethiopia I, the Black Eagle attempted a flight to Ethiopia in 1924, landed on the mud flats of Flushing Bay, explained: “Pontoon trouble.”

*Abyssinians considered as a restitution rather than a gift several trunksfull of ancient Abyssinian documents brought back by the Duke of Gloucester last week, originally carried off if not stolen by British troops.