Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1914 — PRIDE OF GALLANT NATION [ARTICLE]

PRIDE OF GALLANT NATION

Three Boer Leaders, as Famous In Statesmanship as They Were In War. Gen. Jacobus Hendrik de la Rey, who was accidentally shot and killed by Johannesburg police, will be mourned by many a British officer now serving at the front. Knightly was a term worthily applied to Gen. de la Rey in the Boer war. A braver, gentler, more magnanimous soldier never faced an enemy. His countrymen called him the lion of the western Transvaal. Englishmen said that he was one of the. three military geniuses among the heroic burghers whose defense of their country compelled England to put 400,000 men In the field. The other great soldiers who won fame in the Boer war Iby their brilliant tactics were Louis Botha, now premier of the Union of South Africa, and Christian Rudolf de Wet, who is minister of agriculture of the Orange River colony. Louis Botha, the youngest of the three, born in 1862, commanded the Boers at the beetles of Colenso and Spion Kop, an< upon the death of Petrus Joubert F'a soldier and a gentleman and a brave and honorable opponent” in the words of Ladysmith's defender, Sir George White) succeeded to the command of the Transvaal forces. De Wet and De la Rey, the latter the older, were fighting men of the same type, and it would

be hard to say which showed the greater skill In surprising and capturing British detachments and afterward eluding pursuit. De la Rey had more solid achievements to his credit, among them Klerksdorp, where Lord Methuen, sorely wounded, fell into his hands and was released so that ho could obtain medical treatment. All three of these able soldiers aided the British in the reconstruction of South Africa. De la Rey visited India in 1903 to persuade th® Boer prisoners detained at Ahmednagar to take the oath of allegiance. He was returned unopposed to the first Transvaal parliament of th® union. Of the Boer leaders none had a more atractlve personality. ,It was a fine race of people that could produce such soldiers and statesmen, and never was there stronger proof excellence of British administration in our times than the winning of Botha, De la Rey and De Wet to the new order in South Africa. The empire has known no more loyal citizens.New York Sun.