Mr. Lloyd George gets a grip on those who read about him, but his personality is far more powerful and fascinating to those who have known the man himself, known him during the time his genius has been forcing him to eminence. He does not fill the eye as a sanctified hero should; he is too vitally human, too affectionate, too bitter, and he has, moreover, springs of humor which bubble up continually. (You cannot imagine an archangel with a sense of humor.) But it is this very mixture in the man

One day in the year 1866 a middle-aged cobbler named Richard Lloyd, occupying a tiny cottage in the village of Llanystumdwy in North Wales, had a letter delivered to him by the postman which was to alter the whole of his simple and placid life. It was a letter from his sister and bore melancholy tidings. The letter told how she had lost her husband and how she and her two little children were in distress. She was the mother of the present Prime Minister of Britain. The elder of her two children,

The personalities of history flash across our vision like shooting-stars in the sky, emerging from hidden origins, making for their unknown goal with a speed and brilliance at once spectacular and mysterious. They are incalculable forces; we can only look at them and wonder at them. It is futile and quite useless to try to define the secret motive power of these personalities by puny analyses of moral influences and by a catalogue of their feelings and surroundings. They follow their destined co

Lloyd George was twenty-five when his fight for the burial of the old quarryman lifted him to the public notice of the country at large. The year was a fateful one for him in other respects. For two or three years before this he had been speaking at public meetings, securing more and more confidence as he realized his powers. He became the banner-bearer for the allied causes of democracy, a free Church, and the rights of Wales as a nation. His compatriots rallied round him as their forefathers h

What was the underlying motive in Lloyd George during those years of feverish combat? Why should he have gone out of his way to deal injury and to incur enmity? Why was he always in the pose of rebel even when his friends were in power? Was he anything more than a clever young politician seeking notoriety by espousing unpopular courses whenever there was a chance to strike a blow at those high in authority? They are justifiable questions, and they can be answered quite shortly. Heaven had given

The biggest day in Lloyd George's life until he was called upon by the King to form a Government was Thursday, April 29, 1909. On that day he presented to Parliament and the country his first Budget—the framework of taxation and legislation which was to be the foundation of a new social system in Britain—which incidentally was to break the power of the House of Lords and to lead to such a storm among all classes that the aid of the King himself had to be invoked in order to carry out the plan of

A few days later, with Lloyd George sitting by his side, Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, made the following announcement in Parliament: "The House of Commons would, in the judgment of his Majesty's Government, be unworthy of its past and of the traditions of which it is the custodian and trustee if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear that it does not mean to brook the greatest indignity and the most arrogant usurpation to which for more than two centuries it has been asked to

In the midst of all the stormy times of the fight with the House of Lords and afterward up to the present moment Lloyd George's personal life in its simplicity and happiness has been a standing contrast to the turmoil and passion of his public energy. Meet Lloyd George among his family, and it is hard to realize that such a homely, genial person could be the man who tackled so rancorously the House of Lords. I went to 11 Downing Street one day after the Budget fight was over, and when, as Chance

The psychology of a community is as mysterious and subtle as that of an individual, and Lloyd George, despite all his so-called extravagance, all his depredations, and all his wounding words, was by way of being an acknowledged power in the country by the time the war with Germany burst out of the sky. The mysterious strength of the man worked on people against their will. Besides, there were tangible things which had to be faced. He had settled the great railway strike, he had passed several sw

I regard Lloyd George as the most interesting man in public life in Britain to-day. There is, however, another very interesting man in the country, though on a different plane from the Prime Minister. I mean Lord Northcliffe—the Alfred Harmsworth who started life for himself without help at seventeen, was a rich newspaper proprietor at thirty, and at forty was a national figure with wealth which would satisfy the wildest visions of any seeker after gold. He is about the same age as Lloyd George,

The fundamental difficulty between Lloyd George and some of his colleagues was that he had ideas about running the country which were at variance with theirs. His Celtic temperament could not tolerate the slow muddling-through process, was impatient for daring new methods. He was disinclined for step-by-step procedure, and found reason for anger in the officials and Ministers who thought the war ought to be conducted according to book. There has yet to be told the full story, not only of all the

According to all the rules which are supposed to guide the rise of a self-made man, Lloyd George should have been a master of routine, with the orderly mind and undeviating habits without which we are sometimes told no person of affairs can secure permanent success. It is much to be regretted that Lloyd George lends no aid to the well-established maxims. The teachers and preachers who seek to implant in the young the principles of continuousness of purpose and of regularity and of kindred qualit

In some lights it seems rather a shabby thing that Lloyd George should have ousted Mr. Asquith and taken his place as Prime Minister. Mr. Asquith, with great intellectual attainments and with the highest attributes of an English gentleman, had been at the head of the British Government for eight years, and during this period big achievements had been inscribed on Britain's story. He had been a strong and constant friend of Lloyd George who, under his leadership, had risen from the position of a

When this war is concluded there must be a new era for the world. Already there are signs of its approach. Generations hence there may again be awful conflicts between nations, spasms of hell in which the blood and anguish of millions will pay their tribute to the beast in man, but it will not be in our time, and in the interval, the beginning of which must be upon us very quickly, a new order of things will arise among the civilized people of the globe. Stricken humanity will insist on happier

On the anniversary of President Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1916, Mr. Lloyd George sent a remarkable message to the American people comparing the American Civil War with the European conflict. By the courtesy of the New York Times this message is presented here....

I am very glad to respond to your request for a message for publication on Lincoln Day. I am glad because to my mind Abraham Lincoln has always been one of the very first of the world's statesmen, because I believe that the battle which we have been fighting is at bottom the same battle which your countrymen fought under Lincoln's leadership more than fifty years ago, and most of all, perhaps, because I desire to say how much I welcome the proof which the last few days have afforded that the Ame