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Both as human beings and as crowned symbols George & Mary in the glory of their Silver Jubilee were the King-Emperor & Queen-Empress of the Year, inseparable in the public mind. The year restored George II as King of Greece but his Throne trembled last week as he sought to master Greece's ousted Dictator. King of Kings, In 1935 there was just one man who rose out of murky obscurity and carried his country with him up & up into brilliant focus before a pop-eyed world. But for the hidden astuteness of this man, there would not now be the possibility of another world war arising out of idealism generated around the League of Nations in behalf of Ethiopia. But for His Majesty Haile Selassie the year 1935 would have been a distinctly different year. If by some unhappy chance the Italo-Ethiopian war should now spread into a world conflagration. Power of Trinity I, the King of Kings, the Conquering Lion of Judah, will have a place in history as secure as Woodrow Wilson's. If it ends In the fall of Mussolini and the collapse of Fascism, His Majesty can plume himself on one of the greatest feats ever credited to blackamoors.
Above all, Haile Selassie has created a general, warm and blind sympathy for uncivilized Ethiopia throughout civilized Christendom. In the wake of the world's grandiose Depression, with millions of white men uncertain as to the benefits of civilization, 1935 produced a peculiar Spirit of the Year in which it was felt to be a crying shame that the Machine Age seemed about to intrude upon Africa's last free, unscathed and simple people. They were ipso facto Noble Savages, and the noblest Ethiopian of them all naturally emerged as Man of the Year.
Outside Italy, the Emperor was clapped and cheered during 1935 in almost every cinema house in the world. His name entered the U. S. vocabulary in such homely exclamations as, "Well! If that's so, then I'm Haile Selassie!" In the last week of 1935, Haile Selassie reached Broadway as a character in the new George White's Scandals (see p. 24). Cries he: "Boys, our country am menaced! What is we gwine do?" From then until the curtain falls amid applause which almost stops the show, His Majesty and guardsmen execute a hilarious tap dance (see cut).
Goodness & Wisdom, Without quibble or qualification the best and wisest ruler ancient Ethiopia has ever had is the present Man of the Year.
Ethiopia, contrary to popular misconception, is not a Christian country. It is not even Coptic Christian. Unroll an authoritative religious map of the Empire, such as that in the current January issue of Foreign Affairs, and the facts are evident. In trifling quantity a few Christians are to be found near Addis Ababa, and the Coptic Christians, to which faith the Imperial Family appertains, form an island in the Mohammedan and pagan sea of peoples which is Ethiopia.