BELGIUM: BELGIUM Leaflets & Hisses

• Share

Leaflets & Hisses

For every Belgian Socialist who hissed Queen Elisabeth in Antwerp last week, and for every Flemish Frontist who threw leaflets at Her Majesty, throngs of loyal subjects cheered lustily, sang the Royal Anthem. Police arrested four Socialists for hissing, five Flemings for leafleting. Born a German, the able Queen is considered pro-French by rabid sectionalists who want "Flanders for the Flemings!" Whether she really enjoyed it or not, Queen Elisabeth sat through a long Flemish opera, alert, gracious, regal.

Sayings of Queen Elisabeth*

¶ "Belgium is more democratic than America. Less ceremonial surrounds the King than the President of the United States."

¶ "I am a graduate nurse and I am the President of the [Belgian] Society for the Prevention of Venereal Diseases."

¶ "Elders may sometimes be snobs. Nothing can change the native democracy of a child."

¶ "Men have creative, women have interpretative brains. Madame Curie has phenomenal brains, a man's brains, but she is—an exception."