Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/300

 his whole career. It is wrongly believed in some quarters that he wrote a letter to the American Public and the President of the United States at the instigation of Mrs. Besant, or at a message communicated to him by her to that effect. The facts of the incident are that Mr. Hotchener, a journalist of repute in America had been staying here with his wife, a talented lady—both of them Theosophists and in deep and earnest sympathy with the political aspirations of India. When Sir Subramaniem happened to meet them, during the political turmoil that had been created, at a periodical Theosophic function at Adyar—in the conversation that ensued, the idea almost like spontaneous combustion flashed that Mr. Hotchener might do something to rouse public interest in his own country towards the Indian situation which had come to be overtaken by such a dark cloud. It must be borne in mind that Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Chelmsford and Lord Pentland were all practically rowing together;and unless a change was decreed over the heads of all these three, there was not likely to be a difference. Well, they were of course not going to have a single constitutional remedy untried in India. But constitutional agitation in India would derive