The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-25
SAVANNAH. GA SUNDAY JANUARY % 1908
De BLOWlTZ'S CAREER.
The Most Famous of Paris Cores
pOndents.

emit Oh the LonQOn Times, whose death
occurred last Sunday, was the most
famous of European correspondents.
interchangeable, prompt to discern the
drift of public intelligence, and not to
be deferred by the fear of men or the
force of routine from learning what he
wanted to know, NJ. de Blowitz did
some of the mort brilliant work every
performed by any man for the Lon
don Times. Wherever he went he put
himself in direct connection with the
highest authorities, and as a conse-
quence built up an enviable reputation.
1t was when Lawrence Oliphant
was correspondent OF the London
Times at Paris that De Blowitz made
his entry into Journalism. He was
then assistant to Oliphant, whose ac-
quaintance he seems to have first
made in the South of France dur
ing the war of 1S70-71. Oliphant was
suddenly summoned from Paris. and
his successor, Marshall, continued the
services of De Blowitz. Very soon
the latter succeeded Marshall at Mar
shalfs recommendation, the successor
of Oliphant becoming secretary gen.
eTdI OF the Japanese Embassies ana
Legations in Europe.
The Congress of Berlin, in 1878, gave
De Blowitz great opportunities. His
work on the Times caused favorable
comment throughout Great Britain,
and he began to achieve celebrity to
a considerable degree. As the person.
ality of De Blowitz grew more and
more conspicuous in Paris his DISPOSE
ton to make himself a mere chron-
icler and brief abstractor of the Times
declined. His views came to fill more
and the news of Paris fill less of the
space allotted to the Paris correspond
ence of the great English journal. In
August, 1891, young American jour-
nalist was selected from the staff of
the London Times to cooperate with
De Rlowitz 'in giving greater fresh
ness and variety" to it's Partisan cor
respondence.
Opportunity an Accident.
The beginning of De Blowitz's jour
nalistic career may be said to have
been the result of the accident of war.
After decade of deep obscurity, at As
years of age, his opportunity came
when, as secretary to Oliphant, his
employer was excluded from Paris
during the siege by the Germans. Bio
witt profited by it in stupendous meas
ure. By means of carrier pigeons, bal
looms and numerous ingenious devices
he kept his chief outside the city walls
informed as to what was going on
within the beleagured city.
After he was surely seated in the
saddle as Paris correspondent of the
London Times he made diplomats, cab
met officers, senators and politicians
of every degree his intimates. No Eu-
ropean correspondent had more nor
had as many facilities for gathering
reliable news as he. De Blowitz was
credited with knowing more French,
Italian, German and Austrian political
secrets than did even the prime min
listers of those governments. Some of
these secrets he published.
DE Blowitz never acknowledged his
Polish descent, and never wrote a line
except in French. All his letters to
the Times had to be translated. De
Blowitz always kept himself in touch
with German politics. When what is
known as the ''reactionary agitation
began in France, De Blowitz wrote to
the Times the articles which unmask-
ed the hidden conSpiracieS OF the mon
archlsts. 1t was in return for this that
he was decorated with the cross OF the
Legion of Honor. From that time
French ministers and politicians did
not conceal their delight at obtaining
a good word from De BlowitZ; and also
did they seek to avoid the castigation
OF the portly and effulgent gentle
man" who held nocturnal communica-
ton with Printing House Square from
the Rue Vivienne
In de BlOwitz's Apartments,
The apartment of De Blowitz was the
gathering place of Ambassadors and
wandering diplomats. Expresses of
opera comique, kings among dramatic
authors, ladies who had grievances
against crowned heads, polygot merce-
naries who knew Chinese, Japanese
and Arabic, cantatrices who desired
to be launched, scandal mongers who
dealt in blue ruin, peacemakers who
desired to hush up ugly reports all
made the home of De Blowitz a place
to tie to. The host would greet them
all freely, admit that he knew all of
them, and not deny that he knew how
to manage them"
De Blowitz was an enthusiastic sup
ported of Jules Grevy. He was inti-
mate with Gambetta. OF Rochefort
he said: HE is a political gravedig-
ger" and warned him that religious
persecution was a blunder. At times
De Blowitz was called by many "a
Prussian spy" but events proved that
none loved France more devotedly or
wisely than he. He was once described
as diplomatic bloodhound. He inter-
NACWCd 1AllCAS, DloiUdICh, the GOfnIe
de Chambord, Alfonso XII, Gambetta.
the Comte de Paris, the Sultan of Tur-
key, the Marquis Tseng, the King of
Roumania, Leo XIII, Jules Ferry.
Duclerc, Prince Lebanon, and many
other noted people.
His Journalistic Triumphs.
De I3lowitz predicted the march of
the Russians to Herat, sent the treaty
of Berlin to the London Times before
it had been signed, and scored many
other journalistic triumphs. The Pail
Mall Gazette said of De Blowitz at the
time of his retirement from Journal
ism last month:
HE might have been an American
politician if he had not dallied with
mechanics, and might have been a
distinguished mechanician if a ma
chine of his invention had not given
him fame by an explosion"
He ruined the canvass of NJ. de Les
seps in Marseilles by a revelation of
that then famous and now forgotten
history of Ishmael Pasha's special
train. At the time of his retirement
a committee of eighteen of the chief
correspondents in Paris, representing
no fewer than twelve different nation
alities, was formed and an appeal was
made to the correspondents in Paris