The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1919-06-13
Something About
Stephen PichOn

PARIS, France-Among the CHIEF
figures of the Peace Conference. one
on whom perhaps rests the greatest
responsibilities, is Mr.. Stephen Pich
on, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Yet
it is evident that he does not fear the
responsibilities with which he is
charged: he has always had a habit
of looking things squarely in the face
and of confronting the work of the
moment with a determination which
has, perhaps, compensated him for
what he may lack in the more subtle
qualities.
He has always, too, it would seem,
taken life seriously even when as a
staid, grave little boy, clad in long
trousers and in a jacket of distinctly
Etonian tendencies, he trotted duti-
fully to school through the quaint old
streets of Anay-le-Duc. He was, it is
said, a very good little boy; his eld-
ers praised him highly; he rarely
made a noise, and did not care to
play with his livelier schoolmates. In
fact, his father, who was tax-collector
in the tiny Cote dor city, was very
proud of his quiet little son.
A SeIf-Made Man
1t would hardly appear at first
sight, that such a retiring-almost
timid-child would be well equipped
for the battle of life. Yet Mr.. Steph-
en- Pichon is in all the acceptations
of the phrase, a "self-made man."
When his father passed away his
family had great difficulties to face,
but convinced that where there was
a will there was a way, young Pichon
set to work to secure the material in
dependence which would relieve his
mother of all anxiety on his account
One day, at a lunch given by mutual
friends at the famous restaurant Fo-
yot, at the angle of the Rue de Tour
non and the Rue de Vanguard, in the
shade of the Senate to which many
years later both were to belong, Mr..
stephen Pichon made the acquaint-
ance of Clemenceau. The later, at
tracted by the qualities he was quick
to detect in the young man, engaged
him as reporter in the Revolution
Franchise, of which he was then co
director with Sigismond Lacroix. A
couple of years later, having founded
La Justice, Clemenceau ~intrusted
little Pichon" with the task of re-
porting the meetings of the Senate.
The young mar continued to write
Tor that paper until 1880, and it was
while on it hat he made the acquaint-
ance of Millerand, Aurelien School,
and Jules Roche.
A Good Journalist
Mr.. Pichon was an excellent Jour
nalist. He revealed both a diversity
of ideas and a penetrating judgement,
which were the precursors of that
that sagacity which has always char
acterized his political career. He
treated with equal care and talent
the most varied subjects, ranging from
sociology to literature, from history
to political economy, and he has also
written a particularly fine essay on
Charles Pauvety, the forerunner of
socialism, n of the great French
thinkers of the ifties.
Nevertheless, journalism did not
him as a life work.. Politics
soon exerted a great and irresistible
for him, and in 1888 he sue
in being elected as Municipal
of Paris, the almost inev-
table stepping-stone toward the more
enviable position of deputy, which he
attained in 1885. At this period he
definitely abandoned journalism, new
again to take it up, and this mental
attitude is extremely characteristic
Of Mr.. Pichon, who in the course of
his life never resumed any of his for
.er occupations thus resolutely
his back upon the past and
looking only toward the future.
The Lure Of Diplomacy
Failing to be reelected in 1898, he
concentrated his atten-
ion on a diplomatic career, with
such success that he was soon ap-
Minister Plenipotentiary to
Port-au-Prince. 1t should be remark
I'd that Nj. Pichon-unlike any of his
colleagues, ministers for foreign af-
actually visited widely diff
'erent countries, with the result that
has acquired a very real and use
.ul knowledge of racial characterize
cs. In 1895, he was appointed Minist-
IT to Brazil, but unfortunately he re-
there only two years, during