The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-02-26
ASSAULT ON
CLEmENCEAU
SOL|DIFIES
HIS PEOPLE
French Nation Rallies With
Increased Determ nation
About Principles Of Tiger
New Mood is Shown.
WILSON DISAPPOINTING
~ FRANK n. oiMoNDS
(Copy right. 1919, by The Mcclure News
0auAr avndicate1


paper Syndicate)
PARIS, Feb. 26.-It 10 essential to
recognise that the attempted assassin
alton Of the French premier will have
political and International conse-
Quences Of far reaching character. 1t
80 not merely that the most conspicu.
GUS single figure on the governmental
side In the world war. the man who
was the symbol Of victory, has been
struck down by international anarchy,
but Il 10 also that the leading states
man Of France has been stricken at
the moment when. In the eyes OF his
country, he was making determined
and necessary efforts to save for his
countrymen the victory won on the
battlefield.
Due 60 wilson's Course.
have tried many times to point out
the peculiar situation of France, with
the ruling condition of mind and OF
spirit. It 10 an unfortunate fact that
at least one consequence of the course
pursued by Mr.. Wilson In Paris has
been that the peace conference has
come moro and more, both In the
minds Of the French people and OF the
Americans about the peace commits
sion, to be a battle between Wilson
and Clemenceau. in which Mr.. Wilson
has been championing abstract prin-
ciples of Justice and Mr.. Clemenceau
advocating measures which represent
questions of life and death to France.
France came to the peace confer
ence at the end of four ard half
years of war, fought mainly on her
soil, with q population diminished by
100000 as q consequence Of the war,
with half a dozen provinces in ruins
and q score of cities wrecked, to ask
two things, reparation for material in
juries and guarantees against future
attacks.
These demanus were not made by
any separate faction In French poll
tics. They represented the desire. the
uassionate viii Of q country daspo1Ate-
II wounded, to have from its allies
some assurance of that support with
cut which It might still have succumb-
ed to the brutality of the German
assault.
What Premier stood For.
sAll this Clemenceau symbolized at
Paris in some measure as he symbolic
ed In the closing year Of the war the
will for victory. Beyond all else there
was in the mind of this old man whom
the world not inaccurately describes
as Father Victory" the determination
to crown his labors by obtaining for
his country the possibility Of future
existence Like every other French
man he knew that the peace confer
ence by it's decisions would determine
whether France was to live or die.
and like every other Frenchman, he
came from the battlefield to the green
table resolved that France should live.
Mr.. Wilson came to Paris resolved
that there should be league of ma
tions. Encountering at Paris this
unanimous French notion, finding
French interest and French attention
fixed on the salvation of France rather
than on the formulation of the prin-
ciples of league Of nations, Mr.. VIII
son and those associated with him
were not successful in concealing
their disappointment or their disap-
proval of what seemed to them par
ticularistic national policy.
When France as a whole asked Mr
Wilson to 20 and see her devastated
regions that he might understand heI
heart, he returned a cofd and unequiv
ocal negative, and / do not think that
any single act of any man ever car
ried with 1t profounder disappoint
ment than Mr.. Wilson's refusal to &C
to the northern regions and see what
the Boches had done.
French Attitude Changes.
And We have had. week after week
slow but sure change in French emo
ton with respect to the President. He
was hailed by the little people oi
France as saviour. He was hailed as
man who came from another world
to deliver France and other peoples
of the world from the shadow of trag
edy which has been, and little by little
his course here had the effect at leas
of creating the impression that hi
cared nothing for the life or death O
France, that he was not concerned
with the things which the tragic care:
OF war had burned into the soul o
every French man and woman.
do not think 1t Is possible accu
rately to represent how profound wa!
the disappointment of France at thi
course of the American President, ;
sense first of desertion and then of Ut
ter isolation crept into the Frencl
hearts, as more and more the Amerl
can attitude toward France passe'
from mere coldness with respect t
French necessities to open criticism
and hardly concealed suspicion.
do not think one would exaggerat
by saying that three months ag
France believed the war won, and tt
day, as a result of what has occurre
in the peace conference, there Is some
thing amounting to real terror 10
fear the war shall be lost after al
and France left alone again acros
the pathway of Germany. increased i
power and population by the last wal
Before Bullet Hit Mark
Before the assassin's bullet struc
its distinguished mark there was pei
haps a certain amount of feeling i
France that some part Of the respor
sibility for the division between Amel
lea and France might be charged t
French leadership. There was fee
ing that no sacrifice could be too grea
(contir1ed on Page Eighty