The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-07
''CA|LLAUX MYTH" IS EXPLODED IN FRANCE
Whatever Outcome of His Trial, Impossible For Him
 to Regain Ascendancy
By F. o. FoLLA

Paris, February fSpecial1- ristol shot with which Madame cairaux.
 wife of Joseph Cailaux, prime minister
 of France. killed Calmette. editor of inc
 Figaro shortly before the war, changed
 the history of the world But for that
 shot he would almost certainly have been
 the head of the French government when
 war broke out. Whatever may be the re-
 suit of his trial by the French Senate
 this at least is sure The relations be-
 tween the allies and the course of the
 ar would have been quite different from
 what they were with men like Briand and
 Clemenceau at the head of affairs
 Until that shot was fired Caillaux wac
 the one dominating figure in French pc.
 tics. (Clemenceau, it Is amusing to re-
 call, was considered a burnt-out sDl-
 varol. He was master of the largest
 group in the Chamber and the man who
 pulled the string Even the scandal of
 his wife's trial left him still a graat
 if somewhat storm-beaten, figure in the
 world. And it certainly abated none
 of his own enormous belief in himself, hch is the key to his who'll character
 and the explanation " everything that
 has happened since.
 War came, and Cai1laux, though under a cloud, was still, in the opinion of many Ff enchmen, the man for the crisis. Cs N-
 laux himself was entirely of their way of thinking. The public did not know it tLen, but glimpses Of certain priva' e memoirs have shown within the last <S@-
 weeks how strongly he felt that he was the man of destiny. Mobilized on ac- count of his great financial skill as .a
 al my paymaster with the rank of colonel,
 he disappeared from public view; but be- hind the scenes he was as activs ~s over. Within a few weeks he was back in Paris intriguing for office in the re- constructed war cabinet, pulling the strings snatching at the reins, r.'~ling the interests of his friends and himself. But the men in power were obdnrate. There were two great obstacles to Cs.il- laux's return, his wife, with her record Of clearing her husbands enemies out of his path with revolver, and his own record of making friendly deals with Ger many, the hereditary enemy. CaillauX found himself sternly left out in the cold and reduced to acting through his puppet, Malvy minister of the interior, who has since been banished for malfeas- l ance in office. by the very court appoint ed to try Caiilaux.
 Caillaux went off to South America Vn vague government mission, designed probably with the double purpose of get 1 ting him out of the way and giving him the illusion that he was making himself useful He was humiliated and angry; his uppermost thought was how to ccrrn- termine the men in power in France, who from his point of view were blind lead CTS of the blind, rushing the;r country ! full speed into disaster. France was all lowing herself to be used as the eats paw of England, according to Caillaux way of thinking, and the only way out l of the mess was to "cut the loss and | agree quickly with Germany
 1 Caillaux was convinced that he was the
 man to negotiate the deal. His doings q South America and later in Italy, where
 he went to SOW the seed, proved that he
 was obsessed by the idea that the sort of 1 speedy peace which he thought he could
 arrange not too expensively was the only way out of Frances difficulties. His pri vate papers show, too, that. in order tc Tcariy ou his plan. he had at least SC. riousIy considered the necessity of dec.1r' l ing himself dictator and throwing into 1 jail all those who were likely to oppose 1 him.
 While all these ntrigues were gc.ne On the public saw and heard little or nothing of him. Owing to the war and : the censorship he was out of the ll1ne- l light But he was in peoples minds During the first three years of war the man in the street was convinced that Caillaux. the strong, silent man, wofld sooner or later be called in He was not personally popular. but 1t became an article of faith that he was the one med icine man and miracle worker whom the nation possessed. Even to those who knew how carefully this myth was fos- tered by Cailaux.s friends its spread
 among the public was amazing.
 Then came the arrest of that miserable
 traitor and mountebank Boo. and the
 revelation that Caillaux was his friend
 and social sponsor This gave public
 opinion it's first shock. Cailiauxs own
 ndictmeAt by the military authorities fol- lowed and the disclosure that he was on
 equally familiar terms with Tlmereyda and the other scroundrels of the anarchist
 and pro-German Bonnet Rouge. Then
 the idol crumbled into dust
 It was these things and not the accu-
 sations concerning clumsy pacfist irl- trigue, revealed in diplomatic papers pro duced at his trial which dethroned Call
 Iaux in the public imagination. He sud-
 denly became the best-hated man in
 France. If he had been tried and shot while the war lasted there would have