Evening star., 1929-11-17


ent estimates give his cabinet
l. Il but brief existence-his ar
rival as president of the council
is nevertheless significant. Hitherto
French politics and French cabinets
have been conducted and headed by
men who had arrived before the war.
BRAND, Poincare, Herriot, Millerand,
even the perpetual Painleve, had be-
come more or less familiar figures be-
fore 1914
But Tardieu was entering the Cham
ber of Deputies for the first time the
year the World War began. True, he
was already one of the most distin-
guished of French journalists. After a
brief apprenticeship in the diplomatic
service he had gone straight to news
paper job and his articles On foreign
affairs, printed in the Temps, were un-
rivalled in their influence as in their
Recommendation.
But the journalist was only just be-
come a politician when the war whirled
him away from his desk and buried
him, like so many others, in the OBJ
security of the front-line trenches.
From these he emerged presently to be-
come the lieutenant of Clemenceau, the
representative of France in the United
States, and at the peace conference the
Intermediary between American and
french uelegatlonS.
He Suffered for Clemenceau.
When, however the United States
rejected the Treaty of Versailles and
the French people, as a whole con-
demned Clemenceau as the victim of
the tntrigues of Lloyd George and the
illusions of Woodrow Wilson, Tardieu
suffered with and for his chief His
book, that famous defense of the Glenn
enceau policy at Paris failed of its
major purpose, which was to prove that
at the peace conference Clemenceau
had gained all that was possible and all
that was necessary.
With the retirement Of Clemenceau,
Tardieu'S fortunes declined. His news
paper, begun with the assurance of the
collaboration of Clemenceau, who never
wrote line for it. disappeared inglori-
ouSly. In the election of 1924 Tardieu
was beaten. He had risen with Glenn
enceau, fallen with him and now
seemed destined to disappear with him.
He was man without a party, a fol-
lowing an issue.
But two years later when the Radical
Socialist coalition which ruled France
was in trouble, when the franc was be-
ginning to shake, when France was be-
coming alarmed for its economic and
financial future, Tardieu suddenly an
nounCed his candidacy in the Belfort
district, that fragment of Alsace left to
France when the Germans took Alsace-
Lorraine.
This new candidacy of Tardieu was,
moreover, not alone an appeal to the
electors Of the Upper Rhine, but was
designed to awaken the interest of all
France. Tardieu appealed for election
to the Chamber of Deputies, not as a
member OF any party, not even as q
follower of Clemenceau, whose judg-
ment was now finding vindication
Rather he appealed to a new postwar
France, the France which had its eyes
flxed upon the reorganization Of ma
ttonal life, Of national business, Of ma
ttonal effort on modern lines.
Tardieu's triumphant election put him
instantly in the front rank of the
public men Of France. It was, also, the
forerunner Of the downfall of the
Radical-Socialist coalition, the return
OF Poincare to power and the creation
OF that Ministry of National Safety
which, under the guidance of Poincare,
stabilized the franc and restored order
in French political life and prosperity
in its economic endeavor.
Spokesman for New Regime.
And, measureably, Tardieu became
the spokesman for this new regime.
He had been the lieutenant of Glenn
enceau and men now began to speak
of him as the heir of Poincare. He had
in some measure caught the dominating
spirit of postwar France, which sought
peace abroad and caution at home,
which wanted to have its domestic af-
fairs run by Poincare and its foreign
relations guided by a BRAND.
Speaking for the new France, which
had escaped alike from the pre-war de-
preston resulting from the defeat of
1870 and the humiliations of later years
and from the uper-nationalism which
had been fired by the victory of 1918,
Tardieu preached a gospel far more
suggestive of Hoover than of Gambetta.
He made himself thus the prophet of
new France In a new world. the world
of Ford. which was replacing that of
Bismarck
In his political principles Tardieu cut
in between the radical and the ma
tionalist, between the Left and the
Right. In all matters which might
concern business and finance, his posi-
ton was that of the Republicans of the
United States, but in foreign affairs he
tended more and more to support the
internationalism of BRAND. Above all,
his message, again and again pro-