The Daily Alaska empire., 1929-12-31
Clemenceau and Wilson.
Manchester Guardian.l

remarkable man produced by the Third Republic But he remarkable rather for his personal pow CT than for his outlook opinions For he was typical Radical of his generation. He hated the Empire and he hated clericalism, the two evils that seemed to him and to his Allies to have brought France to her catastrophe in 1870. He had stern sense of duty and any summons to his Radical conscience was sure of an answer. As combatant in such struggle as that over the Dreyfus case he could strike harder and deadly blows than anybody else But like the other men of his school he destructive than constructive. Some statesmen famous for the number of times they have held office. Clemenceau famous for the number of whom he had driven from office. It perhaps Nemesis for that had strewn the floor of French politics with victims that after his immense services in the he was refused the Presidency of the Republic. He and his friends had taught France to look with sus- picion on men who gained great ascendancy, and the doctrine they had instilled was fatal to his ambition For the greater his claims the nation the greater the danger of rewarding them with power
 It was an odd irony that threw Clemenceau and Wilson together at the Peace Conference. Clemen- essentially the of 1870 In that year France had suffered a supreme disaster. That dis aster, so Cemenceau would have said, had come from the rule of an arbitrary man-in the hands of clerical advisers and under the influence of a cerically minded wife-who amused himself with Utopian ideas about the government of Europe and the peace of the world while Bismarck was preparing his schemes for the aggrandizement of Germany. But a strange and unfortunate coin- cdence the ruler who brought France to the ground had been strange mixture of good and bad ideas; for if he side an adventurer never able to throw off the atmosphere and habits of his type and his career, he the other a dream CT with visions of federated Europe based on the principle of nationality He had indeed about Italy and Poland ideas resembling those that Will son took to Paris The French Radicals had re- voted against Napoleon the usurper but after 1870 they were in revolt also against the memory of Nonn fIa Jet France was ever to she could not afford to think of anything but France So French Radi- calism came to assume the realist self regarding temper that marked French policy after 1870 Clem- enceau represented this temper in its purest form
 for he refused to be carried away by the ambitions for colonial empire which had been so skilfully stimulated by Bismarck He was for cold hard common sense without illusions, either the illusions Of ambition or the illusions of generosity. He want ed neither French expansion sacrifices
 When Clemenceau and Wilson met it was the meeting Of two men of whom based all his plans on fear, the other on hope Wilson saw himself creating new world in which the Four teen Points would make a law of nations Clemenceau saw himself reorganizing the world against the danger that Germany might recover her power and attack France Wilson believed that war might be made impossible; Clemenceau thought this rubbish, but he thought that German vic tory over France might be made impossible But the two men were not only contrasted as cynic and ldeallst, as realist and optimst, as man of doubt and of faith. Clemenceau was essen
 tialy man of the world and Wilson was es sentlally an innocent in this sphere Clemenceau knew great deal and Wilson very little about the politics of Europe Clemenceau had the view which underlies all French political ideas: that the French are the experienced people of Europe with roots in the Roman Empire, a settled and stable State when the rest of Europe was in confusion accustomed by special knowledge and genius to lead and control Europe The Frenchman tbinkc tnis IS his weapon against superior numbers There Will always be more Germans than Frenchmen but French experience and French skill in politics compensate for this disadvantage Clemenceau rem resented this body of confidence the confidence of men who think they know their trade better than anypooy else Wilson represented confidence of a different kind: the confidence of a people beeving itself to be strong because it's ideas are neu h
 cause It has not lived in the tirng or corruntino world of European politics, because it could take olSihterested view of quarrels that seemed to if rather ridiculous. The two men stood at onnos;te poies Yet by strange irony nobody was hit harder by Wilson's collapse than Cemenceau Tho catastrophe that followed Wilson's return to tbe oii'eo states le1t good part of the peace un- Aailecteo For France and England did not lose theT acquisitions nor their indemnities But clen enceau himself not much interested in eitha lie and MT. Lloyd George wrangled and wrestled over these points, but Clemenceau wranoled and Wrested because he thought the French would not forgive him if he did not get a large nden,nity ana because, cumulative by nature he did not want | to pc Worsted in struggle with an English states
 'ii. put the arrangements of the treaty that were really close to his heart were the arranpements TOT the defense of Frances frontier He was not | oi course as extravagant Foch but he wanted { the neutral buffer State and when ba co,Id ,,ot get It he attached great importance to the treaties with Great Britain and the United States which ne got Tn its place When the American Senate upset enal plan Clemenceaus prestige suffered as well as Wilson's. Clemenceau like Wilson bod ti ial He spent his last years in a retirement fIll oi dignity observing the simple and hardy habits Of life that he had followed at the Peace conference when he used to prepare for his bouts ~ieh MT. Lloyd George by spending hour be- fore breakfast in the exercises of the gvmnasiun, he showed that he had mastered an art rarely acquired by men who have enjoyed great power the art Of living happily without it.