Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-26
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Talleyrand, or whoever it was, said
a mouthful when he uttered the
aphorism that language was invented
as a vehicle for conceahng thought. He
must have been referring to of1cial
communicates. Certainly the one just
issued jointly in the name of President
Hoover and Premier Laval on the re-
suits of their conversations in Wash
ington is q model of what Talleyrand
had in mind. It was no impulsive bit
of vagueness-the newspaper men who
day Sunday, running q perfectly good
day for golf, can testify to that. Mr..
Hoover and his exalted Gallo guest
had an engagement for 1880 o'clock,
supposedly for the purpose Of going
over, more or less informally, the final
draft of their hi-lateral statement. The
correspondents expected to receive 1t
by noon at the latest. It was long after
o'clock in the afternoon when they
finally did get it. And then 1t turned
out to be for the most part 500 words
of glittering generalities and cautious
circumlocution. If it hadn't been for
a graphic Interpretation of the COM
muniuue in q quarter which knew what
1t really meant, the American people
might still be guessing what all the
Hoover-Laval talk amounted 70.
y
It was the French who slowed things
UP in the preparation of the statement.
They are very meticulous in the choice
of words. Whole half-hours were con-
sumed in the selection Of q phrase that
met with their approval. Time and again
as at Verdun they calculated, This shall
not pass!" The difdculty Of having to
do business in two languages was, Of
course, another cause Of delay. Under
secretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills
was the French scholar in the situation,
as far as the United States was con-
cerned. It was he who had to bear the
brunt Of the Laval party's objection to
number Of men at Uncle Sans disposal
on these international occasions, where
the use Of the French language Is es-
sentiAl, Is not very large. Most Of them
are in the State Department. The abil-
ity to parley-voo in the lingo Of Paris,
possessed by Tied" Mariner, Pierre de
Boal, Herbert Feis and one or two other
of Secretary Stimson's young men,
stood the country in vital stead these
past few days. Undersecretary Of State
Castle, Federal Reserve Governor Eugene
Meyer, jr.; Assistant Secretary Of Com
merce Julius Klein and United States
Tariff Chairman Fletcher are all fluent
speakers Of French and were drafted for
service while Laval was in town.
#%*
When Borah and Laval got together
for the first time ct Secretary Slim
sons dinner party-with the aid of an
American French-speaking interpreter
the first thing they talked about was
the State of Idaho and the Province
of Auvergne. Laval was anxious to
know all about the big potato country
which claims Borah as favorite SON
Just where 1t Is, whether 1t contains
many foreigners, what its main inter-
ests are and all that sort OF thing.
When Senator Borah said that Idaho
has an almost horomeneous American
population and that its concerns are
those Of agriculture and mining, Laval,
with @ CLEAN in his piercing brown
ewes. rejoined: We'll, we come from
the same country. The only difference
Is that the borders Of Idaho are farther
from the coast Of America than the
borders Of Auvergne are from the coast
Of France!"
II YOU were to ask In high admins
tration quarters what Is considered,
from Washington's standpoint, to be the
outstanding result Of M. Laval's visit,
you'd probably be told this: 1.-THE init
mate acquaintance established with the
present leader of the most powerful
country in Europe" BY that President
Hoover and his advisers mean that the
personal touch is everything in interna-
tional relationships. 1t Is worth more
than O volume Of oflcial dispatches
conveyed through the messenger boys
known as Ambassadors. The visit Of
Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald to
Washington in October, 1929, directly
and definitely paved the way TO the
London Naval Conference success Of