The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-06-20
NEW CHIEFTAIN FINDS COUNTRY
 FACING DANGER
Edouard Herriot Deplores Shrinkage in French
 Prestige
By JOSEPH E. sHARKEY


 PARIS, June 20.-France's for eign policy is in state of sus- pended animation, says Edouard Herriot, Frances new political chief tain.
 Herriot hopes to inject new life Into this policy, He realizes it is big job He said:
 "The London conference showed that our external policy is mega tive. Where are our friends? France is in the difficult sit
 uation of being able to lean
 onIy on those countries which
 she herself is holding on their
 feet"
 This was deemed an allusion to such nations as Poland, Jugosla- via, Rumania Czechoslavkia and perhaps, also Belgium.
 The husky statesman, for Herriot is big, almost burly appearing man, is gentle in manner and speech and some of his political enemies say he is soft. But back of his quietness is a tremendous moral force which, being housed in his big healthful body, permits extraordinary mental and physical effort.
 | One can see this in the handling of his beloved pipe. Like former l Vice President Dawes and Stanley Baldwin, ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain, Herriot loves his pipe and is seldom without it. But he clutches it between his teeth with bulldog tenacity.
 Danger Signals Ahead
 Continuing his summation of the international situation, he went on:
 we must pursue careful diplo- macy. We must be genuinely pa | tient Our acts must be the out come of mature deliberation.
 "The present Lausanne con- ference is the most dangerous concIave with which we ever have been confronted. How can one speak of link be- tween separations and war debts when, in the case of the former, we are obliged to insist constantly upon our rights and, in the case of the latter, we are lacking in the benefit of clause of safeguard?
 At Geneva the problem is how to conciliate the necessary security of France against aggression, with the cutting down of military bud gets whose present size the people can no longer support.
 These tasks have been handed down by the previous Government of France and now we must solve the questions of debts, reparations and disarmament.
 Tt is, indeed, an hour when one can say with perfect truth that nothing has been settled.
 No Vain Sacrifices
 T have said it before and now repeat tiny party (the Radical Socialists) is not opposed to acts of goodwill or even to sacrifices by France, provided such acts and sacrifices really lead to consoli- dation of peace"
 Getting directly to the German Iproblem, Herriot said it was the Da CAoin1ictc of ,n first told the Germans to come and talk with the French. The Dawes plan resulted. It brought to French coffers one billion dollars. He con- Itinued:
 Tn making peace with Germany we made Germany pay. If we think Inationalism is dangerous there are certain pacifist imprudences to which we are opposed.
 q am against all 'nationalisms' and not merely against French na- tionalism. I am against the nation alism of Hitler. Backs Preparedness
 When my country is in peril, I Ishall defend it. I am a patriot
 T have voted for military cred it's and shall continue to vote for them. With virility must we back peace.
 eff Hitler comes into power prefer that the shock be felt
 by hills of concrete than by
 the breasts of young French
 men,"
 Many of Herriot's friends think their leader would prefer to re- main a historian and lecturer than to be big statesman with grave responsibilities.
 His fad is to analyze the person. ages of the past and pick out those who would be Radical Socialists were they alive today. He is a stout believer in the liberalistic tenets of bis party.