Evening star., 1934-10-10
A Crime Against Peace.

Amid revived memories of the three
nnartyred Presidents of the United
States, who were victims of assaSSinS'
bullets, the American people, in deepest
understanding, sympathize today with
the grief-stricken peoples of Yugo-
slavia and France. Once again society
has terrifying evidence of its help
leSsneSs when political passions and
fanatical patriotism upset reason and
incite to murder.
All the circumstances attendant
upon Tuesdays crime at MarSeille
clothe it with the significance of an
international tragedy, for its victims,
King Alexander and Foreign Minister
Barthou, were, at the very moment
they were felled, embarking upon a
mission the immediate purpose of
which was to bolster the tottering
European peace structure. Strained
relations between Italy and Yugo-
slavia, to which Premier Mussolini
referred so pointedly only at the end
OF last week, have for a long time
contained the seeds of another war,
which would as inevitably embroil
the rest of the Old World as did the
Balban-born conflict of l914-18.
M. Barthou, who during the past
year had rendered indefatigable service
to France and Europe in the field of
international conciliation, had as
signed himself the delicate task not
only of divesting embittered Franco
italian relations of danger, but of
bringing Italy and Frances Little
Entente ally, Yugoslavia, together,
recognizing in their enduring hostility
q definite menace to European con-
cord. M. Barthou's projected visit to
Rome later this Fall was hailed every
where as the most promising harbinger
of new period of tranquility that
the Continent had envisaged in years.
In the midst of this beneficent work,
the cultured and effective French
statesman has been cut down. His
loss may we'll prove to be irreparable
Prophecy is worse than idle at the
moment as to the broad consequences
that can flow from the Marseille
murders, especially in YugoSlavia.
Immediate satisfaction is derived
from the fortuitous circumstance that
the assassin is not of nationality
that might suggest the possibility that
he was the tool of plot conceived in
ennity to Yugoslavia. The killer was
one of King AleXander's own sub
jects-a Croat, supposedly crazed by
his opposition to the dictatorship set
up by the slain monarch for a period
deemed necessary to normalize con-
ditions within his realm. The dicta-
torship is not universally popular and
the opposition may now generate new
daring, in the hope of overthrowing
the royal yoke Meantime, the army,
navy and civilian authorities avow
their allegiance to the eleven year
old Crown Prince, Alexander's heir,
and, inferentially, to the regency that
will ensue.
Dispatches from all the European
capitals reflect confidence that the
foundations of peace. though shaken
to their depths by yesterdays terrible
events, will survive the shock and
that there is no immediate peril of
war. To avert that catastrophe be-
comes Europe's supreme duty and
paramount interest. The world will
fervently hope that recollection of
what happened after the Serajevo
assassination twenty years ago is still
vivid enough to prevent the crime at
Marseille from developing into an
other crime against civilization.