The Washington times., 1936-11-07

Jaw and watch
full, resentful
eyes. That jaw,
still remaining
firm, beSpeakS Edwin c. Hill
the man, for, in the American
colloquialism, Joseph Caillaux has
been taking it on the chin all
through his public life. But al
ways he answers the bell for the
next round.
Latin politics, especially those
of France, are bewildering to the
Anglo-Saxons. The enmities engen'
dered therein are long and endur-
ing. No quarter is given, no
quarter is asked.
The star of the House of Call
laux came into political ascend
ancy in 1873 when Marshal Mac
Mahon, the right bower of Napo'
leon III, as President of France,
named Joseph CaillauXS father
minister of finance. MacMahon,
at heart a royalist, resigned the
presidency before his term expired.
The younger Caillaux got his
early training in royaliSt circles,
and these circles worked for the
advancement of CaillauX as a
means of furthering the return OF
the monarchy.
IMPLACABLE ENEMY
In 1914, Joseph Caillaux was
minister of finance. He had an
implacable enemy in CASTOR Cal
mette, editor of the newspaper, LIE
Figaro. Calmette started out for
Caillaux's scalp with the usual
French accusations of "grafter"
and liar.
Such old stuff not creating the
desired effect, Calmette published
a love letter which Caillaux had
written to his beautiful and ambl'
tious wife when she was yet the
undivorced wife of another. And
Calmette promised his readers
that more of the letters would be
forthcoming.
"Wait till tomorrow" was
the closing line of Calmette's
attacks.
When he penned that line on
his article of March 16, 1914, he
did so for the last time. There
was no tomorrow for him on this
earch; there was no tomorrow for
the Calmette articles in LIE Figaro.
That March afternoon the card
of Nine. Joseph Caillaux was
presented at Calmette's office.
Against the advice OF a friend,
he consented to see her. She
stood before him, said not a word,
drew revolver from her mutt
and fired six shots into his body.
She waited for the police, and
then spoke:
There was no other way of
putting a stop to it,"
Nine. Caillaux went to trial for
murder on July 20, 1914-a mo-
mentous time in the history OF
civilization. Another aSSaSSina-
ton had occurred since Cal
mette's. This was the killing OF
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
in the little Serbian town of Sara
jevo.
But even the ultimatums Of
the Central Powers. the mobiliza-
tions of Europe, could not sup
plant the interest of Paris in the
human drama in the Palace Of
Justice.
The climax to the drama was
the appearance of Nine. Gueydan,
Caillaux's divorced wife, on the
witness stand. She had the letters
which Calmette was going to
publish.
When asked to read them, she
drew them from her purse and.
handing them to the counsel for
the defense, said:
II will give them to you. If
you want to, you may read
them. The responsibility rests
with you"
Subsequently, they were read,
and the opinion was that nothing
in them was of a nature which
justified homicide to prevent
them from being published. Nine.
CaillauX was acquitted.
Within few days the German
troops had crossed the Belgium
frontier and the greatest drama in
modern history, If not all history,
was being enacted on the stage Of
the world.
"MAKES COMEBACK"
Caillaux became paymaSter Of
the French army and went to
South America on economic mis-,
sionS.
During the war and after it. he
insisted On pointing out that there
might be 20 real victor; that the
nations involved might be COM
mitting economic suicide.
AS a result, in 1917, his enemy,
Clemenceau, coming into power
had passed on; Caillaux came
back in 1925 as finance minister.
He remains a hard-boiled man
who still insists on saying what
he thinks, and who thinks in a
prophetic vein. In 1929, he re-
buked those who were clamoring
for a cancellation of the French
debt to the United States, saying:
Who knows whether in ten
years or twenty years we may
not have the pressing need to
ask financial collaboration from
precisely the same great nations