people," he would say. "They are like the people of America—plain people, as I, too, am a plain man." RAYMOND POINCARÉ, PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC Raymond Poincaré was called a strong man and all Europe was pleased with his election as President of France not long before the war began. His general aims were to discourage Cabinet. disruptions, fifty-two of which had taken place in forty-eight years. He had been Minister of Public Instruction in M. Dupuy's first Cabinet, and was so much of a scholar and so charming a speaker that his Government had often asked him to deliver ceremonial orations. These were sure to contain a fund of knowledge and a delightful delicacy of touch that would charm an audience. Poincaré was a sturdily built man, a little over middle height, with closely cut. beard and eyes that scrutinized even a stranger with interest. When the war began he had to talk to Europe, and even Asia and America, instead of delivering panegyrics at monuments to dead celebrities. He had done well in a democracy where to raise one's head above the shoulders of a dead level was often to invite the hurling of half a brick. Altho well-known in France for nearly a quarter of a century he had entered upon a larger fame a short time before the war.. M. Poincaré was born in 1860. His father was an inspector of roads and bridges a modest civil appointment-but he was able to send Raymond to a public school from which he passed to the College at Nancy. He was called to the bar in 1880, and two years later took his degree as Doctor of Laws. Making a specialty of pleading in commercial affairs, he was doing well in the courts when his aspirations turned to polities, and he joined the staff of political writers, first on Le Voltaire, and afterward on La République Française. In 1886 he became principal clerk at the Ministry of Agriculture. The following year saw him elected deputy at the early age of twenty-seven, which made him the "baby" of the Chamber. He proved himself a hard worker, and was appointed secretary of several important commissions. Not until he had made a forceful declaration on the Morocco Treaty had he secured a reputation which, with ability to back it up, secured his election to the presidency. His election was regarded as the choice not only of the College of Electors, made up of the Senate and the Chamber, and known as the National Assembly, an old revolutionary title, but the choice of the whole people. It was soon predicted that he would become the greatest President since Gambetta. His versatility as an author and 53 Based on an article in The Literary Digest. art connoisseur placed him high in the esteem of his countrymen. His clear-sightedness was only equalled by the fearless energy with which he carried out his views. His devotion to the public service was proved by the fact that he had abandoned a lucrative practise at the bar for public life. It was with cordial approbation that the press generally received his acceptance of the highest office in the Republic. Perhaps the most striking feature of the election was the fact that the only two candidates who did not retire in the course of the ballotings-M. Poincaré and M. Ribot-were on the same side in politics; both were Republicans, that is, Conservatives, as regards the form of the French government, or what Gambetta had represented. They were neither Socialist-Radical nor Radical-Socialist. So well did their ideas agree that before the election they met and exchanged political views with the utmost accord. Such were Poincaré's intellectual gifts that he had already become one of the "Immortals" at the French Academy. It used to be said that the King of England reigns, but does not govern, that the President of the United States rules but does not reign, and that a French President neither rules nor reigns. The interest generally taken in the election when Poincaré was chosen President showed that the French were not content with that kind of President, and that through representatives in the National Assembly, they had put at the head of the State a strong man able to employ the great prerogatives with which he was entrusted. Poincaré, as President of the Council, was called "the strongest Prime Minister in Europe," and such appeared to be the unanimous opinion of the Paris press. "It seems," said the Matin, "that democracy, if often forgetful, has now found its memory." Calmette, the editor of the Figaro, who was killed by Madame Caillaux because of his criticism of her husband, exclaimed in glowing terms of eulogy that "another era will begin with him. He will preside over the difficult destinies of our country with an authority and experience which none save Ribot could have equalled." Calmette especially emphasized the view that the foreign and colonial policy of France would now keep "the high standard of success of which patriotic Frenchmen have felt so proud." All this was said before the war. That Poincare justified the prophets all through the war and at the Peace Conference, none would afterward have questioned. Americans found in his address at the opening of the Conference an example of that finished ceremonial discourse for which he had been famous in France long before he was made President.54 54 Adapted from an article by Ernest W. mith in The Daily News (London) and one in The Literary Digest. ANTONIO SALANDRA, PRIME MINISTER, AND BARON Salandra, the man who had to act, and Sonnino, the man who thought -thus did the newspapers of Continental Europe explain the political leaders who in 1915, emerging from the wreck of Giolitti's cabinet and his career, took Italy into the war. Not so many months before Giolitti had seemed unassailable in his post as Prime Minister, supported as he was by the great majority evoked from an election in the previous autumn. It had been the practise of the Piedmont statesmen to find relaxation every three years from office by a voluntary retirement, while, as the London Morning Post explained, "a caretaker looked after the affairs of the nation until such time as it might please the master to order his faithful majority to prepare the way for his return to the Palazzo Braschi." Accordingly, after having obtained confirmation of his Libyan policy by a tremendous vote of confidence, he made the defection of a handful of radicals anxious for democratic legislation an excuse for resigning, at the same time seeming certain that he could come back. As Baron Sonnino refused to form a cabinet in the face of the almost unbroken Giolittian majority, Signor Salandra, a former lieutenant of the Baron's-the latter being leader of the constitutional opposition -had accepted the post of Premier in March, 1914. For thirteen years and a month the Italian kingdóm had been ruled by Giolitti. Yet it would be safe to say, as the London Times actually did say, that outside of his own country his personality was almost unknown. Salandra was called by the Secolo of Rome the most plausible, as well as the most persuasive, talker in Italy, while to Sonnino it referred as the austerely reticent financier, the grim economist. Salandra said things, Sonnino thought them out. Salandra wielded a pen, having for years held responsible posts on important organs of Italian opinion. Sonnino studied facts and figures, digested statistics, framed his ideas elliptically, and was an expert on themes so dry and recondite in themselves, like the tax rate, for instance, that one had to be a specialist to appreciate him. Salandra gave himself freely with that exquisite courtesy which belongs to the well-bred Italian. Sonnino was reserved, unsmiling, hard to know. Salandra was afire with enthusiasm, but Sonnino-whose Utopia was a land. wherein everybody's expenditure and income exactly balanced-was an effective extinguisher of ardors, zeals, and crusades. Baron Sonnino-who had become foreign minister when San Giuliano died-was affirmed in the Paris Temps to be a complete stranger to the petty arts of the corridor or of the "pharmacy," as Roman slang denominated the corridor as contrasted with the actual chambers of debate wherein majorities were made or marred. His very high principles, added the London Post, long his admirer, involved a lack of flexibility; he could not be all things to all men, especially if those men were deputies or influential constituents, "grand electors," as the Italians say. When in office-and Sonnino had held all manner of posts, including that of Premier, the latter briefly-Sonnino once refused a place to a man who was recommended by his mother because he did not wish to be suspected of favoritism. His non-Italian blood-his father was an Italian Jew and his mother of Scottish origin-might account for the fact that he was no orator. His speeches, which he had the disconcerting habit of reading from a manuscript, were admirable as specimens of form and logic, but they sent younger deputies out into the corridor while the more elderly went unabashedly to sleep. On such occasions the Foreign Minister would look unexpectedly up and coldly ask that the slumberers be aroused by the proper officer. Now and then he had sergeants-at-arms posted at doors to prevent the egress of deputies while he was speaking. "I propose," he once said severely to his colleagues in the chamber, "to put a little knowledge of the state of the revenue into your heads, whether you feel interested or not." Everybody had the profoundest respect for Sidney Sonnino and even the strongest Giolittian organ, like the Tribuna, exprest satisfaction that so British a type should have had so long and so successful a career in Italian politics. Nevertheless there was general regret that so strong a character should be such a slave of facts, to which he was addicted, said the Stampa, "like a mandarin to opium." He inspired no personal animosity at all, a rare thing in Rome, and except at the time when, outside the Cabinet, he supported the second reactionary ministry of General Pelloux, the mass of Italians trusted him absolutely. He had no propensity to intrigue, no talent for what the Romans call combinations. His irongray hair, large, mild, steel-blue eyes and rounded build rendered him, in the plain cutaway coat he affected, genial in aspect. He had a remarkably good voice, as the Tribuna observed, for such a remarkably bad speaker. Despite his intimate connection with national projects of finance, he remained a poor man. To Sonnino credit was due, as finance minister in the last century, for having laid the foundation of his country's stability from the revenue standpoint. He inaugurated the era of budget surpluses. He lived abstemiously himself. When not in Rome he vegetated in a villa not far from Florence, listened to Verdi's music and studied statistics. Grand opera and tables of figures engrossed him. Social problems, such as the condition of southern Italy and old-age pensions, formed the themes of his occasional contributions to contemporary literature. |