OF NECESSITY

Although much local color and innumerable photographs from the inevitable introduction of any distinguished visitor to this country, there is about such a man as Clemenceau something which no mere description of "beetling eyebrows" can give. To a few it is granted to see and hear him and they may find it for themselves; the rest must be content with accounts of speeches and ineffectual summaries of the message which an old and fiery statesman has brought with him to this country.

He comes frankly because ugly words spoken about his France had reached his quiet seashore retreat; and his mission, "which is a mission from no one and a journey with no personal end" is an effort to reunite France and America against a peril greater than that of war.

Between them "there has existed one of the greatest romances". The French helped America in her first war as a nation; America is now said to have saved France. To some this means that the books are balanced and closed; but it is not "the Tiger's" intention that they should be so. "I came here to preserve the friendship of America for France as France extends the friendship to America."

To most Americans the possibility of another war seems no more than a bad dream of some dyspeptic scare-mongers. To the French it seems the most likely and the least desirable of future events. Clemenceau himself has seen two invasions of la patrie and has seen German signatures in the waste basket "because of necessity". "If a man fails to back his check would you bankers trust him for another?" Undoubtedly not; yet some still say the French are imperialistic because they mistrust Germany; and that the pessimistic warning of another Junker monarchy is absurd. The answer is "we have seen it and we know". America cannot say the same.

Behind all this is the belief that America cannot remain aloof. That is what all Europe is trying, apparently in vain, to convey to us. They believe that European miseries must have some effect on American prosperity; that America cannot sit back and call "pay up", just because a few thousand miles of Atlantic isolates her. They demand "no sacrifice save that we keep among the nations of the world the great place we have taken."