OLYMPIC FENCES

Partisan politics, as fiercely fought as at the stricken field of Genoa, although in a minor key, are playing the decisive part in an amusing "comedy of errors" now going on in Paris over the site of the next Olympic games. The whole story is a striking reflection of a certain type of post-war French mentality. When the 1920 Olympiad was awarded to Antwerp, taking the place of Berlin, and the games were such a pronounced success. France bent every effort to secure the next award. She felt that she deserved it, as she deserved many other things in that epoch of the war's after-glow. The international committee gave the games to Paris and everything was serene. France sat back contents and did nothing more about it.

Since that time two years have passed. The games will be held somewhere summer after next, and France still has not picked the location not subscribed any adequate sum of money for the purpose. Instead of assuming that the Olympiad, properly staged, would bring thousands of visitors and millions of francs of Paris; the French attitude has been to spend as little as possible and wait for the millions to roll in of their own accord.

In the meantime, Los Angeles,--always careful not to neglect a chance to bring itself forward,--has made a bid for the games, with an offer to pay all the expenses of all the teams over and back and provide training quarters and entertainment as well. The international committee now in Paris is deciding the question. If Los Angeles gets the games, there will be more wailing and parading of French was sufferings than arises whenever the German war debt is mentioned. Yet France is not sure she wants the games, largely from a fear that she won't be able to win them or even make a good showing--and inglorious defeat would be insufferable in Paris. The same feeling is expressed as appeared in the Parisian dailies after the "Battle of the Century" last July: "America may have Dempsey, but remember Frenchmen, we have Verdun!" France and the Olympic question appear very much like a fussy old woman with a potato too hot for her fingers, which pride will not let her lay down. The unfortunate part of it all is that evidences of fussy penny-wise pettiness like this, and isolated cases of what we call "poor sportsmanship", lose more friends for France in this country, than all the invocations of national friendship can gain.