HIGH COMEDY

The recent French Presidential election reminds one of Mark Twain's famous and often quoted French duel, in which the vanquished gentleman exclaimed with such exquisite pathos. "I die I die that France may live!" With a premonition of what was to befall. M. Painleve remarked on Thursday. "Personalities are nothing. It is the Republic alone that matters." One regrets that such beautiful unselfishness is not always displayed in domestic polities.

In spite of such patriotism, however, on the part of M. Painleve, it was his noncommittal adversary, M. Doumergue, who raced home many necks ahead of the many intriguing dark horses, war horses and white hopes. His attitude seems to have been perfectly correct throughout, though somewhat cool and a trifle restrained. It is a model, in fact, for the perfect politician. Having extricated himself from his party caucus, he was not bound to efface himself when his opponent received the nomination. And when an appeal to his party loyalty was made, to effect his withdrawal, his reply was a master-piece. M. Doumergue observed that he had never advanced his own candidacy, and that he declined to ask his friends to refrain from voting for him. His appreciative friends seized the opportunity to win him a decisive victory.

In all of this can be detected that delightful finesse of the French which makes French politics so absorbing and entertaining--and which is ordinarily so lacking in our own public affairs. There is, of course, the old tradition of blunt outspokenness, of terse, "businesslike" expression, of virile, ringing words. Without a doubt, this has great merit, and no little effect upon impressionable audiences. But it lacks "charm". For a long time, American politics have lacked charm. And this is most unfortunate. As the great need of politics today, according to any resume of authoritative opinion, is for clean-cut college men, some element of fascination--subtlety, humor, finesse--must be introduced to keep them from the book-binding profession, and the lure of bonds. One does not suggest, of course, that modern politics are quite as frank and bluff and straightforward as some would have us believe. But mere trickery and deception is not particularly appealing, nor even the subtle performance of back-patting and hand-shaking. A little more high comedy and a little less low farce would provide a program more attractive to the often slightly aesthetic, and occasionally almost intellectual collegian.