Monsleur Barthou

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

As European students, we are surprised to perceive the attitude with which the recent assassinations in Marseilles are being received by the American press. It appears that the main object of interest with regard to this terrible affair is the story of the Boy-King Peter and how he received the news of his father's death, or how the Queen wept over her husband's corpse. It is strange also that, in a country so democratically minded, interest should be concentrated on glorifying the career of a somewhat doubtful Balkan Monarch to the exclusion of any concern at the calamity which has befallen Europe in the death of one of France's greatest foreign ministers. Even your own excellent paper seems hardly to have noticed that a great democratic leader has also died. Surely this must mean more to the immediate future of Europe than the almost unavoidable assassination of one who, for all his virtues, has proved a cruel oppressor of a large Croatian minority. Admittedly a human story is always good news value; admittedly also we are here immeasurably remote from the dangers which beset European nations; but surely such a crude outburst of excessive sentimentality is out of place. We cannot find a serious attempt to put these events in their true political perspective.

The interior policy of King Alexander was such as to make his murder ultimately inevitable, but it is a bitter tragedy that the French minister should have been forced to share his fate. Since his accession to office, M. Barthou has been largely responsible for bringing Russia into the League of Nations, for guiding Italy towards a greater understanding of the Anglo-French outlook, and it was his sincere mission to achieve a closer alliance with the English-speaking nations,--not to mention his part in the formation of the Eastern Locarno Pact. He was one of the most enlightened ministers in France since Poincare.

If the political events of Europe are to mean anything at all to the people of America it is time that the press ceased to surround European Royal Houses with a halo of romance--which is usually exaggerated and in this case absurd--and directed its attention to giving its readers the instruction on political affairs which they are undoubtedly anxious to receive. Bernard C. Sendall   Wolfgang F. Stolper.