L'Affaire Klotz

Newsreaders in Paris turned eagerly last week to the final chapter of what has been headlined since last winter as L'affaire Klotz.

Louis Lucien Klotz was Minister of Finance in the War Cabinet of Georges Clemenceau. He it was who agreed to purchase for $400,000,000 the surplus War stocks of the A. E. F., payment for which falls due on Aug. 1 unless France ratifies the Mellon-Berenger debt agreement in the meantime (see col. 1). He it was who ran up enormous budget deficits im mediately after the War, and who an swered, "Les Baches payeront!" (The Germans will pay) to all remonstrances. Seven months ago Financier Klotz was unceremoniously jailed, charged with passing $75,000 worth of "rubber checks" -- the kind which bounce back worthless from the bank -- to pay gambling debts. Last week he went to trial. The president and judges of the court in their black robes sat owl-solemn while the Klotz law yer, Maitre Torres, waxed passionate in defense of his client. Proudly he re viewed the Klotz War record. Prisoner Klotz nodded in approval. Then to the charge. Lawyer Torres admitted it, Klotz had passed bad checks, which checks had all been made good later by banker friends. But the excuse, Messieurs les juges, was that Louis Lucien Klotz was the victim of a dual nature. At one moment he was the incorruptible Minister of Finance, the next a wretched victim of gambler's fever. This fault was all due to poor M. Klotz's grandfather who had debauched young Klotz by giving him, at the age of ten, crisp hundred-franc notes with which to play piquet in the evening. The three black-gowned judges finally announced that, in view of the facts that M. Klotz had admittedly given $75,000 worth of worthless checks, had drawn $2,000 illegally from a U. S. bank in Paris, had been entrusted with $20,000 to invest in artificial silk, had invested $1,000 of it and gambled away the rest -- M. Klotz was guilty. They sentenced him to two years in prison, fined him 50 francs ($2).