New Strong Man

Jean Frenchman and his sturdy wife are supposed to shrug at politics, but one twilight last week they swallowed their soupe a l'oignon early, then turned out at least 10,000 strong to wait in chattering throngs around the Chamber of Deputies.

A drizzling rain made no difference. The great night had come. In the Chamber there would be delirious hours of such oratory as Frenchmen love to wallow in. Sonorous snatches and smart mots would drift out to the magpie crowd. They parbleu, would not wait to read in the papers that at the climax of this Parliamentary orgy the Chamber had sustained or overthrown the Cabinet boldly formed last fortnight in defiance of party leaders by "The Most American of Frenchmen," driving, militant, iconoclastic Andre Tardieu (TIME, Nov. 11).

"Must One Die?" With no sure majority anywhere and with party leaders sulky, it was necessary to appeal to the whole Chamber--Right, Center and Left --in an effort to split or stampede blocks and groups. As a keen, go-getting logician fond of dates and statistics, M. Tardieu knew that he could not depend on himself to kindle and fire the Deputies. He left the ignition to great Aristide Briand, Europe's supreme Parliamentarian.

Overthrown 19 days previously as Prime Minister, M. Briand had elected to come into the Tardieu Cabinet in his favorite role of Foreign Minister. Slowly, ponderously he mounted the Tribune last week, big shaggy head sunk theatrically between hunched shoulders. In low-spoken, vibrant words, he began: "Messieurs, the foreign policy of France continues. It remains a policy of dignity and firmness. I have never felt that the moral grandeur of France has suffered from what I have done."

In smashing retort to those who thought he yielded too much ($9,520,000) to British Chancellor Snowden at The Hague (TIME, Sept. 9), M. Briand cried: "I came home with acceptance of the Young Plan in my pocket--with the means for final liquidation of the Wrar. . . . Would you rather I had yielded nothing . . . won nothing . . . and come home wrapped in dignity and nothing more?"

Like a Mark Antony come to bury Caesar, M. Briand reached his first climax by weeping with a purpose over Germany's late, great Dr. Stresemann, his colleague in striving for Peace and swift evacuation of the Rhine: "While he lived there were Germans who criticized and ridiculed Stresemann. Many called him traitor for his friendship to France! Now they heap flowers on his tomb. . . . The French Nationalists have attacked me, as the German Nationalists attacked Stresemann! . . . He died at his task. Must one die then, to prove one is sincere?"

"No! No!" roared Deputies of a dozen factions leaping up to cheer, "Vive Briand! Vive La France!"

Rushing on like a surfboard rider upon the flood of his discourse, M. Briand spoke for 90 minutes before reaching his grand climax:

"It is now necessary to say squarely what one wants! If you believe that France is badly engaged, then disengage her. The Young Plan is bad? It violates the rights of France? Then tear it up, tear up The Hague Convention! . . . The International Bank [see p. 30] is bad? Suppress that too! . . . Keep French troops on the Rhine . . . Repulse the Government . . . and repulse me."

To their feet leaped all the Deputies except a handful, and every single party leader except Louis Marin of the extreme Right, who gave the perfect touch of drama by sitting with arms folded, glow- ering. Amid such a frenzy as even M. Briand has seldom stirred, the Great Man descended with grandeur. But would the Chamber vote as it cheered? Dopesters thought not--conceded to the Cabinet at this point only a slim chance of winning a majority.

Grandeur into Facts. With the Chamber molten, Prime Minister Tardieu leaped in to mold his fate. He was convincing and precise where M. Briand had been gaseously sublime. Yes, his Government stood for early evacuation of French troops from the Rhine, but not until Germany has ratified the Young Plan, which guarantees huge cash sums to France. The date set at The Hague for evacuation-- he hammered in the date, June 30, 1930-- was no longer binding, in his opinion, because the unforeseen death of Dr. Strese-mann has delayed German ratification of the Plan.

At such positive, commanding words Deputies of the Right pricked up their ears. The whole Chamber began to sense that here was another Strong Man, like the men who are his backers, Poincare and Clemenceau, both too old and sick to take the helm. With sound strategy, M. Tardieu shifted from foreign affairs to a masterful address on internal agrarian and financial policy. That turned the scale. For years M. Tardieu has been called Le Dauphin ("The Crown Prince"), designated to succession by the fiscal genius who saved and stabilized the franc, M. Raymond Poincare (TIME, Jan. 3. 1927). Last week the Deputies were apparently convinced at last that the new Prime Minister is indeed a second Poincare, a strong and jealous guardian of the foreign rights and fiscal integrity of France. When he had done, M. Tardieu received an ovation no less general than M. Briand's. Dopesters conceded him a majority of perhaps 40.

"Pronounce the Word!" It was now four hours past midnight. The grand debate narrowed to an issue--and what an issue! Some Deputies of the Left (thoroughgoing anticlericals) demanded to know "if the Government will pronounce the word 'laicism'" in connection with an obscure educational bill totally extraneous to the debate.

"No," snapped M. Tardieu, the Government would not "pronounce 'laicisms'"-- and suddenly he demanded a vote of confidence, staked his whole political future shrewdly on a word. The shrewdness lay in that he had neatly chosen an issue on which the Government could not fail to command the Catholic vote.

Breathless minutes passed while the tellers counted. Two hundred fifty-six against Tardieu, but 327 for him--"Vive le Dauphin!" "Vive le Roi!" "Vive VAmericain!"

A few minutes later the Cabinet risked a second vote of confidence--not involving the Catholic issue--and increased their majority from 71 to 79. After one of the longest crises in French History, there was again a Government. With Tardieu and Briand in the saddle, the new Cabinet seemed certain to pursue the same conservative financial program and broadly pacific foreign policy which have been standard for three years under the Governments of Poincare (July 1926-July 1929) and Briand (July-October 1929).