Comic: Man or Nation

Last month Publisher William Randolph Hearst wrote an article for the Frankfurter Zeitung and reprinted it in his U. S. papers. Therein he commiserated with the Germans for the deliverance of some of her peoples (by the Versailles treaty) into the hands of France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, etc. He compared Germany's present condition to that of a U. S. defeated in war, imagining California and Arizona given back to Mexico; Washington given back to British Columbia; Florida returned to Spain. Then: ". . . we would not be willing to rest content under such an outrage and . . . we would take means somehow, someday to rectify that injustice either through peaceful measures or through war."

That, and not the alleged reason, best explained the action of the French Government last week in expelling from its shores William Randolph Hearst, frequent luncheon guest of U. S. Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and publisher of the autobiographies of Calvin Coolidge and Grace Coolidge.

No officeholder ever made the eagle scream louder than does Publisher Hearst in his recurrent calls to arms against the "yellow peril" of Japan, the "dominance" of Britain, the "venality" of France. Thoughtful Japanese regard Publisher Hearst with curious interest as another U. S. phenomenon to be studied and, if possible, comprehended. Britons talk among themselves of his "Anglophobia" but welcome him to their country where at Lincolnshire and Glamorgan, Wales, he maintains vast castles. This strategy of "soothing down" was brilliantly executed last year by Britain's great irrepressible Conservative, Winston Spencer Churchill, when Hearst Anglophobia was approaching one of its fever periods. Mr. Churchill crossed the ocean, tarried in Canada and in British Columbia, then made a special pilgrimage to the Hearst ranch in San Simeon, Calif. (TIME, Sept. 30, 1929). There he dined nightly with the Anglophobe, addressed him gently of England, her geniality, her pacifism, her friendliness to the U. S. When Mr. Churchill felt that the Anglophobe was at last quieted, he journeyed to Manhattan, ate a slice of Laborite Ramsay MacDonald's birthday cake, took ship for home. The world took scant heed.

In direct contrast were the events of last week. Scarcely had Mr. Hearst arrived at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, after a month of travel in Germany and Italy's lake country, when an officer of the Surete General (Secret Service) visited him with a request from the Ministry of Interior to vacate the country within 36 hours. Publisher Hearst spurned the day's grace, took the afternoon boat-train for London. Next day the French Premier explained that the expulsion had its origin in the famed Horan affair of 1928.* Aware that Publisher Hearst had visited Paris unmolested only a month before, observers gave, little credence to the "Horan" reason, recalled instead the aforementioned article in the Frankfurter Zeitung.

In quick time word of The Chief's expulsion was cabled to the Manhattan office of Hearst's International News Service, there to cause untold consternation among scared executives. Here, by every journalistic definition, was a News Story; but what to do with it? While competing news agencies burned the wires with thoroughgoing accounts, I. N. S. gingerly offered three innocuous sentences under a Paris dateline: "The Paris newspapers today announced that William Randolph Hearst had left Paris yesterday for London as the result of a foreign office request that he leave French soil."

But such squeamishness was for naught. Publisher Hearst, then ensconced in London's Hotel Savoy, was in his element. With obvious relish he gave newsmen a prepared statement:

"I have no complaint to make. The officials were extremely polite. They said I was an enemy of France and a danger in their midst. They made me feel quite important. They said I could stay in France a while longer if I desired. . . . But I told them I did not want to take the responsibility of endangering the great French nation; that America had saved it once . . . and I would save it again by leaving. . . . Then I asked M. Tardieu's emissary to express my immense admiration at his amazing alertness in protecting France from the peril of invasion and we parted with elaborate politeness. It was a little bit foolish but extremely French. . . . If being a competent journalist and a loyal American makes a man persona non grata in France. . . . I can endure the situation without loss of sleep. In fact, the whole affair reminds me of the story of the rather effeminate young man who went to call on his best girl and found her in the arms of another young fellow. The effeminate youth went into the hall, took up his successful rival's umbrella, broke it and said: 'Now I hope it rains!' ''

In London most of the Press eagerly helped Publisher Hearst cast France for a comic. Said the Liberal News-Chronicle: "Few more idiotic actions have been perpetrated by a civilized and presumably intelligent government." Said the Laborite Herald: "His comments from a ringside seat in England are so delicious that most people feel he has scored." Lord Beaverbrook's Express: "France, by her action, has sent a distinguished American to seek our shores. We are glad of it."

The Hearstpress proudly quoted those editorials, in bold type. But it did not quote these:

Conservative Post: "If any French journalist resident in the U. S. had handled American interests as Mr. Hearst has handled those of France, what headlines would have flamed across the pages of the New York American!" And the Liberal Star: "If only M. Tardieu had shown a little sense of humor and remembered that Mr. Hearst is the comic man of America, he wouldn't have expelled him from France."

* Harold J.T. Horan, Paris correspondent for Hearst's Universal Service,was expelled from France for his part in obtaining and publishing secret document pertaining to a projected Anglo-French naval agreement. Publisher Hearst called on President Coolidge, assumed all responsibility (TIME, Oct. 22, 1928).

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