"I Resign"

Round as a biscuit is the floor of the private elevator of the President of Czechoslovakia and fixed in the centre is a stately chair for 85-year-old Dr. Thomas Garrigue Masaryk,, onetime blacksmith's apprentice, "Father of Czechoslovakia."

Since 1918 he has been perpetual President. Last week to a solemn gathering of Czechoslovakian statesmen the frail and hoary but still mentally great President said: "I am aware that I am no longer strong enough for the task. Therefore, I resign. ... I recommend to you Dr. Benes as my successor. . . . You, Mr. Premier, I ask to take cognizance of my resignation and undertake the necessary steps."

If the Premier of Czechoslovakia has been for many years a man whose name few European statesmen ever bother to remember, they never can get out of their minds Dr. Eduard Benes, quick as a squirrel, lucid as crystal, clever as the Devil, virtuous as the League of Nations and famed as "Europe's Smartest Little Statesman."

As Foreign Minister of the firm of Masaryk & Benes which is Czechoslovakia, he has forged the three minor nations of the Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania) into a unit armed to the teeth, which clicks and functions with the weight of important Power on the international scene. But Dr. Benes is not a hero to his political valets in Czechoslovakia. Last week Premier Milan Hodza in his handsome speech accepting the President's resignation avoided any pledge to support

Dr. Benes in the election Dec. 18. Since the wreck of the Habsburg Empire was in no small part the work of Dr. Masaryk, in Vienna last week the Neues Wiener Tagblatt exulted with Restorationists: "The foes of the Habsburgs pass! Lloyd George, for adequate reasons, was sentenced to political obscurity long ago. Wilson, Poincare, Clemenceau and Foch are dead. Masaryk has resigned!"

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