Evening Star Newspaper, May 26, 1929, Page 31

A Modern Ben Franklin | (Continued From First Page.) that no other office might have done. | | inch taller than Secretary Hughes when — | the latter came to Paris some vears ago. | _The games which he had no time to THE SUNDAY in democracy and in the common man “When doubts arise as to the wisdom of leadership the thought that gives me | courage and hope is the certainty that the present is safe and the future as- sured in quiet, every-day work of the average men and women who constitute | the foundation of society the world over. The farmer, the miner, the mechanic, the common man, wherever he is and One of the first books to fall into my | play when he was young occupied much | wherever he is employed, is doing his hands when I was a boy was ‘Les Miserables Then came “Notre-Dame de Paris’ and with it I vowed to live in Paris some day. I read Hugo and Balzac, and especially Carlyle’s "French Revolution.' * It was not difficult for a man with such a tradition to fit himself into French life. Ambassador Herrick made a real cffort from the very day of his arrival to establish a sympathetic un- derstanding, the right sort of rapports. He had a delightful time studying credits “Now, just suppose & man in Texas wanted to buy a pig and borrowed $20 on his note to do so; then just suppose this note_turned up one day in a big bank on Wall Street—this little note to buy a pig for a farmer in Texas for $20. Now that would be a nine days' wonder, a rare curiosity for New York. But it would be natural in the Bank of Prussia or in the Bank of France through the credit fancier.” Other Fields of Interest. Herrick found many another field of interest in France beside rural credit. He studied the great men of Franco- American history and the peculiar problems of French Colonial admini- stration. The nch were astonished later when the .Ambassador made a brilliant speech on Admiral de Grasse, showing an intimate acquaintance with his work at Yorktown and in the block- ade. The whole press was amazed and gratified when, during a visit to Mo- roced, he happened to say just the most needed and helpful phrases. But the “happy coincidence” of these gestures was just another proof of the efficiency of the Herrick “opportunism.’ Herrick's personality, his many gra- cious moves and his appearance were an incalculable recommendation to the Freneh. His fathers were of the old American stock which, after a century on the Atlantic seaboard. had moved West, opening the roads. That genera- tion bore its own stamp. When I first met the Ambassador he was 72 years old, the age of my own father when he died. and he reminded me of certain traits, certain tricks of speech, which all those men who came back East after their forefathers had been through the period of revolution and construc- tion shared between them. The accent ‘was that of the period—frank, open, confiding and canny . . . ready to pat a man's back and place a hand upon his knee, yet quick to form a sure and dogged judgment of his motives. Loved His Spontaneity. The French came to love Herrick's boyish sporitaneity, his laughter and his easy fraternizing. He charmed them by neglecting, when possible, the formali- ties which usually compose the whole of an Ambassador’s life, Nothing was more typical than his leaping up during the banquet given to retiring Ambassador Jusserand and waving his napkin to | Jead the Americans present through a rollicking verse of “He's a Jolly Good Fellow.” On the train down to the Manche for the unveiling of a statue to the Wright brothers, he sat back in his stifling com- partment with his collar and coat re- moved, his look of utter contentment contrasting strangely with the wilted finery of his assoclates. At the actual ceremony he looked smarter than any of them, for none could be better groomed when grooming Wwas para- mount, just as none enjoyed more than he the luxury of old clothes and com- fortable manners. The fact that Lindbergh fitted per- fectly into a pair of his excellency's pajamas gives & good estimate of the Ambassador's height. Tall and rangy, with tousseled head, overhanging shoul- ders and loose, easy gestures, he had | of his time in Paris. He wired back irongr-!ulauom when Ohio Wesleyan | finished a brilliant season. He opened | every new golf course near Paric. | played frequently himself, and “won' | the Diplomatic Tournament by play- ing_around when his opponent de- | faulted. | His figure, ideally suited to the game. and his rough sweater and homespuns, were familiar to all golfers in the vi- | cinity of Paris. His hands and face were browned and his hair had a sort | of sun-curled rebelliousness which broke out on the most incongruous occasions. Ambassador Herrick's reception room at the Chancellery was a fascinating place to ramble. His wide interest in everything was evidenced by the va- riety of books ranged across the great flat-topped desk—financial tomes on the Dawes’ plan, Belmont's “National | Isolation an Tllusion,” Oswald Chew's “Prance” and_ Thwing's “The Ameri- can and the German University.” | To the right of the desk was the massive marble mantelpiece, with its tall black wrought-iron candelabra at each end. Against the white wain- | scoting at either side there were two portraits in plain oak frames, one of | Lindbergh in_ 1927, the other of Theo- | dore Roosevelt, taken at the American | Ambassy, Paris, in 1910. To the left | of the desk hung Franklin's letter to the Count de Vergennes in 1776 crav- | | ing his excellency’s permission for him- | self, Deane and Lee to present their | credentials as the first diplomatists from | the American colonies to the Court of Louls XVI. | Had Wide Interests. Herrick's interests touched every phase of national and international life Among his favorite pictures were a col- | lection of photographs from Tom D. | | Campbell's huge farm, the second lary est in the world, in Hardin, Mont. Pic- ture drawing, by the way, so far as the | art of cartoonist went, was one of the Ambassador’s chief amusements. At | the Chateau de Madrid he would spend | | the time between courses making draw- | ings of characters at neighboring ta- | bles. He would do admirable carica- | tures of his colleagues and then. with | A sigh, tear them up so that the Secret | Service might not find them. | Trust-breaking was not one of his | sports while in office. His favorite ac- complishment as Governor of Ohio was | his undemonstrative reform of the pris- |ons. When a boy he had taken the | dollar excursion from Wellington to Co- lumous with a crowd of other young- | sters. The boys had visited a water- | melon stand, the State house and the | local prison. “We were Intrigued by the striped suits and the lockstep, and practiced walking one behind the other all the way down the street to the station. It was years later, just after my inaugu- ration as governor, that I was standing at my window feeding the squirrels in the park when suddenly a host of bo; | hood memories came to me. I remem- bered the prison, and forthwith set out to pay a sentimental visit. | Dropped In on Prisons. “I was astonished to find it quite dif+ | ferent from my recollections, unkempt, | with papers flying about the yard. I | found that the warden was not on the premises, that the wards were filled with typhoid cases and that the water ! which also served as a city sewer. | After tnat the 17 institutions of the State got accustomed to the fact that I| was likely to drop in with a secretary | at any time.” | Democratic institutions, which are likely to go wrong if not earefully super- | vised, nevertheless had the full support | of Herrick's opinion. He voiced faith in | work day by day in all countries throughout. all this turmoil. Nothing can long resist or destroy that individual effort! The man in the street. the man in the fleld. is not troubled with jangled nerves or disturbed amid conferences and international entanglements, but moves serenely along in his workaday world.” Whenever something happened to stop the work of this common man Herrick would expostulate with the truly Anglo- Saxon hatred of the knocker. “In God's name,” he broke out at a luncheon some years ago, “if we can't do something constructive, let us be quiet about the fellow who is doing his utmost to serve the common good.” In contrast to many of his country- men, Herrick came to comprehend, dur- ing his years abroad. how difficult it is for certain peoples to embrace repub- lican institutions when neither the tra- ditions nor the routine is native (o them: “It requires generations for a peopls to become educated, to implant the in- stinct for self-government,” he said. “You cannot build a tree, you must plant it.” Trusted By France. Herrick understzod his continentals. If he had not, how could he have won their confidence and their respect. M. Barthou, the French minister of justice, once sald that Herrick was the only man whom the French government not | . which is a only loves, but trusts . . statement the more notable in the opin fon of one of my friends from the em- bassy, “because when the French gov- ernment tn anybody they've gone over the top.” The prestige that Herrick enjoyed in France during the first months of the war was enormous. The wanton propa- ganda of the belligerent nations was distorting every issue, sometimes in spite of the efforts of their respecti intelligence departments. In his m moirs L. L. Klotz, minister and a chief of the French censorship, gives one in. cident which shows how more tha once the Ambassador's name was in- voked to good purpose, A prominent paper (Le Figaro) pro- posed to publish a front page article the machinery will not properly fune- | tion with a missing cog.” In his feeling for world politics, as he spoke on all occasions of the need for a new orientation of American energy: “The people of America are not fully aware of the strength of their great moral influence. | “Attacks on entangling alliances and | mixing up in Europe’s afTairs look to me like drawing your sword against a man of straw. As I see it, to trade with a man, to bank with a'man, to buy and sell, loan and borrow, are not mixing up with his affairs. European countries | do not mix up in ours, nor need we mix |up in theirs, just because we are doing lan ever-increasing volume, of business with them. | " “Europe cannot come back without | the aid of America . . . nor can America come back without the aid of Europe.” | The influence of such phrases in the | establishment of a cordial relationship | between Washington and Paris was in- | calculable. The Ambassador had a knack of finding just the right phrase for the right place. His was the fre- | quent bon mot which went straight to the Frenchman's heart. | In the rich collection of medaille de | 1a grande guerre there are several hand- | some medals designed by the French government, where the Ambassador's words: have been struck off in letters of gold or silver. There is one which com- | memorates his narrow escape from a bomb in September, 1914: “There are moments,” he said to the aids who anxiously picked him up and | brushed the gravel off; “there are mo- ments when a dead Ambassador is worth more than a live Ambassador. At | this moment it would have been very useful for France if the American Am- bassador_had been killed by a bomb from a German airplane.” Became Toast of Paris. ‘That phrase became the toast of | Paris. Words which had been but the expression of quick wit and self-con- trol were drafted and made to do mili- | tary service. A foreigner who could come through an air raid with such a | ready mot upon his lips deserved the | best that Paris offered. The very fact | that he had stayed on after most of the | other Ambassadors had left the city inspired for him a rare confidence and love. 1t is always dangerous to push eom- parisons, yet there is something in the | French 'delight in Herrick's actions, { Herrick’s bons mots and Herrick’s bon | coeur, which is paralleled only by their | warm affection for Benjamin Franklin 'a 150 years ago. Like Franklin, Herrick | signed by two noted savants stating that | had been a poor boy, though of stout STAR. WASHINGTON, well as the ancient provincial system. | | they had seen with their own eyes— |family antecedents. He had been a supply was pumped up from the river | | without specifying when or where—100 French children with thelr _hands | chopped off by the enemy. Finding | the article made up and all ready to be printed, the chief stopped it, saying that if the story were false it could but | | spread needless horror, while if it were true it should be given'a circulation far greater than any Paris newspaper could touch. The editor fell in with Rhis proposition that the savants should be confronted by an impartial judge. and Herrick was the arbiter chosen. With his aid the stories were proved false, the sort of misguided “aid” which many patriotic Europeans offered for their governments when hates ran highest. | Was Not a Hater. Hatred was never one of Ambassador | Herrick's strong points. During his| | European experiences he tried to under- stand all peoples, large or small, pro- | pressive or conservative. In preparing | | his book on rural credits he touched | every province and state remotely asso- | clated with the reforms he visualized. | He tried. after the war, to abolish the | visa fee, that effectual wall round the United States and most of Europe. He | always celebrated Washington's birthday | with & luncheon to the South American | Diplomats in Paris. His admiration for Germany's banks and factories and rural economy made him state em- phatically the necessity of her renabill- on : only to straighten up and he stood an ! ths republican system of government, “Germany is & cog in the wheel and u/‘ Ser “self-made man,” the founder of & fortune and the pillar of & community. Above all, he had been a good Ameri- can. Coming to _cosmopolitan Paris as old men neither Franklin nor Herrick could have been produced by any other coun- try than America. Each was typical of a great period, a great section and a great tradition, and each was found wqrthy of the best that Europe had. Magnetic, self-confident and willing to work, canny, distinguished and adroit Myron T. Herrick was in Paris the Franklin of his day. BALDNESS BumsteadsWormSyrup “To ehildren an angel of mercy.” tome. are" Toltowed. " TF NEVER 'ATLS. Despite searcity and enormous ST BANRONINC i conimine Tl dose: yoar' 3 or by mafl, boe & batile. 0 °ToTIeTe Wst, C. A. Voorhees, M. D.. Philadelphis For the Kitchen—For the Bath 21 g For the Laundry—For All Purposes The Automatic Way D C, MAY 26 A SMASHING 1929—PART 2. SUITE SALE A Special Feature of MAXWELL'’S GREAT MAY SALE An astounding offer. Any one of these charming, well-finished, artistic suites at thi low price. Read about them. And you pay on one of the most liberal credit plans in Washington. Don’t let this opportunity slip by. $5 Deposit Delivers Suite. Pay balance on terms to suit your convenience. Call in tomorrow and see these suites and at the same Side Icer Sl;ecial Outer case in Golden Oak, 3-door style in a High Grade Refrigerator. 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