Coming Back?

The name of Joseph Caillaux, one-time Premier, brilliant financial genius, many times Minister of Finance, convicted for "endangering France's alliances," regarded by many as a traitor, was much upon the tongue of the French public.

Since the Radical victory in the recent elections became known (TIME, May 19), he has become a political possibility; for there is, according to report, every chance that he will be pardoned by the next French Government. Rumors to the effect that he was a dying man, and therefore already politically dead, had but one effect: M. Caillaux brought suit for 100,000 francs against a Paris journal for libelous report of his ill-health, took necessary steps to prove that he was physically fit and capable of taking an active part in public affairs.

Joseph Caillaux comes of a good family, wealthy and conservative. He was educated at a smart Jesuits' school and later at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques; became an expert in financial affairs. In his earlier 'days it was said of him that he was "well-dressed, dashing, impertinent, conceited." Many were the complaints of his hauteur. Before the War his political star several times slipped from its position of ascendancy behind the void of the horizon. Ex-Premier Clemenceau once said: "I have two Ministers with whom I can do nothing; one is Briand, the other is Caillaux. One thinks he is Christ, the other thinks himself Napoleon." It was the Napoleonic streak that caused Caillaux to spurn his Foreign Minister and his Ambassadors and negotiate through agents in the Moroccan Affair (1911) with Germany, which ended by France ceding vast areas of the Congo in return for being allowed to exercise a protectorate over Morocco.

Then there was the code incident. The French Government had for some years known the code used between the German Embassy in Paris and the Wilhelmstrasse (German Foreign Office). One day, so the story runs, M. Caillaux was in conclave with a German official. Said he: "Why should Germany refuse me this? I know the German Government has already instructed its Ambassador to grant it." Result: Germany changed the code, and France lost one of her most important defenses.

Among many people who conceived political and personal hatred for Joseph was M. Gaston Calmette, Managing Editor of the Figaro. Early in 1914, when Caillaux became for the third time Minister of Finance, in the Cabinet of Premier Doumergue, Calmette directed an intense and violent campaign against him and incriminatory facts were published.

These attacks had undoubtedly greatly angered Caillaux; for one day in March, 1914, there appeared at the office of the Figaro Mme. Caillaux, third wife of Joseph, herself a divorcee. Her card was handed to Calmette, who with a gesture of impatience, showed it to Paul Bourget. "What are you going to do?" said the latter. "She is a woman. I must receive her," replied Calmette.

When Mme. Caillaux entered the office, Calmette received her politely, asked what he could do. Said she: "It is needless for me to pretend that I am making a friendly call." She then took out her revolver, fired one shot. M. Calmette fell to the ground. Mme. Caillaux then fired the remaining four shots, only one missed. The anger of the Parisiens was aroused. Caillaux was repeatedly attacked by furious mobs and the day following the murder he resigned.

Despite the strongest chain of evidence of premeditated murder, Mme. Caillaux was acquitted by a jury, after a sensational trial--apparently upon the novel ground that if the doctors called in to attend Calmette had given him the proper treatment he would not have died. Meanwhile, Joseph Caillaux had stood for reelection and was once more a Deputy in Paris.

Then came the War. M. Caillaux was observed on the boulevards sporting an Army paymaster's uniform. He became the centre of unpleasant incidents at Vichy and in Argentina, where he was sent on a diplomatic mission. The end came in Italy in 1916, where he said that France would not hold out beyond the Spring of 1917, that France must conclude a separate peace and then an alliance with Germany. Premier Briand wired Rome: "Do as you think fit with him." The Italian Government had him seized, confiscated his papers, put them at the disposal of the French.

His trial is historic. Caillaux contended that the papers seized were merely evidence of his intimate dreams, defended himself with great skill and eloquence. He was, however, sentenced to three years in prison, banished from Paris for five years, had his civic rights suspended for ten years.

For some time it has been said that Caillaux would "come back." Herbert Bayard Swope, famed Executive Editor of The New York World, predicted about two years ago that "within three years Caillaux will be either Prime Minister or controlling the appointment to that office." Meanwhile, Edouard Herriot, Radical Mayor of Lyons, has stepped into Caillaux's shoes and it is extremely unlikely that he will step out of them; for he once said of Caillaux: "I may admire the mind, while detesting the soul." But, judging from the signs of the times, Caillaux is "coming back."