Cleveland in Paris

FRANCE

Cleveland to Paris

It was largely due to a man from Cleveland that the panic did not extend so far that the whole population would have left [Paris] and the Germans marched in. --Lord Northcliffe

"The man from Cleveland returned last week to Paris aboard the chic, sumptuous S. S. Paris of the French Line. Landing at Havre, he was welcomed by the Mayor. Stepping off his train at the Gare St. Lazare, he was embraced by the Military Governor of Paris, sleek General Henri Joseph Etienne Gouraud. French throngs jammed the station, crying "Vive L'Ambassadeur! Vive Herrick!" Not often does France welcome so tried and sterling a friend as the U. S. Ambassador, Myron Timothy Herrick, who returned, last week, after a long, treacherous illness at his home in Cleveland, to Paris, his other home. . . .

Accompanying the Ambassador were his son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Parmely Herrick. They beamed as he cried to the crowds: "Merci! Merci! Mes amis!" They sped with him to the U. S. Embassy, where he was welcomed in behalf of the American Club of Paris by its President, smart expatriate Percy Piexotto. Followed a two-minute reply by Mr. Herrick, who seemed not fully convalescent and leaned heavily on his cane. Said he ". . . One thing is certain! No matter what are the prevailing differences between France and the United States, ... a way to satisfy both countries will inevitably be found. . . ." Unable to attend the official luncheon of welcome, former Ambassador to the U. S. Jules Jusserand sent a message: "Should the President attempt to remove Mr. Herrick from the Paris post, treaties or no, France will declare war on the United States forthwith." Laughter.

Loomed before Ambassador Herrick, last week, the grave "differences" to which he referred: 1) The high French import duties upon U. S. goods have been lowered only provisionally and await final negotiations; 2) The Briand-Kellog conversations looking to a peace pact have virtually deadlocked although Mr. Herrick himself said, last week: "I am anxious to see negotiations for a lasting pact with France outlawing war completed as soon as possible"; 3) the Franco-U. S. debt funding agreement is still unratified by France, a fact which Mr. Herrick tactfully dismissed, in speaking to French correspondents. Said he: "You do not hear anyone mention that subject on either side of the Atlantic just now."

Friends of Myron Timothy Herrick were confident that he would deal with these problems in a characteristic manner.

Culturally Ambassador Herrick is Franco-American. Patriotically he is straight U. S. As an upright lawyer and a banker of authentic vision, he is cream skimmed from the Western Reserve. Complex, he interests. Last week his many admirers, loyal, enthusiastic, dwelt again on the five major steps in his triumphantly surprising life:

Youth. Born 73 years ago on a farm in Lorain County, Ohio, child Herrick was not even then so remote from France and culture as to escape frequent readings aloud by his father of many a "standard work," among them those of Victor Hugo.

Boyhood he spent in efforts to escape farm drudgery, not by loafing but through such rational adventures as peddling dinner bells and lightning rods. Grade school and high school he was encouraged to attend, but he had to teach country school and write newspaper fillers until he saved enough to begin working his way through Oberlin College. Followed three years of study in a Cleveland law office, and then, 24, he was admitted to the bar.

Practice & Business. Stories of the industry and honesty of young Herrick beggar those of the hatchet, the cherry tree. Legendary is the $8,000 note, endorsed for a slippery friend, which the young lawyer and his wife voluntarily made good, though he knew a legal quibble which invalidated his endorsement. Factual was and is the Society for Savings, a bank operated in the interests of depositor-members, with which Mr. Herrick early associated himself and of which he is now Chairman of the Board. Success and wealth were his with the turn of the century. From then Myron Timothy Herrick enlarged his vision to scan future conquests.

Politics & Diplomacy. Already Banker Herrick had served six times as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. He now laid his head together with that of President-Maker Mark Hanna and was soon elected Governor of Ohio (1903-06). . . .

Upon resuming private life to attend to his interests, Mr. Herrick continued so politically potent that he twice declined to become Secretary of the Treasury, when offered that post by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Finally President Taft found a plum to tempt "the man from Cleveland." Would he accept the U. S. Ambassadorship to France? Mr. Herrick would--but for a strange, sound reason--at that time, 1912, his hobby was industrial credits, and he deemed the methods of the Credit Fonder of France the most advanced and worthy of study.

War. Barely had Ambassador Herrick tasted and copiously imbibed the nectar of French culture, when he saw the cup about to be dashed from his lips by blond Teutons to whom dusky, petite France was a morsel, not an inspiration. Nearer tramped the Conquerors. An impromptu French defense, mobilized in taxicabs seemed sure to crumble. Frightened, scared to the marrow, Frenchmen proceeded to withdraw their capital from Paris to Bordeaux. Automatically the Diplomatic Corps would follow the Government. Suddenly it was discovered that the U. S. Ambassador alone proposed to remain behind.

At the U. S. Embassy Mr. Herrick was personally warned by General Gallieni, then charged with the immediate defense of Paris. "Your Excellency!" cried the distracted General, "The German plan is to blow up Paris, section by section, until the French Government surrenders!"

Answered Myron Timothy Herrick: "I am going to stay here. Somebody ought to stay. . . . Who will protect your monuments, your museums, your libraries? If the city is occupied by the Germans. . . . I ... shall speak in the name of the United States and be assured I shall find means to prevent all massacre and pillage. ... I do not doubt that you will be victorious. Paris, as a centre of art and culture belongs to all the world. . . . France cannot perish!"

Aftermath. Such sentences endure. Frenchmen recalled them fervently, last week, as Ambassador Herrick resumed his post. They remembered that although he (Republican) ceased in 1914 to be U. S. Ambassador at Paris (under Democrat Woodrow Wilson), he toiled on in the general cause of Victory, and later became Chairman of the American Committee for Devastated France. When, in 1921, President Harding (Republican) sent Mr. Herrick back to Paris as Ambassador, France regained a Great Man who is at least half her own. Said he, last week: "In leaving my friends in my own country. I feel that I am going back to my friends in my other country."

An Ambassador dare not, cannot say more.

Significant Plenipotentiaries. While the U. S. representatives accredited at London,* Paris, Berlin/- and Mexico City** are most in the public eye, at present, three other U. S. Ambassadors are especially worthy of significant remark: 1) Henry Prather Fletcher. Ambassador to Italy and now a delegate to the Pan-American Conference; 2) Charles MacVeagh, potent industrial attorney, Ambassador to Japan; 3) Joseph Clark Grew, forceful, distinguished, onetime Under Secretary of State, now the first U. S. Ambassador accredited to the new Republic of Turkey.

*Alanson Bigelow Houghton, potent glass tycoon.

/-Jacob Gould Schurman, learned, educator.

**Dwight Whitney Morrow, onetime Morgan partner, delegate to the Pan-American Congress.