Tardieu Cabinet

Mad and sting-minded as any hornet last week was Edouard Daladier, stocky, pugnacious president of the Radical Socialist party, who almost managed to form a cabinet fortnight ago (TIME, Nov. 4).

"I was duped!" he raged to reporters. "The cagy old parliamentarian betrayed me --and they call him the Apostle of Peace! Zut! This Aristide Briand--Zut!"

Hectic midnight was the hour of betrayal, if such it was. Earlier in the evening M. Daladier had set out to tell President Gaston Doumergue of his inability to form a cabinet of the "left." The Socialist party had just refused their support, and without them he considered the game was up. En route to the presidential palace, however, M. Daladier was waylaid by excited friends, went instead to his own Radical-Socialist party headquarters. There it was announced that M. Briand, who had long since agreed to lend his support to a Daladier cabinet of the "left," would now get behind a strong push to form a Daladier cabinet of the "moderate centre," excluding the Socialists.

On this new line M. Daladier worked furiously until midnight, then saw in earliest morning papers that M. Briand had told the famed Havas Agency he would support not a "moderate centre" cabinet but one of "republican union." In plain English this meant insisting that Radical Socialist Daladier seek support for his cabinet further to the right than his own party would stand for. Frenzied, he rushed to the telephone and rang M. Briand's number, rang it again and again, drew his own conclusions when he got no answer-- such at least was his story. In a welter of rage he then drafted a letter informing President Doumergue that he could not form a cabinet.

Next morning M. Briand said that the Havas Agency had misunderstood him, added that of course his telephone would have been answered if it had rung. In a bristling statement from which it appeared that somebody was lying, he declared: "To my surprise I learned in the evening that Daladier had decided to give up, and intended giving as an excuse that I had abandoned him. I immediately sent word that I was ready to collaborate. He gave up anyway, and I am beginning to ask myself whether what he hoped for from me was not collaboration, but refusal, so he could place on me responsibility for his failure."

Clementel Interlude. Since the cabinet crisis has now lasted over a week, flustered President Gaston ("Gastounet") Doumergue hastily cast about for a man who might be able to form a cabinet of "republican union," chose that elderly vegetarian M. Le Senateur Etienne Clementel,* the distinguished President Fondateur of the International Chamber of Commerce.

In the Senate, baldish, flowing-whiskered M. Clementel is of the Gauche Democratique, a group which corresponds almost exactly to M. Daladier's Radical Socialists in the Chamber. Naturally he expected their support, proceeded with confidence to round up his personal following which lies a little further to the right, finally sought the weighty aid of great Aristide Briand, a statesman supposed to be above party because of his achievements in the realm of Peace.

In the offing buzzed Hornet Daladier. The moment the peace apostle consented to enter the vegetarian's cabinet, the hornet stung.

Wrathfully he informed M. Clementel that the Radical Socialists would not support him, although they are his closest political kin. "What a thrust!" wrote one French correspondent. "A mortal thrust through the vitals of Clementel. A spiteful thrust at Briand."

"The Crown Prince." At last the President of the Republic saw his way clear to call a would-be prime minister from the right. The numerically stronger but disorganized left had twice failed. It was time to summon the man whom former Prime Minister Raymond Poincare-- greatest statesman of the right--has been grooming as his successor for two years past at least. All France knows the long, rumbling name; Andre Pierre Gabriel Amedee Tardieu. He has two nicknames, first Le Dauphin ("The Crown Prince"), second L'Americain--for snappy, humorless, combative Andre Tardieu is supposed to be "the most American of Frenchmen."

The square chin is softened by the fact that it tops a neck like that of a warbling thrush or bullfrog. But the mustache is close-clipped, businesslike, and the hard, unflickering hazel eyes keep their level aim behind efficient, rimless glasses. Appropriately L'Americain is of mixed blood, with a faint ancestral dash of German.

Born at Paris just 53 years ago, Andre Tardieu had a common public schooling, developed an uncommon flair for political journalism, and at only 23 became Chef de Cabinet (chief political secretary) to the late, great Prime Minister Waldeck-Rousseau. Next he leaped to foreign editorship of Le Temps, foremost French daily. In 1914 he entered the Chamber of Deputies under the most potent auspices possible--as the protege of "Tiger" Clemenceau. But at the trump of War he ducked out of politics, clattered off to the front as a spruce Captain of Chasseurs, got himself three-times wounded, was several times cited for bravery.

In 1917, insistently recalled from the front by Prime Minister Clemenceau, M. Le Capitain Tardieu was sent to the U. S. as French High Commissioner. The appointment was almost a scandal. Le Capitain had never before held even ministerial rank. But he justified the "Tiger's" confidence. In the U. S. he borrowed and spent three and a half billion dollars on munitions for France.

At the peace conference it was no secret that Clemenceau allowed Tardieu to draft important sections of the Treaty of Versailles. Afterwards this honor proved a boomerang, for the treaty soon became unpopular, and tenacious Andre Tardieu made matters worse for himself by incessantly defending it. "One has only to mention Versailles." smiled M. Poincare at this period, "and Tardieu will rise up and cry 'present.'"

The recent popularity of L'Americain dates from three years ago when Prime Minister Poincare made him Minister of Public Works in his "Cabinet of Sacred Union" (TIME, Aug. 2, 1926). Soon he faced a threatened strike of one-third of a million French coal miners. Diving into the fray he managed in one week to win both operators and employes to his plan of settlement--which involved financial sacrifices by both. When the present cabinet crisis occurred with the fall of the government of Aristide Briand, the tenacious Dauphin was clinging to his Ministery of Interior (bestowed by Poincare a year ago), a key post since the incumbent controls the local government and the police of France.

"Republicans of Goodwill." Summoned by President Doumergue to form a cabinet last week, Fighter Tardieu accepted the mandate with characteristic brusqueness. He would not consult party leaders and try to win their support, he said. Others had done that and failed. Instead he would ask "republicans of good will," like Briand, to enter his cabinet on their personal responsibility, without impliedly pledging the support of their parties. With this cabinet he would face the Chamber of Deputies and they might unseat or sustain him as they chose. In effect, M. Tardieu slapped down before all France the following cabinet list, virtually defied the Chamber to indicate that they are not good men:

Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior--Andre Tardieu*

Foreign Affairs--Aristide Briand*

Finance--Henri Cheron*

Justice--Lucien Hubert

Marine--Georges Leygues*

Agriculture--Jean Hennessy* Labor--Louis Loucheur*

Posts--Louis Germain-Martin

Air--Laurent Eynac*

Public Instruction--Pierre Marraud*

War--Andre Maginot*

Colonies--Francois Pietri

Commerce--Pierre Flandin

Pensions--Senator Gallet

Public Works--Georges Pernot

Merchant Marine--Louis Rollin

The nine "republicans of good will" starred (*) above held posts in the last cabinet. Of utmost political importance are the three new ministers from the party of Hornet Daladier--namely M. Hubert (Justice), M. Marraud (Public Instruction), M. Gallet (Pensions). It is just possible that the presence of these Radical Socialists will swing the vote of that party to the cabinet, though Hornet Daladier was believed preparing to sting again. In reality Tardieu L'Americain was appealing to French public opinion over the heads of politicians--a trick he may possibly have learned in the U. S. On the face of things his "republicans of good will" commanded no certain majority, last week, but Le Dauphin boldly announced that he would wait five days before facing the Chamber, and in that interval it was entirely possible that the deputies could be cajoled and dazzled into enthroning "the crown prince."

*Meticulous, he recently said: "I consider myself a vegetarian, although it is true I am 65, and have confined myself to vegetables only for the last 20 years."