"Men Like Beasts"

For the first time in his ursine life, Senator William Edgar Borah, who refuses all invitations to go to Europe, broadcast last week to Europe. The whole Continent tuned in. Oppressed nations look to the ponderous, fearless Chairman of the U. S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee as their greatest champion. Oppressing Great Powers view him with logical alarm. As millions of eager, ear-straining Europeans crouched over their radio sets they heard the Senator's sonorous words and rumbling periods punctuated and all but drowned by astounding catcalls in a dozen languages, women's shrill screams, the roars of fistfighting men and altogether the most remarkable program ever broadcast from Paris.

High above a terraced garden facing the River Seine and the Eiffel Tower perches the huge, crescent-shaped Palais du Trocadero built for the Paris Exposition of 1878. On Borah Night last week 8,000 people jammed the Trocadero Auditorium. Huge banners strung around the balconies proclaimed that 1,043 delegates from peace societies in 30 lands had been gathered by the International Union of League of Nations Associations into this, a monster Peace & Disarmament Conference, an unofficial curtain-raiser for the League's World Disarmament Conference in Geneva next February. The trouble with last week's well meaning "conference"' lay not among the 1,043 "delegates," 100% pacifists all, but in the fact that anyone willing to buy a ticket could attend, and in the further fact that several thousand angry Frenchmen came.

French public opinion became incensed when the pacifist delegates, at a session earlier in the week, hissed and booed the cherished French thesis of "No Disarmament Without Security" expounded to the Conference by that great French mathematician M. Paul Painleve, former Premier and War Minister. Cardinal Verdier, Archbishop of Paris, sensed what was coming, refused to send a message to the Peace & Disarmament Conference, declared: "Catholics possess other means of making their ideas known on this delicate subject." Finally the Journal des Debats, often the voice of the French Government, denounced the Conference as "conceived . . . to force upon France in the name of international collaboration a solution unfavorable to our country" (i e., actual Disarmament without a pact of Security for the special benefit of France).

On Borah Night the Trocadero was packed with French patriots, hottest among them being the blue-shirted Fascists of Les Jeunesses Patriotes and Paris's stalwart, cane-swinging young Royalists, Les Camelots du Roi. When Senator Borah stood up to broadcast from quiet Washington he little suspected that wildest pandemonium was already loose beneath the Trocadero loudspeakers that were to shout his words. A message from the Archbishop of Canterbury which Viscount

Cecil had tried to read was drowned out by roars of "Vive la France!"

When Signor Vittorio Scialoja, often Italy's League representative, opened his mouth there were anti-Fascist yells of "Murderer!" until French blue shirts began a gay, devastating chant of "Not so loud, Macaroni!"

German Pacifist Herr Josef Joos was told by the wrathful French audience to "tell it to the Hitlerites!" Soon any speaker who mentioned Disarmament drew roars of "How about China?", "Liar!" and "Shut up!"

Utterly in vain Chairman Edouard Herriot, perpetual Mayor of Lyons and several times Premier of France, sought to calm the Conference with a speech beginning, "The spirit of peace must prevail over brute force."

"Nonsense!" jeered the mob. Fist fights broke out. When the Borah broadcast began someone shouted, "Hey, Borah, come over and speak here!"

Loudspeakers thundering their loudest made the Senator's voice louder than any patriot's shout. The bedlamite French were silent at first, involuntarily, curious to hear what the Great American's voice was like. In Washington, holding his typed speech in his left hand and gesturing at the microphone with his right forefinger. Chairman Borah of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee peered through the spectacles he wears only to read, and read the riot act to all Great Powers and especially France: "When Governments meet as a body to deal with disarmament, taking them as a whole, they are not for disarmament and never have been! . . . While millions are on the verge of starvation, growing restless and ugly, nearly $5,000,000,000 is being annually expended for armaments and from 80% to 85% of all taxes extorted from the people go for war purposes. All this is another name for slow but inevitable national suicide.

"Much will be said at this conference about Security," continued the Senator, lambasting France. "But there is no part of the government that is invulnerable to sapping forces of hunger and want! In considering security, therefore, let us not rely alone upon armaments!"

Long before these words were out, the Trocadero was in full riot. Wildly, vainly Chairman Herriot pleaded, "Act like men! You are behaving like beasts!"

Most nearly bestial was the raging mob's reception of U. S. Delegate Alanson Bigelow Houghton, retired diplomat and glass tycoon. To Frenchmen he is a pro-German, the first U. S. Ambassador to Germany after the War, and a man who from choice spent his student days at Gottingen and Berlin. When full-jowled Mr. Houghton was seen to rise from his seat, catcalls, whistles and jeers burst out, then suddenly died away as the crowd began to sing over & over a single verse from La Marseillaise, the most insulting verse: "Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" ("May blood that is foul flood the furrows of our fields!")

Sweat began to pour from the brow of Mr. Houghton, who understands French. He was seen to speak, but above the shouts of "vile blood!" no one could hear his words. Giving up the hopeless effort, Orator Houghton slipped out the back way, was caught by correspondents who asked "What is your opinion of tonight's demonstration?"

Brow-mopping Mr. Houghton seemed at first unable to reply, finally gasped: "I don't know what to say. I never saw anything like it before in my life. It is the first experience of the kind I ever had!"

Cool and collected when faced by the same question, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood said; "I can tell you my impressions in three words--It seems unbelievable!"

Paris gendarmes, lolling outside the Trocadero, made little or no effort to restore order. Only three fist-fighters were arrested--and hundreds of rioters had used their fists, scoring scores of black eyes, gashed lips, bloody noses. French broadcasting authorities not only cut the riot in on their rebroadcast of Senator Borah's speech but kept the riot on the air for two and a half hours, or until a young man climbed the platform, wrenched the microphone from its base, tore out the wires and ended Europe's most amazing broadcast--but not the riot.

Chairman Edouard Herriot would not adjourn. He has prided himself that he could handle any crowd, however rowdy. For years he was President (Speaker) of the Chamber of Deputies, often one of the rowdiest crowds in France. When, after three full hours of pandemonium. M. Paul Guichard, Chief of the Municipal Police of Paris, tugged frantic M. Herriot by the sleeve and strongly advised adjournment, the former Premier was decidedly piqued.

"Oh very well!" he snorted after some argument, then adjourned the Peace & Disarmament Conference with these words: "Beasts! I am ashamed of you--insulting women and strangers in our country ! These are not French manners!" and Chairman Herriot stalked out.

With gusto next day Senator Borah cried: "I wish I had been there."

Quitting France on the German liner Bremen, Passenger Houghton said: "My address began with the statement that I had crossed the ocean expressly to deliver it. As not a single word of it could be heard, I might have spared myself the long journey."

French newspapers approved the riot, some tacitly by omitting all mention of what occurred, others exultantly. "The impassioned enemies of France were magnificently and justly howled down!'' exulted L'Ami du Peuple du Soir, organ of pugnacious Perfumer Franc,ois Coty. "At the Trocadero [they] were obliged to throw down their masks and expose their true aims which are to . . . weaken our country."

In a leading article the semi-official Journal des Debats asked: "What is behind all this campaign today in favor of disarmament? In replying we must call a spade a spade. This campaign is purely and simply of German manufacture. ... [Germany] says audaciously to Europe, 'Disarm or else permit me to arm.' . . . In reality no reduction of armaments would be great enough to satisfy Germany. What she wants is freedom to arm. And that is what the pacifists are blindly encouraging."

German papers mostly took the bitter line of Berlin's Deutsche Tageszeitung: "France and Germany ... in their fundamental viewpoints are like fire and water. France has shown her real countenance."

"We know from the experience of 13 years," said the Berlin Lokalanzeiger, "that the mind of the French people remains unamenable to reason."

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