Speech

A fortnight ago, Ignace Jan Paderewski, famed pianist and onetime (1919) Premier of Poland, was lured to Salisbury Square, London, where is situate the Press Club. In this building, whose walls have heard many a famed man, M. Paderewski opened his speech on Poland by telling the well-known "elephant story":

An Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, a Russian and a Pole, all were asked to write a treatise on the elephant. The Englishman bought a hunting kit, went to India. At the end of a year he returned, wrote a voluminously illustrated book entitled The Elephant and How to Shoot Him. The Frenchman went to Le Jardin des Plantes at Paris, observed the elephant, made friends with his keeper and in six weeks time wrote Les Amours des Elephants. The German studied all the books and documents written on the elephant, then wrote a work in three volumes, entitled An Introduction to the Study of the Elephant. The Russian retired to his garret, drank quantities of vodka, numerous samovars of tea, produced a small volume : The Elephant--Docs He Exist? The Pole immediately set to work and in six weeks finished a pamphlet called The Elephant and the Polish Question.

M. Paderewski retold the story delightfully with one or two minor variations, such as the Englishman taking his biscuits, his port wine and his pipes. He said he was going to follow his compatriot and discuss the Polish question-- but without including the elephant. He did.