Scratch!

An old man sat at a desk in the Palace of Versailles. Now and then he stretched forth a suede-gloved hand, touched an electric button, growled through tusk-like whiskers at his slinking abject secretary. To the old man came presidents, premiers, ambassadors. . . . Were they never so mighty, his strange greasy mongoloid visage and baleful luminous eyes kindled respect and an instinctive fear. As he rose from his desk, just prior to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Premier Clemenceau resembled so vividly a tiger about to spring that many of his associates have since confessed to feeling a twinge of animal terror course down their spines. . . . Now the Tiger has retired, dwells quietly at 8 Rue Franklin, Paris, proclaims to his friends (TIME, April 5) that he treads the brink of the grave. He is 85. But even as he speaks of death, the unquenchable fire darts from his eyes. The grey, suede-gloved hands have still the air of sheathing tiger claws. . . . Last week M. Georges Eugene Adrien Clemenceau, responding no doubt to an appeal from his old friend and political ally, Premier Poincare, unsheathed his claws and raked the U. S. upon the raw in a curt, sarcastic, seering letter to President Coolidge:

"Mr. President:

"You are claiming from us payment not of a debt of commerce but of war. You know, as we do, that our treasury is empty. In such a case the debtor must sign promissory notes, and that is just what you are asking us to do, and yet each of us ought to believe that settlement in cash will be made on the day fixed.

"Now, it is an open secret that in this affair there are only imagary dates of payment, which will lead up to a loan with solid security in the shape of our territorial possessions, as was the case for Turkey. Such a thing, Mr. President, I am bound to tell you we shall never accept.

"France is not for sale, even to her friends. Independent she came to us, independent we shall leave her. Ask yourself whether, according to President Monroe, you would feel otherwise about the American continent.

"If France were to disappear under the blows of her enemies and of her sworn 'friends' there would remain of her, a name to be proud of. ...

"Come to our villages and read the endless list of their dead and make comparisons, if you will. Was this not a 'bank account'? The loss of this vital force of youth?

"As Russia did at Brest-Litovsk, America has made a separate peace with Germany without even the slightest suggestion of an adjustment with her comrades in arms. That was the blood truce with the common enemy. Today, a money peace between the allied and associated powers is being devised.

"How is it we failed to foresee what is now happening? Why did we not halt under the shells and convoke a board meeting of profiteers to decide the question whether it would allow us to continue in defense of the greatest conquest in history? Must the myth of German reparations lead up to American cash collections?

"I have spoken freely to the honored head of a great people for whom I have preserved for fifty years my highest respect and friendship, because I believed that people was destined to receive from the old world the torch of a great ideal of humanity to carry on higher and higher. It is now for that people to pronounce judgment on itself. I can only offer the supreme homage of my silence, if I am mistaken.

"With homage and my deep respect, believe me, Mr. President, (Signed) "GEORGES CLEMENCEAU."

*Now striving to bring pressure upon the U. S. to modify the Franco-U. S. debt terms (TIME, Aug. 2 et seq.).