Retort

Fortnight ago, France, debt-bitter, war-proud, sent to President Coolidge an unpleasant letter demanding debt-sympathy. The letter was written by her 85-year-old "Tiger" Clemenceau's august furious own hand. It was unofficial, all the more notable. Spokesman Coolidge, vexed, shrewd, presumably saw that an emotional argument not answerable in kind is best not answered at all. Secretary of State Frank B. ("Nervous Nellie") Kellogg, as discreet as the famed simian trio, saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil.

But Senator William E. Borah, he-man from Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, no simian, heard, saw, spoke. Said he: "Clemenceau's letter is so cruelly misleading in his intimation that we are undermining the independence of France, and so deliberately unjust where he refers to waiting for America to enter the War, and where he criticizes the United States for making a separate treaty of peace with Germany, and yet so pathetic in manifest love of his country, that I prefer not to comment at length.

"He is one whose unfounded wrath we can afford to ignore and whose malicious insinuations we can afford to pass by. It would seem that if they have anything to say of a people whom they once hailed as their unselfish deliverers, they at least should speak the language of truth and graciousness. Their statement that we are trying to undermine the independence of France, or that somebody wants to buy France, approaches the absurd. . . . "This constant charge of injustice and usury on the part of the United States is simply not only unfounded in fact, but dishonest in purpose." In France, newspaper editorials shrieked, "Francophobe! Sadist!"* But even Frenchmen expressed preference for open antagonism to concealed indifference. At home, people watched Mr. Kellogg wait, recalled that there is nothing in the Constitution to keep Mr. Borah from occupying both his own Senatorial chair and the Secretary of State's seat. If the President would select for his Cabinet the chairman of the leading Congressional Committees, "responsible government," in the sense in which it is understood in Britain ("Mother of Parliaments") would almost instantly be achieved. Last week Senator Borah strode down the dusty streets of Boise, capital of Idaho, as if a blaring band marched at his van. People applauded, tipped their hats to him; occasionally he nodded. Leather-jowled man of wide spaces and deep thinking, Senator Borah builds no theatre for his distant capital as does Senator Warren (see p. 9) at his;-- his own personality provides dramatic catharsis.

* L'Avenir declared: "Borah hates France with a sort of sadic frenzy." One is a sadist who takes pleasure, ipso facto, in inflicting pain. * Last week John Allen Sickel, Manhattan caviar dealer, bet his wife that he could name all the state capitals in the U. S. He won. Curious newspapermen wondered how many other citizens could duplicate Mr. Sickel's feat. TIME readers desirous this week of making bets similar to Mr. Sickel's may settle their bets by consulting p. 9, where all state capitals are listed.