"Strong Nerves"

Just as Frenchmen were congratulating themselves because U. S. slashing of duties on French wines & liquors had reduced the price of champagnes and cognacs by 80-c- in the U. S.; and just as new French Premier Leon Blum was talking last week, according to the Associated Press, of appointing an envoy to try and borrow a cool "one billion dollars," abruptly the blood of U. S. citizens was made to boil against the Blum Cabinet and French employes of the American Hospital in Neuilly.

Out rushed Ambassador Jesse Isidor Straus at rumors that 85 patients, most of them U. S. citizens, languished unattended because the French hospital staff had caught the contagion of their country's "folded arms strikes" (TIME, June 8 et seq.). When Mr. Straus arrived he found all the French nurses and all the French cooks at their posts, but 60 scrubwomen, laundry workers and basement engineers, including one naturalized U. S. citizen, had locked themselves "on strike" in the basement. As headlines screeched in the Paris Herald, to the rescue planned to go the local American Legion, the American Women's Club, the American Junior Guild and U. S. students from Paris' international "University City."

To the French Foreign Office drove Ambassador Straus and formally demanded of the Socialist Blum Cabinet that it send police to clear the American Hospital's basement. No policemen budged. The strikers in the basement demanded 1) lunch; 2) the 40-hour week and all other benefits conferred by France's new Socialist labor laws, although they had not yet passed the Senate; and 3) minor concessions, such as that each employe should receive "three days' holiday whenever a member of the employe's family is about to be married."

Socialist though the new Cabinet is and complacent though Premier Blum has shown himself toward French strikers, who were down last week from 1,000,000 to 204,000, nevertheless for Jesse Isidor Straus the Cabinet soon did more than it was doing for Paris department-store owners whose premises were in the third week of a "stay-in-strike." Over to the American Hospital and down into its basement hurried Minister of Interior Roger Salen-gro to "personally intervene." By nightfall he had got the strikers to abandon their more fantastic demands, persuaded the American Hospital to accept the rest, including higher pay, shorter hours.

"There Are Still Judges!" Instead of the street-stabbings and pistol play which Germany, Spain and Japan have recently seen as their regimes changed, French moderation made Paris almost dull last week, though Nobel Prizeman Dr. Alexis Carrel was on hand to call what was happening a "French Revolution" and to attribute the lack of bloodshed to the French people's "unusually strong nervous system."

So strong were the nerves of French Fascists that when Socialist Blum drastically decreed suppression of their leagues last week, No. 1 Fascist Colonel Franc,ois de la Rocque replied that the decree was illegal and would be fought to a finish in the courts. "There are still judges in France!" cried the Colonel, instead of ordering his Fascists into the streets. "From tomorrow we become a political party. If the Government opposes, its action will be equivalent to the proclamation of a Communist and Socialist dictatorship. In this case the Head of the State will have to recognize the solemn abrogation of the citizen's rights of free speech and freedom of assembly. He will thus take his responsibilities. Our patriotic thrust can not be stopped!"

In Paris meanwhile, strong-nerved Fashion Creator Gabrielle Chanel told her striking dressmakers that, as the shop under her management could not earn the pay they demanded, they had better run it themselves and she would stay on to help the new owners as an unpaid stylist. At this the strong-nerved strikers told Mme Chanel that what she needed was ''more capital," marched off to try to get it from the Socialist Treasury. On being refused, they marched back and formally refused to take Mme Chanel's shop off her hands, she then refusing to keep it open and locking the door.

"Don't Soak the Rich!" Although Communist supporters of the Blum Cabinet demanded an immediate soak-the-rich confiscation of part of all great French fortunes last week, Socialist Finance Minister Vincent Auriol backed water so much from this position that his motto might have been, ''Don't Soak the Rich!"

His half-radical, half-timid measures caused Senator Joseph Caillaux to charge the Cabinet in open debate with "Lilliputian Rooseveltism." For example, M. Auriol announced an enormous issue of "Baby Bonds," apparently to be bought by Socialists and Communists of modest means to help the Cabinet make a stand against the "Financial Oligarchy."

Until his "Baby Bonds" could be sold, M. Auriol turned for temporary succor to the Financial Oligarchy, obtained from the Regents of the Bank of France an overdraft of $10,000,000 on which to keep his Treasury going for the moment. Socialist Auriol said he will not take the franc off the gold standard, will not nationalize but only "reform" the Bank of France and will not fail to balance the Budget.

Very little of this was believed in fiscal Paris. Up went eyebrows as M. Auriol made provision for labor union and employer association delegates to sit ultimately in the councils of the Bank of France, threatened Frenchmen who have funds abroad with confiscation of equivalent funds unless the foreign deposit is reported to the Government, and implied that his "Baby Bonds" had better find quick buyers--or else. "We must conquer egotism and fear!" cried Vincent Auriol with something of Franklin Roosevelt's lilt. "Already I have in my hand a list of citizens who have evaded their duty by not reporting funds abroad. We must conquer fraud and fear!"

Senate Succumbs, Although the five Blum bills bringing in the 40-hour week and yielding to other French strikers' demands caused Senators to sputter wrathfully when they passed the Chamber (TIME, June 22), last week all five passed the Senate by large majorities and were deemed sure to be signed by President Lebrun.

Paris department stores finally reopened to do boom business this week after an all-night arbitration conference. In Marseille 4,000 sailors suddenly "folded arms" on French merchant ships in the harbor, sang Communist songs, defied their officers. Sporadic in Paris, Amiens and other French cities were the first Fascist outbursts, participants massing, marching, waving the French flag, shouting "Down with the Jew! Down with Moscow!"

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