The Tired Businessmen

In the paneled "Room for Chamber Music" in Zurich's Congress House, delegates to the International Socialist Congress crammed a 40-hour week of discordant debating into four days, achieved nothing. A Dutch delegate remarked: "It's like a conference of tired businessmen." Said Leon Dennen, an unofficial American observer: "This is an assembly of frightened men, whose aim is to agree on nothing and postpone everything. They are trying to create a new International behind closed doors, hoping it will escape Stalin's attention."

They did not create their new International, chiefly because the Eastern Socialists (whose parties are proCommunist) blocked this as well as every other Western proposal.

Even outside the conference hall, there was no companionship between the factions, and no gaiety. Most delegates had modest accommodations in second-rate hotels (France's Daniel Mayer shared his room with four colleagues). Only the Rumanian delegate, Serban Voina, had a room in Zurich's best hotel, the lovely, luxurious Baur-au-Lac, whose terraces descend gently to Lake Zurich. Nevertheless, Zurich looked like another Eden to the delegates from poor, hungry countries. Said France's Salomon Grumback: "This city is so clean, you almost become dizzy."

Grumbach nearly failed to reach Zurich because of the railroad strike against France's Socialist Government (see FOREIGN NEWS). The incident was typical of Socialism's state. Said one of the tired businessmen: "I am an optimist. Socialism will progress despite us Socialists."

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