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Show magazine section anting JJcHtmtter. tiDjfon A THEOPHILE DELCASSE Whd Began as a Journalist and Worked His Way. Into Diplomacy His Energy and His Modesty " PEASANT'S SON . Who Has to Be the Friend and Confidant of Some of the World's Most Powerful Monarchs Risen ... , : fj i i rumor ran other day along the Paris, boulevards-thaTheophile Delcasse was about to resign the portfolio d Minister of Foreign Affairs, which k has held during four successive T' t Diplonia-tst- s, Administrations. ts financiers and hurried to and fro in wild excitement, asking one another if the cvs was true. The wires Hashed it to London, to Berlin, to Rome, to Madrid, to Vienna, to St. Petersburg; several Kings and Premiers and Foreign Ministers had a bad quarter f an hour until they learned that there was nothing in the rumor, fteophilc Delcasse tops the face of Europe Meanwhile, national securities were depressed temporarily on the London Mock Exchange and several of the Continental Bourses. For Theophile Delcasse, the peasant's son, who has fen by virtue of diplomatic genius to be the friend and confidant of some of the world's greatest monarchs, has Probably done more than any other ton to keep the peace of Europe. His toignation as Foreign hi inis ter of France would be far more menacing to the cause of peace than any dozen "f the average war scares promoted nsational newspapers. 1898, after the fall of the Meliue kbinet, M. Delcasse was made For-jjMinister of France by the new JrPnr, M. Brisson. In a year M. gave way to M. Dnpuy, but Delcasse stayed in the new Cabi ,Tt fa1 in .that year lie had steered I,c,y through its greatest 'Pwmatic crisis in a generation the shoda incident and had shown ln,slf to be a man whom France not do without. M. Waldeck-- T n5?ta1 succeeded M. Dnpny, and in M. Combes, the present Premier ? Fran, succeeded M. Waldeck-BM. Delcasse has stay-- . n1t aling at the head of the For French politicians, jour-aalis- pt fu! he goes on forever. When a French statesman contemplates reconstructing a Cabinet, or creating a new one, the first thing he does is to find out whether Theophile Delcasse will serve Under him. . If Delcasse will do so he goes ahead with his task, knowing that it is already more than half done; Delcasse will not,, he gives it up and lets somebody else have a try. There is no question that Delcasse is the most powerful and popular statesy, and he is the man in France only French statesman who enjoys a great international reputation as the late Lord Salisbury did and as John lay does. All this is not strange when it is remembered that this remarkable man hasVrcventedthe outbreak of two or three wars which seemed as certain as anything can be in this world, and that he has established cordial relations between France and her most jealous rivals and antagonists. Most of the world's great diplomatists are men who, like the Marquis of Salisbury and Prince I.obanoff, belong to an ancient' nobility and associate with kings by right of birth. But the two greatest diplomatists of the men whoii kings and nations most delight to honor, come from the ranks of the common people- aud never had any special training for diplomacy. They were born, not made. John Hay, the son of an Indiana doctor, and Theophile Delcasse, the son of a peasant in the Pyrenees, are living proofs of the fact that in tnerica and Republican Republican France the career is open to the talented. How Delcuac Rose ti to-da- to-Ia- y, From Peasant to Cabinet Minister Delcasse's father was a typical an honest, Bonhomme Jacques home-lovin- g thrifty, pious,, solid the of type that peasant, makes up the real France andballasts the Ship of State. His grandfather rn Office. and ancestors and Cabinets with the men were but for and Cabinets conic generations go, hard-workin- g, ut great-grandfath- er iraiLE DELCASSE, THE FRENCH MINISTER TOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS hoe, bowed by the weight of centuries. They nsed to wade waist-dee-p in the marshes at night beating the reeds, so that the frogs would stop croaking and allow my lord and my lady to sleep in the castle on the hill. Such was the lowly descent of the man who is the friend of kings and who helps to mould the destinies of nations. Delcasse pere attained the great ambition of the French peasant. Not only did he own his little holding and lay by a comfortable, nest egg. but he became a public functionary court bailiff in his native town of Tamiers, at the foot of the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. Theophile was a bright boy, and his parents, like most French peasants, gave him the best education they could afford by means l. He improved it of rigid by winning scholarships which took him through the higher courses of study at high school and university. He started his career as a journalist otf a little local newspaper about the time of the Franco-Prussia- n War. It is an occupation much frowned upon by the average French peasant, who seems to think that his son should always be a fuiicliimnaire," a priest or self-denia- farmer. But Theophile Delcasse persevered in his chosen profession, despite the dismal prophecies of his relatives and friends that he would never come to any good, until at last he reached that mecca of the French provincial journalist Paris. He soon made his mark on the metropolitan press. F.ditors and readers discovered that here at last was a man who, instead of indulging in fine writing and flowing periods, told them things they did not know about their colonies and their relations with foreign powers. His articles were full of new facts and new ideas, proclaimed simply and forcibly by a man who knew. This was a fresh style in Parisian journalism, in which the flowers of rhetoric usually ewer a lack of exact knowledge. Delcasse soon became a recognized authority on colonial and foreign questions. ft is said that even when he was a young newspaper man he worked steadily with the goal in mind to which he has now attained. A story is told of his passing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in company with another newspaper man and saying, I shall he. at the head of that place some day." This - hardly like Drl- i- casse, who is the most modest and of all French statesmen. But be that as it may, nobody was surprised when M. Ribot took him from his newspaper office and made y for the Colonies him in 1893. He had then hern a member of the Chamber of Deputies for three or four year, and had made a reputation by speaking seldom and always to the poipl. Up to the time of Delcasses appointment nobody in France had worried much about the Colonies, least of all the Colonial Ministers. They y were administered in a fashion, and left to sink or swim as best they could. Delcasse, though a mere Undersecretary, changed all that. Hr was the first and most consistent advocate of the policy of Colonial expansion, which has, in rrrent years, given France a Colonial empire second in size only to that of Great Britain. In the following year. 1P04. he became Colonial Minister in M. Dupuy's first Cabinet, and was aide to initiate the great schemes of expansion in Africa and elsewhere which he had conceived when But his great reputation was made as Foreign Ministrr. His first big Under-Secretar- happy-go-luck- Under-Secretar- y. task was to deal with tbe clash of Major Marchand and Kilchrncr's men at Fashoda. Lord Salisbury declared in the plainest possible terms that France must withdraw or fight. The boulevardirrs howled for war; the Chamber of Deputies rang with fierce tirades against England; the newspapers, with hardly an exception, urged defiance; the Cabinet, as subhave shown, sequent revelations wanted to fight. One man kept his He knew that the head Delcasse. French Navy was hopelessly unready (or war, and he remembered the horrors of war as he had seen them when the German legions overran Fraud. It was a bitter pill to swallow, for Marchand was carrying out his own ict policy of Colonial expansion; hut e was great enough to swallow it. He talked over his colleagues in the Cabinet, heat back the swelling tide of public fury, and imperilled his political future by giving way to England. It was tne greatest act in modern diplomacy. Mohs raged along the boulevards, calling out for Drlrassc that they might hang him from a lamp-posbut France soon calmed down and understood from what she had been saved. Europe awoke from a nightmare, and hailed the new French Foreign Minister as a great apostle of peace. Ever since then Delcasse lias striven to keep the peace with wonderful success. So far as lie can, he keeps nut of the troubled waters of politics, with their innumerable eddies and backwaters, and jye was never prominent, for example, in the Dreyfus controversy. While others wrangle, hr keeps on sawing wood. His single aim is to keep his country at peace and help to keep the world at peace. Thus it is that the man with the one great idea remains in power, while Cabinets, with their partisan aims and petty squabbles, come and go. Kings Who Are on Delcasse's Visiting List Delcasse counts among his personal friends the King of England, ihe King of Italy, the Czar of Russia, the young King of Spain, the Khedive of Egypt, and other monarchs. These potentates have visited Paris in recent years and discussed questions of high politics with him to the mutual And satisfaction of both parlies. Dtleassr has been an honored guest in London. Rome and St. Petersburg oil important diplomatic mission-- , lie is said to maintain a regular and t; cross-curren- ts confidential with correspondence King Edward, the Czar, the Kaiser and the King of Italy, all the letters dealing with the one great question of keeping the world's peace. Probably never before did a peasant's son have so many royal friends. No man has yet arisen in France strong enough to stand against Delcasse. Several have tried to do so. On May A 18991 M. be Freycinet, one of the foremost of French statesmen, resigned his portfolio as Minister of War. The official explanation was tjiat there had been some friction bee. tween M. De Freycinet and M. The latter thought that the War Minister was too jingoistic, and lie had to get out of the Cabinet So it has been with many other men whom Delcasse has considered dangerous. He Has Made Friends of Frances Ancient Enemies When he became Foreign Minister, France was perplexed by many old and serious disputes with England, Italy, Germany, Spain and Siam, an) me of which might have blazed up into war at any moment. Almost all those questions are now settled. Agreements covering all the points :i dispute have been arrived at with Spain, Italy and Siam; and the Anglo-Frenc- h agreement the other day put the coping stone on M. Delcasse's work in this respect. He has even succeeded in creating really friendly relations with Germany, while the United States and Spain both consider that he did them a good turn by conducting with masterly skill the negon tiations for peace alter the War. That war might have dragged oil much longer than it did had it not been for M. Delcasse's brilliant diplomacy. In personal appearance the greatest diplomatist of Europe is not imposing, d lie is a thick-se- t, little man. with a homely face and a bris-I'in- g mustache. Unlike the average French politician, he never grows excited and never makes , speech if he ran possibly avoid doing so. When he does speak, he states facts briefly and to the point without a word of rhetoric, and his bitterest enemies the Chauvinists can hardly find a loophole by which to attack him. He is very democratic in manner, mixes 'idle m society, and retains a great deal of the honest-- simp!ieiy and straightforwardness which characterize the peasant Mock from which he sprang. Del-cass- Spanisli-America- near-sighte- |