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"Draft Doumergue!" urged many of the President's advisers. Seemingly, popular ex-President Gaston ("Gastounet") Doumergue was not unwilling to be drafted. Writing coyly from retirement in L'lntransigeant last week he said: "I repeat only what I hear repeated by good folk as they labor in our countryside. . . . Our good people believe—and they are right—that there is a sufficient number of talented men in Parliament to carry the nation through the present, and even through more difficult times. But these talented men must first come to an understanding."
With the ex-President available, in case France's crisis should become so grave as to demand formation of a "National Government" above party, President Lebrun tentatively picked another politician of the moderate Left, told pugnacious Edouard Deladier, son of a baker, once protege of Edouard Herriot and War Minister, under Paul-Boncour, to try to form a Cabinet.
* By this euphemism the National Federated Taxpayers mean: "Let the State stop dole payments."