(See front cover)
On the last day of 1931, who loomed calm, masterful and popular as Man of the Year?
"It has been a lean year for everyone," said Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald with suppressed emotion. Then, faced by the conference that is to meet Jan. 18 to do something about Reparations (see p. 7), he burst out, "For God's sake let us meet now!"
"From this terrifying spectacle which the world presents we must raise our eyes to Heaven!" cried Pope Pius XI in his Christmas message. "It is to be feared that God will leave men to themselves and that would be most terrible ruin."
The year 1931 pitched even Colonel Lindbergh into heathen waters; sent Mahatma Gandhi disgruntled back to India; faced Josef Stalin with ragged gaps in the Five-Year Plan (see p. 16); failed to produce a Fascist government under Adolf Hitler (potential Man of 1932). But who rose from obscurity to world prominence, steered a Great Power safely through 1931, closed the year on a peak of popularity among his countrymen?
Only one man did these things and at the height of his sudden greatness wagged an explanatory finger at President Hoover (see front cover).* The keynote of 1931 was sounded by Man-of-the-Year Pierre Laval as he sailed for Washington: "A severe correctional and disciplinary period is indicated."
French Coolidge. Twelve months ago Pierre Laval was as obscure—even in France—as Governor Calvin Coolidge before the Boston police strike.
Swart as a Greek, this compact little Auvergnat (son of a village butcher in Auvergne, south-central France) was a Senator of no party, an Independent. The public neither knew that he always wears a white wash tie (cheapest and unfading) nor cared to figure out that his name spells itself backward as well as forward. Addicted to scowling, didactic (he once taught school), possessed of a mellow but unexciting voice, identified with no conspicuous cause or movement, Senator Laval was also too young to be noticeable in France in January 1931. He was only 47 and France likes its Premiers to be over 60. The extreme youth of Pierre Laval was made glaring by the fact that France had just dispensed with a Premier whom many considered "much too young," brilliant André Tardieu, 54, whose Cabinet was brought down by the Oustric scandal (TIME, Dec. 15, 1930).
Worst of all, a good many Frenchmen who had vaguely heard of "The Man in the White Tie" understood that during the War he was a slacker and afterwards a Communist. In 1914, being already Mayor of the proletarian Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies by his old constituents as a Socialist. He did not enlist in the Army. When drafted he served briefly at the front as a common poilu. His Socialist views caused him to orate directly after the War against the Treaty of Versailles. In 1919 he lost his seat as Deputy, quarreled with some of his Socialist colleagues, remained friendly with others and is said to have been briefly enrolled at one time as both a Socialist and a Communist, not being sure which way the cat of popular sentiment would jump.
Aubervilliers was the irresolute young statesman's salvation. He was and he remains today Mayor of Aubervilliers. Unshakeably rooted in this Paris suburb he cultivated the friends he had made as a Deputy, notably that bald, enigmatic millionaire Joseph Caillaux, onetime Premier. In 1924 Mayor Laval again sought and won election as a Deputy, not as a Socialist this time but as a moderate Republican.
Shrewd Aubervilliers understood. Her beloved Pierre was doffing his radical cap and putting on a moderate political coat to match those of his moneyed friends. Why not? Great Aristide Briand had made exactly the same switch; so had Alexandre Millerand, President of the Republic.
Less than a year later the Auvergnat, diligent in his attendance upon both M. Caillaux and M. Briand, was rewarded by the minor portfolio of Public Works in a Painleve Cabinet which starred Foreign Minister Briand and Finance Minister Caillaux. When Patron Briand shortly came in as Premier he took Protege Laval under his wing, gave him a course in Chamber intrigue as secretary general of the Prime Minister's office, graduated him prematurely in 1926 as Minister of Justice.
Unfortunately Premier Briand had no head for finance. The collapse of the franc drove him back to his favorite post of Foreign Minister. In came great Premier Raymond Poincaré to save the franc, and incidentally to blight the careers of several Briand satellites. Ousted Pierre Laval contrived to get himself elected a Senator from the Department of the Seine (which he has since represented). He dropped back for several years into obscurity as a quiet Independent. Still close to Old Brer Briand, he also made himself close to Young André Tardieu.
In 1929-30 the Tardieu skyrocket went up, twice. In the first Tardieu Cabinet there was no Pierre Laval; in the second he was unobtrusively Minister of Labor; and when this Cabinet fell his chance almost came. Briand and Tardieu both insisted that Laval be asked to form a Cabinet. He tried and he failed, because by a typical quirk of "loyalty to my friend André" (Tardieu) he insisted that in a Cabinet of which he was Premier his friend must be a Minister. To form a cabinet including Friend Andre at that moment proved impossible. Again M. Laval slipped into obscurity; but 1931 was just around the corner. Briefly Theodore Steeg, former French Resident General of Morocco, headed a shaky, stopgap Cabinet.
Laval's Year. On the morning of Jan. 24, 1931 there was again a French crisis. The Steeg Cabinet had fallen following charges that the Minister of Agriculture had speculated in wheat. Importunate telegrams flashed from the President's Palace to Brer Briand at Geneva begging him to become Premier for the twelfth time.