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He has written many books since on the long road that led him from the Professorship of Rhetoric at Lyon (1896-1904) to the Mayoralty (1906), which he has held, with one break, ever since, and twice into the office of Premier (1924-25 and 1926, the last time for only two days). To distract themselves other statesmen read. Edouard Herriot (like Winston Churchill) writes. Because he chanced to attend a Beethoven festival, M. Herriot is the author of a life of Beethoven. Because he loves the forests of Normandy he has made a rambling book out of his rambles there. Stimulated by a curiosity to know whether a certain great lady had fully experienced the joys of love and successfully aroused them to the highest pitch in others, Statesman Edouard Herriot wrote his audacious Madame Récamier and Her Friends.
In Lyon there stand as monuments to 25 years of zealous labor by Mayor Herriot four modern bridges across the Rhóne, a post-War program of public works put through at a cost of 50,000,000 francs, and the annual Lyon Fair, raised by Mayor Herriot from obscurity to rank with Germany's famed Leipzig Fair. As a "Good European" (which everyone calls M. Herriot) he placed under his personal protection the German goods exhibited at the Lyon Fair of 1914, defied efforts by the French Government to confiscate and sell them. After the War he returned to Germany the things that were Germany's.
On the national stage M. Herriot's role has been less decisive, though without his tact and wisdom as French Premier in
1924 reactionary forces might have prevented adoption of the Dawes Plan. In
1925 the Senate, blaming on M. Herriot's policies the so-called "collapse of the franc," voted his Cabinet out of office. The Chamber at once elected him its Speaker. In the following year he resigned as Speaker to form his disastrous two-day Cabinet and a shift to the Right Centre in the elections of 1928 was said to have "killed Herriot" politically. He was even forced to resign as Leader of his party, lie low. He regained the leadership only last year and has since been forging steadily back to power.
To U. S. citizens these typical Herriotisms are significant:
¶ "If European matters do not interest Americans, if they treasure their self-imposed isolation, then America should let Europe alone!"
¶ "There can be no naval peace without agreement with England and the United States, nor peace on land without agreement between France and Germany," for which agreement M. Herriot has earnestly striven.
¶ "Russian dumping is sufficient reason for the immediate organization of an economic United States of Europe. . . . Poor Europe! Stupid Europe, which is shortsighted and refuses to unite!" ¶ "I do not declare war on anybody, but I have beaten Socialism in Lyon."
¶ Most striking of all, Edouard Herriot stands for the payment by France of her War debts to the U. S. and Britain even if Germany ceases to pay Reparations to France. Writing last February in his newspaper L'Ere Nouvelle, M. Herriot flatly called it the "plain duty" of France to "fulfill her obligations regardless of the Reparations question."