FRANCE: Mellon Hunt

M. Theodore Rousseau, Director of the Paris branch of the Guaranty Trust Co. of Manhattan, waited one afternoon last week at the Gare du Lyons, Paris. In puffed a train. Out jumped a man both lean and spry. While porters panted, he sprinted with M. Rousseau for the latter’s limousine, distanced newsgatherers, photographers. Then for a few days Secretary Mellon of the U. S. Treasury dwelt on the ancient Ile St. Louis, hard by Notre Dame, surrounded by the muddy Seine, ensconced at the venerable and opulent mansion of M. Rousseau whom the Secretary is said to address as “Teddy.”

Parisian editors were driven rumor-frantic by Mr. Mellon’s secretive arrival. So certain were they that he would go to the Hotel Crillon and at once order “a New England boiled dinner” that two of the lesser journals reported he had done so. What did this unnatural-in-an-American conduct portend? Obviously a secret conference was to be held upon the Ile St. Louis. Cherchez le conference!

Mr. Mellon cheerful, well bronzed with vacation tan, obstinately refused to do anything but enjoy himself. He purchased outrageously hued pajamas in the Rue de la Paix. He motored innocuously in the Bois de Boulogne. He even “saw sights.” Only once could it be discovered that he “dined in conference.” Even that was a mere luncheon at the home of M. Rousseau, attended by two U. S. financiers: Benjamin Strong, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank and Dwight W. Morrow of J. P. Morgan & Co. Finally Mr. Mellon dropped in at the U. S. Embassy and was reminded of a duty by able Chargé d’Affaires Sheldon Whitehouse. Mr. Whitehouse informed Mr. Mellon that in deference to custom he must call on the Premier of France, M. Poincaré. Moreover, added Mr. Whitehouse, Foreign Minister Briand had already put off his departure for the League session at Geneva for a day in expectation of a call from Mr. Mellon. . . .

There was but one way in which the Secretary of the U. S. Treasury could blast rumors that he had come to Paris to talk debts with MM. Briand and Poincaré last week—he could call on them for so short a time that no discussion of anything would be possible. He did. With Premier Poincaré he chatted affably lor 16 minutes. Nine minutes sufficed for his call on Foreign Minister Briand. Parisian editors were vexed.

Relenting the Secretary gave out a close-lipped interview: “There is nothing I can say about the debt accord; that passed out of our hands and went before Congress when Ambassador Berenger and I signed it. Of course, I advocate its ratification. It would be a poor agreement indeed if the man who wrote it did not support it. “Nobody expects the United States to try to ruin financially any nation which is trying to discharge her obligations.”

Next day Mr. Mellon crossed the Channel, said to London newsgatherers: “I have some private business to transact in this country. My son is here and I have come to join him.”