FRANCE: Red Terror

PARIS SEES RED

French Army Trains Guns Against Reds

RED TERROR PERIL SENDS COLD CHILL UP FRENCH SPINES

Such were some of the headlines last week of stories in U. S. newspapers describing Communist revolts and rumors of Communist revolts. In France, opposition newspapers carried similar headlines. They announced the imminence of a Reign of Red Terror.

Premier Herriot, confined to his bed by illness, read these headlines, waxed impatient and finally angry. He decided to receive the ever-waiting army of journalists in his bedroom. To them he said:

“I was anxious to see you because the country is passing through a panic crisis which must be combatted. The falsest reports are circulating. Yesterday it was a raid at Amiens, where no raids were made. Today it is a story of stolen machine guns at Longuyon, equally untrue. What is serious is that this neurosis is spreading daily. Foreigners are growing anxious.

“Yet the situation in no way justifies such fears. The situation in France is excellent. In Morocco all goes well. Our relations with England are most cordial. The budget is practically balanced. Why these anxieties?”

Then, sitting up in his bed, he read to them a statement in which he categorically proved that the opposition newspapers had either exaggerated the importance of Communist activities or had fabricated reports to cause panic among the people. He drew a long and dismal picture of the disastrous effects which such scare news was causing: withdrawal of money from banks, runs on provision stores, expatriation of capital, etc.

Sénateur René Renoult, Minister of Justice, announced that the Government had taken action against La Liberté for printing untrue reports of a Red plot to seize the city of Amiens. Further and energetic action, he said, would be taken against offenders. The Government was also considering the expulsion of foreign correspondents who have been sending home to their newspapers “lurid reports of revolutionary activities.”

The effect of the Premier’s policy was to raise a storm of criticism about his ears. Practically the whole of the Opposition and its press attacked the Premier. At Pre Saint Gervais, where Socialists Millerand and Briand had, 30 years before, harrangued the people, the ”storm troops” of the Communists stood shivering in the cold, warming their souls from the fiery heat of their leader’s oratory.