Bright Boy Benes

There is a small, dark, steelyeyed, supple man, whom statesmen often dub "the first diplomat in Europe," whose accomplishments would stagger belief were they not chronicled in post-War history books. Dr. Edouard Benes*; was an essential instrument in: 1) The partition of Austria-Hungary after the War. 2) The creation of Czechoslovakia as a state. 3) The drafting of the League Protocol. And in the creation of the Little Entente (See INTERNATIONAL, p. 9) his was the master hand.

This Czechoslovakian superdiplomat returned to Prague last week, summoned in haste from a meeting of the Little Entente. There dinned upon his ears the demand of his party (Czech National Socialist) that he resign as Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia--as right hand man of patriarchal President Masaryk.

The reason for this astonishing demand was of a nature dear to politicians. The Czech National Socialists are engaged in attacking the government's Grain Duties Act, a salutary bourgeois measure perhaps a trifle too conciliatory toward the Teutonic moneyed class.

Was a statesman of international stature to stumble upon this domestic molehill? Dr. Benes, interviewed by pressmen, seemed disconcertingly cheerful.

"Suppose I resign?" he asked quizzically. "Then, gentlemen, I might enjoy perhaps a year's vacation--almost my first, and I am 42. ...

"Why not? Retirement has its uses for the man of many contacts. Small breaches heal or become clean cut. Afterwards the way is sometimes clearer. . . .

"My resignation from the Foreign Ministry would not disturb our international relations or the Little Entente. As an alternative I might resign from my party. My membership in a political party is somewhat of a technicality, since my policies are those of the state as a whole. . . ."*

Baffled by this superbly plausible and quite noncommittal interview, the news gatherers welcomed an apparently unequivocal statement by President Masaryk that he would under no circumstances accept the resignation of Dr. Benes.

A peasant's son, a bad boy at school, at college a passionate disciple of Professor Masaryk, later a starveling pamphleteer at Paris, Dr. Benes was one of the first men to guess which way the World War would jump.

In the fall of 1914 he sought Professor Masaryk with a fully drafted Czechoslovakian war program. Together they organized the Czech Mafia, a secret band of patriots who spied throughout Austria-Hungary during the War, providing Benes with material which he made the substance of dickers with the Allies. It was Benes who secured the recognition of the Czechoslovaks by the Allies (1917) as a people to be liberated from foreign rule. In 1918 he obtained from Balfour and Clemenceau recognition for Czechoslovakia, as "an Allied and Belligerent nation." At that time French publicist Fournal wrote: "Benes has destroyed Austria-Hungary."

Naturally this activity pivoted upon the Masaryk-Benes-initiated Czechoslovak revolutionary movement which they directed from Switzerland during the War. It is customary to regard Masaryk as the soul, Benes as the brain of their great achievement.

* Pronounced Benesh.

* President Masaryk and many of his associates occupy a position above all parties somewhat analogous to that enjoyed by U. S. President Washington, "father (like Masaryk) of his country."