"Government Honor"

After a few good-natured, accurately aimed Gallic pokes at Dictator Benito Mussolini's habit of forcing his Fascist Party chiefs to jump through burning hoops, hurdle bayonet rows and dive over tanks, bespectacled, stocky, 34-year-old French Minister of Education Jean Zay last week started up 15,782 foot Mt. Blanc. Early entrants for the stiff mountain climb had included Vice Premier Camille Chautemps and Minister of Public Works Ludovic Oscar Frossard (later resigned) (see above). M. Chautemps, however, wrenched an arm at tennis, dropped out. M. Frossard took a test climb, returned puffing, decided to fly over Mt. Blanc instead.

Accompanied by Mme Zay, 14 porters, 15 guides, 20 photographers, Mountain-climber Zay set out from St. Gervais, at the foot of Mt. Blanc, in midmorning. He arrived at the Tete Rousse shelter, 10,390 feet high, at 3 p. m. After a night's sleep he rose at 3 a. m., started up the last 4,000 feet of sheer, snow-clad rocks to the Vallot shelter. Then rain and fog set in. Guides declared further climbing dangerous. So Minister Zay, from 3,000 feet below, dedicated a glistening hospice constructed of duraluminum* erected at 14,312 feet by the Alpine Club of France.

Said Minister Zay: "I was unable myself to be the first to enter, but from the highest point I was able to reach I declare Vallot Refuge open." Said Colleague Frossard: "Thanks to Zay, the honor of the Government will be safe!"

* Reason: all materials had to be carried up by climbers. In duraluminum they weighed seven and a half tons. In wood they would have weighed 110 tons.

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