THE PROVIDENTIAL MAN
[Illustration: Coat of arms with Eagle.]
Colonel Edward Mandell House, who had never accepted a political office,
was more powerful than any man in Washington. He was the confidential
adviser of President Woodrow Wilson. "His thoughts and mine are one,"
Wilson said of House, whom he regarded as the most unselfish, patriotic
man he knew. No one in the country had a greater understanding of
European affairs than House. "A super-civilized person," the French
statesman, Clemenceau, said of him, "escaped from the wilds of Texas,
who sees everything, who understands everything ... a sifting, pondering
mind."
From the day he had left England, Paderewski had known that he could not
succeed unless he somehow got to House and convinced him of the justice
in Polish claims. But Paderewski was not the only foreigner in the
country who wanted something from the Colonel. House was under constant
siege by representatives of small countries who were hoping to gain
something by the peace settlement. Since America was still neutral,
House had to be careful in dealing with these men or even in seeing
them. This is why Paderewski proceeded cautiously in his opening moves
toward the Colonel. The fact that House's apartment was a three minute
walk from Paderewski's hotel was an added source of frustration. So
short a distance separated him from the man who could do so much for
him!
Then one day early in 1916, his prayers were suddenly answered.
Paderewski's discreet diplomacy had born fruit in a typical way. A
Paderewski friend had wangled a letter of introduction from an Assistant
Secretary of Agriculture to Mr. Robert Wooley, director of the U.S.
Mint. Mr. Wooley was known to be a close friend of Colonel House. One
day he sent word from Washington that he would be in New York in two
days and would try to arrange a meeting between Paderewski and the
Colonel. Paderewski was learning his new role in a practical way. As
many a diplomat had done before and after him, he had gained his
objective through a friend of a friend of a friend of the man he wanted
to meet.
Mr. Wooley had sternly cautioned Paderewski against over-optimism. So
his heart sank when he was greeted at the door by a radiant Madame
Paderewska. "You are going to save Poland!" she cried, her beautiful
eyes filled with tears. "I know it!" And as the two men walked the few
blocks to House's East Fifty-third Street brownstone home, the practical
man of business wondered even more at the Polish pianist's calm and
complete faith in the events of the next few minutes. Well, perhaps he
was right, but Wooley was inclined to doubt it.
Colonel House had marked half an hour off his tight schedule for his
interview with Paderewski, so the two men did not waste time on small
talk. Paderewski had been waiting a long time for this moment. He was
ready for it. Pacing up and down the Colonel's library, he began to tell
his story. Point by point he built his arguments for Poland, with a
mixture of logic and eloquence that an experienced lawyer might have
envied.
The half hour flew by. Nervously Mr. Wooley looked at his watch and then
glanced at the Colonel. "Let him go on," House muttered. "Don't
interrupt him."
An hour passed and then another hour. Whatever Colonel House's later
appointments were, they were cancelled. Never in his career of listening
to people who wanted something had he heard a man plead his cause so
irresistibly.
When he had made his last point, Paderewski stopped and waited for the
Colonel to speak. House's part in the two hour conversation was limited
to three sentences, but they were the most beautiful words Paderewski
had ever heard. "You have convinced me," he said, rising and holding out
his hand. "I promise you to help Poland if I can. And I believe I can."
It was the beginning of a profound friendship between the two men, one
so eloquent, and one so silent. And with the Colonel completely won over
to his side, the door to the White House stood open to Paderewski at
last. By the summer of 1916 House felt that the time had come to
introduce the pianist to President Wilson. He arranged to have the
Paderewskis invited to a diplomatic dinner at the White House.
Woodrow Wilson was a scholar and a statesman. He had been a college
president before he went into politics. Such a man, Paderewski believed,
would understand the justice of his cause.
There was great excitement after dinner that night when guests saw the
piano in the East Room being opened. Was Paderewski really going to
play? He was, they were told, since the President had asked him to do
so.
Although President Wilson did not know a great deal about music, it did
not take any special knowledge to get the message that the Polish artist
was trying to convey by means of Chopin's music. Paderewski and Chopin
had become partners in this enterprise, and never had the two worked
together so eloquently. As Wilson and Paderewski talked briefly together
after the performance, the pianist felt that he had won his country
another powerful ally.
[Illustration: _Woodrow Wilson had won an ally._]
It worked both ways. Wilson, too, had won an ally. 1916 was an election
year. Paderewski campaigned actively for Wilson's reelection all during
the fall. Many Polish voters, following the lead of the Polish clergy,
were Republicans. Paderewski convinced them that their country's first
real hope in a hundred years depended on a victory for Wilson. In the
end he delivered the large Polish vote almost one hundred percent.
On the day before elections, when the campaigner had expected to relax a
little, came shattering news from Europe. Germany had issued a
proclamation declaring that Poland was a free and independent nation.
The freedom and independence, of course, were the affectionate gift of
the German government. The story behind the "gift" was actually a simple
one. Germany had previously shown no sign of any such good will to the
Polish people. Far from it. As soon as the Russians had been driven out,
the German and Austrian leaders had gathered over a map of Poland and
had once more divided it up, this time in a two-way split--one half for
Germany, one half for Austria. Now suddenly they were declaring the
country reunited and free! Why?
Paderewski knew why. It was not Polish freedom the German leaders
wanted. It was Polish manpower. They were convinced that if they
presented Poland with independence, a million Polish volunteers would
gratefully flock to enlist in the German army and could be used to fight
the Russians in the East. The other reason for the move was a more
subtle danger. If the Poles appeared to accept the offer and consented
to be taken under the loving wing of Germany, then America and the
Allies would lose interest in the cause of Polish freedom. Poland
herself would be regarded as a friend of the enemy.
Paderewski saw through the trick easily. "This means only more suffering
for my people," he told House. "It means that another army will be
raised and that there will be more killing and more devastation!" He
realized that everything he had won during the past few years was in
danger of being destroyed in one day. Unless he acted quickly. But what
could he do? Never before had he felt so cruelly his lack of real
authority. If only he were the official spokesman for some truly
representative Polish groups, so that when he spoke a firm majority of
Poles spoke with him.
There was only one thing to be said for the fact that he had everything
to lose: he could afford to take a desperate gamble. Cable lines buzzed
between New York and Paris, Paris and Chicago, Chicago and New York.
Within a few hours a statement was issued and flashed to every Allied
country. The German offer was rejected, flatly and permanently. The
message was signed by Paderewski and was approved by the Paris Committee
and by several groups in the United States.
But what about the rest of his countrymen, Paderewski wondered. What
about the millions of poor Poles who were not trained thinkers, who
might not see the worm in the shining German apple? Would they support
him, or would they demand the right to seize their freedom no matter who
offered it to them?
He soon had his answer. Every Polish society in the country immediately
voted to make Paderewski its official representative. They gave him full
power of attorney to make decisions and to act for them in all political
matters. From then on, when he spoke he was speaking with the voice of
three million Polish-Americans.
Of everything that Paderewski had done, this was the coup that really
made its mark on official Washington. "The first direct evidence of his
capacity as a leader which impressed me," wrote an observer, "was his
successful efforts to unite the jealous and bickering Polish factions in
the United States.... I am convinced that Mr. Paderewski was the only
Pole who could have overcome this menace.... His entire freedom from
personal ambition made him the one man about whom the Poles, regardless
of factions, appeared to be willing to rally. It was a great
achievement, a triumph of personality."
The man who wrote this was Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State who
had once smiled when an eccentric piano player had tried to talk to him
about Poland.
The exhausting events of November 5 and 6 should have provided quite
enough excitement and tension for any two days in a man's life. But they
were only one part of the affairs that occupied him during those
forty-eight hours. November 6, remember, was election day!
Woodrow Wilson had gone to Shadow Lawn, his summer house on the New
Jersey shore, to wait for the election returns in comparative peace. It
was a trying day for him, following a hard, bitter campaign. It was a
day on which he chose his visitors with care. One of them was
Paderewski.
In the quiet study at Shadow Lawn the two men talked for nearly an hour.
Wilson spoke of his idealist's dreams of world peace and mutual trust
between nations. He listened attentively while Paderewski, in turn,
described his hopes for his own country. The President asked searching,
practical questions. How could Poland survive without an outlet to the
sea? Paderewski and House had often discussed this point over a map of
Europe. He explained their ideas to the President. When the interview
was over, Wilson said solemnly, "My dear Paderewski, I can tell you that
Poland will be resurrected and will exist again!"
Paderewski went home exhausted but intensely happy. It had been quite a
pair of days! He longed to go to bed, but the election returns were
coming in faster and faster now and he could not settle down for the
night until he knew for certain that everything was going as expected.
He heard the then familiar--and now extinct--cry for which all America
had once waited. "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" But the rest of the
newsboy's cry was a catastrophe. "Wilson defeated! Hughes elected!"
Wilson defeated? Wilson who had just promised him his country's freedom?
For two years he had worked inch by inch in the direction of the words
he had heard only a few hours before. And now it meant nothing.
It was a cruel night, unnecessarily cruel as it turned out. By five the
next morning the newspapers were out with a somewhat different story.
Wilson had not been defeated. The Extra-hungry papers had simply
neglected to wait for the California votes to be counted!
"I can tell you that Poland will be resurrected and will exist again,"
Wilson had said. And the promise was still good.