Edouard Herriot Refuses to Discuss Nazi Acts on Way to Washington

Edouard Herriot, the former French Prime Minister and statesman who arrived here on Sunday, on his way to Washington, expressed the warmest feelings towards the Jews and his profound sympathy with suffering German Jewry.

M. Herriot expressed deep regret for not being in a position to discuss now, while on his way to confer in Washington on international problems, the Nazi persecutions in Germany.

Looking out of the window of the tug Macom, which brought him from Quarantine to the railroad in New Jersey and while admiring the New York sky-line, the congenial former. French Premier evinced a great interest in the questions put to him by the representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He would gladly discuss the Hitler problem, he indicated, but his mission to Washington does not permit him to do so now.

“I am coming here as a guest of President Roosevelt and before I see him, it is not, I think, fair for me to make any statement on international affairs”, M. Herriot replied to the question, whether the French government will take any steps towards the alleviation of the lot of the persecuted Jews in Germany.

M. Herriot then emphasized that his attitude toward this question has been clearly brought out in his recent speech at the mass meeting in Lyons, the French city of which M. Herriot is Mayor, called to protest against the anti-Jewish atrocities in Germany.

The noted French statesman promised, however, to speak more freely on this subject on his return from Washington to France

James W. Gerard, former American Ambassador to Germany, who acted as official welcomer of the City of New York, later made the following remark to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative, “You will understand that it is impossible for the French statesman to condemn the present German govment today while on his way to Washington to discuss international problems tomorrow with the representative of the same government.”