Journal de Genève
- A Divorce
- On the Anniversary of the Reformation
- The League of Nations and the Press
The Journal de Genève of 30 October 1926 opened with a sharp editorial, signed J. M., answering Robert Grimm, the Bernese socialist leader who had attacked the paper in his Berner Tagwacht. The editor dismissed Grimm's claim that the Geneva staff wore French Legion of Honour ribbons and insisted on the paper's right to fight his bid for the presidency of the National Council. A column signed V. B. reflected on the coming Reformation Day and what it meant to Geneva's Protestants, and an unsigned report praised the League of Nations Secretariat for treating every question in practical, technical terms, as an introduction to the League's dealings with the press.
Translation
A Divorce
Mr. Grimm's fury against us is such that, in a few lines in his Berner Tagwacht, he piles up as many errors as words. To cite just one example, he hands out ribbons of the French Legion of Honour liberally to the editorial staff of the Journal de Genève, whereas not a single one of us holds it and none of us has any ambition to obtain it. And, because of these imaginary ribbons, he denies us the right to oppose his candidacy for the presidency of the National Council!
On the Anniversary of the Reformation
The Reformed Churches are preparing to celebrate the Festival of the Reformation. For the Protestants of Geneva today, this annual commemoration recalls the mighty effort their religious ancestors made in breaking with the abuses that had crept into the old Church, in placing once again at the foundation of worship the Gospel, freed of the "fables and other human inventions" that had wrapped it as if in a veil, and in pledging to live under the law of that Gospel, which recent translations had brought within the reach of all.
The League of Nations and the Press
The Secretariat of the League of Nations has an instinctive horror of purely academic work. In its hands, every question takes on a practical and technical aspect. Of all the reproaches that its adversaries have levelled at the League of Nations, the most unjust is surely the one that consists in saying that it disregards realities and delights in theory.
Context
Robert Grimm, the Berner Tagwacht and the 1918 general strike
The opponent in "Un divorce" was no minor polemicist but is regarded as one of the decisive figures of the Swiss labour movement. Robert Grimm had become editor-in-chief of the Berner Tagwacht in 1909 and made it a fighting paper of the working class; this is the paper in which, according to the Journal de Genève, he attacked the Geneva editors. In 1918 Grimm chaired the Olten Action Committee and was the driving force behind organising the national general strike of 12 to 14 November 1918. Although the committee could be shown neither to have been under Bolshevik influence nor to have planned an overthrow, Grimm and two fellow members were sentenced to six months in prison each on a charge of incitement to mutiny. That record helps explain why the Journal de Genève claimed the right to fight his candidacy for the chair of the National Council.
How French-speaking Switzerland saw the general strike
The general strike of November 1918 is regarded as the greatest crisis of the modern Swiss federal state, and its meaning was fought over from the outset. Suspicion in French-speaking Switzerland began even before the strike: from the spring of 1918 the press of the Romandie was already calling the Olten Action Committee the "Soviet d'Olten". The Journal de Genève's 1926 editorial belongs to this tradition of bourgeois distrust of Grimm. What the paper asserts in the excerpt, however, is narrower: it rejects Grimm's specific charge that its editors held French decorations, and it claims the right to oppose his candidacy.
The 1926 campaign against Grimm's presidency of the National Council
When Grimm first stood for president of the National Council in 1926, right-wing circles mounted a massive campaign against him. One lasting product of that campaign was a brochure by the military writer Paul de Vallière, "Les troubles révolutionnaires en Suisse de 1916 à 1919", which first appeared in 1926 in connection with a campaign to prevent Grimm's election. The Journal de Genève editorial of 30 October was written in that climate, and Grimm's anger, as the paper describes it, was aimed at a newspaper that openly opposed him. Grimm did not reach the office that time. He became president of the National Council only in 1946, by then with the votes of many on the right.
The League Secretariat and journalists in Geneva
The unsigned report presents the League Secretariat as practical rather than theoretical, and the League's own publicity from the 1920s shows what that meant for the press. The Secretariat's information section issued communiqués, statements and summaries for the daily use of about 100 international journalists resident in Geneva and the 300 to 400 who came for special meetings. In 1927, the year after this article appeared, the League Council convened a Conference of Press Experts after consultation with journalistic circles, in order to discuss technical press problems of international concern; 122 experts attended in August 1927. The article's praise for the Secretariat is the paper's own judgment, but the conference shows that the League did go on to treat the needs of the press as a technical matter for international cooperation.
Original
Un divorce
La fureur de M. Grimm contre nous est telle qu'il accumule en quelques lignes, dans sa Berner Tagwacht, autant d'erreurs que de mots. Pour ne citer qu'un exemple, il fait, à la rédaction du Journal de Genève, une ample distribution de rubans de la Légion d'honneur française, alors que pas un seul d'entre nous ne le possède et qu'aucun n'a l'ambition de l'obtenir. Et, à cause de ces rubans imaginaires, il nous dénie le droit de combattre sa candidature à la présidence du Conseil national!
A propos de l'anniversaire de la Réformation
Les Eglises réformées s'apprêtent à célébrer la Fête de la Réformation Aux protestants genevois d'aujourd'hui, cette commémoration annuelle rappelle l'effort puissant que leurs ancêtres religieux ont accompli en rompant avec les abus qui s'étaient introduits dans l'ancienne Eglise, en replaçant à la base du culte l'Evangile, débarrassé des «fables et autres inventions humaines» qui l'enveloppaient comme d'un voile, et en s'engageant à vivre sous la loi de cet Evangile, que des traductions récentes avaient mis à la portée de tous.
La Société des Nations et la presse
Le secrétariat de la Société des nations a une horreur instinctive pour le travail purement académique. Entre ses mains, toutes les questions prennent un aspect pratique et technique. Parmi tous les reproches qu'ont faits à la Société des nations ses adversaires, le plus injuste est certainement celui qui consiste à dire qu'elle méconnaît les réalités et se complaît dans la théorie.