Journal de Genève
- The American elections
- The ravages of the Saint-Barthélémy
- Letter from Paris
The Journal de Genève of 2 November 1926 opened with an editorial signed W. M. on the American midterm elections held that very day. It explained that the whole House of Representatives and a third of the Senate were up for renewal, and that the vote let the country give its opinion on the presidential administration. A report signed O. Td. described how, after detailed studies and a conference of technical experts, representatives of the cantons and administrations concerned met in Lausanne on 28 October to decide on measures against the overflows of the Saint-Barthélémy torrent. The Paris correspondent announced that leading statisticians, among them Gini of Padua and Zahn of Bavaria, would meet at the Palais-Royal on 3 and 4 November at the invitation of the Institute of Intellectual Co-operation to advise on "intellectual statistics".
Translation
The American elections
"The Tuesday following the first Monday in November", that is to say today, the elections for the renewal of the House of Representatives and of one third of the senators take place in the United States. The importance of this day comes from the fact that it gives the country the opportunity to express its opinion on the presidential administration
The ravages of the Saint-Barthélémy
After meticulous studies, after a conference of technical experts, the representatives of the cantons and administrations concerned by the overflows of the St-Barthélémy met on 28 October in Lausanne to decide on the measures to be taken. Mr. Simon, Conseiller d'Etat, head of the Vaud Department of Public Works. [?]
Letter from Paris
On 3 and 4 November, in response to an invitation addressed to them by the Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, the following learned statisticians will sit at the Palais-Royal: MM. Delatour, member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, president of the International Statistical Institute; Gini, professor at the University of Padua, president of the Central Statistical Institute of Italy; March, of the Statistical Institute of the University of Paris; Willecox, vice-president of the International Statistical Institute; and Zahn, director of the Bavarian statistical office. These gentlemen have been convened to give their opinion on the subject of intellectual statistics.
Context
How the 1926 midterms trimmed the Republican Senate majority
W. M.'s editorial, dated Geneva, 1 November and printed on the day of the vote, treated the midterm as the country's verdict on the presidential administration. The elections came in the middle of Calvin Coolidge's second term, and they left the Republicans in control of the Senate, though with a majority reduced by seven seats. Democrats picked up six seats in the regularly scheduled contests and gained one more in the special elections held to fill vacancies. This is why accounts of the Senate result give the Republican loss as either six or seven seats: the difference depends on whether the special elections are counted. For the European reader the editorial was addressing, the practical point was that Coolidge's party kept both chambers but went into the 70th Congress with a slimmer margin in the Senate.
A modest swing in the House of Representatives
The editorial framed the House election as the country's chance to judge the administration, and the verdict turned out to be mild. In the House of Representatives the Republican Party lost nine seats to the Democrats but kept its majority. Measured against the usual pattern of midterm losses for a president's party, the Democratic gains in Congress were very modest. The newspaper's premise, that the midterm expresses the nation's opinion of the president, is its own framing written before any results were known; the outcome itself showed a Republican Party still firmly in control of Congress.
The Saint-Barthélemy torrent and the debris flows of autumn 1926
The Saint-Barthélemy is a short Alpine torrent that rises below the Dents du Midi and joins the Rhône in the commune of Evionnaz, near Saint-Maurice, passing through the Bois-Noir, a pine forest that stands on the torrent's own debris cone. In 1926 and again in 1927 the torrent caused a real catastrophe in the region. Between 26 September and 9 October 1926 its debris flows carried a large mass of material down into the Rhône; one geological survey prints the volume as "106 m3", which appears to be 10⁶ with the superscript lost, that is, on the order of a million cubic metres. The Lausanne meeting reported by the paper on 28 October therefore came less than three weeks after that sequence ended. The article's reference to the cantons and administrations concerned, and its naming of the head of Vaud's public works department, shows that the authorities treated the danger as a matter beyond the Valais commune where the torrent meets the river.
A torrent with a long record of disasters and the first dams of the 1920s
The 1926 catastrophe was the latest episode in a long history. In May 1632, according to a Valais chronology, the torrent then called the Marre, later renamed the Saint-Barthélemy, left its bed after a rockfall, and the abbey of Saint-Maurice responded with processions and an exorcism. A modern geological survey lists successive catastrophic events in 1636, 1910, 1835, 1926, 1927, 1930 and 1970, so the danger the Lausanne meeting confronted was neither new nor over. The same survey shows one of the first dams built along the channel in the 1920s to stop the stream from cutting down into its bed, an early sign of the kind of engineering measures that the delegates gathered in Lausanne set out to decide.
Original
Les élections américaines
«Le mardi qui suit le premier lundi de novembre», c'est-à-dire aujourd'hui, ont lieu, aux Etats-Unis, les élections pour le renouvellement de la Chambre des représentants et d'un tiers des sénateurs. L'importance de cette journée provient de ce qu'elle donne au pays l'occasion d'exprimer son avis sur l'administration présidentielle
Les méfaits du Saint-Barthélémy
Après des études minutieuses, après une conférence de techniciens, les représentants des cantons et des administrations intéressés aux débordements du St-Barthélémy se sont réunis le 28 octobre, à Lausanne, pour décider des mesures à prendre. M. le conseiller d'Etat Simon, chef du Département vaudois des travaux publics. [?]
Lettre de Paris
Les 3 et 4 novembre, répondant à une invitation que leur a adressée l'Institut de coopération intellectuelle, les savants statisticiens suivants siégeront au Palais-Royal: MM. Delatour, membre de l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques, président de l'Institut international de statistique; Gini, professeur à l'Université de Padoue, président de l'Institut central de statistique d'Italie; March, de l'Institut de statistique de l'Université de Paris; Willecox, vice-président de l'Institut international de statistique; et Zahn, directeur du bureau de statistique de Bavière. Ces messieurs ont été convoqués pour donner leur avis au sujet de la statistique intellectuelle.