Journal de Genève
- Danish fascism
- Single or double merger?
- Against the Grimm candidacy
The Journal de Genève front page of 7 November 1926 ranged from Danish politics to Geneva's own municipal map. A lead editorial signed W. M. warned that a Danish agrarian agitation led by Cornelius Petersen had won backing from an army threatened by the Stauning government's disarmament plan, and that Captain Niewenhuis-Möller's openly fascist National Corps supported it. J. M. weighed rival plans for merging Geneva with its suburbs and argued for the minority's, which kept an enlarged city commune. A notice from the Union of Patriotic Societies attacked Robert Grimm as the instigator of the 1918 'revolution' and urged readers to block his rise to the chair of the National Council.
Translation
Danish fascism
The importance of this agrarian and demagogic movement is considerably increased by the fact that it has found support in the army, which is threatened by the Stauning ministry's disarmament plan. The Danish army, by its origins, has never been popular. When troops march through the streets they are, in a highly characteristic survival, guarded by a police cordon. It is therefore not surprising that the army is now rising up against a left-wing Parliament that has designs on its very existence. Captain Niewenhuis-Möller has placed himself at the head of a formation of a distinctly fascist character, which bears the name National Corps and which lends public support to the peasant agitation of Cornelius Petersen.
Single or double merger?
The minority's plan has the advantage of letting the commune of Geneva survive, enlarged and transformed by the addition of Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Petit-Saconnex. It breaks less abruptly than the majority's plan with long-standing habits. The municipal magistrate is closer to the citizen than the cantonal magistrate. He can specialize more. Each will have more limited responsibilities, and it will be all the easier to call him to account for the way he performs his task. The Council of State and the Grand Council will be spared an overload of work.
Against the Grimm candidacy
A lapse of vigilance, of which we can all accuse ourselves, allowed the baleful man who had fomented and led the revolution of 1918 to seize the vice-presidency of the National Council a year ago. Grimm, the demagogue, the negotiator of underhand understandings with the Bolsheviks of Moscow, after having contemplated the corpses that influenza had made in our army, mobilized to restore the order he had disturbed, was going to sit in the chair where the venerable representatives of our Swiss tradition once sat.
Context
Cornelius Petersen's autonomy movement in Southern Jutland
The peasant agitation W. M. describes was led by Cornelius Petersen, who in 1926 founded a party in Southern Jutland known as the Autonomy Party or Autonomy Movement. Its programme was openly anti-democratic: it wanted to abolish democracy and establish a Schleswigian republic run as a national dictatorship based on the Ten Commandments. The party contested the 1926 general election in the Haderslev-Aabenraa-Sønderborg-Tønder constituency and won 2,117 of 66,843 valid votes there, or 3.2 per cent, and it later joined the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark. Those figures describe a movement with a radical programme but a narrow electoral base, which fits the editorial's argument that the movement's weight came chiefly from the support it was said to enjoy in the army. The editorial's account of that army backing, of the Stauning government's disarmament plan and of Captain Niewenhuis-Möller's National Corps is the paper's own 1926 report.
What Robert Grimm did in 1918
The patriotic societies call Grimm the man who 'fomented and led the revolution of 1918'. The event behind that phrase was the Swiss general strike of November 1918, which Grimm led; its demands included a 48-hour working week, old-age pensions and women's suffrage. In April 1919 a military tribunal sentenced him to six months in prison. The charge of 'underhand understandings with the Bolsheviks of Moscow' draws on Grimm's wartime internationalism: he had been the main organiser of the Zimmerwald Movement and chaired the International Socialist Commission in Bern from 1915 to 1917. The words 'revolution' and 'Bolsheviks' are the polemical framing of his opponents, whereas the record describes a general strike with social and political demands. Grimm remained in parliament and became President of the National Council in 1946, twenty years after this campaign against him.
Why Geneva reopened the merger question in 1926
Merging the city with its suburban communes was an old and contested idea. As early as 1 February 1901, the municipal council of Eaux-Vives unanimously opposed any fusion with Geneva. The question returned in 1926 because of the canton's financial crisis, and that is the setting for J. M.'s comparison of the majority and minority plans. His case for the minority rests on keeping a municipal tier of government: an enlarged commune of Geneva absorbing Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Petit-Saconnex would keep magistrates close to citizens, make them easier to hold to account, and spare the cantonal Council of State and Grand Council extra work.
How the Geneva fusion was finally settled
Geneva's voters turned down a first fusion proposal in 1926 and then approved the creation of 'Greater Geneva' on 18 May 1930, merging the communes of Geneva, Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Petit-Saconnex. Support was not uniform in the suburbs: Eaux-Vives itself voted against the merger, 1,256 to 1,212. The new arrangement took effect on 1 January 1931 and ended 133 years of Eaux-Vives' municipal independence. The outcome kept a City of Geneva with its own government, an Administrative Council of five members and a Municipal Council of 80. That structure resembles the enlarged municipal commune J. M. defended in 1926.
Original
Le fascisme danois
L'importance de ce mouvement agraire et démagogique est considérablement accrue par le fait qu'il a trouvé un appui dans l'armée, que menace le projet de désarmement du ministère Stauning. L'armée danoise, par ses origines, n'a jamais été populaire. Lorsque les troupes défilent dans les rues, elles sont, par une survivance bien caractéristique, gardées par un cordon de police. Il n'est donc pas surprenant que l'armée se dresse aujourd'hui contre un Parlement de gauche, qui en veut à son existence. Le capitaine Niewenhuis-Möller s'est mis à la tête d'une formation de caractère nettement fasciste, qui porte le nom de Corps national et qui prête un appui public à l'agitation paysanne de Cornelius Petersen.
Simple ou double fusion ?
Le projet de la minorité a l'avantage de laisser subsister la commune de Genève, agrandie et transformée par l'adjonction des Eaux-Vives, de Plainpalais et du Petit-Saconnex. Il rompt moins brusquement que celui de la majorité avec des habitudes anciennes. Le magistrat municipal est plus près du citoyen que le magistrat cantonal. Il peut davantage se spécialiser. Chacun aura des responsabilités plus restreintes, et on pourra d'autant plus facilement lui demander compte de la façon dont il remplit sa tâche. On évitera de surcharger de besogne Conseil d'Etat et Grand Conseil.
Contre la candidature Grimm
Un défaut de vigilance, dont tous nous pouvons nous accuser, a permis, il y a un an, à l'homme néfaste qui avait fomenté et dirigé la révolution de 1918 de s'emparer de la vice-présidence du Conseil national. Grimm, le démagogue, le négociateur de sournoises ententes avec les bolchévistes de Moscou, après avoir contemplé les cadavres que la grippe avait faits dans notre armée mobilisée pour rétablir l'ordre troublé par lui, allait s'asseoir dans le fauteuil où siégèrent les vénérables représentants de notre tradition suisse.