Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1901 — A PRESIDENTIAL KISS. [ARTICLE]

A PRESIDENTIAL KISS.

Head of French Republic Kleeea Hla Mother Before Thousand*. Baron Perre de Coubertin writes in the Century of Emile Loubet, president of the French Republic, recording incidentally one of the little .occurrences that have made the chief executive a popular man: What was it that Emile Loubet did to cause him to be so highly thought of by those who gave him their votes? If you should ask the general public or interrogate current opinion or the press you would be answered with the commonplace which one hears so often in similar cases. “Oh,” they would say to you, "he didn’t do anything.” At the famous Parisian tavern, the “Black Cat," where all the men of the day are off in popular ballads, the answer was somewhat different The refrain of a political song that met with great success a year ago was thisi “Loubet ... oh, how much ho loved bls mother!” And from etenee to stanza we find the good people of Montelimar, and even the entire French people, represented as overcome by the affection which Emile Loubet showed for hie mother, that moot respectable peasant woman, who lives in Montelimar. The explanation of this song is an episode in the life of the president which redounds completely to his honor. On the day that he entered his native town for the first time as president of the republic ho saw his mother seated on one of the tribunes, watching the procession pass. At once he caused his carriage to bo stopped, and, without the slightest regard for the pomp and officialdom with which he was surrounded, ho got out of the carriage and rah over to kiss the old lady, being unwilling to wait to the end of the ceremonies. Such a spontanlety of feeling as his, and such simplicity of manners, far from shocking, were sure to gain for him the hearts of Frenchmen. But by putting this little episode in relief the balladmaker wished to impress his hearers with the idea that there was nothing in the political career of Emile Loubet which was more interesting to note than this family scene.