Died. Henriette Caillaux, ex-Premier Joseph Caillaux’s wife, acquitted in 1914 of murdering Editor Gaston Calmette of Le Figaro; in Département Sarthe, France. Campaigning against Caillaux, then Finance Minister, Calmette had printed a love letter Caillaux had written Henriette while he was still married to his first wife, and threatened to print more. Mme. Caillaux went to his office and shot him dead. A French jury decided there had been no premeditation, acquitted her, and precipitated a political crisis. The case for days distracted French attention from the outbreak of World War I. Even 20 years later, when she tried to give a lecture at the Louvre, a mob attacked her crying “Assassine!”
Died. Ben (“Beloved Ben”) Tillett, 82, pioneer British labor leader; three days after the death of his equally famed coorganizer, John (“Honest John”) Burns; in London. Their fiery oratory and skillful leadership rooted socialism in the English working classes. Ben Tillett ran away from home at eight, worked in a brick factory and a circus, then went to sea, where a Scottish mate taught him to read and write. After a few voyages he quit the Navy to become a shoemaker, then a warehouse hand, in London’s East End. Before he was 30 he promoted the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Workers’ Union. Soon he acquired John Burns as a partner. In 1889 the two organized the famous 13-week Dockers’ Strike, the first big step toward industrial unionism.
When Tillet was head of Bristol’s potent Dockers’ Union he met young Ernest Bevin (now Minister of Labor), gave him his first union job and became the strongest influence in his life. After the abdication of his good friend the Duke of Windsor he said: “I regret that that great little gentleman did not let fly … and tell us just what the bishops and politicians, who hounded him from public life, were pressing him to do.”
John Burns was born in Thames-side Battersea, the son of an engineer. When he was ten he left school to work in a candle factory. The soapbox soon drew him; when he was 20 he landed in jail for making a radical speech. He fought for “gas and water” socialism in the East End slums, and on into Parliament as Britain’s first Labor M.P.
In 1905 he was named to the Cabinet. When Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey told the Cabinet that World War I was inevitable, John Burns jumped up and said: “I must resign.” From that day to his death last week at 84, John Burns lived in seclusion.
Left. By the late Duke of Kent, killed in a plane crash last August: an estate valued at $692,300. Net value of his personal property: $393,248. Contents of the will were kept private, as all wills of British royalty have been since 1688.
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