• * * A Great Statesman The election of President
Masaryk for the third time to the highest office in the Czechoslovak Republic is, and promises to remain, a unique event, for under the con- stitution of the country no future President will be eligible for a third consecutive term. The exception made in M. Masaryk's favour when the constitution was drafted was a tribute, incontestably just, to his personal qualities, and it took that form only when the President- designate himself had declined the honour of election for life. Since he is now 84 re-election for a fourth term seven years hence is hardly within the sphere of human probabilities, though the President, thanks to his sim- plicity of life and rigorous self-discipline, is-in completely sound health, both physical and mental. Not a European figure, in the sense of being a frequent visitor to other countries or an attendant at international conferences, he is an example to any head of any State in his vision and courage, the loftiness of his ideals and the purity of his patriotism,—qualities which, incidentally, give his book, The Making of a State, an undisputed place in the front rank of political writings of the twentieth century. The value to Czechoslovakia of guidance so capable and so wise in the first fifteen years of its difficult history is literally inestimable.
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