He did come to the United States and played the first concert of his 20th tour in that country in Studio 8-H of Radio City, before an invited audience of several hundred and a radio audience that was estimated at fifty million. Olin Downes said of Paderewski’s playing of the Moonlight Sonata on that day, “We had not heard him play this music with such tonal beauty and poetical effect.” The program included Liszt and Chopin, and at the end, naturally, the Minuet, of which the audience literally forced an encore.
Several more concerts followed, each of them packed to the rafters. Then came May 25, the day of the final concert scheduled for Madison Square Garden. It had been sold out for days, and as the hands of the clock moved down to 8:30, more than 15,000 people full of a special expectancy waited for the famous old man to appear. 8:35 came, and 8:40, and still they waited. A little before 9 o’clock, an announcement came over the Garden’s loudspeakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Paderewski has had a slight heart attack in his dressing room, and his doctor is moving him back to his private car.” Slowly, not quite believing what had happened, the crowd quietly began to leave, many of them without any thought of getting their money back, for already someone had suggested that a fund in honor of Paderewski could be started with the money that was in the box office. Paderewski had played his last concert.
But still there was strength in the grand old lion. And he would need every ounce of it. Five days after his collapse, Paderewski was strong enough to sail for France on the Normandie. After resting in Paris for several weeks, he returned to his beloved Riond-Bosson. On August 1, 1914, he had once stood and said, “My friends, the war is here.” And here, on September 1, 1939, twenty-five years and one month later, the news came to him that the Nazi army, at Hitler’s orders, had invaded Poland. On that day Paderewski broke his long-standing rule never to listen to the radio. The only set in the villa was brought down to the dining room where, throughout the day, it poured out its tragic reports: Warsaw and many other Polish cities being laid waste by German bombs. His prophecy of a quarter of a century before had come true all too soon!
Now the blows came faster, with the fall of France, and, in Paderewski’s opinion, with the complete failure of the machinery of the League of Nations to function as his old friend, Woodrow Wilson, had intended it to. “Dishonorably discharged!” was Paderewski’s final verdict against the League one evening after a long, discouraging discussion.
In 1940 Paderewski was named President of the National Council, which was the Polish government-in-exile. Together with President Raczkiewicz and General Sikorski, the three men were to operate wherever and however they could to keep alive the body and the spirit of Poland. But when France fell, Paderewski felt that he could do more if he could return to America. He was also sure that the United States could not remain much longer outside the conflagration that was sweeping across Europe.
In September Paderewski began his last (and what was to prove by far his most hectic) trip. His friends had been urging him for weeks to leave Switzerland as soon as possible. Great as his personal prestige and international reputation were, it was feared that, as the living spirit of exiled Poland, his life might be put in real danger at any moment. There were seven passengers in the two cars that left Riond-Bosson on September 23. One car was a Cadillac that Herbert Hoover had given Paderewski in Warsaw. The other one helped to carry the luggage of the party. At the Swiss-French border they were joined by an agent of the Sûreté Générale, the political police. Monsieur Garric had been assigned to the Paderewski party by the French Government to assist them in their journey, and he proved an invaluable addition before they were out of France. Time after time when the party was stopped for questions by various authorities, M. Garric merely flipped his lapel, revealing his badge, and the party continued on its way. And, of course, the name of Paderewski had the greatest possible effect. An official in the customs office at the Spanish border began to whistle the Minuet when he saw whose passports were passing over his desk.
Saragossa in Spain is the city that will go down in history as the only place ever to put Paderewski in prison. The President’s entire party was placed under house arrest, and the fact that they were allowed to stay in their hotel did little to relieve the affront.
“... to remain until Poland is free.”
For five days, under a flimsy pretext of being concerned for Paderewski’s safety, the authorities of Saragossa kept the seven unwilling visitors confined to their hotel. Finally a cable from President Franklin Roosevelt direct to Generalissimo Franco got them out. No apology, no further explanation was ever heard from Saragossa. But by October, after a happy and reasonably relaxed trip through Portugal, they all boarded the American Export liner Excambion, and on November 6 they sailed into New York harbor. It was Paderewski’s 80th birthday.
The Americans, who had loved and admired Paderewski for almost half a century, would have worn him out with receptions and dinners in his honor. But settling himself quietly in the Buckingham Hotel, he spent his time and strength in talking and corresponding with those who were most important to the present and future welfare of Poland. In June he asked to speak at a Polish war veterans’ rally in Oak Ridge, New Jersey. The day was hot and the rally itself was a steamy, exhausting affair. Paderewski went home very tired and feeling as though he had caught a cold. Within a week, on the 29th of June, several hours after a priest had given him the sacrament of Extreme Unction, Paderewski died.
At his funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, with nearly 5,000 crowded inside and 35,000 outside lining Fifth Avenue and the adjacent streets, Cardinal, then Archbishop, Spellman eulogized Paderewski, saying “his death steeps the entire civilized world in mourning.” And then the train took his body to Washington where it lay in state in the Polish Embassy until the following day.
The President of the United States had personally arranged for Paderewski’s burial in a way that offered the greatest honor in the country’s power. By special order, the body was taken to Arlington Cemetery, ordinarily reserved for American citizens who have served in their country’s armed forces. As Paderewski’s coffin, mounted on a military caisson, entered the gates of Arlington, cannon fired a 19-gun salute, the highest number possible to anyone not the head of a state. Flanked by United States soldiers, sailors, and marines, and joined by a squad of Polish soldiers in Canadian uniform, the caisson moved to the very center of the Cemetery. There, under the mast of the battleship Maine, Paderewski’s coffin was placed in a vault “to remain until Poland is free.”
The world is indebted to Paderewski in a very special way. To it he brought a flaming vision of great music-making. He placed before his listeners in singular glory the music of Chopin, one of the greatest composers of piano music the world has ever known. He carried to corners of the earth some of the most powerful pianism ever to be heard, never deviating from his own highest standards of excellence. Then, when his country’s very existence was at stake, he proved himself an equal or even, in the opinion of some, a greater master in the arena of international politics. His genius extended to the devious ways of statecraft with the same penetration it had shown in the mastering of music’s subtlest arts. His ability to influence men was as forceful when he spoke as it had been when channeled through the keys of a Steinway concert grand. He was unique in his lifetime. Nor has he had a successor.
Fisher, H. H. America and the New Poland. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928.
House, Edward Mandell. “Paderewski, the Paradox of Europe,” Harper’s Magazine (New York), 1925.
——, and Seymour, Charles (eds.). What Really Happened at Paris. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.
Kellogg, Charlotte. Paderewski. New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1956.
Kellogg, Vernon. Herbert Hoover, The Man and His Work. New York: D. Appleton Co., 1920.
Landau, Rom. Ignace Paderewski. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1934.
——. Pilsudski and Poland. New York: The Dial Press, Inc., 1929.
War Memoirs of Robert Lansing. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1935.
Paderewski, Ignace Jan, with Lawton, Mary. The Paderewski Memoirs. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938.
Phillips, Charles. Paderewski, The Story of a Modern Immortal. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933.
Strakacz, Aniela. Paderewski As I Knew Him. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1934.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Ruth Fox Hume was born in New York City and attended the College of New Rochelle. She attended medical school briefly, where she discovered that she was more interested in the history of medicine than in its practice. The result was Great Men of Medicine (Random House, 1947, revised, 1961) and Milestones of Medicine (Random House, 1950). While she pursued her writing career, she taught at Holy Cross Academy and Catholic University. Some recent books include Our Lady Came to Fatima (Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1957), Saint Margaret Mary (Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1958), and Florence Nightingale (Random House, 1959). Mrs. Hume also writes book reviews for the Washington Evening Star.
Paul Hume was born in Chicago and received a degree in music from the University of Chicago. He became music director of a “good music” radio station and then music critic of the Washington Post, a position he has held for sixteen years. He is a Professor of Music at Georgetown University and has been the director of the Georgetown Glee Club for twelve years. He is the author of Catholic Church Music (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1956), as well as many articles that have appeared in The Saturday Review, The Sign, The Catholic Digest, and others.
THE LION OF POLAND is the first book on which the Humes have collaborated. They live in Washington, D.C., with their four children, Paul, Michael, Ann, and Peter.
THE LION OF POLAND (Hawthorn, 1962) was designed by Stefan Salter and completely manufactured by American Book—Stratford Press, Inc. The body type is Linotype Janson, based on the letters of Anton Janson, a Dutch punchcutter who worked between 1660 and 1687.
A HAWTHORN BOOK
Credo Books is an important news series of biographies that will appeal to both boys and girls. The subjects of these biographies are Catholic, but their stories are not of their faith so much as how that faith helped them to lead remarkable lives. Past and present will be represented here: a sculptor who left a priceless treasure of art to mankind, or a movie star who was an idol to young and old alike; the president of a South American country who fought against and lost his life to Communist terrorists. Heroes are made by the greatness of the human spirit and all the figures to be portrayed in Credo Books were great in spirit, courage and effort, no matter what task they took upon themselves.
The authors of these new books have been carefully chosen both for their ability to make biography come alive for young people and their knowledge of their subjects. Such authors as Gary Webster, Lon Tinkle, Donald Demarest, Albert Orbaan, Terry Morris, Frank Kolars and Jack Steffan will be represented.
To give Credo Books the benefit of their knowledge and experience, an editorial board of distinguished representatives from the fields of education, librarianship and the Catholic press, as well as Hawthorn’s own editorial staff, choose both subject and author for each book in the series.
As an example of the variety of personalities in this new series, you will find the following figures portrayed.
Operation Escape: The Adventure of Father O’Flaherty, by Daniel Madden
To Far Places: The Story of Francis X. Ford, by Eva K. Betz
The Lion of Poland: The Story of Paderewski, by Ruth and Paul Hume
The Conscience of a King: The Story of Thomas More, by Margaret Stanley-Wrench
Pen and Bayonet: The Story of Joyce Kilmer, by Norah Smaridge
The Man Who Found Out Why: The Story of Gregor Mendel, by Gary Webster
The Tall American: The Story of Gary Cooper, by Richard Gehman
Wings of an Eagle: The Story of Michelangelo, by Anne M. Peck with Frank and Dorothy Getlein
The Door of Hope: The Story of Katharine Drexel, by Katherine Burton
Fire of Freedom: The Story of Col. Carlos Castillo Armas, by Jack Steffan
Doctor America: The Story of Tom Dooley, by Terry Morris
The Sea Tiger: The Story of Pedro Menéndez, by Frank Kolars
The First Californian: The Story of Fray Junípero Serra, by Donald Demarest
Wilderness Explorer: The Story of Samuel de Champlain, by Charles Morrow Wilson