The Evening Star (October 3, 1946)
Ignace Moscicki, 78, Poles’ ex-president, dies in Switzerland
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) – Ignace Moscicki, 78, president of Poland from 1926 until the outbreak of World War II, died in exile yesterday at his farm in Versoix after a prolonged illness.
A native of Russia, Dr. Moscicki was a chemist until he went into politics at the behest of Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, strong man of Poland after World War I.
In June 1939, three months before his country was invaded, he expressed determination to defend the Danzig corridor against German aggression, whatever the cost.
Just five days before the German invasion, he agreed to proposals by President Roosevelt and said Poland would welcome mediation by a third power.
Fled to Romania
The Nazis attacked, however, and Dr. Moscicki fled into Romania, where he protested to the world against the destruction of Poland’s open cities.
Romania interned him briefly, but allowed him to leave for Paris after he announced his resignation as president of the exiled Polish government September 30.
He arrived in Freiburg, Switzerland, in December 1939, and shortly thereafter was placed under the care of specialists for treatment of a heart disease.
Deep devotion to Marshal Pilsudski led Dr. Moscicki to give up the quiet chemical research and undertake two successive seven-year terms as president of Poland.
Elected for the term beginning June 1, 1926, after a coup d’etat had put power in the hands of Marshal Pilsudski, the new president’s inauguration had to be postponed two days because the office was handed to him as he was passing through Warsaw en route from The Hague to Lwow and he had no full dress clothes in his baggage.
Through the next seven years there were frequent reports that he longed to go back to his retorts and test tubes. These were especially numerous when constitutional changes increased the authority of the executive. But he accepted the second term when the national assembly on May 8, 1933, re-elected him by 332 to 11.
His friendship with Marshal Pilsudski dated back to the youth of each and Dr. Moscicki said he took the presidency and kept the post because of his realization of the difficulties which his friend would have to face if there was not complete understanding between the marshal and the chief executive, the latter having power to appoint premiers, dissolve the diet and issue decrees having the force of law while Parliament is not in session.
Born a subject of czar
President Moscicki was born a subject of the Russian czar on a farm at Mierzanow near Lwow December 1, 1867. He graduated from the chemistry faculty of the Polytechnic School of Riga, now capital of Latvia, and then established himself as a chemist in Warsaw.
In common with other Polish patriots, he engaged in political activity and, like many another of them, was persecuted by the czarist police. He fled to England in 1892 and remained there until 1897.
Then the University of Fribourg called him to Switzerland, engaging him as an assistant professor. He went back to Poland in 1912 when the Polytechnic School of Lwow offered him its chair of chemistry. In 1916, he established the Polish Institute of Chemical Research in Lwow.
Dr. Moscicki was known to the scientific world for a number of inventions connected with electrochemistry, especially for a method of manufacturing synthetic nitric acid by means of a highly charged electric furnace. He also perfected the Leyden jar and invented an electric condenser which bears his name and which was of special service in the early days of wireless telegraphy.