RUMANIA: Queer Deeds

Over mountains, down dales, through spreading forests and along hard rutty roads trudged hundreds of Rumanian peasants and then thousands, last week, to the old Transylvania walled town of Alba Julia. The peasants were responding to the pied piping of their great political champion, Dr. Juliu Maniu, not long since a peasant himself. They know, for he has told them, that the aristocratic cabinet at Bucharest derives its power from a parliament elected by corruption and police: bullying of the voters. Therefore the trudgers were converging upon Alba Julia to take a great oath and hurl a potent warning at the Prime Minister of Rumania; massive, aristocratic, inflexible Vintila Bratiano, whose great political family has dominated Rumania for two decades.

When 200,000 peasants finally streamed into small Alba Julia, Pied Piper Juliu Maniu told them to make a hearty supper upon food which they had brought, said that although the hotels were full the streets were theirs to sleep upon, and finally instructed that all should be up betimes at 5 a. m. Docile, the peasants ate, slept, rose and assembled under the supervision of their priests to take the following great pious oath: “We swear to the great and good God to fight a righteous fight against the Government which is a plague to the country and which was nominated by a decree wrung from King Ferdinand on his deathbed. We swear that a new Rumania shall be created which shall stand for freedom and justice to all of Rumania’s brave sons.”

Having sworn, the caucus approved a resolution calling upon the regency—which reigns for six-year-old King Mihai—to dismiss Aristocrat Vintila Bratiano and call to the Prime Ministry onetime Peasant Juliu Maniu.

Much to the disgust of foreign observers, the immediate intentions of Pied Piper Maniu seemed to have been realized at this point. He had not urged his docile horde to do anything. He dared not, because upon the rooftops of Alba Julia were planted machine guns, and quietly massed at strategic points were well-paid troops apparently loyal to the Bratiano regime. In these circumstances, Dr. Maniu told his peasants to wait a bit in Alba Julia and himself sped to Bucharest where he presented their resolution to the Regency.* The regents refused to request Premier Vintila Bratiano’s resignation, but agreed to permit the peasants a demonstration. So next day, preceded and followed by a detachment of Rumanian cavalrymen and shaded fitfully by esquadrilles of bombing planes, 5,000 peasants began a decorous parade from Alba Julia to Bucharest.

Anxiously watching the strange Rumanian drama of last week from Godstone, near London, King Mihai’s ineffectual father, Prince Carol (eldest son of Dowager Queen Marie), who would be King at this moment had he not chosen to abdicate (TIME, Jan. n, 1926) and live abroad with a titan-haired Jewess, Mme. Magda Lupescu. Carol, who now aspires to regain powers which he too lightly cast away, said last week: “I didn’t leave my country for love of Mme. Lupescu. It’s all a lie to say so.† What man would renounce a throne because of a woman?”

The rebirth of speculation as to why Carol did abdicate was nipped last week by a fresh sensation. It was revealed that while the peasants were assembling at Alba Julia, two airplanes reputedly chartered by Prince Carol waited at Croydon airdrome, near London, laden with 120,000 manifestos announcing the return of Carol to Rumania. Operatives of Scotland Yard were understood to have seized the manifestos. The text of these leaflets, apparently designed to fire the sluggard peasants to action, began: “Rumanians, do not forget King Ferdinand’s son! [i. e., Carol].” The likelihood that a Carol coupe de leaflets could have succeeded seemed nil to persons who observed that at Alba Julia the peasants carried and displayed pictures of King Mihai and Dowager Queen Marie, but none of Carol.

* Venerable Chief Justice Buzdugan, doddering patriarch of Rumania, Myron Cristea and inexperienced Prince Nicholas, 24.

† Dowager Queen Marie has said so.