Pilsudski into Faust?

Dictator-Marshal Pilsudski left Warsaw a fortnight ago, ostensibly to "take the cure" at a sanatorium for nervous diseases in Druskieniki on the Lithuanian frontier. Rumors spread that the Marshal's notoriously irresolute brain was tottering. Then his personal jingoist news organ Armed Poland flaunted a demand that Poland seize from Germany the territories of Ermeland, Stettin, Oppeln and Breslau, "because the Treaty of Versailles has done Poland an injustice by not granting her the ancient Polish frontier of 1772." Straightway it was rumored that Pilsudski, super-melodramatist, had feigned illness that he might secretly view the terrain of the military seizure demanded by Armed Poland. When finally tracked down by reporters, the Marshal was discovered in superintendence of secret maneuvres by the poison gas corps of the Polish Army.

It was deemed significant that President Ignatz Moscicki of Poland, an expert chemical engineer, has continued since his election (TIME, June 14) to labor in his spare time at the state chemical warfare laboratory.

Coincident with these manifestations came reports of hard sledding encountered by Premier Bartel in securing the confidence of Parliament in the Pilsudski program of constitutional reform (TIME, May 31 et seq.).

Socialist Deputy Daszynski delivered what was deemed a bold if not rash pronouncement against the Dictator: "The people of Poland are wondering why so much confusion reigns if Marshal Pilsudski is such a god as to have brought about this revolution. All the proposals we have so far are a mixture of American, French and Mussolini platitudes."

Pointing to Pilsudski's then empty seat in the Cabinet Box, Daszynski concluded passionately: "It is as Marguerite said to Faust, 'I am not sure of you."

Next day the Marshal's intentions were very slightly clarified. Bills were presented to the Chamber which, if ratified, would cause:

I. The President to receive power to: 1) Dissolve the Sejm (Parliament) and Senate; 2)Rule by decree when Parliament is not in session; 3) Rule by decree, in any case, until January 1, 1928.

II. Parliament to assemble each September, under absolute compulsion to pass the budget within four months.