Dynasty Restored

Sleazy Bucharest, the "Paris of the Balkans,"* and all sprawling Rumania were agog. After three years in eclipse, the great political Dynasty of Bratianu--the makers of Rumania--were again ascendant last week over Rumania's Royal House of Hohenzollern. Buck-toothed King Carol, who has tried to play the Dictator, was forced to accept a new Cabinet chosen not by himself, as his National Peasant Party Cabinets have been, but by the National Liberal Party of the Dynasty of Bratianu.

Rumania, once a mere princedom attached to the Sultanate of Turkey, won independence and the rank of Kingdom under her first Bratianu Premier, famed Ion (John) the Great in 1881. His son, also Ion and also great, saw the Rumanian House of Hohenzollern safely through the War, which brought the nation huge new territories. He induced flamboyant Queen Marie's quiet husband (whose name, already forgotten, was Ferdinand) to exact the abdication of Crown Prince Carol. When King Ferdinand died and Carol's son Mihai became Rumania's "Boy King" (TIME, Aug. 1, 1927), Rumanians said "It is now Ion who reigns and rules," but later that same year grizzled, astute old Ion Bratianu died, leaving the Premiership to his brother Vintila.

Followed the famed "March on Bucharest" of 60,000 unarmed, peaceful peasants who squatted, sprawled and slept all over the muddy streets of the capital in protest against the Dynasty of Bratianu. Finally Vintila, far less able and astute than Ion, was forced to resign. Advised by Rumania's three Regents, Boy King Mihai appointed as Premier the National Peasant Party leader, chipper little Professor luliu Maniu, who arrived at the Royal Palace with his new Cabinet list scribbled on a crumpled bit of paper, exclaiming "Here it is!" (TIME, Nov. 19, 1928).

Two years later the Dynasty of Bratianu seemed definitely down & out when scapegrace Carol (whom Ion had forced to abdicate) returned amid delirious triumph to Bucharest, thrust aside his own son, Boy King Mihai, and became King Carol II by an act of the Rumanian Parliament against which trembling old Vintila Bratianu alone had the courage to vote "No!" The rest of the Bratianu National Liberal Party abstained from voting and broken-hearted Vintila died later of apoplexy. King Carol ousted Mihai's mother, Queen Helen (now resident in England under the special favor and protection of George V), and brought to Bucharest his flaunting, red-haired Jewish mistress, Magda Lupescu, daughter of a junk dealer.

In his three champagneful years on the throne, Carol II has had ten Cabinets. Queerest was that headed by his boyhood tutor, bearded, rheumy-eyed Professor Nicholas lorga who spent much of his time inspecting the Government's stenographers and girls in the public schools, severely rebuking any whom he caught wearing shirtwaists too snugly revealing or not perfectly opaque. Disgusted with the King and his favorites, Peasant Leader Dr. Maniu went into opposition three years ago and resigned as head of the Party in favor of M. Alexander Vaida-Voevod whom Carol induced to act as Premier (TIME, Jan. 23) in his tenth "Cabinet of Favorites." It was Premier Vaida-Voevod who resigned last week, bitterly declaring "The King is impossible!" Resigning also as Leader of the National Peasant Party, M. Vaida-Voevod cried: "I made a great mistake in trying to cooperate with His Majesty and I fear that my policy has proved disastrous for our Party. I assume full responsibility." The disaster consisted in the sudden resurgence of the Bratianu National Liberal Party, impelled by secretive, intriguing, ruthless Deputy Constantine ("Dino") Bratianu, brother of Vintila and Ion. Dino has been organizing among his friends, the great semifeudal landlords and industrialists of Rumania, a mass protest by their retainers against the National Peasant Party Government. Last week Dino and his Liberals threatened King Carol: unless he let them form a Government they would fill Bucharest with at least 100,000 protest marchers. Craven, the King yielded, announcing "My people, this step is taken to prevent an outbreak of violence in the capital and its spread throughout Rumania."

No fool, Dino Bratianu knows that Rumania's Treasury is the real political prize. He became Finance Minister last week, leaving the Premiership to stern Dr. Ion Duca, titular Leader of the National Liberal Party. At once the new-Cabinet adopted a characteristic Bratianu policy: suppression of freedom of the press. Twelve pro-Peasant newspapers had their entire editions confiscated. For good measure Premier Duca suppressed two small parties of the ultraRight, the Iron Guards and the anti-Semitic National Christian Defense League. In a wholesale, nationwide shakeup local prefects were ousted and replaced by Bratianu men. "These new officials," said a close friend of Dino Bratianu with grim humor, "will have the duty of seeing that the election, which we will soon hold, results in a Liberal victory."

Under Ion the Great and his son Ion, the technique of "Bratianu Elections" became notorious throughout Europe. It included not only victory, when the Bratianu Premier wished to continue in power, but also defeat and the election of a puppet leader when the Dynasty of Bratianu saw fit to lie low temporarily. Dino Bratianu who now comes to power holds thousands of mortgage-ridden peasants in the hollow of his hand through his presidency of Rumania's national land bank, the Kredit Rural.

*Other Balkan capitals are sleazier.

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