Diphtheria amid Putrescence

On the same day last week Crown Prince Mihai caught diphtheria and his father King Carol II dissolved Parliament by royal decree in circumstances foreshadowing a Dictatorship.

In Rumania sick people of importance have a way of dying suddenly. Should Mihai die, his mother Queen Helen would certainly be forced out of Rumania by her divorced husband, the King. Last week Helen refused to leave her son's bedside day or night, had herself inoculated against diphtheria.

Attended by his Court Chamberlain, King Carol entered the sickroom, heard the Royal Physician advise Queen Helen that she was risking her life. King and Queen are not on speaking terms, but Her Majesty replied to the physician, while looking squarely at His Majesty.

"What is life to me? I have only one child. I shall never have another. My place is at his side!"

Mme Magda Lupescu, redhaired Jewish mistress of the King, was in and about His Majesty's apartments last week. At last the situation seemed to disgust the populace. There were no shouts of "Down with the King!"--for Rumanians are a cautious people. But several times Bucharest police had to break up crowds of craven citizens who cried, "Long Live Spain! Hurrah for the Spanish Republic!" thus implying their real sentiments.

With the people so restive, the dissolution of Parliament had almost the air of a coup. Meeting in joint session by royal command the Chamber and Senate soon grew riotous. Peasant Party Deputies roared "Dictator! Dictator!" at the entrance of Prime Minister Nicholas Jorga, a crony of the King and in Carol's boyhood his tutor. Ignoring peasant yells and boos, Professor Jorga read His Majesty's decree, ordering immediate dissolution and new elections for Parliament June 1 & 4.

Next day Profesaor Jorga did two characteristic things. First he placed the electoral machinery in charge of Finance Minister Argetoniau, "Best Hated Rumanian" and an advocate of Dictatorship. Promptly M. Argetoniau decreed that no candidate may electioneer without his written permission, and that political meetings may be held on only one day of the week, Sunday. "These regulations make the so-called election a farce," exploded onetime Prime Minister Juliu Maniu, leader of the Peasant Party, "they mean Dictatorship!"

The second move of Prime Minister Professor Jorga was an effort to scrub up for election purposes his soiled reputation. In all Rumania no old man is more famed for Rabelaisian anecdotes. But Professor Jorga has beautiful grey whiskers. With the mien of Santa Claus he paid a surprise visit to the Ministry of Interior. There, in the presence of Bucharest newspapermen, the Prime Minister was profoundly and publicly shocked.

He discovered that female employes of the Ministry were using rouge, forbade it. Glaring at stenographers who had plucked their eyebrows, he roared, "You must stop such mutilation!"

Finally the keen old eyes of Professor Jorga ascertained that some of the women's blouses were not strictly opaque. "You are improperly dressed," he reproved the blushing culprits, "see that I do not find you so again!"

In the popular mind, Queen Helen has stood for years as one of the few untainted factors in Rumanian public life. Her sickroom vigil loomed momentarily bigger than the election. With profound disquiet the nation learned that she was running a slight temperature, due probably to the effects of inoculation and exhaustion. Crown Prince Mihai's temperature went down to 99.7 He was better. Her Majesty appeared to repose confidence in only one other human being, an elderly English nannie who shared her vigil.

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