Word: bratiano
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Such is M. Bratiano's outward, dilettante philosophy of life and statecraft. The pose has deceived many. A man with so much leisure for all that art and culture have to give must be, it would seem, extremely lucky to continue strong. In a measure Jon Bratiano has been lucky. He was fortunate, for example, to be born the son of that greater Jon C. Bratiano (1821-91) who freed Rumania from Turkey...
Born luckily to place and power, Premier Jon Bratiano has held and builded upon both. He and his brother Vintila, and brother-in-law Prince Babu Stirbey (intimate of Queen Marie) control the State. They dominate Rumanian banking, oil, manufactures. Their large estates are worked by peasants in a manner all but feudal. Because they have used their power to systematically exploit Rumania, a tide of public indignation periodically rises, and before it M. Bratiano resigns the Premiership, announces that he has "retired," and proceeds to lie in wait...
Fourteen months ago such a tide of resentment was at the flood. It might have led King Ferdinand of Rumania on to better fortune for his dynasty, had he dared to brave Jon Bratiano then. Instead Ferdinand I, weak, invalided, accepted M. Bratiano's resignation as Premier without comment, and meekly called one of the Bratiano henchmen, General Fofoza Alexander Averescu, to the Premiership...
...General, ruthless, instantly suppressed the news organ Lupta, which had commented despairingly: "In the face of the country's unanimous expectation that it would receive a Government which it had indicated unquestionably was its choice, it is answered again with a Government by the Bratiano family. May God protect Rumania from . . . this [the King's] deed...
Thenceforward the Rumanian cycle has moved smoothly-with General Averescu masquerading as a defender of the citizenry but actually obedient to oligarchs Jon and Vintila Bratiano. These gentlemen resolved, recently, to resume power, sensing that popular resentment had guttered down...