Word: jon
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...course of Rumanian politics is an orbit, often fiery as a comet's tail, yet at present circular and without end. Just as the earth's solar year extends eternally from January to January, so the Rumanian political cycle starts when M. Jon Bratiano* becomes Premier, and is not full rounded until he has resigned and then resumed that office. Therefore, politically sneaking, it was "January" in Rumania last week, for M. Bratiano had just resumed the Premiership once more. He has been absent from office-not from power-for some 15 months. To sketch the events...
...Jon Bratiano begins when his valet awakens him at 9 a.m., presenting a light, Parisian breakfast of coffee and rolls. Although punctual about this breakfast hour, M. Bratiano is, thereafter, the acme of exquisite and sophisticated ease-of nicely timed delay. "I try to put off until tomorrow," he has said, "the mistakes which people tell me I ought to make today...
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...