Word: smetona
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Crown. Anton Smetona, popular father of his country and the first and present President of the republic of Lithuania (founded 1918), politely, firmly, magnificently refused the offer of a golden crown last week. A group of tenacious monarchists raised the flag of royalism, which has been a dead emblem many years, because they felt that the country would prosper, as it did of old, under the sway of an autocrat and because they thought that the President, with themselves as his courtiers and advisors, could raise the standard of Lithuania to its highest eminence...
Lithuanians were uncertain last week whether a dictator had seized their government or not. Overnight, Conservatives, headed by onetime President Antona Smetona and a former Tsarist Russian officer, Major Plekhavicius, seized and arrested President Kasimir Grinius and Premier Nicholas Slezevicius of Lithuania, both Socialists...
Next day the Conservatives freed President Grinius, and forced him to call Professor Augustine Valdemaras (Conservative) to the Premiership. Antona Smetona, for some 20 years a tireless exponent of Lithuanian nationalism, thus halted by force last week the growing rapprochement with Soviet Russia which was the policy of the ousted Socialist Cabinet. Then, to make his coup "constitutional" he forced President Grinius to resign, and finally compelled the Seimas (Parliament) to assemble and elect him (Smetona) President...