RUMANIA: Royalty Rambles

Voyage. As she steamed toward the U. S. aboard the Leviathan last week, Queen Marie of Rumania saw anchored in her honor in the harbor of Cherbourg, France, the especially decorated and electrically festooned U. S. European flagship Memphis; arose before breakfast on the first morning for a plunge in the Leviathan’s “Pompeian Swimming Pool” with her daughter Princess Ileana and son, Prince Nicholas; took tea with Mrs. Woodrow Wilson in the latter’s stateroom; visited the engine-room and shook hands with several minions who had been provided with white gloves against this contingency; was informed by a gallant engine oiler that Rumanian engine oil is best; was presented with what the donors described as “the finest watch in the World” (smaller than a dime) by high seas representatives of the New York News Photographers’ Association who snapped Her Majesty incessantly; visited the steerage and kissed there a Rumanian baby; laid her royal head each night on pillows embroidered with the Rumanian royal crest and motto: Nihil Sine Deo;* chewed gum when assured by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Mme. Prezepie, that in the U. S. it is considered a preventative against seasickness—learned that half a million dollars’ worth of antique furniture and bric-a-brac has been installed by the Hotel Ambassador in the suite which will allegedly be rented to Her Majesty in Manhattan for “a dollar a day”; received a 21-gun salute from the battery on Governor’s Island as the Leviathan nosed up New York Harbor.

Welcome. Chairman Grover Whalen of the Mayor’s Committee of Welcome and Mrs. Vincent Astor, personal representative of Mayor Walker of New York, boarded the Leviathan at quarantine from the municipal steamer Macon and welcomed Queen Marie in the name of the city. Followed J. Butler Wright, Assistant Secretary of State, on a revenue cutter to extend the President’s greetings. A third delegation of “personal friends of Queen Marie,” likewise on the cutter, included Judge (“U. S. Steel”) Gary and Samuel (“Sam”) Hill of Seattle, Wash., potent railroader, who extended to Queen Marie the invitation to dedicate his Seattle museum, “Maryhill” which provides the technical reason for her visit to the U. S. Seventy minutes after she landed at the Battery, Queen Marie and her party left Manhattan for Washington. On the way from the City Hall to the Pennsylvania Station the crowds became so unmanageable that the royal party was forced to enter the station by a side door and descend to the train in a freight elevator. A six-hour run brought Her Majesty to Washington where she was greeted at the station by Secretary of State and Mrs. Kellogg. Proceeding to the Rumanian Legation, Her Majesty and their Royal Highnesses Ileana and Nicholas dined quietly, retired early. Next day they prepared to be entertained at the White House.

Carol. Rumanians scanned with closest interest last week not reports of Her Majesty’s voyage or reception but accounts of her reconciliation just before she left Paris with her eldest son, the abdicated Crown Prince Carol of Rumania (TIME, Jan. 11 et seq.). On the night before her departure Queen Marie secretly welcomed Carol to a family souper intime in her suite at the Ritz Hotel, Paris. Next morning Carol before scores of clicking cameras, and saw glistening a queenly tear. Premature reports that former Premier Bratiano was hurrying to Paris and would there deliver to Carol documents restoring him to crown princehood were scotched by Queen Marie who said on reaching the U. S.: “I am afraid Carol cannot return just yet, he has made the great mistake of his life and he must suffer for it, prince or no prince. I hope that sometime though, he will come back to us.”

As everyone knows Prince Carol’s political opposition to the Bratiano clique last year led to his abdication, though his relations beneath the rose with a certain Mme. Magda Lupescu were trumped up at the time to cover the political scandal. Mme. Lupescu, indeed, still resides with Carol at Paris.

*Nought without God.