The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1920-06-25
ADM|RES OWN COUNTRY
QUEEN MARY OF RUMANIA
is BELOVED RULER
Has Personal knowledge of the
Needs In All Parts of
Kingdom

Bucharest, May 24.-[By The AS
ISOLATED Pressl-Queen Mary of Ru-
mania displayed her business ability
and her faith in her country by put
ting through an important deal in
locomotives not long ago. The Ru-
manian railways were in sad need of
the new engines. There were Amer
lean, French and English agents here
to sell locomotives but for money only.
None of them had enough faith in
Rumania to sell them for anything
except for cold hard cash.
Then the president or an American
concern who had been selling locOmo-
tives to Poland came to Rumania. An
interview was arranged between him
and the queen, who presented such a
strong argument IN the future of her
country and its resources, that the
hard headed business American
agreed to furnish locomotives and roll
ing stock and to take in payment Ru-
mania's national bonds.
The queen believes in Rumania and
she knows how to convince others be-
cause she has been over every foot of
its ground. During the days that she
was princess she travelled by train
e~Au ~ ohu VII
until she has come to know all Of the
resources of her country and a great
many OF its people.
Need Willing Rulers.
Here is what she said to The Asso-
ciated Press correspondent about her
country: 1.-The queen of a small
country! Those who are accustomed
to see rulers of a great land can little
understand what it means. 1t means
work and anxiety and hope, and a
great toiling for small results. But
the field is large and if the heart if
willing. great is the work"
Queen Mary has a reputation as a
writer and now that the war is
over she has resumed the literary
work she abandoned when the war
began.
Whatever may be the value of
what l write, l am happy to say that
| have facility in writing" she ex-
planned. 81 write in the morning be-
fore / begin my days work but inter
ruptions do not disturb me. If l have
to see someone, l go back to my desk
and am able to take up the dffinish
MY writing is in the nature of jour-
nal which l have kept throughout
the war, but it is of such an intimate
nature that much of 1t cannot be
published until long after l am
dead"
The most admired work of the queen
aside from her fairy stories, is a little
book, entitled my Country" wherein,
in a casual impressionistic manner,
the queen tells her travels through
the country, describing the life of the
peasants, their desire to own the soil,
their willingness to work hard, the
MIA inf oncfVrppnc Nf tho -nn,n tha
curious architecture of the churches
and houses, the beautiful women OF
the country and the charm Of the
winding, dusty roads.
l. Not Afraid OF Work
Fol all her beauty and fine clothes,
the queen is not afraid of dirt. This
fact is shown in her %boundless admir-
alton for the dusty plains and dustier
roads of her country. One day during
the German occupation of Rurania, she
was riding along one Of the dusty
roads Of Bessarabia, when she saw
and picked up an lily clad little or
refugees, but seemed to belong to no.
body in particular. The queen gath
cred up the child in her arms and
took it home, thinking later to find
its mother. To date the mother has
not been found. so the queen has
adopted the little girl as a member
Of her own family.
Another girl that the queen has al
most adopted Miss Anne Shaw of
Philadelphia, who has been in Rumania
with the American Red Cross for more
than a year. Miss Shaw came to
know the queen through her Red
Cross work, and then, especially Prin-
cess Elizabeth, with whom She has
struck up fast friendship. The queen
heartily approves of the friendship and
when Miss Shaw is about the house,
the queen treats her as a younger
sister.
Queen Mary is a good Judge of hui
man nature. When she receives q
stranger, she puts him through a sor,
of a third degree. She places him q
chair facing a lighted window where
as she sits with her back 20 the light
and If the stranger meets with her
approval, as a person to be trusted,
she than 10 apt to remark:
81 think that light is too strong fol-
your eyes," and asks him or her to
change the seat. Then she is ready
for conversation.
She makes it a point to be in touch
with all sorts of opinion and has made
friends with a great many of the rad
1cal politicians of ,Rumania.
The queen is keenly alive to the
social changes brought by the war, to
the possibility that thrones are un
stable, but she is said to believe that
there is still much king and queens
loon do ~ fhau cfiolr - theta toh.