nts, the Supreme Council sent
three messages, one after the other, to the Bucharest government,
ordering the immediate withdrawal from Hungarian soil of the Rumanian
troops. Yet the Rumanian troops remained in Budapest and the looting of
Hungary continued, the Rumanian government declaring that the messages
had never been received. Meanwhile every one in the kingdom, from
Premier to peasant, was laughing in his sleeve at the helplessness of
the Supreme Council. But they laughed too soon. For the Supreme Council
wired to the Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover, who was in Vienna,
informing him of the facts of the situation, whereupon Mr. Hoover, who
has a blunt and uncomfortably direct way of achieving his ends, sent a
curt message to the Rumanian government informing it that, if the orders
of the Supreme Council were not immediately obeyed, he would shut off
its supplies of food. _That_ message produced action. The troops were
withdrawn. I can recall no more striking example of the amazing changes
brought about in Europe by the Great War than the picture of this
boyish-faced Californian mining engineer coolly giving orders to a
European government, and having those orders promptly obeyed, after the
commands of the Great Powers had been met with refusal and derision. To
take a slight liberty with the lines of Mr. Kipling--

_"The Kings must come down and the Emperors frown
When Herbert Hoover says 'Stop!'"_

Up to that time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania.
But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as
the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most
despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was
convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial
interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain
commercial concessions of great value in Rumania. A cabinet minister, in
discussing the incident with me, became so inarticulate with rage that
he could scarcely talk at all.

But the United States is not the only country which has lost the
confidence of the Rumanians. France is even more deeply distrusted and
disliked than we are. And this in spite of the fact that the upper
classes of Rumania have held up the French as their ideal for the past
fifty years. Indeed, wealthy Rumanians live in a fashion more French
than if they dwelt in Paris itself. This sudden unpopularity of the
French is d