Evening Star Newspaper, May 31, 1931, Page 75

P THF‘ SUNDAY QTAR WASHINGTON D. (' " MAY 31, 1931. Ex-Rulers H(’)ld‘ Thei The Archduke Otto, pretender to the throne of Hungary, now living. com- fortably in a villa in Spain. HEN a monarchy turns into a republic overnight, the ex-king who gets thrown out loses his throne—but nothing else. A deposed king may deserve a lot of sympathy, but he is sel- dom in the market for charity. Almost inva- riably he has a tidy fortune salted away, with a lot of gik-edged securities to support him in the style to which he has been accustomed. So it is that none of the monarchs whose ecrowns got knocked off during the turbulent post-war years in Europe have had to look for financial assistance anywhere. One and all, they are rich men. Thrones or no thrones, they get along very nicely, and the hands that used to hold scepters now hold nice bank books. In part, this is because royal families have a way of laying aside valuable properties dur- ing the course of years, for those rainy days that come to even the best-regulated dynasties. Then, too, it must not be forgotten that the average reigning monarch is on a salary, just like any other government employe—and that his salary is invariably a nice fat one. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, for example, draws $480,000 annually from her grateful subjects, with an extra $40,000 for maintenance of the royal palace. Gustav V of Sweden is paid $376,000 a year, plus $84,000 for his expense account. Haakon VII of Nor- way gets $182,000; Albert of Belgium gets $77,- 000 annually; Boris IIT of Builgaria gets $25,000. Michael, the former boy King of Rumania, drew $425,000 a year when he was only 5. And Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, gets the snug salary of $2,205,000 a year. Thus the ordinary king can lay somethlnc by for emergencies. Abdication, consequently, seldom means anything more than the loss of salutes and fancy ceremonials. It almost never means anything even approaching poverty. Alfonso of Spain was the most recent Euro- pean monarch to lose his throne. His case is typical of such occurrences. EING a shrewd business man, Alfonso real- ized some time ago that being a King now- adays is a job with an unceriain future. Hence, for more than a decade, he has been putting his” spare cash where it would do the most good, buying heavily in sound Spanish stocks. Today he has extensive holdings in the Madrid subway and telephone companies and in a number of Spanish railroad lines. When the Spanish telephone system went into private hands Alfonso is said to have received more than $1,000,000. The former German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, living in exile now but still the richest German of all. On top of this he bought heavily of Ameri- can securities a few years ago. When Alexan- der Moore was American Ambassador at Ma- drid he is said to have acted as Alfonso’s un- official adviser in regard to investments in Wall Street. Hence, when the crash came Alfonso was au fixed—with three or four million dollars on deposit in various French and English banks, in addition to his security holdings. Inci- dentally, when the royal family left for France, Queen Victoria carried with her her private jewels, valued at $500,000. So when Alfonso got to France he was able to rent a suite of 28 rooms at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, paying at the rate of $600 a day. To be sure, he was momentarily pinched for cash. He had taken $20,000 with him, but it didn't last long, what with the aristocratic but im- poverished Spanish exiles who loyally hurried to the hotel to borrow money from their de- posed monarch. However, Alfonso had no dif- ficulty at all in floating a loan from the banks. He is an excellent risk. ILHELM II, the former Hohenzollern Em- peror, doesn’'t have a privy purse any more, but his pocketbook is heavier since he has gone into exile at Doorn, Holland, than it was before. He remains the richest German, _either in Germany, or out of it. His total wealth is computed anywhere from 150,000,000 marks to 250,000,000 marks. Before the war it was placed at 140,000,000. Hundreds of people still work for the former Kaiser on his estates in Germany. At the time that Kaiser Wilhelm was exiled he had an estate at Kadinen on which he had established kilns for the production of pottery which he retailed at big prices at shops which he maintained at Berlln, Frankfort and other cities. He was one of the largest stockholders in the Hamburg-American line. He also held a large number of shares in the Krupp works at Essén and other places in Germany. He owned a vast Royalty out of a job, but in no danger of starving. Ex-King Manuel of Portu- g4 and his wife, who live comfortably despite the loss of their throne, Hanging Onto Their Crowns IsVery Hard ‘ork for E ufépean Rulers These Days, but Alfonso of Spain Has Hung Onto His Personal Fortune of Five or Six or Ten Millions, and Ex-Kaiser IVilhelm Still Is One of World’s Richest Men. amount of land in Canada. This land was held in the name of a few young Prussian nobles. When the war came along, and the land was in danger of confiscation, the Kaiser skillfully transfeired his land to an influential American syndicate. The General Electric Trust of Germany also helped the German ruler to raise his bank ac- count, and at one time he invested heavily in the Princes’ Trust. He pulled out just before disaster overtook this company. Before the war the Kaiser owned property in the United States also. This included holdings in the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads, and in U. 8. Steel. After the sinking of the Lusitania, when it became apparent that the United States would declare war, the Kaiser’s property in the United States was transferred very quickly to Argentina. Otherwise, it would have been sequestrated along with other nllen property. Wilhelm used to own 500 suits of clothing. He doesn’t need so many now. But he can raise Alfonso, no matter how many shirts the de- throned King of the Spaniards orders. GR. LE DUC DE GUISE, who would be King of France if the French had a king, has so much money that he spent $1,000,000 on his son’s wedding the other day. His son, Prince Henry, Count of Paris and Dauphin of France, married into a dethroned royal family, too. His bride is Isabelle, Princess of Orleans-Braganza, his -third cousin, and a descendant of the Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil. Her father, Prince Pierre, is the former pretender to the Brazilian throne. The Duke of Guise, still known as “Le Roi,” or “the King,” to the French Monarchists, planned a royal wedding. Fifty harps vibrated to the strains of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” and 54 princes and princesses followed the ~bride and her father over a great carpet 200 yards long, into the Cathedral of Palermo, in Sicily, where the ceremony took place. The bride had a priceless bridal veil of Brus- sells lace, some 20 feet long, which two attend- ants supported. Instead of a bridal wreath she had a circlet of diamonds.” Her dress was em- broidered with silver palm leaves. The cathedral blazed with tapestries and flowers and a stole set with Byzantine jewels which studded the mantle of Empress Con- stantia once upon a time, added the final royal touch. There were five huge pavilions at Orleans Palace, where 1,040 guests were emtertained at G1eat WealtH Ex-King Alfonso of Spain and his wife, the former Queen Victoria, who have & fortune of many million dollars. a champagne breakfast, dazzling to see, and very expensive. "THE groom’s wedding gifts to the bride in- cluded two pearl necklaces, two diamond diadems and a large amount of other Bourbon jewelry. The Duke of Guise may not have a crown, but he has enough money to do things with a royal gesture. He owns estates in Belgium, Italy and Morocco. Former King George of Greece and his ex- iled mother, Queen Sophie, widow of the late King Constantine, aren’t doing very much worrying about financial matters, either. King George’s wife is the eldest daughter of Queen Marie of Rumania. She was left nearly a half million dollars by her father, the late Ferdinand. Living in exile in Rumania isn' very hard on this particular group of the royad family. Ferdinand of Bulgaria managed to salvage enough money from his kingship to have g Continued on Sixth Page Just a Canadian rancher, not the heir apparent to a throne, the Prince of Wales photographed on his Canadian ranch to which he could retire if any- thing went wrong at homé,