From the Throne

Someone must write the words that kings utter from their thrones, and last week King Gustaf V of Sweden opened Parliament with words said to have been written and certainly approved by that onetime rural blacksmith, Herr Carl Gustaf Ekman, now Prime Minister.

Although Sweden's parliament building is handsome, sumptuous, the opening ceremonies took place at His Majesty's great island Palace in Stockholm. Up its majestic stair and down the Long Gallery to the Hall of State paraded Deputies and Ministers among whom loomed the monolithic figure of Herr Ekman.

Born in central Sweden, the son of a stonecutter, he seemed to have achieved his natural apogee when he became a blacksmith of local renown and a humble member of the abstemious Order of Good Templars. Fate decreed that he should chance upon embezzlement within the Order, and his resultant fiery zeal to purge the organization led to wholesale disclosures and brought him to the rank of Grand Master, no empty title in a land where prohibition has been so long a burning issue. Rising rapidly, Carl Ekman was chosen editor of a large prohibitionist journal, then vaulted to the rank of Deputy. Throughout a stormy career his massive, gesticulative thumb and his characteristic exclamation "It is my firm conviction!", have stood him in trusty stead. Always he has identified himself with the practical and social rather than the moral or cultural phases of prohibition. He has helped to evolve for Sweden the most advanced, consistently workable system of State liquor control in the World (TIME, June 14, 1926). Finally his rise to the Prime Ministry. 19 months ago, marked a shift in Swedish politics from Socialism back to Liberalism.

Consistent with this shift were the words spoken, last week, by tall, bearded, pincenezed King Gustaf V expounding from his Throne what a onetime blacksmith proposes to do, this year: 1.) Reduce the Socialistic national taxes on earned and unearned income; 2.) Maintain local taxes as at present; 3.) Press on with practical social legislation, especially that designed to protect the morals of the young.