Nearer Beer

Wets in the Finnish Diet, parliament of the world's No. 2 Prohibition country, did their best to give a handsome Christmas present to thirsty Finns last week. They introduced a bill to raise the alcoholic content of legal beer from 1.6% to 3% by weight.* The measure was rejected (97-86) but, impressed by the closeness of the vote, the Cabinet ministers dropped unofficial but important hints that so soon as the ice is out of the lakes and canals next spring, the Government will introduce laws preparatory to a national referendum on Prohibition. (Finland's present Constitution does not provide for public referenda.) Finnish observers credited this parliamentary Wetness last week to the final windup of the famed Stahlberg kidnapping case, an affair whose origin had nothing whatever to do with Prohibition. Two months ago, after frugally breakfasting on bread and butter, porridge and coffee, out for a walk went Finland's George Washington or First President (1919-25)--Professor Kaarlo Juho Stahlberg. With him walked his wife. Esther, one of Finland's ablest female novelists. Scarcely were they out of sight of their house than they were whisked at pistol-point into an automobile, hurtled all day and all evening over the soggy, rutty Finnish roads toward the Russian border. When the car ran out of gasoline 60 mi. from Russia, the kidnappers jumped out, left Dr. and Mrs. Stahlberg to walk to the nearest town. They got home safely but the country was shocked. In Finland the Lapua (antiCommunist) Movement had just succeeded in driving Communism out of the Diet after a whirlwind election campaign whose tactics included kidnapping Communists and booting them over the Soviet frontier. Dr. Stahlberg had been rumored as listed among the bootees not as a Communist but as a Progressive, oldtime foe of the conservative parties. Finns have regarded the Communist kidnappings with marked complacency, but kidnapping their George Washington was another matter. Something had to be done. Detectives worked furiously. Last week eight persons were brought to trial, the spotlight was fixed on the chief conspirators: Major General K. Martii Wallenius, former Chief of the Finnish General Staff, and Colonel Kuussaari, head of the Staff's mobilization section. In court last week the prosecutor slid over, the details of the kidnapping attempt, concentrated on the state of Prohibition enforcement in Finland which the evidence brought out. Taxi drivers stationed near the Stahlberg villa told of a mysterious car that had lurked about the neighborhood for several days before the Stahlbergs' abduction, thought that it was a bootlegger making his deliveries. The kidnappers themselves swore that they had received orders from General Wallenius and Colonel Kuussaari, that both were drunk at the time, so drunk that the morning after they gave the order for the abduction they had forgotten all about it, which was the reason the kidnapping failed for lack of co-operation and gasoline.

Sober and chastened. General Wallenius and Colonel Kuussaari were dismissed from the army, sentenced to three years in prison.

"Public opinions," wrote a Helsingfors correspondent, "has been shocked by the disclosures that in a Prohibition country high officers while carrying out important duties indulge in carousals."

* 3% of alcohol by weight equals about 3.8% by volume.

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