Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1919-05-17
tByG. S. s%trandvold.)

I IAll over the world .Norwegtans
| gather. today in commentator o..
the one hundred fifth anniversary Of
their constitution. and they Will avai.
| themselves of the annual opportunl.y
to demonstrate that their loyaity 70
the ideals of liberty. and genuine dense
| ocracy is as answering as 1t Is en-
th%usiastic.
The love Of democracy is. indeed. a
| traditional creed among the Morse
men. and it has manifested itself up
on numerous occasions during centur-
les; one early proof of that is the
election of a queen in 1887 which
came about in the following manner:
While Haakon v was king OF NOR
ried the Swedish Duke Erik. and
when Haakon died just six hundred
years ago (1319), his grandson, Mag
nus, although but three years old.
succeeded to both the Norwegian and
the Swedish throne, the two countries
thus entering into a union. In l343
King Magnus handed ver the greater
part of Norway to his 10 Haakon
vi who married the Danish Princess
Margrete; their son, Olaf V. who was
already king of Denmark. SUCCEEDED
to the Norwegian throne in 1880. but
when he died seven ear later the
| Norwegian people elected his mother
their aueen-chiefy to escape from
the necessity of putting King Albrecht
| of Sweden, a German prince, on their
throne; a few years later the people
| electen Erik Of Pomerania their king
and thus again made clear to the
world that they believed in self-deter-
mination long before that word was
invented.
Peasants Remained Frecmcn.
Erro~ oo7 uhon NOruav- nonmark
and Sweden were Joined in h Kali
mar Union, until 1914, the year of
the dissolution of the Dano-Norwe-
gian- union, the history of Norway
was replete with stormy episodes, and
again the people asserted their rights
to have something to say about the
manner in which they were to be gov
erned.
AS an interesting illustration of this
It may be mentioned that while the
Danish peasant for a long time re-
manned in the shackles of serfdom.
his Norwegian counterpart remained
a freeman; whenever occasion pre-
scented itself, he used his influence for
the purpose of ~paralyzing the power
of the nobility, and he consistently re-
fused to be cowed by kings and
princes who seemed unfair in their
attitude to the people.
1IldI od1iiC split Vi AIIoolIiilooiS
democracy again made itself appar-
ent in 1914. In consequence of the
Napoleonic wars the Kiel treaty of
January IA made it necessary for
King Frederik VI of Denmark to alb
solve the N~orwegians from their oath
of allegiance, and the well-meaning
but s~horsighted monarch urged them
to become loyal subjects of the Swed-
ish king.
Protest Against Treaty.
With characteristic 1rlnness the
| N~orwegfans refused to be bound by
the stipulations of the Kiel treaty,
stoutly maintaining that they had not
been consulted about the matter. The
Danish king, they said, had a perfect
right to his claims to the
Norwegian crown, but he could not
dispose Of an entire kingdom without
the consent of its people.
That attitude found Its concrete ex-
preston in the meeting at Eidsvold,
where on May II. 1914. a constitu-
ton was formed, based upon those OF
the United States, of Spain and of
France, and on November 4, an x
t%raordinary Storting summoned at
Christiania adopted the constitution
and declared Norway to be "a free,