St. Paul tidende. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1902-1928, 1920-05-07
Chr BnlittraI Urtats
iii Drnmark.
BY Palline Dagger

By Palline Dagger
The upheaval in Copenhagen re-
minds one of Voltaire's storm in a
glass of water. 1t looked serious for
two or three days, and almost droll.
One could not help wondering if the
last remaining kings we're trying to
destroy themselves out Of sheer ennui,
born of loneliness. 1T was the king,
the amiable, popular king himself who
seemed to have let loose the Danish
revolution. This seven-foot monarch,
who used to be the idol even of the
Danish Social Democrats, suddenly
began to rattle his sabre, just by way
of reminding the Reds of his severe
ign presence, and every one wondered
what was going to happen.
The King dismissed the Zahle Cabi-
net which had been at the helm since
1913 and had thus earned the credit
for having kept Denmark out of the
war. When the final accounts come
to be drawn, it may be found that
Zahle's success in preserving neutral
ity was due more to sheer good luck
than to the inherent wisdom of his
course and King Christian may also
have had reason to think that the
Slesvig policy Of the Zahle Admini-
stration had ingredients other than
wisdom. 70 appreciate Danish policy
regarding Slesvig it is necessary to
understand it's historic background,
And the. salient features of that back
ground have been Prussian brutality
in 1864, when the provinces were torn
from the Danish realm, and the Prus.
sian tyranny I've since. Thousands
OF the younger generation of Danes
emigrated from Slesvig and as time
passed and the old au"tochthonous ge.
neration died out, Germans moved in
to the province and took the places OF
the dead and the exiled. Thousands
|Of those Danes who were left were
killed in the war. The. provision OF
the peace treaty whereby expatriated
ISlesvigers were allowed to return and
cast their vote unfortunately did moi
embrace those slumbering in the gra
veyards of northern France and O.
Poland.
10 many Danes, by no means chauvin
lists, it remains an enigma why the
lZahle Government through it's spokes
man at Paris, the Foreign Minister
Erik Scavenius, adhered to the old un
executed clause Of the Treaty of Wen
ma concerning az plebisciter in NORTH
|Slesvig. If the Danish delegation haC
accepted the whole province of Sles
Wig, as originally offered by the En-
tente, and if Denmark had then bough'
out the German colonists, called HON,
the Slesvig exiles, and drawn the fina
boundary the line~which separated til,
German from the Danish districts il
1S4S, the result thus obtained would
have seemed intrinsically more just t,
many Danes, including their King. Th,
Zahle Government may have been oh
sessed by age-long- fear of the oil,
enemy, Germany, and the Danish Soc
|1al Democrats, faithful pupils of Mar,
and Engels and Bebel, are sOmewha
tenderly disposed toward the pseudo
Socialist Republic of Germany. Suc]
considerations may, in part, have in
fluenced the decision at Paris.
The land-owning Danish peasantr,
disliked the social politics of Her
Zahle and his friends. Taxes were to-
high, wage. regulations too elaborate
unemployment aids too generous, price
fixing too severe, governmental inter
ference in all lines of public activit,
too annoying. The ~aristocracy remem
bered only too well that as a result O
the constitutional reform of 1913=191.
1t&had to give up it's acres for the pur
poses of appropriation and the creation
of small freehold farms; they hate,
with a genuine and natural hatre,
Fable, the little fat son of a mere shoe
maker. Among Herr Zahle's Cabine
colleagues it would be difficult to de
eide which was the least popular witt
these elements. There was the Minis
ter of the Interior, Owe Rode, accom-
llshed author and. journalist, who ha,
appointed himself the guardian ange
OF the farmers, telling them how t
manage their holdings, how many hea
OF cattle, how many hogs and hens t
keep, how many to sell. TheMinister q
Finance, Edward Brandes, a Jew
younger brother of the great critic, wa
hardly more beloved by the countr
folk. And then the impressive shade,
behind them all, that of Herr Bore
bjerg, foremost leader of the Socia
Democrats, who, not himself a Minis
ter, was popular called the father Q
the Cabinet" They were all hated b
the upper and the upper middle classe.
whose hatred was blessed and encou1
aged by "Sir". j. G. Christensen, til
idol of the prosperous peasants, VIII
in the zenith of his glory had bee
knighted by King Edward VII.
Doubtless it was this hatred of til
possessing classes that King. Christia
built the fortress of his defiance whe
he dismissed Zahle and chose to SUI,
plant him with men who had neve
taken an active part in politics, bu
who were known generally at the yer
bulwark of conservatism. They wer
men of the "strong hand" type, me
of an iron character and castiron view
the lawyer Otto Liebe and the surs
con DIR. Revising.
For a moment it really looked lik
civil a Flensborg;r poor little oil
town, stood revealed for an instant q
a mere pretext-that is, to every on
except the King. To King Christian
Flensborg lowered as a vital problem
For Christian X.is the king of an oil
Viking land, and, moreover, a king az
dicted to riding on a great white hors
lat the head of his troops. It is nature
that such a king should remember, j
this revolutionary age, the golden pas
when little. Denmark was the mistres
OF all Scandinavian, England, Scotland
North Germany, and of Latvia and E!
thonia that a tall king on a fine whit
.lcharqar Of tho hood of q small CON