Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-12
BY BEN JAMES.

VIKING chief in a black broad
~ cloth morning coat--a bearded
"A giant dropped out OF Valnalla 70
4 4 make governments ana leao
parliaments-an ancient lord of
cold seas as prime minister OF highly
integrated and finely organized modern
nation. Thorvald Staining, Denmark's
Socialist premier and minister OF trace
and fisheries, who will visit America
this Summer, calls forth such charac-
terizations. His massive size, his force
and daring and his dreams tempered
bv stern realities give him the qualities
of leadership that have endowed the
great man of Morse history. AND
Staining is making Danish history.
AS I Travelled over Denmark to keep
an appointment with Premier Staining,
the snow whirled in gale through the
stern arch of a castle wall. Beyond its
moat, spiked towers on a fortress OF
Denmark's ancient kings were slender
shadows in the blizzard. The building
Is used as a museum, while the King
resides in a less pretentious abode. l
visited a white manor house where the
rooms once occupied by Danish baron
are used for a folk high school at
tended by adult farmers for a three
month term each year.
Big Estates Divided.
Rolling beyond the house to the hori-
zon, land that at one time had been q
single estate was dotted by matched
rooted farmhouses, the property Of small
Individual farmers. For taxes upon large
estates, verging upon conflscation, have
shattered the huge domains Of landed
proprietors, and the government has
aided in financing and establishing the
peasantry on their own farms.
Throughout the streets OF Copen-
hagen to a riotouS beating OF drums
the Kings guard, in tall bearSkin hats
and gay blue uniforms. thumped over
the cobbles. But their present status
NAV soon be gone. for Stauning'S So
cialist government has proposed
startling reduction of ornaments bill,
which calls for the reorganization OF
the army and the establishment OF
national police force in its place.
The spirit which effected these politi-
cal and social establishments and eco
nornic transitions Of the postwar period
in Denmark without the bloodshed nor
sensational demonstration that charac-
terized such changes in many European
Countries Is embodied in Thorvald
Staining. Though personally a dra-
matte figure, he accompliShes his ends
without fanfare Of trumpets. Though
a Socialist of deep conviction, he is no
apostle Of violent change. The Danes
like him for this. For the Danish
people, though not afraid to alter their
Institutions to meet the demands of the
changing world, are fundamentally too
conservative, even in so-called radical
circles, to subscribe to the vague expert
mentations of fanatical dreamers.
So twice they have made Thorvald
Staining prime minister-the first time
in 1924 for two years, and the second
time in 1929, when his present regime
began.
Compared With Macdonald.
Great Britain's Labor Prime Minister,
Ramsay Macdonald, and Thorvald
Staining have twice served as heads of
socialist governments at approximately
the same time. And between them run
threads of both similarity and contrast.
Both men have been ardent socialists
since youth, and both married women
who were vitality interested in the same
cause and took active part in it. Both
wives died before their husbands came
into power. Through the ranks of their
respective parties Staining and Mac
Donald both worked their way to the
top. Each has limited end uncertain
majority in Parliament and both have
faced crises, to win by very narrow
margins.
But here the similarities end. Mac
Donald, the idealist and dreamer, adj
hered to an Intellectual conviction first
gained through books and then applied
10 life. He. merges the scholar and the