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tend the hand of friendship to those who have worn the stripes of felony.

As men ostracized by our own volition, we do not ask, when set at liberty, to be taken into the gilded lap of exclusive society circles, nor do we expect to be taken into the houses of respectability. What What we do ask, and what we believe we have a right to expect, so long as our future conduct warrants it, is a fair trial and indiscriminate treatment from all. We want an equal chance with others - to breathe our allotted cubic inches of God's free air, and an untrammeled opportunity to hew our way back to a desirable citizenship.

The ex-convict furnishes the city sleuths with an ever-ready material as a substitute for the more elusive game that has outwitted their best endeavors.

Then again, trial by newspapers and often conviction before trial by jury furnish an unjust avenue by which many men find their way back to prison.

Vindictive and overzealous officers, nursing a grudge against the man who has made life unpleasant for them, do all in their power to get him the full extent of the law; failing in this, they put their grievance in cold storage and renewing other charges that may exist against the man, they patiently await the day of his discharge when they meet him at the gate with a consequential smile and a pair of handcuffs. For purely personal reasons they refuse to allow this man to "go forth and sin no more.'

One of the most formidable obstacles to reform is the ex-convict himself. Many convicts either in prison or out are natural birds of prey; as soon as they discover one of their former prison mates in a good position, trying to be a man again, they immediately proceed to levy an assessment upon his income as the price of silence.

If the demand is not complied with, they go to the employer and enlighten him regarding his employee. The business man calls the ex-convict to his office and says: "Why did you not tell me regarding your past?" "Because, " is the answer, "you would not have hired me if I had."

Whereupon the employer says he is very sorry but, of course, in justice to his patrons he can not keep an ex-convict in his service, even though it is only driving a delivery wagon, but owing to the fact

that he has been a faithful servant he gives him a letter of recommendation so he can fool some other business man, until again discovered.

An exaggerated case, you say. Not at all! It is related exactly as it happened, only thus far you have the comedy. The tragedy follows: The discharged man took his dismissal and money in silence, walked down Kearney Street in San Francisco to the first pawn-shop, bought a pistol, took the remaining money home to his old mother dependent upon him for support, then started out to find the man who had robbed him of an opportunity to live honestly. He found him on the waterfront, and, after a very short interview, left him perforated with bullet-holes. Result, a life sentence in San Quentin prison.

In every case the fact that a man has been in prison before, naturally militates against him and often is the unjust cause of having excessive punishment meted out to him.

One instance of a true case is that of a man who, in a drunken perambulation, crawled into a building through a window and dozed off into temporary bliss. An officer of the law discovered him, a Sherlock Holmes of deductive analysis and a McIvor Tyndall of mental penetration wove a web of circumstantial evidence against him. A jury of his peers found him guilty and the judge, on the strength of his having "done time" before, gave him forty years in prison. Think of it! Nearly half a century for sleeping in a place where he had no right to be.

Where, in the judgment of all fairminded people, should the reform begin in this particular case? This is not an exceptional case. I could name at least three hundred that have occurred in the past ten years in one state.

That there is a discordant note running through the scale of human symphony is universally acknowledged. It probably had its origin among the chattering monkeys on Ararat. If the time ever comes when a master hand can eliminate the discord, the churches will be transformed into havens of rest for redeemed criminals and the prisons turned into asylums for pious, penurious hypocrites who have been caught riding through this world on cut-rate tickets.

THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF A KING

BY

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I

ORWAY'S

DANIEL LOUIS HANSON

renaissance began in 1850," said Björnstjerne Björnson in the writer's presence

some years ago, "and was both rapid and thorough, giving to the

world a new school of literature, interpreted by its own national art and music. Norway now needs a commercial revival that will quicken her business pulse and make her young men manufacturers, miners and exporters, as well as up-to-date merchants. She needs a crisis, possibly a national danger, to sharpen her mere intellectuality into business acumen. She has the men and the national resources - when she begins to utilize them she will set a new pace for the world's commercialism.'

Björnson now lies in Norway's most beautiful necropolis, but he lived long enough to help precipitate the crisis and to fan into a welding heat his country's nationalism. By this he inaugurated a new era in her manufacturing and commerce. This business renaissance is as distinctly marked as the earlier revival in letters. Like that, it is well worth study, as it bears upon our trade relations with the Land of the Midnight Sun.

The new era had its inception in the year 1905, and took as its war cry "Norway for the Norwegians." "Its initial step was a political crisis, handled so diplomatically-words displacing gunpowder that Norway, without firing a shot, became independent of any other government, free to win or lose in the world's race as her policy and energy might direct.

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To Norwegians in America who felt that it might be necessary to immolate themselves upon the presidential altar of the

home land, this first step of the infant Norway seemed stumbling and calamitous. To reëstablish a monarchy, to elect a king instead of a president, was termed suicidal. But the returned prodigal, spending a few months in Norway study. ing people and statistics, is convinced, gradually, nevertheless forcibly, that the home land did both wisely and well. For he finds the measure of the wisdom of Norway's statesmen to be the progress made during the last five years.

Björnson said, years ago, that Norway had the men and the wealth, but needed a crisis to give birth to some national idea, a standard around which a thrifty people could rally and be inspired.

The new king, Haakon VII., became that standarda personality rather than an idea, there being already a surfeit of ideas. Norway welcomed a king twelve. months in the year rather than a possible six weeks in summer. She also had a queen, and, to insure stability to the new dynasty, a crown prince. In this royal family Norway found a new life and impulse.

There are kings and kings; some inspire respect by their personality and lineage, while others have origins shrouded in obscurity and find lessons necessary as to how the royal ermine should be trailed; their bourgeois names are more familiar than their kingly titles.

The new king of Norway qualifies in the first class. The grandson of "Europe's father-in-law," the late Christian of Denmark, he himself is the "nephew of Europe." One uncle is king of Denmark, another of Greece. The dowager empress of Russia is his aunt, so is the queen mother of Great Britain. He is cousin to his own wife, to the uneasy Kaiser, to the royal family of Spain and to the king of England. King Haakon

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has a corner on royal pedigree. To hold more firmly the loyalty of his new subjects, he assumed the good old Norwegian name of Haakon as his legal title; by nature he is physically equipped to call himself after that sturdy Norse king who took a delight in hanging barons, Haakon Longlegs.

To insure loyalty for his dynasty the Danish-born crown prince was quickly naturalized into Norsedom by being enswathed in the grand old saga name of Olav. So the tall king, the little, auburntressed queen and the yellow-haired crown prince constitute a royal family which, in five years, has endeared itself to a nation of over three million people.

Love and loyalty to a nation's ruler on the part of the governed must have a real subjective value in order to be permanent and marketable. A mere objective adulation is not coinable into dollars. The value of kings is being measured more and more, like that of university presidents, by the gold standard. What of Haakon and of Norway?

II

Two events in the year 1910 can be looked upon as milestones in Norway's march toward commercial prosperity: the exposition, at Bergen, and the new tariff law, effective July first.

The exposition, a small affair, sheltered itself behind the walls of the old fortress of the Hanseatic League. Small and unassuming, it was a revelation to the visitor from abroad, and, possibly, to the natives themselves, of the versatility and skill of Norwegian manufacturers and mechanics working under an inspiration.

The excessive diffidence and lack of self-assertion, which both Björnson and Ibsen considered as being the chief Norwegian faults, and the Gyntish habit of going around obstacles instead of over or through them, seemed to have disappeared. There was nothing wanting in the long line of Norwegian home products from an anchovy to an automobile, from a sewing machine needle to a torpedo boat, the last mentioned giving its hourly salute from the fjord front.

It was my good fortune on that July afternoon to walk through the exposition behind one of Europe's great rulers, who was making an incognito visit. He was

attended by a lone attaché, who made notes at his royal master's bidding. Merely to enumerate even what Norway had to offer for inspection will be impossible within the limits of a magazine article, but we can touch upon a few items that seemed particularly interesting to both royalty and plebeian.

Naturally, Norway stands preeminent in furnishing the table with smoked, dried and salted meats; fish preserved in more than fifty-seven ways, and cheeses made from goat's milk, most delicious to the palate, some of it selling for seventy cents. a pound in American markets. A biscuit establishment in Christiana had an exhibit of seventy-one different kinds of cake and crackers. Evaporated creams. and milk also were displayed, and preserved fruit in glass jars, all bearing the national guarantee for purity. In this section the attaché was very busy.

The furniture booths showed examples not only of national designs which were most attractive, but also imitations of French styles, named after various profligate kings. With her vast timber resources and workmen who have become skilled through long years of apprenticeship, Norway is doing wonders in the manufacture of furniture and interior woods.

In house-heating apparatus I felt sure of America's preeminence, but Norway has made long strides in that way as well. Among others was a decidedly unique house-heating boiler with some features about it that could well be copied by American manufacturers. Radiation I saw in only the plain patterns, with no attempt at decoration, but the tendency with us is in the same direction.

Enameled kitchen utensils were exhibited in large quantities, as well as enamel painted tin, and also printed tin. In this last mentioned were some fine examples of colorwork, and the attendant insisted that the tints were fast.

In the book department were shown some beautiful samples of the printer's and bookbinder's art, while the custodian with justifiable pride pointed to four hundred different volumes, written by Norwegian authors in fifty years — a concrete exhibit of the Norwegian renaissance in literature.

One of the surprising exhibits was that

of jewelry, the export trade in which has grown rapidly during the last five years. There was shown enamel work in silver and gold, bangle and filagree ornaments, the designs of which were much more chic than I had seen earlier along the Grand boulevards, in Paris. Christiana is especially interested in the manufacture of this sort of material, and the tourist will see along Carl Johans Gade of that city some very attractive show windows devoted almost entirely to bijouterie. Cutlery was also much in evidence, and silvermounted harnesses for either king's horses or the Laplander's reindeer. Boots also, from the spiked affair of the lumberman to a lady's dancing slipper, were exhibited, and the finer grades of shoes compared well with the American product; much better than I had seen on the Continent.

It was fitting that Ole Bull's home town, Bergen, should not neglect musical instruments. There were cases of violins and other stringed instruments, and several booths of organs and pianos, all made in Norway, and bearing a legend to that effect. I mentioned to an attendant that on the steamer from Germany I had seen a score of pianos and organs, made in Munich and Dresden.

"Yes, the cheaper ones come from there, but sixty-five dollars duty on a piano and twenty per cent on an organ will soon stop that."

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Only mention can be made of carriages, wagons of all sorts, sleighs, skates, skisa most wonderful collection guns, fishing rods, tackle and ammunition, all made in Norway. Royalty seemed very much. interested in automobiles and motor boats, which had a separate building set aside. for them.

An Englishman said to me: "Now I know where we can get goods without the 'made in Germany' label. If we with hold trade from cur Teutonic enemy, we will do more to cure his Anglophobia than if we were to send a dozen Dreadnoughts to Hamburg and Kiel."

My friend spoke in no uncertain accents, and I wondered if the ears of incognito royalty had caught his words.

On passing out through the gates I noticed a table laden with green-colored pamphlets I paid half a crown for one and read its title while waiting for one of

Bergen's intermittent showers to do its work: "The Tariff List, effective July 1, 1910."

III

Yes, Norway had a tariff, an infant as to days, but sturdy and able to hold its own; around it the whole economic fabric was already revolving. The study of the Norwegian people and their institutions became more complicated than had at rst promised. This was no longer a simple people, but a people with a protective. tariff, therefore a complex nation. I mentioned tariff at the breakfast table in Christiana one day to have the Storthing member, from Hardanger, say:

"It was sent from heaven to poor Norway."

The sentence rang with all the sincerity of earnest belief, and could not but waken in an American's heart the hope that a heaven-sent tariff might descend on the Land of the Free, where, with a larger population to work upon, it could do more good than in little Norway.

"But it is such a little tariff?" exclaimed the theological student at the other end of the table. We ventured a prophecy that it would grow-in timeas we had seen other tariffs grow.

"There are three kinds of customs levied," explained he from the Storthing, "one for revenue only, to light and protect our coast line, another for protection under which to build up manufacturing industries, and a third to cover luxuries." "But they are all drawn from the same pockets," I suggested.

"Yes, but in different ways,' "' insisted the Hardanger man.

The question of the tariff in Norway still can be looked upon by the visitor from the objective viewpoint, but as a student of economics he is anxious to see how that country will have its future affected by it. Can a land as small as she is, with limited, tillable acreage, prosper under this institution of national exclusiveness?

Some nations learn rapidly, and Norway among them. The new tariff went into effect July 1, 1910, and the first strike of mechanics was well under way in early May Building operations in Christiana stood still for over a month, but the men won and had three weeks of increased wages wherewith to anticipate the higher

prices which the tariff was suspected of trailing with it.

Said a retired sea captain who could look down from his island home on the economic turmoil which seemed to be agitating the land:

"It is harder to get money this year than it was last."

"Why, captain?”

"Well, a lot of new manufacturers are starting up small factories and are willing to pay more than either a farmer or a vessel owner feels justified in doing. But it will be all right in the long run, when we have learned what we can profitably manufacture and what we will have to let alone."

And our American heart echoed, "Yes, in the long run.”

Norway's tariff law seems to have to have back of it a united people and not a bureaucracy. The Storthing, which passed it, is a body of representatives from the entire people, and not of a venal faction desirous of exploiting itself at the expense of a whole nation.

"I don't believe that your tariff is going to build up any large factories," I said to the Storthing man from Hardanger.

"That is what we want to avoid, sir; we want a dozen small factories in an industry rather than a single large one.'

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In other words, the new tariff law of Norway is intended as a scientific solution of the country's commercial problems. Or, looking at it from another viewpoint, as the foundation on which to build up its permanent material prosperity.

Already one sees the signs of unrest throughout the kingdom. But it is a magnetic unrest that holds the young men at home, the emigration from Norway during the last year being the smallest in the forty years during which records have been kept. There is a disposition among even the younger element to see the game to its finish.

The tariff, however, has already touched the breakfast table. I asked a housewife in one of Christiana's suburbs:

"What does veal cost a pound?"

She hesitated a moment before replying, then said:

"I'm just figuring it up as we, this year, haven't bought more than a quarter of a pound at a time. It is so much higher than it was twelve months ago.

And cheese is higher, too; twenty-seven cents a pound for goat cheese against seventeen cents last July."

Inquiry developed the fact that everything was higher-bread, butter, eggs, cheese, oil, as well as house furnishing goods and clothing, but yet no one complained, or else ended a mild complaint with: "It's going to cost us something. to boost Norway, but we are willing to pay the price."

But what of Haakon the Seventh?

We have seen what five years have done among the people in manufacturing, nerving it to incorporate so serious an economic document as the tariff law into its commercial life. What more will be done along that line during the next four years, the great National Exposition at Christiana, in 1914, will demonstrate.

The government, however, has not been idle. It has put into operation a system of land grants that is developing agriculture and forestry. Steps have been taken under national auspices to utilize the tremendous power that heretofore has been hurling itself in ten thousand places over the rocks in the form of waterfalls.

During the reign of Haakon, the national railway mileage has been almost doubled, and the Storthing of 1910 passed appropriations for lines opening up hitherto undeveloped sections. There might also be mentioned as one of the steps in Norway's march-whether progressive or retrogressive, time only will show the granting of universal suffrage to women. Not, however, because of any militant qualities they have displayed.

More than all these, however, is the change that has come over the national character. The Norwegian has passed, from a pessimistic attitude that formerly made him a destructive critic of whatever the government did, into that of a constructive optimist. Nothing so clearly indicated that, as the debates to which I listened in the Storthing during July. They were so different from the acrimonious discussions that had characterized that body under the old régime.

And has Haakon done all these things? Yes, by being a personality rather than a system, by smiling cheerfully when other rulers would have made speeches, necessitating their being pulled out by a derrick. Haakon the Seventh smiles whenever one

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