Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1901 — NORWAY’S NEW RULER STIRRING UP TROUBLE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NORWAY’S NEW RULER STIRRING UP TROUBLE.

Crown Prince Gustav Adolph, heir to the double crown of Sweden and 'Norway, is in the king business just at present, and the chances are that it will eventually get him into trouble. His aged and amiable father, King Oscar, to whom he bears a marked resemblance, is ill and feeble, and Gustav has been appointed regent. The king has so many ailments that it Is

thought probable that he will never sit upon the throne again. When 'Prince Gustav becomes king in name as well as in fact the world will begin to hear about him straightway, not because he is brilliant and daring, but because he is going to get Into hot water, which is now in process of heating for him. The new regent is 40, tall and good looking, with a strong will. He has rigid views upon justice, but lacks any great talent for diplomacy, as well as that peculiar magnetism that marks the present king of Norway and Sweden. In 1881 ohe married Princess Victoria of Baden-Baden. He already has been regent twice during indispositions of the king. The members of the Storthing are lying in wait for the prince, not onl£ because he took sides against them in a recent crisis, but also because of certain passages at arms which they have recently been having with the king. In token of the union of the two peoples, a part of the colors of Sweden were added to the flag of Norway, and this act met with no favor from the Norwegian nation. The Storthing passed three bills abolishing it, and each of them the king vetoed, and by virtue of the triple passage the kingly position was overturned. The crown prince not only openly espoused his father’s views, but observed that possibly a march of Swedish troops through the Norse country would have a salutary effect. He has always been known to favor Sweden more or less. Should the king die trouble would certainly fdllow between the new monarch and his people unless Gustav changed his ideas to suit those of the two countries. The crown prince is generally credited with having the welfare of his people at heart, but he is an ardent admirer of the emperor of Germany, and has also made military natters a study, and it Is no secret that

his policy as king probably would be along the lines of William the Second to None. Norway and Sweden are not fond of the idea of being launched as a military power. Gustav’s younger brother, Oscar, is far more popular than he. Oscar is the prince who gave up his prospects of succession to the throne in order to marry Ebba Munck, his mother’s pret-

ty maid of honor. Incidentally Oscar’s mother. Queen Sophia, has made a will leaving to him all her money, some 115,000,000. Poor Gustav will be lucky if he Inherits more than a pittance of $5,000,000 from his father. IF is possible that Oscar may yet be king. His mother’s fortune came from the gambling tables of Wiesbaden, which were a source of great revenue to the house of Nassau. Ebba Munck of Fulkila is a Norwegian of a descent which the people of Norway, where even the peasantry are descendants of Vikings, look upon as far superior to that of King Oscar 11., the grandson of the private of marines who afterward became Mar-

shal Bernadotte in the first Napoleon’s armies, and the king of Sweden and Norway. The forcing of Prince Oscar to give up all rights of succeeding to his father’s throne because of his mar-

riage with Miss Munck angered the .hardy Norwegians, and they have ever since had a great affection for that prince. When he visited the Norwegian capital, Christiania, with his bride shortly after his marriage the whole city turned out to give him a royal ! welcome, which was participated in by the Norwegian authorities. Norway is in no way a vassal state of Sweden. It has its own flag and its own government, and the only bondof union between the two countries is the throne. Recently, upon the opening of the Norwegian parliament, the Shorthing, the king’s son, the crown prince, was present, and the king had him take the oath of allegi-

ance to the crown of Norway, expecting that the ceremony would please the Norwegians. The prince’s oath was received in silence, and a member remarked afterward, ‘‘Such a proceeding was against all precedent and was merely a piece of state stage play. The Norwegians are not cajoled so easily.”

The name of Bernadotte plays almost the part of a family skeleton in the royal circle at Stockholm, and when Prince Oscar claimed it for himself, the king would not hear the name mentioned. _He Insisted that Prince Oscar should take the title of Count of Wisborg. This Prince Oscar did, and then simply added that of Prince Bernadotte.' But for the military genius of John Bernadotte, the private of marines, King Oscar IT. would never have worn the dual crown of Norway and Sweden, yet the king strives to forget that he had such a grandfather. Not so Prince Oscar, and his stubbornness and the fact that he will come into a great fortune upon the death of his aged mother, joined to the fact that he has allied himself with an old Norwegian family, which the other members of the reigning house have snubbed, have made him the idol of the hardy men of Norway. It is possible that one day, sooner than is expected, Ebba Munck and her faithful lord will reign in Christiania over a devoted people.

CROWN PRINCE GUSTAV ADOLPH who is Now Practically King of Norway and Sweden