purpose, marched
in procession to the Royal Castle to address the King and tell
him that they were ready to bear any extra taxes imposed for the
purpose of providing for national defence.

Russia was the power particularly feared by Sweden who thought
she desired to annex a part of Northern Sweden and Norway in
order to get an outlet to the sea on the Norwegian coast.

But recent events in Russia have ended this fear and the only
question for the Swedes is the same, one with which the whole
world is faced--Kaiserism or Democracy.

Sven Hedin, the explorer, who was the leader in this movement for
national defence, has appeared as a German propagandist so
violent as to have become popular with the Germans. It is hard to
understand why so intelligent a man should range himself on the
side of autocracy. Now that the Russian danger, if danger there
was, is past it is to be hoped that this celebrated man will be
found in the ranks of those opposed to the autocracy which
ordered the murders of many Swedish seamen.

Norway, although it has often met the submarine of the Kaiser,
which, defying all law, has sent to death so many Norwegian
sailors and fishermen, suffers also from German propaganda and a
certain self interest because of the forty-five million kronen
sale of fish this last year to German buyers.

Germany works, too, in Denmark with the Socialists and deliveries
of coal are used to obtain food from that country.

The jolly, free, brave Scandinavians are naturally opposed to all
that Pan-Germanism and German rule means. It is necessary for us,
especially our citizens of Scandinavian descent, not to lose this
initial advantage.

CHAPTER XVII

SWITZERLAND--ANOTHER KIND OF NEUTRAL

Free Switzerland! You cannot imagine the feeling of relief I
experienced as I passed from the lands of the Hohenzollerns and
Hapsburgs to a free republic.

It was February 11, 1917. To go into the railroad station
restaurant and order an omelette and fried potatoes without a
food card and with chocolate on the side seemed in itself a
return to liberty.

Our Minister, Mr. Stovall, gave us a dinner and evening reception
so that we could meet all the notables and we lunched with the
French Ambassador (for France maintains an Embassy in Switzerland)
and dined with the British Minister, Sir Horace Rumbold, a very
able gentleman who had been Chancellor of the British Embassy in
Berlin before the war.

As war had not yet b