"Old Man Pehr"

Every year on the President's birthday thousands of Finns march merrily past his yellow Palace in Helsingfors roaring, "Maamme! Maamme! Our Land! Our Land!" To buy the President a "birthday present" money was raised this year by nation-wide subscription--on the distinct understanding that the President will donate his present to help fight tuberculosis (Finns being especially susceptible to this disease). Last week came the 70th birthday of a National Hero elected last February: President Pehr Evind Svinhufvud whom 4,000,000 Finns call Ukko Pekka ("Old Man Pehr''). Outside the little yellow Palace with its "palace guard" of two trig sentries, patriotic groups gathered one after another all day to warble:

Maamme! Maamme! Our Fatherland! Oh, sacred word sound high! As on our fathers' soil we stand, No hill nor vale, nor sunny strand, Nor fertile plain 'neath southern sky Can with our bleak North vie!

President Svinhufvud is famed and beloved chiefly because his efforts to free the former Grand Duchy of Finland from Russia landed him at first in an even bleaker place than Finland, namely the Tsarist prisons of Siberia. In 1914 six Tsarist Secret Police marched into Judge Svinhufvud's Court, arrested him for sedition, chased everyone out of the courthouse, sealed it with the Double Eagle of Imperial Russia and lodged their prisoner in a Finnish jail whence he would be deported to Siberia. Indomitable Mrs. Svinhufvud took in boarders while her husband languished in Siberian exile, visited him every winter by permission of the Tsarist Government--which meant a freezing journey of some 2,000 miles, much of it by sleigh.

In 1917 the collapse of Imperial Russia freed Prisoner Svinhufvud who was hailed as a hero on his return to Helsingfors. became President of the Senate (1917-18) and Regent of Finland (1918). Threatened by Red Russia. Regent Svinhufvud offered the Crown of Finland to Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, brother-in-law of Wilhelm II (who did not abdicate until November 1918). During the interval Prince Frederick Charles accepted Finland's Crown but delayed and dillydallied about going so far into the "bleak North" until too late. Temporarily, Finland went Red in spots. Several Finnish landowners were murdered in their beds, and Regent Svinhufvud had to lie low.

Victory for the Allies and the appearance of a British expeditionary force in Finland were signals for Democracy. On June 17, 1919 the Finnish Diet proclaimed the present Finnish Republic and ex-Regent Svinhufvud took up the life of a country gentleman on his Finnish farm.

Eleven years later Finland again had need of Ukko Pekka, much as Republican Germany whose first president was the Socialist Friederich Ebert turned at last to the former Monarchist von Hindenburg. In 1930 Gentleman Farmer Svinhufvud became Premier. Early this year he who had been Regent was elected President. Under his frowning rule (for the steely eyes can be stern as well as twinkle) Communism has been made illegal in Finland, Communists punished or forced into other parties. "But we know where they are," rumbles the President contentedly, "We keep a good watch on those fellows."

On Dec. 29 Finns will vote in national referendum to maintain, modify or abolish their Prohibition (TIME, Dec. 14). Last week the campaign was scarcely hot, both Prohibitionists and antiProhibitionists complaining that Depression had deprived them of funds sufficient to make adequate propaganda. Thus the vote should show what the Finnish people, unprompted, really want.

Desperately anxious to remain impartial, Finland's Archbishop Ingman ordered his Lutheran clergy to omit Prohibition from their sermons last week and said: "The gospel gives no indication of any special system to settle the drinking problem."

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