Fan Mail

Sweden's burly Premier Per Albin Hansson has been called "the Swedish Roosevelt." Swedes call Franklin Roosevelt "the American Hansson." Actually the two are not much alike. Franklin Roosevelt is a liberal aristocrat, estate-owner, stamp-collector, smile-flasher, compleat angler, statesman both in profession and profile. Premier Hansson looks like a cross between a pixie and a professional wrestler. He is of humble stock, self-educated, solemn. He lives in a tiny five-room house, and hangs around bowling alleys in his spare time. One similarity: U. S. citizens refer to their President either lovingly as Franklin D., or as that Roosevelt; Swedes either speak of good Per Albin or use certain short Nordic adjectives.

Last week Per Albin Hansson received tons of letters and telegrams. Some of them praised him to the skies. Some threatened unpleasant death. They were all about two declarations he recently made: the first said that Sweden would give Finland nothing more than unofficial aid; the second explained why--"Unanimity for intervention cannot be found in the Swedish people."

One other obvious reason for Swedish nonintervention: Stockholm is within very easy bombing distance of Berlin as well as Leningrad. Last week a curious deal was reported arranged between Sweden and Germany. Premier Hansson's Government agreed to buy all the arms of Swedish make and pattern which Germany captured in Poland. Germans had no use for guns of a different type from their own. What made the deal curious was that the only imminent use Sweden could make of them would be against Germany's ally Russia.

Meanwhile Per Albin Hansson's letters kept pouring in. They put to confusion those who believed Swedish opinion was overwhelmingly for intervention. Most of them praised the Premier's neutrality. But those which did not were in such unpretty language that police immediately stationed two detectives and police dogs at his Appelviken ("The Apple Blossom") villa and, wherever he went at the wheel of his little Chrysler, shadowed him in a big, radio-equipped police car.

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