Aftenposten
- When Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel Both Saw and Heard
- Executive Board Opens Construction of the New Municipal Buildings at Ila to Free Competition
- Hans E. Kinck
Days before Norway's new referendum on the spirits ban, the morning front page led with an editorial that set Johan Ludwig Mowinckel's 1919 case against the spirits ban — his signature on the Bergen appeal and his statements to Dagbladet and Tidens Tegn — beside his newly declared prohibitionism, and urged readers to vote no again. A news report described how Oslo's executive board, on the city architect's advice, put masonry and carpentry for two new municipal blocks at Ila out to tender, arguing that contract work would lower costs and rents and that most of the 102 municipal building workers would have to be let go under either system. A signed tribute by I. A. Refsdal mourned the writer Hans E. Kinck, who had died suddenly at home the day before, and praised his roughly 40 works and his twin spiritual homes in Norway and Italy.
Translation
When Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel Both Saw and Heard
A few days ago Dr. Sopp, here in this paper, confronted the Sven Aarrestad of 1911 with the Sven Aarrestad of 1926. Everyone knows Sven Aarrestad's burning prohibitionist fanaticism of today, but very few knew that in 1911 he was a decided opponent of prohibition. Dr. Sopp's article was read with interest and — astonishment. If not with the same astonishment, then at least with equal interest, readers will renew their acquaintance with Mr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel and his positions on prohibition.
In the Storting this spring Mr. Mowinckel stated that he had fallen into great doubt about where he stood on prohibition. He could not then say with certainty whether he would vote for or against prohibition. Since then Mr. Mowinckel has evidently overcome his doubt. In the lectures he has recently given, he has at any rate let it shine clearly through that he is now a prohibitionist body and soul and that he will vote accordingly. Mr. Mowinckel apparently no longer harbours any doubt. Nor did he at the referendum in 1919, but then his conviction — to use so solemn an expression in connection with Mr. Mowinckel — went in another direction; then it went against prohibition.
We will not deny our readers the pleasure of seeing what Mr. Mowinckel said at that time. First, he was to be found among the signatories of the well-known Bergen appeal, which states: “Experience under this temporary prohibition has proved that the total abstinence of an entire people from alcohol cannot be forced through by legal prohibition; that such a prohibition on the contrary leads to lawbreaking, and thereby the morals of the people and their respect for the laws are weakened. Illicit distilling, surrogate drinking, illegal beer brewing in the countryside and smuggling have become the effects of prohibition,” etc.
This was the appeal, or rather part of it — signed by Mr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel among many others. But Mr. Mowinckel did not content himself with such a mass product. He also spoke out on his own account and said, among other things, about the said appeal: “It is only after careful and conscientious deliberation that I have signed the Bergen appeal against prohibition.” And his conviction bade him say more. He said: “The prohibition which even then still stood before me as a benefit for our people (the temporary prohibition during the war) has, if such an expression may be used, burst itself — and everything we now see and hear — if we are willing to see and hear — has given me the conviction that our people will not be served by a prohibition fixed in law. It will not promote sobriety. The way the drink traffic is now developing under prohibition, it is to the shame and harm of us all. — In all classes, in all strata of the population, laws and ordinances in this field are broken — and they are broken without any sign of a bad conscience or of indignation at the breaches.”
All this Mr. Mowinckel said to Dagbladet on 30 August 1919. But he had not yet poured out all his venom and gall over prohibition. The same day he says in Tidens Tegn: “But no one can avoid seeing that prohibition has now burst, and that — the longer it lasts — it will lead us into ever more worrying conditions, ever less worthy of the whole country. I think it takes a great deal to take on the responsibility for letting it continue the way it is now going.”
Those were the words. They fit, if possible, even better today than in 1919, but for Mr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel, it seems, they no longer fit. Now — if Mr. Mowinckel no longer sees or hears, or will not see and hear, to stay with his manner of expression from 1919, then at any rate we others, who shared his view then and have been further confirmed in it today, cannot “take the responsibility for letting it continue the way it is now going.” This time too we vote against prohibition, and with a larger following than in 1919!
Large anti-prohibition meeting Sunday the 17th at 1 o'clock. [?]
Executive Board Opens Construction of the New Municipal Buildings at Ila to Free Competition
It will provide cheaper and thus more houses and lower rents.
In accordance with City Architect Aars's proposal, the executive board decided last evening that tenders be invited for the masonry and plastering work and the carpentry for the two new blocks to be built on Ilaløkken. After reviewing various completed municipal and private buildings, the city architect remarks in his report:
I consider it thereby demonstrated that one can build at least as cheaply, if not more cheaply, by contract as on running account, and my personal view, on the basis of the experience I now have, is that under entirely equal and comparable conditions it is impossible for the municipality to build as cheaply on account as by contract. This of course has nothing to do with politics. It is a purely factual assessment. Work on account was not only justified but necessary as long as the war lasted and in the first years after it. But as conditions now stand with us, the system no longer fits. The task is to provide the house-seeking population with homes at an affordable price. And then building costs must come down as far as possible. That this can most surely be achieved by using the tender system I have no doubt.
With this view of the matter, the question then arises whether there is any reason to maintain the large and costly administrative apparatus that work on account requires. If it is established that this system represents no economic gain for the municipality, I cannot see that it is justified to keep the apparatus for its own sake, particularly in these times, when simplification is sought on all sides.
It has been pointed out that the municipality after all holds stocks of building materials. There will, however, be no difficulty in obliging any contractor to use the municipality's own materials by preference. Consideration for the municipal building workers has further been cited. Of bricklayers, carpenters etc., there are now 102 men in all at Ila and Nordre Aasen. But of course one cannot keep all of these, and particularly not the timbermen, joiners and the like, on the payroll until one can provide them with employment on the new buildings at Ila. Unfortunately one will no doubt be forced to dismiss most of them, whether one builds on account or by contract. — Where so many millions of kroner of taxpayers' money are concerned, the economic consideration must play the decisive role. And the cheaper the houses, the more dwellings. Only by subjecting the work to free competition can the most favourable result be achieved.
Hans E. Kinck
Hans E. Kinck died suddenly at his home here in Oslo yesterday. He turned 61 last Monday.
Kinck is dead. It comes as such a cruel surprise. His giant bodily strength had, it is true, suffered a blow not long ago. But his zeal for work nevertheless continued at high tension. And it is only hours since he was lavishing sparkling life around him among friends in the intervals of the most intense creative work at his desk. And now suddenly he is no more. His gaze is extinguished, the eye that seemed to reach further than everyone else's, across expanses and through depths where we could only follow him by intuition. We shall not hear his laughter again, his good laughter, in whose merry tones the child and the fully matured genius played their most graceful game together. We shall not see the smile again. The smile in which eye and mouth played together, in which the genius's suffering and the eternal unrest of thought seemed to be reconciled into a peace that bore the stamp of eternity. One will never again feel the handshake, the handshake that carried warmth from the greatest person one had ever met, from the warmest heart, from the clearest intelligence. He is gone without our having said farewell. The last “see you again” still rings in the ear.
Yet it was, after all, reasonable that he should go like this. He was so inexhaustibly rich a spring that he seemed to have the power to renew himself forever. But he was, after all, subject to the laws of the human organism. And then it is reasonable that he should end suddenly, because the spiritual high tension of so many years had in the end to burst the body's capacity to endure. Happy Kinck! No one has seen as he did life's simplest fundamental law of growth up to the summit of one's powers and thereafter withering toward the soil. His lot was to pass through the beautiful time of growth and flowering. He was spared the sad years of withering. Happy Kinck!
What we have lost in Kinck we can only sense today; we cannot measure it. His output is tremendous. Some 40 weighty works bear his name, besides a host of newspaper pieces and periodical articles. It is a gigantic production. But what he has meant through it, and will come to mean for a long future in the development of our people, we can today only sense. At intervals of epochs there may be born in a people one in whom the very soul of the people, which “is never extinguished,” seems to have taken up residence, one in whom the high-tension life of an entire people seems to be present in concentrated form, one who seems to live again the past centuries of his people and at the same time, in visions, to mark out the lines of progress through times to come. Kinck was one of them. And with that, not everything has yet been said. His wealth was so great that he seemed to gather in himself, as in a focal point, not just one people's life, but two. Italy and Norway can both be said to be the fatherland of his spirit. In his mighty works on Machiavelli and in a swarm of memories the soul of Italy lives. In “Driftekaren” and in a long series of novels and dramas, besides the many larger and smaller schol- …
Context
Mowinckel's turn on prohibition, 1918–1926
Johan Ludwig Mowinckel did stand on the anti-prohibition side in 1919, the year from which the editorial draws all its quotations. Store norske leksikon records that he lost his Storting seat in the 1918 election and spent two and a half years outside national politics, where, free of party and government considerations, he could sharpen his own profile; in that period he moved from a yes to the spirits ban in 1918 to a no before the referendum the following year. That sequence matches the words the paper quotes from him, in which the wartime ban had “even then” seemed a benefit to him before experience turned him against it. The Bergen appeal and his statements of 30 August 1919 to Dagbladet and Tidens Tegn are given as the editorial reproduces them. In government as a minister from 1921, Mowinckel took the position that the people had approved prohibition by referendum and that it should not be removed without a new one. He was prime minister from July 1924 until 5 March 1926 and then returned to his seat as parliamentary leader, so in October 1926 he was campaigning as a leading Venstre politician out of office. His reported wavering in the Storting that spring and his recent prohibitionist lectures rest on the paper's account.
From the 1919 vote to the referendum of 18 October 1926
Prohibition in Norway began as an emergency measure: a temporary ban was first introduced in August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, and the wartime restrictions are the “temporary prohibition” whose results the Bergen appeal judged. In the consultative referendum of 1919 only two-thirds of those entitled to vote took part, but 489,017 (61.6 per cent) said yes against 304,673 no, and in the autumn of 1921 the Storting passed a permanent prohibition law by a narrow majority. The smuggling the appeal had warned of grew large: its value was estimated at 50–60 million kroner a year, and 600,000 litres of spirit were seized in 1923 alone. Aftenposten printed this editorial four days before the new referendum of 18 October 1926, in which 531,084 voters (55.7 per cent) voted against prohibition and 423,031 for it. The editorial's closing prediction that its side would vote “with a larger following than in 1919” proved correct, and the ban was lifted in 1927.
Municipal housebuilding in Oslo and the Ila tender
The Ila blocks were part of a municipal building programme that had grown out of acute crowding: in 1920s Oslo a quarter of the inhabitants lived in one-room flats, with an average of 3.5 persons per room. Labour majorities in many municipal councils pushed municipal housing policy and construction, and the bulk of municipal building took place between 1916 and 1923. Between 1912 and 1931 the city built and financed some 13,600 dwellings, about 5,900 of them built by the municipality itself. By the mid-1920s there was cross-party agreement that the municipality should both finance and build housing, yet over the decade municipal support also shifted toward cooperative building societies and joint-stock companies. The city architect's case for tendering belongs to this argument over how far the municipality should build with its own organisation. His view that work on account suited only the war and the first post-war years fits the timing of the 1916–1923 peak, while the cost comparison, the 102 building workers at Ila and Nordre Aasen and the expected dismissals come from his report as the paper presents it.
Hans E. Kinck between Norway and Italy
Hans E. Kinck died in Oslo on 13 October 1926, two days after his 61st birthday, which agrees with the obituary's statement that he had turned 61 the previous Monday. Refsdal's picture of a writer with two spiritual fatherlands reflects the shape of the work: Kinck lived in Italy for long periods, and half of his literary production deals with Italian subjects. The “mighty works on Machiavelli” are above all the drama Mot karneval (1915), in which Machiavelli is the central figure; it stands beside Den sidste gjest (1910), whose protagonist is Pietro Aretino, and the essay volumes En penneknegt (1911) and Renæssansemennesker (1916), which accompany those two dramas. On the Norwegian side, the dramatic poem Driftekaren (1908), which the obituary names, gathered together the threads of his writing on Norwegian rural life. Kinck was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and a memorial volume edited by Alf Harbitz, Hans E. Kinck: et eftermæle, appeared in 1927.
Original
Da Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel baade saa og hørte.
Nr 519 Morgennr Abonnem. pris: indenbys Da Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel baade saa og hørte. For nogen dage siden konfronterte dr. Sopp her i bladet Sven Aarrestad av 1911 med Sven Aarrestad av 1926. Alle kjender Sven Aarrestads glødende forbudsfanatisme av idag, men de færreste visste, at han i 1911 var en decidert motstander av forbudet. Dr. Sopps artikkel læstes med interesse og - forbauselse. Om ikke med den samme forbauselse - saa dog med like stor interesse - vil læserne fornye sit bekjendtskap med hr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel og hans forbudsstandpunkter. I Stortinget i vaar uttalte hr. Mowinckel, at han var geraadet ut i stor tvil med hensyn til sin stilling til forbudet. Han kunde ikke da med bestemthet si, hvorvidt han vilde stemme for eller mot forbud. Senere har nok hr. Mowinckel overvundet sin tvil. I de foredrag, han nys har holdt, har han i ethvert fald latt det skinne tydelig igjennem, at han nu er forbudsmand med liv og sjæl og at han vil stemme derefter. Hr. Mowinckel nærer øiensynlig ikke længer nogen tvil. Det gjorde han heller ikke ved folkeavstemningen i 1919, men da gik hans overbevisning - for at bruke et saa høitidelig uttryk i forbindelse med hr. Mowinckel - i en anden retning, da gik den mot forbudet. Vi vil ikke nekte vore læsere fornøielsen av at se, hvad hr. Mowinckel uttalte dengang. Først var han at finde blandt undertegnerne av det bekjendte Bergens-oprop, hvori det heter: Erfaringene under dette midlertidige forbud har bevist, at et helt folks totalavhold fra alkohol ikke kan fremtvinges ved lovforbud; at et saadant forbud tvertimot fører til lovbrud og derved slappes folkets moral og aktelsen for lovene. Smugbrænding, surrogatdrikning, ulovlig ølbrygning paa landet og smugling er blit forbudets virkninger osv. Dette var opropet, eller rettere endel av det - undertegnet av hr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel blandt mange andre. Men hr. Mowinckel nøiet sig ikke med et slikt masseprodukt. Han uttalte sig ogsaa paa egen haand og sa bl. a. om det nævnte oprop: «Det er først efter nøie og samvittighetsfuld overveielse, at jeg har underskrevet Bergensopropet mot forbud». Og hans overbevisning bød ham at si mer. Han sa: «Det forbud, som endnu dengang stod for mig som en fordel for vort folk (det midlertidige forbud under krigen), har, om et slikt uttryk kan brukes, sprængt sig selv - og alt hvad vi nu ser og hører - hvis vi vil se og høre - har bibragt mig den overbevisning, at vort folk ikke vil være tient med et lovfæstet forbud. Det vil ikke fremme ædrueligheten. Slik som drikketrafikken nu utvikler sig under forbudet, er det til skam og skade for os alle. - I alle klasser, i alle lag inden befolkningen brytes lover og forordninger paa dette omraade - og de brytes uten at der vises tegn paa daarlig samvittighet eller harme over bruddene». Alt dette uttalte hr. Mowinckel til» Dagbladet «30te august 1919. Men endnu hadde han ikke uttømt al sin edder og galde over forbudet. Samme dag sier han i» Tidens Tegn «: «Men ingen kan undgaa at se, at nu er forbudet sprængt, og at det - jo længer det varer - vil føre os op i stadig betænkeligere og for hele landet mindre værdige forhold. Jeg synes det skal meget til at ta ansvaret paa sig for at la det fortsætte slik som det nu gaar». Disse var ordene. De passer om mulig endda bedre idag end i 1919, men for hr. Joh. Ludw. Mowinckel passer de altsaa ikke længer. Nu - om hr. Mowinckel ikke længer ser eller hører eller ikke vil se og høre, for at forbli i hans uttryksmaate fra 1919, kan i ethvert fald ikke vi andre, som delte hans opfatning dengang og som er blit yderligere bestyrket i den idag,» ta ansvaret for at la det fortsætte, slik som det nu gaar «. Vi stemmer ogsaa dennegang mot forbudet og med større følge end i 1919! Stort antiforbudsmøte søndag den 17de kl. 1. [?] Det haarde veir i Nordsjøen
Formandskapet beslutter fri konkurranse om opførelsen av de nye kommunale byg paa Ila.
utenbys........ kr. 10, 00 pr. kv. Ombragt ved bud, tillæg " 0, 50 " " Morgennr. 67 aarg. Formandskapet beslutter fri konkurranse om opførelsen av de nye kommunale byg paa Ila. Det vil skaffe billigere og dermed flere hus og mindre husleie. Overensstemmende med byarkitekt Aars ' forslag besluttet formandskapet igaar aftes, at der indhentes anbud paa murpus - og tømmerarbeide for de to nye kvartaler, som skal bygges paa Ilaløkken. Efter at ha gjennemgaat forskjellige utførte kommunale og private byg bemerker byarkitekten i sin betænkning: Jeg mener det saaledes godtgjort, at man kan bygge minst likesaa billig, om ikke billigere, i entreprise end ved regningsarbeide, og min personlige opfatning paa grundlag av de erfaringer, jeg nu har, er den, at det under helt like og sammenlignbare forhold er umulig for kommunen at bygge saa billig i regning som i entreprise. Dette har selvsagt intet med politik at gjøre. Det er en utelukkende saklig vurdering. Regningsarbeide var ikke alene berettiget, men paakrævet saalænge krigen varte og i de første aar efter denne. Men som forholdene nu ligger an hos os, passer systemet ikke længer. Opgaven er at skaffe den boligsøkende befolkning hus til en overkommelig pris. Og da maa byggeomkostningene mest mulig ned. At dette sikrest kan ske ved anvendelse av anbudssystemet er jeg ikke i tvil om. Med dette syn paa saken melder sig da det spørsmaal, om der er nogen grund til at opretholde det store og kostbare administrative apparat, som regningsarbeide kræver. Hvis det er paa det rene, at dette system ikke repræsenterer nogen økonomisk vinding for kommunen, kan jeg ikke indse, at det er berettiget at beholde apparatet for dettes egen skyld, navnlig i disse tider, hvor man paa alle hold søker at opnaa forenkling. Der er henvist til, at kommunen jo sitter inde med beholdninger av byggematerialer. Der vil imidlertid ingen vanskelighet være for at tilplikte en eventuel entreprenør fortrinsvis at benytte kommunens eget materiel. Videre er anført hensynet til de kommunale bygningsarbeidere. Av murere, tømrere etc. har man nu paa Ila og Nordre Aasen ialt 102 mand. Men man kan selvfølgelig ikke holde alle disse, og navnlig ikke tømmermænd, snekkere o. lign. gaaende saa længe til man kan skaffe dem beskjeftigelse ved de nye byg paa Ila. Man blir nok desværre nødsaget til at avskedige de fleste av dem, hvad enten man vil bygge i regning eller entreprise. - Hvor det dreier sig om saa mange millioner kroner av skatydernes penger, maa det økonomiske hensyn spille den avgjørende rolle. Og jo billigere hus des flere boliger. Kun ved at arbeidet undergis fri konkurranse kan det gunstigste resultat naaes. Gunnar Knudsens lokalblad
Hans E. Kinck
AUG · PELLERIN FILS & Co. Hans E. Kinck. Hans E. Kinck. Hans E. Kinck avgik pludselig ved døden i sit hjem her i Oslo igaar. Han fyldte mandag sistleden 61 aar. Kinck er død. Det kommer saa grusomt overraskende. Hans legemlige kjæmpekraft hadde nok faat et knæk for ikke længe siden. Men arbeidsiveren fortsatte allikevel i høispænding. Og det er jo bare timer siden han ødslet sprudlende liv omkring sig blandt venner i mellemstundene mellem det intenseste skaperarbeide ved skrivebordet. Og nu er han pludselig ikke mere. Hans blik er sluknet, øiet som syntes at række længer end alle andres, over vidder og gjennem dybder, hvor vi bare kunde følge ham anende. Hans latter skal vi ikke høre mere, hans gode latter, i hvis muntre toner barnet og det fuldmodne geni lekte sin gratiøseste lek sammen. Smilet skal vi ikke se mere. Smilet, hvor øie og mund spillet sammen, hvor geniets lidelse og tankens evige uro syntes at forsone sig til en fred som hadde evighetspræget over sig. Haandtrykket faar man aldrig føle mere, haandtrykket som førte varme fra det største man nogensinde hadde møtt, fra det varmeste hjerte, fra den klareste intelligens. Han er borte uten at vi fik sagt farvel. Det siste» paa gjensyn «toner endnu i øret. Det var jo allikevel rimelig at han maatte gaa bort slik. Han var et saa utømmelig rikt opkomme, at han syntes at ha evnen til evig at fornye sig. Men han var jo den menneskelige organismes love underkastet. Og da er det jo rimelig at han maatte slutte pludselig, fordi den sjælelige høispænding i de mange aar tilslut maatte sprænge den legemlige taaleevne. Lykkelige Kinck! Ingen har som han set livets enkleste grundlov om vekst indtil evnenes høidepunkt og derefter visnen mot muld. Hans lod blev at gjennemløpe veksten og blomstringens skjønne tid. Han blev skaanet for de triste visningens aar. Lykkelige Kinck! Hvad vi har mistet i Kinck kan vi bare ane idag, maale det kan vi ikke. Hans produktion er vældig. Der er omkring 40 svære verker som bærer hans navn, foruten en mængde avisopsæt og tidsskriftsartikler. Det er en gigantisk produktion. Men hvad han gjennem denne har betyd og i en lang fremtid vil komme til at bety i vort folks utvikling, det kan vi idag bare ane. Med tidehvervs mellemrum kan der fødes i et folk en i hvem selve folkets sjæl, som «aldrig slukkes», synes at ha tat bolig, en i hvem et helt folks høispændte livsindhold synes at være fortættet tilstede, en som synes at leve opigjen fortidens aarhundreder i sit folk og samtidig i syner markere fremgangslinjene gjennem kommende tider. Kinck var en av dem. Og dermed er endnu ikke alt sagt. Hans rigdom var saa stor, at han syntes at samle i sig som i et brændpunkt ikke bare et folks liv, men to. Italien og Norge kan begge sies at være hans aands fædreland. I hans vældige verker om Machiavelli og i et mylder av minder lever Italiens sjæl. I» Driftekaren «og i en lang række av romaner og dramaer foruten i de mange større og mindre viden -