Carl Johan Gustaf Swartz (5 June 1858 – 6 November 1926) was a Swedish
right-wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
who served as
Prime Minister of Sweden
The prime minister ( sv, statsminister ; literally translating to "Minister of State") is the head of government of Sweden. The prime minister and their cabinet (the government) exercise executive authority in the Kingdom of Sweden and are subj ...
from March to October 1917.
He also served as
Minister for Finance
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
from 1906 to 1911. He married Dagmar Lundström in 1886, with whom he had three children, Erik, Brita and Olof.
Life and career
Carl Swartz was born on 5 June 1858 in
Norrköping
Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Linköp ...
,
Östergötland County
Östergötland County ( sv, Östergötlands län) is a county or ''län'' in southeastern Sweden. It has land borders with the counties of Kalmar to the southeast, Jönköping to the southwest, Örebro to the northwest, and Södermanland to the n ...
, the son of factory-owner Erik Swartz and wife Elisabeth Forsgren. After completing studies in
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
and
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
, he returned to Norrköping to run the family business, tobacco producers
Petter Swartz
Petter may refer to:
People:
*Petter (given name)
*W. E. W. Petter, English aircraft designer
*Arlie Petters, a Belizean-American mathematical physicist
*Tom Petters, former CEO and chairman of Petters Group Worldwide
Place names:
*Petter Bay, a ...
. He came to play a large role in his home town, not least culturally. He was chairman of the Board of Directors of, amongst others, Sweden's private
Central Bank
A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union,
and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...
between 1912 and 1917. In 1917, he became the national university chancellor.
As
Minister for Finance
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
between 1906 and 1911, he implemented a number of reforms including integrated income- and property tax, which both became
progressive
Progressive may refer to:
Politics
* Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform
** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context
* Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...
. With the amalgamation of the right-wing groups of the
Riksdag's lower chamber, Swartz became a member of the inner council of the newly formed ''Nationella Partiet'' (English: The National Party) in 1912.
World War I
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
he was a key figure in the Riksdag in his capacity as Chairman of the Standing Committee of Supply between 1915 and 1917. With the fall, due to external pressures and internal disharmony, of the government of non-party aligned
Hjalmar Hammarskjöld
Knut Hjalmar Leonard Hammarskjöld (; 4 February 1862 – 12 October 1953) was a Swedish politician, scholar, cabinet minister, Member of Parliament from 1923 to 1938 (first chamber), and Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.
In 1890, he m ...
, King
Gustav V
Gustaf V (Oscar Gustaf Adolf; 16 June 1858 – 29 October 1950) was King of Sweden from 8 December 1907 until his death in 1950. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxe ...
called on the party-political
conservative Swartz to become Prime Minister. He accepted the appointment more out of a sense of duty rather than personal desire for the office. The new government's foremost task was to exercise a calming influence on the bourgeois which was worried, in anticipation of 1 May 1917, by rumours that the
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
would spread to
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
.
Swartz was generally considered as a moderate and reasonable conservative, in the style of an old-fashioned and thoughtful mill-owner. He forbade private
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
militias in advance of the
1 May
Events Pre-1600
* 305 – Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman emperor.
* 880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
*1169 – N ...
1917 demonstrations, in return for the
Social Democratic Party's assurance that they would be responsible for maintaining order. Without this political concession, the confrontations could have escalated during the month of May and resulted in a domestic political crisis.
Discontent stemmed mainly from the fact that the people were living on the brink of starvation. Hunger riots, rather than the political demand for voting rights, lay behind the demonstrations. The situation calmed with the beginning of the
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
harvest in early summer. Swartz also quickly concluded negotiations with the
Triple Entente powers, principally
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
, on imports from the west, which Hammarskjöld had prevented.
The Social Democrats used the hunger riots to put pressure on the
right-wing
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
, with demands such as
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
,
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
and removal of the 40-degree voting scale in municipal elections. The government was divided on these issues. Leader of the left-wing faction,
Minister for Civil Affairs Oscar von Sydow
Oscar Fredrik von Sydow (12 July 1873 – 19 August 1936) was a Swedish politician who served briefly as Prime Minister of Sweden from 23 February to 13 October 1921.
Biography
Oscar von Sydow was the son of Henrik August von Sydow, a magist ...
and
Minister for Finance
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
Conrad Carleson agreed with the Social Democrats' and Liberals' proposals. They threatened to resign if Swartz agreed with
Minister for Foreign Affairs Arvid Lindman's demand to maintain the
status quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...
. The Minister for Finance was backed by the industry, which wanted an end to the debacle. Swartz was irresolute and felt under pressure from his opponents and his solution was to wait for the spring election. This action was historic: he became the first leading conservative to follow the
parliamentary principle that the people - not the
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
- should choose the government.
Gustav V attempted for a long time to avoid a breakthrough for parliamentarianism, but his wish to allow Swartz to continue, despite the left-wing parties' success in the 1917 election was undermined by the involvement of Swartz's son in a
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
eering scandal, a violation of existing rationing.
Reputation, legacy and death
Carl Swartz was also an eminent municipal figure and a generous philanthropist. In 1912, he donated Villa Swartz to the town of
Norrköping
Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Linköp ...
, as accommodation for a
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
and
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
. He died in Stockholm on 6 November 1926.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swartz, Carl
1858 births
1926 deaths
People from Norrköping
Members of the Första kammaren
Prime Ministers of Sweden
Swedish Ministers for Finance
Uppsala University alumni