THE BETRAYAL OF ALFRED NOBEL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 77, 17 April 1937, Page 15

THE BETRAYAL OF ALFRED NOBEL

SWEDISH CHEMIST'S WILL

Deviation From Express Conditions

A Jt x-ray naying a,m***Bd a P.oloss@l fortnnq by snpplying ma!1 with the pieans of dastr-qying @@e.h dther, the Swedish engineer chemi^ti -Alfred Nobel, thoqght that ha ought to do something for humanity in his will, His humanjtarian idefi s, q| . primltiv @ naivete but lofty- inspiration, WOfe born under tho infliicnce of Gountess Rertha Kinsky, whose acquaintqhce he had madp following a small adycrtiseipen in^erted by hjm jn Yieuuose paper fqr 1 lady no louger very young, who would gc.t ; as secretary and manage his ho,me." In his will datqd November 27, 1805, Alfred Nobel instituted "4 fund, thq interest of which was to be distfibuted annually in fiye equal portiqns among those who, during the course of the past year, ' ' had rendered the greatest service to humanity.'" The shareis wore ;o be distributed In the fpllqwing ma,uper: "In the domain , pf physical gcience to the one whP shall have made the greatest discovery pr iuvention; in the domain of chemical soionce to the person who shall hav^ madp the greatest di'scovery or improyemqnt; • in tho domain of physiolegy pr medicine, tu the one who shall havq midp thp.mo^t important discoye'r.y; in the domain @f literature, tq fhq oue who shall hayo produced the mpst remarkablq work pf idealistic. trend; laatly, the, fiual portion to thp person who shall hftVP done the most fqr- the, fcirotherhood pf peoplps by prqmoting peace." The Swpdish Academy w§s- appoiuted to award th? prizes. It must be conceded that the Swedish Academy has takpn great pains over its task. Five eectipns under th direction of specialista classify anc analyse the worE °f writers pf the en tire woyjd, in 'every knowh ianguage I evory three months they mahe a Tep,QT 5 to the Swedish academicians so that th. latters' decisions may be based on verj

wido, very minute and, very exact information. " * " On the purface ;then, eyprything seems perfect, Rut if one goes. to the bottom of thjugs oue discovens immediately that the ^wedi# Academy* almost from the. start, has doyiated in pn outrageous fashipn from the express conditions stipuhvted iq th® Swedish chemist's will, This has bepn pprtly ungvoidable, but it is also In par-t a deliberate jnfractipn, In his will ^Jffe.d litpicatpd that, in the domaiu Qf literature, he dg-. sired the nrize to gp tP; fhe aqthP? P# the most distinguishpd wprk of "idfaV istie trend." Pages have beep written on what he meant? by "idealistic trend." In reality it is sufficient to know the general idea which inspired the famou's will. The literary clause is inserted jn a gener-al el^ulP^ Whi^h governs the awards in ali the domains equally, namely that the prizes shall b'p givep to such persons as during thp ppst year * ( shall have performpd a benpficial gervicp to humanity. ' ' . . • >Yhat. elsp dogs Nobel addf Tbat in nq way mu§l thP flatiftnality of the cpmpetitor influeiice the award of the prize. . , . "Tdealism," "boupfieial service tQ 1 humanity, ' ' the formulae are vague and - it is easy to understand bQW fhe Academy can juggle with them. On the other hand, a, brilliant man of letters is not necessarily a man who effeetively ; spwes humanity (in the spusp that > Nobel meant) nor one who produc.es r works of an "idealistic. trend."

It was then imppssible; to maintain the exactlori pf high idealify in th,p. chosen work?, a,nd, with .all dqp respect one may a?k wbat sprt of faee Nobel would haye puHed pn looking- through the works of Bprnatd Shaw, pf Eipjing or Anatole France; and he would haye shuddered ' wxth horrpr on reading tho "Hymne tq Satan" of Carduqci, who obtained the prize jn 1006* If the plause ' ^idealistic trend ■ ' did net oper-. ate against Anatole Frqnce^ it. was adyanced-rran invinciblq pbstaele — agaiust Thpmag Naidy wbo wgg ?y?tematxcally spt aside becanse hfs Wprks ponyey bittemess and. di®§np^antmeht. * Whqt is mQst 6trikxng is that the Sw@di$k Academy delibprately set asids fche tesfameixtary glauses.of the Nobel d@uatipUi ffgm fhe beginning. In 1001 the Brig§ went to Sully-Frud-homfae, " ' French poet, member of the Fr-pneh Aeademyi |pf hi§ poptle. work, w¥cb "shows high idealism, artisfiq perf petiqn and a rare uniop pf thp qpalitips of heart and spixit." Ip 1000, thp Agademy shook .off the pqrely ftliterary" clautsa and extended its chqice to historical works iq prowning Theodore Mpmmsen, Professor of Hiptpry at.the TJniversity of Berlip, "fQr his mpnumeptal work on Roman History." In both cpses thp Swedish Agademy has betrayed the intentioms of thp tpstator, 1 by seeking for wprldly renown jn its laureates as a netting for the honoui' of the Nobel Brize • and these first ii;- ; fractipns haye been continuedi In a little known clause of his will Alfred Nobel indicated that he wished

Wfa bxing to, light yo.uthfnl fqlent and' 1 eqjible if fo do^elpp fjfeely by yelieving the. QWnor frpp PPPunfftiy restfictions." This, plm h^3 peyer been aftained. Th© Npbel Prizes haye becpme dedicated tq being" a sort of supreme award to illustrious men at thp end their careers, But " this is .not allji . the Swedish Academy 's principal error, and the most seripu's, has been not in getting away frpm the idealistic intentions of thp giyer, bnt in not obeerviiig the essential rule that he decreed-rrthat. of not taking into account the natipnah ity of fhe candidate. In its anxiety tp diyide the aWnr4? Pquitably among thp natipns, by obserying a rhythm of rptation, partly diplomatic, the Swedish Academy ha? gone at bit too far. Thanks to this very special arithmetic one has soen names like Heyse, Pontqpiddan, Heiderstam, to mention only thepp^ abruptly emerge, pne must also mention the npn-pay-meqt of the prizes in 1918, 1925 and 1935 and the appropriation of the amounts by the reserve fund. This practiCe has aroused in Swed-pn very violent criticism. It seems also that, pn the gpographical basiq? tahing intp accounf the eprrreet balqnge Of peoplps, Swedpn, Norway and Denmark have, put of 34 prizps awqrded, earried the 'lion's phare with seven; and one has not yet rpcoypred from the decision of 1931 when the Swpdisk Acadpmy crowned Axel Karlfeldt — whp had been dpad fqr six months. It is pot a questiqn here of censuring , the judges. The object is merply to show how a greqt -Brize, pniversally re- ' sppcted, qnd still possessing great mora] value, carries out in only a small degree thp cpugeptipns of thp man who created it. — Pierre Descaves.