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In Reykjavik there are no street cars, but many a Buick taxicab. Constantly soaring back and forth across the country —a little smaller than Bulgaria or Kentucky—are two sturdy planes of the German Lufthansa. Two summers ago a German tourist brought several bags of vegetable seed, with the result that many nourishing plants, hitherto unknown in Iceland, sprouted and flourished last summer. But the Icelanders were not particularly pleased. They obey by instinct Explorer Stefansson's rule: A people react with pleasure to a new food in proportion as they have been accustomed to a varied diet. Accustomed to an unvarying fish, smoked mutton, cheese and potato diet the Icelanders view green vegetables with alarm. They delight, however, in repeating that "Proportional to the number of Icelanders our Reykjavik is the largest capital city in the world!" By this they mean that one quarter of the population is concentrated in Reykjavik, whereas only 1/217 of all U. S. citizens live in Washington, D. C.
Of Social Conditions in his country the Icelandic Publicist Halldor Kiljan Laxness has written: "Organized religion fares badly in Iceland. Ministers of religion have no prestige and the churches as a rule are empty on Sunday. . . . The Catholics have built a gorgeous cathedral at Reykjavik, though there are only about 150 Catholics in the town. . . .
"In Iceland we look upon businessmen with the same skepticism with which literary men are regarded in some other countries. . . . The ambition of every genuine young Icelander is to become a literary man. . . . Our most important statesmen have all been literary men—poets, authors, historians and educators.
" Greatest of living Icelandic statesmen is Jonas Jonsson, "The Mussolini of the North," who is Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastics and of course a "literary man." Like Il Duce he is said to have a jealous eye upon the Crown, not with a view to seizing it for himself but with intent to make Iceland a republic. Today the King of Iceland is also King Christian X of Denmark. But eager Icelandic-Americans explain: "Iceland is completely independent of Denmark. It is like two corporations in America, one may be a silk mill and the other an iron mine, who pay the same man to be president of both companies, though they are completely independent." Genial King Christian, leaving all his Danish courtiers behind, will go to Iceland next June and try to act as much like an Icelander as possible, will open the festival celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Iceland's Parliament with a speech he is now valiantly trying to learn—in Icelandic.
*Particularly infantile was debate in Washington over the statue last September. Representative Olger B. Burtness of North Dakota's first district introduced the appropriation bill with this ringing preamble: ."Whereas the first white man to set foot on American soil was a native son of Iceland Leif Ericson, an able and fearless sailor who in the year 1,000 A.D. discovered the American mainland. . . ."