There is a Press Club in Stockholm with four hundred and forty members, of whom twenty-two are women.  In 1901 the club arranged “a week of festivals,” including military tournaments, public entertainments and a fair, and closed with a masquerade ball at the Royal Opera House to raise funds for a building.  It was a great success.  King Oscar accepted an invitation, and enjoyed himself very much among his “colleagues,” as he called them.  The king was always considerate to newspaper men.  He appreciated the purpose and understood the requirements of reporters, and never failed to assist them whenever he was able to do so.  Hence he was very popular among them, and they reciprocated by showing their appreciation in every possible way.  The old king once said to Hjalmar Branting, the socialist editor: 

“We have different opinions, Branting, but we are both working for the welfare of our country.”

In 1897, during the international congress of the press at Stockholm, the king gave the editors a banquet at the Royal Castle at Drottningholm, and mingled among them as “one of yourselves.”  He also proposed a toast in most complimentary language.

Oscar II made many speeches, and upon occasions of great formality he used manuscript, but generally spoke without notes, preparing himself in advance by study and reflection.  When he spoke from manuscript, he invariably furnished copies to the press, and was never known to request that part of his speech be suppressed.

Reporters are invariably admitted to state ceremonials.  There is very little secrecy about the Stockholm court, and intrigue is entirely unknown in Swedish politics.  There are no mysteries in the council chamber and no skeletons in the royal closet.  Hence the doors are open, and the reporters can come and go as they please.  As a natural consequence comparatively little attention is paid to affairs at the palace.  There is an announcement every morning of the movements of the king and the royal family and occurrences of public interest, but with very little detail, and the newspapers depend upon the officials to furnish the information voluntarily.  Reporters are seldom sent to the palace unless some special inquiry is necessary.

The story is told that once when Oscar II went to Gothenburg to attend a dedication or opening of something or other, where he was expected to make a speech, he was intercepted at the railway station by an enterprising reporter who wanted a copy of his speech.  The paper was to be published that afternoon, and there would be no time for a stenographer to write out his notes afterward.  The king greeted him pleasantly and explained that he had no manuscript; that he intended to speak without notes.  The reporter was very much dissappointed, and confided to the king that he was a new man and that his future standing with his employer might be seriously affected if he failed to get the speech.  King Oscar responded sympathetically, invited the reporter to get into his carriage, and while they were driving to the hotel, gave a brief synopsis of what he expected to say.