FT263

During the years before World War I, the editor Anton Ekström was considered a ‘coming man’ in Swedish journalism and politics. He was a socialist and a personal friend of Hjalmar Branting, the future Prime Minister of Sweden. A talented speaker and agitat­or, he seemed destined for a distinguished career.

Anton was born in 1868, the youngest of seven children of the well-to-do farmer Magnus Magnusson. When Anton was quite young, his father lost both his farm and his life’s savings after unwisely securing certain loans for a neighbour. Magnus died not long after, but Anton’s mother remarried another needy farmer and moved to Hamneda in the county of Småland.