THE SCANDINAVIANS
Although Leif Ericson discovered America in the year 1000 A.D., his
countrymen made no serious use of his find until the latter part
of the nineteenth century. It is only sixty-four years since the
memorable visit of "the Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind, opened
our eyes to the existence of the Northern peoples. In fact, the
few thousands that about this time began to filter in were first
known as "Jenny Lind men." Now there are among us a million and a
quarter born in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and, counting those of
Scandinavian parentage and grandparentage, it is safe to say that a
quarter of all this blood in the world is west of the Atlantic.
In 1874 the Icelanders celebrated the millennial anniversary of the
settlement of Iceland, and only year before last certain of our
fellow-citizens were commemorating the millennial anniversary of the
cession of Normandy to Rollo the Dane. In all the thousand years
since these colonizations, there has been no diffusion of Gothic
blood to compare with the settlement in this country of nearly two
million Scandinavian immigrants. Sweden has sent the most, but
Norway has contributed a larger proportion of her people than any
other country save Ireland. There are certainly half as many of
Norse blood here as there are in the fatherland, and they own six
times as much farming land. A Norwegian economist estimates that the
property owned by his compatriots in this country corresponds in
value to the entire national economy of Norway.
The crest of the Scandinavian wave passed thirty years ago.
The current runs still, but it is a flow of job-seekers rather
than of home-seekers. America is no longer so attractive to the
land-hungry; besides, their home conditions have greatly improved.
By their wonderful development of rural coöperation, the Danes have
made themselves the most envied of European peasant farmers. By
harnessing their waterfalls, the Norwegians have gained a basis for
new industries. The Swedes have drawn the power of half a million
horses from their streams, and their multiplying factories take on
about ten thousand new hands every year.
DISTRIBUTION OF SCANDINAVIAN BLOOD
The old Northwest, stretching from Detroit to Omaha, and thence
north to the boundary, has been the Scandinavian's "land of Goshen."
Here is the "New Sweden" that Gustavus Adolphus dreamed of when he
planned a Swedish colony on the Delaware. In 1850, when there were
only thirteen thousand of her race in that region, Frederika Bremer
then in St. Paul had the vision of a Cumæan sibyl:
What a glorious new Scandinavia might not Minnesota become! Here
would the Swede find again his clear, romantic lakes, the plains
of Scania rich in corn, and the valleys of Norrland; here would
the Norwegian find his rapid rivers, his lofty mountains, for I
would include the Rocky Mountains and Oregon in the new kingdom;
and both nations their hunting-fields and their fisheries. The
Danes might here pasture their flocks and herds and lay out
their farms on less misty coasts than those of Denmark.... The
climate, the situation, the character of the scenery agree with
our people better than that of any other of the American States.
It is a striking fulfilment of her prophecy that to-day a fifth of
the Scandinavian blood in the world is in this very region. Fifty
years ago Wisconsin led, with her great Norwegian contingent; then
Minnesota passed her, and later Illinois, with Chicago as the
lodestone. To-day two-fifths of the people of Minnesota are of
Scandinavian strain. Northern Iowa has a strong infusion of the
blood, while the Dakotas are deeply tinged. In 1870 four-fifths
of all our Scandinavians were in this region. The proportion fell
slowly to three-fourths in 1880, five-sevenths in 1890, two-thirds
in 1900, and three-fifths in 1910. Of late many have dropped
into the ranks of clanging industrialism between Pawtucket and
Pittsburgh, while the current of home-seekers into the new Northwest
has given Washington and Oregon as many Scandinavians as there are
in the Dakotas.
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
Like the immigrants from Great Britain, the Scandinavians came with
a male preponderance of about three-fifths. About a quarter of them
were servants at home, a third were common laborers, and a sixth
were skilled laborers. They have brought far less skill than the
British, and distinctly less than the Germans and the Bohemians.
In point of _literacy_ they lead the world. One finds an illiterate
among every twenty German immigrants of more than fourteen years of
age. Of immigrants from other nations, one may find an illiterate
among every twenty-three Dutch, thirty-eight Irish, fifty-two Welsh,
fifty-nine Bohemians, seventy-seven Finns, one hundred English, and
one hundred and forty-three Scotch; but the proportion among those
who come from Scandinavia is _one in two hundred and fifty_. What a
contrast between these and the Lithuanians and South Italians, half
of whom are unable to read any language!
It is perhaps the strain of melancholy lurking in Northern blood
that gives our Scandinavians a tendency toward insanity slightly
in excess of the foreign-born as a whole, and decidedly greater
than that of Americans. In susceptibility to tuberculosis they make
a worse showing than any others among our foreign-born save the
Irish. They die of it oftener than do their children born in this
country, but even these suffer twice the losses of their American
neighbors. But the scourge is still worse in the old country;
so very likely we have here not a race weakness, but a penalty
for unhygienic conditions. In the bitter North, with the forests
disappearing, people came to dread fresh air, and the trouble began
as soon as the open hearth gave way to the tight stove.
In our Northwest many Scandinavians board up or nail down their
windows for the winter, and in such homes one appreciates the
_mot_ evoked by the query, "Why is the country air so pure?" The
answer is, "Because the farmers keep all the bad air shut up in
their houses." The second generation are taking to ventilation,
and in their children very likely the Hyperboreans' horror of
fresh air will have wholly disappeared, and with it their special
susceptibility to the white plague.
The study of several thousand mixed marriages in Minneapolis has
led Professor Albert Jenks of the University of Minnesota to this
conclusion: "The Irish blood tends to increase fecundity, and the
Scandinavian blood tends to decrease fecundity, of other peoples in
amalgamation." Is this contrast due to the Scandinavians being so
fore-looking, whereas the Irish give little heed to the future; to
the fact that the Scandinavians are the purest Protestants, while
the Irish are the purest Roman Catholics; or to the coming together
in the Scandinavians of prudence and Protestantism with a high
status of women? At any rate, such caution in family is startling
when one recalls that old Scandinavia was the mother hive of the
swarms of barbarians that kept South Europeans in dread a thousand
years, or notes what William Penn found among the Swedes on the
Delaware two hundred and thirty years ago: "They have fine children
and almost every house full; rare to find one of them without three
or four boys and as many girls; some six, seven, or eight sons."
The primitive man commits crime from passion; the developed man
commits more of his crimes from cupidity. Proverbially honest, the
Scandinavian is less prone than the American to seek his living by
crookedness. The gamut of exploit that reaches from the _Artful
Dodger_ to _Colonel Sellers_ is alien to him. Nor is he subject to
the wild impulses that often crop out in the Italian or the Slav.
Much of his crime springs from disorderly conduct, and drink must
bear most of the blame, for on the Scandinavian nature liquor has a
disastrous effect.
ALCOHOLISM AMONG THE SCANDINAVIANS
Pytheas of Marseilles, the explorer who about the time of Alexander
the Great gave the world its first news of Norway, said that the
people of Thule made from honey "a very pleasant drink." This
beverage could hardly have touched the right spot, for when the
product of the still reached the Thulites they fell upon it with
the joyous abandon of the inexperienced. A century ago Scandinavia
was the home of hard drinkers. Even yet, in our cities, the
"toughest" saloons are kept by old-time Norsemen, who left the
fatherland before it began to dry out. One hears a proverb which
runs, "What won't the German do for money and the Swede for whisky!"
As charity seekers and hospital patients, our Scandinavians are not
so alcoholic as the British, but more so than the Teutons. More
and more, however, they come to us temperate, and strong believers
in sumptuary legislation; for within a generation Scandinavia has
become the Sahara whence issue the desiccating simooms--Gothenburg
system, _samlag_ system, etc.,--which have taken much "wet"
territory off the map.
FAVORITE OCCUPATIONS
Rugged Norway freezes into the souls of her sons a sense of the
preciousness of level, fertile land, and there are no great cities
to infect the imagination of her country dwellers. What wonder,
then, that in 1900 nearly four-fifths of our Norwegians were outside
the cities, most of them sticking to the soil like limpets to a
rock! In 1900 half of them were tillers, and sixty-three per cent.
of their grown sons. For the rest, they are to be found in the
forecastles of the great lakes, in the copper and iron mines of
upper Michigan, in the coal-mines of Iowa, in Northern lumber-camps,
where they wield another pattern of ax than did their forbears,
who, eight centuries ago, were known as "ax-bearers" in the Eastern
emperor's body-guard. They work in the building trades, on the
railroads, in the flour-mills of the wheat centers, and in the
furniture-mills, the plow-wagon-and-implement factories of the
hardwood belt. From his vast new circle of opportunities, the
Norwegian immigrant chooses those that enable him to continue his
life at home. He insists on getting his living in connection with
soil, water, and wood. In the East he shuns mill drudgery, but
shines as a builder. A fourth part of the Norwegian wage-earners
in New York are carpenters, while none are on the farms. In Iowa
two-thirds are on the farms, and only seven per cent. are in the
building trades.
Through the occupational choices of our Danes, one can catch a
glimpse of the lush meadows of Jutland. Forty per cent. of them are
on the farm, ten per cent. are laborers, and four per cent. are
carpenters. In butter-making and dairying they are six times as
numerous as in the general work of the country; in cabinet-making
and before the mast they are three and one-half times as strong.
As stock-raisers and drovers, the second generation are five and
one-half times as strong as they are in other lines.
Coming from an industrial country, the Swedes bring skill, and show
no marked bent for agriculture. Only thirty per cent. of them are at
the plow-tail; of their sons, forty-three per cent. The rest will be
carpenters, miners, and quarrymen, railroad employees, machinists,
iron- and steel-workers, tailors, and teamsters. Although they
form only an eightieth of the army of bread-winners, one out of
twelve iron-workers, one out of fourteen cabinet-makers, one out of
twenty-one boatmen and sailors, and one out of twenty-five tailors
is a Swede. The Swedish aristocratic view of callings is perhaps
responsible for the fact that the immigrants' sons are three times
as successful in getting "white-handed" jobs as the immigrants, and
are much keener for such work than the sons of our Norwegians.
A like difference is visible in the choices of the daughters.
Between the first generation and the second the proportion in
the "ladylike" jobs increases from 3 per cent. to 13.5 per cent.
among the Swedes; from 4.2 per cent. to 9.8 per cent. among the
Norwegians. While the proportion of servants and waitresses falls
from 61.5 per cent. to 44.5 per cent. among the Swedes, it actually
rises from 46 per cent. to 48 per cent. among the Norwegians. Among
the former there is a more eager flight from kitchen to factory. On
the other hand, the affinity of a democratic people for education
reveals itself in the fact that in both generations the Norwegian
women are decidedly more likely to be teachers than the Swedish
women.
ASSIMILATION
It may be true that "every Sunday Norwegian is preached in more
churches in America than in Norway," still, no immigrants of
foreign speech assimilate so quickly as the Scandinavians. They
never pullulate in slums or stagnate in solid rural settlements. Of
10,200 families that have been studied in seven of our great cities,
it was found that the 148 Swedish families had the most dwellings
of five and six rooms, the largest incomes, the best housekeeping,
the best command of English, and the highest proportion of voters
among the men. The Scandinavians have not braced themselves against
assimilation, as have the Germans, with their _Deutschtum_. Not
being beer-bibbers, and warned by their desperate home struggle,
they will not stand with the Teutons for "personal liberty" on the
question of drink. The anti-liquor sentiment is very strong among
them, and in the Minnesota legislature nearly all the support for
county option is Scandinavian. Politically, the Norwegians are more
active than the Swedes, and they have been insurgent ever since they
formed in the Northwest the backbone of so American a movement as
Populism.
Among the Scandinavians the spirit of self-improvement is very
strong. No other foreign-born people respond so eagerly to
night-school opportunities. Farmers' institutes command better
attendance and attention where they abound than in straight-American
neighborhoods. On a holiday celebration the address attracts more
Scandinavians, the ball-game or the fireworks, more natives. As
patient listeners, they match our Puritan forefathers. No other
people take more pride in giving their children a chance. In the
words of a Minnesota schoolman, "They are the best people in the
State to appreciate education and to want it improved." Unlike the
Germans, they have left no mark on American culture. Our ideas and
institutions have not been changed by their coming. What they have
done is to quicken our interest in the literature of the North, and
to win for it academic recognition. A department of Scandinavian is
found not only in Harvard and Yale, but also in a dozen universities
all the way from Chicago to Seattle. Even the high schools in
Minneapolis and elsewhere find place for Scandinavian.
[Illustration: Distribution of Scandinavians and natives of
Scandinavian Parentage--1910.]
REACTION TO AMERICA
The commonplace Knud or Swen brings us a mind pinched by the petty
parochialism of little countries on the world's byways. Coming from
some valley-closet in a mountainous country, only three per cent. of
which is fit for the plow, the Norse immigrant is here spiritually
enlarged, like the native of a box-cañon let out into a plain, or
the cove-dweller who comes to live by the open sea. In a log hut by
a lonely fjord in Trondhjem, or on a dreary moor in Finmark, the
story of a Norse peasant lad rising to be governor or senator in
this country thrills as did, near a thousand years ago, the romantic
tale of some Varangian back from service in the emperor's guard at
Constantinople.
In the home-land, a distinguished Norwegian-American, Dr. Wergeland,
finds:
Such an oppressive spiritual atmosphere of narrow-minded
intolerance, of unloving readiness to raise teacup storms, of
insolence, private and political, of clerical and æsthetic
arrogance, that the Norseman, though scarcely knowing why, longs
to get away from it all and to breathe a fresher, sweeter air.
No wonder the people emigrate. There is a peculiar hardness and
inflexibility in the Norseman's nature, and the mild virtues
of forbearance grow but sparsely in his surroundings. This is
perhaps the reason why the Norse immigrant brings to his new
homestead for the first four or five years nothing but an open
mouth and a silent tongue--speechless astonishment. And this
is the reason that to come back to Norway, after spending some
years abroad, is so often like coming from open fields into
narrow alleys.
In this strain writes a North Dakota pioneer:
What of change the new-comer notices in us American Norsemen
is good manners; the respect shown to women; the small class
distinctions between rich and poor, high and low; and, finally,
the quickness and practical insight into work and business.
Another pioneer, after revisiting Norway, writes:
I was often surprised to find that persons who had never seen me
before took me at once for an American. It seems that even the
expression of one's face is greatly changed here. During this
visit I discovered that my mode of thinking and my spiritual
life had changed so much during my thirteen years in America
that I did not feel quite at home with my childhood friends....
The Norwegian who has lived a while in America is more civilized
than if he had not been here. He has seen more, experienced
more, thought more, and all this has opened his eyes and
broadened his view. He is more wide-awake, lives a richer life,
and is in a closer correspondence with his surroundings. His
sympathies are widened, and he takes more interest in what is
going on in the world.
CONTRASTS AMONG SCANDINAVIANS
It will not do to shuffle all our Scandinavians into one deck. The
Danes are courteous and pleasure-loving, though moody, and they run
to moderation in virtues as in vices. The Swedes bear the impress
of a society that has long known aristocracy, refinement, and
industrialism. They are more polished in manner than the Norwegians,
although the humble betray a servility which grates upon Americans.
Many show a sociability and a love of pleasure worthy of "the French
of the North." They bring, too, a love of letters, and I am told
that most of the servant-girls write verse. The editor of a Swedish
weekly receives very well written poems and contributions from
his readers. Learning stands high with the Swedes, and since John
Ericsson they have sent us many fine technical men. Only lately
their great chemist Arrhenius hazarded the prediction that, owing
to the tendency of American men of ability to go into business, our
university chairs will some day be filled with scholars of German
and Scandinavian blood.
The Swede is more melancholy than the Norseman, and his letters to
friends in the old country are full of the expression of feeling. He
has the temperament for pietism, which has always been marked among
the Swedish-Americans because they have been dissenters rather than
adherents of the state church. Formerly the Swedes came from the
country, and were conservative; but of late they have been coming
from the cities, and are of a radical and even socialistic spirit.
The Norwegian bears the stamp of a more primitive life. Squeezed
into the few roods betwixt mountains and fjord, he has eked out the
scanty yield of his farm by grazing the high glacier-fed meadows
and gleaning the spoil of the sea. The need which ten centuries ago
drove the Vikings to harry Europe, to-day forces their descendants
into all the navies of the world. Granite and frost have made the
Norse immigrant rough-mannered, reserved, and undemonstrative,
cautious in speech, austere in church life, and little given to
recreation. German _Gemüthlichkeit_ is not in him, nor has he the
Irishman's sociability. Often he is as taciturn as an Indian, and
the lonely farm-houses on the prairie, where not a needless word is
uttered the livelong day, contribute many young people to the city
maëlstrom.
The Norwegian immigrant has the high spirit of a people that has
never known the steam-roller of feudalism, of peasants who held
their farms by allodial tenure, and could order the king himself
off their land. He has more pride of nationality than the Swede,
gets into our politics sooner, and is more aggressive in improving
his opportunities. He has the name of being truer to his friends and
to his word. Firms declare that they lose less by his bad debts.
"The Swede," remarks an educator, "will show the white feather and
desert you in a pinch; but not the Norwegian." A mine "boss" thinks
he can distinguish Scandinavians by type. "The smooth, white-haired
fellows," he says, "have a yellow streak in them; but the dark, or
sandy-haired fellows, with a rough skin and rugged features, are
reliable." In the Northwest, the nickname "Norsky" is more apt to be
used in a good-natured way than the term "Swede."
INTELLECTUAL ABILITY
Since our editors and public men tender each nationality of
immigrants--as soon as they have money and votes--nothing but
lollipops of compliment, one is loth to proffer the pungent olive of
truth. But it is a fact that many who have to do with the Americans
of Scandinavian parentage question whether marked ability so often
presents itself among them as among certain other strains. The
weight of testimony indicates that resourcefulness and intellectual
initiative are rarer among them than among those of German descent.
Teachers find their children "rather slow," although few fall
behind. Scandinavian students do well, but they are "plodders."
They beat the Irish in close application, but less often are they
called "brilliant."
Of 19,000 Americans recognized in "Who's Who in America," 332 were
born in Germany, 151 in Ireland, 68 in France, 54 in Sweden, 42 in
Russia, 41 in the Netherlands, 34 in Switzerland, 33 in Austria,
30 in Norway, 28 in Italy, and 14 in Denmark. The Scandinavians
have reached prominence far less often than the French, Dutch, and
Swiss Americans, and not so often even as the Germans. To the first
thousand men of science in America, our Swedish fellow-citizens
contribute at the rate of 5.2 per million as against 1.8 for the
Irish, 7.1 for the Germans, 7.4 for those born in Russia, and 10.4
for those born in Austria-Hungary.
It is a fair question, then, whether our Scandinavians represent
the flower of their people as well as the root and stalk. No doubt
in venturesomeness they surpass those in like circumstances who
stayed at home. No doubt they brought in full measure the forceful
character of the race; but, thanks to our bland, syrupy way of
appraising the naturalized foreign-born, the question of comparative
brain power never comes up.
Now, oppression or persecution had very little to do with the
outflow from Scandinavia. The immigrants came for a better living,
for, in the main, they have been servants and common laborers, with
a sprinkling of small farmers and a fair contingent of craftsmen. We
have had very few representatives of the classes enjoying access to
higher education, business, the professions, and the public service.
Having fair prospects at home, the more capable families very likely
contributed fewer emigrants than the rest. A professor of Swedish
parentage tells me that he has noticed that the successful Swedes he
meets traveling in this country are wholly different in physiognomy
from the immigrants. The faces here strike him as duller and less
regular than the faces of people in Sweden. Other Swedish-Americans,
however, contend that formerly caste barriers in the fatherland so
blocked the rise of gifted commoners that the immigrant stream is
as rich in natural ability as is the Swedish people at home. Rugged
Norway has less to hold at home the more capable stocks; but still
one meets with candid Norwegian-Americans who think our million of
Norse blood represent the brawn rather than the brain of their folk.
MENTAL AND PRACTICAL TRAITS
Norse mythology is to Celtic mythology what a Yukon forest is to
an Orinoco jungle. In the Sagas of Iceland the fancy never runs
riot as it does in the legends of Connemara or Brittany. It is not
surprising, then, that our Scandinavians are not distinguished for
visual imagination. Professors notice that the lads of this breed
are slow to grasp the principle of the machinery about the college
of agriculture, and need a diagram to supplement oral description
of a ventilating system. To them even a drawing is a maze of
lines rather than a picture. A physical director working among
Scandinavians labored in vain to get his trustees to imagine from
the blue prints how the new gymnasium would look. Not until the
scaffolding was down were his gymnasts satisfied that there would
be "room to do the giant swing." His boy scouts had no faith in a
selected camp-site till the brush was actually cleared from it. They
lacked "the mind's eye."
"It is not enough," remarks a settlement head, "to show rich Nils or
Lars 'how the other half lives'; you've got to clinch your appeal
by showing him how the other half _ought_ to live." Says a social
worker, "I picture to the poor Slovak an eight-room, steam-heated
house as a goal, and he will work for it; but the poor Swede can't
imagine such a house as his own, so I have to talk to him of the
four-room house he will one day possess."
It is said that, as merchant, the Scandinavian puts little
visualizing into his advertisements, and is slow to catch the vision
of a community prosperity through team-work. As business man, he
is a "stand-patter," able to run a going concern, but without the
American's power to anticipate developments and to plant a business
where none exists. As farmer, he is not so far-sighted as the
German. He will burn off the growth on his cut-over land till the
humus has been consumed, or wear out his fields with some profitable
but exhausting crop, like tobacco. As investor, he is the opposite
of the imaginative, speculative American, for large, remote
profits do not appeal to him. As labor leader, he lacks vision and
idealism. On the stump he does not address the imagination as does
the Hibernian spellbinder. As advocate, he makes a hard-headed plea
without sentiment, and as after-dinner speaker he lacks in wit and
fancy.
[Illustration: Typical Norwegian Boy]
[Illustration: Typical Swedish Girl]
So little sociable are the Scandinavians that it is said "ice-water
runs in their veins." Even liquor will not start the current of
fraternal feeling. They care little for the social side of their
labor-unions, and neglect the regular meetings. They do not warm
up to an employer who treats them "right." Without the happy art
of mixing and fraternizing, these sons of the North do not shine
as bar-tenders, salesmen, canvassers, commercial travelers, or
life-insurance solicitors. As street-car conductors in Minneapolis
they are said to be less helpful and polite than the American or the
Irish conductors of St. Paul. Teachers of this blood do not easily
attach their pupils to them; while the children, instead of being
inspired by an audience, as are the Irish, become tongue-tied. Often
one hears a teacher lament, "I can't get anything _out_ of them."
There is sweetness in the Scandinavian nature, but you reach it deep
down past flint. The late Governor Johnson of Minnesota drew people
because he had imagination and tenderness--traits none too common
among his people. They are undemonstrative in the family, and it
is not surprising that their youth on the farms are restless from
heart-hunger. Besides, there is dearth of recreation. The Norwegian
has his violin, but the Swedish folk-dances we hear so much about
were not brought in by the immigrants. They lack the German
_Männerchor_, _Turnverein_, and _Schuetzenfest_. It is unusual to
find them organizing athletic sports. Their social gatherings center
in the church, which of course acts as a damper on the spirits of
the young. They love fun, to be sure, but have not the knack of
making it. Shut up within themselves, hard to reach, slow to kindle,
and dominated by an austere hell-fire theology, they are too often
the prey of somber moods and victims of suicide and insanity.
An experienced social worker finds selfishness the besetting sin of
the Scandinavians he deals with. If a settlement class get a room or
a camp, they object to any others using it. In any undertaking they
have in common with other nationalities they try to get the best
for themselves. They withhold aid from the distressed of another
nationality, while the Irish will respond generously to the same
appeal. A labor leader notices that the Scandinavian working-men
are "hard givers." A kindergartener who sent out Christmas gifts to
twenty poor Scandinavian families received thanks from only one. A
society gave relief to 260 such families during the winter, and the
number who expressed gratitude could be counted on the fingers of
one hand. One clergyman declared that his people are not generous in
supporting their own charities.
On the other hand, an observer remarks: "For a suffering _person_,
circulate your subscription paper among the Irish; for a good
_cause_, circulate it among the Scandinavians." In other words,
the goodness of these people is from the head rather than from the
heart. "If I can get him to see it as his _duty_," testifies a
charity worker, "the Scandinavian will go almost any length." Credit
men rank them with the Germans as the surest pay. Insurance agents
say no other people are so faithful in paying their premiums "on the
nail." If there is a suspicious fire in a store, the owner's name
never ends in "son." In Minnesota there are more coöperative stores,
creameries, and elevators in the Scandinavian communities than in
the American.
The Norwegians have been virile politically, and their politics has
reflected moral ideas. They look upon public office as a trust,
not a means of livelihood. In the days of Populism they were more
open-minded than the Americans. In Wisconsin they have furnished
a stanch support for the constructive policies which have drawn
upon that State national attention. In the critical roll-calls in
the Minnesota legislature all but one or two of the Scandinavian
members are found on the "right side." The "interests" have the
Germans,--brewing being an "interest,"--the Irish, and many
Americans.
The truth is, their slow reaction gives these people the right
psychology for self-government. In politics they are "good losers."
They are not to be stampeded by fiery rhetoric or mass hysteria.
They have the self-control to right abuses by orderly constitutional
methods. In the Chicago anarchist trials the defense was careful
to keep Scandinavians out of the jury-box. Among the Scandinavian
peoples riots, barricades, and street turbulence have played no
part in the redress of political grievances. Ideas of right lie at
the base of their social order, while habit and sentiment count for
less than they do among South Europeans. So, while our Scandinavian
strain may lack the qualities for political leadership, it provides
an excellent, cool-blooded, self-controlled citizenship for the
support of representative government.
[Illustration:
1841-45 4900
1846-50 9500
1851-55 15900
1856-60 9200
1861-65 16700
1866-70 108800
1871-75 119600
1876-80 123300 HARD TIMES IN U.S.
1881-85 352300 { INTRODUCTION OF MACHINE POWER
{
1886-90 304200 { ON SCANDINAVIAN
{
1891-95 244600 { FARMS
1896-1900 127000 HARD TIMES IN U.S.
1901-05 291600 { HYDRO-ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES
{
1906-10 213700 { IN SCANDINAVIA
Immigration from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 1841-1910]
[Illustration: Distribution of Italians and natives of Italian
Parentage--1910]