THE SCANDINAVIAN IN LOCAL AND STATE POLITICS
The Scandinavian usually entered the field of politics rather slowly; he
took out his "first papers" for the purpose of acquiring land, not that
he might vote in the next election. In the early years of his settlement
he was too busy building and paying for a home, learning English, and
adopting American customs, to give much time or attention to public
affairs. The clearing of woodland, the breaking up of the prairie, and
the transformation of a one-room shack into a frame dwelling required
severe labor and all his energies. Not until the leisure of some degree
of success was his, did he yield to his natural inclination for politics
of the larger sort.
The Norwegian, of all the men of the Northern lands, has the strongest
liking for the political arena, and has had the most thoro political
training at home. Since 1814 he has lived and acted in a community
markedly democratic. He understands the meaning of the Fourth of July
all the better because he, and his ancestors for two or three
generations in their home by the North Sea, celebrated on the
Seventeenth of May the independence of Norway and the advent of
republicanism. His sense of individuality and equality is stronger than
that of his cousins to the east or south, and he steadily and stubbornly
fights for the recognition and maintenance of his rights. In 1821,
before the first real immigrants sailed for the United States, Norway
abolished nobility, while Sweden and Denmark still retain the
institution. Equipped thus, and educated in such a vigorous school, it
is the Norwegian rather than the Swede or Dane who figures most largely
in the political activities of the American Northwest.
Several causes operating on the western side of the Atlantic augmented
these natural advantages of the Norwegians. In their settlements they
had ten or fifteen years the start of the Swedes, and in the formative
period of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Dakota they greatly
outnumbered both the Swedes and Danes. They went into new States and
territories, and, settling on farms, profited by the power which the
rural portion of a developing region usually exercises in politics. On
the other hand, tho the Swedes in Illinois since the early fifties, and
in Kansas since the late sixties, have formed decidedly the larger part
of the Scandinavian population of those two States, they have by no
means taken a part in politics equal to that taken by the Norwegians. In
1890 the foreign-born Swedes in Iowa were more numerous than the
foreign-born Norwegians, and in Minnesota about equal in number, but
these figures do not fairly represent the political strength of the two
elements, for to the foreign-born Norwegians must be added those of
the second and third generation of persons of purely Norwegian
extraction.[342] The sons, and even the grandsons of the early Norwegian
settlers were voters before the Swedish immigration greatly exceeded the
Norwegian.[343] Broadly speaking, the early political pre-eminence of
the Norwegians has never been overcome.
[342] Statistics for foreign-born in 1890:
Iowa Minnesota
Norwegians 27,078 101,169
Swedes 30,276 99,913
Danes 15,519 14,133
[343] In 1850 the total of foreign-born Scandinavians was 12,678, of
whom 3,559 were Swedes. In 1860 the corresponding figures were
43,995 and 18,625. In 1880 the Swedes numbered 194,337, and the
Norwegians, 181,729. _United States Census Reports_ for the
years 1850, 1860, 1880.
For the common people of Sweden and Denmark, political experience
practically began with the agitation for the reforms of 1866 and 1867.
The peasants and burghers thus came to think definitely and decisively
about what they desired and of the means for securing the wished-for
reforms. It may therefore be asserted without reservation that after
1870 the average Scandinavian immigrant brought to America a fairly
clear understanding of the meaning of republicanism; elections,
representation, local self-government, and constitutions, are neither
novel nor meaningless terms to him; he is ready to fill his place, play
his part, and cast his vote, as "a citizen of no mean city." In the
discharge of their civic duties, the Scandinavian voters have had the
aid of several unusually well edited newspapers in their own languages.
Since active participation in politics and patriotism are not always
synonymous, one branch of the Scandinavian peoples may be just as
patriotic as another. Certain it is that in the Civil War the Swedes
were every whit as prompt and hearty in their response to calls for men,
and as thoro in their efficiency and courage as soldiers, as were the
Norwegians.
From a political view-point, the importance of the Norse immigrants in
the agricultural regions of the West has not been fully recognized. At
first thought, it would seem that location in a city or town, with its
intimate associations and sharper competitions, with its friction of
frequent contact with Americans, should be more conducive to rapid
Americanization of immigrants, than the life of the farm or of the rural
village, with its isolation and narrow horizon. More careful
consideration will make clear that the opportunities for political
action beyond merely casting a vote, are really much better in a new,
thinly-settled township than in a ward of a large town or city. It
surely was not a hunger for the sweets of political influence or
official place which led the Scandinavians into frontier regions; but
once there, with the old political ties forever severed by taking out
their "first papers," with partial title to land entered by preemption
or by homesteading, their first and greatest steps in Americanization
were safely made, and each one carried certain political consequences.
Local political organization had to be effected somehow as a given
locality filled up, and it happened frequently that there were none but
Scandinavians to undertake the task. No matter what their political
inclinations, no matter what form of organization they would have
preferred, only one course was open to them: to get information as to
the laws and customs of the United States and of the States in which
they were settled, to prepare for the elections, and to assume the
responsibilities of the necessary offices. Over and over again these
things were done promptly and well by men in whose veins coursed only
Viking blood, by men but recently transplanted from Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark.
Whenever a township became populous enough to have a name as well as a
number on the surveyor's map, that question was likely to be determined
by the people on the ground, and such names as Christiana, Swede Plain,
Numedal, Throndhjem, and Vasa leave no doubt that Scandinavians
officiated at the christening.[344] Besides the names of townships,
Minnesota alone has no fewer than seventy-five postoffices whose names
are unmistakably Norse,--Malmö, Ringbo, Ibsen, Tordenskjold, and the
like. It was in organizing these new townships, working the town
machinery, carrying on elections, levying and collecting taxes, and
laying out roads, that the Scandinavian immigrants learned the rudiments
of American politics.[345] In studying the accounts of the formation of
scores of towns inhabited wholly or in major part by Norwegians or
Swedes--accounts usually written by Americans, and often going into
minute details--not one was found which describes any noteworthy
irregularity. Except for the peculiar names no one would suspect that
the townmakers were born elsewhere than in Massachusetts or New York.
[344] Christiana got its name through the carelessness of Gunnul
Vindæg, who desired to name the town after the Norwegian
capital, but omitted the "i" in the last syllable. _Billed
Magazin_, I, 388.
[345] Mattson, _Story of an Emigrant_, 50-51; _History of Goodhue
County, Minnesota_, 248.
In some cases probably more than one-fifth of the men of the community
shared in the actual administration of town affairs; and while this
ratio decreased with the growth of the town, the tendency of the
Scandinavian settlers to move on from one new region to another gave
many of them continuing opportunities to gain political experience. Had
the same number of men located in the larger towns or cities, their
active duties as citizens would generally have ended with the casting of
their annual ballot. A few might have become policemen, commissioners,
or even aldermen, but they would have made an insignificant percentage;
the management or mismanagement of finances, schools, streets,
sanitation, and public services would go on without their efforts or
participation.
A few illustrations selected almost at random, will give a concrete idea
of the process just described. Two townships in Fillmore County,
Minnesota, were organized in 1860, and received the familiar Old World
names, Norway and Arendahl; at the first election, all the officers
chosen in both townships were Norwegians, and for twenty years and more,
the Norwegians continued to fill nearly all the offices.[346] Another
and later example is found in Nicollet County, Minnesota, farther west
than Fillmore County, where the township of New Sweden was formed in
1864. Thirty votes were cast at the first election, and at the first
town-meeting, held three months later, all the offices were filled by
the election of six Swedes and four Norwegians.[347] Five years later
this township was divided and the name Bernadotte was given to the new
township; by the first election, all ten offices were filled by
Swedes.[348] Other Minnesota towns, Johnsonville in Redwood County
(1879), Wang in Renville County (1875), and Stockholm in Wright County
(1868), were similarly organized and officered by Norwegians and
Swedes.[349]
[346] _History of Fillmore County, Minnesota_, 346, 378.
[347] _History of the Minnesota Valley_, 688, 690, 693.
[348] _Ibid._, 688.
[349] _Ibid._, 790, 837; _History of the Upper Mississippi Valley_,
572.
As the townships developed, and the villages grew into cities with large
foreign-born elements, the familiar and characteristic Northern names
continue to fill the official records. Stoughton, Wisconsin, the
capital, so to speak, of the solid old Dane County settlement, is a case
in point. So late as 1901 the roster of the city ran as follows:
Mayor, O. K. Roe, born in Dane County of Norwegian parents
President of the Council, J. S. Liebe, born in Laurvik, Norway
Aldermen, four born in different parts of Norway, two born in Dane
County of Norwegian parents.[350]
Much of the business in these new communities in their first years was
carried on in a foreign tongue. Certainly election notices and documents
of that sort were issued in Norwegian or Swedish, and sometimes orders,
ordinances, and laws. No evidence, however, has come to hand to prove
that any official records were ever kept in any other language than
English, even in villages composed almost exclusively of Norwegians or
Swedes.[351]
[350] _Amerika_, May 20, 1901.
[351] "The Norwegians of Wisconsin", _Phillips Times_ (Wis.),
April 22, 1905.
One of the first offices that had to be filled in the growing settlement
was that of postmaster; for no considerable number of people, educated
and intelligent, will long be content with a postoffice twenty miles
away.[352] In 1856 there were five Scandinavian postmasters in Minnesota
alone.[353] Thus the immigrant settlers came in contact with the
national government at the postoffice more directly and frequently than
they did at the land-office.
[352] The nearest postoffice to the early settlers in Fillmore County,
Minnesota, was twenty miles away at Decorah, Iowa. _History of
Fillmore County, Minnesota_, 429.
[353] From the list transcribed from the books of the Appointment
Office of the Post Office Department, Dec., 1856. Andrews,
_Minnesota and Dakota_, 191.
Township affairs shade off almost imperceptibly into county affairs in
the western States, and the Scandinavians soon began to take part in the
latter. No records are at hand for the Wisconsin settlements, but in
1858 the first Norwegian was elected to the board of supervisors in
Goodhue County, Minnesota, and in the following year Hans Mattson, who
was active in building up the town of Vasa, where he filled various town
offices, was elected auditor of the county.[354] He continued to fill
the office until July, 1862, tho in name only for the last months, for
in the minutes of Board of Supervisors of Goodhue County appears the
resolution that "because the County Auditor, Hans Mattson, has
voluntarily gone to the war with a company of soldiers, a leave of
absence shall be extended to him, and that the office shall not be
declared vacant so long as the deputy properly performs the duties of
the place."[355]
[354] Mattson, _The Story of An Emigrant_, 50.
[355] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 62.
Hans Mattson was only one of many who found Goodhue County politics and
a term of service in the army excellent fitting schools for larger
activity in State affairs. One of the Norwegians who served an
apprenticeship in Wisconsin, a journeymanship in Iowa, and came to the
master-grade of citizenship--office-holding--in Minnesota, was Lars K.
Aaker, who represented Goodhue County in the Minnesota Legislature in
1859-1860. After service as first lieutenant in Mattson's Scandinavian
Company, he again sat in the Legislature in 1862, 1867, and 1869. Again
after twelve years of residence in Goodhue County he moved to Otter Tail
County, and represented that county in the State Senate, later becoming
Register of the United States Land Office. In 1864, he moved again, to
Crookston, in the extreme northwestern corner of Minnesota, where he
served as Receiver of the Land Office from 1884 to 1893.[356] As the
counties and towns have multiplied, by the biological process of
division, in Minnesota and the Dakotas, Scandinavian names recur more
and more frequently in their records, tho it is not always easy,
especially since 1880, to identify such names, for the Norsemen have had
a habit of Americanizing their original names or changing them
altogether either with or without legal process.[357]
[356] Personal interview with Mr. Aaker, May, 1890. He was school
teacher, in English, and school district clerk in Wisconsin
before moving to Iowa and Minnesota. See also _Minnesota
Legislative Manual_, 1893, 89-92; Nelson, _History of the
Scandinavians_, I, 365.
[357] By these changes Johanson became Johnson; Hanson, Jackson;
Fjeld, Field; Larson, Lawson (as Victor F. Lawson, the great
newspaper owner of Chicago). By taking the homestead name, the
too common name of Olson was changed to Tuve in one case, while
Adolf Olson became Adolf Olson Bjelland in another.
The county offices which seem to be most attractive to the Scandinavians
are those of sheriff, treasurer, auditor, and register of deeds. The
lists of county officers for several years in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
the Dakotas, show that the number of Swedes and Norwegians in the four
offices just mentioned was closely proportioned to their percentage in
the population of the States named.[358] Because the Scandinavians are
less numerous in the other county offices, their proportion of the total
offices in the counties of the States falls considerably below their
proportion of the population. Estimating on the basis of a sure minimum,
with the difficulties in identifying names eliminated, the Scandinavians
for several years about 1895 filled approximately one-fifth of the 1235
county offices in Minnesota, one-fifth of the 268 in North Dakota and
one-tenth of the 702 in Wisconsin. Their numbers relative to the
population in each State were respectively one-fourth in Minnesota,
two-fifths in North Dakota, one-eighth in Wisconsin, and one-fifth in
South Dakota. More recent illustrations are to be found in the election
of 1904. In Traill County, North Dakota, the sixth in size of the forty
counties in the State, the sheriff, judge, treasurer, auditor,
register, surveyor, coroner, and superintendent of schools were of
Scandinavian origin; in Lac Qui Parle County, Minnesota, a similar clean
sweep was made; while in Yellow Medicine County seven out of ten
principal officers were Scandinavians.[359]
[358] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1893, 341-366 (naming 16
officers for most counties); _Wisconsin Blue Book_, 1895, 630
(naming 10); _North Dakota Legislative Manual_, 1895; Basford,
_South Dakota Handbook and Official and Legislative Manual_,
1894, 16-120.
[359] _Amerika_, Nov. 18, 1904.
The first Scandinavian to enter the field of State politics was James D.
Reymert, a Norwegian, who represented Racine County in the second
constitutional convention of Wisconsin in 1847, and later in the
Assembly of that State, first from Racine County and then from Milwaukee
County in 1857.[360] He was also a candidate for presidential elector on
the Free Soil ticket in 1840.[361] The son of a Scotch mother, and
receiving part of his education in Scotland, he was better prepared than
other Norwegians for taking part in politics, and for the work of
editing the first Norwegian newspaper in America, _Nordlyset_--"The
Northern Light"--which appeared in 1847 as a Free Soil organ.[362] In the
constitutional convention he was not active in the debates, tho he
advocated a six-months' residence as a qualification for voting, saying,
"as to foreigners, the sooner they were entitled to vote, the better
citizens they would make."[363] For one provision of the Wisconsin
constitution he was personally responsible: Article VII, section 16,
which directed the legislature to establish courts or tribunals of
conciliation.[364] But in spite of the command, "The legislature shall
pass laws" for these courts, no such law was ever passed in Wisconsin.
[360] _Journal of the Second Convention_, 18; Tenney, _Fathers of
Wisconsin_, 249; Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 94-96;
_Wisconsin Blue Book_, (1895), 141, 173.
[361] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 96.
[362] _Ibid._, 95.
[363] _Journal of the Second Convention_, 31, 129.
[364] _Ibid._, 422, 638; Poore, _Charters and Constitutions_
(2nd ed.), 2037.
Down to the close of the Civil War the Scandinavians exercised very
little influence in State politics. Here and there one or two of them
appeared as members of conventions or of the legislatures, but even in
Wisconsin the number rarely went above two in a single session of the
legislature.[365] By 1870 many of the Norwegians and Swedes were
well-to-do, while others who had served in the Civil War returned to
their homes with the prestige conferred by honorable service in that
great struggle. Furthermore, the suspicion with which foreign-born
citizens had been viewed was greatly reduced, if not dissipated, by the
highest evidence which any man can give of his patriotism and loyalty to
his adopted country. No one might thenceforth deny them any of the
rights, privileges, and honors of the political gild. Accordingly the
number of them elected to the legislatures in the Northwest after 1870
increases noticeably both in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and in the
Dakotas, where rapid material development and growth of population
furnished unusual political opportunities which the Norwegians and
Swedes were not slow to improve.
In the Wisconsin legislature of 1868 sat 2 Norwegians; in 1869, 3; in
1871, 4.[366] In Minnesota, the figures are striking: 1868, 2
Scandinavians; 1870, 4; 1872, 9; and 1873, 13.[367] Since then the
percentage of Norse representatives has steadily grown, tho it is not
always easy to determine the racial stock from which a native-born
officer came. Recent Wisconsin legislatures had apparently out of a
total membership of 133, in 1895, 5 Scandinavians; in 1901, 10 (1 Dane,
1 Swede, and 8 Norwegians); in 1903, 6.[368] The Minnesota legislature
of 1893 had 9 out of 54 senators, and 20 out of 114 representatives, who
were of Viking origin--fully one-sixth of the total membership.
[365] _Wisconsin Blue Book_, 1895, 136 ff; _Minnesota Legislative
Manual_, 1893, 87-92; _History of the Upper Mississippi Valley_,
573; Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 390.
[366] _Wisconsin Blue Book_, 1895, 136 ff. For the more recent
legislatures it is possible to be fairly exact in these data,
since the blue books and manuals give biographical sketches.
[367] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1895, 573 ff.
[368] _Wisconsin Blue Books_, 1895, 66; 1901, 733 ff; 1903, 740 ff.
In the legislatures of 1899 and 1905 the numbers were as follows:[369]
1899
Senate 63 members Norwegian 7 (3 American born)
Swede 2
House 119 members Norwegian 16 (3 American born)
Swede 9 (4 American born)
Dane 1
1905
Senate 63 members Norwegian 7
Swede 4
House 119 members Norwegian 20 (7 American born)
Swede 9
[369] _Minnesota Legislative Manuals_ for 1893, 1899, 1905.
In the newer States to the West, the percentages rise still higher. In
North Dakota, the legislature of 93 members contained 17 men of
Scandinavian parentage in 1895, and 18 in 1901--16 Norwegians (4 American
born), one Dane, and one Icelander.[370] Unofficial figures for 1904
gave the Scandinavians 38 out of 140 members.[371] South Dakota in 1894
had 15 Norwegians (5 native-born) and 5 Swedes, in a legislative body of
127; in 1897, 17; in 1903, 16; and in 1904, 17.[372]
[370] _Legislative Manual of North Dakota_, 1895, 18; _North Dakota
Senate Journal_, 1901, 1; _North Dakota House Journal_, 1901, 1.
[371] _Amerika_, Nov. 18, 1904.
[372] Basford, _Political Handbook_ (South Dakota), 149-197; _Senate
Journal_ and _House Journal_, 1897, 1903; _Amerika_, Nov. 18,
1904.
In the executive and administrative departments of State government, as
distinguished from the legislative, the participation of the
Scandinavians notably increased after 1869. In the summer of that year,
a Scandinavian convention was held in Minneapolis for the express
purpose of booming Colonel Hans Mattson for the office of Secretary of
State in Minnesota. Of his fitness there was no doubt, for in addition
to holding local offices in Goodhue County and his service in the army,
he had for two years served as Commissioner of Emigration. The
Republicans took the hint and nominated him almost unanimously in
September, and his election followed. He served one term at this time
and by re-elections filled the same office from 1887 to 1891.[373] So
frequently have Swedes and Norwegians been elected to this office both
in Minnesota and in the Dakotas that it might almost be said that they
have a prescriptive right to it.[374] In the thirty-seven years ending
in January, 1907, the Swedes filled the office in Minnesota sixteen
years and the Norwegians four years.[375] Other State offices like those
of Treasurer, Auditor, and Lieutenant Governor, not to mention
commissionerships and appointments to boards, have also been frequently
filled by Scandinavians in the States of the Northwest.[376]
[373] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 115; _Minnesota Legislative
Manual_, 1905, 99.
[374] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 99; _North Dakota
Legislative Manual_, 1895, 66; _South Dakota Legislative
Manual_, 1894, 130, 134.
[375] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 99, 627.
[376] _Ibid._, 99-106, 627-637; _Wisconsin Blue Book_, 1895, 662 ff;
_South Dakota Political Handbook_, 1894, 130 ff; _The Viking_,
I, 3 (1906).
The first Scandinavian to reach the eminence of a governorship was Knute
Nelson, an emigrant from Voss, near Bergen in Norway, in 1849, who,
after service in the Civil War, was elected in succession to the
legislatures of Wisconsin and Minnesota and to the Congress of the
United States. Nominated by acclamation for governor of Minnesota on the
Republican ticket in 1892, he was elected by a plurality of 14,620
votes; two years later he was unanimously re-nominated, and re-elected
by a plurality of more than 60,000 votes.[377] He served only one month
of his second term, accepting election to the United States Senate, to
the disappointment, not to say the disgust, of many who had voted for
him for Governor, who considered him in duty bound to serve in that
capacity after accepting their suffrages.
[377] Stenholt, _Knute Nelson_, 68-78; Nelson, _History of the
Scandinavians_, I, 451; _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1893,
549.
The second Scandinavian governor was a Swede born in Smaaland, who
landed in the United States in 1868 at the age of fourteen--John Lind.
Passing up through such political gradations as county superintendent of
schools, receiver of the United States Land Office, and Republican
representative in Congress, he allied himself with the free-silver
movement of 1896 and became the Fusion candidate for governor of
Minnesota. Opposed by the leading Swedes who remained loyal to the
Republican party, he was defeated by a small majority, tho supported by
many of the Norwegians. The Spanish War, in which he served as
quartermaster of volunteers, gave him a new claim to popular favor, and
when he again ran for governor in 1898 he was elected by a combination
of Democrats and Populists, turning his former deficiency of 3,496 into
a plurality of 20,399.[378] This victory was due more to a revolt
against the Republican candidate than to clannish support of a Swede by
Swedes, for the two strongholds of the Swedes, Chisago and Goodhue
Counties, went Republican as usual, while the German and Irish wards of
St. Paul and Minneapolis gave majorities for Lind.
[378] _Svenska Amerikanska Posten_, Nov. 22, 1898; _World Almanac_,
1899; Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 432.
The third of Minnesota's Scandinavian governors came into office under
circumstances of distinctly dramatic character. John A. Johnson was born
of Swedish parents in the State over which he was to be made ruler; at
the age of fourteen he became the support of his mother and of the
family, save the inebriate father who was sent to an almshouse where he
died. When nominated by the Democrats in 1904, Johnson had been for
eighteen years editor of a country newspaper printed in English. The
Republicans, especially their candidate for governor, a coarse-grained,
distrusted, machine politician, endeavored to make political capital out
of the fact that Johnson's father died in the poorhouse. The Democratic
leaders persuaded Johnson with some difficulty to let the plain truth be
told, and told on the stump--and Johnson, the son of a Swedish immigrant,
a man from a small, interior city, a Democrat in a State strongly
Republican as a rule, won by a plurality of 6,352 votes in a
Presidential year, when Theodore Roosevelt carried the State by
161,464.[379] Two years of vigorous but quiet administration brought the
reward of a renomination and re-election in 1906 by a plurality of
76,000.[380] Again in 1908, another presidential year, Governor Johnson
was re-elected by 20,000 plurality, though Taft received a plurality of
85,000.[381]
[379] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 506, 520. In this election
of 1904, P. E. Hanson, a Swedish immigrant of 1857, was elected
on the Republican ticket as Secretary of State by a plurality of
more than 96,000.
[380] _World Almanac_, 1907, 487.
[381] _Ibid._, 1909, 639.
The death of Governor Johnson in October, 1909, made the Republican
Lieutenant Governor, Adolph Olson Eberhardt, the fourth Scandinavian
executive of Minnesota. He was born in Sweden, the son of Andrew Olson,
and came to America in his eleventh year. He added Eberhardt to his name
by permission of the proper court in 1898 because several other persons
in his community also bore the name of Adolph Olson. Governor Eberhardt
reached the governor's chair by various business and political
experiences--as a lawyer, contractor, United States Commissioner, deputy
clerk of the United States District and Circuit Courts, State senator,
and lieutenant governor. He was re-elected in his own right in 1910 by a
plurality of 60,000, and again in 1912 by 30,000.[382]
[382] _Ibid._, 1911, 673; 1913, 741; _Who's Who in America_, 1914-15.
James O. Davidson rose to the governorship of Wisconsin through long
service in subordinate capacities. Of Norwegian birth, immigrating in
1872, he was elected to the Wisconsin legislatures of 1893, 1895, 1897;
twice chosen State Treasurer; elected Lieutenant Governor on the ticket
with R. M. LaFollette, and upon the election of the latter to the United
States Senate succeeded him as governor in January, 1906. In the summer
of that year Senator LaFollette vainly stumped the State to prevent
Davidson's nomination for Governor on the Republican ticket, and in the
election that followed the Norwegian-born, soundly-experienced Governor
was chosen by the handsome plurality of 80,247 votes.[383] In 1908 he
was re-elected by a plurality of 76,958.
[383] _Wisconsin Blue Book_ (1903), 1070; _World Almanac_, 1907, 513.
Still further up the political scale, men from Northwestern Europe have
been taking an active part in national affairs. Sixteen of them have
been elected to the House of Representatives of the Federal Congress.
The first one to achieve this high position was Knute Nelson who sat in
the House from 1883 to 1889 as the Representative of the Fifth Minnesota
District. In 1895 he was chosen United States Senator and has served
continuously since March 4, 1895.[384] Others who have served for
several terms in the House are: Nils P. Haugen, a Norwegian representing
a Wisconsin district from 1887 to 1895; John Lind, a Swede, who
represented the Second Minnesota District from 1887 to 1893; Asle J.
Gronna, who was a member of the House from 1905 to 1909, and succeeded
Johnson as Senator from North Dakota, serving up to the present time;
Gilbert N. Haugen, another Wisconsin-born Norwegian, who has
represented the Fourth Iowa District since 1899; Andrew J. Volstead, a
Minnesota-born Norwegian, who has sat for the Seventh Minnesota District
since 1903; and Halvor Steenerson, born in Dane County, Wisconsin, of
Norwegian stock, who has represented the Ninth Minnesota District since
1903.[385] Martin N. Johnson, who was born of Norwegian parents
in Wisconsin, had his first legislative experience in the Iowa
legislature, sat in the House as representative at large from the new
State of North Dakota from 1891 to 1899, and then, after a period of
retirement, was sent to the United States Senate from the same State,
serving from March, 1909, until his death in October of the same year.
[384] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_ (1895), 325-6, 648;
_Congressional Directory_, May, 1914.
[385] _Wisconsin Bluebook_ (1895), 191-2; _Congressional
Directories_, 1887 to 1914, which contain brief biographies of
Representatives and Senators. Other Representatives for briefer
terms than those mentioned above are: from Minnesota, Kittle
Halvorson (Norwegian), 1891 to 1895; Halvor E. Boen (Norwegian),
1893 to 1895; Charles A. Lindbergh (Swede), since 1906; from
Wisconsin, H. B. Dahle (Norwegian), 1899 to 1901; John M. Nelson
(Norwegian), since 1906; and Irvine L. Lenroot (born of Swedish
parents in Wisconsin), since 1909; from North Dakota, Henry T.
Helgesen (Norwegian, born in Iowa), since 1911; and from Utah,
Jacob Johnson (the only Dane who has sat in the House), since
1913.
An analysis of this list of Representatives shows that eleven of the
sixteen were Norwegians of the first or second generation of immigrant
stock, four were Swedes, and one a Dane. Six of the eleven were born in
America, three of them in the old Wisconsin settlements; only one of
these represented the district in which he was born, the rest receiving
their reward in the newer western sections into which they had migrated
with the movement of population beyond the Mississippi.
Different Federal administrations have deemed it wise to "recognize" the
Scandinavian among other elements of the political population, in making
appointments in the diplomatic and consular services of the United
States. One of the most notable instances is that of the selection of
John Lind, the former governor of Minnesota, as the personal
representative of President Wilson in Mexico during the troubled months
of 1913 and 1914 and as adviser to the United States embassy in Mexico
City during the period following the recall of Ambassador Henry Lane
Wilson. Another instance of appointment in this service is that of
Lauritz Selmer Swenson, a Norwegian of the second generation, born in
Minnesota, who was minister to Denmark from 1897 to 1906, and later
received appointments as minister to Switzerland and to Norway,
terminating the latter in 1913.[386] Rasmus B. Anderson represented the
United States at the Danish court from 1885 to 1889, being at that time
a Democrat. He was born in Wisconsin of pure Norse parentage, and had
served as professor of the Scandinavian languages in the University of
Wisconsin.[387]
[386] _Who's Who in America_, 1914-5.
[387] _Ibid._; Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, quoting from the
_Madison Democrat_.
The appointment of Nicolay A. Grevstad as minister to Uruguay and
Paraguay in 1911 was a fitting recognition of ability combined with long
and able service to the people of the older, or middle, Northwest as
editor of the _Minneapolis Tribune_, the _Minneapolis Times_, and the
great Chicago daily, _Skandinaven_ (1902-1911). Hans Mattson, a Swedish
veteran of the Civil War, was consul general at Calcutta from 1883 to
1885;[388] Soren Listoe, the Danish editor of _Nordvesten_ of St. Paul,
Minnesota, was consul at Düsseldorf, 1882-3, consul at Rotterdam,
1897-1902, and consul general at the same city, 1902-1914.[389] At
Rotterdam he succeeded L. S. Reque, a Norwegian from Iowa. Several other
men have served for long terms in minor positions in the foreign
service.[390]
[388] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 143-145.
[389] _Congressional Directory_, 1897, 1907, 1914; Nelson, _History of
the Scandinavians_, I, 435, 480, 503; II, 195.
[390] Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 389.