Part 5

Hans Mattson was the son of an independent freeholder and successful farmer of the parish of Onnestad, near the city of Kristianstad, Sweden. In an unpretending little cabin built by his father he spent the first years of his happy and peaceful childhood. On one occasion he was taken by his parents to see the king, who was to pass by on the highway near his home. In the midst of the confusion he did succeed in getting a glimpse of King Oscar I. In his childish mind he had fancied that the king and his family and all others in authority were the peculiar and elect people of the Almighty, but after this event he began to entertain serious doubts as to the correctness of his views on this matter.

After a year and a half in the Swedish army he decided to leave the service and try his luck “in a country where inherited names and titles were not the necessary conditions of success.” He says: “At that time America was little known in our part of the country, only a few persons having emigrated from the whole district. But we knew that it was a new country, inhabited by a free and independent people, that it had a liberal government and great natural resources, and these inducements were sufficient for us.”

From the time of his arrival at Boston until his final settling in Minnesota, his career is but typical of that of the many sturdy and enterprising pioneers of Scandinavian origin who have contributed so much to the building of the Northwest. He served as a colonel in the Civil War, and in 1869 was elected as Secretary of State in Minnesota. Later he was Consul General of the United States in India.

The selection that follows is taken from the final chapter of his “Reminiscences,” the English translation of which was published in 1892.

SCANDINAVIAN CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN NATIONALITY

It is a great mistake which some make, to think that it is only for their brawn and muscle that the Northmen have become a valuable acquisition to the American population; on the contrary, they have done, and are doing, as much as any other nationality within the domain of mind and heart. Not to speak of the early discovery of America by the Scandinavians four hundred years before the time of Columbus, they can look back with proud satisfaction on the part they have taken in all respects to make this great republic what it is to-day.

The early Swedish colonists in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey worked as hard for liberty and independence as the English did in New England and in the South. There were no tories among them, and when the Continental Congress stood wavering equal in the balance for and against the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it was a Swede, John Morton (Mortenson), of the old Delaware stock, who gave the casting vote of Pennsylvania in favor of the sacred document.

When, nearly a century later, the great rebellion burst upon the land, a gallant descendant of the Swedes, Gen. Robert Anderson, met its first shock at Fort Sumter, and, during the bitter struggle of four years which followed, the Scandinavian-Americans were as true and loyal to their adopted country as their native-born neighbors, giving their unanimous support to the cause of the Union and fighting valiantly for it. Nor should it be forgotten that it was the Swede, John Ericsson, who, by his inventive genius, saved the navy and the great seaports of the United States, and that it was another Swede by descent, Admiral Dahlgren, who furnished the model for the best guns of our artillery. Surely love of freedom, valor, genius, patriotism and religious fervor was not planted in America by the seeds brought over in the Mayflower alone.

Yes, it is verily true that the Scandinavian immigrants, from the early colonists of 1638 to the present time, have furnished strong hands, clear heads and loyal hearts to the republic. They have caused the wilderness to blossom like the rose; they have planted schools and churches on the hills and in the valleys; they have honestly and ably administered the public affairs of town, county and state; they have helped to make wise laws for their respective commonwealths and in the halls of Congress; they have, with honor and ability, represented their adopted country abroad; they have sanctified the American soil by their blood, shed in freedom’s cause on the battle-fields of the Revolution and the Civil War; and, though proud of their Scandinavian ancestry, they love America and American institutions as deeply and as truly as do the descendants of the Pilgrims, the starry emblem of liberty meaning as much to them as to any other citizen.

Therefore, the Scandinavian-American feels a certain sense of ownership in the glorious heritage of American soil, with its rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, woods and prairies, and in all its noble institutions; and he feels that the blessings which he enjoys are not his by favor or sufferance, but by right;--by moral as well as civil right. For he took possession of the wilderness, endured the hardships of the pioneer, contributed his full share toward the grand results accomplished, and is in mind and heart a true and loyal American citizen.

JACOB RIIS

Jacob Riis, who may well stand as a representative of the best that America has received from the Scandinavian countries, was born at Ribe, Denmark, May 3, 1849. He emigrated to the United States in 1870, where he subsequently obtained a position as reporter on _The New York Tribune_ and _The Evening Sun_. It is at the close of his well-known autobiography that he relates how he came to a realization that he was indeed an American in heart as well as in name. In words of patriotic fervor he says:--

“I have told the story of the making of an American. There remains to tell how I found out that he was made and finished at last. It was when I went back to see my mother once more and, wandering about the country of my childhood’s memories, had come to the city of Elsinore. There I fell ill of a fever and lay many weeks in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me, they rolled my bed into a room overlooking the sea. The sunlight danced upon the waves, and the distant mountains of Sweden were blue against the horizon. Ships passed under full sail up and down the great waterway of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day bore no message to me. I lay moodily picking at the coverlet, sick and discouraged and sore--I hardly knew why myself. Until all at once there sailed past, close inshore, a ship flying at the top the flag of freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, discouragement, and gloom! Forgotten weakness and suffering, the cautions of doctor and nurse. I sat up in bed and shouted, laughed and cried by turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. They thought I had lost my head, but I told them no, thank God! I had found it, and my heart, too, at last. I knew then that it was my flag; that my children’s home was mine, indeed; that I also had become an American in truth. And I thanked God, and, like unto the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed and went home, healed.”

Besides being the author of several books, such as “The Battle with the Slum,” “How the Other Half Lives,” and “The Children of the Poor,” dealing with the life of the people of New York’s East Side, he was an active and practical reformer. In the course of his struggles to ameliorate the condition of the poor, he met Theodore Roosevelt and formed the friendship which inspired the volume represented in the following selection. Riis and Roosevelt had much in common. There was in both a great deal of the old Anglo-Saxon fighting spirit, ennobled by modern influences and employed in defense of right and justice. Their mutual and steadfast devotion to each other resembled that of ancient liegeman and lord. This hero-worship is, after all, not unique in our history. It should be a cause for great pride that so many of our leaders, of whom, of course, Lincoln is the most striking example, by embodying the noblest and the best in American life, have been the living ideal of countless immigrants.

A YOUNG MAN’S HERO: AN IMMIGRANT’S TRIBUTE TO ROOSEVELT

There was never a day that called so loudly for such as he, as does this of ours. Not that it is worse than other days; I know it is better. I find proof of it in the very fact that it is as if the age-long fight between good and evil had suddenly come to a head, as if all the questions of right, of justice, of the brotherhood, which we had seen in glimpses before, and dimly, had all at once come out in the open, craving solution one and all. A battle royal, truly! A battle for the man of clean hands and clean mind, who can think straight and act square; the man who will stand for the right “because it is right”; who can say, and mean it, that “it is hard to fail, but worse never to have tried to succeed.” A battle for him who strives for “that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to him who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.” I am but quoting his own words, and never, I think, did I hear finer than those he spoke of Governor Taft when he had put by his own preferences and gone to his hard and toilsome task in the Philippines; for the whole royal, fighting soul of the man was in them.

“But he undertook it gladly,” he said, “and he is to be considered thrice fortunate; for in this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity coupled with the capacity to do well and worthily a piece of work the doing of which is of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.”

There is his measure. Let now the understrappers sputter. With that for our young men to grow up to, we need have no fear for the morrow. Let it ask what questions it will of the Republic, it shall answer them, for we shall have men at the oars.

This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk contained a cable despatch which gave me a glow at the heart such as I have not felt for a while. Just three lines; but they told that a nation’s conscience was struggling victoriously through hate and foul play and treason: Captain Dreyfus was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at last to a once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it does not move! It does, where there are men to move it,--I said it before: men who believe in the right and are willing to fight for it. When the children of poverty and want came to Mulberry Street for justice, and I knew they came because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what the resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to see right done in his own time could accomplish. I have watched him since in the Navy Department, in camp, as Governor, in the White House, and more and more I have made out his message as being to the young men of our day, himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so, for when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, and their handshake tells me that they want to be like him, and are going to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done something worth doing for my people. For, whether for good or for evil, we all leave our mark upon our day, and his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the right _and wins_.

Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our broad land, are striving up toward the standard he sets, for he is their hero by right, as he is mine. Do not be afraid to own it. The struggle to which you are born, and in which you are bound to take a hand if you would be men in more than name, is the struggle between the ideal and the husk; for life without ideals is like the world without the hope of heaven, an empty, meaningless husk. It is your business to read its meaning into it by making the ideals real. The material things of life are good in their day, but they pass away; the moral remain to bear witness that the high hopes of youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt _lives his ideals_; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in working shape: “Face the facts as you find them; strive steadily for the best.” “Be never content with less than the possible best, and never throw away the possible best because it is not the ideal best.” Maxims, those, for the young man who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Happily for the world, the young man who does not is rare.

JACOB VAN DER ZEE

“The Hollanders of Iowa,” by Jacob Van der Zee, was published at Iowa City in 1912 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The following facts regarding the author and his book are given in the introduction of the editor, Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh:--

“The author of this volume on ‘The Hollanders of Iowa’ was admirably fitted for the task. Born of Dutch parents in The Netherlands and reared among kinsfolk in Iowa, he has been a part of the life which is portrayed in these pages. At the same time Mr. Van der Zee’s education at The State University of Iowa, his three years’ residence at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and his research work in The State Historical Society of Iowa have made it possible for him to study the Hollanders objectively as well as subjectively. Accordingly, his book is in no respect an overdrawn, eulogistic account of the Dutch people.

“The history of the Hollanders of Iowa is not wholly provincial: it suggests much that is typical in the development of Iowa and in the larger history of the West: it is ‘a story of the stubborn and unyielding fight of men and women who overcame the obstacles of a new country and handed down to their descendants thriving farms and homes of peace and plenty.’”

The selection here given comprises chapter four of the book.

WHY DUTCH EMIGRANTS TURNED TO AMERICA

Such was the condition of things in The Netherlands that thousands of people lived from hand to mouth, the prey of poverty and hunger, stupefied by the hopelessness of securing the necessities of life, and barely enabled through the gifts of the well-to-do to drag out their wretched lives. At the same time many of these unfortunate persons were hopeful and eager to find a place where they might obtain a livelihood, lead quiet lives of honesty and godliness, and educate their children in the principles of religion without let or hindrance. The leaders of the Separatists looked forward to a life of freedom in a land where man would not have to wait for work, but where work awaited man, where people would not rub elbows by reason of the density of population, and where God’s creation would welcome the coming of man.

When social forces such as these, mostly beyond human control, began to operate with increasing power, the Dutch people were not slow to recognize the truth that emigration was absolutely necessary. The seriousness of the situation dawned upon all thinking men,--especially upon state officials, who feared that unless the stream of emigration could be directed toward the Dutch colonies, their country would suffer an enormous drain of capital and human lives. Accordingly the attention of prospective emigrants was called to the Dutch East Indies,--chiefly to the advantages of the rich island of Java, “that paradise of the world, the pearl in Holland’s crown.”

The religion of the Dissenters, however, was responsible for turning the balance in favor of some other land. To them Java was a closed door. Beside the fear of an unhealthful climate towered the certainty of legislation hostile to their Christian principles and ideals. Moreover, could poor men afford the expense of transportation thither, and could they feel assured of getting land or work in Java? State officials, men of learning, and men of business from several parts of the country were summoned to an important conference at Amsterdam to discuss the whole emigration movement. The Separatist leaders were asked why they should not remain Netherlanders under the House of Orange by removing to the colonies just as the people of the British Isles found homes in the English colonies. Two Separatist ministers appealed to the government to direct the flood of emigration toward Java by promises of civil and religious liberty. But the attempt to secure a free Christian colony in Java produced only idle expectations.

Then it was that the people turned their eyes away from the East toward the United States of North America,--a land of freedom and rich blessings, where they hoped to find in its unsettled interior some spot adaptable to agriculture, and thus rescue themselves from the miseries of a decadent state. To the discontented, ambitious Hollander was presented the picture of a real land of promise, where all things would smile at him and be prepared, as it were, to aid him. It was said that “after an ocean passage of trifling expense the Netherlander may find work to do as soon as he sets foot on shore; he may buy land for a few florins per acre; and feel secure and free among a people of Dutch, German and English birth, who will rejoice to see him come to increase the nation’s wealth.” Asserting that they could vouch for the truthfulness of this picture, as based on the positive assurances and experiences of friends already in America, the Separatist clergyman-pamphleteers openly declared that they would not hesitate to rob Holland of her best citizens by helping them on their way to America.

Of the people and government of the United States, Scholte, who was destined to lead hundreds of his countrymen to the State of Iowa, at an early date cherished a highly favorable opinion, which he expressed as follows:--

“I am convinced that a settlement in some healthful region there will have, by the ordinary blessing of God, excellent temporal and moral results, especially for the rising generation.... Should it then excite much wonder that I have firmly resolved to leave The Netherlands and together with so many Christian relatives adopt the United States as a new fatherland?

“There I shall certainly meet with the same wickedness which troubles me here; yet I shall find also opportunity to work. There I shall certainly find the same, if not still greater, evidence of unbelief and superstition; but I shall also find a constitutional provision which does not bind my hands in the use of the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; there I can fight for what I believe without being disobedient to the magistrates and authorities ordained by God. There I shall find among men the same zeal to obtain this world’s goods; but I shall not find the same impulse to get the better of one another, for competition is open to all; I shall not find the same desire to reduce the wages of labor, nor the same inducement to avoid taxation, nor the same peevishness and groaning about the burden of taxation.

“There I shall find no Minister of Public Worship, for the separation of Church and State is a fact. There I shall not need to contribute to the support of pastors whose teachings I abhor. I shall find no school commissions nor school supervisors who prohibit the use of the Bible in schools and hinder the organization of special schools, for education is really free. I shall find there the descendants of earlier inhabitants of Holland, among whom the piety of our forefathers still lives, and who are now prepared to give advice and aid to Hollanders who are forced to come to them.”

Scholte, however, never claimed to be a refugee from the oppression of the Old World. He left Europe because the social, religious, and political condition of his native country was such that, according to his conviction, he could not with any reasonable hope of success work for the actual benefit of honest and industrious fellow-men. Very many members of Scholte’s emigrant association felt certain that they and their children would sink from the middle class and end their lives as paupers, if they remained in Holland.

Later emigration to America was in no small degree due to a cause which has always operated in inducing people to abandon their European homes. After a period of residence in America, Hollanders, elated by reason of their prosperity and general change of fortune, very naturally reported their delight to friends and relatives in the fatherland, strongly urging them to come and share their good luck instead of suffering from want in Holland. They wrote of higher wages, fertile soil, cheapness of the necessities of life, abundance of cheap land, and many other advantages. If one’s wages for a day’s work in America equalled a week’s earnings in Holland, surely it was worth while to leave that unfortunate country. Such favorable reports as these were largely instrumental in turning the attention of Hollanders to the New World as the one great land of opportunity.

EDWARD BOK

Although it was impossible to include in this volume selections from “The Americanization of Edward Bok,” recently published, it seems that some mention should be made of this delightfully reminiscent autobiography and of its author, who came to this country in 1870 as a little Dutch boy of six years.

There are entertaining chapters on his passion for collecting autographs from famous people, on his visit to Boston and Cambridge to see Holmes and Longfellow and Emerson, on his relations with prominent statesmen and other notable men of his time, and on his experiences as editor of an influential and successful magazine; but most pertinent to the purpose of this work are the last two chapters of the book, “Where America Fell Short with Me,” and “What I Owe to America,” which should be read by all those actively interested in the Americanization of the foreign-born. In the first of these he points out that America failed to teach him thrift or economy; that the importance of doing a task thoroughly, the need of quality rather than quantity, was not inculcated; that the public school fell short in its responsibility of seeing that he, a foreign-born boy, acquired the English language correctly; that he was not impressed with a wholesome and proper respect for law and authority; and that, at the most critical time, when he came to exercise the right of suffrage, the State offered him no enlightenment or encouragement. Yet, in spite of all this, he is able to say: “Whatever shortcomings I may have found during my fifty-year period of Americanization; however America may have failed to help my transition from a foreigner into an American, I owe to her the most priceless gift that any nation can offer, and that is opportunity.”

OSCAR SOLOMON STRAUS

Oscar S. Straus, formerly United States Ambassador to Turkey, was born in Bavaria. Besides the degree A.B. from Columbia University, he has received honorary degrees from various institutions. He was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, 1902, and Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Roosevelt, and has held many other prominent positions in civil and political affairs.

His chief writings are: “The Origin of Republican Form of Government in the United States,” 1886; “Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty,” 1894; “The American Spirit,” a collection of various addresses, published in one volume by the Century Company in 1893. The address selected for quotation here is that delivered at the banquet of the American Hebrew Congregations, in New York, January 18, 1911.

AMERICA AND THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN JUDAISM