1783 Transforming Swedish Immigrants Into Swedish Americans

Swedish-American Historical Society, Inc. 5125 North Spaulding Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60625-4816 (An Illinois nonprofit corporation)

The Swedish-American

Established to record the achievements of the Swedish Pioneers OFFICERS Chair, EL01SE V. NELSON, Chicago, 111. • Vice Chair, RONALD J. JOHNSON, Madison, Wis. Secretary, FRANCES B. JOHNSON, Park Ridge, 111. Treasurer, DONALD E. OLSON, Chicago, 111. President, PHILIP J. ANDERSON, Chicago, III. At Large, ERIC R. LUND, Evanston. 111. BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Year in parentheses indicates expiration of term) H. Arnold Barton (2002) Eloise V. Nelson (2001) Dag Blanck (2002) Ingrid Nyholm-Langc (2002) Earl D. Check (2000) Roy E. Olson (2002) E. Stanley Enlund (2000) Charles 1. Peterson (2001) Scott E. Erickson (2001) Kevin M. Proescholdt (2002) Charles W. Estus Sr. (2000) G. Carl Rutbcrg (2000) Junita BorK Hemke (2000) Ellen T. Rye (2000) Frances B. Johnson (2001) Mariann E. Tiblin (2002) Ronald J. Johnson (2000) Kermit Westcrbcrg (2002) Kerstin B. Lane (2001) PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE Philip J. Anderson, Chair, Chicago, 111. Nils Hasselmo, Minneapolis, Minn. H. Arnold Barton, Carbondale, 111. Ronald J. Johnson, Madison, Wis. Ulf Jonas Bjcirk, Indianapolis, Ind. Eric R. Lund, Evanston, 111. Dag Blanck, Rock Island, 111. LeRoy W. Nelson, Chicago, 111. James E. Erickson, Minneapolis, Minn. Byron J. Nordstrom, LeSueur, Minn. Anita Olson Gustafson, Greenwood, S.C. Nils William Olsson, Winter Park, Fla. ADDRESSES Swedish-American Historical Society 5125 North Spaulding Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60625-4816 Phone: 773-583-5722; fax: 773-583-5677 E-mail: [email protected] www.swedishamericanhist.org Editor of the QUARTERLY: Byron J. Nordstrom Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota 56082 Phone: 507-933-7435; e-mail: [email protected] Associate and Book Review Editor: Roger McKnight Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota 56082 Phone: 507-933-7422; e-mail: [email protected]

Historical Quarterly Formerly The Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly Vol. LI

July 2000

No. 3

BYRON J. NORDSTROM, Editor ROGER MCKNIGHT, Associate and Book Review Editor SALLY A. J O H N S O N , Production Editor

EDITOR'S C O R N E R

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JOHN LARSON

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From Amerika to America: Alma Crosses the Border LARRY L U N D B L A D

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The Impact of Minnesota's Dakota Conflict of 1862 on the Swedish Settlers ^^^_ ERNST F. TONSING Jr/'j^Z^J Transforming Swedish Immigrants into Swedish Americans: The Function of a Speech by Governor John A. Martin, Lindsborg, Kansas, 5 July 1886

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B O O K REVIEWS

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BOOK N O T E

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THE SWEDISH-AMERICAN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY (ISSN 0730-O28X) (formerly the Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly) is published four times a year (January, April, July, October) by the Swedish-American Historical Society, 5125 N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago, IL 60625. Subscription price is $10.00 per year, which is included in the membership dues of the Swedish-American Historical Society (formerly the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society); subscription is not available separately from membership. Address communications regarding membership to the office of the Society, 5125 N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago, IL 60625; in Sweden, to Swedish-American Historical Society, Riksforeningen Sverigekontakt c/o Lennart Limberg, Box 53066, 400 14 Goteborg, telephone 031-18 00 62, fax 031-20 99 02. Postmaster send address changes to The Swedish-American Historical Quarterly, 5125 N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago, IL 60625. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. © 2000 by THE SWEDISH-AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Transforming Swedish Immigrants into Swedish Americans: The Function of a Speech by Governor John A. Martin, Lindsborg, Kansas, 5 July 1886 ERNST F.TONSING

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n 5 July 1886 the citizens of Lindsborg, Kansas, were awakened with the ringing sound of iron anvils struck with repeated blows. As the sun rose, flags were raised on rooftops and in windows and draped across the street. By 8:00 A.M. the streets were crowded with townspeople and others who had come from distant farms and towns. The Lindsborg Cavalry paraded in line out to meet the Sharps Creek Cavalry, which had traveled fourteen miles to the celebration. With these new forces met, the whole proceeded to the railroad depot to meet the governor, John A. Martin.1 The governor was to have been with the townspeople to celebrate on the Fourth of July, but the train was delayed and the festivities were postponed a day. But twenty-four hours did little to dampen the jubilation. The governor was led in procession to the park to begin the event, which started with the reading of the Declaration of Independence by Bethany College Professor Nelander. This was followed by a speech by Mr. Garver of Salina, Kansas, after which a picnic was served.2 Reassembling at 2:00 in the afternoon at the speakers' stand, the "honored and much loved Governor" delivered his oration. He was

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ERNEST R TONSING is professor of New Testament and Greek at California Lutheran University. His research and publications range from Alexander the Great to rune stones, Viking ships, Swedish folk art, and Swedish America. He has been active in the American Scandinavian Foundation in Thousand Oaks (California), the SwedishAmerican Historical Association of California, and CLU's Scandinavia Festival.

followed by Rev. Carl A. Swensson, who addressed the assemblage first in English, then in Swedish. Music, more speeches, and then evening fireworks concluded the day.3 The celebration of this small farming and college community in America's heartland was, no doubt, representative of contemporary rites in towns across the United States. What was not typical was that this community consisted almost entirely of immigrants, many of whom had taken up residence in the New World only recently. Governor Martin's address apparently satisfied the requirements of the day well. It was not only applauded at the event itself, but, according to the historian Daniel W Wilder, was widely published in Swedish papers in this country and in Scandinavia. Wilder remarks that possibly no other Kansas speech enjoyed that distinction.4 TRANSFORMING ROYAL "SUBJECTS" INTO AMERICANS

The address during the Lindsborg festival by Governor Martin, by today's standards, was neither dramatic nor thoroughly engaging. The inclusion of statistics from the census, county by county, and the catalogues of institutions and names of statesmen, financiers, and soldiers would not be found appealing now. Yet, in an age before radios or television, even these words were captivating. The fact that the chief executive of the state was honoring this community by his presence, and was acknowledging and commending the accomplishments of this newly arrived people, ensured an enthusiastic response. This receptivity was also guaranteed by the conditions most of the audience had left behind in Sweden. The speech celebrated an American national holiday, but for them it signified their transformation from "subjects" to "citizens." As subjects, they had been in service to monarchs and nobility in ways that had become increasingly burdensome during the nineteenth century. By mid-century there were some twelve thousand nobles, many living in large manors surrounded by their fields.5 Just below them were the clergy, which amounted to about half a percent of the population,6 and then the burgher estate, some two percent.7 It was a clearly stratified society of "prestige and authority looking down and of deference looking up."8 Most of the people of the lower classes were politically 223

voiceless, subjected to the restrictions of high property requirements in order to vote, a "posting" law which required peasants to furnish horses for travelers' carriages a number of days a year, heavy taxes, and oppressive laws.9 In addition, an odious compulsory military service was imposed upon the male subjects.10 These immigrants were now marking their transformation from subjects to citizens during the festivities of the Fourth of July. They had already acquired civic freedoms with certain privileges and immunities guaranteed under the Constitution that were unattainable in the old country. However, this was only the first step in becoming an "American." The second step was to become an American emotionally. This was the function of the holiday. It was such political celebrations, during which displays of patriotism were encouraged, that became the means whereby new citizens were "brought into the fold" of the national culture. Isolated as many of the immigrant communities were on the mid-continent's prairie, the affairs of the nation, or even those of the state's capital some one hundred fifty miles away in Topeka, were remote. Of course, newspapers, the telegraph, and railroads brought a modicum of news, and the mails ensured that ties with other parts of the country and the family in distant Sweden were not entirely broken. But the observance of patriotic holidays, such as Independence Day, was as much the cement that bound the immigrants to the nation as it was a family and community gathering. What it was to be an American was not so much explained as experienced at these festivals. It was part of the process by which the tension with the past was mitigated, a national consensus was achieved, and these Swedes in America now identified themselves completely with the commonwealth.'

varies throughout, from lengthy catalogues to emotional appeals. Statistics and poetry coexist. The structure of the speech is uncomplicated, with brief departures to embellish its contours. Martin first draws his audience to himself in the opening, then offers arguments for the realignment of their allegiance to the nation by citing objects worthy of their respect and devotion. These items have meaning beyond their physical reality. They call forth ideas, historical persons, or events, but in a condensed form, to which Martin affixes specific but evocative meanings. In so doing, the speaker redefines the experience of the immigrants, moving them from their individual, culture-bound memories of the past into a new, American collective consciousness. While acknowledging the autonomy of his hearers and the necessity for each person to make, individually, a symbolic transformation, Martin, in effect, invites and encourages them to reorient their values and affections to become part of a new belief system, a new moral order." At the end of the speech, Martin gathers these items into a rousing conclusion fortified by a poem. The experiences of Governor John A. Martin, himself an immigrant in 1859 from the state of Pennsylvania to the strife-tom wilderness of the Kansas Territory, lay just behind his words. In other speeches he had reflected upon the feelings of leaving behind the family, friends, and customs that had sustained him from infancy, and being physically and mentally challenged by the abrupt alterations demanded in the new life.12 He had also spoken of being torn between reverence for his birthplace and his embrace of the new land.13 This address is not autobiographical, however. Instead, the governor concentrates wholly upon the audience. The governor's speech, as printed, was about twenty-five minutes in length. "THE SWEDES IN KANSAS: A N ADDRESS BY

T H E PURPOSE OF THE GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS

GOVERNOR JOHN A. MARTIN"

Governor Martin's address is an artifact of this period during which some of the Scandinavian immigrants made their transformation into Americans. As such, it reveals much about the role of these patriotic ceremonies within this process. The governor's address was designed, perhaps not all that consciously, for this end. The style

A Scandinavian-American Hero The speaker was not Scandinavian, but of Scotch-Irish and German extraction.14 But in the opening Martin immediately identifies himself with a Swedish-American hero of the Civil War, one with whom the governor had served, Col. Hans C. Heg. Governor Martin

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holds up Col. Heg as an example of one who was bom in Scandinavia and served in the Eighth Kansas Volunteers for nearly three years in the Civil War, but fell during the Battle of Chicamauga [sic]. Martin had "the honor to have commanded, tented, marched and fought by the side of a regiment of Scandinavians," and he succeeded Heg as commander of the brigade upon Heg's death.15 Drawing from this association, he pays a compliment: "I speak from personal knowledge, therefore, when 1 say that the Scandinavian people who have immigrated to this country, and sworn allegiance to its Constitution and its laws, are thorough Americans." Martin draws further conclusions from the military service of the Scandinavians: "I have seen their loyalty and devotion tested in the fiery furnace of battle, and by the most arduous and trying campaigns."16 He recalls the Scandinavians serving in the Fifteenth Wisconsin with "reverent gratitude."17 Having described the contributions of Scandinavian immigrants some twenty-five years before, Governor Martin cites more recent contributions. He names the prosperity of those regions they have cultivated, cites their industry and thrift, and says that they have "done their full share in making this a great, prosperous, law-respecting commonwealth."18 The census as well as the agricultural reports attest to this, according to Martin. The American Flag Turning from specific Scandinavian contributions, Governor Martin begins to draw the audience into symbolic participation in the mainstream of American history. The American flag is to be an object upon which the Scandinavians may focus their devotion. Says Martin: "One hundred and seven years ago, after the Americans had carried the British works at Stony Point, the commanding General, Anthony Wayne, sent to Washington a letter which read: 'Dear General: The American flag waves here.' That was all. But it told all."19 The American banner is the emblem of "peace, order, education, progress, and freedom."20 It is dear to sixty million people because "it is the flag of a Republic where each man is the equal of every other man, in rights and privileges as well as in duties and responsibilities." Grounded upon this assertion, Martin calls for his audience to join a collective affirmation, along with their other countrymen, because "it

is your flag as it is my flag—mine by birth, yours by adoption." The first person plural can now be used. We all have the right "to celebrate the anniversary of our National Independence."21 The United States Constitution Governor Martin reminds the audience that these rights, guaranteed by the United States Constitution, are precisely those for which they departed their ancestral home. "The impulse which led you to leave the land of your birth and establish homes in the new world, was that love of Freedom and faith in Humanity which is the soul of the great Declaration." The sacrifice of blood in the war between the states, and their choice in adopting this country, has made them, too, "heirs to the common heritage of American citizenship—individual liberty and security, a fair chance to work and win, the sovereignty of electors, and the protection of just laws."22 At this point, the governor returns from his patriotic recitation to a theme briefly cited earlier. In this he acknowledges the dilemma of all immigrants. Devotion to the new country does not quell the heart's attachment to old family, friends, and lands. The immigrant must find a balance, making peace with the abandonment of the past and the cementing of new allegiances in the adopted country. Martin confirms the ancestral pride of his audience. "I do not depreciate your native land. I know something of its history and its resources," he says, and then describes the area, population, and poor farms of Sweden. "But amid its rocks and snows a singularly hardy and energetic people have lived and worked since the dawn of civilization," he says. This land, indeed, has made globe-wide contributions: "From the bleak and barren hills of this Peninsula came the earliest forms of constitutional government. There, too, is found not only the oldest aristocracy of Europe, but the sturdiest, most prosperous and well-educated people." Despite living in a kingdom of the Old World, with all its oppressive propensities, "not one in a thousand is unable to read and write, and the common people are the owners of nearly the whole of the landed property in the Kingdom."23 Governor Martin endorses the origins of his audience by employing a rhetorical tool developed by ancient Hellenistic orators: organizing catalogues of witnesses or facts to support his assertions.24 As

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contributors to the whole human race, Martin cites Gustavus Adolphus as a ruler, Charles XII as a soldier, Axel Oxenstiema as a statesman, Thorwaldsen (Bertil Thorvaldsen) for art, and (Esaias) Tegner, Fredrika Bremer, (Emilie Flygare-)Carlen, and Bjornson (Bjornstjerne Bjomson) as authors. Jenny Lind and Christine Neillson (Nilsson) are added as singers. He recalls his admiration at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 for the woodcarving and paintings he saw. He makes this tribute: "The fair-haired people of the Scandinavian Peninsula have indeed stamped their impress upon the history, the literature, the arts, the industries, and the laws and government of the whole civilized world, and always the influence exerted by their teaching and example has been wholesome and beneficent."25 Once again, the governor takes up the subject of the presence of Swedes in America in another list. He cites the census of 1880, saying that there are 440,262 Scandinavians in the United States, of which 194,337 are Swedes. There are 11,207 Swedes in Kansas, and McPherson County has the largest number, 2,117. Saline county has 1,636 living within its borders, and Riley, Osage, Republic, and Clay each has over 500. Again, he proclaims them thoroughly American. "They do not want to go back to the bleak, snow-clad hills and vast forests of their native land, nor do they bring with them to this country that distrust of rulers and of law which arrays them against our government as if it was a natural enemy." They are not yet prominent in that government, being preoccupied with building homes, farms, industries, schools, and churches. But, while not actively participating in politics, they still take up the responsibilities of their fresh citizenship: "They study to discharge these, not as aliens, but in the true spirit of American individuality and patriotism."26 To these credentials the governor contrasts the record of other immigrants. For them Martin expresses contempt.27 "There are some foreigners whose coming to America is a public disaster. These are the men who, degraded and embittered by the oppression of despotic governments, confound liberty with license and lawlessness, and can see no difference between the President of the United States and the Czar of Russia." The governor is sharp in his criticism of these people: "The tolerance of our laws, the liberality of our system of government, allows such freedom of speech and of action that these men,

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abusing and outraging the liberty they are permitted for the first time in their lives to enjoy, at once array themselves as enemies of all law and all government." He states that "the red flag they unfurl is the flag of the robber and the murderer. Their cry for liberty is the cry of the wolf in the forest seeking for his prey."28 Governor Martin notes the public outcry against this group of people and his lack of comprehension of those who ignore the recent war in which "more than two million men rallied around their country's flag, and cheerfully offered their lives that the Republic might be preserved." He then returns to an acclamation of the flag: "It is a glorious banner—the brave old flag of the stars and stripes," and names the battlefields of Yorktown and Gettysburg and others, in one of which the speaker himself fought, Chicamauga [sic].29 Calling upon the recent memories of his audience, he jubilantly asserts that, in opposition to the ruling houses of Europe, in America "every man who lives where it floats is a freeman and a sovereign." This flag "is the banner of the Nation that opened this rich and beautiful land as a free gift to all—native and foreign-born alike," and, says Martin,anyone who wanted to replace it with an anarchist emblem "ought to enjoy, for an indefinite period, the liberty of the penitentiary." Martin remarks that he is happy to say that the Swedish immigrants have never shown sympathy for those who wish to reinstate tyranny.30 The Declaration of Independence There is a third object worthy of the devotion of the Swedish immigrants: the Declaration of Independence. Rising out of "long centuries of barbarism, ignorance and oppression," says Martin, the countries of England, France, Germany, and Sweden at last compelled "Kingcraft" to give way to constitutional government. The experience of this struggle was then carried across the oceans to the new world and resulted in a government which is the "perfection of human wisdom."31 For the love of liberty, the earlier pioneers had "braved the isolation and dangers of an unknown land in order to enjoy it."32 Citing the American historian George Bancroft,33 Martin states that the heart of the author Thomas Jefferson, when writing the document, "beat for all humanity." It is not surprising, the governor notes, based upon the "self229

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evident" rights that the Declaration affirms, that there would be a two-way influence upon the world. Not only has it shaped other governments, but it has attracted to America "the most energetic, daring and aspiring spirits of all civilized nations."34 Martin names the social order and protections of liberties that have appealed to immigrants and validates the choice made by the members of his audience, remarking that "if it was great to be a Roman citizen centuries ago, it is glorious, to-day, to be a citizen of the United States."35

sula" for America, and declares that a person's true homeland is that where all of its citizens possess the same rights and opportunities and are equal "before the throne of its Constitution and its laws."38 Since, therefore, his listeners share his belief that the United States is where these virtues are best enjoyed, and since they have taken this national festival to their hearts, Governor Martin reaches the emotional summit of his speech with the words "I greet you, therefore, not as Swedes, but as fellow-citizens."

American Heroes In addition to the flag, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, Governor Martin seeks to draw the new immigrants into the history of the United States by identifying other sources of inspiration. He says that he does not regret that this nation has no "venerable antiquity," for its short record has yielded a distinguished list of "immortal names."36 Earlier in the speech, Martin cited an example of a Scandinavian-American hero with whom he identified. In turn, Martin provides models for his audience to emulate. What other nation old or new, asks Martin, has provided "jurists such as Jay and Marshall; or statesmen equaling Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Seward, and Blane; or orators rivaling Patrick Henry, Webster, Clay, Douglas, Morton, and Summer; or soldiers equaling Washington, Jackson, Grant, Sherman, and Thomas; or philosophers such as Benjamin Franklin; or poets of nobler fame than Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, and Whittier; or financiers greater than Morris, Gallatin, Chase, and Sherman; or historians such as Bancroft, Prescott, and Motley"? Finally, Martin cites as the most worthy exemplar for these immigrants one "who was at once statesman, orator, philosopher, hero, patriot and wise ruler—Abraham Lincoln."37

Second, Poetic Summation Sustaining this high sentiment at the conclusion of Governor Martin's speech is a poem quoted from one of the poets he had just mentioned, James Russell Lowell, entitled "The Voyage to Vinland.'"9 Selecting verses from the third part, "Gudrida's Prophecy," Martin employs it to make a poetic summary of his arguments, introducing it by the words "I gladly join with you in celebrating this Festival of Liberty. You and your kindred have witnessed the full fruition of the predictions which one of our great poets attributes to a prophetess of your race, who lived centuries ago." Martin begins in the long section, changing the original singular to the inclusive Men, following nineteenth-century conventions, to draw in all of his listeners: Men from the Northland, Men from the Southland, Haste empty-handed; No more than manhood Bring they, and hands. The poem functions something like a liturgical recitation of the journey of the immigrants coming to the new land and their assimilation into the new society:

First Summation At the end of this crescendo of names, Governor Martin begins his final statements by announcing that all who are citizens of the United States are rightful partakers of the benefits of the Declaration, the Constitution, the "protection of the flag," and the "fame and glory" of those heroes just recalled. Once more he commends his audience on their "wise exchange" of the "bleak Scandinavian Penin-

The new, vast land itself was anticipating these Scandinavians and

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Dark hair and fair hair, Red blood and blue blood, There shall be mingled;

readily would reward their labors with ample space and spirit. The impact of the Scandinavians upon their new land will be enormous, predicts the prophetess. Their powers will bring not war, as in the Old World, but peaceful enterprises. Peering over the ruins of the former homeland, the "Sibyl" sees that not only will empires be built, but a mighty, unspoiled people will emerge. The stanzas describe the qualities of the earliest explorers and foretell of later ones who will be just as valiant, just as able, and just as gifted. But, the lines assert, in contrast to the former adventurers who returned shortly to their old homes, the later Vikings will remain to settle the land, and in so doing will become a new, pacific, almost divine kind of human being. Might makes no master Here any longer; Sword is not swayer; Here e'en the gods are Selfish no more. Walking the New Earth Lo, a divine One Greets all men godlike, Calls them the kindred, He, the Divine. Here, in America, "Justice and Mercy" will be secure without arms. The tired, war-torn Old World will be replaced by the New, which is as hope-filled as a dawn over the Kansas prairie: Weak was the Old World, Wearily war-fenced; Out of its ashes, Strong as the morning, Springeth the New. For Governor Martin, these modem-day Vikings of Lindsborg were harbingers of a new age in America, who cultivated not armed con-

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flict and death but the civilizing arts of music, oratory, and, doubtless, the visual arts, all of which especially befit a vigorous folk in their adopted homeland. The editor of The Smoky Valley News found Martin's speech "soul stirring" and printed it in its entirety, including the sixteen stanzas of the poem, in three columns of his paper.40 FROM IMMIGRANTS T O AMERICANS: T H E N E W BEINGS

The means by which immigrants from all nations are fused into the American population, of course, vary. Governor John A. Martin's address is, doubtless, representative of speeches delivered at Independence Day celebrations throughout America every year since the founding of the nation. Elsewhere, for example, Martin remarks on a decision all immigrants must make. In a speech at the opening of the Southwestern Exposition at Garden City, Kansas, 12 October 1886, he cites the poignant words of the biblical Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi: "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will. go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."41 These words, finally, must be spoken by all immigrants who decide to leave their former homes and to remain in their land of choice. Martin's speech at Lindsborg was not only an "adornment" to the Fourth of July celebration in that town, but a part of a process, a "rite of initiation," with the task of bringing the immigrants not only into the rational understanding of citizenship, but into thorough, symbolic participation in the life of the nation. The words of the chief executive of the state, in which he identified himself with the immigrants, must have struck the members of the audience as extraordinary. They had been born in an oppressively rigid class society in which the rulers and nobility were unapproachable and lofty, and they had forsaken everything dear to come to a new country. The governor now addressed them as equals. His words, according to the newspaper accounts, so moved the audience that they were praised not only in Lindsborg but also in distant Sweden itself.42 The function of Governor John A. Martin's address was to rally these Swedish immigrants to patriotic and passionate allegiance to the United States

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and, through it, to enable these immigrants to advance their metamorphosis into new beings: Swedish Americans. ENDNOTES 1. "Our Celebration," The Smoky Valley News, Lindsborg, Kansas, 9 July 1886. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. Dr. Carl Swensson was pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, Lindsborg, Kansas, and founded Bethany College in 1881, serving later as its president from 1889 until his death in 1904. 4- Daniel W. Wilder, ed., Addresses: By John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas, for private circulation (Topeka, Kansas, 1888), 5. 5. Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation's History (Minneapolis, 1977), 335. 6. Ibid., 336. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., 335. 9. See Robert L. Wright, Swedish Emigrant Ballads (Lincoln, 1965), for examples of the emigrants' complaints in song. 10. The reasons for emigration, of course, were many and included poverty, famine, iandlessness, religious persecution, the wish to escape from family difficulties or criminal penalties, seeking one's fortunes, etc. Cf. Scott, Sweden, 366ff. 11. For the function of "sacred symbols" in American national society, see W Lloyd Wamer, The Family of God: A Symbolic Scudy of Christian Life m America (New Haven, 1961), chapters 1-2. 12. The experience of immigrants is rather similar to that of inductees into military life. Cf. William C. Menninger, "Things I Never Would Have Learned at Home," in A Psychiatrist for a Troubled World: Selected Papers of William C. Mennmger, ed. Bernard H. Hall (New York, 1967). 557-60. 13. Governor Martin reflects upon this in his speech at a reunion of the Pennsylvania Society of Atchison County, Atchison, Kansas, 1 March 1878, "Pennsylvania and Kansas," in Addresses, 7-14; in his tabulation of the birthplaces during his speech at the reunion of the surviving members of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention at Wyandotte, Kansas, 29 July 1882, "The Wyandotte Constitutional Convention," in Addresses, 21; and in his comparisons of the growth of Kansas with that of Pennsylvania and other states in his speech at the Quarter-Centennial Celebration of the Admission of Kansas to the Union, at Topeka, Kansas, 29 January 1886, in Addresses, 126ff. The loneliness and awe of the immensity of the Kansas plains exchanged for the familiar home is de-

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scribed by Martin in his speech "The Kansas Pioneer," at Garden City during the opening of the Southwestern Exposition, 12 October 1886, in Addresses, 202-5. 14. Lydia Johnson, however, the paternal grandmother of John A. Martin's wife, Ida Challiss Martin, was of Swedish stock. Rebecca Chaky and Ruth Martin, Ruth Martin Family Tree, 1995 (Friendswood, Texas, 1995), 25-26. 15. Martin, Addresses, 159. Colonel Heg fell at Chickamauga, Georgia, during the 19 to 23 September 1863 conflict. 16. Martin, Addresses. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., 159-60. 20. Ibid., 160. 21. Martin, Addresses. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. William G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (Philadelphia, 1973), 57-9. 25. Martin, Addresses, 161. 26. Ibid., 161-62. 27. Ibid., 162. 28. Martin, Addresses. 29. Ibid., 40. 30. Ibid., 163. 31. Martin, Addresses. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid.; George Bancroft, History of the United States, ten volumes (18341874). 34. Martin, Addresses, 163. 35. Ibid., 164. 36. Martin, Addresses. 37. Ibid.

38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 165; James Russell Lowell, The Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Boston and New York, 1890), 370-72. I am indebted to the reference librarians of California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, California—Lynn Lampert, Deborah Moore, and especially Jeff Williams— for their help in identifying the source of this poem. 40. "Our Celebration." 41. The quotation is from the King James Version of Ruth 1:16-17; Addresses, 205. 42. Wilder, in Addresses, 5. 235