Some Pioneers and Pilgrims on the Prairies of Dakota / Or, From the Ox Team to the Aeroplane

by John B. Reese; H. B. Reese

CHAPTER XVIII[ToC]

Looking Down The Trail To The Years Ahead

We have followed the trail of the first immigrants for more than half a century, from the time they left the old home until they have become an integral part of the life of the new home of their adoption. So marvelous has this experience been that to many it must seem almost like a dream or fairy tale. They came out of a land of poverty and hampering restrictions, social, political and religious. They found an opportunity to attain a comfortable living and a chance to help at the big job of working out a democracy. They came strangers to a strange land, they have already come to share in every position of trust and honor in the new land, with the exception of the presidency, including a number of governors. They came out a comparatively small company; they have become a multitude, there being already in this country more people of Norse extraction than the whole population of the mother country.

As we look around us among the particular groups here described, and see that the fourth generation from the pioneers is already coming on, the thought comes to us: "What of these people and their descendants a hundred years from now?"

As I, in vision and imagination, put my ears to the ground of present prophetic facts and tendencies, I hear the distant tramp of great multitudes out of the oncoming generations. Who are these multitudes which no man can number? They are the sons and daughters of the immigrant, tho outwardly indistinguishable from the Mayflower product which, too, are the descendants of immigrants. But while the Norse or Scandinavian immigrant is more quickly amalgamated in the sense of taking on all the outward colorings of his new environment than any other nationality, what, if any, will be his distinctive impress upon, or contribution to, the life he has come to share?

As there has been, and is, much foolish talk, malicious misrepresentation and manufactured-to-order hysterics about the "menace of the immigrant", on the part of pink-tea patriots and that whole breed of parasites who feed and fatten on stirring up and keeping alive class prejudice and hatred, I want to turn on the light here and now, the light of truth and facts.

In the first place, then, I wish to call the attention of these self constituted, Simon-pure and, in their own estimation, only Americans, to the fact that there is not in itself any disparagement to a man to be an immigrant or descendant of one. Did they ever read about the Pilgrim Fathers, George Washington, Ben Franklin or Abraham Lincoln? Well, these and multitudes of others they might read about were all "immigrants" or descendants of immigrants; not only that, but our self-appointed detractor of the immigrant is the descendant of immigrants—unless he or she is an Indian—and even the Indians are immigrants only of an earlier date.

In the second place, while the immigrant should ever be mindful, and in most cases is, of what the new land has offered him in opportunity, yet be it remembered also that, as far as the "natives" around him are concerned, he has given them immeasurably more than they have given him. He has done the great bulk of the rough, hard work of the mine, forest, factory and of subduing the untamed soil, and without him there would have been far fewer soft-handed jobs for his critics and far fewer of the comforts of life and developments of the country for all the people to enjoy. He has built the railroads, literally by the sweat of his brow, while the superior "native" manipulated them, watered their stocks and rode on them, finding that part of the enterprise more comfortable and profitable. But unless the "foreigner" had been willing to wield the shovel and lay the rails as well as roll them out red hot in the mill, where would the "American" have had a chance to shine in the deal?

Again, we are told that the immigrant comes here ignorant and without ideals and standards of life which would make him a safe member of a democracy. Of course, like most broad generalizations, this has a grain of truth when applied to some of the present influx from southern Europe. But when applied to immigrants generally, and especially to the class we have here described, the above judgment is just about the exact opposite of the truth. The illiteracy of the Norse immigrant is far less than that of the land of his adoption, in fact, practically negligible, and far less than that of any other class of immigrants. As for ideals of life and standards of morality, the immigrant was generally deeply shocked, on arriving here, at the lawlessness, profanity, sordidness, crass materialism and godlessness prevalent among the people around him who called themselves Americans. And speaking of "ideals" he came here in most instances because of his ideals of freedom—religious, political and economic; to have a chance to live out and express these ideals. They built schools and churches while many of them themselves lived in sod houses or dugouts. Their sons and daughters are found in every college and university of the Northwest and out of all proportion to their rank in the total population. They more than take their share in the four learned professions of teaching, medicine, the ministry and the law. In other words, he came for the very same reason that the first immigrants, or Pilgrim Fathers came—to find room for his growing ideals, as already shown in this narrative. Then, of course, like them, he also came to better himself economically thru realizing certain ideals of equality of opportunity which he had come to cherish in his home land.

Some time ago, Sinclair Lewis, the noted author, speaking on this subject, said: