The importance of this consideration is fundamental. There are great areas, even whole states, in the Northwest particularly, where the saturation of the foreign born is so complete that the foreign-born and second-generation folk themselves are the state. As one newspaper man in St. Paul put it:
It is not a question of “we” and “they”; they are the whole thing. In Minnesota there is no “Scandinavian problem”—they are us. In a large measure they have become the best kind of Americans; others have not advanced beyond the grade of the ordinary American, but they are the people and the government, and the comparative handful of Yankees cannot pretend to draw a line around them and set them apart as “foreigners.” They are the voters, the legislature, the producers, the farmers, the merchants, and they represent all of us at Washington.
On the other hand, there has been a tendency in the Northwest, as elsewhere, for little racial groups to center in special localities. There are whole towns in Minnesota which are virtually entirely German; others are entirely Bohemian. There is one community which is entirely Belgian. This is partly due to the fact that many sections were settled by colonies sent forth as a part of church missionary effort, especially by the Lutherans and Catholics.
Out of this situation the war suddenly crystallized a real American sentiment and enthusiasm. There was much shocking injustice and mob hysteria in those parts, and many accusations of disloyalty; but the fact that emerges upon any candid investigation is that these folk of various foreign races gave a good account of themselves in every form of war participation, whether in the furnishing of volunteers or otherwise. North Dakota, a hotbed of Nonpartisan League sentiment, and a preponderantly foreign-born population, nearly doubled its Liberty Bond allotments and exceeded its quotas in contributions to the Red Cross and the war-chest funds.
THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE
In December, 1918, Oliver S. Morris, editor of the National Magazine of the Nonpartisan League, gave to an investigator of the Americanization Study an analysis of approximate membership of the League. (See [Table LIV].)
TABLE LIV
Membership of the Nonpartisan League by States in December, 1918