| 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 |
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]
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]
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.
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.
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]
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]
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.
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.