In all matters relating to temperance and temperance legislation, the Scandinavian voters have almost invariably been on the side of restriction of the saloon and the liquor traffic. They have supported prohibition in Iowa and in the Dakotas, high license in Minnesota, and the patrol-limit system in Minneapolis.[426] The prohibition State and local tickets, especially in Minnesota, and in the Dakotas, always have a large proportion of Norwegians and Swedes among their nominees.[427] The best illustration of this sentiment, however, is to be found in the history of prohibition in North Dakota. When the new constitution for the proposed State was made and presented to the people in 1889, the section which provided for the absolute prohibition of both the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors was submitted separately to the voters. Thus the prohibition issue was presented fairly and squarely to every man in the State. The constitution itself was carried by a majority approximating twenty thousand in a total vote of upwards of thirty-five thousand; the prohibitionist section received a majority of 1159. Analysis of the vote by counties makes it clear that in every county where the Scandinavians predominated, with a single exception, the section was carried by fair majorities.[428] The question of re-submission of this section to the vote of the people of the State came up in 1895, and was postponed indefinitely by the House of Representatives of the State of North Dakota by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-two, fourteen of the sixteen Scandinavian members of the House voting with the twenty-six.[429] This seems to justify the opinion of the Secretary of State of North Dakota: “Nearly all Scandinavian members of the legislature have invariably voted against the resubmission of the question to the people.... It is safe to say that at least three-fourths of the Scandinavian population of this State favor prohibition, and one-half of them are earnest advocates of the law.”[430]
The only remaining question as to the political influence of the Scandinavians is the claim of the Swedes and Norwegians for “recognition” at the hands of old parties; and the concessions which such claims have extorted. From the foregoing accounts, it is evident that the Scandinavians have been ready in fitting themselves into the political system of the United States. Altho they have not been guilty of that excessive and pernicious activity in the field of public affairs which has characterized some classes of immigrants settling by preference in the great cities, it must be admitted that they have now and then appealed to race pride and prejudice and jealousy, re-marking boundary lines and distinctions which should be obliterated. The practical politicians, on their part, have not hesitated to stir up, for party advantage, the sensitiveness of naturalized citizens to real or imaginary slights and discriminations against them by “the other party.”
The appeal of the Norwegian and Swedish press is not infrequently based frankly on the essential sentiment of clannishness: “Scandinavians in Superior and other places should always support a country man for election to public office,” and if he is in all ways worthy, “we should all together rally around him, lay aside all small considerations, and honor him with our trust and esteem.”[431] Ridiculing the narrowness of these “demands,” another editor, under the heading “From Norway, Birthplace of Giants,” suggests a full Republican ticket of Norwegians, including Rasmus B. Anderson, “Republican pro tem.,” and also a full Democratic ticket of Norwegians, including Rasmus B. Anderson, “thinking that he may next year be a Democrat again.”[432] This trick of asserting their political importance in the Northwestern States was very early learned; and so long as party managers bid for votes in the tongues of the aliens, bribing them with nominations of the foreign-born, just so long will these groups of adopted citizens reiterate and multiply their demands, just so long will they capitalize their voting power and collect a generous interest in the shape of nominations and appointments. It must not be supposed that the Norwegian and Swedish party papers in America exist for the primary purpose of forwarding the political interests of people of those nationalities as such, for they do not, any more than do the partisan papers printed in English, but the Scandinavian groups are so large and so definite that appeals to them to stand together as a race for their own interests are inevitable.
So early as 1870, one of the leading Norwegian newspapers declared that it was time for the Norwegians to get a Representative in Congress just as well as other nationalities—“ligesaavel som andre nationaliteter.”[433] The editor suggested that the eight thousand Norse voters in the southern Minnesota district hold a convention the day before the regular Republican convention, and agree upon a candidate for the Congressional nomination: if the Republicans refused to nominate him, put on the screws! About twenty years later this very method was resorted to in North Dakota, when the Scandinavians of that State “in mass convention assembled,” proceeded to pass resolutions and to organize the Scandinavian Union of North Dakota, to secure for themselves “that share in the government to which their competency, their character and numerical strength, and their rank as pioneers in all matters of civilization entitle them.” While declaring that it believed that every man should stand or fall on his own merits, the convention resolved “that we have seen with deep regret the disposition of a large number of our fellow citizens in some parts of North Dakota to discriminate against us, because we are Scandinavians, and that an unprovoked war has been waged against us.”[434] The Hon. M. N. Johnson, presiding officer, presumptive beneficiary of the Union, an aspirant for nomination as Representative, stated the case very frankly: “The Scandinavians constitute a majority of the Republican party in North Dakota. Under the territorial government they have not received many official favors, but with the opening of statehood it is proper that they should have some recognition. The Scandinavians are not disposed to leave the Republican Party. They are heartily loyal to the organization and its principles.... We have the numerical strength to demand and secure justice, and all we ask is fair play.... We are simply organizing our forces for united action in urging our just demands.”[435] Their just demands consisted in “from three to five of the State officers, and if they stand together and attend the primaries, there is no doubt but that they will get what they ask for.”[436]
The effectiveness of this movement is sarcastically summed up by a correspondent of The North, in reporting the Republican convention: “M. N. Johnson’s Scandinavian League has evidently come out of the small end of the horn. To be sure M. N. was made the chairman of the convention and the dear Scandinavians got honorary mention in the resolutions: but M. N.’s chairmanship was evidently devoid of results beneficial to the Scandinavians, and as for resolutions—talk is cheap!”[437]
In an editorial in English Skandinaven discussed “Governor Sheldon’s Mistake” in 1893: “Upwards of one-third of the population of South Dakota is of Scandinavian birth or origin, while Scandinavians furnish not less than one-half of the Republican vote of the State. Governor Sheldon is apparently oblivious to this fact; for in making his appointments he saw fit to ignore the Scandinavian-American citizens of South Dakota. For the sake of the Republican party of the State this mistake is very much to be regretted. The Scandinavians are sensitive of their rights as American citizens.... What has the Republican party of South Dakota done to Governor Sheldon that he should deal it such a dangerous blow?”[438] Five years later the governor of Minnesota was accused of a like offence in that, on the State boards appointed by Governor Merriam, the Scandinavians were “insufficiently represented,” having only five out of one hundred members, or one-twenty-fifth, when they constituted one-third of the population of the State.[439]
The pettiness of these squabbles over political “recognition” and spoils is well illustrated by a letter written in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to a Minneapolis newspaper in 1889: “While our people here number over 3000, and the Irish only 1400, the latter hold a still larger percentage of offices than they do in your city. This year for the first time the Scandinavians (or more correctly speaking, the Danes) have succeeded in obtaining a place on the police force”![440]
These insistent demands do not stop with simple recognition of the Scandinavian race: different sections must be satisfied. The most influential Swedish paper of the Northwest announced in 1890 that “what we on the other hand with full propriety and without the least danger of transgression can demand, is a man of Swedish descent at the head of one of our State departments.... To deny them (Swedes) this just recognition would stir up bad feeling, and would be looked upon as a slight, not to say contempt.... Our brethren, the Norwegians, are a little more numerous in Minnesota, than the Swedes, although not equally good Republicans. They, too, are entitled to a place on the State ticket, and for a long time have had one [Lieutenant Governor Rice].”[441]
The failure of the Scandinavians to receive what some of them consider a just and due reward, one in proportion to their numbers and their devotion to one party, is not to be attributed wholly to the hardness of heart of the party leaders, nor to their shortsightedness. Nor can it be fairly charged to any strong dislike of Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes for each other: the Swedes, for example, have never bolted a ticket because it happened to be headed by a Norwegian.[442] In addition to the extension of religious antagonism into politics, “there is still another reason for the limited success of the Scandinavians in the political field, and that is their natural apathy [antipathy?] to following a leader. Each one considers himself competent to work on his own hook. To follow a leader seems incompatible with their ideas of liberty. Yet without union and without leaders, victory is impossible.... ‘Everybody for himself, and the Devil for the hindmost’ is the law governing American life, and this the Irish have learned, while the Scandinavian is generally waiting for someone to come along and offer something with the polite ‘if you please.’ But he has to wait.”[443]
The Scandinavian press, in complaining of “a failure to get a due share of offices,” in declaring that Norwegians are “entitled to ten seats” in the Wisconsin legislature when they happen to have but three, or in insinuating that they have never been fittingly recognized in Iowa, resorts to political claptrap, often quite unworthy of the journal printing it. The facts so easily forgotten are that the counties and legislative districts in which the Scandinavians are a ruling majority are comparatively few, while the districts in which they are an influential minority are very many.[444] The system of representation in the United States is not based on any racial divisions or class distinctions, and not until some scheme of minority representation is adopted can any foreign element get its “share” of the political plums. It would be hard to suggest a more dangerous and disrupting experiment, in these decades when aliens by the hundreds of thousands, not to say millions, enter the country and are incorporated into the body politic, than to attempt to “recognize” the various alien factors in complex public affairs, even if they were all as adaptable as the men from the Northlands. Nothing would do more, for example, to develop the latent religious and racial antipathies between the Scandinavians and the Irish. The fundamental assumption, therefore, which lies back of all claims for “recognition” of Swedish-Americans, or other hyphenated Americans, as such, savors of ward politics and the machine, rather than of political equity or right, and just so far as it does this it menaces social and political safety.