INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
A NATION IN THE LOOM.
THE SCANDINAVIAN FIBRE IN OUR SOCIAL FABRIC.
The analysis of the elements that enter into the composition of nations, and the effect of their combinations, is one of the most fascinating studies in universal history. The loom of time has been weaving garments for this old world of ours, and the nations of the earth have clothed him with the glory of their sons and daughters, as long as the fibre of their manhood or womanhood could stand the wear. When age and use have worn them thin, and the strength of their fibre has passed away, the cast-off garments have been flung to the rag-man, old Father Time, who has been able sometimes to use the pieces that still were good for some new robe with which to drape the captious old shoulders. This is history. The weaving of these robes must never cease, for the wearing of them uses them up, and their durability always depends on the stuff out of which they are made. The latest piece, which is still in the loom, is the nation into whose texture we are now weaving our lives and characters, and those of some seventy millions more of all kinds of men and women. Since our own go in with the rest, we may be pardoned for the interest which some of us feel in the improvement of the fibre from which the nation is made, and our anxiety that it be of the right kind. Our present inquiry concerns the quality of a part of our social fabric, the Scandinavian element in our population. What has been its use and its influence in the older nations, and by what processes does it find its place in the new?
The world was old and had worn out many nations, when out of the north, liberated from the snow and ice of Ultima Thule, there came the Norseman like the very whirlwind from his frozen home. He was like naught that the world had seen in all the ages before his time. His joy and happiness he found in battle, his sweetest pleasure in a violent death, for only through this portal could he hope to enter the company of heroes who dwelt with Odin in the glory of Valhalla, and there continue the joys of earth in daily battles and nightly feasting. "Is there any people," says Taine, "Hindu, Persian, Greek or Gaelic which has founded so tragic a conception of life? Is there any which has filled its infantine mind with such gloomy dreams? Is there any which has so entirely banished the sweetness from enjoyment, the softness from pleasure. Energy, tenacious and mournful energy, such was their chosen condition." The individuality of that vigorous race stamped its mark upon every nation which it conquered, and upon every institution which it touched. Scarcely a nation in the Europe of that time but felt their influence, and scarcely one on the continent to-day who is not indebted to them. But the influence which the Scandinavians had upon the Anglo-Saxon race can be traced more clearly still than its effect upon continental nations. The name of England or Englaland came from the North, from the province of Angeln, which was a part of Denmark until our own times. The Angles gave to the land their language also, which was further strengthened by a later infusion of the Danish tongue; so that wherever the English language shall be spoken until the end of time, there will men mould their thoughts in the forms which the Vikings used, and express the keenest feelings of their inmost hearts in the vigorous speech which the Norsemen taught us, years before the Norman conquest.
Having put the impress of his personality so indelibly upon English life, it goes without saying that the Norseman's influence reached America with the first Englishman who landed here, if, indeed, it had not been here already since the days of Eric the Red among the Iroquois Indians. But contenting ourselves with the established testimony of history, there are still surprises in store for us. Not many of those who trace their descent back to the Pilgrim Fathers would think perhaps of ascribing to their Scandinavian origin any share of the character which made these pioneers the moulding and determining force of this country's history. But a single witness will establish such a claim. John Fiske in his "Discovery of America" says: "The descendants of these Northmen (who came to England) formed a very large proportion of the population of the East Anglian counties, and consequently of the men who founded New England. The East Anglian counties have been conspicuous for resistance to tyranny and for freedom of thought." In another place he says, "While every one of the forty counties of England was represented in the great Puritan exodus, the East Anglian counties contributed to it far more than all the rest. Perhaps it would not be far out of the way to say, that two-thirds of the American people who can trace their ancestry to New England, might follow it back to the East Anglian shires of the mother country." So far John Fiske. But having done that, it might be possible for these same excellent people, if the record could only be found, to trace their descent back from the East Anglian counties to the mountains and plains of the Scandinavian peninsulas.
We may observe then that the difference of race is not so great as we sometimes think. What wonder is it that the Scandinavian immigrant assimilates so readily with the native population in this country as he does. Has he not come to his kith and kin, to share with them in the fruitage of the early sowing and careful planting of his fathers, which has found its fullest and freest development in the United States? Not that the seed has died or been destroyed over there in its native soil. The Scandinavian who comes here does not pose as the victim of oppression and persecution at home. Unlike most of the immigrants of his class, he is used to having a voice in the affairs of his country. He usually elects his own representative to the legislature, he manages the affairs of his district, town or city with a liberty almost as great as our own. Gladstone calls the constitution of Norway the most liberal in all the world. The burdens of public responsibility which come to the Scandinavian on his arrival to America are not new therefore, and to his honor be it said that he appreciates their importance quite as much as many of those who are born here. He soon learns to think of this country as his own. In the hour of peril when this nation called upon its sons to save its life, the Norsemen who had made their homes here responded as freely to the call as those who knew no other land, and gave their lives for their adopted country as cheerfully as these.