Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

In Red Wing, a Swedish paper had been started, Minnesota-Posten. While Hemlandet was intended as an organ for all Swedes in America, the Minnesota-Posten directed itself especially to the immigrants in Minnesota. The new paper was more American than its predecessor and championed the new homeland above the old. In its first issue it explained that the Swedes in America would never really have a chance until they were entirely integrated with the Americans. “ Minnesota-Posten aims to devote itself to the new generation and wishes particularly to be a friend of young people and a guide for their transition from Swedes to Americans. .”

The Red Wing paper came out for the Republicans and urged the Swedes to take advantage of voting rights to support the good and the right by casting the first ballot in their lives for the Republican candidate for governor.

Long before Karl Oskar had become a reader of the Minnesota-Posten, he had decided to vote for Ramsey. In this he listened to the best advice available: he followed his own common sense. The Democrats had been in and misused their power until they had almost ruined the country; the money situation indicated it was time for a change. Only those who earned easy money stayed with the Democrats and were for Sibley.

Karl Oskar was shocked at the shameless behavior of the party members against each other during the campaign. In each issue the Minnesota-Posten called the Democrats “this dishonorable pack.” To express such an opinion right out would be libelous in Sweden. But apparently what was considered a crime in Sweden was a civic duty in America.

The Democrats said the Republicans were playing false by promising the settlers free land. The Republicans accused the Democrats of having bought five thousand gallons of cheap whiskey to be used for vote buying; they were sending agents around with whiskey kegs and offered up to ten gallons for a vote. A rumor was spread about Colonel Sibley that while he was an agent for the Sioux he had led such an immoral life that he had had thirty-five children by squaws. A man who in this way increased a warring tribe — was he suitable as governor? A few days before the election, a Republican paper raised the number of Sibley’s illegitimate children to forty-two, while the Democratic papers published attests from well-known people, assuring the public that the Colonel had not a single brat among the Sioux.

The Democrats won the election, and Colonel Henry H. Sibley became Minnesota’s first governor. In some quarters it was felt that the rumor about his many children among the Indians had won him the victory. Those who held it to be false were greatly angered at the dastardly attempt to dirty an innocent man — that was why they had voted for Sibley. Those who considered the rumor true regarded his forty-two-fold paternity as proof of superior manhood, not at all derogatory to a governor of the young and fast-growing state — that was why they had voted for him.

Most of the Swedish immigrants voted Republican: in Chisago County 409 votes were cast for Ramsey, with only 192 for Sibley. And the honest Minnesota-Posten greeted the new governor with the following words — in Swedish: “This old fox will now be our governor for the next two years!”

The Republicans blamed their loss on the whiskey; a great number of the Democratic voters had been drunk. The Democrats accused the Republicans of ballot stuffing. One man could only have one vote, but in several Republican townships it appeared that more ballots had been cast than there were inhabitants; indeed, in two districts the number of ballots was twice the number of voters. The election turn-out, consequently, exceeded all expectations.

The difference between the number of votes and voters was difficult to explain, but apparently some non-existent persons had participated. The majority of these votes were discarded, but the incident could not be held against the voters: it was self-evident that the new citizens had overdone it a little when they used their new rights for the first time: it was probably purely an expression of joy which had made them produce more votes than voters. These people had for so long been suppressed and without rights in their respective homelands that it was quite excusable if they exaggerated a little when they celebrated their coming-of-age. Their action showed they were people with life in them; they would be able to take care of themselves.

In view of the fact that these immigrants and other settlers out here lacked all experience in self-government, they merited this praise at least, that they had proved they could vote for a governor.

— 4—

About this time, when men got together in Minnesota, there was talk about a lawyer down in Illinois whose name was Abraham Lincoln and who was at the helm of the new Republican party. But the man was seldom referred to by his name. He was called Old Abe, or Honest Abe. It was known of him that he was a settler’s son and had been born on the floor of a log cabin in Kentucky. Honest Abe came from the deep forest, his ax under his arm; he had been sent by God to be the settlers’ leader in the Northwest. His body was said to be as large as that of the biblical Goliath, and the strength of his arms was fantastic: he could drive his ax deeper into the wood than any timberman before him. In wrestling no one had ever been able to press Abe’s shoulders to the floor; both as wrestler and fighter he was unbeaten in all the states and territories of the Union. And the creator had endowed him with spiritual gifts of the same immense proportions. He studied while he performed his daily labor; as a store clerk in New Salem he read a book with one eye while he weighed up coffee and tea for his customers with the other. Ever since he was thirty he had been called Old Abe — this because of his great wisdom. In him friends and foes could trust: he would always satisfy the former and disappoint the latter.

The settlers in Minnesota were sure that Old Abe was capable of thinking for all of them. At last a great leader had been born to the men of ax and plow.

The stories about him changed and grew ever more amazing with the years. One day he had short-weighed tea for a customer by three ounces, and he rode twenty miles to the customer’s house with the missing amount. Another time Honest Abe walked five miles to give ten cents back to a customer he had overcharged. Soon it was ten miles Abe had walked and five cents; as the story spread the distance grew greater and the sum smaller.

When Honest Abe himself opened a shop he soon lost out; he was unable to lie or cheat and consequently showed no head for business. Now this remarkable man had become a lawyer in Springfield. It was a great distance to that town in Illinois, and to the settlers in Minnesota Old Abe seemed like a saga giant — good and strong beyond the measure of ordinary mortals.

In the Minnesota-Posten, Karl Oskar and Kristina saw a picture of their new leader, “taken,” the paper wrote, “in the most complete likeness in which a human being can be taken.” They studied Honest Abe’s picture closely, and Karl Oskar expressed his satisfaction with the long, forceful nose.

“His nose is almost as big and clumsy as mine!”

“Not quite that bad!” insisted Kristina.

“Well, it’s more shapely, perhaps. Wonder if Abe’s nose will give him luck!”

“Why do they call him Honest Abe?” wondered Kristina. “It sounds as if honest men were rare in America.”

The man in the picture — with a nose almost as big as the Nilsa-nose — wanted to liberate the three million slaves in the southern states, those people who, like cattle, were listed among their owners’ possessions and valued at three billion dollars. From Hemlandet’s serial, “Fifty Years in Chains,” Kristina knew of the cruel lot of the Negroes in the South. Must people be treated like that only because God had made their skin black instead of white? It would only be fair if owners and slaves were to exchange skin for the rest of their lives, she thought.