. Reminiscences; the story of an emigrant. did banquet w^as enjoyed, while music was dis-coursed by the Svea and Normanna bands. The city mayor,Dr. Ames, made an address of welcome, after which severalScandinavians made speeches. I had been elected as thespokesman for the Swedes, and expressed myself as follows: Honored Guests from Sweden, Norway and Denmark:• From the place where we now stand the roar of the St. Anthony fallsmay be heard through the still night. You are, therefore, far back in thedepths of the American West; and yet this is only the modern gate of en-trance to the great North
. Reminiscences; the story of an emigrant. did banquet w^as enjoyed, while music was dis-coursed by the Svea and Normanna bands. The city mayor,Dr. Ames, made an address of welcome, after which severalScandinavians made speeches. I had been elected as thespokesman for the Swedes, and expressed myself as follows: Honored Guests from Sweden, Norway and Denmark:• From the place where we now stand the roar of the St. Anthony fallsmay be heard through the still night. You are, therefore, far back in thedepths of the American West; and yet this is only the modern gate of en-trance to the great North-west. A couple of hours ago a half dozen railway trains left our depot overdifferent roads and are now^ speeding on toward the setting sun, and someof them do not cease their journey until they have passed distances greaterthan that between London and Rome, through fertile, but, as yet, mostlyunsettled regions. Thirty-four years ago I, with a few other of your countrymen, some of the earliest in Minnesota, gazed for the fijst time at19. Story of an Emigrant. 291 the St. Anthony falls. There was no city, not even a sign of a city, on thisside of the river; the red man chased his game in the woods w^here ourchurches and school houses now stand ; the country- v^^est of us was an un-known wilderness, Minnesota did not exist as a state, and many of ourwestern states, which now contain millions of happy inhabitants, were noteven projected. Now, on the contrary, our state alone is a mighty empire, with a pop-ulation of nearly a million and a half, and with an assessed valuation ofsix hundred million dollars. Minnesota now produces a hundred millionbushels of grain annually on her fertile fields, six hundred and fifty millionfeet of lumber from her forests, and her infatit iron mines already show^ anannual production of half a million tons of rich ore The Scandinaviansconstitiite more than one-fourth of the population of the state, and pro-duce at least one-third of our agricultural
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidreminiscence, bookyear1892
