Speech #680219499

Mr. Speaker. it has been my observation that upol no question coming before Congress is there so much prejudice exhibited as when the question of immigration is up for discussion. This is natural. In all lands those whose ancestors have lived in the land for many generations are always prone to think that they by reason of their ancestry can love their native land more than those who have come into such country as immigrants or those whose ancestors are comparatively recent arrivals. Out in the great Northwest lies an empire that Members of Congress from our industrial East as a rule know very little about. It is the great farming section of this country that has been built up during the last 80 years. almost exclusively by immigrants from northern Europe. Big stretches of that empire have been built up and are now owned by farmer folk from Norway. freeborn men with big. strong bodies. with a determined will to conquer. with hearts full of the fear of God. I think I mn safe in saying that few other immigrants have -held their mother country in such loving remembrance yet few fmake better citizens. As a rule they have paid the full price for all they have achieved here. for all that they own and . possess. When the great American epic is written. some day. one of the finest stanzas in it will be that which will tell how these rawboned. stouthearted men cleared the forests and put the soil of America under the plow while they themselves lived practically their whole life in dreamland. The article that I have obtained the right to extend into the RECORD is written by a man who is the editor of a newspaper. the Decorah Posten of Decorah. Iowa. printed in the Norwegian language. who was born in Norway and had his ideals formed there. for that reasonwhile thoroughly Americanizedhe understands the immigrant. I feel this article is worthy of a pioneers that lie pictures. in this year that marks the one hundredth anniversary -of the beginning of the Norwegian Immigration into the United States.