The address follows: Anyone who walks the corridors of the Capitol today finds his elected representatives absorbed by two problems: the farm problem and the problem of our foreign relations. Every participant in this nationalities group is immediately attracted to these questions because so many of us have ties back to another country where the way of life is largely agricultural. Naturally. many of these farmers who immigrated to this country found their way into agricultural pursuits. All through the States of Iowa. Wisconsin. Minnesota. the Dakotas and Nebraska you find whole areas that were built up by those individuals who saw in America a chance for freedoms. opportunities and the pursuit of happiness which they had not known in their homeland. On my bookshelves at home I have a book entitled "The Swedes in South Dakota." There were huge immigrations of Swedes in the 1860s and as I turn the leaves of the book I find not only the name of my father. but of my cousins and uncles and aunts. A whole section of the Dakotas was filled by the Swedish migration. They came looking for land. land that was free. Jim Hill became their patron saint because as he stretched his railroads across the western prairies he made advantageous sales to the Scandinavian and German immigrants. They could acquire one quarter of a section by homestead route. another quarter section by a tree claim. and then buy the alternate quarters from the railroad to give them a full section of land. It was a day of great opportunity not only to those who entered agriculture but to those who were employed in industry because if they did not like their jobs they could pick up their belongings and go west to make a new home and a good living.
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