This son of
the North has greatly buttressed every worthy American institution
with the stern traditional virtues of the tiller of the soil. Strength
he gives, if not grace, and that at a time when all social
institutions are being shaken to their foundations.
Among the early homesteaders in the upper Mississippi Valley there
were a substantial number of Bohemians. In Nebraska they comprise nine
per cent of the foreign born population, in Oklahoma seven per cent,
and in Texas over six per cent. They began migrating in the turbulent
forties. They were nearly all of the peasant class, neat, industrious
and intelligent, and they usually settled in colonies where they
retained their native tongue and customs. They were opposed to
slavery and many enlisted in the Union cause.
Among the Polish immigrants who came to America before 1870, many
settled on farms in Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and other States. They
proved much more clannish than the Bohemians and more reluctant to
conform to American customs.
Many farms in the Northwest are occupied by Finns, of whom there were
in 1910 over two hundred thousand in the United States. They are a
Tatar race, with a copious sprinkling of Swedish blood. Illiteracy is
rare among them. They are eager patrons of night schools and libraries
and have a flourishing college near Duluth.
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