he seekers and the granters of such favors.

To me, brought up, ever since my boyhood, under the American system, the
importance of the civil officers in Sweden seemed to be greatly at
variance with the progress made in the elevation of the people in
general. I will only take one example: The provincial governor
(Landshoefding) and his immediate subordinates of a little province of
the size of half a dozen of our counties, appears with much more pomp
and style than any of the governors of our great states; and I have no
doubt that such a governor considers his office to be more important
than that of the governors of some of our states, each of which has a
population larger than that of the smaller kingdoms of Europe.

CHAPTER X.

The Importance of the Scandinavian Element--A Swede Elected Secretary of
State in Minnesota--False Rumors of Indian Depredations--The Northern
Pacific Railroad is Built--Trip to Philadelphia--The National
Convention at Indianapolis--Delegation to Washington--A Swedish Colony
in Mississippi Moved to Minnesota--The Second Voyage to Europe.

Politically the Scandinavians in America had exerted no particular
influence beyond that they had generally been counted upon as loyal to
the Republican party, and a few of them had held county offices and been
members of the state legislatures in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The honor
of first bringing out a Scandinavian for a state office belongs to F. S.
Christensen, a young Dane, who, in the summer of 1869, was editor of
_Nordisk Folkeblad_ in Rochester, Minn. One day he called on me and
asked if I would be candidate for secretary of state, providing the
Scandinavians of Minnesota should nominate me, to which I readily
assented. A few weeks later a Scandinavian convention was held in
Minneapolis and resulted in designating me as their choice for secretary
of state. At the Republican state convention held in St. Paul in
September that year, I was nominated almost unanimously by the whole
Republican party. Being called to the platform after the nomination, I
accepted the same in a brief speech, which at the time attracted much
attention as echoing the sentiments of our people in the west. I
therefore regard it of sufficient importance to quote it here:

"_Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention_:

"Allow me to tender you my hearty thanks for the honor you have
conferred upon me by this nomination. I feel doubly gratified for the