each other in an embrace that will soon unite them into one. The
former did not exist when I first gazed on St. Anthony falls, which now
furnishes motive power for its magnificent mills and factories, and the
latter was a town of about two thousand inhabitants. Their combined
population is now one-third of a million. St. Paul contains a large
number of Scandinavians, but Minneapolis seems to be their favorite
city, the Swedes alone numbering over forty thousand. They have many
churches, private schools, academies and other institutions of learning.

[Illustration: FLOUR MILLS IN MINNEAPOLIS.]

The three Scandinavian nationalities agree pretty well in our good
state, and have united their efforts in several enterprises of some
magnitude. In Minneapolis there are several banks and other monetary
institutions owned and controlled by them, not to mention hundreds of
other important commercial and manufacturing establishments due to the
enterprise of our countrymen. Having gradually learned the language
and the ways of this country, a surprisingly large number of the
Scandinavians who began their career as common laborers have engaged
successfully in business on their own account, and many have devoted
themselves to professions demanding a higher education, which is greatly
facilitated by a number of excellent academies and colleges established
and supported by them in several of the western states. A great number
of county offices are filled by the Scandinavian-Americans; in our
legislature there are generally from thirty to forty members of that
nationality; many of them have occupied positions of the highest trust
and honor as officers of the state and of the United States, and no one
can deny the fact that they have universally proved themselves fully
equal in ability and trust-worthiness to the native born.

But it is not only in Minneapolis or in Minnesota, but throughout the
whole country that the Scandinavians have gained such a good name, that
in all the recent agitation against foreign emigrants, not one voice has
been heard against them. They learn the English language well and
quickly, and assimilate readily with the native American element, which
is natural enough considering that they are to a very large extent of
the same blood and ancestry as the English people, and that the English
language is borrowed to no small extent from the Scandinavian.

Americans often express astonishment at the ease and correctne