Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-01-28

colony sat around me and we thanked
the God who had protected us and
brought US on our way. named the
settlement New Sweden. the new COM
memorating the past and suspicious of
the future, and it has been.
We looked out to the north. to the
west to the east, as far as the eye
could reach one vast wilderness of
dense forest covered all the land to the
grand fluctuations of the far horizon
line. In these forest depths the sound
of the settlers axe had never resound-
ed. Through the branches of those gi-
gantic trees the smoke of the settlers
cabin had never risen. In those depths
roamed the moose and prowled the
bear. and night was broken by the
hootings of the owl. l woke about mid
night, We were lying sheltered under
bark and lying on boughs. l and my
Swedish children around me in the
woods. Hoot! boot! boot! cried and
shrieked the owl. thought. there in
the forest. with those around me. wom-
en- and children. in that vast solitude,
/ felt in my heart that was up against
it stronger than / ever felt before in
my life. But We went to work and
there the next morning the axe re-
sounded and trees were crashing down,
and logs were being rolled up into
houses. Ciearings were made; we
worked from morning until night, and
so it went on, and the heat Of the noon
was tempered by the forest. The blows
of the axe and the crash of falling
trees resounded, and the mothers sang
to their little ones as the work went on.
1t was work from morning until night
and the wilderness began to be con-
verted into homes, and later the wilder
ness biossomed like the rose.
Little by little we built roads. rolled
UP log houses. and protected ourselves
from the blasts of winter. The thing
went on and they were not only indus
trious but they were economical. If
Swede did not have money enough to
buy a pair of horses he bought one; if
he did not have enough to buy one
horse he bought an OK; and il he did
not have money enough to buy an OK
he bought steer. And If he did not
have enough 20 buy a steer he worked
with a cow Today in New Sweden
they are driving around in $3.50 auto
mobiles; they have fine two and half
story houses and great barns, and they
are rich. rich from hard work On the
soil of Maine that some say is not good
soil. There is no better soil in the world.
How about potatoes? Why. last year
not 1000 or 10000 or $1,000, they exported
10000 barrels OF potatoes, and they got
5000 a barrel. some of them.
Now that 10000 is only figure. You
can reckon it very easily, but you do
not appreciate those grand figures. and
we have got into our debts one hundred
thousand billions. and figures seem to
go easy. l have been making calcu-
lation, and If you take $4,000 barrels Of
potatoes and stand them On end and
put them as near each other as you can
and string them along the road from
this Capitol towards the south, there
will be line of potato barrels. fitted
just as close as they can be one to the
other. that will stretch down to Gardi-
ner, and on to Richmond and that city
of learning, Brunswick, and on to my
own city of Portland, line of potatoes
from the Capitol in Augusta to the nat
ural seaport, sixty miles long!
Now that is some potatoes, Senators,
and it is some colony that can raise
them, and there are over 1000 citizens of
Maine in that colony and around it,
and over 5000 more brought in by the
influence of that colony. So that that
experiment of bringing the Swedes here
and founding New Sweden has added
more than 5000 citizens to the State of
Maine. and good citizens. They have
the virtues of the old Puritan Fathers;
they do not steal. they do not lie, and