Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1926-05-20
SYTTENDE MAI

- Il LlNDC Mai
Following splendid editorial
under the caption of "Syttende
Maj concerning the Norwegian
people, their liberty-loving spirit
which cannot help but concern
other liberty-loving people. and
about MinneSota's able governor,
an immigrants son, appeared in
the Duluth Herald of Saturday,
May Is:
The seventeenth of May is to
the Norwegians what the Fourth
of July is to Americans, and 1914
is to them what 1776 is to us.
For 1914, saw the end of a
struggle for Norwegian freedom
that was four centuries old. Dur
ing all those years the Norwe-
gians, to whose aspiring souls and
stout hearts freedom was the
breath of life, were restless
under Danish rule.
But the climax came when the
powers of Europe, led then by
Napoleon, in 1910 coolly trans
ferred Norway from Denmark to
Sweden, giving this hberty-lov-
ing nation as chattel to that
Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte
who, the son of an advocate of
Pau, rose to be marshal in the
armies of Napoleon and became
king of Sweden as Prince Carl
Johan.
Against this browning outrage
the Norwegian people united as
one man, and the result was that
long delayed Norwegian freedom,
which was enjoyed in a mainly
harmonious union with Sweden
until, in 1905, a peaceful arrange
ment with it's neighbor and kin
dred country gave Norway the
full independence it now enjoys.
Norway is the mother of Ibsen,
Greig, Bjornson, Nansen, Lie and
many others known to the liter
allure, art and science of the
world. Norway is also the mother
of a host of sturdy citizens of this
country whose love for the ances-
trail home land does not impair
but strengthens their loyalty to
the land of their adoption.
The Norwegian national holi-
day comes on Monday, and Du-
luth Americans of Norwegian
birth and ancestry are devoting
Sunday afternoon and evening to
a suitable celebration of the oc-
casion according to their custom.
They are also making this an
opportunity to do honor to the
governor of Minnesota, Theodore
Christensen, who, though a ma
tive-born son of Minnesota, is
also by birth and blood a son of
Norway. He is to be the prin-
cipal speaker at tomorrow's cele-
bration, and tomorrow evening
at the Spaulding the sons and
daughters of Norway who are
also, like him, the sons and
daughters of America, will sit
down to a banquet in his honor.
Even though they do not act
lively participate in these exer-
cises, Americans of other racial
traditions can heartily approve
them and join them in spirit.
They can do this because there
is no successful struggle for hui
man liberty anywhere around the
world that is not of immediate
concern to lovers of liberty here
and everywhere; because each ad-
ditional people given freedom or
winning freedom for itself means
one more step toward that ulti-
mate universal freedom in which
mankind will come face to face
with the essential unity, under
God, of all freemen.
And they can heartily join, too,
in the honor given to the COVER
nor of this state because he is
its governor, because he has won
his way to his present position
by merit, and because in this inn
migrants son who rose to gov
ernor, they see an interesting ex-
ample of the freedom of opportu-
nifty in this land which has made
IL stleh a cnncenial home FOR fhoca