This chapter is going to be an uncomfortable one. We will come face to face with discrimination, persecution, violence and general bad human behavior. I have read extensively and will try to document as well as I can some of the adversity immigrants faced when they moved to this country in the early 20th century.
When I was in high school and studying Minnesota history, my dad told me a story of when a cross was burned in the yard of Finn Hall in Balsam, Minnesota, the community I grew up in. He was too young to remember it directly and recounted it from his parents telling him. I had to look into it at the time and revisit the social implications of it every once in a while.
There was a large influx of immigrants to America from the 1890s until the 1920s. I’ve been primarily concerned about the Finns but others from Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland and Macedonia faced the same issues of discrimination. There were many reasons for this, some ethnic, some social and some political. I’ll try to address each area.
Immigrants from several countries were considered “non-whites.” A darker complexion was associated with Italians, Greeks, Slavs and Macedonians and allowed for questions about their genetic make-up. Finns were accused of being “Mongolian” or Asian often being referred to as “China Swedes.” Their language was definitely not “European” having its roots in the Ural Mountains on the east/west divide of Europe and Asia.
“In 1908, a federal prosecutor in Duluth, Minnesota, argued that Finnish immigrants were not “free white persons” and therefore ineligible for naturalization” according to the 1790 Naturalization Act – Wikipedia
After several weeks of testimony, a judge made the decision that Finns were “indeed white.” Although this didn’t absolutely settle the dispute.
“Finns were often depicted as belonging to the ‘Mongolian’ race…. race was an important contemporary category for making sense of social reality and constructing hierarchies, and new migrant groups to the early-1900s U.S. were often scrutinized by native-born whites - Race and Visibility in the Finnish-American Press in 1908,”
Department of European and World History, University of Turku, Finland, Aleksi Huhta*
Many social aspects of immigrants also lent itself to scrutiny. Most populations that moved here were not easily assimilated. Groups tended to be close-knit, reclusive and wanting to preserve their own language and customs as much as possible. This led to charges of being “anti-American,” clannish, practicing various forms of unusual religious beliefs or customs. Indeed, it was easy to point fingers at foreigners for being guilty of these accusations – the Finns at the top of the list. My dad was born into a Finnish community in 1924 and couldn’t speak English until he attended grade school at age seven. In fact, his first teacher was Esther Makinen who was an elementary teacher by her late teens and began to introduce her Finnish students to the English language. Esther was the daughter of Isaac Makinen, the neighbor who bought the property along Snaptail Lake for my grandfather.
The families in Balsam got together and built Finn Hall – a gathering place for social interaction for the Finnish community. They held dances and plays, picnics, invited touring lecturers (speaking Finnish, of course), had local musicians play traditional Finnish music. Athletic clubs met for improving physical fitness and social interaction. Some funerals were held there. I remember before Finn Hall was torn down, its wooden floors, stage and curtains as well as wooden folding chairs and gymnastics equipment. There were also some old-style student desks of which a couple made it into our house when the building was razed.
It was in its yard that a cross was burned in the 1920s. The KKK and some of its splinter groups were very active during this time in Minnesota.
“In 1924, the Itasca Iron News reported a cross burning in Bovey. More substantial Klan activity occurred in October of 1925, when, according to the Herald-Review a major ‘gathering’ of the organization took place at the Itasca County fairgrounds. It was estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 attended the event.” Although many immigrant populations were targeted, the Finns seemed to catch the brunt of it.
The Knights of Liberty, a KKK sub-group, had targeted five Finnish immigrants in Duluth in 1918 and had accused them of several “crimes” including anarchy and being anti-American. They captured one of them – Ollie Kinkkonen – tarred and feathered him and then lynched him in Lester Park. His body hung there for two weeks before it was taken down. No one was charged with the murder and his grave remained unmarked for decades.
Probably the biggest persecution was because of Finnish political activity. They were very involved in the organization of unions and the unrest that followed. Remember, many of the newest arrivals from Finland came because of the conflict in the old country between the “White Guard” and the “Red Finns.” The owners of the mines saw immigrants as disposable components of their operations. Low wages, long hours and dangerous working conditions plagued those employed by the Oliver Iron Mining Company, Pickands-Mather and Company (Pioneer Mine in Ely) as well as the M.A. Hanna Company. Owners and managers wanted the highest earnings and lowest costs to keep their profit margins as large as possible. Besides fomenting unrest between rival ethnic groups thought to be taking each other’s jobs, the companies weren’t above “busting some heads” if workers got out of line. The famous strike of 1907 against U.S. Steel was broken by the company using armed guards and strike breakers coming in as “scabs.” The Finns were thought to be leaders of these strikes.
“In 1916 another strike started in Aurora, MN and soon spread over the entire Mesabi Iron Range idling 15,000 workers. The ‘Reds’ prevailed for a short time but eventually the mining companies countered by hiring new workers to replace many of the strikers.” In 1916, Finnish, Italian, and Slavic Laborers Put Aside Divisions to Make a Historic Stand
by Gary Kaunonen May 10, 2018
Many of the Finnish miners had either socialistic or communistic leanings, leaning on beliefs that chased them out of Finland starting in the early 1900s. My grandfather Edwin was one of them. He described himself as more of a socialist than a communist.
To my knowledge he was never a “Wobbly” or member of the IWW. I do remember seeing newspapers in his house during my childhood such as “Työmias” (Working Man) and “Industrialisti” which were socialist/communist in nature. Baron Mannerheim is considered a hero in Finland and served in many capacities such as President of Finland and Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defense Forces during WW2. My grandfather considered him a traitor to Finland because he was the military leader of the “Whites” in the Finnish Civil War and often spoke against him.
There were many things that could be forgiven of immigrants, but there were some areas that were expressly illegal. When my grandfather applied for citizenship, the first paper he had to fill out required that he “renounce forever any allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and particularly to Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia.” In addition, he had to swear that “I am not an anarchist; I am not a polygamist nor a believer in the practice of polygamy.”
Left-leaning politics followed many Finns late into the late 20th century. Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg, in Cherry, MN) was an early Finnish union organizer in the iron mines. Although a staunch American (he served in the U.S. Navy from 1942-46 participating in the battle for Guam) he found his politics in fighting for the working man his entire life. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1959 until 2000. He ran for U.S. President on the Communist Party ticket four times – 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984.
Ely had its own connection with communist Finns. Andy Johnson lived on the 904 Road between Ely and Babbitt. Here’s a newspaper article where he is mentioned:
“Sen. Thye wrote the Justice Department as a result of an inquiry about the U.S. Hitlervilles from a constituent, Andy Johnson, of Babbitt, Minn. Army Hedges On Jimerow In Reno, Nev. Open Drive to Recruit Mexicans Into Unions LOS ANGELES”
- Daily Worker from Chicago, Illinois, August 13, 1952
When I was young, I begged my dad to teach me how to speak Finnish. His reply was that “You don’t want to learn that. It’s not something to be proud of.” Society had tried to drive Finnish identity into the ground. In later years he very much regretted having said that and having even thought that. He was prouder of being of Finnish heritage late in life than at any other time.
Next time: Surviving the Great Depression
