Library of Congress Fifty years in America V Fifty Years in America N. ila N. ilan RØNNING THE FRIEND PUBLISHING COMPANY MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA Copy 2 VI F615 .N8R6 Copy 2 Copyrighted by THE FRIEND PUBLISHING COMPANY 454 Sexton Bldg., Minneapolis, Minnesota November, 1938 PRINTED BY THE HART PUBLICATIONS, INC. MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA ©ClA, 141456 CR FEB 12 1940 40-8330 VII With Happy Memories of My Wife, Inga Rønning, Who always said when at times I expressed regret for having entered the field of independent Christian literature, “This is your mission.” IX CONTENTS The Brook That Sought the Sea 13 What Excuse for This Book? 15 An Amazing Half Century 18 Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress Cultural and Religious Background 20 First Impressions of America 27 At Red Wing Seminary; Teachers 36 At the University of Minnesota; Teachers 50 A Peculiar People 62 A Summer in Telemark 68 As a Writer and Editor 70 In the Publishing Business 80 Was It a Waste of Time? 86 Re-thinking What I Was Taught 92 Norwegian-American Luth. Church Life 101 Attitude Toward Other Denominations 108 People Worth Knowing 112 In the Field of Politics 226 Whence This Marvelous Universe? 235 Tribute to Mother 238 Poems 240 X Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress Bersvend Anderson 157 Rasmus B. Anderson 209 William J. Bryan 228 C. J. Eastvold 183 Elling Eielsen 113 Martin G. Hanson 174 Østen Hanson 119 B. B. Haugan 195 Otto M. Haugan 218 Anne Marie Holter 193 K. C. Holter 190 Gjermund Hoyme 162 E. Kr. Johnsen 178 John A. Johnson 232 Johan Nathan Kildahl 131 Laur. Larsen 151 P. O. Larson 221 Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress B. J. Muus 126 Knute Nelson 227 Sven Oftedal 139 Wilhelm Pettersen 199 O. E. Rølvaag 203 Peer Strømme 211 Hans Gerhard Stub 168 George Sverdrup 185 Georg Sverdrup 145 Hans A. Urseth 212 Woodrow Wilson 230 XI Fifty Years in America 13 The Brook That Sought The Sea The brook began like a silver thread way up in the solitude of the mountains. Where it came from and where it was going, it knew not. It heard the call of the distant sea and started off on the long, long journey, alone and unafraid. Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress It slipped down a grassy slope with a light heart and a merry song, a mere whisper, which only the swaying blue bells could hear. At the bottom of the grassy slope the brook heard the murmur of another brook. They soon met and merged and went laughing and leaping down a shady glen. Waving ferns and graceful reeds grew in the wet soil and birds and beasts of the forest drank of the sparkling water. After heavy rains on the mountains the brook swelled into a turbulent current, but during the dry season it grew smaller and smaller. It began to fear that it was never to reach the distant sea. Proceeding on its way the brook was joined by many other brooks. Together they went swirling down the white cascades till they finally became a roaring river. Entering the valley the river grew wider and flowed slowly between fertile farms. On summer days when the sky was cloudless, high and clean, it mirrored a lovely landscape. It would have liked to linger there, but the call of the sea urged it onward, ever onward. As a child I was strangely drawn by some subtle power of the river as it flowed past my home. I would often slip away from my playmates to listen to the gentle swish-swash of the wavelets along the sandy shore and to look at the swaying reeds in the ever restless current. In the early spring when the river was at flood tide, I 14 would stand spell-bound and watch the men, lithe of limbs, with daring and skill leap from log to log, breaking up jams and steering the logs down stream. In the summer time I felt “the cool silver shock of the plunge in the pool's living water,” and in the winter time we fairly flew on our skates across the smooth ice, the steel flashing in the sun. Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress How far the river flowed before it reached the sea, I did not know, but the time came when I knew that the water of the brook finally washed the shores of distant lands. The long, long journey had come to an end. Nothing comes to an end. The water of the sea rises as mist and forms clouds, which drift inland, and thus the water of the brook returns to the mountains. Again it hears the call of the distant sea and starts off in search of it, alone and unafraid. The eternal mystery of life and death and life again. The story of the brook is your story and mine. Whence we come, whither we go, we know not. Early in life we hear the call to go forth into the world of time and space, the world of mind and spirit. We touch other lives. Experience is added to experience, thought to thought. There is the ripple of laughter, the rain of tears, the hope of becoming, the fear of failure. But ever and anon, as the water of the brook returns to the mountains to be renewed, so the spirit of man returns to the memories of the past to be renewed. The eternal mystery of life and death and life again. 15 What Excuse For This Book? I'll tell you, but let me first introduce myself. I am afraid to let others do it; if they know me well, they may say too much; if not, too little. This introduction business is seldom a satisfactory affair. Once when I was introduced as the main speaker, it was not much of an occasion, I was wondering what a remarkable man the chairman was talking about. When it dawned on me that I was the man, I realized with a pang what I might have been; now it was too late. Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress Sometimes the chairman says, “The speaker needs no introduction.” I take that to mean that he has nothing good to say about me and is too generous to say anything else. The most striking introduction I ever got was this: “The speaker's name begins with N. N., but it ends with N. G.” I think I lived up to my reputation. So here I am going to introduce myself. My name has already made its appearance in the book and the title of the book suggests that I have been in America fifty years. I came from Norway at the age of seventeen. All my ancestors, as far as there is a record, were bønder, people who owned and worked their farms. None of my ancestors are mentioned in the histories of Norway. I read in an old newspaper that my father was asked by the king of Norway and Sweden to kick a hat held high aloft on a pole. My father did kick the hat. The king laughed and slapped himself on the knee. I must have inherited my father's vaulting proclivity for when on my way to America the first time, I kicked hanging lamp in a hotel, but there was no king present to applaud or to pay the fine. When I come to think of it I am not altogether Norwegian. 16 One day when I met the Danish publisher, Christian Rasmussen, on a street in Minneapolis, he stopped, took off his broad-rimmed hat which an elegant gesture, made a graceful bow and asked me why I looked so sad. I told him that I had just discovered that there was Danish blood in my veins. “Congratulations, I always thought so,” he cried. Now I am proud of my Danish blood. I came to America because my brother wrote me that here I could go to school as long as I wanted to. After confirmation I attended a continuation school two years. That would have been the end of my formal education. In this country I attended public school in Faribault, Minnesota, two years, Red Wing Seminary three years, and the University of Minnesota nearly five years. When people hear me talk or they read what I write they never guess that I have much of an education. How could they? Fifty years in America http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.08330 Library of Congress When I graduated from the last school I attended, I did not dare to accept positions offered me, so I Kept on going to school almost a year more. I drifted into the work of wielding a pen and hitting the keys on a typewriter. Anybody can write, don't you know. Somewhere in this book I may incidentally refer to my work as writer, editor and publisher. It may be more of a warning than an encouragement to young writers. I have served on a number of boards, committees and commissions, but the main contribution has been that without me there would sometimes have been no quorum. Then, too, I moved that we adjourn. When seconded, such a motion can't be debated.