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For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: Karlis Ulmanis: From University of Nebraska Graduate to President of Latvia Full Citation: Lawrence E Murphy, Aivars G Ronis, and Arijs R Liepins, “Karlis Ulmanis: From University of Nebraska Graduate to President of Latvia,” Nebraska History 80 (1999): 46-54 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1999Ulmanis.pdf Date: 11/30/2012 Article Summary: Karlis Ulmanis studied and then taught briefly at the University of Nebraska as a Latvian refugee. As president of Latvia years later, he shared his enthusiasm for Nebraska traditions with citizens of his country. Cataloging Information: Names: Karlis Augusts Ulmanis, Howard R Smith, Jerome Warner, Charles J Warner, Karl Kleege (orininally Kliegis), Theodore Kleege, Herman Kleege, Val Kuska, Howard J Gramlich, Vere Culver, Harry B Coffee, J Gordon Roberts, A L Haecker, Hermanis Endzelins, Guntis Ulmanis Place Names: Riga, Latvia; Lincoln, Nebraska; Houston, Texas Keywords: Karlis Augusts Ulmanis, University of Nebraska, Howard J Gramlich, Hermanis Endzelins, J Gordon Roberts, Roberts Sanitary Dairy Company, Baltic Farmers Association, 4-H clubs, Arbor Day, Guntis Ulmanis Photographs / Images: President Karlis A Ulmanis, official photo taken in the late 1930s; graduation portrait of Ulmanis, University of Nebraska, February 15, 1909; University of Nebraska dairy judging team, December 1908: Ulmanis, Vere Culver, Howard J Gramlich; Gramlich and Lawrence Murphy viewing the preceding photo during a June 29, 1979, interview of Gramlich; Roberts Dairy office, early 1910; US Ambassador William Bullitt presenting a University of Nebraska pennant to Ulmanis at Riga Castle in 1936; Ulmanis in 1936 with members of the Latvian counterpart to 4-H clubs; last known photo of Ulmanis, taken July 23, 1940, in the Moscow rail yards with an unidentified agent of the USSR; unveiling of plaque honoring Ulmanis at the Dairy Industries Building on the University of Nebraska East Campus, May 22, 1954: Philip Kelly, W V Lambert, Olgerts Liepins, Charles J Warner, Ilmars Bergmanis One who passe annexed to days remembers s s aggressive mold, in a great r with nothing upon its wall t disturb the coat of arms of Latvia and a penn trol of the local German the University of Nebraska. I , under whom the ethnic Latvian Of the nearly 280,000 persons who were treated as serfs. graduated from the University of Ne­ unique double system of control braska between 1873 and 1999, Karlis was still in force at the time of Ulmanis's Augusts Ulmanis, class of 1909, is the birth on September 4, 1877, on a farm only one to become a president of a na­ named Piksas, near the village of tion." His historic shadow still lingers Dobele, within Berzes County in the over Latvia, the country where he served province of Zemgale. Under the existing both as prime minister and as president. conditions, it is remarkable that pursu­ Who was this one-time Nebraska resi­ ant to a government act of June 12, dent? Why did he make the long jour­ 1886, the Ulmanis family was eventually ney from Europe to Nebraska, and why able to obtain the title to Piksas from were certain ideas of Nebraska origin Russian Czarist officials.' implemented in a land six thousand Karlis was the youngest of three miles to the east? These are worthwhile Ulmanis brothers to reach adulthood. questions to ask about the brief Ne­ As a child, he attended a local grade school in Berzes County; as a teenager, braska years of Karlis Ulmanis, who An ofticial photograph of President Karlis today's once walked the East Campus of the A. Ulmanis taken in the late 19305. he was a high school student in University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Republic of Latvia photograph bustling provincial capital city of For centuries, because of established Jelgava. Oddly, in view of his many ef­ amber trade routes, the ancient world grains and other crops of the earth with forts to obtain a higher education, had been aware of the area that today is greater perseverance than expected .... Ulmanis never received a diploma from known as Latvia. Among the first histori­ But they also search out the sea, and a Latvian high school. ans to leave a written record was Tacitus, they are the only ones to gather amber.'? Ulmanis's interest in dairying sur­ who called the inhabitants of this area This ethnic group had lived free from faced early. In 1896 he made the first of "Aestii" and reported, "They cultivate colonization on the eastern shore of the many trips outside Latvia, traveling to Baltic Sea for centuries, but by the latter the city of Tapiau (today known as part of the 1100s, the Germans had Gvardejsk) in what was then German Lawrence E. Murphy is a Lincoln, Nebraska, attorney who assisted in research for the 1986 reached Latvia. Consequently, the first East Prussia, to attend an experimental NETV documentary, In Search of Freedom: of many formal efforts of a foreign school in dairying. Upon his return to Nebraskans From Latvia. power to rule this region can be traced Latvia in 1899, when he was just twenty­ Aivars G. Ranis, a native ofLatvia, is president to the founding of Riga in 1201 by two, Ulmanis was already conducting ofthe Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bishop Albert and the Teutonic knights lectures and demonstrations for the Lincoln, Nebraska. under his command. From this time un­ benefit of local dairy farmers in Berzes Arijs R. Liepins, also a native ofLatvia, is til November 1918, Latvia was ruled by County. president of the Latvian St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church ofLincoln, Nebraska, Inc., foreign powers. In 1902 Ulmanis again traveled out­ and the Latvian ReliefAssociation ofNebraska­ When in the late eighteenth century, side his homeland, first to SWitzerland, Daugavas Vanagi, Inc. Russia consolidated its expansionist where he enrolled in the Zurich Poli­ 46 Karlis Ulmanis technical Institute and specialized in By the fall of 1906 Ulmanis was a full­ Nebraska area, including the Loveland agriculture. After a brief trip home, he fledged fugitive, on the run from his na­ Dairy and the Alamito Dairy in both Fort broadened his education in Germany at tive land of Latvia in order to escape the Calhoun and Lyons, Ulmanis was hospi­ the Agricultural Institute of the Univer­ Russians. He made his way to Riga, St. talized with an unknown ailment at sity of Leipzig in the province of Saxony. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, and fi­ Immanuel Hospital in Omaha, where he There he earned a certificate indicating nally to Leipzig in Germany. While he met Dr. John Fossler. It is believed that it that he was qualified to teach the sub­ was temporarily in Annaberg, site of an was Fossler who suggested that Ulmanis ject of agriculture." American consulate, Ulmanis noted in a enroll in the University of Nebraska in By 1905 Ulmanis had returned to letter to Endzelins that he had started Lincoln." Latvia. According to Hermanis Endzelins, studying English." Karlis Ulmanis faced difficult prob­ a founder of the Baltic Agricultural As­ lems when he arrived in Lincoln toward sociation, Ulmanis was first hired by the end of 1907 or the beginning of that group as an instructor at a farmers' 1908. Although he was already well meeting held on July 10, 1905. His du­ versed in agriculture and dairying from ties included not only lecturing at asso­ his farm experiences in Latvia and his ciation meetings, but also writing ar­ European education, his knowledge of ticles for their publications. English was limited. His age, now past That same year the first rumblings of thirty, made him a full decade older Latvian nationalism terrified the ethnic than most of his fellow students at the German gentry, who had been in firm University of Nebraska College of Agri­ command of the land since the found­ culture, then known as the Industrial ing of Riga. These local barons promptly College. He was reserved around asked the Russian government for assis­ people until after he had made their ac­ tance in putting down the resistance of quaintance. Fortunately for Ulmanis, the protesting farmers. soon after he arrived in Lincoln, he was The fall 1905 issue of The Farmer, a befriended by Professor Howard R. magazine edited by Ulmanis, reported Smith, then on the staff of the Industrial the various countermeasures taken by College. Professor Smith remembered: the Czar against revolutionary move­ I was head of the Department of Animal ments spreading across Russia. Ulmanis Husbandry at the University of Nebraska ended this issue with a ringing declara­ in Lincoln. We had then a winter course tion, "Long live the revolution!" Shortly for students lacking entrance require­ Graduation portrait of Karlis A. Ulmanis, thereafter, on December 21, 1905, he ments for the four year agricultural University of Nebraska, February 15, 1909. course. On the first day, a young man in was arrested by Czarist police and sent © 1979, Townsend Studio, Lincoln my short course class spoke with a foreign as a political prisoner to the Russian jail accent, and I asked him to remain.... within the city of Pskov." Not yet thirty in the spring of 1907, When I learned that he had previous train­ By May of 1906 he had been released Ulmanis left Germany and sailed to New ing sufficient to enter the four years col­ lege course, I took him to the city campus from prison and was quietly working on York.