Hans Mattson

“ In pressing the hand of this son of the desert sighing under despotism, and reading the feelings of his heart through the wrinkles of his face, while he talked of the great country in the West, whence I came, and whose free institutions, granting equal rights to all, were to him a heavenly light pointing forward and upward, I felt more deeply than ever before what a blessing it is to be a citizen of a commonwealth where a man is measured, not by his birth or his wealth, but by his own personal merits. ”

“ What luxuries one may enjoy here in the most pleasant company,—a glorious nature, palatial residences, choice fruits, dishes and wines, pleasures of all kinds, surrounded by a host of servants, who, in snow-white garments and with bare feet, noiselessly and swiftly move about in order to gratify one’s desires upon the slightest sign,—and still how I long for the home in the North, with the cool winds and frost and snow which quicken the blood, give appetite, and fill one with a feeling of surging vitality and energy, unknown in the enervating climates of the South. ”

“ They can not turn in their course, nor can they fly up and down at pleasure, but only upward and forward in a straight line; and when they fall down on the deck they are just as helpless as any other fish out of water.
Having reached the Indian ocean, the temperature became more pleasant, so that we no longer suffered so much from the heat. At last our splendid steamer plowed its course up the majestic Ganges, the sacred river with its one hundred mouths, on whose peaceful bosom millions and millions of human bodies have been carried to the ocean. ”

“ What is the reason that politically Russia has always been on the most friendly terms with the United States? How can liberty and the rankest tyranny have anything to do with each other? This has always been a riddle to me. I despise the friendship of a despotism like that of Russia, where the government orders innocent men and women to be seized in the silence of the night, torn away from their homes and families, incarcerated in dungeons, and subjected to bodily torture and social disgrace simply because they are suspected of having expressed or cherished liberal ideas. ”

“ I cannot recall any period of my childhood when we did not harbor some poor, forsaken pauper, waif, orphan or cripple in my father’s house.
Christmas has always been, and is yet, the greatest of all festivities or holidays among all the Scandinavian peoples. It is not merely a holiday like it is among Americans, but a festival lasting for many days. While the people in the different localities of the Scandinavian countries, at the time of my childhood, differed in many customs, they were all alike in making this season one of joyous hospitality, blended with religious worship. ”

“ From the Mississippi river and almost to the Pacific Ocean, was a verdant field for the industry, energy and enterprise of the settler. To be sure, our means and resources were small, but somehow we felt that by hard work and good conduct we would some day attain the comfort, independence and position for which our souls thirsted. We did not sit down and wait for gold mines to open up before us, or for roasted pigs to come running by our cabin, but with axe and spade went quietly to work, to do our little part in the building up of new empires. ”

“ With American and English ideas of liberty it is hard to understand how to rule India. I would educate the natives,’ said he, ‘even if I believed that it would be dangerous to English power, because it would be right to do so; but I don’t think it is dangerous. India has always had a few very able and highly-educated men, while the millions have been in utter ignorance and superstition, and such a condition is more dangerous to English rule than if all are raised in the scale of knowledge. My only object, and I think England’s, in India, is to benefit India. ”

“ Who can fail to see the stamp of the Scandinavian people on the entire social fabric of the new world?
“We would be forgetful if we did not gratefully remember the great good which the fatherland has bestowed upon us from tender childhood to the very hour when we bid it farewell; we would be unworthy of the name and fame of our fathers if we did not honor and love as a dear mother the ever memorable land of our birth, and you, its worthy representatives, as our relatives and brothers. ”

“ And when you return to those dear places where we took the first steps on life’s eventful journey, we wish you to take back cordial greetings from us all, and say to our kindred that we teach our children to love and honor the people and institutions in the Northern lands, although they have never seen them; and say to them that, far out in the wide West by the laughing water of Hiawatha, and hundreds of miles beyond, are friends and brothers whose fidelity and affection neither time nor distance can obliterate. ”

“ It has smothered many noble feelings, and taught men to hate and despise each other; and so strong is the class distinction of this system that a good Hindoo of our day would a thousand times rather die of thirst or hunger than take a glass of water or a piece of bread from a person of a lower caste. Like other evils it has also been a curse to its authors, the Brahmins themselves, by lulling the great majority of them into ignorance and indifference. For why should they take the trouble to study or work when the whole world with its joys, pleasures and honors is open to them anyway? ”

“ To command a company, or even a regiment, in modern warfare, especially in times of peace, requires but little tact and skill compared with former times, when such commander often had to act independently and at his own risk, whereas now there is scarcely any branch of business which does not require more talent for its proper management than the command of a company or a regiment. It is therefore not on account of superior merits, but on account of old fogy notions and prejudices that the bureaucracy, military and civil, consider themselves to be of such immeasurable importance. ”

“ These are numerous, but the chief cause I have found to be that the people of the old world are now being aroused to the fact that the social conditions of Europe, with its aristocracy and other inherited privileges, are not founded on just principles, but that the way to success ought to be equally open for all, and determined, not by privileges of birth, but by the inherent worth of man. And here in America is found a civilization which is, to a large extent, built on equality and the recognition of personal merit. ”

“ The deepest premonitions of the human soul, and the most beautiful hopes of the heart, how far are these from the thought that all our feelings, our loftiest ambitions,—in one word the best part of our being,—can be annihilated in a crematory! The Fakir whose body was now reduced to ashes had lived in the faith of his immortality, had worshiped the deities of his people, because he knew no better, but was he on that account less welcome in the everlasting mansions? ”

“ We are not a clannish people, nor do we desire to build up a Scandinavian nationality in your midst. You have known us here for many years; you have seen us come among you unacquainted with your language and your customs, and yet I know that you will bear me witness how readily and fraternally we have mingled with you, learned your language and adopted your ways, and how naturally our children grow up as Americans, side by side with yours. ”

“ When we heard that the soldiers and representatives of Denmark, Norway and Sweden would honor us with a visit we all rejoiced, and we have come together this evening to express our joy in a cordial welcome.
“We have intentionally conducted you to this hall where we may, under our own roof, pay you our homage in the plain manner of our sturdy Scandinavian forefathers, and give you an opportunity to see us as we are in our daily life. We are men of the people; we have come here as poor immigrants, ignorant of the language and of the customs of the country. ”

“ I said that India is better ruled now than ever before; but that is not saying much, for it ought to be ruled still better and more in the interest of the natives. India has civil service with a vengeance, the office-holding class being even more arrogant, proud and independent than the titled nobility. They rule the country with an iron hand, regard it simply as a field for gathering in enormous salaries, and after twenty-five years’ service they return to England with a grand India pension. ”

“ All around, so far as the eye can see, are green fields, grazing herds of cattle, planted and natural groves, comfortable buildings, and great white-painted school-houses. Not a hill, not a valley or a grove but they call forth touching recollections, some mingled with sorrow and pain, but by far the most bright and cheerful; for here I spent the first hopeful years of my manhood; here we lived, the first Swedes in Minnesota, in a circle of innocent and faithful friends ”

“ The 17th of September I embarked on board the steamer La Seyne, destined for Alexandria in Egypt. The warm,- 151 - Italian noonday sun poured down its dazzling rays; we were surrounded on all sides by ships and steamers carrying the flags of all nations; hundreds of fishing crafts were sailing out of the harbor, and in the distance the mighty volcano Vesuvius towered in imposing majesty above the vine-clad hills. There was a life and a traffic which it is difficult to describe. ”

“ The people chosen for that great work came from different countries and different conditions of life,—the English Pilgrims to New England, the Dutch, the Swedes and the Quakers to the middle country, the English Cavaliers, the Scotch Highlanders and the French Huguenots to the South,—and in them all, combined and intermingled, were found the elements of body and of mind, which have given to the world its best government, its greatest nation, and its highest civilization. ”

“ It is a great mistake which some make, to think that it is only for their brawn and muscle that the Northmen have become a valuable acquisition to the American population; on the contrary, they have done and are doing as much as any other nationality within the domain of mind and heart. Not to speak of the early discovery of America by the Scandinavians five hundred years before the time of Columbus, they can look back with proud satisfaction on the part they have taken in all respects to make this great republic what it is to-day. ”

“ Therefore, the Scandinavian-American feels a certain sense of ownership in the glorious heritage of American soil, with its rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, woods and prairies, and- 314 - in all its noble institutions; and he feels that the blessings which he enjoys are not his by favor or sufferance, but by right; by moral as well as civil right. For he took possession of the wilderness, endured the hardships of the pioneer, contributed his full share toward the grand results accomplished, and is in mind and heart a true and loyal American citizen. ”

“ The melting butter flows through it, the flames roar and crackle, and the dead body makes writhing muscular motions under the influence of the fire, the skin bursting open in several places, and a thin fluid trickling out which adds fuel to the flames. The face shrinks and vanishes under our eyes, an unpleasant smell of burnt flesh permeates the air, and in a little while all is over, and the Brahmins gather the ashes and scatter them on the waters of the sacred Ganges. ”

“ Since I have acquired education, and the same amount of knowledge as a man, why may not other women in India do the same? In America many women are renowned for their great learning, and many of them are doctors of medicine. The women of India are not allowed to be visited by any man except their husband, and as all our physicians are men, who cannot see and carefully examine their female patients, they cannot, of course, prescribe proper treatment for them; hence many women in India must suffer and die without a remedy, which often could be avoided if women studied medicine. ”

“ Entertainments, excursions and festivities of all kinds alternated continually. The kindness and hospitality of the people knew no bounds, and no matter how defective some of the old institutions of Sweden may be they are in my opinion more than counterbalanced by the many beautiful and noble traits of character of the people, which we observed everywhere, and which are faithfully stored up in our hearts and minds, so that we always find a great delight in looking back to those days. ”

“ A loose stone rolling down, a broken rail, or a derailment would immediately hurl the iron horse with its cars and human lives thousands of feet down to the bottom of the abyss, and reduce the whole to an unrecognizable wreck. Beautiful trees, grass, flowers, creeping plants adorn hills and vales except in the ravines and cliffs, where foaming creeks and cataracts have torn away the vegetation by tumultuously tossing themselves from rock to rock, from cliff to cliff, from valley to valley, gradually uniting in the rivers that continually feed the mighty Ganges. ”

“ All these millions of civilized, peaceful, diligent, sensible people bend their knees before thirty-three millions of disgusting images and pictures, and among all this people, in all their thirty thousand cities there was not a hospital for the sick, not an asylum for the blind or deaf, not a home for lepers or insane, not one voice saying to the lowly and the poor: “Thou art my brother.” ”

“ Washington did not seem to be itself when I passed through it, a cloud of sadness and mourning brooding over it on account of the critical condition of the president. Boston is prim and stiff, and seems like a place of learning. New York is a turmoil of pleasure and business. “Hurry up” seems to be written in every face; “tumble harum-scarum in the ever-changing panorama of the world!” Liverpool is a good deal like New York, but on a smaller scale. London is the stiff colossus of Europe. ”

“ From our point of view the social condition of women in India is highly deplorable. The women are not regarded as the equals of men, but rather as an appendix to them. Their religion teaches that they have no acknowledged rights as individuals, and that the only happiness they can attain in this world and in the world to come is to become wives and mothers of men, and that the more a woman sacrifices herself for man the greater will be her reward in the future. ”

“ Soon another class of people came in large numbers to seek help and protection from the Union forces. It was the poverty-stricken old men, and the women and children who had lost their natural protectors. It was a sight sad enough to move the stoutest hearts to look at their helplessness and misery, and I never had a more pleasant duty to perform than that of relieving their wants at the expense of our generous government. ”