the Minnesota Temperance League, visited Cromwell on his trip, spoke and collected pledges. Twelve persons were the founders of the Uusi Opas, and its first officers were Charles Kalli, chairman, and Siiri Oberg, secretary. During the years which followed, the membership was tripled, and the society managed to survive through the World War II years.

Workers' societies appeared in almost every community, certainly in Cromwell, Kettle River, Mahtowa, Sawyer and Wright. Several of them later became IWW affiliated, but a few communist cells also developed and a few persons even left for

A. A. Parviainen's saw mill at Cromwell in 1916.

Russia: Felix and Wäinö Järvinen and Uno E. Tiili from Cromwell and Oscar Friman, Alex Hakala, Henry Juutilainen and family, Jalmar Luotonen and Henry Tuomala from Mahtowa.

The history of the workers' society in Cromwell begins in 1906, when the Kyntäjä (Plowman) society was born in a meeting held at A. A. Parviainen's farm, attended by Matti Heikkilä, Albert Johnson, Arvid T. Niemi and Matti Saarela, in addition to their host. Meetings were held at first wherever possible, but in 1910 a hall association was started, the Eagle Cooperative Agricultural Association, and Parviainen, who owned a sawmill, offered to saw without charge the lumber for a hall if logs for this were delivered to his mill. In 1912 an acre of land was purchased from William Mäki for the hall, and by the following year's midsummer it was ready for dedication. On this festival occasion a Minna Canth play was performed, and soon after the dramatics program thus started, a chorus was begun, directed by

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