probably been magnified to suggest that all Finns were Democrats. On the other hand, the Republican Party has been considered sometimes the party of `big business,' which supposedly could offer no attraction to penniless Finnish immigrants. Finally,

Many Finns in this new home revealed very radical tendencies - or at least, their voice was the loudest among them. All these claims ignore the basic facts, above all, that the greatest centers of Finnish immigration were formed in the northern states which were almost exclusively Republican at the time. When Larson made his first campaign tour, for example, Republican William McKinley, the favorite of the Finns, was in the White House, and so popular was he that the Finns of Calumet commissioned one Isaac Arvonen to make a gold and silver inlay portrait of him at a cost of what was then 2,500 Finnish Marks as a gift to that president, and one poor shoemaker in East Tawas had sent him a pair of Finnish style slippers he had made. 21

As far as Minnesota is concerned, the main trend there was also Republican at the time. Lauri Lemberg has analyzed the situation from the Finnish immigrants' point of view: "The era of President Cleveland, Democrat, was a time of severe depression, and the Democrats earned themselves a very poor name. The Finns knew nothing at that time about either Democrats or Republicans, but in the minds of those of them who had lived here in the Cleveland era there remained a fear of the Democrats, a fear passed on to later arrivals who heard tales of the misery which had prevailed. The Minnesota mine owners of the time were Republican, and, so it was said, at the turn of the century naturalization papers were handed out even on election day if one promised to go to the polls, and of course they all tended to vote Republican. The socialist workers, naturally, voted for the Socialist candidates.

"Not until 1928-30, during the Hoover administration, did the situation change, once more because of a great depression, comparable to the depression of the Cleveland era. Now the Republicans fell into bad repute. With the founding of a third party, first the Nonpartisan and then the Farmer-Labor Party, the Republican stronghold in Minnesota began to weaken. The Non-Partisans, who sired the Farmer-Labor Party, were effective primarily among the farming population, but the Farmer-Labor attracted both farmers and industrial laborers. When the Farmer-Laborites began to weaken during Governor Benson's administration they joined the Democrats, who had enjoyed but little support in Minnesota up

21. Työväen Osuustoimintalehti, 16 March 1946

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