that had been mentioned again at a program evening of the Järvenkukka Temperance Society in September 1903. On the other hand, Fabian Mäenpää claims in the 1955 Juhannusjulkaisu (the annual midsummer festival program booklets) that he had been present at the meeting which gave birth to these festivals, a meeting which supposedly took place at a program evening of the Ely Temperance Society early in 1904. And in fact a reading of the minutes of a meeting (31 January 1904) of that society indicate that "Matt Porthan proposed for discussion the sponsorship by the society of a huge midsummer festival in which all Finnish organizations would participate. The proposal was unanimously accepted. A committee was appointed, to make contact with all temperance societies in the shore area, and to this committee were named Matt Kero, Matt Porthan, Antti Luhtanen and John Kukko." The minutes of a meeting three weeks later showed that the societies of Soudan, Eveleth, Biwabik and Hibbing, together with their bands and choral groups, had accepted the proposal, and that "the Ely society was to decide where the festival was to be held, and it decided on Eveleth." These quotations from the Ely minutes do indicate that the Ely Temperance Society was active in the fostering of a midsummer festival concept, but the idea was born in Eveleth, for a few months before the action initiated by the Ely group, inquiries had already been sent out from Eveleth, possibly on the basis of the discussions in the Kaleva meeting, to all communities in the Range area. In the 1939 Juhannusjulkaisu, a writer who signed himself "V. T." stated that he had participated as Hibbing's representative, that the proposal had come to their attention early in December 1903, and that when a positive response to the proposal became apparent, the first joint meeting to arrange such a festival was held - at a date earlier than that of the first discussion of such an idea in the Ely temperance society meeting. On New Year's Day 1904, during a heavy snowstorm, delegates from various communities met in Eveleth, and that meeting made the decision to proceed on such a basis that all Finns from all and varied organizations and groups would unite together as Finns.

Practical decisions were made at this Eveleth meeting. With Eveleth to be host for the first festival, the executive committee to arrange it was made up of J. E. Isotalo, Frank Matson and C. S. Steckman of the Eveleth Valon Lähde Temperance Society; Isaac Ekorn, Hannes L. Line and John Saari of the Sparta Kaleva; William Vuoti of the Ely Temperance Society and Olavi Laulaja of the Hibbing society. To avoid bickering about any

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