subsequently become the property of the Workers Club. When their hall in turn was sold, the collection of some 600 volumes was donated to the Hibbing public library, in which Finns had played a role from the very beginning, when Mike Salminen served on the first library board. Subsequent Finnish members of the board have included J. W. Koskinen, Ada Simi, Victor Taipale, Mrs. J. Rautavirta and Edward Kolu, while Laila Kojola has served as librarian. (In 1954 the Hibbing library embraced about 85,000 volumes, of which some 4,000 were in languages other than English. Of the foreign language books, the largest number, 1,450 titles, were in Finnish, followed by Italian, Serbian, Swedish and 20 other languages.)

The Finnish societies of Hibbing arranged joint midsummer festivals in the early years, but the fourth such festival, in the labor strike summer of 1907, became the last one of that particular series, due to the tension then prevailing. When strike leaders John Kolu and Hautamäki attempted to turn the evening concert into a strike rally, and tried in vain to force their way to the podium to speak, the socialists and other strike sympathizers left the hall, leaving but a minority of `conservatives' to continue. However, Hibbing was subsequently the scene of several midsummer festivals of the democratic, Northern Minnesota Finns, in 1914, 1922, 1931, 1938, 1947 and 1954. One of the aims has been the establishment of a department of Finnish language, literature and history studies at the University of Minnesota. It was a dream which materialized only temporarily, when Arne Halonen taught Finnish to GIs after World War II.

Civic Club Activity: 1926 saw the start of Hibbing's North Star Civic Club, which became affiliated with the civic club association. The first elected officers were Alex Nelimark, chairman, and Henry Luoma, secretary, and originally meetings were held twice a month, in camera, at the Waasa Hall. Secrecy was deemed desirable because one of the aims of the organization was to provide opposition to the growing, organized and aggressive Catholic strength in local politics, in the school administration and in the filling of local public positions. However, word of this new organization did leak out, and since many wanted to join, the qualifications for membership were made known: Finnish descent plus U.S. citizenship. After the first general meeting in April 1927, membership grew rapidly during the early depression years, to climb to a maximum of more than 800 at one time. It was not until the World War II period that there was any significant

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