[341] _Minnesota Executive Documents_, Reports of the State Board of Charities and Corrections, especially for 1884, 1890, 1896; _The North_, Dec. 18, 1889. Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, II, ch. i, tabulates his estimates of criminality as he does those of insanity; for the years 1880-1822 and 1892-1894: Ratio of criminals in the whole population 1:2302 1:1999 American-born population 1:2413 1:2013 Foreign-born population 1:2035 1:1887 Irish population 1:1600 1:860 German population 1:2713 1:2715 Scandinavian population 1:3706 1:5933 CHAPTER XI. THE SCANDINAVIAN IN LOCAL AND STATE POLITICS The Scandinavian usually entered the field of politics rather slowly; he took out his "first papers" for the purpose of acquiring land, not that he might vote in the next election. In the early years of his settlement he was too busy building and paying for a home, learning English, and adopting American customs, to give much time or attention to public affairs. The clearing of woodland, the breaking up of the prairie, and the transformation of a one-room shack into a frame dwelling required severe labor and all his energies. Not until the leisure of some degree of success was his, did he yield to his natural inclination for politics of the larger sort. The Norwegian, of all the men of the Northern lands, has the strongest liking for the political arena, and has had the most thoro political training at home. Since 1814 he has lived and acted in a community markedly democratic. He understands the meaning of the Fourth of July all the better because he, and his ancestors for two or three generations in their home by the North Sea, celebrated on the Seventeenth of May the independence of Norway and the advent of republicanism. His sense of individuality and equality is stronger than that of his cousins to the east or south, and he steadily and stubbornly fights for the recognition and maintenance of his rights. In 1821, before the first real immigrants sailed for the United States, Norway abolished nobility, while Sweden and Denmark still retain the institution. Equipped thus, and educated in such a vigorous school, it is the Norwegian rather than the Swede or Dane who figures most largely in the political activities of the American Northwest.