In the executive and administrative departments of State government, as distinguished from the legislative, the participation of the Scandinavians notably increased after 1869. In the summer of that year, a Scandinavian convention was held in Minneapolis for the express purpose of booming Colonel Hans Mattson for the office of Secretary of State in Minnesota. Of his fitness there was no doubt, for in addition to holding local offices in Goodhue County and his service in the army, he had for two years served as Commissioner of Emigration. The Republicans took the hint and nominated him almost unanimously in September, and his election followed. He served one term at this time and by re-elections filled the same office from 1887 to 1891.[373] So frequently have Swedes and Norwegians been elected to this office both in Minnesota and in the Dakotas that it might almost be said that they have a prescriptive right to it.[374] In the thirty-seven years ending in January, 1907, the Swedes filled the office in Minnesota sixteen years and the Norwegians four years.[375] Other State offices like those of Treasurer, Auditor, and Lieutenant Governor, not to mention commissionerships and appointments to boards, have also been frequently filled by Scandinavians in the States of the Northwest.[376] [373] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 115; _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 99. [374] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 99; _North Dakota Legislative Manual_, 1895, 66; _South Dakota Legislative Manual_, 1894, 130, 134. [375] _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1905, 99, 627. [376] _Ibid._, 99-106, 627-637; _Wisconsin Blue Book_, 1895, 662 ff; _South Dakota Political Handbook_, 1894, 130 ff; _The Viking_, I, 3 (1906). The first Scandinavian to reach the eminence of a governorship was Knute Nelson, an emigrant from Voss, near Bergen in Norway, in 1849, who, after service in the Civil War, was elected in succession to the legislatures of Wisconsin and Minnesota and to the Congress of the United States. Nominated by acclamation for governor of Minnesota on the Republican ticket in 1892, he was elected by a plurality of 14,620 votes; two years later he was unanimously re-nominated, and re-elected by a plurality of more than 60,000 votes.[377] He served only one month of his second term, accepting election to the United States Senate, to the disappointment, not to say the disgust, of many who had voted for him for Governor, who considered him in duty bound to serve in that capacity after accepting their suffrages. [377] Stenholt, _Knute Nelson_, 68-78; Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 451; _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1893, 549.