65° - 01.09.1967, Blaðsíða 10

from a state such as Minnesota to a post such as
this in Iceland.
Minnesota was the settlement area of many an
immigrant from Northern and Western Europe
— The Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans,
Irish and Icelanders and Finns came by the
thousands — an axiom of Minnesota politics
since 1900 has been that a readily identifiable
Nordic name in any state-wide election is worth
100,000 votes.
Political leaders who don’t have such ready
identification such as Vice President Hubert
Humphrey and Orville Freeman are always care-
ful to point out that they are the grandsons of a
Norwegian sea captain or a Swedish logger.
Among the most prominent of the Icelandic
descendants is the famous Bjomson family —
political leaders, newspaper men, historians, ar-
tists and authors. They have contributed much to
the developing Midwestern states, especially,
Minnesota and North Dakota.
All this is to point out that it can be by a pro-
cess of unconscious procuration that one prepares
himself for an assignment to a post such as mine.
A combination of heritage, the accident of
history, the happen-stance of birth, the assimila-
tions of several like cultures, the rough and tumble
of political experience, the training ground of
command responsibilities and decision making
are all helpful in arriving at answers to the ques-
tions my wife and I raised that sticky and muggy
evening on May 3 in New York awaiting the
departure of Pan American’s flight number 76 to
Reykjavik.
We looked backward on a full and complete life
of experience and forward to a new one. Both of
us, we discovered later, had in those few hours
taken an inventory.
— And what have we found?
— An enchanting, dynamic, sophisticated and
cultured country and people -—- not at all dis-
similar in many respects from our own State of
Minnesota.
Climate wise your summers are cooler than
Minnesota but in the winters I’m certain we shall
find that the Icelanders’ winter is mild by the
standards of Minnesota.
Minnesotans can’t claim any lava fields, glaciers
or mountains but, on the other hand, we do have
over 15,000 lakes and vast areas of forests and
wilderness.
Minnesotans, like Icelanders, are campers and
sport fishermen who love the out-of-doors.
Much deeper, however, and of considerably
more significance are the people themselves. One
detects here similarities in concepts which I
strongly believe are the bone and sinew of any
democratic society:
— an almost militant attachment to egalitarian-
ism.
— an extraordinary effort to provide for the
education of all our people.
— a deep and abiding interest in the matters
of self-government and full participation in the
democratic processes.
President Lyndon Johnson put it so well when
he welcomed President Asgeir Asgeirsson at the
White House last July 18. “.... Iceland and
America have a great deal in common. Both were
built by pioneers, by men who journeyed into the
unknown, across a forbidding sea or an unchar-
tered wilderness. Both of our peoples came to
find freedom. Both founded nations that today
have a long and honored tradition of liberty and
justice. ... There is ice in the cold determination
of your people to preserve and protect the demo-
cratic institutions we all cherish so much. And
there is fire -— and a great deal of fire -— always
in your support of peace and freedom.”
There is another aspect of similarity in history
I should like to comment on.
My section of America — the area we call
“the Upper Midwest” was historically the seat of
perhaps the strongest isolationist sentiment to be
found in the United States.
Our institutions as well as our history are both
very young and, paradoxically, quite old.
At various times several hundred years ago we
have been parts of dominions where the flags of
Spain, France and England have flown. — But it
was only quite recently when the restless, coura-
geous pioneer settler came from Europe pushing
ever further West to take up the land that we be-
came a state. — My own grandfather, coming from
Sogn in Norway traveled west across the then
almost uninhabited prairie of Southern Minne-
sota by covered wagon and team of oxen. Ten
Norwegian families and a lone Irish family made
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