19
THE WESTERN AMERICAN
January, 1923
Foreign Born Builders of America
M ATIVE AMERICANS, even those not very far re-
1 moved from their foreign bom immigrant ances
tors are placing too little value on the contributions
to the building of America coming from the foreign
born and written to their credit on the page of
America’s history of progress.
The thing however that should be clearly distin
guished is that those of foreign birth who have
left the deepest imprints are those who set out to
become Americans and take their places among the
people of this land and not among those of their
Nationals who are content with their foreign stand
ards, the nationality center and the foreign tongue.
The example these foreign bora builders of Amer
ica have set should be the guiding star to good
American citizenship for every foreign bom, lighting
the road of true Americanization leading to the goal
of a worthy ambition.
The nationality group tied and group bound Amer
ican citizen of foreign birth who harkens to the
nationality tongue appeal, consciously or uncon
sciously, places a handicap in his own path while he
works tediously at the unprofitable task of cultivating
himself in a foreign tongue that offers no field of ad
vantage in America, where the soil never will yield a
commensurate compensation for diligent toil and
where the keenest intellectual talent can produce
but a meager interest on the investment. His
physical strength may return him a fair compe
tence before it is spent, but he will never feel
that this is his country. He never made it so—only a
place where he could earn good money—and when
Louth flies and age sets its imprint upon his bent
shoulders and furrowed brow he feels that here he is
put a stranger and in his heart he yearns for the
Imaginary shores of childhood, the dreamland that all
through life had had his attention and love, while he
forgot his obligation and his duty to the new home
land and denied it a place in his heart.
I Quite different is the story of the immigrant who
let out to become an American. While he cherished
fond recollections of the old homeland, he cultivated
a new love growing in proportion as he learned to
4»
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A current news item tells of the recent death in St. Louis
Missouri, of N. 0. Nelson, founder of the N. O. Nelson Manu
facturing Company of that city and one of the largest pro
ducers of plumbing fixtures in the world. He had of recent
years become known as a millionaire philanthropist and as
one of the first large employers of labor in this country who
began experimenting in profit sharing with his employees.
Nels Olson Nelson was born in Lillesand, Norway, in 1844.
While he was only a young boy he came to America with his
parents, the family settling in Texas and later moving to
Missouri, where they located on a farm near St. Joseph. In
1869 he was married to Almeria Posegate of St. Joseph, and
four years later he moved with his family to St. Louis.
After a few years as bookkeeper in a plumbing concern,
he founded in 1877, a plumbing business of his own. In a
few years his company grew to be one of the largest in the
world. In 1885 he introduced the profit sharing system in
his factory, and in 1890 he established a manufac
turing plant near Edwardsville, Illinois, founding the co
operative community of Leclaire. The company paid divi
dends from four to ten pear cent on the wages of the em
ployees, and in 1905 Nelson decided to divide the entire
profits of his business between his employees and customers.
A few years ago Nelson established a number of co-opera
tive stores in New Orleans, in an attempt to relieve poverty
which he found there, but during the period of rising prices
brought on by .the war, the project encountered great diffi
culties and the chain of stores finally were discontinued.
He also established a hospital for poor people in the moun
tains of the west, but this project also he was forced to dis
continue on account of the imposition of many unworthy
people.
Nelson, while intensely American, retained throughout
his lifetime a deep interest in the people from which he had
sprung and was always proud of his Norse blood.
Dr. Mark A. Mathews of Seattle is modernizing the
Bible a bit by finding some reference to automobiles in Na
hum’s description of motors(?) in Nahum, 2nd chapter, 3-4
verse: “The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall
jostle one against another in the broad ways; they shall seem
like torches, they shall run like the lightning.”
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Concrete Pipe Company
“Everything for the Office”
Culvert Pipe
Irrigation Pipe
Drainage Sewer Pipe
Gravity Water System
Office: 827 Board of Trade Building
Phone Marshall 1632
Factory: 410 River Street
Phone East 4588
I Portland
:
:
:
Oregon
think and speak as an American, at the same time
cultivating American friends and neighbors.
Interesting indeed are the chapters of America’s
history that deals with the Americanization and pro
gress of the trueJblue foreign born who came here
with an honest intent, hued out their future and have
left their descendants an inheritance of moral fibre
that none but ingrate native born will repudiate.
Commercial Stationary
Printing
Engraving
Bookbinding
Seals and Rubber Stamps
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Phone Broadway 6081
Fifth and Oak Streets
Portland, Oregon
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