OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2016
Clatsop County Historical Society
The Toveri flag.
Why were there
so many?
A
storia is like an archaeological dig.
“If you know what you’re looking
at, there is history on every street corner
of Astoria,” said historian Chet Orloff.
On a wall in our building is a front page
of Toveri, a Finnish -language newspaper
published here (1907-1930). Toveri’s fi rst
offi ces were on Duane and 10th streets,
close to The Astorian’s offi ce, then on
Commercial Street.
FINNISH-LANGUAGE
NEWSPAPERS
PUBLISHED IN
ASTORIA, 1897-1951
Astorian Sanomat 1915-1919
Ilmoittaja 1920
Lännen Kaiku 1919-1920
Lännen Suometar 1922-1946
Lännen Uutiset 1905-1951
Lännetar 1891
Lännetar 1897-1904
Toveri 1907-1930
Toveritar 1911-1930
Imagine my surprise when I realized that
Toveri was only one of Astoria’s Finnish -lan-
guage papers. Spanning an era from 1891 to
1951, 10 Finnish language newspapers were
published in Asto-
ria (see the sidebar on
this page). This num-
ber is taken from the
archive of Finlandia
University. Apparently
there were more. Clat-
sop County Historical
Society Archivist Liisa
Penner says that the
Immigration Research
Steve
History Center lists
Forrester
monthly and annual
Finnish language peri-
odicals that were published in Astoria.
This proliferation of Finnish papers
emerges in Penner’s sometimes humorous and
fascinating article “A Playground of Spies:
The Strange Case of T.T. Pusa/Johnstone,”
published in the Spring issue of Cumtux, the
quarterly of the Clatsop County Historical
Society.
Penner describes the run-up to America’s
entry into World War I, when the Bureau of
Investigation — predecessor of the FBI —
tracked German spies operating in this coun-
try. Astoria and its Finnish culture became a
setting for this game.
The spy in this case was editor of the Asto-
ria Sanomat in 1915. T.T. Pusa was a man of
more than one name and a set of disguises. In
1917 the Astoria Daily Budget reported that
Norway had charged Pusa with being a Ger-
man spy and sentenced him to 10 years in
prison.
Tyynenmeren Sanomat 1901-1902
Source: Finlandia University Archives
Clatsop County Historical Society
The Toveri building housing the newspaper on the west side of Seventh Street be-
tween Bond and Commercial across from the Post Office.
Maria Raunio is pictured in this photo
from “Muisto-albumi” written by Helmi
Mattson in 1965 and published by the
Northwest Finnish Historical Society,
Kelso, Wash.
B
eyond the story of the fascinating Mr.
Pusa, I am amazed at the amount of Finn-
ish-language journalism pouring out of Asto-
ria over six decades. Some of these Finnish
papers may have been printed on the presses
of our company’s predecessor newspapers.
The archive from which I have gathered
the names of the Astoria newspapers is at
Finlandia University (formerly Suomi Col-
lege) in Hancock, Michigan. That repository
contains several Finnish papers published in
other states as well. The astonishing num-
ber of these papers begs a question. Why so
many?
The archivist of the Finlandia University
Library, Joanna Chopp, offers this response.
“There have been so many different groups in
Finnish culture — church, political and tem-
perance — that had a means of communica-
tions. Combine that with the Finnish emphasis
on education and literacy” and that produces
this national proliferation of newspapers.
By contrast, the number of German lan-
guage newspapers that were published in
America is much smaller.
A
storia’s Finnish newspapers bred several
colorful characters. Maria Raunio was an
editor of Astoria’s Toveritar. Describing Rau-
nio’s context Penner cites, “Paul George Hum-
masti in his book Finnish Radicals in Astoria,
Oregon 1904-1940 writes: ‘There were those
within the Finnish-American socialist move-
ment, however, who felt that the education of
women, as that of the working class generally,
could be achieved most effectively through
a newspaper. Among these was a group of
women from Astoria who, in April, 1911,
were able to persuade (not without opposition)
the stockholders of the Toveri to authorize the
publication of a separate women’s newspaper
when (and if) they had collected pledges for
3,000 subscriptions. By July this number was
reached, to the credit mainly of women in the
Western states, and on July 11, the fi rst issue
of the new paper, the Toveritar (Women Com-
rade) was published.’”
Raunio is buried in Greenwood Ceme-
tery. While she was a Social Democrat in
life, Raunio was claimed by Communists in
death. “She died in 1911, in mysterious cir-
cumstances,” says Penner. “She died prior to
the Russian Revolution.” But Cumtux in 2007
reported that above Raunio’s name on a black
marble gravestone is a “barely discernible
hammer and sickle within a star.”
Clatsop County Historical Society
The Toveri office with the workers out front dates to 1913 and was printed in the
“Toveri Kymmenvuotias 1907-1917,” and also a 10-year history of the Finnish social-
ist Toveri in Astoria, published in 1917.
Beyond the 10 papers listed in
Finlandia University’s archive, monthly
and annual Finnish periodicals also
were published in Astoria.
T
he socialist strain of Finnish politics has
been a sensitive topic in our county. After
publishing the 1995 series “The Finnish Social-
ists of Clatsop County” Penner had a confron-
tational encounter. “A woman said to me: ‘I
had two people (in my family) mentioned (in
the series). I don’t want the family name listed.’
“This was in 1995,” notes Penner, “and the
reference was to her family in 1914.”
The Finnish Civil War of 1918 pitted
White Finns (landed people and the church)
against Red Finns (socialists). Describing how
this infl uenced culture here, Penner said: “If
you were red and your neighbor was white,
you didn’t talk, and your kids didn’t talk to
each other.”
And to bolster their political convictions,
they had plenty of locally produced Finnish
journalism to read.
— S.A.F.
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Founded in 1873