as a Danish line, the Thingvalla, especially recommended by the editor. By this time steamship lines had made mutual agreements controlling the cost of passage, so that they were all more or less the same. Consequently the moderate, often even very inexpensive fares added their bit to encourage the desire to emigrate in 1909, the Commissioner General for Immigration decided that the advertising of the steamship lines was the highest motivating factor in immigration. 21

In Finland the America fever began to be epidemic. Letters crossed the Atlantic, declaring that America was a place where it was worthwhile living, "a land where the newcomers were like the Joshua and Caleb of old, who, reconnoitering the land, had found the spot where bread and honey flowed, the land which grew wheat and other grain and which remained fertile for years." 22 Or sometimes someone would return back home rich after a trip to America, and would tell anyone who would listen of the legendary land beyond the ocean, and with their tales the fever spread from house to house. "It was almost like an unwritten law that when a man reached the age of eighteen, it was time for him to go to America," said one of the newcomers. 23 Soon not only the men came, but whole families set out: "In spite of the low wages and the high cost of everything at that time, father and mother were careful of what was spent and in two years were able to save enough to buy tickets for their five children, the youngest of whom was eighteen. They secretly got everything ready for the trip, harvesting the grain and selling everything that was to be sold, and then just before they were ready to leave they came to tell my parents, Antti and Kaisa Tuomela, that they were leaving for America. When my parents heard that the Pikkarainens had managed to save enough money for tickets for so many, they got the America fever, too, and they asked the Pikkarainens to postpone their departure for a few days, because they would like to go along with them if they could find the money. They managed it, and they arranged everything for their old mother who was remaining in Finland, and so they joined the group with their two daughters. A blue trunk was filled with clothes and provisions for the journey. The hired man escorted them on the first leg of the trip with cart and horse, and we two girls sat beside the blue trunk while mother and father walked." 24

21. John Wargelin, Americanization of the Finns. Hancock, Mich., 1924. p. 40.

22. Solomon Ilmonen, Amerikan Suomalaisten Historia II, Jyväskylä, 1923. p. 148. 23. Interview with John Seilo. E. A. Aaltio Collection, Duluth, Minn.

24. Interview with Josefiina Kästämä, given to Adolf Lundquist in 1939. Archives of

Minnesota Finnish-American Historical Society.

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