Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

[MUSIC PLAYING] GARY EICHTEN: evening, and happy birthday from Saint Paul. This is Gary Eichten. And this evening, we'll be taking a look at the way Minnesotans are celebrating this day, a celebration that's reflecting both the unifying themes of these 50 states, the things we have in common, and the unique characteristics that make each of us a little different, one from the other.

Today, in Minnesota, for example, like the rest of the country, there are hundreds of parades and fireworks displays, tournaments, and festivals. But there are also events like the commemorative launching of the world's first dirigible. Not quite up to the tall ships race in New York, but a tribute to American ingenuity nonetheless.

The bicentennial is virtually everywhere in Minnesota, big towns, little towns. But even the bicentennial has managed to bypass the town of Trosky. We'll go to Trosky a bit later to find out why. We'll also take you on a tour of Fargo-Moorhead, Duluth-Superior, Saint Joseph. We'll take a look at Indian powwows. We'll have a short history lesson. But right now, across the Mississippi River to Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis and Greg Barron.

GREG BARRON: Well, Gary, it's a terrific summer evening here in downtown Minneapolis. The Kennedy High School band has been playing since 7:00 this evening. It's a warm summer evening, blue skies and a pleasant summer afternoon breeze. Talking to some people here. How are you celebrating the day?

SPEAKER 1: Oh, we're just having company. Just family.

GREG BARRON: What are you doing to celebrate the day?

SPEAKER 2: We're going on a picnic up at a lake, and just spend the day with our children, and on the lake. And that's it.

GREG BARRON: Do you have a summer cabin up there?

SPEAKER 2: No. Some friends have invited us over their summer cabin.

GREG BARRON: Sounds like a great time. No fireworks for you, huh?

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. A little. We're going to take some up there in Wisconsin.

GREG BARRON: Great. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER 2: I wish I was doing something exciting, like flying to Washington DC as the fireworks go off.

GREG BARRON: Well, this is pretty fun too. Well, you can be a radio star too. I heard you calling out here.

SPEAKER 2: Terrific.

GREG BARRON: What are you doing to celebrate the day?

SPEAKER 3: We're going to go see the fireworks over in Saint Paul.

GREG BARRON: Great. What kind of display do you anticipate seeing?

SPEAKER 3: A big one. A loud one.

GREG BARRON: You like those fire works.

SPEAKER 3: The Kids in our neighborhood better not be able to beat it. They've been practicing, but I hope it's better than that.

GREG BARRON: A lot of people this year, especially with the bicentennial, have been contemplating the history of the country and what it all means this year of all years. Do you have any special thoughts?

SPEAKER 2: I just think we're all remembering that we really have a great country.

RODGER WILLIAMS: It is not quite true to celebrate today as the birthday of America. That's a little misleading, because America is not a political entity that sprang on a given day into the family of nations. Rather, America is an ideal that must continually be reborn and developed in the minds and hearts of her citizens. Now, it is our task this morning to examine the driving force behind this ideal and to discern how this dynamic has worked itself out in our past. The driving force can be stated at once and simply. Liberty and justice for all.

GARY EICHTEN: There was a time in our nation's history when people fought for the right to worship soul liberty, Roger Williams called it. And today, long before the band started playing, many Minnesotans, like many people throughout the country, celebrated this bicentennial by exercising that liberty of the soul.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) O beautiful for spacious skies

SPEAKER 4: This is the best way for me to celebrate, is to come here to mass this morning and to thank God for it.

SPEAKER 5: I think this is one of the most important things in my life, and certainly, the thing that we have tried to teach our children, that the important thing is to worship God and to be able to worship him the way we want to.

SPEAKER 4: If we didn't go and we didn't keep up our religion and really care about it, what would be the use of having churches? We'd just close them down. Other people don't realize that we keep our churches open, the people, by going and by believing in it.

SPEAKER 5: Well, that is one of the principal purposes for which this country was founded. The people who originally came here, the Pilgrims, came in search of a land where they could worship as they chose, without the direction of the state and without oppression from any form of government. And so I think that is our essential, quintessential liberty.

(SINGING) America, America

God mend thine every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control

Thy liberty in law

GARY EICHTEN: Some sounds from a bicentennial church service today at the Holy Rosary Cathedral in the Northeastern Minnesota community of Duluth. Further to the south, along with the sounds of church services, there were also the sounds of marching bands today. And Rachel Krantz describes that scene in St Joseph.

RACHEL KRANTZ: Saint Joseph's 4th of July parade is getting ready to start. I hear the band coming. Parents are lifting their children high on their shoulders so they can see what's going on. People have got their cameras ready. People have come from all over Minnesota and from neighboring states to look at the 4th of July parade here in St Joe's. It's the big event in Central Minnesota and something people look forward to from one year to the next. What do you like about the parade?

SPEAKER 6: Candy.

RACHEL KRANTZ: What else?

SPEAKER 6: Clowns. It's fun to watch it, and it's good to get with other people. It seems like you get with other people that you didn't know, and you meet more and make more friends altogether.

RACHEL KRANTZ: The parade is one event in a community holiday, a day when everybody works, plays, or eats at the parish church bazaar. The annual 4th of July festival is the main fundraiser for both the church and the parochial schools in Saint Joe's. And many Catholics work hard for months before to get ready for the event. Joe Kromm, chairman of this year's and last year's parade committee, says that people start looking forward to the next 4th of July as soon as the last one is over.

JOE KROMM: It seems like all the people that leave the town are probably in different states, Iowa and Dakota. I know of some families. They're come back here for this annual event. It just grows on them or something.

SPEAKER 7: I grew up in town, but now live in Saint Louis Park. And it's a yearly affair. We come back and visit with our families and so on. It's like homecoming week, really. And it happens every year here in St Joe. So it's a highlight really, as far as we're concerned.

SPEAKER 8: We don't think the 4th of July would be the 4th of July without coming back to St Joe.

JOE KROMM: There's a community spirit here that maybe you just don't find in every town. Maybe that's got something to do with it, I don't know. There's been a lot of remarks that I've heard through the years that it's just unbelievable that so many people would get together.

And there's hundreds of people involved in this thing as far as after the parade on the parish grounds, with all the activities, and concession stands, and everything. It's all volunteer labor. There is no money in it for anybody that's working on it. It's people working together, not for gain in their own pocket, but it's working for the parish, is what they're doing. It's just a community spirit-type thing you don't see all over.

SPEAKER 9: It used to be that Saint Joe was Saint Joe Parish, the City of St Joe. Almost everybody in town belonged to the parish. That was some years ago, however. And the parish is much more pluralistic now, if you want to call it that. There are many more non-Catholics here. But yet, we do have many non-Catholics participating in putting on of the 4th of July event.

Ever since I've been here, and ever since people can remember around here, they've been doing it on the 4th of July. And therefore, this patriotic holiday is the day that we choose for it. And in that sense, it is a patriotic thing. But the orientation of the whole festival is not flag waving.

I mean, it's not that type of thing. It's a parish festival, and it's a community. This year, there will be more of a patriotic slant to everything. I know a lot of the Afghans, for instance, are in red, white, and blue. And we have this kiddie parade, which is a special bicentennial aspect of it. But it is definitely a parish event.

RACHEL KRANTZ: How come you're working so hard?

SPEAKER 8: Well, because it's got a purpose. It goes for Catholic schools and stuff like this. Most of the money does. And our children attend the Catholic schools, and we believe in it.

SPEAKER 10: Well, for one thing, we need the money. Another thing, I think it's nice to get everybody get together and really work together. And I think it's very nice that everybody cooperates. We really have a really, really, really nice time. I mean, everybody is really great.

GARY EICHTEN: Some sounds from Saint Joseph, Minnesota. There is no bicentennial celebration in Trosky, Minnesota today, at least not the standard sort of celebration. In fact, they haven't had a 4th of July celebration in Trosky for 36 years now. Oh, there are three flags flying in Trosky this evening and the bar is shut down. But the parades and the lemonade stopped a long time ago. Paul Groucho, what are the 100 people of Trosky doing today?

PAUL GROUCHO: Well, most of them are, so far as we can tell, in hiding. There is a big party. We're at the Ray Carstensen home in Trosky. And there's a big family party, which is the tradition on the 4th of July with the Carstensen's. All the children are home, except one daughter, who is married to a soldier who's at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and another family who are vacationing. The rest of the town is absolutely quiet on the 4th of July.

GARY EICHTEN: How come they stopped stopped celebrating the 4th?

PAUL GROUCHO: Well, I think the youngest citizens in the town, for one thing, began to move away. There aren't really very many children in the town anymore. And 4th of July celebrations and things of that kind are really events for children as much as for anybody. And then I think, two, from what I can tell, that the town just outgrew those things. Everybody grew up here.

We were talking with the lady at the general store who's 74 years old and has been standing behind the candy counter for all of those long years about the celebrations we used to have. And I got the sense from her that the time had passed for that kind of thing, really, and we're all going to settle down and lead quiet lives here.

There's also some feeling that it's much better this way. We're talking with people at lunch over steaks this noon about that. And they were saying, this kind of celebration really is the kind of thing that's just for us. You avoid all those crowds. We don't like crowds of people here. So this suits us just fine. Thank you.

GARY EICHTEN: Paul, is it possible that the bicentennial has actually bypassed Trosky?

PAUL GROUCHO: I think it hasn't, really. I was talking with the people, again, at the lunch over the barbecue and saying, does this seem like a special day to you? And, yes, they said, indeed it does. And Mrs. Carstensen, who's our host here, was telling us proudly of the fact that all three of her sons served in the armed services. They all enlisted, in fact. That was an enormously important thing to her.

And another was telling about getting up early this morning and turning on the television set and hearing a rendition of the Stars and Stripes Forever, and feeling really moved and feeling that it was a special day. I don't think it's passed it by, but it's going to be celebrated here in rather quieter way than it is in some other parts of the country.

GARY EICHTEN: OK, thanks, Paul. Paul Groucho in Downtown Trosky, Minnesota.

[SINGING]

There are some people in Minnesota who are not celebrating this bicentennial. Many Native Americans, for example. But even among American Indians, there is a tradition of reunion and celebration on the 4th of July, a chance to meet with relatives and friends.

ROSE BARSTOW: My name is Rose Barstow right now. And I was born Rose Mary Shingobee. I was born in Onamia, Minnesota. At seven years, my mother died and I was removed to the White Earth Reservation. In those days, there was always that a back and forth type of relationship between the Eastern Dakota Indians, as well as the Western Ojibwe.

They had a communication type of thing. They exchanged dances, they exchanged songs, and they sang honor songs back and forth to one another. And it was really a fantastic. And there was always competitive games played, races for kids, ranging all the way from [INAUDIBLE] on through. And there was a lot of fun in the competition. There was no animosities.

Now you can't compete for anything, but what you feel, almost a sting and a bite even in a glance or a look at you. People don't speak to you if you get a little bit ahead in something. It's really funny. The whole thing has changed from what it used to be. Contests now takes up most of the time of the power. Contest after contest, is a fancy dancer, and there's all this and that. Whereas before, they'd have one contest. Through the whole party, it'd be three or four days of powwow.

And there was only two forms of dancing, the traditional and the fancy, or the fast they called. And now they call it fancy dancing and stuff. It used to be fast dances and stuff. You get out there and dance. I entered many of those contests from age sevem on. Practically, every year, I always entered a contest.

My grandparents provided me with the neatest costumes. I used to hate to give them away when I'd outgrow them and have to give them away. And I guess maybe Indians, for some reason, had a feeling for that. It wasn't what you call, they go running around carrying a flag all over, but they had the greatest respect for the American flag. I remember that so well. The flag led the procession.

[SINGING]

GARY EICHTEN: Like Rose Barstow and like Americans everywhere, Minnesotans this day are reflecting and remembering, as well as celebrating. We've come from different lands at different times, from different traditions. There is a pluralism to Minnesota, to America, but there's also a unity, a common history.

(SINGING) Come all, you men of enterprise that feel inclined to roam

And go beyond the Mississippi and seek a pleasant home

Take a Pioneer's advice, he'll point you out the best to lovely Minnesota

The Lily of the west

July 4th 1680. Father Louis Hennepin, a French missionary, discovers Saint Anthony Falls. He came with LaSalle to Christianize the Indians. Now he's trying to escape their captivity. Minneapolis is born. Continuing the ascension of the Colbert River 10 or 12 leagues more, the navigation is interrupted by a fall, which I called Saint Anthony of Padua, in gratitude for the favors done me by the Almighty through the intercession of that great saint, whom we had chosen, patron and protector of all our enterprises.

July 4th, 1863. Chief Little Crow, the leader of the Great Sioux uprising, is murdered by white men while picking berries in the woods. The Sioux uprising was the end of the Sioux Nation. 38 Indians were hanged at Mankato. The rest were scattered through the western states.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) White is right, right is might

These are all deadly tools

Controlled by a few dreaming of power and wealth

They say for all free white men, but especially themselves

BIG EAGLE: I am Chief Big Eagle. The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men. Go to farming, work hard and do as they did. And the Indians did not know how to do that and did not want to anyway.

CHARLES A BRYANT: My name is Charles A Bryant. The conflict of white and Indian is a conflict of knowledge and ignorance, of right and wrong.

GARY EICHTEN: The Sioux uprising was the last of the great Indian Wars in Minnesota. The end of the wars gave the White people a chance to settle land that had been unavailable. July 4th 1825. The first Norwegian settlers leave for America.

(SINGING) The poorest retch in Norway

Becomes like a king in a year or so

July 4th 1916. The Finns are in the midst of the Mesabi Iron Range strike. Imported by mining companies as scabs, they see the conditions and strike themselves.

KOSKI: I am Mrs. Koski. With eight children, we were smuggled over the Canadian border to break the early strike. I think it was in 1907, we learned from the blacklisted strikers, who, for 10 years, lived on the poor land and kept talking to us about making the union. Then they wouldn't let the men picket. So we formed a line of children a block long with signs. They marched in their father's places.

Then the company brought in Croatians and Slovenes, as they had brought us in years before. Nobody could understand, but we spoke to them anyway. And not a steam shovel moved in Hibbing or Chisholm. The flat iron pigs did not move. The iron locos were silent. The pits and shafts empty. It was hard, but we had nothing to lose.

SPEAKER 11: When I first came to Minnesota, we drove out to our farm. We drove right straight across the prairie. There wasn't a fence. There wasn't a road. There wasn't nothing.

GARY EICHTEN: July 4th, 1934. The farmers are suffering one of the state's greatest droughts. To fight hard times, they join with the workers, creating the farmer-labor party.

SPEAKER 12: And I tell you what we've got to do. We've got to join with the farmers. They've already started fighting. And we've got to join the farmer-labor party and vote for Floyd B Olson for governor. He's the man who cares whether we eat or not.

(SINGING) The farmer is the man

The farmer is the man

Who lives on credit till the fall

With the interest rates so high

It's a wonder he don't die

The mortgage man is the man that gets it all

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

GARY EICHTEN: On July 4th, 1945, Minnesota's newest immigrant group, the Chicanos, migrate to fill the places of the farm boys gone to war. They were looking for work crews to come up and work in the beet fields. And that's how we came up.

SPEAKER 13: The main attraction to the settlement in the west side was the Swiss packing plant, and armor's packing plant, and the associated slaughterhouses loading and unloading dock syndrome that's part of the meat packing industry. And they worked in these things for years. But economically, they were making more money than they were as migrants, because migrants then, as now, are the lowest paid human segment population in the world.

(SINGING) I traveled the New England states, New York, and Caroline

The broad and fertile southern states, and thought them very fine

In torrid zones or frigid gale, my heart could never rest

Till I came to Minnesota, the Lily of the west.

Our prairies are all dotted over with houses white as snow

Where nothing stood but cabin rude a show 10 years ago

Now that's the way we do things here, enjoying life the best

I'm in sweet Minnesota, that Lily of the west.

GARY EICHTEN: So here we are, July 4th, 1976. Despite all the problems, and the disagreements, and the differences, we've made it to our bicentennial. That's what the celebration is all about in Minneapolis, and Duluth, and Saint Joseph, and Trosky, and in Fargo-Moorhead. Bill Siemering is on the line from Fargo-Moorhead. And, Bill, how did your area spend this day?

BILL SIEMERING: Well, Gary, the weather was perfect for the annual old-fashioned 4th of July celebration at Morehead State University, with a clear sky and occasional white clouds providing a passing umbrella of shade. The low key family affair began with a parade of decorated bicycles headed by fife and drum players Beth and Angie Olson of Fargo, who talked with me later about the celebration. What would you like to see the country be in the future?

BETH OLSON: Well, to get someone real good in government to get rid of all the mess we're in.

BILL SIEMERING: Do you think much about the fact that you're Americans and not some other nationality?

BETH OLSON: Well, yeah, I think that they have lots of problems in other countries. And I'm glad that I'm here, instead of their starvation and stuff like that. Another thing I want out of the government is to be able to help them and stuff so they'll be like us.

BILL SIEMERING: How would you like to help them?

ANGIE OLSON: Send them food and stuff like that.

BILL SIEMERING: Good. Are you enjoying the day?

BETH OLSON: Yeah, having fun.

BILL SIEMERING: Good.

ANGIE OLSON: Oh, but the boots are so hot.

BILL SIEMERING: And I talked with Ed. He's 63 years old, lives on social security, was hitchhiking through. He heard the music and stopped over. And he gave these thoughts about America.

ED: It's the best. I think that even though how hard you may have it, it is still the best. It's still the best.

BILL SIEMERING: What do you like most about this country?

ED: Well, what you'd have to most is the freedom you've got. That's what you'd have to go. I don't have any of the wealth, but it's here. It's here. But I think the biggest thing about this country is the freedom. The people to have freedom to go where you want to, do what you want to as long as you're pleased to do right and don't hurt nobody, but don't hurt nobody else with what you do, you're all right. You can give me a couple of more hot dogs over there in a moment or two. How's that? I've been sitting here hoping somebody would come along.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[SINGING]

BILL SIEMERING: President Roland Dille of Morehead State University read the Declaration of Independence and preceded the reading with these remarks.

ROLAND DILLE: We have celebrated the fulfillment of the great promise of the Declaration of Independence, that is, our independence as a nation. And we have celebrated the incomplete fulfillment of the promise of individual freedom and dignity.

BILL SIEMERING: Dr. Dillon, in your remarks, you said that the Declaration of Independence was both a complete act, and yet there is something that's incomplete. What do you see as the incomplete part of our country?

ROLAND DILLE: The declaration not only suggests something about individual freedom and dignity. It really talks about it. That is, the rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We talked individual rights. And there, our record has not really been that good.

BILL SIEMERING: What can we do to help promote the sense of community as individuals?

ROLAND DILLE: It really does come down to something quite simple, like love your neighbor. One feels silly saying that. But I really do believe that what is required by each of us is not what we have had for some years now, a tolerance of our neighbor. What we need is a concern for our neighbor.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BILL SIEMERING: A concern for our neighbor, a good wish for ourselves on this birthday of our country, and a good note on which to end this report of the 4th of July celebration at Morehead State University. I'm Bill Siemering.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GARY EICHTEN: And so there you have it, a sample of the different ways that Minnesota and America is celebrating this nation's 200th birthday. The forms of celebration differ. In fact, some people aren't celebrating at all, but virtually everyone is taking notice, for 200 years, after all, is a long time and much has happened over those 200 years. This day is a benchmark for America, for us, a day to reflect on our past and a day to hope for our future. From Saint Paul, Minnesota, this is Gary Eichten.

[STARLAND VOCAL BAND, "AFTERNOON DELIGHT"] Skyrockets in flight

Afternoon delight

Afternoon delight

This portion of celebrate the day was produced by Minnesota Public Radio. Portions of this program were prepared by Paul Groucho at the Worthington Daily Globe, Claudia Hamilton and Dick Daly, WSCD, Duluth. Bill Siemering KCCM Moorhead. Dan Olson, Rachel Krantz, and Deborah Gage, KSJ and Saint Paul. Field reporting by David Carlton Phelan. Audio production and mixing by Lynn Crews, Tom Keefe, and Richard Nelson. The program was produced and directed by Greg Barron.

(SINGING) Afternoon delight

Be waiting for me, baby, when I come around

We can make a lot of loving fore the sun gone down

Thinkin of you's workin up an appetite

Looking forward to a little afternoon delight

Rubbing sticks and stones together, make the sparks ignite

And the thought of loving you is getting so exciting

Skyrockets in flight

Afternoon delight

Afternoon delight

Afternoon delight

Afternoon delight

Afternoon delight