America, The Land of Freedom
75 years ago on September 18, 1918, Olli Kinkkonen (a Finnish immigrant) was
tarred and feathered; two weeks later his body was found hanged from a tree in
Lester Park in Duluth. He was tarred and feathered from head to foot. Olli as
thousands of others Finns in USA were against World War I, knowing full well
that it was an economic war, for economic power and it was not a just war. He
was adamant that because the First World War was an Imperialist war, he was not
going to join the Army. He was kidnapped from his bed by the Knights of Liberty,
a vigilante group promoted by USA government in order to pressure men to join
and fight. He was interrogated by these hoodlums, beaten, tarred and feathered
and hung. He had rescinded his application for US citizenship and wanted to
return to Finland. The perpetrators were not looked for and the whole episode
was forgotten. Lynching, killings, murders and beatings were and are the legacy
of "the land of the free". Only now, 75 years later the Tyomies
Finnish Society has unveiled a memorial plague to Olli Kinkkonen.
This article was sent in by our
reader Lydia S. Karhu; we reprint the cover of the last issue of the Finnish
nation-wide monthly which was published for 95 years in the USA, the oldest
progressive newspaper in the U.S.
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