Swedish Emigration Commission 1907–1913

The Swedish Emigration Commission (Swedish: Emigrationsutredningen), was a commission that existed between 1907 and 1913 that was mandated by the Swedish Riksdag to try to reduce Swedish emigration to the United States. In the 19th century, Sweden had had one of the highest rates of emigration to North America in all of Europe, the third highest after Ireland and Norway. By 1910, one fifth of all Swedes had their homes in America. The situation alarmed conservative Swedes, who regarded emigration as a challenge to national solidarity and to the very nation state itself, already seemingly under threat from trade unionism and the international socialist movement. The liberal interest, which had in the 19th century favored emigration as a practical necessity, by now also saw it as a net drain, depriving Sweden of the labor necessary for economic development. Both camps shared a perception, disturbing in a Europe where the forces of war were gathering, that young, male Swedes were fleeing to America to escape military service.

The conservative and nationalist parties proposed dealing with the problem by restrictions, the liberal and Social Democrat parties by social and economic reform. Despite such ideological faultlines, it was with broad national consensus that a Parliamentary Emigration Commission was mandated to study the problem in 1907. Led by the liberal academic Gustav Sundbärg, the Commission went to work with "characteristic Swedish thoroughness", and published its findings in 21 volumes of exhaustive data on social and economic conditions in Sweden and America, together with Sundbärg's analysis and proposals. As Sundbärg put it, to discuss the emigration meant to discuss Sweden in its entirety. The conservative parties proposed legal restrictions on emigration propaganda, emigrant agents, and emigration by military conscripts. In the end, all such authoritarian measures were dismissed by the Commission, which instead went with Sundbärg's goal of bringing the best sides of America to Sweden (unsurprisingly, as Sundbärg himself wrote the conclusions). First on his list of urgent reforms were universal male suffrage, better housing, general economic development, and a broader popular education which could counteract "class and caste differences."

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