Sixteen years have elapsed since Svenska Nyheter under a different name entered the newspaper world. Heavy has been the struggle during these years, and the fights many, but the victory has been won. From an insignificant place in the ranks of Swedish-American newspapers, the Svenska Nyheter has won a position of prominence. As the paper enters its seventeenth year, it is the most widely read Swedish paper having between twenty and thirty thousand paying subscribers.

The warm acclaim and the vigorous support received by the paper, particularly during the past four years, has, of course, their causes, and the editor 2has reason to believe that the hold the paper has on the public is due to the fact that a far more liberal view has been adopted by the Svenska Nyheter than by most of its contemporaries.

At the present, a vigorous freedom-current is coursing about the knots of our beclouded society. It touches the cheek of the grimy blacksmith; kisses the tanned forehead of the farmer; awakens hope of better days in the hearts of slaving children and women, and shakes the sleepy son of wealth, who has never known the meaning of an honest day's work. It shouts its rousing call to the sons of labor in the mines and in the shady forests; it greets the youth at the noisy machines in the factory with hope of a new day for him; it sounds the bugle call of freedom to the heroes of the sea as they battle with tackle and cable; but merely a faint whisper of this current reaches us through the daily press which, bound by tradition, is selling itself 3to the forces which try to retard the onward moving army of liberty. Svenska Nyheter has chosen its place in the front ranks in the fight against the social and intellectual enemies of the people, the tactics of plundering of the all-devouring powers of capitalism and the light-fearing individuals who try, by threats of an eternal Hell, to frighten the free minds back into the realm of shadows. If in this fight our paper has not been vigorous enough, do not judge too harshly; it will grow in wisdom as in years, as time rolls on.

The program of Svenska Nyheter for 1906 will in outline be the same as for 1905. Honest in its fight; faithful to those who are oppressed; just when chastising the mighty; clean in thoughts and in words; clear and explicit in its presentation; quick to forgive; slow to judge; ever alert and ready to draw its sword for justice and truth.

Svenska Nyheter has won general commendation for its rich Swedish department; its interesting serials; its well selected short stories; its excellent law department; its humor without raucity; its well-written articles on labor questions; its many and interesting news from all parts of the world; its special department for women and the home. The price is as before one dollar per year, and the size of the paper varies between twelve and sixteen pages, depending on the size of the advertisement section.

The Svenska Nyheter wishes a Happy New Year to its twenty to thirty thousand subscribers, to the many buyers of individual copies of the paper, and to the innumerable crowd of readers of copies which they did not buy.