4 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



office as governor of the state. His parents were humble Swedish immi- 

 grants, early settlers in St. Peter, where Johnson was born in 1861. His 

 father, a blacksmith, was unfortunately too fond of drink to provide an 

 adequate living for his family, and therefore young Johnson, because his 

 earnings were needed, was obliged at thirteen years of age to leave school 

 and go to work. Eventually he became interested in journalism, and as the 

 editor of the St. Peter Herald, a country newspaper, he gained promi- 

 nence in his own community. For a single term of four years, 1899 to 



1903, he represented his district in the state senate, but his constituency was 

 ordinarily Republican and by a narrow margin he was defeated for re- 

 election. 47 



By this time Johnson had attracted considerable attention throughout 

 the state, partly because of his great personal charm, which won him many 

 friends, and partly because he had shown himself to be an independent 

 thinker who could express himself effectively both in writing and in speak- 

 ing. When John Lind, the most prominent Democrat in Minnesota, re- 

 fused to be considered for the Democratic nomination for governor in 



1904, the party leaders turned naturally to Johnson, and induced the 

 convention to nominate him by acclamation. His election in the campaign 

 that followed may be interpreted as a kind of popular protest against the 

 petty factional strife and do-nothing tactics of Minnesota Republicans. 

 While Theodore Roosevelt carried the state as Republican candidate for 

 President by a margin of 216,651 to 55,187, the vote for Johnson was 

 147,992 and that for his Republican opponent only 140,130. Twice there- 

 after, in 1906 and again in 1908, Johnson won re-election by far more 

 substantial majorities, in spite of every effort on the part of the Republican 

 machine to displace him. His sudden death in 1909 cut short what might 

 have developed into a brilliant career in national as well as state politics. 48 



Johnson was handicapped in his leadership by having to deal, through- 

 out his three administrations, with legislatures opposed to him politically. 

 More important, he could not even count on the support of a sufficient 

 number of reformers to provide the necessary legislative majorities to put 



47. William Watts Folwell, A History of Minnesota (4 vols., St. Paul, 1921-30), 

 III, 275-76; Frank A. Day and Theodore M. Knappen, The Life of John Albert 

 Johnson (St. Paul, 1910), pp. 52-114. 



48. Ibid., pp. 119-42; Folwell, Minnesota, III, 277-83. 



