Francis A. Johnson Narrator Bruce Larson Interviewer July 24, 1973 Francis A. Johnson -FJ Bruce Larson -BL BL: First of all you mentioned that your father was born in Sweden. I'm just wondering what he may have told you about those years in Sweden. Do you remember anything in particular? FJ: Well, he often mentioned about his father, who was a sea captain on that large lake, Lake Vanern, largest lake in Sweden, and that he was gone for a month at a time. In other words, it took a month to make a trip, the trip that he made on the lake. Of course, his mother died when he was twelve, I believe, and his father died when he was seventeen. Then he went to work in the Liljedal Glassworks in that town... BL: Do you think his political thinking was influenced by his experiences in Sweden? Had he ever mentioned that? FJ: Well, not so much from his early life in Sweden, I think he was nineteen years old when he left there, but his life was molded mostly after he come to America. With cutting wood on the farm and hauling it twelve miles to the county seat to sell it to get money to live on, he used to organize the wood haulers to get a better price for their wood. And they would wait til late in the day to sell their wood, holding out for a better price. Then, of course, they'd have to unload it and go home whether they got a better price or not. That's how he got started really in politics. Then in 1914 his neighbors and friends elected him to the Minnesota legislature and reelected him in 1916 and elected him to the state senate in the state legislature in 1918. BL: And of course he was in sympathy with the old Nonpartisan League. FJ: Yes. Well, then of course [A. C.] Townley, he got acquainted with Townley and… BL: Did he know Townley well? FJ: Oh, yes. I even used to drive the car for Townley when he went through these towns. He was talking on the loudspeaker and I drove the car. He used to campaign with my father a lot. BL: Did Townley ever fly into here, do you remember? FJ: No, no, I don't ever remember of Townley flying. That was pretty much ahead of the airplane. Lindbergh and the boy, of course, that was coming in about that time, too, you know. 1 Then Dad was in the Minnesota state legislature. He fought for a lot of things that become a reality later on, but they were called radical in those days, you know. There were eight members of the Minnesota state senate they called the radicals. Dad, if I'm not badly mistaken, was the first man running for office statewide that had a plank in his platform calling for a bank guaranty law. Well, the bankers, Dad claimed there was only about a dozen bankers in all of Minnesota that voted for him because they didn't want the government telling them how to run their business and so on. And of course today we know the banks wouldn't be possible without having a bank guaranty law because all it would take would be a child going up the sidewalk in town and telling them everybody's drawing their money out of the bank. That's all it would take to close the bank unless they had a bank guaranty law. That was one of the things my father fought for. He also fought for law prohibiting use of oleomargarine in state institutions. Well, in those days that was called radicalism, anything of that kind. It wasn’t long before it was the law of the land. BL: Of course, he was a dairy farmer himself. FJ: Yeah, he was a dairy farmer himself. BL: How did he stand on cooperatives? FJ: Well, he helped organize the cooperatives all over this part of the United States. He traveled extensively in North Dakota and Minnesota and some in Wisconsin. He helped organize dozens of elevators and creameries and so forth. BL: You mentioned to me earlier when talking about Lindbergh a year or so ago, that your father was influenced you felt a little bit perhaps by old Lindbergh on banking. You felt he read some of his ideas... FJ: Oh, yes. Lindbergh and Dad were good friends. They were closely associated in politics, the two of them. BL: How would you compare your father and Townley, for example, as campaigners? You've mentioned you traveled with both of them. FJ: Well, they were together in politics. They thought pretty much the same. Of course, Townley was... talk about Dad being radical, Townley was much more radical. BL: Why do you say that? FJ: I claim Townley was one of these guys that thought about twenty years ahead of the average man during his lifetime. Townley and of course Lindbergh and George Loftus and several others, they thought pretty much the same in politics. BL: What issues particularly, when you say you thought Townley was more radical than your father, what were you thinking of? FJ: Well, Dad... they all... they thought that the farmers should have a fair price for his products, and Dad always fought in Congress, too, later on, that the price of something should be set, at least there should be a floor set so things couldn't go down too low. Well, they told him in 2 Congress they said that price fixing would never work. That's just what they told him and it was out of the question to get price set on farm produce at the time that my father was there. But he was fighting for that then. Of course, a lot of that become reality later on. BL: What about campaign style? Now, you traveled with your dad. Can you describe, say, a typical campaign trip with your father and the kind of speaker he was and what you did on those campaigns? FJ: Well, I drove the car for him lots of times. Father was nearsighted and he didn't like to drive at night especially. So I drove the car for him. He was always held up, of course, after the meetings when we tried to go home, see. Well, the speeches that he made was his old farm speeches. He just spoke his mind, you know, about the issues that he thought was in the best interest of the people, and against big business. BL: Well, I'm wondering, too, and I think you told me once; he liked to inject humor occasionally. What sort of things might he refer to in addition to his basic issues? FJ: Well, when Dad was United States Senator, he was a moss-back farmer living ten miles from a railroad, in the sticks, you might say, and he went to United States Senate in 1923, elected at a special election so the time being was in the summer time and it was an extraordinary election for the United States Senate that was held in the summer time. No one else running. And as I understand it, it was the first time that it was ever broadcast over the radio, nationwide. And, as a matter of fact listening to the returns that night is the first time I ever did listen to a radio. We had to go to our county seat to listen. There was only two of them in the county seat town of Litchfield at that time. And then, of course, he got elected and went on to the United States Senate. He fought for the farmers' rights, for a square deal for the farmers. In those days the farmers were not getting a square deal. He was also invited to speak at the Gridiron Dinner, highest social event held in the nation, as I understand it. It happened so our President died a week after Dad was elected Senator and so Calvin Coolidge then being Vice President, automatically became President. And the new President was also invited to the Gridiron Dinner as speaker, as was my father. There were many other Senators there that could have been asked to speak but Dad, being a new Senator, and the second one ever elected on the Farmer-Labor auspices, was invited to speak. Dad told his old- time speech there. One phrase he used was "give the farmer a square deal", and what he meant by that was one rabbit and one horse in making baloney and so forth. Well, as it turned out, the new President, he was the last speaker, of course, and when he got up and he referred to Magnus Johnson in his speech. And that kind of got several of the other Senators jealous because the President speaking about the new Senator's talk and so forth. BL: Did he ever campaign in Swedish? Use the language? FJ: Oh, no, no. Well, he might have said a few sentences just for fun, you know. He used to tell about my oldest sister. She married a Pancake and it wasn't long before they had four little Pancakes. He used to get that off in speeches and so forth. He married an English girl when he come over here which turned out to be my mother, and we always talked English at home because Dad wanted to learn to talk English and Mother didn't care to learn to talk Swede so we talked English in the home.