Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-09-22
AN APPRECIATION OF THE J. !
LATE GOVERNOR JOHNSON
ASSOCIATE TELLS STORY THE LATE CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF MINNESOTA MAN OF HUMBLE ORIG
THE MOST CIRCUMSTANCES - WAS BELOW
PEOPLE ENTIRE STATE

"By the death of Governor John
A. Johnson, of Minnesota, the coun-
try has lost the most luminous per-
sonality that the new West has pro-
duced," said w. B. Hennesy, who
! was an associate of the late governor
of Minnesota in the legislature and
who was Intimately acquainted with
Governor Johnson's political begin
nings. Mr.. Hennessy, who is now
writing the history of North Dakota
for the Tribune, was managing edi-
tor of the St. Paul Globe at the
time of the dead executives entrance
upon the broader field of political
life, had much to do with shaping
the public estimate of the new man
from st. Peter; he was the first
biographer, the writer of that article
in Success magazine which focused
the eyes of the nation upon the
striking personality of the man who
accomplished the remarkable feat
of winning $4,000 republican votes
in his first gubernatorial campaign.
"The West has not hitherto pro-
duced a man who represented in
himself the genius of people but
one generation removed from the
pioneer and the immigrant, and
whose Americanism was of such a
wholesome and substantial character
as to compel the admiring regard Of
Millions" continued Mr.. Hennessy.
1.-THE meteoric career of Governor
johnson covered but five years, start
ing with his campaign for the gov
ernorship in 1904 and closing while
he stood out as a presidential pos
sibilty, beloved of the people, and
| admired by the politicians as being
at once safe, sound and possessing
a vote-getting capacity that OVERRIDE
political lines and threw down all
barriers. r..
"He was not a profound politician
though like all successful men
before the people, he knew how to
profit by the practice Of political
| science. There has not been a man
! in public life in this country who
cared less for political power than
Gov. Johnson-or who went into a
campaign with more vigor, when he
was once committed to it. I, in COM
mon with many others. regarded him
as a man of destiny for the reason
that he developed his great facility
for saying the right thing at the
right time and saying it as most
right-thinking men wanted it said.
instantaneously upon his entry into
public life. He was an opportunist
in the best sense-as Theodore Roos-
evelt was-and he never cheapened
the cause he espoused by looking
for the applause of the public. The
nobility and courage Of the man
found brilliant expression at the
close of the last legislative session
when he vetoed the tonnage tax bill
in the face Of the certainty that polit-
ical demagogues would use it against
him. The economic principles which
lead him to defy criticism proved
to be so absolutely sound that his
enemies were disarmed and even
Bryan found it an unsafe point of
| attack.
I know Of no life story which so
! directly points the possibilities for
the young men Of the west as that
Of Governor Johnson. He was born
into poverty, the son Of a Swedish
emigrant blacksmith, whose unfor-
| tunate appetite for drink threw the
burden of a family upon a noble
woman of the people who, in poverty,
| and in the gloom of blighted
household, brought up her children
in such fashion that. the principles
she planted in the mind of the son
who afterwards became so distin.
guished, carried him safely to a place
| among the seats of the mighty. John
Johnson got an idea of the sanctity
of labor by helping his mother at the
washtub when he was less than ten
years of age; his ambition to relieve
that mother from the drudgery Of
toll brought him his first employ
ment in a store when he was eleven.
He told me few years ago, with
tears in his eyes, Of the first money
he earned and took home, assuring
his mother that the day Of the wash
tub was very nearly past. The men
who knew Of the facts of his early
life-myself among them--went with
something very like rage into the
work of telling the true story OF the
washerwoman mother and the. drum
bon father uyhor nnJit{co1 cfun{d;f,,