Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-09-22

that Johnson's father had died in
the poorhouse. The reaction made
him governor and opened the way
to that splendid career which was
honorably and enthusiastically fol.
lowed to the end.
at the time John Johnson was
sought out as a candidate by the
democratic leaders in 1904 it would
be hard to find a more unlikely man
to win R. T. O'Connor, Of St. Paul,
sagacious and successful political
manager, believed in Johnson, so did
some of the other leaders, but 1t was
something of a forlorn hope and
Johnson was at once diffident as to
his right to the nomination and his
capacity to make the running. He
he said, and two years before he
had fatty declined to have anything
to do with the democratic nOmin-
alton. Means were found-and pref
ty slender means they were-and the
ambition was not\ lacking when he
got started. And he startled him
self and the opposition at once by
the knowledge he displayed of public
affairs; by the fire and force Of his
eloquence and by the capacity he
displayed in getting to the hearts
of the people with whom he came
in contact. There was split in the
republican party; some fool manager
exploited the Johnson family roor-
back; johnson himself became in
tensely popular and the result was
that he carried the state by four or
five thousand while Theodore Roose-
welt carried it by $4,000.
HE was as gentle, fearless. unas-
Stunning and sincere after five years
in the limelight as he was when he
! was clerk in drug store at St. Peter
by the way he educated himself
while studying pharmacy. He had
the same whimsical way Of saying
things at the height of his career
as he had when he was time keeper
and the most popular man on the
grade when he was railroading.. He
went into debt to get hold of news
paper when he quit the road build
ing and settled down at st. Peter
and he might have gone through
to the end as a country editor of
mediocre ability If circumstances had
not called into play the possibilities
in craftsmanship which made him
three times governor of Minnesota;
the avowed candidate Of great fol.
lowing for the presidency and a pub
licist of such a high order of merit
that the University Of Pennsylvania
made himaa doctor Of lawsuits boy
who carried home the clothes his
mother had washed and who was
unashamed Of his humble begin
nings.
"Who will succeed him in Mime
sofa politics.? He will have no sue
cessor. He stood for the democracy
but he was head and shoulders
above his party and any man in
either party. The memory Of John
son will shed lustre upon the party
that called him out of retirement.
but he was bigger than his party
that story was told at the polls. His
public acts and utterances were SO
we'll attuned to his times and the
manner of them that he will be re-
GREETED deeply because of the potent
ialities in patriotic achievement that
are nullified by his taking off.
u "Governor Johnson was in his
forty-ninth year, believe. He was
not of frail physique, but fell vic
tim. to the malady that besets the
modern American man of large af-
fairs who develops mentally at the
expense Of his digestion. He had no
children and he leaves a very moder.
ate estate-wholly the product of his
work on the platform. v