The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1912-10-22
VEIL DRAWN
FROM STATUE
OF JOHNSON
Latest Tribute Paid TO Memory
Of Minnesota's Most Popu-
lar Executive
WORK PAID FOR BY ADMIRERS
No One Permitted to Contri.
butte More Than 81 to The
Fund

II tAAAu
On the broad plaza in front of the
great white caitoI to which John A.
johnson had been sent three times
as governor in a state strongly OPP
posed to his political party, bronze
statue of the late governor was I'M
yelled Saturday afternoon in the
presence of several thousand per-
sons.
The Statue was made by Andrew
O'Connor, the noted American
Sculptor, is slightly above life size
and startling in its power and fidel-
ity. 1t stands on massive base of
Minnesota granite and is flanked by
four groups of statues which typify
phases of life and industry in Mimi
esota.
Fund All Contributed
The total cost was paid by fund
contributed soon after Governor
Johnson's death in September 1909,
by the people of Minnesota and 9TH
er Northwestern states, and by tor
mer Minnesotians residing in var
ious parts of the world. No contri-
button of more than dollar was ac-
cepted from any person. Altogeth-
Ell. several hundred thousand persons
of all political parties, joined in
providing this permanent testi-
monial of their esteem for the man
who was born in poverty, struggled
to support his mother and himself,
won fame as an editor, legislator
and executive. and of whom in the
democratic pre-conyention cam
paign of 1908, Grover Cleveland, in
the last long letter ever written by
him, said, Il have lately come to
the conclusion that our last hope
rests upon the nomination (for the
presidency of Johnson of Minueso-
ta
High Tribute To johnson
But the people remember most Viz
wildly the delightful personality the
charming manners, the generosity,
the tolerance of John A. Johnson,
and these things were the burden Of
the tributes paid by the speakers
Saturday. j. d. O'Brien, president
of the Johnson Memorial Commits
sion, who presented the statue to
state, Governor Adolph 0. Eberhart
| Governor Johnson's successor, who
accepted it, and w. s. Hammond,
representative in Congress from
the first Minnesota district The
veil was drawn from the statue by
/ Miss jeanette Lynch. daughter of
Fred B. Lynch, Democratic nation
al committeeman for Minnesota.
School Children Present
Prominent in the crowd at the I'M
yelling were several hundred school
children. To them, and to other
pupils throughout the Northwest,
Governor Johnson has been held up
as type of American worthy of
emulation.
He was born in 1861 at ST. Peter,
Minnesota, then on the very frontier
with Indians all about savage, war
like Indians. There he spent boy
hood shorn of the usual boyhood JOYS,
for all the time he worked. worked
hard and uncomplainingly. to help
support bis hard. working mother
and himself. There he became a
clerk in store, then a. devil in a
local printing office. then writer for
the paper, then editor of it, then
owner for his nightshe had devoted
more to study than to sleep. Then
his fellow-townsmen sent him to the
state legislature and the newspaper
men of the state elected him presi-
dent of the Minnesota Editors and
Publishers Association. and in 1904
the democrats nominated him for
governor and he was elected, and he
was twice thereafter reelected. dying
during his third term.
Jessie Walkup of Pipestone accom-