Evening star., 1923-07-20
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

ST. PAUL, Mimi, July 20.-Min-
nesota, politically speaking, has
ceased to be a state and become q
tion to the Senate by an overwhelm-
ing majority is portentious beyond
any development in contemporary
American politics. 1t means that the
wave of radicalism, which began in
North Dakota seven years ago, is still
rolling tempeStuouSly across the
northwest. engulfing all and sundry
its path encounters.
This dispatch is written while Min
neSota is reeling beneath the new
blow struck by the farmer-labor
party-a blow which clothes the
North Star state with the distinction
of being the first in the Union to be
represented by two avowed, outspok
en-, labeled radicals. Ladd and Fra
zier, from North Dakota are radicals
TOO. But they ran and were elected
as nominal republicans. Henrik Ship
stead and MaGnuS Johnson are the
first twain Of United States senators
sent to Washington from the same
commonwealth, to be elected as farm
cr-labor or Non-partiSan League can
didateS.
Others May Follow Suit.
Minnesota. that is to say. conserva-
tive Minnesota-the Minnesota of
Cushman X. Davis of old, and the
Minnesota OF knute Nelson of latter
day tlmes-rueS the record ii thus
establishes. IT sees amid its remorse
a single ray of consolation. 1t dis
Germs that what happened in Min
nesota on July 16 may easily happen
in almost any western state tomor-
row. Misery never likes company
more than III the presence of political
humiliation. Thus the non bolShc-
visit" community of Minnesota finds
Soiace.
No erudite doctor of political phi
losophy is needed to diagnose the
meaning of Magnus Johnson.s tri-
umph. 1t is as far removed from a
personal triumph as moon from earth.
Almost any farmer-labor candidate
would have achieved the same result
Hardly any republican or democrat
could have prevented it. Here is a
swedish immigrant, just past fifty
the type of hundreds of thousands OF
solid Scandinavians who. either as
first or second generation folk from
sweden, Norway or Denmark, have
settled in Minnesota and made the
state. agriculturally at least, what it
is today.
Magnus Johnson is not even one of
the higher-grade Scandinavians. He
Is immensely the inferior of that
other Johnson, John. who once was
Governor of Minnesota and for while
II formidable democratic presidential
possibility. John Johnson posse sSed
the ingredients of statesman. Mag
nus Johnson has little to recommend
him. except a stalwart frame, an in
domitable energy. leOnine voice. an
Unsuitable ambition and a natural
flair for politics of the rough-and-
tumble kind
Talks for Common People.
He has mastered the stock phrases
in the La Toilette CateChism of radi-
caliSm He can thunder the wrongs
of the common people and below
the iniquitieS of the propertied classes
in terms and tones that seldom fail &c
rouse the proletariat. Once he 'pio-
neered'' in a movement for co-Opera-
tive marketing of live stock, and, dur
ing successive terms in the Mime
sofa legislature has been on the
right side of Legislation conceived il
the interests of the farmer and the
wage-earner.
He can make a first-rate campaign
speech before people accustomed, like
himself, to miSpronounce words be-
ginning with "j"-like his own name
and utter them with a ~" But
when all this has been faithfully put
down to his credit. the Alpha and