Evening star., 1925-07-15
(Continued from Page Twentv.twol

NCOllliluSu II Iciii I StSe ! "Gilty -l"p-t
by a majority of Is to s, after having
for two years had a Socialist Labor
council ruled by ma jority of IA TO
IL. The defeat of the Minneapolis
radicals, while accomplished on purely
local grounds, still is considered an
augury of sentiment in the State at
large. Next year Minneapolis will
have a clean-cut opportunity to pass
judgment on Farm-Labor, for former
Senator Magnus Johnson intends to
run for governor on that ticket, and
eventually, by way of the state
house, to do a back from tIlba" per-
formance toward the United States
Senate. Magnus is back on his dairy
farm up State, milking the COWS and
putting his fences in order for 1926.
If the Republicans can overwhelm
him by a more decisive vote than the
one to which he SuCCumbed in his un-
successful attempt at reelection in
1924, it will be a fair Indication that
Minnesota is through with Farm
Labor as political eXpedient.
Governor Successful
If Coolidge has given the G. o. P.
strength and prestige in Minnesota, in
a national sense, the new Republican
governor of the State, Theodore Chris
tianSon, has done so, and in very
striking degree, in q local sense.
ChriStianSon. who was elected on the
Coolidge and Dawes ticket last year,
made his campaign primarily on the
Coolidge economy issue. as applied to
the government of Minnesota. There
was even the personal Coolidge angle
IN the circumstance thar the bud
Setary system, which ChriStianson, if
elected, pledged himself TO institute,
Is the Massachusetts economy plan.
ChrtstianSon, a country editor like
that other popular Scandinavian Gov
ernor of Minnesota, the late John
johnson, Democrat, had long been an
exponent of governmental economy.
For several sessions of the LegiSla-
ture he was chairman of the House
committee on appropriations. Asso-
Clated with him was William /. Nolan,
speaker of the House, who is now
lieutenant governor. They had no
sooner taken office than Gov. Chris
tianson drove through the Legislature
a sweeping reorganization scheme de-
signed to put the government of Min
nesota on a strictly business basis.
The scheme provided primarily for
budget system. 1t reduced various
State departments from 6S to IA in
number. Duplication. overlapping
unnecessary expenditure and super
tfuouS personnel were wiped out. The
politicians fought hard to beat Chris
tlanSon's reorganization bill, but the
Legislature finally passed it, and it
became effective July l. Meantime
ChriStianSon pursued the Coolidge pol
icy of relentless economy" He We
toed several appropriation measures
at the cost of enmity upstate among
the farmers and the school people,
but insisted that consistency left him
no alternative. The governor has
probably lost votes in the disgruntled
regions. but is willing to take his
chances, as President Coolidge is. on
the net results to the people at large
in the shape of reduced expenditure
for conduct of Minnesota's govern
ment and lowered taxes.
Expect Reelection.
There will hardly be time for the
Chrlstianson economy program to
work out before he comes up for re-
election in 1926. as he doubtless will
do. But his friends expect him to
be 50 strongly intrenched in public
favor that he will be invincible.
Hardly anything but the wholesale
crouch" on the farms that sent him
to Washington in 1923 would enable
MagnuS Johnson to beat Christianson
on the economy program on which
the governor is now concentrating.
II lie HAS DtUlnu MN the DfeStlS6
and record of two effective terms as
governor, it is in the Republican
cards that Christianson viii take the
field against Henrik Shipstead in the
1928 senatorial race. The commonest
thing one hears about Shipstead in
Minnesota Is that hes not a Magnus
Johnson" That is meant to be, as
1t is, sincere tribute to the per-
sonal worth of the dentist-statesman
Shipstead has undoubtedly grown in
the esteem of his State since he went
to Washington three years ago as the
expression of agricultural woe. He
has brought no. disrepute either upon
himself or upon the commonwealth
through his official activities in the
Senate. and Minnesotans generally
are gratified by the assurances regu-
larly brought from the National Cap
ttal that the young Scandinavian
giant is giving a growingly creditable
account of, himself there.
The classes known to political fame
as the interests" still decline to con-
slider Shipstead a member of their
lodge and contemn him as radical,
and therefore utterly unacceptable.
But, unless his career is narred
by developments which have been
conspicuously absent in it thus
far, Henrik Shipstead is likely