Floyd
Bjerstjerne Olson was born on 13th November, 1891. His parents were
both emigrants, his father from Norway
and his mother from Sweden.
After
he graduated from Minneapolis North High School in 1909 he worked
on the Northern Pacific Railway before entering the University of
Minnesota in 1910. He only stayed for one year and moved to Canada
before settling in Seattle
where
he worked as a longshoreman and joined the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW).
In 1913 Olson returned
to Minneapolis
and
found work in a law office as a clerk. At night he studied at the
Northwestern Law College and graduated in 1915. Olson became a lawyer
and in 1920 was appointed as Hennepin County Attorney.
Olson
joined the Progressive
Party and was a strong supporter
of Robert
La Follette in his bid to
become president. A strong opponent of racism, Olson prosecuted the
local branch of the Ku Klux Klan.
Olson
joined the Farmer-Labor Party and
became its candidate for Governor of Minnesota. He told voters: "I
am not a liberal, I am what I want to be - I am a radical." In
the 1930 Olson won 82 of the state's 87 counties and beat the candidate
of the Republican Party by 200,000
votes.
In
office he introduced public unemployment insurance, a mortgage moratorium
on farms, progressive income tax, old age pensions and helped to establish
cooperative business enterprises. Olson also advocated the state ownership
of utilities and some basic industries and a government owned state
bank. In 1934 he upset conservatives by refusing to use state troops
to crush a strike in Minneapolis.
Olson
won the elections in 1932 and 1934 and was expected to become the
next leader of the Farmer-Labor Party.
He also threatened to challengeFranklin
D. Roosevelt for the presidency unless he introduced a more radical
New Deal.
In
December 1935, Olson was diagnosed as suffering from stomach cancer.
Floyd Olson continued to be active in politics until his death on
22nd August, 1936.
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