JOHN ALBERT JOHNSON

Sixteenth Governor of the State of Minnesota, was born near St. Peter, Minnesota, July 28, 1861. He was of humble parentage and suffered all the inconveniences of early poverty. He became a newspaper editor. In 1898-1902 he was a state senator, and on January 4, 1905, he became governor of Minnesota, which position he still fills.

JOHN ALBERT JOHNSON

SIXTEENTH GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

January 4, 1905

ELLNIGH

fifty

years of statehood have

W no

brought us to that period when Minnesota's na

tive sons begin to appear in the arena of her political life. Hitherto our governors had been born in other states and reared under other influences. But the time had come when one of her own sons, "native here and to the manner born," was to be called to the head of the state.

Born in a frontier cabin, his eyes early familiar with trappers, hunters and Indians, John A. Johnson grew with the young state, a part and parcel of the commonwealth itself. He is distinctly, in his individuality of character and in all his environment, a fullblooded Minnesotan.

The extraordinary scenes of his early youth must have made a vivid impression on his plastic mind. He saw the tomahawk and rifle gleam in a terrible harvest, as neighbors and friends fell victims to the red wave of destruction. He witnessed the devouring swarms of grasshoppers that for three years devastated the val