Alfred M. Landon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
26th Governor of Kansas
In office: January 9, 1933 – January 11, 1937
Lieutenant: Charles W. Thompson
Preceded by: Harry H. Woodring
Succeeded by: Walter A. Huxman
Republican candidate for President of the United States
Election date: November 3, 1936
Running mate: Frank Knox
Opponent: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
Incumbent: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
Preceded by: Herbert Hoover
Succeeded by: Wendell Willkie
Born: September 9, 1887 West Middlesex, Pennsylvania
Died: October 12, 1987 (age 100) Topeka, Kansas
Political party: Republican
Spouse: Margaret Fleming, Theo Cobb
Alma mater: University of Kansas
Profession: banker, oilman, politician
Religion: Methodist
Alfred ''Alf'' Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887 – October 12, 1987) was an American Republican politician, who served as Governor of Kansas from 1933 - 1937. He was best known as Republican Presidential Nominee, defeated in a landslide by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election.
Early life
Born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, in 1887, Landon grew up in Marietta, Ohio. He moved with his family to Kansas at age 17 and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1908. He first pursued a career in banking, but in 1912 he became an independent petroleum producer in Independence, Kansas. During World War I, Landon served in the Army as a first lieutenant in chemical warfare. By 1929 the oil industry had made him a millionaire.
Political career
Landon supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party in 1912, and, in 1922, was private secretary to the governor of Kansas. He later became known as the leader of the liberal Republicans in the state. He was elected chairman of the Republican state central committee in 1928 and directed the Republican successful presidential and gubernatorial campaigns in Kansas in that year.
Landon was elected Governor of Kansas in 1932. He was re-elected governor in 1934, the only Republican governor in the nation to be re-elected that year. He served as governor from 1933 until 1937. As Governor, Landon gained a reputation for reducing taxes and balancing the budget. Landon is often described as a fiscal conservative who never the less believed that government must also address social issues. He supported parts of the New Deal but opposed labor unions.
In 1936, Landon sought the Republican presidential nominee opposing the re-election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At the Republican National Convention in 1936, Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Landon won the nomination on the first ballot; the convention selected Chicago newspaper publisher (and future FDR's Secretary of Navy) Frank Knox as his running mate.
Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who rarely traveled. Most of the attacks on FDR and social security were developed by Republican campaigners rather than Landon himself. In the two months after his nomination he made no campaign appearances. As columnist Westbrook Pegler lampooned, ''Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas.... The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee.'' [Time, Aug. 31, 1936]
Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and accepted much of the New Deal but objected that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. Late in the campaign, Landon accused Roosevelt of corruption, that is, of acquiring so much power that he was subverting the Constitution. Landon said: The President spoke truly when he boasted... 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people . . . and . . . enslavement for the public.' These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse.... National economic planning, the term used by this Administration to describe its policy, violates the basic ideals of the American system. . . . The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand. [Time Oct. 26, 1936]
The 1936 presidential election was extraordinarily lopsided. Although Landon gained nearly 17 million votes and obtained the endorsement of track star Jesse Owens, he lost the popular vote by more than 10 million votes. He lost his home state Kansas and carried only Maine and Vermont for a total of 8 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. FDR's win was the most crushing electoral victory since 1820. The overwhelming Roosevelt victory prompted Democratic party boss James Farley to joke, ''As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.''
Later life
Following his defeat, Landon finished out his term as governor of Kansas and returned to the oil industry. Landon did not seek elective office again.
The Republicans' defeats in 1932 and 1936 plunged their party into a period of bitter intraparty strife. Landon played an important role in ending this internal bickering in 1938, in helping to prepare a new group of leaders for the presidential campaign of 1940, and in trying to bring about a compromise between the isolationist and internationalist viewpoints in foreign policy. Landon failed to enter Franklin Roosevelt's Cabinet because he made his acceptance contingent upon the President's renunciation of a third term. [Mayer 1966]
After war broke out in Europe in 1939 Landon fought against isolationists such as America First who supported the Neutrality Act; he feared it would mislead Nazi Germany into thinking the United States was unwilling to fight. In 1940 he argued against lend lease, urging instead that Britain be given $5 billion outright. After the war, he backed the Marshall Plan, while opposing high domestic spending. After the communist take over of China, he was one of the first to advocate recognition of Mao Zedong's communist government, and its admission to the United Nations, when this was still a very unpopular position among the leadership and followers of both major parties.
In 1961, he urged the United States to join the European Common Market. In November 1962, when he was asked to describe his political philosophy, Landon said: ''I would say practical progressive, which means that the Republican party or any political party has got to recognize the problems of a growing and complex industrial civilization. And I don't think the Republican party is really wide awake to that.'' Later in the 1960s, Landon backed President Lyndon Johnson on Medicare and other Great Society programs.
On December 13, 1966, Landon gave the first ''Landon Lecture'' at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Landon's lecture, titled ''New Challenges in International Relations'' was the first in a series of public issues lectures that continues to this day and has featured numerous world leaders and political figures, including seven U.S. presidents (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush).
Landon died October 12, 1987, in Topeka, Kansas, 34 days after his 100th birthday. Until his death, he was the earliest born U.S. governor of any state still living, a title he assumed in 1984 on the death of George Alexander Parks, another centenarian. When Landon died, the title went to Albert B. Chandler of Kentucky. Alf Landon is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas.
His daughter, Nancy Landon Kassebaum, was a United States Senator from Kansas. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978, she was re-elected in 1984 and 1990. Her second husband is her former senatorial colleague Howard Henry Baker, Jr., of Tennessee.
