Death of Olson

Minnesota's Governor Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson fell ill last year, was taken to the Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minn., where he underwent an "exploratory" operation. Although his illness was never specified, most Minnesotans were sure it was cancer of the stomach. By last April he was sufficiently better to file as candidate for the U. S. Senate on the Farmer-Labor ticket. Three weeks ago he was allowed to go to his summer home at Gull Lake, with a tube inserted in his intestines through which he took food. Last week, suddenly taking a turn for the worse, he was put on a stretcher, flown back to Rochester in a chartered airplane. Moaning with pain in spite of opiates, he arrived comatose with a high fever. "An awfully sick man," observed his physician, ordering a blood transfusion, an intravenous injection of glucose and saline solution. At that Governor Olson perked up, began to dictate telegrams.

First was to Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin who had invited him to a Progressive conference in Chicago: "In this campaign we must choose between President Roosevelt or Governor Landon. . . . For the liberals to split their votes is merely to play into the hands of the Wall Street gang. I have the utmost respect for the Union ticket candidate [z. e., William Lemke] and for Father Coughlin, whose program of monetary reform is sound. . . . However, I think the defeat of Landon is of the utmost importance to the great masses of America. . . ." Second telegram was to Franklin Roosevelt, who had wired him to ''keep up the good fight," suggested seeing him on his drought trip to Minnesota. To the President the sick Governor replied: "Very happy to see you at St. Mary's Hospital Aug. 31." The Roosevelt-Olson meeting, however, was not destined to take place at St.

Mary's Hospital or anywhere else. On the day that the Press published the President's formal itinerary, including a visit to Minnesota's Governor at Rochester, Floyd Olson moaned, "Don't worry, it's for the best," lapsed into a coma, died.

Next day the late Governor whose platform was "The Capitalistic system has failed and immediate steps must be taken to abolish it," was saluted thus by President Roosevelt: "The nation has lost a personality of singular force and courage. . . . Year by year since he assumed the Governorship of a great commonwealth he had become a more massive figure in our national life."

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