Alf Landon | |
|---|---|
 Landon,c. 1936 | |
| 26th Governor of Kansas | |
| In office January 9, 1933 – January 11, 1937 | |
| Lieutenant | Charles Thompson |
| Preceded by | Harry Woodring |
| Succeeded by | Walter Huxman |
| Chairman of theKansas Republican Party | |
| In office August 27, 1928 – August 26, 1930 | |
| Preceded by | Seth G. Wells |
| Succeeded by | John Hamilton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alfred Mossman Landon (1887-09-09)September 9, 1887 |
| Died | October 12, 1987(1987-10-12) (aged 100) Topeka, Kansas, U.S. |
| Resting place | Mount Hope Cemetery, Topeka |
| Political party | Republican |
| Other political affiliations | Progressive "Bull Moose" |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 4, includingNancy |
| Education | University of Kansas (LLB) |
| Profession | Oil producer |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1918–1919 |
| Rank |  Captain |
| Unit | Chemical Corps |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887 – October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26thgovernor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of theRepublican Party, he was the party's nominee in the1936 presidential election, and was defeated in a landslide by incumbent presidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. The margin of victory in the electoral college was the largest of Roosevelt's four elections to the office of president, as Landon won just 8 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. Landon died on October 12, 1987, becoming the only presidential candidate from either of the major parties to live to the age of100 untilJimmy Carter in 2024, and is to date the only Republican candidate to do so.
Born inWest Middlesex, Pennsylvania, Landon spent most of his childhood inMarietta, Ohio, before moving to Kansas. After graduating from theUniversity of Kansas, he became an independent oil producer inLawrence, Kansas. His business made him a millionaire, and he became a leader of the liberal Republicans in Kansas. Landon won election as Governor of Kansas in1932 and sought to reduce taxes andbalance the budget in the midst of theGreat Depression. He supported components of theNew Deal but criticized aspects that he found inefficient.
The1936 Republican National Convention selected Landon as the Republican Party'spresidential nominee. He proved to be an ineffective campaigner and carried just two states in the election, neither of which was Kansas despite him being the sitting governor of that state. After the election, he left office as governor and never sought public office again. Later in life, he supported theMarshall Plan and PresidentLyndon B. Johnson'sGreat Society programs. He gave the first in a series of lectures, now known as theLandon Lecture Series, atKansas State University. Landon lived to the age of 100 and died inTopeka, Kansas, in 1987. His daughter,Nancy Kassebaum,represented Kansas in theUnited States Senate from 1978 to 1997.
Alfred Mossman Landon was born on September 9, 1887, inWest Middlesex, Pennsylvania, the son of Anne Mossman and John Manuel Landon.[1] Landon grew up inMarietta, Ohio.[2] He moved with his family toKansas at age 17 and graduated from theUniversity of Kansas in 1908. Landon first pursued a career in banking, but in 1912 he became an independent petroleum producer inIndependence, Kansas. During World War I, he joined the Army and was selected for assignment as an officer.[3] He was commissioned in theChemical Corps and attained the rank ofcaptain.[3] He was preparing to depart for France when the Armistice ended the war, so he was discharged and returned to Kansas.[3]
By 1929, Landon's career in the oil industry had made him a millionaire, and he was instrumental in the establishment of the Kansas-Oklahoma division of theUnited States Oil and Gas Association, then known as the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, apetroleum lobbying organization.[4]
Landon was married to Margaret Fleming until her death in 1918.[5][6]
Landon supportedTheodore Roosevelt'sProgressive Party in 1912, and by 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 successful Republican presidential and gubernatorial campaigns in Kansas in that year.[7]
In 1930, however, incumbent Republican Kansas governorClyde M. Reed failed to gain renomination, as he was defeated by challenger Frank Haucke, who would later go on to lose the general election toHarry H. Woodring. The election left the Kansas Republican Party damaged and divided. Landon decided to run in 1932 as a candidate who would reunite the Kansas GOP, and he won the nomination.[8]
Landon was electedGovernor of Kansas in the general election, where he defeated both the incumbent Democrat Woodring and independent challengerJohn R. Brinkley in a closely contested race. He was re-elected governor in 1934, over Democrat Omar B. Ketchum (whose campaign was directed byClyde Short);Gov.Frank Merriam ofCalifornia and Landon were the only Republican governors in the nation to be re-elected that year. As governor, Landon gained a reputation for reducing taxes and balancing the budget. Landon is often described as a fiscal conservative who nevertheless believed that government must also address certain social issues. He supported parts of theNew Deal and labor unions. Later in life, Landon would come out againstRight-to-Work laws.[9] Landon was opposed to segregation. When newly elected black party officials asked where their office space would be, Landon responded with "Right here with the rest of us."[10]
During the 1932 presidential campaign, a degree of animosity developed between Landon and thenU.S. PresidentHerbert Hoover.Osro Cobb ofArkansas, a friend of both men, tried to bring about a reconciliation, as he explains in his memoirs:
For reasons I never understood, some friction developed between President Hoover and my friend, Governor Landon, who had a summer place inEvergreen,Colorado ... I was in and out of Colorado during the summers and visited frequently with Governor Landon. I was eager to get him and the President together in hopes of bringing about a reconciliation that would benefit them personally and the Republican Party. All of us were at the Broadmoor Hotel inColorado Springs for a meeting, which I saw as an opportunity to get them together ... for dinner, but whatever undercurrent existed remained, and they continued to be cool toward each other. President Hoover was one of the great Americans of this century. He was competent, compassionate, and a man of unequaled qualifications. The country paid an awful price when he was sacrificed by political caprice.[11]
During his gubernatorial years, Landon attempted to address the needs of hisDepression-battered state while still advancing the Republican Party. After his speech at the Cleveland convention in 1936, Landon stated, "My chief concern in this crisis is to see the Republican Party name its strongest possible candidate and a man that would be a good president."[12] During the election year, Landon called for a "special session of the Legislature to enact measures to bring Kansas within the requirements of the federal social security program."[13]
In 1936, Landon sought the Republican presidential nomination opposing the re-election of Roosevelt. At the1936 Republican National Convention, Landon's campaign managerJohn Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led byHerbert Hoover. Landon won the nomination on the first ballot; the convention selected Chicago newspaper publisher (and Roosevelt's futureSecretary of the Navy)Frank Knox as his running mate.
Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who rarely traveled. Most of the attacks on Roosevelt andSocial Security were developed by Republican campaigners rather than Landon himself. In the two months after his nomination he made no campaign appearances. As columnistWestbrook 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."[14]
The Literary Digest conducted a large mail poll that incorrectly predicted Republican nominee Alf Landon would defeat incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The survey, based on responses from magazine subscribers, automobile owners, and telephone users, disproportionately represented wealthier Americans who tended to favor Landon, resulting in severe sampling bias. The poll’s publication created a false sense of momentum for Landon’s campaign and briefly boosted Republican morale, though it had little real effect on the election’s outcome, as Roosevelt went on to win in a landslide.[15][16]
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 ofeconomic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand.[17]
The 1936 presidential election was extraordinarily lopsided. Although Landon accrued nearly seventeen million votes and obtained the endorsement of track starJesse Owens, he lost the popular vote by more than 10 million votes. He lost his home state of Kansas and carried onlyMaine andVermont for a total of eight electoral votes to Roosevelt's 523. On the same day, Republicans lost control of the Kansas governorship, as Democrat Walter A. Huxman was elected as his successor as governor. FDR's win was the most lopsided electoral victory since the1820 election. The overwhelming Roosevelt victory promptedDemocratic National Committee chairJames Farley to jokingly update the political maxim "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" to "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont".
Following his defeat, Landon finished out his term as Governor of Kansas and returned to the oil industry. Landon did not seek elected office again.
In 1938, he spoke out in defense of the First Amendment rights of one his 1936 opponents,Norman Thomas. MayorFrank Hague, a close FDR ally, had forced Thomas to leave Jersey City after he attempted to speak at a rally for free speech. The two men struck up a lifetime friendship. Landon hoped that the incident would "draw together all those who have common ideals of freedom and tolerance" and pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder with you in this fight for free speech." Landon's comments portrayed the New Deal and Hague, as closely aligned threats to free speech.[18]
The Republicans' defeats in 1932 and 1936 plunged their party into a period of bitter intra-party strife. Landon played an important role in ending this internal bickering in 1938 by helping to prepare a new group of leaders for the presidential campaign of1940, and in trying to bring about a compromise between the isolationist and internationalist viewpoints in foreign policy. Landon was in the American delegation led by Secretary of StateCordell Hull to the 1938Pan-American Conference in Lima, Peru.[19] However, Landon declined a position inFranklin Roosevelt's Cabinet because he made his acceptance contingent upon the President's renunciation of a third term.[20]
Afterwar broke out in Europe in 1939, Landon fought againstisolationists such asAmerica First Committee who supported theNeutrality Act; he feared it would misleadNazi Germany into thinking the United States was unwilling to fight. In 1941, however, he joined isolationists in arguing againstlend-lease, although he did urge that United Kingdom be given $5 billion outright instead.
After the war, he backed theMarshall Plan, while opposing high domestic spending. After thecommunist revolution in China, he was one of the first to advocate recognition ofMao Zedong'scommunist government, and its admission to theUnited Nations, when this was still a very unpopular position among the leadership and followers of both major parties.
In 1961, Landon urged the United States to join theEuropean Common Market.[5] 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."[5] Later in the 1960s, Landon backed PresidentLyndon Johnson onMedicare and otherGreat Society programs.
On December 13, 1966, Landon gave his first "Landon Lecture" atKansas State University inManhattan, 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[citation needed]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 andGeorge W. Bush).
Landon addressed theRepublican National Convention in 1976 in Kansas City.[21]
President Ronald Reagan and his wifeNancy attended Landon's hundredth birthday party at his home inTopeka.[22] Describing Landon as "the living soul of Kansas", the 76-year old-Reagan remarked, "You don't know what a joy it is for a fella like me to go to a birthday party for someone who can, in all honesty, call me a kid." Landon, standing with the use of a walking stick, told the President and well-wishers at the party, "It's a great day in my life. And it's a great day in the lives of all of us to have had the privilege that we have today of meeting with the President of the United States and Mrs. Reagan."[23]White House Chief of StaffHoward Baker married Landon's daughterNancy nine years later.
Nine days after his birthday, Landon was hospitalized at Stormant-Vail Regional Medical Center after complaining of internal pain. He was treated for a gallstone and a mild case of bronchitis and returned home on October 10.[24]Landon died in Topeka on October 12, 1987, at 5:25 p.m.,[21] thirty-three days after celebrating his hundredth birthday, and is interred at Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka. At the time of his death, he was survived by his second wife, Theo Cobb.[5][25]
On January 7, 1915, Landon married Margaret Fleming ofOil City, Pennsylvania.[26] They had one son and one daughter, both of whom they named after themselves, but the marriage only lasted three years, until the senior Margaret's death in 1918.[5][6] The junior Alf died a week after birth. Landon then "devoted himself to managing his oil interests and raising his young daughter", remaining unmarried until January 15, 1930, when he married Theo Cobb, ofTopeka, Kansas.[6][27] They had one son and one daughter.[6] Theo preferred to stay at home and raise the children rather than engaging in her husband's political efforts, later quipping about the 1936 presidential election that "Mrs. Roosevelt was doing enough traveling for both of us".[28] Theo outlived Landon by nine years, dying in Topeka on July 21, 1996, at the age of 97.[25][28]
Landon's daughter,Nancy Landon Kassebaum, was aUnited States Senator fromKansas. Elected to theU.S. Senate in1978, she was re-elected in1984 and1990. Her second husband was her former Senate colleagueHoward Henry Baker Jr., ofTennessee (1925–2014). Landon's nephew was actorHal Landon Jr.
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Kansas gubernatorial election, 1932[29]
Republican primary for Governor of Kansas, 1934[30]
Kansas gubernatorial election, 1934[31]
Republican presidential primaries, 1936[32]
1936 Republican National Convention[citation needed]
1936 United States presidential election[citation needed]
| Party political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Republican nominee forGovernor of Kansas 1932,1934 | Succeeded by Will West |
| Preceded by | Republicannominee forPresident of the United States 1936 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | Governor of Kansas 1933–1937 | Succeeded by |
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