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Farmer-Labor Party

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

a political organization originating in Minnesota and growing out of earlier farmers' movements such as the Grange and the Farmers' Alliance. It is also related to the National Non-Partisan League in general tendency, principles, and membership, although not in its party plan of action. It originated in 1918 from a union of the Non-Partisan League of Minnesota and the so-called Working People's Non-Partisan League, formed shortly before. Its first attempts were to nominate Farmer-Labor candidates in the primaries of the Republican Party; but in 1922 a regular party organization was formed and named its own candidates without any previous attempt to win the Republican nominations. Dr. Henrik Shipstead, Farmer-Labor candidate for U. S. Senator, was elected to that office by a plurality of 84,000 votes over the Republican nominee, Senator Kellogg, and a Farmer-Labor candidate was also elected to the National House of Representatives. The platform of the party includes a demand for a graduated income tax to put the burden of taxation mal organisms which act as catalyzing agents in various physiological processes, particularly digestion. Their presence facilitates the processes in question, while they themselves are not used up, so that minute amounts of an enzyme, if given time and opportunity to work, may bring about changes in a large amount of material. One value of chewing food thoroughly, for instance, is to give the enzyme of saliva, ptyalin, a chance to work. There are a number of different enzymes in the human body, corresponding to different classes of food. Well known enzymes are the pepsin and rennin of gastric juice and the pytalin of saliva. Disease-producing organisms likewise secrete enzymes with characteristic reactions. ESTHONIA. Recognized by the Entente governments January, 1921, and by the United States of America July 27, 1922. A treaty of closer union and cooperation with Poland, Finland, and Latvia was signed March 17, 17, 1922. Esthonia was admitted to the League of Nations in September, 1921. on those most able to pay, full government control of the Federal Reserve Banks, and the public ownership and management of railroads. A national party, organized at Chicago for the presidential election of 1920, took the name Farmer-Labor, nominating Parley P. Christensen for President and naming electors in eighteen states. It was the result of a radical movement of dissatisfaction with the older parties. It had no connection with the Minnesota organization.

What Has Changed in the Last Century

When Collier's wrote this, the party was fresh from Henrik Shipstead's 1922 Senate victory and looked like a purely regional insurgency. It went on to dominate Minnesota politics in the Depression years, electing Floyd B. Olson governor in 1930 and holding both Senate seats. In 1944, brokered largely by the young Hubert Humphrey, it merged with the state's Democrats to create the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is still the official name of the Democratic Party in that state today. Shipstead himself, re-elected repeatedly, abandoned the label and ran as a Republican in 1940.

Written for this edition, 2026.