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LANDON, ALFRED M. "ALF" 1887-1987

GOVERNOR OF KANSAS (1933-1937)

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (1936)

Republican Candidate

A middle-of-the-road Republican, Alf Landon took on a popular president in an election that gave the American people their first chance to express their opinion of the major expansion of the federal government that had taken place in the last four years. Unlike many fellow Republicans, Landon supported some New Deal programs and offered his own solutions for the nation's economic woes, but the voters in the 1936 presidential election overwhelmingly preferred President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his "Alphabet Soup of Acts and Agencies" and handed him a landslide victory over Landon.

Background

Born in Pennsylvania, Alfred Mossman Landon grew up in Marietta, Ohio. In 1904 his family moved to Independence, Kansas, and for the next four years Landon studied law at the University of Kansas. Though admitted to the bar in 1908, Landon chose to enter the business world. After a brief time as a banker he worked as an oil driller and in other commercial endeavors. Following his father into the Progressive wing of the Republican Party, Landon became county chairman for the short-lived Progressive Party in 1914 and secretary to Kansas governor Henry J. Allen in 1922. In 1924, at a time when the racist Ku Klux Klan was a force in Kansas politics, Landon worked closely with newspaperman William Allen White in White's anti-Klan campaign for the governorship. By 1928 Landon had become chairman of the Republican state committee, and he managed Clyde Reed's gubernatorial campaign that year.

Governor of Kansas

In 1932 Landon successfully ran for governor of Kansas on the Republican Party ticket. His success at a time when Republican candidates were generally being savaged at the polls catapulted him to the forefront of Republican Party politics. Declaring that people "cannot get something for nothing," Landon cut taxes, reorganized the state administration, reformed state finances, and sponsored legislation to regulate banks and utilities. Landon also sponsored legislation to make farm foreclosures more difficult and for a time halted foreclosures altogether. He worked closely with the Democratic-controlled federal government, securing $300 million from Washington for projects in his state and helping to write the oil code for the National Recovery' Administration. He also supported Roosevelt's conservation efforts, the attempts of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to raise farm prices, and governmental programs to assist the unemployed. In 1934 Landon won reelection to the governorship of Kansas. He was the only Republican governor elected in that year.

Presidential Candidate

Landon won the Republican presidential nomination in 1936. He and his running mate, Frank Knox of Chicago, actively challenged the policies of the New Deal. Declaring, "We must drive the spenders out/' Landon attacked the Democrats for deficit spending, for unsound monetary policy, and for their failure to solve the problem of unemployment. He attacked Franklin Roosevelt for exceeding the bounds of his constitutional authority by usurping the legislative power of Congress. Overall, Landon sought to take a moderate position. He proposed to aid farmers and promised to treat organized labor and the poor fairly. As president, he asserted, he would seek legislation to regulate big business and expand world trade. He emphasized the need for a balanced budget and more efficient administration of the federal government, as well as denouncing racism. Many other Republicans urged a more conservative approach. Leading members of the American Liberty League, as well as the Republican National Committee chairman, made scathing attacks against the New Deal, and the election of 1936 became one of the most ideologically charged elections in American history. Landon was trounced. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition of workers, minorities, the poor, urban machines, Southerners, and factions of capitalists and commercial bankers—along with the stinging memoiy of Hoover's failed policies—posed an unconquerable opponent for Landon. He received only 16,674,665 votes to Roosevelt's 27,752,869 and carried only two states, with 8 electoral votes against Roosevelt's 523 electoral votes.

Later Career

In 1938 Roosevelt appointed Landon vice chairman of the Inter-American Conference in Peru. During World War II Landon roused Republican opponents to support some of Roosevelt's policies. After the war Landon attended to his business interests. Although he was respected as a party elder he had little influence.