Alf Landon
Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887 – October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential election, and was defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Alf Landon
Mount Hope Cemetery
-
Margaret Fleming(m. 1915; died 1918)
-
Theo Cobb(m. 1930)
3, including Nancy
Oil producer
United States
1918–1919
Born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, Landon spent most of his childhood in Marietta, Ohio, before moving to Kansas. After graduating from the University of Kansas, he became an independent oil producer in Lawrence, 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 in 1932 and sought to reduce taxes and balance the budget in the midst of the Great Depression. He supported many components of the New Deal but criticized some aspects that he found inefficient.
The 1936 Republican National Convention selected Landon as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. He proved to be an ineffective campaigner and carried just two states in the election. After the election, he left office as governor and never sought public office again. Later in life, he supported the Marshall Plan and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs. He gave the first in a series of lectures, now known as the Landon Lecture Series, at Kansas State University. Landon lived to the age of 100 and died in Topeka, Kansas, in 1987. His daughter, Nancy Kassebaum, represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997.
Early life and education[edit]
Landon was born in 1887 in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, the son of Anne Mossman and John Manuel Landon.[1] Landon grew up in Marietta, Ohio.[2] He moved with his family to Kansas at age 17 and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1908. Landon first pursued a career in banking, but in 1912 he became an independent petroleum producer in Independence, Kansas. During World War I, he joined the Army and was selected for assignment as an officer.[3] He was commissioned in the Chemical Corps and attained the rank of captain.[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, his career in the oil industry had made him a millionaire, and he was instrumental in the establishment of the Kansas-Oklahoma division of the United States Oil and Gas Association, then known as the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, a petroleum lobbying organization.[4]
He was married to Margaret Fleming until her death in 1918.[5][6]
Later life[edit]
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. Mayor Frank 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.[16]
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 of 1940, 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 State Cordell Hull to the 1938 Pan-American Conference in Lima, Peru.[17] However, Landon declined a position in Franklin Roosevelt's Cabinet because he made his acceptance contingent upon the President's renunciation of a third term.[18]
After war broke out in Europe in 1939, Landon fought against isolationists such as America First Committee who supported the Neutrality Act; he feared it would mislead Nazi Germany into thinking the United States was unwilling to fight. In 1941, however, he joined isolationists in arguing against lend-lease, although he did urge that United Kingdom be given $5 billion outright instead.
After the war, he backed the Marshall Plan, while opposing high domestic spending. After the communist revolution in 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, Landon urged the United States to join the European 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 President Lyndon Johnson on Medicare and other Great Society programs.
On December 13, 1966, Landon gave his 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 addressed the Republican National Convention in 1976 in Kansas City.[19]
Family[edit]
On January 7, 1915, Landon married Margaret Fleming of Oil City, Pennsylvania.[23] They had a daughter, also named Margaret, but the marriage only lasted three years, until the senior Margaret's death in 1918.[5][6] 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, of Topeka, Kansas.[6][24] 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".[25] Theo outlived Landon by nine years, dying in Topeka on July 21, 1996, at the age of 97.[22][25]
Landon's 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 was her former Senate colleague Howard Henry Baker Jr., of Tennessee (1925–2014). Landon's nephew was actor Hal Landon Jr.
Kansas gubernatorial election, 1932[26]
Republican primary for Governor of Kansas, 1934[27]
Kansas gubernatorial election, 1934[28]
Republican presidential primaries, 1936[29]
1936 Republican National Convention
1936 United States presidential election