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Floyd B. Olson

17 quotes

“The freedom of speech and the press should remain inviolate and any law which constitutes an entering wedge into that inviolability is unsafe.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First inaugural address (7 January 1931)
“We are assembled during the most crucial period in the history of our State and of our Nation. An army of unemployed, some 200,000 homeless and wandering boys, thousands of abandoned farms, an ever-increasing number of mortgage foreclosures, and thousands of people in want and poverty are evidences not only of an economic depression but of the failure of government and of our social system to function in the interest of the common happiness of the people.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Second inaugural address (4 January 1933)
“If I were asked to name the greatest tragedy that has followed in the wake of the depression, I would say that it has been the destructive effect upon the morale of our youth. If I were asked to name the chief victim of the present heartless order I would not hesitate to say "youth.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio address (27 September 1933)
“Today we are endeavoring to save the system we call Capitalism, by attempting to curb selfish individualism, and the avaricious profit motive. [...] That there will be anything left of the so-called Capitalistic system, when the ultimate changes take place, is very doubtful, that there will be great change is certain.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Junior Association of Commerce (22 January 1934)
“This has got me. Don't worry; it must be all for the best.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Final words (22 August 1936)
“The unorganized worker owes a debt of gratitude to his organized brother. If his living standard has not been beaten down to the level of the Russian peasant of the Czarist days, it is due to the demands the organized worker has been able to enforce. The former has benefited from the struggles and sacrifices of the latter.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the Republicans who have given us government that has been both corrupt and extravagant; aided the tax dodger and transferred his load to the taxpayer — you and me; made every function of state and national government subservient to the powerful special interests, and now they are shedding crocodile tears for the poor taxpayer.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never has the Republican party, both nationally and locally, been quite so low in morale and so bankrupt in ideas as today. It has stood like a man dazed, watching the parade go by, and not knowing what it is all about.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our ultimate goal is a cooperative commonwealth wherein Government will stifle, as much as possible, the greed and avarice of the private profit system and will bring about more equitable distribution of the wealth produced by the hands and minds of the people.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Should not the government own all those industries which have to do with the obtaining of raw materials and transforming them into necessary products [...] mines, packing plants, grain elevators, oil fields, and iron mines? [...] I am speaking of these things as merely touching upon the ideals of this movement, of an ultimate cooperative commonwealth....”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I look back at my three terms as Governor with one great regret. I did not have, on any occasion, a majority of the members of the legislature who agreed with the principles of this movement. To have had that, I say from my very heart—to have had that in any one session—would have been sufficient gratification so that I would have been willing thereafter to retire from public life.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whose liberty? Liberty for what purpose? Liberty of the Citizens' Alliance to arm thugs to shoot defenseless strikers in the back? Liberty of promoters of spurious stocks to fleece widows and orphans? Liberty of millionaires to escape taxation? Liberty to make slaves of workers and serfs of farmers? These are the individual liberties that these people mean.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Answering Republican charges that the Farmer-Labor Party's 1934 platform was a threat to individual liberty
“A nation cannot be preserved which does not preserve its citizens. Industry is retrenching, reducing wages, lowering the standard of living, destroying buying power, and throwing more and more men and women on the streets to shift for themselves. Just how that is going to solve our economic problems is beyond understanding.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am making a last appeal to the Legislature. If the Senate does not make provision for the sufferers in the State and the Federal Government refuses to aid, I shall invoke the powers I hold and shall declare martial law. [...] A lot of people who are now fighting [relief] measures because they happen to possess considerable wealth will be brought in by provost guard and be obliged to give up more than they would now. There is not going to be misery in this State if I can humanly prevent it. [...] Unless the Federal and State governments act to insure against recurrence of the present situation, I hope the present system of government goes right down to hell.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech from the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, as quoted in Time magazine (24 April 1933)
“The Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota maintains that the present economic order is in need of very serious alterations—that to continue it as it now is constituted is criminal folly and stupidity. We charge that it fails utterly to meet the needs of our people; that the massive load of misery and suffering which we witness all about us is due to its inherent defects. Just why people are so reluctant to make changes in government—changes for the betterment—is somewhat puzzling. Certainly we cannot hope to solve our problems by continuing the very methods responsible for creating them. In almost every other field, we are prepared to take advantage of new ideas, of new improvements. In government, however, we become confused and frightened in the presence of suggested changes. Perhaps the reason for this can be found in the fact that almost from infancy we are taught, by the rankest kind of sophistry, that it is un-American to make changes in government. We are taught that persons who suggest changes are radicals, and that a radical is an arch enemy of society, a wild destructionist, a bomb thrower, an assaulter of women. The result has been a perversion of the public mind to an where the people fear their very birth-right,—independence of action—and self-determination. We believe in something that has not been tried as yet. We believe in restoring prosperity by restoring the purchasing power of the man at the bottom. Unless labor can receive wage to buy the farmers produce, the farmer can never be prosperous. Unless the farmer has cash to buy the goods that the laborer manufactures, the city worker can never be prosperous.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Governor of Minnesota Explains Farmer-Labor Party Principles", an article written by Olson and printed in The Cornell Daily Sun (15 April 1936)
“Now I am frank to say that I am not a liberal. I enjoy working on a common basis with liberals for their platforms, but I am not a liberal. I am what I want to be—I am a radical. I am a radical in the sense that I want a definite change in the system. I am not satisfied with tinkering, I am not satisfied with patching, I am not satisfied with hanging a laurel wreath upon burglars and thieves and pirates and calling them code authorities or something else. I am not satisfied with that. I want, however, an orderly, a sane, and a constructive change. I don't want any visionary things any more than the hardest Tory or Conservative wants them. But I know the transition can take place and that, of course, it must be gradual. It can't come overnight, but I want to do all I can to set it in motion and keep it going steady, not in jerks, or jumps, or in spurts, but going steadily ahead ....”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cite you the fact that this movement sponsored and brought about the passage of the first compulsory old-age pension law; that this movement has always stood upon the principle of taxation based upon ability to pay. I cite you the fact that despite years of struggle in this State to bring about the passage of an income-tax law—it was not until the Farmer-Labor movement gained control of the executive branch of the government and the Farmer-Labor movement enlisted the aid of popular opinion and public sentiment—not until then, despite all those years of struggle—was there an income-tax law in the State of Minnesota.”
Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source