Anna Dickie Olesen

              ANNA DICKIE OLESEN
OF MINNESOTA

Figure


Photo by Harris & Ewing. Washington, D. C.

One of the World's fastest speakers says THE LITERARY DIGEST.

FOR PERSONAL DATA, PLEASE CONSULT WHO IS WHO IN AMERICA



A FEW IMPRESSIONS

AN Estract From THE WOMAN CITIZEN, NEW YORK CITY
—Mrs. Olesen knows the State and it knows her.  For several years she has spoken all over the state—at women's club conventions, farmer's meetings, county fairs, State and district educational conventions, and has lectured for the Extension Department of the State University.  Active in Club work since 1912, Mrs. Olesen has been vice-president of the Minnesota Federated Clubs, and a member of the advisory Board of Directors of the Minnesota League of Women Voters.


THE PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC LEDGER
—Mrs. Olesen is perhaps, one of the five fastest talkers in the world.

JOSEPHUS DANIELS, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, in the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER —Mrs. Olesen was a leader in the Mothers' Club Movement before suffrage.  She has spoken in every district of the State.  She has been heard for all the causes and progressive movements dear to the heart of Minnesota women.  She has quickness of intellect, a vivacious, black-haired little woman with plenty of stamnia and spirit.  She does not attract merely by a pleasing personality, but by clear-cut presentation of live issues and an appeal to the moral conscience.


THE WOMAN'S HOME COMPANION, NEW YORK CITY
—If you don't know Mrs. Anna D. Olesen of Minnesota, you haven't been reading the papers, for during the past summer she has had front page space in the daily press all over the country.  Mrs. Olesen is said to have broken all records, male and female, for political speaking.


THE SUNDAY HERALD, BOSTON, MASS.
—Mrs. Olesen is one of the most effective woman speakers who has appeared in Boston.


THE HUSTLER, MADISONVILLE, KENTUCKY
—Mrs. Olesen is the personification of the Chautauqua idea of a finished fight against all the forces of ignorance and evil.  She delivered a fiery lecture on the New Social Consciousness.  This lecture was well worth the price of admission to the whole five days' entertainment, and will be talked about for weeks after she has gone.



AT THE JACKSON DAY BANQUET, WASHINGTON, D. C.

THE WASHINGTON HERALD
—Mrs. Peter Olesen was the first woman to address a Jackson Day dinner, and received an ovation.  Small in stature, she proved herself a forensic giant.


THE WORLD'S WORK
—Mrs. Olesen has what the jargon of the efficiency expert would call magnetism pluc.  She is small of pattern, but she has enough vitality for twenty, and in her speech making she throws it out so prodigally as if there was no end to her stores of it.  She is emotional and oratorical.
Mrs. Olesen was the only woman speaker at the Jackson Day dinner at Washington in 1920.  Some of the speeches, and especially the message Mr. Wilson sent, had history-making qualities; but probably Mrs. Olesen left a more vivid recollection than any other.  She was very much in earnest, her voice was one of those heaven-sent instruments that has a thrill in every tone; and vitality, magnetism, charm—whatever you choose to call it, radiated from her small form so richly and strongly you could almost see the rays darting out over the audience.  Any listener with a curiosity about human beings must have felt he would like an opportunity to explore her mind.



OMAHA WORLD HERALD, OMAHA, NEBRASKA
—Mrs. Olesen of Minnesota created a tremendous impression.  She was applauded at every turn, but quickly she would raise her tiny hands, as if fending off an undue demonstration.  But when she reached the climax of her speech, she was tendered the ovation she had fought hard to escape all evening.  It was a moment of real triumph for womankind when that little Minnesota woman raised her voice in that distinguished assembly, when the entire audience came reverently to its feet.



AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

THE LADIES HOME JOURNAL
—Mrs. Olesen is known among her admiring constituents as the little spellbinder.  She is one of the most eloquent speakers in the Democratic party; her eloquence is of the soil, simple, human and extraordinary appealing.  She can make her hearers laugh with tears in their eyes.  She can make tears come while they are laughing.  She made one of the best speeches at the Democratic National Convention, and left a lasting impression on those who heard her.


THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
—It was Mrs. Olesen of Minnesota who has been mentioned by the Democrats of the country as a possible candidate for the Vice-Presidency.  Diminutive, appealing, forceful, she delivered a great speech at this convention.  She placed her tiny frame before the sea of faces, all straining to get every word she told them, and she ended her arguments in a roar of applause.  It did not make any difference, whether they liked what she said or not, they liked her courage and her ability and sincerity, and every woman attending the convention was proud of the little sister from Minnesota.


THE CONSTITUTION, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
—A dramatic emotional appeal, which got the convention again to its feet.


THE BILLBOARD, CHICAGO
—Mrs. Olesen has been written up by magazines and newspapers as one of the great women leaders of our day.  She spoke before the Democratic National Convention at San Francisco; her effort was one of the greatest of that convention, and 14,000 delegates and attendants voted her a great orator and leader.  She is nationally known to millions, but to a choice few she is understood and appreciated as a great-hearted woman actuated by a sincere desire to be of real service to humanity.




As Candidate For United States Senator

NEW YORK EVENING WORLD (EDITORIAL)
—Mrs. Peter Olesen (Anna D. Olesen) of Minnesota wins the Senatorial primaries from a male rival.  Mrs. Olesen is an orator of parts.  She has an excellent voice, personal magnetism and feminine charm backed by good sense and idealism.  She scored a personal triumph as a speaker at the Jackson Day dinner in Washington in 1920.  She added to her laurels at the National Convention.  But when Mrs. Olesen looks back on her recent experiences she probably derives more real satisfaction from an occasion less well advertised.
Four years ago the Democratic party in Minnesota met in convention to write a platform and recommend candidates for the primaries.  Procedure was cut and dried.  The platform committee was hand-picked, and safe.  So were most delegates.  Woman suffrage was an issue.  The leaders had determined not to approve suffrage in the convention, but to allow the feminine advocates to blow off steam in fervid demands.  Several women spoke and the delegates were evidently bored.  Suffrage was on ice and scheduled to be kept there.
Then Mrs. Peter Olesen spoke.  Without a doubt she stampeded that convention.  It wasn't so much what she said but the way she drove home, point after point, with perfect good nature but with power and force.
Before Mrs. Olesen finished, the crowd was cheering.  She demanded to know whether the convention was with the women, and gained a rousing response.  Hastily the leaders conferred.  A messenger was sent to the Platform Committee.  The Chairman of the Platform Committee came to the Convention room for confirmation.  He got it.  The plank was adopted.
Mrs. Olesen had stampeded a hard-boiled and hand-picked political convention.  She not only won the delegates but won her point.  It was an unusual incident in American politics.




THE TIMES PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS
—To Mrs. Olesen it is more than a campaign for her nomination; it is a campaign of womankind for recognition in politics; she feels she is blazing the way for her sex.


THE PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN
—Republican and Democratic women alike in this city are applauding the victory of Mrs. Anna D. Olesen at the Minnesota primaries for United States Senatorial nomination, in which she won over two men.


CHICAGO HERALD AND EXAMINER
—…It has been the privilege of the present writer to accompany this miracle-working first woman nominated to the United States Senate for almost a week while she visited six counties, and to watch the evolution of ardent, shouting, cheering and sometimes happily tearful adherents from skeptics.
These evolutions or conversions are made on the highways and byways; on street corners and along roadsides; at county fairs and harvest-home festivals; in halls and homes; singly and by the hundreds; in Democratic, in Republican and in Nonpartisan League strongholds or communities.
Skeptics who gather to scoff are blinded by the brilliance of oratory and leave only when they can see or hear no more of her.  But leaving they take with them the happy memory of a wonder woman.  Women admirers of Mrs. Olesen in Minneapolis purchased for and presented her the little campaign car.  On each side of its doors is inscribed:
ANNA D. OLESEN FOR U. S. SENATE
A similar marking is on the cover for the spare tire on the rear of the car. Her iternery calls from two to four public appearances daily except Sunday.  The original $30.00 campaign fund is still intact.  In fact it has grown, but never by any solicitation by Minnesota's Democratic JOAN OF ARC.  Wherever she stops friends voluntarily hand her their bits to buy gas and tires.  In every city, town and hamlet she visits, admirers throw open their homes to the candidate.
A republican banker thrust a banknote into her hand with the comment:
Anyone who'll do what you have done today and who believes like you do gets my vote, and the campaigner started another forty mile drive to Madison.
Even these staid folks were shaken into unusual responses by the deep sincerity of purpose that radiated from the tired campaigner as she finished the day on nothing but nerve, and closed her message to the people she loves with:
This is the great land of opportunity.  We are the makers of its destiny.  May we be zealous for the right in public life.  May we submit ourselves to Divine guidance.  May we be loyal to our best American traditions, leading our own and other nations toward the higher life of honor and world peace.
The next day she greeted 3000 farmers at Bird Island.
Why that woman, was the comment of a prominent member of the Nonpartisan League, after listening to her speech, stands for every good thing our party does and for a whole lot we forgot.
The cheers which greeted Mrs. Olesen's appearance waxed in volume as she drove home point after point, and 3000 farmer men and women arose in their seats and shouted.
At Jackson, the largest audience ever assembled in that town packed the new armory.  Mr. Day, the Fairmont publisher introduced Mrs. Olesen as:
The greatest woman in America Today.
For nearly two hours the large audience sat in attention so rapt that not an auditor shifted in his or her seat and those standing forgot even to shift their weight from one foot to another…





THE MINNEAPOLIS DAILY NEWS
—Before leaving, Mr. Bryan said: Few candidates I have ever known in 21 campaigns covering 42 years of political experience have the quality of personal magnetism that Mrs. Olesen possesses.  She is reaching the people.  I could see it in their faces today in every audience we addressed.  She has eloquence.  Her speech is that of a woman who knows what she is talking about and believes what she says.  She is getting a simple message over to the people.  I thank God I have lived to see the day in my political experience when a splendidly capable woman is privileged to carry

Figure
 to the people the simple, unembellished truth Mrs. Olesen is bringing to the people of Minnesota in this campaign.


ST PAUL, MINN., DAILY NEWS
—Minnesota's woman candidate for the United States Senate last night was given one of the greatest ovations ever extended a political aspirant in St. Paul.  From the moment when Anna D. Olesen stepped the cheering audience to say it with votes, the tribute of the evening was hers, despite the fact that half a dozen other speakers appeared on the platform.  When she was introduced the crowd rose and cheered several minutes.




Collier's Weekly
…From the sedan car steps lightly a youngish woman, decidedly pleasant to the eye, a kind of vest-pocket edition of feminity, just up to the shoulder of the average man.  Her black hair is a bit tumbled, attractively so.  Her dark eyes are alive with vitality embracing eager interest and something resembling mischievousness — making you think, somehow of that sprightly person, Lady Astor.  Her clear complexion, with cheeks pinked by heat, contributes to her prettiness.  Vigor, firmness, ambition are set in the small dark face and suggested by the rather large mouth, whose lips, can set in a straight thin line of resolute purpose.

Mrs. Olesen walks rapidly to the speaker's stand, waiving salutations, bobbing her head gaily, smiling.

The magnetism of her—that vital and mysterious quality which differentiates leader from follower—grips them before she has spoken fifty words.  Short, crisp sentences, flung out in meaty Anglo-Saxon words, accompanied by nervous but expressive gestures and illuminated by sparkling glances—center, right and left, all brisk, businesslike—make up her speech.  When she bows and sits down there is an explosion of applause.




THE NEWS, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (EDITORIAL)
—The nomination of Mrs. Anna Dickie Olesen for the United States Senate should be regarded as an event of the first importance in reshaping the political life of the United States. Mrs. Olesen, a woman of great ability and of exceeding courage in public affairs, won the designation purely on her achievements in Minnesota.  Other women will win similar recognition throughout the country and soon we shall have a sincerity in politics that is now lacking in the performance of the two great parties.
Mrs. Olesen, running on the Democratic ticket in Minnesota, may not be elected, but in any event she opens the path for the future usefulness of women in the country, which will be of deep advantage to the United States in the making of history.



PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, STAR (EDITORIAL)
—Mrs. Anna Dickie Olesen is welcomed into the political arena as the first woman candidate for United States senator, with a warmth from which for the time at least, politics is barred.  Her success in Minnesota is accepted generally as a sign of the times and her right to be the pioneer is agreed to by Republicans and Democrats alike.  Most of the newspapers, look on her fight as almost impossible to win, but should she be elected, it is agreed she is fully qualified for the position.  Should she fail in election the St. Louis Globe Democrat says she will have won a historic part in the history of the woman movement.


RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, TIMES-DISPATCH (EDITORIAL)
—There is likely to be little difference of opinion between this date and November as to the one woman most prominent in the public eye.  Mrs. Anna Dickie Olesen of Minnesota probably will experience no difficulty in holding that position.  Mrs. Olesen is not only a woman, but an extraordinary woman.  At the age of 37, she has won country-wide recognition as a thinker, speaker and doer.
It is far too early to forecast the result of the election in Minnesota, but it is not too early to pronounce the fight in that State as the most interesting from all points of view of any that will be staged in the present campaign.  Whether elected or defeated, Mrs. Olesen has become a new and striking figure in national politics.



THE MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., JOURNAL
—William Jennings Bryan is touring by automobile speaking for Mrs. Anna D. Olesen.  He said: I know of no one in the United States who would make a better senator, than Mrs. Olesen.


MARTIN COUNTY SENTINEL, FAIRMONT, MINN.
—Not in all the history of Minnesota politics did anyone ever put up a fight equal to the one Mrs. Olesen waged night and day for three months.  True, she did not win an office, but she won the battle.


CLEVELAND, OHIO, PLAINDEALER (EDITORIAL)
—Mrs. Olesen has been an up and doer for years and her nomination is a heartfelt tribute by thousands who sincerely hope for her election.


THE NEWS TRIBUNE, CHICAGO (EDITORIAL)
—Whatever may be the fate of Mrs. Olesen at the polls next November, her nomination is a historical event of importance.


ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA, DAILY TIMES ((EDITORIAL)
—Vital, common, homely issues of the nation were hurled down in a torrent of oratory last night, when Anna Dickie Olesen, wound up her fifth week of campaigning.  Radiating optimism and driving home her arguments with machine gun rapidity, she talked herself into the hearts and minds of the greatest audience that ever listened to a political speech in St. Cloud.  She began speaking at 9:30 and until eleven o'clock held her audience, which hung upon her every utterance, thrilled and inspired by her masterly and eloquent discussion of the issues of the campaign.  To every argument her audience responded spontaniously and enthusiastically.  It was a great triumph for the little self-made woman.




LECTURES

THE LARGER PATRIOTISM
WOMEN AND PROGRESS
THE NEW SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
PIONEERING IN POLITICS