Landon of Kansas

Landon spent almost all of the last four weeks of the 1936 campaign on the road. He again toured the middle west, and later he traveled from coast to coast in his search for votes. He prefaced his swing through the middle west by sharply criticizing the New Deal for having closed WPA records to public inspection, for saying that the veterans' bonus payments--most of which had been bonded--were no longer a public debt, and for claiming sole credit for the upturn in farm prices. Landon was also in a promising mood, giving his support to the long-obstructed St. Lawrence seaway project.¹ It was obvious from the tone of these statements that he was worried. His only "victory" at this time came through Francis Townsend, the medicine man of the old-age-pension radicals, when he urged Californians who were unable to vote for Lemke, to support Landon.²

On the evening of October 8 the Sunflower Special left Topeka, traveling eastward. At Freeport, Illinois, the next morning, Landon revealed a new fire, saying there would be no slackening of the fight until the last ballot had been cast.

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