Axel Johnson

Axel Johnson (May 22, 1870 – September 25, 1924) was a Danish American immigrant, dairy farmer, and progressive Republican politician from Polk County, Wisconsin. He represented Polk County for five terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1909, 1911, 1913, 1915, 1919). He was a key figure in Wisconsin's ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Prohibition).

Biography Axel Johnson was born in Denmark on May 22, 1870, and was raised and educated there. He emigrated to the United States as a young man, he lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and took night classes studying agriculture. He went to work as a farm hand on a dairy farm in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota. After that, he traveled the west, working in Colorado and Wyoming for two years, then spent three years in Traill County, North Dakota, working as a farm foreman. Following the redistricting act of 1911, Polk County became its own Assembly district. Johnson was elected to represent that district again in 1912, 1914, and 1918.

In 1916, Johnson ran for Wisconsin Senate in the vacant 29th State Senate district, but lost in the primary to Algodt C. Anderson. There was also some discussion at the beginning of 1916 that the faction of the Republican party might want to run Johnson as a candidate in a primary challenge against congressman Irvine Lenroot, but that challenge was ultimately abandoned in favor of the Senate race.

During his final term in the Assembly in 1919–1920, he was chairman of the committee on State Affairs, and was one of the leaders of the prohibition movement. He led the effort in the Wisconsin Legislature to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and then worked on the passage of Wisconsin's legislation for the enforcement of prohibition.

During that session, he was also the author of the so-called "dog tax", which created a licensing requirement for owning a dog—each dog required a license, the owner would have to pay a fee for each license. The new fees created an uproar, beginning in Johnson's home county of Polk, with hundreds of dog owners declaring their refusal to pay.

Johnson did not stand for re-election in 1920.

Personal life and family Axel Johnson was a son of Christ and Johanna ( Peterson) Johnson.

Wisconsin Assembly (1912, 1914)

Wisconsin Senate (1916)

Wisconsin Assembly (1918)