What's in a name? A mean-spirited proposal floated last fall to erase Farmer-Labor party governor Floyd B Olson's name from State Highway 55 got its 15 minutes of media attention and then faded away. Nominating Californian Ronald Reagan as a suitable replacement did not set well with most Minnesotans regardless of political orientation.

With the month of May designated as Labor History Month, it's a good time for Minnesotans to remember what Floyd B. Olson ?and the working people's movement he headed -- contributed to our state.

Olson, who grew up in a diverse North Minneapolis working-class neighborhood, was a tri-lingual agitator and orator, speaking in English, Norwegian and Yiddish. Olson's intelligence, boldness, working class roots, even his good looks and impressive stature, focused the Farmer Labor party through the prism of his personality and convictions. Shaped by decades of agitation in the Midwest by Populists, Socialists, Wobblies, Non-Partisan Leaguers and cooperative movements -- the rank and file responded with a storm of enthusiasm when Olson proclaimed in 1934: "I am not a liberal. I am what I want to be -? I am a radical."

Immensely popular in his day, Olson was elected Governor three times and died of cancer at the age of 44 while running for certain victory as a candidate for U.S. Senate in 1936. Not only did he have the support of organized labor and working farmers, he represented an independent third political party in this state which had been deliberately crafted in response to the failure of the two old parties to stand by these constituencies in troubled times.

This portrait of Floyd B. Olson hangs on the wall of a conference room in the Minneapolis Labor Center. The newspaper on his desk is the Minneapolis Labor Review.

The political movement that created the Farmer Labor party crystallized at a convention of the Minnesota State Federation of Labor in 1919, where the delegates from organized labor met in convention to form the Working People's Non-Partisan League. Merger with progressive farmers came soon after.

The virulently anti-union Minneapolis Citizen's Alliance set the tone for all future critics of Farmer Laborism, which did not yet include the 28-year old Olson, at that point an apprentice lawyer and a Democrat.

"Reds Control 37th Annual Convention of State Federation of Labor?Political Machine Formed," trumpeted the Citizen's Alliance Bulletin of August 1919. "What's in a name, or a label?" Olson always said, after he had been converted to Farmer-Laborism, that he would rather be called "red" than "yellow."

The labor "Reds" in 1919 included William Mahoney, president of the St Paul Trades and Labor Assembly and future Mayor of St. Paul, former Minneapolis Mayor Tom Van Lear from the Machinists Union and attorney Arthur LeSueur, who had served as Mayor of Minot, North Dakota. Their offenses, according to the Citizen's Alliance, included calling for "recognition of unions to be enforced by law," a 44-hour week, freedom of the press and assembly, social insurance (i.e. Social Security) and public ownership of some major industries. In 1934 Olson and the FLP advocated government takeover of Minnesota electric utilities, packing pants, grain elevators and iron mines.

Perhaps some of the antipathy expressed by current Olson-bashers -? like those in the so-called Taxpayers League -- can be better understood in light of a report by Minnesota Representative Ernest Lundeen to Congress in 1936 that among the accomplishments of the FLP was "more equitable enforcement of tax laws, which is cleaning up a condition of mass tax dodging by wealthy groups." While demanding increased revenues from business and the wealthy, the FLP state platform proposed the elimination of all property taxes on urban and rural homesteads and opposed a sales tax as regressive.

Despite its naysayers past and present, the imprint of this unique people's movement and its most popular and charismatic leader is indelible. Its broad and ambitious goals of social justice remain incomplete, and today, under attack with a ferocity unmatched since its inception.

For those of us in organized labor, its memory is still green. Floyd B Olson's name will always be writ large on our banner along with his message: "The rights that labor has won, labor must fight to protect."

Dave Riehle is a labor historian and Local Chairman of United Transportation Union Lodge 650.