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the YMCA Law School (later called William Mitchell College of Law).
On Sept. 12, 1918 at the time of the WWI Draft registration, Dewey was 19 years old and a university student living with his
mother at 1220 7th St. in Minneapolis. He was of medium height and stout build, and had brown hair and brown eyes.
After graduation from law school, he began work in the insurance business. In the 1929 Minneapolis City Directory he is listed as
being a salesman living at 1220 S. 7th, his childhood home. In the 1930 Minneapolis City Directory he was listed as living in the same
place but now was working as Secretary-Treasurer of A. J. Schunk Company.
Dewey was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1929 when he was 29 years old and served until 1935 for
District 31. He was the Chair of the Insurance Committee for the 48th Legislative Session. He was a Farmer-Labor Party member (a Third Party member, rare in American politics) of the 75th United States Congress.
From January 1937 to June 1938, Dewey missed 10 of 154 roll call votes, which is 6.5%. (This is better than the median of 9.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in June 1938.) In June 1937 he gave a speech to Congress arguing that the Federal Government and not the local taxpayer should support the unemployed. In this speech he also suggested cutting Army and Navy
appropriations for balancing of the budget, the importance of cutting down the power and pressure of big monopolies in the country, and the significance of a legislature to furnish adequate
pension for the older folks.
In 1934, Dewey had been an unsuccessful
candidate for election to the 74th congress. After his six-year stint in the Minnesota House, he
served as Deputy Commissioner of Insurance and as the state Fire Marshal. A second Congressional run in
1936 was successful. However, in 1938 he was defeated for re-election by
Oscar Youngdahl, a Republican, and when he again ran in 1940 against Youngdahl he was again defeated.
Dewey resumed his insurance practice in Minneapolis and also operated a retail radio sales business.
At the time of the Apr. 2, 1940 U.S. census, Dewey was 41 years old (although his wife told the census enumerator that he was 39) and
living with his 42-year-old wife Florentine (who she said was 38) and their 13-month-old infant
daughter Nancy at 3616 23rd Ave. S. in Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota. They had been living in the same place as of Apr. 1, 1935. Florentine told the enumerator that she had
completed her education through her third year of college and that her husband was a college graduate. Dewey was working 35 hours a week, 52 weeks a year as a radio promoter, and
did not have income from any other sources.
Dewey was living at 3110 12th Street in Minneapolis at the time of his death.
Mark Winzenburg reminisces on Dewey Johnson: "My uncle Ed Huppler tells me that Dewey Johnson died after receiving sulfa for an infection.
At the time the drug
was not well understood. The dose was too high, or not buffered properly, and the sulfa crystallized in his kidneys. He died of renal shutdown."
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