Students for Stassen

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Harold Edward Stassen (1907 - 2001), was elected Governor of the State of Minnesota at the age of 31, making him the youngest to ever serve in that role. In 1942 Stassen gave a speech titled A Pattern for Peace and in 1945 a speech titled The Cost of Lasting Peace. 

Stassen’s age and progressive form of Republicanism appealed to young people and galvanized students to assist in his 1948 bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. In the last days before the Wisconsin primary, 150 University of Wisconsin students, calling themselves the Stassen Minutemen, went door to door in Madison handing out literature and urging people to the poles. Stassen won the Wisconsin primary with 19 delegates. Between 1948 and 1992, Stassen unsuccessfully campaigned nine times for the Republican nomination.