THE CONGRESS: 381--3

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Born in Renville County, Minn. 44 years ago. Francis Shoemaker began to show insurgent leanings at 14 when he campaigned for farm organizations. He drifted to Panama to become a gang boss during the Canal's construction. A char ter member of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, he was nominated for Vice President in 1924, declined to run. Ac tive in the steel strike of 1919. the packinghouse strikes of 1920, he was for six years editor of the People's Voice at Green Bay, Wis., is still editor of the Organized Farmer of Red Wing, Minn. Five years ago he addressed an envelope to a Red Wing banker thus: "R. W. Putnam, robber of widows and orphans." Tried and convicted in Federal court of sending defamatory matter through the mails, he was fined $500, sentenced to a year and a day in the Leavenworth Penitentiary. In Washington, where he has made much radical noise, Representative Shoemaker is shamelessly proud of his prison sentence. He tried unsuccessfully to insert in his Congressional Directory biography: "The first man straight from prison to Congress, instead of from Congress to prison." When he was swept into office in 1932 by 317 votes, he promptly arranged to have special automobile license plates struck bearing his prison number: "38163." Last July President Roosevelt pardoned him, thus restoring his civil rights (TiME, July 17). In the House are five Farmer-Laborites, in the Senate only one. Last week Farmer-Laborite Shoemaker announced himself a candidate for the Senate seat held since 1923 by tall, grey-haired Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota.