Born on July 31, 1888, on a farm near Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas, Johnson attended the public schools in Texas and Oklahoma and then received a Bachelor of Laws in 1915 from the University of Oklahoma College of Law and participated in postgraduate work at the University of Clermont in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

He served in the United States Army as a private from 1918 to 1919 in World War I in Company L of the 36th Division.

He served as a delegate to the annual peace conference of the Interparliamentary Union at Paris, France, in 1927 and 1937, and at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1929, and was Chairman of the Speakers' Bureau for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

[3] Johnson was nominated to the United States Customs Court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 29, 1945.

Johnson was nominated by President Harry S. Truman on April 7, 1947, to a seat on the United States Customs Court vacated by Judge William John Keefe.