Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

Robert Marion La Follette, Sr. (June 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925) (also known as "Fighting Bob" La Follette) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman, the 20th Governor of Wisconsin from 1901 - 1906, and Senator from Wisconsin from 1905 - 1925 as a Republican He ran for President of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 elections, carrying Wisconsin and 17% of the national popular vote. He is best remembered as an proponent of Progressivism, and vocal opponent of railroads, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations. In 1957, a Senate committee selected La Follette as one of five of their greatest Senate predecessors. His wife Belle Case La Follette and sons Robert M. La Follette, Jr. and Philip LaFollette led his political faction in Wisconsin into the 1940s.

Early life

La Follette was born in the township of Primrose, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison, to Josiah La Follette and Mary Ferguson Buchanan; his paternal great-grandfather, Joseph La Follette, was born in France, and he also had English ancestry.^[1] La Follette grew up in rural Dane County, Wisconsin. In 1879, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; after studying law, La Follette was admitted to the bar in 1880. On December 31, 1881, he married Belle Case at her family home in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Political career

La Follette was elected Dane County District Attorney in 1880. Four years later, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1890. His opposition to patronage and his support for a protective tariff helped secure his appointment to the Ways and Means Committee headed by William McKinley, where he helped draft the Tariff Act of 1890 (McKinley Tariff). The Act, however, was so unpopular that he lost his seat in the 1890 Democratic landslide.

La Follette returned to Wisconsin where he refused a bribe offered by a powerful Wisconsin Republican, Philetus Sawyer, to influence a judge. Outraged by the bribery attempt, he became a vocal critic of machine politics and a leader of the "Progressive" faction of the Republican Party then vying for power with the "Stalwart" party establishment. He returned to office as Governor in 1900, after two unsuccessful attempts, by campaigning for direct election of nominees in party primaries.

From 1901 until 1906, La Follette served as Governor of Wisconsin. While governor, he championed numerous progressive reforms, including the first workers' compensation system, railroad rate reform, direct legislation, municipal home rule, open government, the minimum wage, non-partisan elections, the open primary system, direct election of U.S. Senators, women's suffrage, and progressive taxation. He created an atmosphere of close cooperation between the state government and the University of Wisconsin in the development of progressive policy. This concept became known as the Wisconsin Idea. In World War I, however, he broke with most of his academic friends on the war issue. He built a new base of support among anti-war German Americans.

A brilliant orator given to periodic bouts of "nerves," he made many enemies over the years, particularly for his opposition to American entry into World War I and his defense of freedom of speech during wartime. Theodore Roosevelt called him a "skunk who should be hanged" when he opposed the arming of American merchant ships; one of his colleagues in the Senate said he was "a better German than the head of the German parliament" when he opposed the Wilson Administration's request for a declaration of war in 1917.

La Follette spent the remainder of his life, from January 2, 1906 until his death in 1925, serving in the United States Senate. While in the Senate he strongly opposed American involvement in World War I, and campaigned for child labor laws, social security, women's suffrage, and other progressive reforms. He opposed the prosecution of Eugene V. Debs and other opponents of the war and played a key role in initiating the investigation of the Teapot Dome Scandal during the Harding Administration.

Presidential campaigns

In 1911 La Follette set up a campaign organization to mobilize the progressive elements in the Republican Party behind his presidential bid. He made a disastrous speech in February 1912 before a gathering of leading magazine editors, that caused many to doubt his stability. Most of his supporters deserted him for Theodore Roosevelt. Embittered, La Follette opposed both Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in the 1912 election. When his former ally Governor Francis E. McGovern supported Roosevelt, La Follette broke with him, allowing the conservative Republicans under Emanuel Philipp to take control of Wisconsin in the decisive 1914 election, which repudiated the tax-and-spend policies of the progressives. La Follette's forces were out of power inside the state from 1912 to 1920.^[2]

In 1924 the Federated Farmer-Labor Party (FF-LP) sought to nominate La Follette as its candidate. The FF-LP sought to unite all progressive parties into a single national Labor Party. However after a bitter convention in 1923 the Communist-controlled Workers Party gained control of the national organization's structure. Just prior to its 1924 convention at St. Paul, La Follette denounced the Communists and refused to be considered for the FF-LP endorsement. With La Follette's snub, the FF-LP disintegrated, leaving only the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Instead La Follette formed an independent Progressive Party and accepted its nomination in Cleveland with Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana as his running mate. The AFL, the Socialist Party of America, and most of the former supporters of the FF-LP along with various former "Bullmoose" Progressives and midwestern Progressive movement activists then joined La Follette and supported the Progressive Party.

La Follette's platform called for government ownership of the railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, more protection of civil liberties, an end to American imperialism in Latin America, and a plebiscite before any president could again lead the nation into war.

He came in third behind incumbent President Calvin Coolidge and Democratic candidate John W. Davis. La Follette won 17% of the popular vote and carried Wisconsin, winning its 13 electoral votes, and polled second in 11 western states. His base comprised German Americans, railroad workers, the AFL labor unions, the Non-Partisan League the Socialist Party, western farmers, and many of the "Bull Moose" Progressives who had supported Roosevelt in 1912. LaFollette's 17% showing represents the third highest showing for a third party since the American Civil War, only surpassed by Roosevelt's 27% in 1912 and Ross Perot's 19% showing in 1992. Following the 1924 election the Progressive Party disbanded.

La Follette died several months later. His wife, Belle Case La Follette, remained an influential figure and editor. By the mid 1930s, the La Follettes had reformed the Progressive Party and had returned to power in the state; all but one of Wisconsin's congressmen were Progressives. Fighting Bob's son, Philip La Follette, was elected Governor of Wisconsin. La Follette's other son, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., succeeded his father as Senator where he led the Progressive caucus comprising Progressive, Farm-Labor, American Labor, and various Republican and Democratic Party congresspeople. Bob La Follette Jr. returned to the Republican Party in 1946, where he was defeated in the primary by former Democratic State Senator Joe McCarthy. His grandson Bronson Cutting La Follette served as Wisconsin's attorney general in the 1980s.

In 1909, he and Belle Case La Follette founded the publication La Follette's Weekly. It was renamed The Progressive in 1929 and is still published, now as a monthly magazine. In 1913, La Follette first published his autobiography, La Follette's autobiography, a personal narrative of political experiences. He died in Washington, D.C., of cardiovascular disease, and was buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery on the near west side of Madison.

Quotes

• "The will of the people shall be the law of the land."

• "In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war."

• "The underlying reason indeed why both parties have failed to take the people's side in the present crisis is that neither party can openly attack the real evils which are undermining representative government without convicting themselves of treachery to the voters during their recent tenure in office."

• "Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely. It is commercial, imperialistic, ruthless. It tolerates no opposition. It is just as arrogant, just as despotic, in London, or in Washington, as in Berlin. The American Jingo is twin to the German Junker…. If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another."

• "The purpose of this ridiculous campaign is to throw the country into a state of sheer terror, to change public opinion, to stifle criticism, and suppress discussion. People are being unlawfully arrested, thrown into jail, held incommunicado for days, only to be eventually discharged without ever having been taken into court, because they have committed no crime. But more than this, if every preparation for war can be made the excuse for destroying free speech and a free press and the right of the people to assemble together for peaceful discussion, then we may well despair of ever again finding ourselves for a long period in a state of peace. The destruction of rights now occurring will be pointed to then as precedents for a still further invasion of the rights of the citizen."

Memorials

• La Follette's cousin Chester La Follette painted the oval portrait that hangs in the Senate.
• The University of Wisconsin-Madison is home to the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs (formerly the Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs).
• The University of Wisconsin-Madison has dedicated part of a student dormitory as La Follette House.

Bibliography

• John D. Buenker, The History of Wisconsin. Volume IV The Progressive Era, 1893-1914 (1998), detailed narrative and analysis
• Carl R. Burgchardt; Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: The Voice of Conscience Greenwood Press. 1992; on his oratory, with selected speeches
• Garraty, John A. "Robert La Follette: The Promise Unfulfilled" American Heritage (1962) 13(3): 76-79, 84-88. ISSN: 0002-8738 article
• K. C. MacKay, The Progressive Movement of 1924 (1947)
• Herbert F. Margulies; The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890-1920 (1968), detailed narrative
• Karen A. J. Miller; Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925 Greenwood Press, 1999
• David Thelen, Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit 1976. short interpretive biography
• Nancy C. Unger. Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (2000), full scale biography

Primary sources

• Carl R. Burgchardt; Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: The Voice of Conscience Greenwood Press. 1992; contains selected speeches
• Belle C. and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette 2 vols., (1953), by wife and daughter
• La Follette's autobiography, a personal narrative of political experiences, 1913

References

1. ^ Rootsweb.com, Rootsweb.com
2. ^ Margulies (1968) ch 3-5.

See also

• Seamen's Act

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