La Follette name, reforms synonymous

"Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr., delivers one of his famous talks from atop a wagon. La Follette, among founders of the Progressive Party in Wisconsin, engineered many reforms in the state. He served as governor and U.S. Senator.

     Past historic periods are often identified with individual leaders. Each of three leaders - Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln - was but one of many public figures responsible for reforms of his generation. In each instance, unique personal qualities combined with historical accident to make one name a symbol for a reform period.
     So it was with Robert La Follette Sr. Although he never obtained the presidency, his name became a symbol for the reform movement of 1900 - 1917. His reputation was enhanced for another 30 years because both he, as long as he lived, and his two sons, Robert Jr. and Philip maintained the reform tradition during the post World War I years.
     In the 1950's, his reform record caused the United States Senate to select him -- along with Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Robert Taft -- as one of the five greatest senators in the nation's history.

Culmination of protest

     Progressive reforms with which La Follette identified were a culmination of late-19th Century protest movements that often failed because nominations of each party were usually controlled by anti-reform oligarchies. Moreover, the two major parties had tended toward tweedledum and tweedledee, offering voters little choice.
     Historians disagree as to the major causes of the reform movement.
      One cited farmer discontent, response to industrialism, search for order, rising labor political awareness, loss of status by local elite's, consumer-taxpayer anxieties in a post-crisis inflationary period, use of government to allay unrest while preserving conservative control, or varying combinations of such factors.
     La Follette Sr. preferred the first explanation and often spoke of Grangers, Greenbackers and Populists as forerunners of Progressivism.
     Whatever its origin, the Progressive movement cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the La Follette role. In his autobiography La Follette remembered himself as beginning public life as a reformer. Observers recently have argued that he changed from traditional to reform politics during the 1890's.

Ordinary college record

     He moved in 1873 from his rural Dane County boyhood home to Madison where he prepared for admission to the University of Wisconsin. Although he had distinguished himself in college oratorical contest, his academic record was ordinary.
     Shortly after graduation in 1879, he married Belle Case who later became the state's first woman attorney. She was a lifelong partner in his public career and her interest in issues and events was as keen s her husband's. her influence in areas of women's rights and justice for minorities may have been the factor that separated La Follette from many Progressives less sensitive on those issues.
     Shortly after graduation La Follette was elected Dane County district attorney, and in 1884 was chosen as a regular Republican congressman from his district. After being re-elected in 1886 and 1888, he was defeated in an 1890 fourth-term try because of a Democratic landslide, It was an especially complete Democratic victory mainly because of the unpopular Republican-sponsored Bennett law which required schools to teach in the English language.
     La Follette, at 35, resumed his Madison law practice. Discovery by Democrats of misuse of public funds by Republican state treasures soon affected his career. La Follette explained his return to public life resulted when Philetus Sawyer, a Republican leader, offered him a bribe to influence La Follette's brother-in-law, a judge in the treasury cases.

Challenged pary leaders

     Angered at his affront, La Follette decided to challenge Republican party leaders, and unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the 1894 gubernatorial nomination for Nils P. Haugen at the state convention. Equally unsuccessfully, he sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination for himself at the 1896 and 1898 conventions.
     Control of these conventions by what La Follette believed to be bribery convinced him that nominations should be made through primary elections rather than at conventions.
     During this period he incorporated railroad regulation, changes in the tax system and other reforms as planks in his platform. Soon he was the acknowledged leader of the Wisconsin reform movement, using his oratorical talents at chautauquas and county fairs.

Makes alliance with foes

     Several things combined to make possible an alliance between La Follette and his opponents. Among those factors was the death of former Sen. Sawyer, who had denied and resented La Follette's bribery charges; support from Isaac Stephenson, a millionaire lumberman whose political career had been frustrated by Sawyer; and a strong desire of national Republican leaders to carry Wisconsin's presidential vote for William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt over Democrats William Jennings Bryan and Adlai Stevenson.
     The 1900 Wisconsin Republican state convention unanimously nominated La Follette for governor, virtually assuring his election.
     Republican harmony was, however, short-lived. The conservative legislature opposed or weakened La Follette's reform measures and the Republicans divided into liberal and conservative factions, commonly referred to as Progressive and Stalwards. In addition, La Follette was handicapped by his failure to understand the approach of some other progressives such as A. R. Hall of Knapp.
     Despite a serious illness, La Follette was re-elected in 1902 but was not able to enact much of his reform program until after victory in the 1904 "Gymnasium Convention" and a successful plebiscite on a law requiring nomination by primary election.
     The 1905 Assembly enacted civil service legislation and an act creating a railway regulatory commission; the latter was weakened in its effect by conservative-supported amendments and legislative refusal to confirm Nils P. Haugen as State Railroad Commission chairman.
     Chosen by the legislature to succeed Joseph Quaries as United States senator, La Follette waited until completion of his legislative program before going to Washington in 1906.
     Lt. Gov. James Davidson succeeded to the governorship and continued in office until the 1910 election of Francis McGovern, this despite La Follette's 1906 support of Irvine Lenroot as a suggested replacement for Davidson.
     Opponents criticized La Follette for being a political boss who use the convention and spoils system as had the Stalwarts. his defenders emphasized he had done so just long enough to replace conventions with primaries and substitute civil service for the spoils system.
     Thus, they argued, he voluntarily relinquished implements of "bossism," relying on leadership by persuasion. Davidson's success in resisting La Follette's efforts to supplant him with Lenroot indicated that persuasion was often insufficient to maintain control.

Movement loses momentum

     The state reform movement lost momentum until the first legislative session in McGovern's administration, probably the most progressive in the state's history. Enactment of a new corrupt practices act, establishment of an industrial commission, creation of the state's vocational education system, a state life insurance program, minimum wage laws for women and beginning of a state highway network were some of its accomplishments.
     Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate La Follette had become the Progressive leader. Ignoring the unwritten rule that freshman senators should be seen and not heard, he became known for his filibusters. He differed with Theodore Roosevelt and the latter's handpicked successor, William Howard Taft.
     Following nationwide Progressive victories in 1910, La Follette, who had been re-elected by the 1911 legislature, invited leading Progressives to his Washington, D.C., home where they formed the National Progressive Republican League. Their purpose was to wrest the 1912 Republican presidential nomination from incumbent President Taft, replacing him with a Progressive.
     As Theodore Roosevelt had publicly stated and privately affirmed that he would never run again, La Follette appeared the probable choice of Progressive Republicans. La Follette anticipated that his magazine, "La Follette's Weekly," and his autobiography which it and "American Magazine" carried serially, would aid him in gaining necessary public support.

Roosevelt returns

     However, Roosevelt, taking advantage of La Follette errors, returned to assume leadership of the Progressives, convincing La Follette that he had been used as a "stalking horse." Rivalry between the two leading Progressives enabled Taft to win renomination, causing Roosevelt to establish a Progressive Party.
     Democrats took advantage of the Republican quarrel, nominating and electing Woodrow Wilson. In this campaign La Follette gave tacit support to Wilson and only nominal aid to McGovern, who was running for the U.S. Senate. The latter's willingness to support Roosevelt at the convention had offended La Follette, despite McGovern's support for La Follette's presidential candidacy as long as there had been hope of success.
     The quarrel between La Follette and McGovern handed a 1914 victory to the Stalward gubernatorial candidate, Emanuel L. Philipp, who was twice reelected and served until 1921. Thus ended the 14-year progressive hold on the Wisconsin governorship.
     La Follette opposed McGovern's 1914 senatorial candidacy, leading to election of Paul Husting, a Progressive Democrat.

War creates split

     In the Senate, La Follette supported some of Wilson's domestic legislative programs, including the Underwood-Simmons low tariff bill. He opposed the Federal Reserve Act and deemed some of the President's regulatory legislation too mild to be worthy of support. La Follette persuaded Congress to enact and Wilson to sign the La Follette-Furuseth Seamen's Act.
     It was World War I and what La Follette regarded as Wilson's un-neutral Lusitania notes that ended any cooperation between the President and the Wisconsin Progressive, although a temporary shift in the diplomatic situation permitted both men to win re-election in 1916. Subsequently, La Follette opposed Wilson's proposal to arm merchantmen.
     "A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own," said Wilson, "have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible."

Wilcox Resolution

Arrival of politicans before the days of radio and television converage always attracted large crowds. Personal appearances were the only method by which voters could see the candidates. Parades were not uncommon during the political campaigns.

     La Follette's opposition to the war and an Associated Press misquote caused the Wisconsin legislature to pass the Wilcox Resolution, requesting the U.S. Senate to expel La Follette. State Sen. Roy Wilcox of Eau Claire became so popular that he came within a few hundred votes of defeating Philipp for the 1918 Republican gubernatorial nomination, a victory that would have been tantamount to election. La Follette himself was expelled from the Madison Club, burned in effigy; publicly insulted and ostracized in the U.S. Senate.
     Nearly the entire faculty of the University of Wisconsin signed a petition protesting his actions, and the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association condemned him. The NWWEA convention at Eau Claire, amid applause, passed a resolution condemning La Follette and praising Wilson.
     So severe was the "Wisconsin State Journal's" criticism of La Follette that Journal staff member William T. Evjue resigned to start "The Capital Times," his main purpose the defense of Wisconsin's outcast senator.

Sentiment shifts back

     The end of the war and disillusionment with peace treaty provisions caused a reversal of sentiment, Republican conservatives, dropping the move to oust La Follette, sought his support in their effort to defeat The Treaty of Versailles or modify the League of Nations covenant.
     The change of public attitudes elected Harding and Coolidge in 1920 and gave La Follette 72 percent of the vote for renomination in the 1922 Republican primary and 83 percent in the subsequent general election.
     Corruption in the Harding administration was noted by La Follette and first reported to the Senate by him, while he also supplied leads that brought exposure of the Teapot Dome scandals.
     In 1923 La Follette toured Russia and came home disenchanted, noting that authoritarian tyranny still existed, providing a police system that obeyed no laws and violated individual rights at will. From that time on, La Follette and his two sons rejected Communist participation in their campaigns.

Campaigns vigorously

     When Republicans and Democrats nominated conservatives for President in 1924, La Follette accepted the nomination from the Conference for Progressive Political Action, a coalition composed largely of labor union members, farmers and Socialists. With Burton K. Wheeler, a Progressive Democrat, as running mate, La Follette campaigned vigorously, carrying Wisconsin and drawing 16.5 percent of the vote nationally.
     His first statewide political victory had been 25 years earlier, when he was 45. He had frequently experienced serious illnesses and now suffered recurring respiratory health problems. he died June 18, 1925.
     During his career he had a determining role in replacing nominating conventions with primary elections. Unable to eliminate national nominating conventions, he had supported indirect primaries to elect convention delegates. he had strongly supported the 16th, 17th, and 19th amendments.
     At the time of his death he was a symbol for Progressivism and was credited with most of the Progressive accomplishments, his slowness to support some reforms forgotten. Remembered were his courage, devotion to principle and willingness to give of himself for the common good.
     He had seen the base of his support shift as "interest group democracy" replaced his earlier, more general appeal, and his stands on foreign policy lost him some groups of voters while attracting others.

'Wisconsin Idea'

     His own state program with its emphasis on use of experts and civil service employees in providing high levels of public service had become known as "The Wisconsin Idea." It had been ironic that the University of Wisconsin faculty which had been so extensively involved with La Follette's programs had nearly unanimously condemned him during the war.
     After his death the Progressives remained strong in Wisconsin, choosing Robert Jr. to succeed his father, he quickly earned the respect and admiration of senatorial colleagues. Progressive John Blain, who had succeeded Philipp as governor in 1921, was elected to the Senate, ousting the former Progressive, Lenroot.

La Follette staff recruited

     Temporary conservative control of the governorship ended when Phil La Follette defeated Walter Kohler Sr. in 1930. As governor, despite vigorous programs to combat the depression, Phil La Follette lost the 1932 Republican nomination.
     Franklin Roosevelt paid him the compliment of recruiting many of La Follette's staff members to take leading roles in administering the TVA, establishing social security, planning the unemployment compensation program and drafting other New Deal legislation.
     The Progressive leaders were not willing to ally permanently with the Democrats, and in 1934 they launched a new Progressive Party, challenging both old parties. Phil was again elected governor and Robert Jr., who had won re-election in 1928, was again returned to the Senate, this time as a Progressive instead of as a Progressive Republican.
     As governor, the junior La Follette launched a vigorous reform program, receiving support from the President. In 1936, the Wisconsin Progressives supported Roosevelt rather than the third party candidate, William Lemke, and FDR in turn supported the La Follette ticket against some of the Wisconsin Democratic slate.
     In 1937 Phil La Follette began his "Little New Deal," perhaps the most imaginative effort of any state in the nation. However, FDR's national New Deal overshadowed the Wisconsin effort and conservative opposition prevented or delayed passage of much of the proposed legislation.
     Frustrated by legislative failures, Phil La Follette decided to launch a national third party, using new campaign strategies that proved subject to misinterpretation and thus ineffective.

Support falters

     Troubles of one of his chief advisers and a political error in bringing about dismissal of the University of Wisconsin president cost him further support . The outbreak of World War II ended the alliance between the La Follettes and Roosevelt, an unfortunate occurrence for Bob Jr., who had been rumored the President's choice as his successor. The isolationist issue ended this hope.
     Taking advantage of the situation, Wisconsin Republicans formed a 1938 coalition ticket attractive to conservative Democrats and disenchanted Progressives, and succeeded in replacing Gov. La Follette with Julius Heil.
     The Progressive Party continued to hold many state constitutional offices. Robert La Follette Jr. was narrowly re-elected in 1940 and Progressive nominee Orland Loomis defeated Heil in 1942, only to die before taking office.
     Walter Goodland, lieutenant governor-elect, succeeded to the governorship in 1943. Because of his Progressive outlook he was at odds with the conservative Republican legislature, drawing so many independents and former Progressives to the Republican ticket that it was clear the La Follette Progressive Party had no future.

Progressive Party dissolves

     Meeting at Portage in 1946, the party accepted Sen. La Follette's advice, dissolving and deciding to return to the Republicans with whom they had split in May, 1934.
     Republican conservatives balked and enacted legislation that would have prevented Robert Jr. from filing as he had planned in the 1946 Republican senatorial primary. Gov. Goodland vetoed the bill.
     But Conservative Republicans united behind Joseph McCarthy. With the aid of crossover Democrats and it is alleged, some Communists, McCarthy narrowly defeated La Follette.
     The Progressives were for most of a generation the dominant wing of the Republican Party. Rejected by Republicans in 1932, they had formed a third party which endured for a decade.
     As their third party effort failed, they attempted a return to the republican Party only to be rebuffed a second time. Subsequently many La Follette followers became Democrats, contributing to a resurgence of that party in Wisconsin.
     The Progressives had modified the nation's election procedures, established liberal programs on taxation, welfare, business regulation, conservation and labor relations. Although historians still debate the wisdom of their reforms, they unanimously recognize their enduring impact.
     One wrote:
     "Wisconsin can take pride in its reputation for a high level of governmental integrity and public service, certainly partially attributable to the Progressive movement. Legislation enacted this year and signed into law May 28 sets aside June 14 for special school observances commemorating Robert La Follette Sr.'s birth on June 14, 1855 in the Town of Primrose in Dane County -- demonstrating that Wisconsin is proud of its Progressivism and proud, too, to have its fighting senator declared one of the five greatest in the nation's history."

-- Edward C. Blackorby
UW-EC History Dept.

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.