Robert La Follette

Josiah La Follette died eight months after his son was born, and in 1862 Mary married John Saxton, a wealthy merchant of 70. The boy and the stepfather did not get on, and every account of the childhood calls it a hard one. Saxton died in 1872 and the family moved into Madison. La Follette entered the University of Wisconsin in 1875 and was a mediocre student who won the statewide oratory contest, founded a campus paper, and turned vegetarian on the theory that meat clouded the head. He read morality and social justice under the university president John Bascom. Admitted to the bar in 1880, he took the Dane County district attorney's race the same year, at 25.

He reached the U.S. House at 29 and lost the seat in the Democratic wave of 1890. He rebuilt at the state level around a program: nominate candidates by primary election rather than by convention, tax railroads on property owned instead of profits declared, regulate rates, protect labor. Wisconsin passed it after 1902, and the new tax law roughly doubled what the railroads paid. Governor for three terms from 1901, he made the state university an instrument of state government, an arrangement Wisconsin still calls the Wisconsin Idea, with academics drafting bills. He entered the Senate in 1906 and stayed 19 years, breaking with Theodore Roosevelt, launching his own weekly magazine in 1909, winning the Seamen's Act in 1915, and running for president twice.

On April 4, 1917, La Follette told the Senate that entering the European war would be treason to humanity. The vote went 82 to 6 against him. The Wisconsin State Journal, published in his own capital, called his position pro-German and un-American. A Senate committee opened proceedings to expel him for disloyalty over an antiwar speech, and the case ran into 1919 before the Senate voted 50 to 21 to let it drop. For those two years he was the most hated man in the chamber. He also condemned the Palmer Raids, called for repealing the Espionage Act, asked amnesty for Eugene Debs, and defended the Bolsheviks as men building an industrial democracy, which is the reading that has worn worst.

He took 16.6 percent of the popular vote in 1924, carried Wisconsin outright and finished second in 11 states west of the Mississippi, then died seven months later on June 18, 1925, of cardiovascular disease with bronchitis and pneumonia, four days past his 70th birthday. Belle was offered his Senate seat and declined it. Robert Jr. took it instead and Philip became governor. In 1957 a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy put him among the five senators honored in the Capitol reception room, with Clay, Webster, Calhoun and Taft. A 1982 poll of historians ranked him first of all senators, tied with Clay.

Robert La Follette's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Wisconsin direct primary law law
  Ended nomination by party convention, subject to a statewide referendum 1903
• Wisconsin railroad tax reform law
  Taxed railroads on property owned rather than profits declared, nearly doubling the bill 1903
• Hours of Service Act law
  Barred railroad workers from more than 16 consecutive hours 1907
• La Follette's Weekly Magazine other
  Launched in early 1909 and past 30,000 circulation, the ancestor of The Progressive 1909
• Seamen's Act law
  Let sailors quit at any port where cargo was unloaded and required lifeboats on passenger ships 1915
• La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences book
  Where he told the story of the 1891 bribe offer 1913

• 1855 aged ~0 His father dies eight months after his birth His mother remarried in 1862 to a merchant of 70 the boy could not stand.
• 1879 aged ~24 Graduates from the University of Wisconsin after winning a statewide oratory contest
• 1880 aged ~25 Admitted to the bar and elected district attorney of Dane County at 25
• 1891 aged ~36 Accuses Senator Philetus Sawyer of offering him a bribe The charge split him from most of his party friends and started the progressive coalition.
• 1901 aged ~46 Takes office as governor of Wisconsin
• January 1906 aged 50 Enters the U.S. Senate after finishing his last year as governor
• April 4, 1917 aged 61 Votes against the declaration of war and calls it treason to humanity The Senate went 82 to 6 the other way.
• 1919 aged ~64 The Senate votes 50 to 21 against expelling him
• June 18, 1925 aged 70 Dies in Washington four days after turning 70

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• Eugene V. Debs 1855–1926
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• W.E.B. Du Bois 1868–1963
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• Margaret Sanger 1879–1966
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• Ida Tarbell 1857–1944
  Investigative journalist whose serial history of Standard Oil contributed to the company's antitrust breakup. muckraker who carried his case
• Bernie Sanders b. 1941
  Vermont senator whose presidential campaigns moved single-payer health care into mainstream debate. later senator compared to him