La Follette, Robert M. (Robert Marion), 1855-1925

<p>LA FOLLETTE, ROBERT MARION, (father of Robert Marion La Follette, Jr.), a Representative and a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Primrose, Dane County, Wis., June 14, 1855; graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1879; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1880 and commenced practice in Madison, Wis.; district attorney of Dane County 1880-1884; elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1891); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1890 to the Fifty-second Congress; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Agriculture (Fifty-first Congress); resumed the practice of law in Madison, Wis.; Governor of Wisconsin 1901-1906, when he resigned, having previously been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on January 25, 1905, for the term beginning March 4, 1905, but did not assume these duties until later, preferring to continue as Governor; reelected in 1911, 1916, and 1922, and served from January 4, 1906, until his death; chairman, Committee on the Census (Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Manufactures (Sixty-sixth through Sixty-eighth Congresses); one of the founders of the National Progressive Republican League; unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 1912 and 1916; nominated as the Progressive Party candidate for president in 1924, winning 13 electoral college votes; died in Washington, D.C., June 18, 1925; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Wis.</p>

<p>Robert Marion La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925), colloquially known as Fighting Bob, was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the Governor of Wisconsin. A Republican for most of his career, he ran for President of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election. Historian John D. Buenker describes La Follette as "the most celebrated figure in Wisconsin history."</p>

<p>Born and raised in Wisconsin, La Follette won election as the Dane County District Attorney in 1880. Four years later, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he was friendly with party leaders like William McKinley. After losing his seat in the 1890 election, La Follette embraced progressivism and built up a coalition of disaffected Republicans. He sought election as governor in 1896 and 1898 before winning the 1900 gubernatorial election. As governor of Wisconsin, La Follette compiled a progressive record, implementing primary elections and tax reform.</p>

<p>La Follette won re-election in 1902 and 1904, but in 1905 the legislature elected him to the United States Senate. He emerged as a national progressive leader in the Senate, often clashing with conservatives like Nelson Aldrich. He initially supported President William Howard Taft but broke with Taft after the latter failed to push a reduction in tariff rates. He challenged Taft for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1912 presidential election, but his candidacy was overshadowed by that of former President Theodore Roosevelt. La Follette's refusal to support Roosevelt alienated many progressives, and, though La Follette continued to serve in the Senate, he lost his stature as the leader of that chamber's progressive Republicans. La Follette supported some of President Woodrow Wilson's policies, but he broke with the president over foreign policy. During World War I, La Follette was one of the most outspoken opponents of the administration's domestic and international policies.</p>

<p>With the Republican Party and the Democratic Party each nominating conservative candidates in the 1924 presidential election, left-wing groups coalesced behind La Follette's third-party candidacy. With the support of the Socialist Party, farmer's groups, labor unions, and others, La Follette briefly appeared to be a serious threat to unseat Republican President Calvin Coolidge. La Follette stated that his chief goal was to break the "combined power of the private monopoly system over the political and economic life of the American people," and he called for government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, and protections for civil liberties. His diverse coalition proved challenging to manage, and the Republicans rallied to claim victory in the 1924 election. La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, one of the best third party performances in U.S. history. He died shortly after the presidential election, but his sons, Robert M. La Follette Jr. and Philip La Follette, succeeded him as progressive leaders in Wisconsin.</p>

<p>A leader in the 20th-century Progressive movement, Robert Marion La Follette was a U.S. representative, governor, and U.S. senator from Wisconsin, and an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency. La Follette was born in the town of Primrose, Wisconsin, the son of settlers from Kentucky. Admitted to the bar in 1880, he entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1885. After three terms in the House, he was elected governor of Wisconsin and served from 1901 to 1906. As governor, La Follette pushed for a direct primary system, tax reform legislation, railroad rate control, and other measures known as the "Wisconsin idea," collectively aimed at weakening the control of party bosses and turning over public administration to popularly elected leaders.</p>

<p>Nicknamed "Fighting Bob," La Follette continued to champion Progressive causes during a Senate career extending from 1906 until his death in 1925. He strongly supported the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the direct election of senators, as well as domestic measures advocated by President Woodrow Wilson's administration, including federal railroad regulation and laws protecting workers rights. La Follette worked to generate wider public accountability for the Senate. He advocated more frequent and better publicized roll call votes and the publication of information about campaign expenditures.</p>

<p>Early in his Senate career, the Wisconsin Republican broke with leaders of the Grand Old Party and rarely voted along party lines thereafter. In 1911 he helped found the National Progressive Republican League, whose members rallied around him as the logical candidate to wrest the Republican presidential nomination from President William Howard Taft. However, La Follette lost his bid when many supporters switched their allegiance to Theodore Roosevelt who, after failing to win the Republican nomination, ran unsuccessfully on the third-party Progressive, or Bull Moose, ticket in 1912.</p>

<p>La Follette led a small but influential group of Progressives in the Senate. As a result of the close margin between the two major parties, the Progressives held power out of proportion to their small numbers. Also the leader of the pacifist block in the Senate, La Follette opposed American involvement in World War I. In 1924 he was nominated for president by the League for Progressive Political Action and polled five million votes. Exhausted by the rigors of the campaign, La Follette died the following year in Washington, D.C. His son, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., succeeded him in the Senate, thus carrying on the reform tradition.</p>