W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY

Why Wis The Badger State in

By John Milton Cooper Jr. reform. The first was agrarian. This was the continuation of Populism that the Democrats had appropriated in 1896 under hy did Wisconsin become, politically, the most the leadership of their presidential candidate, William Jennings watched state in the Union during the first two Bryan. Besides currency inflation, Bryan and his followers also Wdecades of the twentieth century? During this period, called for railroad regulation, income and inheritance taxes on when the science of industry and technology affected the daily the wealthy, and legal action to break up the huge business con- lives of men and women throughout the nation, the Badger state glomerates, known as “trusts.” When progressivism briefly came earned the title, “laboratory of democracy,” by leading the to dominate the national political scene in the twentieth century, reform movements of that era, reforms that became known col- these faithful Democrats wandered in from the wilderness and lectively as “progressivism” by the end of that twenty-year peri- entered the promised land of fulfillment with Bryan himself as od. Many people would like to think that this role came Moses. Like the prophet, Bryan was barred from his own prom- naturally to the bright, creative, forward-looking citizens of Wis- ised land, the White House, which he ran for twice more after consin, yet there was nothing inevitable about the part that the 1896. He found consolation, however, in shepherding many of Badger State played in the progressive movement. Other states his fondest programs through Congress as Secretary of State could have and almost did take the vanguard position in the under Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1915. reform crusades of that era. So, why Wisconsin? The second stream of progressivism, urban reform, arose at Progressivism, as Richard Hofstadter pointed out in the mid- the same time as its agrarian counterpart during the late nine- twentieth century, arose from the confluence of two streams of teenth century, but from a source different than the Populists

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Phil La Follette’s quote made the simple connection between Progressivism and the state of Wisconsin, and in its simplicity also described the fame that Wisconsin received for its Progressive identity.

WHS 5-6835 consin?

WHS ID 10650 Robert M. La Follette during the Progressive Era his tenure as U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1906.

and Bryan Democrats. Urban reformers were usually groups of that later joined progressivism? The answer is, largely, no. citizens who rallied behind insurgent mayors and against the Bryan’s programs, largely agrarian in nature, never attracted political machines that controlled their respective cities. These much of a following here, for several reasons. One was that Wis- reformers attacked the corruption of the machines overall, not consin was acting like other states north of the Ohio River and as a temporary blight to be remedied by simply throwing out the east of the Missouri River, in not responding favorably to either rascals, but as part of a larger system that tied politics to domi- of those movements. The Great Lakes region rejected many nant business interests. Moreover, these reformers cared about Populist and Bryanite programs because they served only cer- their fellow citizens’ economic and social welfare. They empha- tain farmers and laborers, although Bryan and his followers sized such issues as regulation of utilities and public transporta- claimed to speak for them all. Their advocacy of publicly owned tion—which then consisted mainly of streetcars. They also crop storage facilities appealed to farmers who grew non-per- wanted to ease the plight of the poorest citizens, and they soon ishable crops, mainly those who lived on the Great Plains and in came to be allied with the pioneers in the new, female-led pro- the South. Few Wisconsin farmers fit that profile, and the state’s fession of social work. The most successful and best known of growing number of dairy farmers had no use for such policies. these urban reform movements occurred in the eastern Great On the industrial front, Populists and Democrats allied them- Lakes region, in such cities as Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit. selves with unions and strongly supported workers’ rights to By the twentieth century, these urban reform movements tried organize. But the Democrats’ support of a low-tariff program to expand to the state level, with varying degrees of success. ran contrary to widespread convictions that a high tariff pro- Did Wisconsin figure much in either of these early streams tected not just business profits but also job creation and high

S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 15 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY wages for industrial workers. Real wages, as expressed in the appeal in this part of the country in the 1890s was political. The buying power of their dollars, had been rising for two decades. two major parties, especially the Republican party, were much Such job protection and pocketbook concerns appealed far more firmly established in the Midwest than on the Great Plains more to Wisconsin workers than did sympathy for unions, or in the West. Among the Midwestern states, Ohio, Indiana, which, in the late nineteenth century, had only a small mem- and, to a lesser extent, Illinois had been competitive two-party bership here as elsewhere. Finally, populist support of currency states since the Civil War, whereas Michigan, Wisconsin, Min- inflation repelled small business people and white collar workers nesota, and Iowa had been Republican strongholds. Still, dom- throughout the Northeast and Midwest where established com- inated by the GOP, Wisconsin was not like the one-party munities were not as dependent on borrowed money. Democratic South. The two-party system did function here Another reason for the Populists’ and Bryanites’ lack of when certain issues gained momentum. For instance, Democ-

Whi(X3)5235 William Jennings Bryan speaking in Columbus, 1900.

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H GX83 R1 1878 This 1878 map of railroad land grants makes clear the level of influence that railroad companies had in Midwestern states, especially Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

This poster for a December 5, 1874, anti-railroad rally attests to the Progressive belief in bringing together a community’s leaders and the common, or “every” man.

WHS Archives 3-3888 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY rats had swept the state in 1890 when Republican incumbent governor, William D. Hoard, and other members of the GOP supported the bitterly con- tested Bennett Law, which required all schools, including parochial, to teach a common body of subjects in English. Twenty-six Wisconsin counties that had voted Republican in 1888 swung to sup- port Democrats and defeat the law that riled many of the communities that still embraced their native speech. The spo- radic nature of these political conditions did not promote an ongoing attraction to Populism or tilt Wisconsin voters toward Bryanite Democracy as much as it did to people living in what Bryan called “the great crescent” of the South and West.

rban reform made more of a dent. There were various municipal reform efforts in the WHi(X3)17707 U Railroad construction on the Annapee & Western Railroad near Sturgeon Bay, 1888–1889. larger cities and towns, but none of them Railroad lines continued to reach into areas of Wisconsin through the end of the nineteenth century. ever grew into the full-fledged insurgen- cies that exploded in cities in other states. It is not clear why this was so. Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit By then, however, Wisconsin had taken the lead. In 1900 had much in common with Milwaukee, in both their industrial Robert M. La Follette had won the governorship at the head of economies and their mixtures of ethnic groups. The difference an insurgent Republican movement that called for reform of may have been one of the two factors that historians like least to railroad taxation, railroad regulation, and the direct primary. acknowledge: chance. Milwaukee and other Wisconsin cities From then on Wisconsin would remain in the vanguard. These may simply have lacked the kind of people, especially leaders, men and women would, in fact, pin the label of “progressive” on who kicked off urban reform movements elsewhere at this time. these reform movements. Clearly, Wisconsin’s primacy in In any event, when urban reform finally did come to Milwau- statewide reform, at least as a matter of timing, also owed a great kee it would be under the banner of the Socialists, who would deal to the historian’s unloved explanation—chance. Such dominate the city’s politics for more than three decades, begin- statewide reform movements were bubbling up all over the ning in 1910. Midwest. Ohio or Michigan might have beaten Wisconsin to Things were different at the state level, but there, too, things the punch, and Iowa came in a close second. did not have to turn out the way they did. In Ohio and Michi- But it would be a mistake to credit everything about the state’s gan, reform mayors made bids for statewide power earlier than status as the flagship of reform to chance. In several ways, Wis- they did in Wisconsin. Both Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones of consin had been a leader of reform as early as other states. Even Toledo and Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland were serious con- without a major urban reform movement before the twentieth tenders for the Ohio governorship during the 1890s, and the century, there had been plenty of small city improvement drives state’s powerful Republican machine had to make strenuous and campaigns for municipal ownership of utilities. From 1894 efforts to beat them back. In Michigan, even the Republican onward, every two years brought the gubernatorial election, and machine’s best efforts failed to thwart the gubernatorial ambi- there was a significant statewide insurgent challenge to the ruling tions of Hazen “Potato Patch” Pingree of Detroit. Pingree was powers in the Republican party. These insurgents plumped the the first insurgent reformer to win a statehouse, as he did in issues of railroad taxation and railroad regulation. In 1894, the 1896, serving from 1897 until 1901. It was in 1901 that a group insurgent leader was Congressman Nils Haugen, and in 1896 of reform Republicans in Iowa won the office of governor and and 1898 it was La Follette. majorities in the legislature under Albert B. Cummins and the One notable historian, David Thelen, has found these grass- banner of the “Iowa Idea.” This was a platform that combined roots efforts so impressive that he argues that the true heyday of railroad regulation with anti-trust measures. progressivism in Wisconsin was in the 1890s, before La Follette

18 S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY took office. Thelen downplays La Follette’s importance and is hard to imagine the insurgents and reformers coming to argues that “Fighting Bob” was only reaping where others had power and passing those laws as soon as they did without La sown. By doing so, Thelen is downgrading that other factor so Follette. He duplicated Pingree of Detroit’s feat of beating the many historians vehemently dislike: the influence of a single established powers within the Republican party, except that La individual or, more colloquially (as well as pejoratively) put, the Follette had no previous experience or the fame of being a “Great Man.” reform mayor. As La Follette told the story, he underwent a This view of Wisconsin progressivism has points in its favor. conversion experience in 1891, like St. Paul’s on the road to A single person does not a movement make. Insurgency and re- Damascus, when Republican party leader, U.S. Senator Phile- form sentiments had been widespread in the state from the early tus Sawyer, allegedly offered him a bribe. That revelation, he 1890s onward. The candidacies of Haugen and La Follette drew believed, was the truth about the corrupt system that dominat- on strong strains of discontent within the Republican ranks. ed politics in the state and nation, a truth that caused his public Once La Follette assumed the governorship, it would become break with Republican leaders. Later he emblazoned the mast- even clearer just head of his maga- how strong those zine, La Follette’s reform senti- Weekly , with the ments were. biblical injunc- Another factor tion: “You shall that aided Wis- know the truth, consin in entering and the truth shall the reform ranks make you free.” early was the rela- La Follette tive weakness of spent the 1890s the conservative, cultivating poten- business-allied el- tially insurgent ements that held constituencies. In power in the Re- 1894 he deferred publican party. to Haugen as the Strictly speaking, standard bearer there was no mach- because, as a Nor- ine that ruled the WHS microfilm P33968 Design by Nick Jehlen wegian-American, state. There were On the front page of the first La Follette’s Weekly , issued January 9, 1909, Haugen would such figures as “Fighting” Bob’s message appears in biblical verse. In 1929 the magazine’s name would change to appeal to Scan- Philetus Sawyer The Progressive , the name it carries today, as seen in the November 2001 issue shown on the right. dinavians restive and John C. under Yankee dom- Spooner, both of whom were United States senators, but they ination of the Republican party. When La Follette assumed the never dominated Wisconsin politics in the way that their fellow insurgent leadership in 1896 and again in 1898, although unsuc- senators Thomas C. Platt did in New York or Matthew Quay did cessful in his bids, he drew on Haugen’s ethnic followers while at in Pennsylvania. Rather, the GOP here was a collection of local the same time tapping into anti-railroad sentiment among farm- factions joined in a loose alliance. The relative weakness of a ers and businessmen who were angry over shipping costs. La Fol- state’s machine played a big role in determining when the lette added to his program by advocating the abolition of tax reformers were able to win statewide. Iowa had a political struc- breaks that railroads enjoyed and adoption of a new device for ture like Wisconsin’s, with a dominant but not unbeatable choosing party candidates—the direct primary. Between elec- Republican party. Michigan had a somewhat stronger machine, tions, he made himself perhaps the best known person in the state but in 1898 scandals from the Spanish-American War had weak- through his tireless speaking about reform issues, particularly at ened its leader, Secretary of War Russell Alger. Clearly, then, county fairs. He also contacted like-minded leaders in counties Wisconsin’s leading role in progressivism owed a great deal to and in towns across the state and kept their names in an elabo- factors other than a single leader. rate filing system, cultivating them through frequent letters and But would Wisconsin have become the vanguard of progres- meetings. sivism without La Follette? Two things need to be considered in The persistence that La Follette showed as an individual answering that question—one is timing and the other is persistence. reflected the persistence of the movement as a whole, as Wis- On the matter of timing, Wisconsin became the flagship of consin’s reformers remained committed to progressive pro- reform by being the first to enact laws on the state level, and it grams and leaders long after the initial burst of enthusiasm.

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WHi(X3)41543 WHS 3-5324 From the pen of cartoonist Clifford Berryman, Bob La Follette and The September 5, 1922, Cambridge News Extra reported primary election Teddy Roosevelt struggle for control of the nation’s Progressive leadership. returns of a thorough, dominant Progressive victory that would eventually return Although La Follette and Roosevelt began as allies, both men’s volatile La Follette to his senate seat, and welcome John Blaine as Wisconsin’s governor. personalities played a role in ending their professional friendship.

Each time La Follette vied for the gubernatorial nomination, he came closer. In 1898 the conservatives barely beat back his chal- lenge, and by 1900 he had become unstoppable. He owed his victory not only to his hard work but also to a falling out among the conservative elements he had been battling ever since his political revelation of nearly a decade earlier. In 1900 the Republican nomination was tantamount to election in Wiscon- sin. Still, La Follette took no chances. As he had done earlier in 1892 and 1896, he spoke vigorously and often for the party’s national ticket. For him, this was not hard to do. The Republi- can nominee in 1896 and 1900 was William McKinley, a friend from their days in Congress in the 1880s, who had privately stood by La Follette after the break with Sawyer and the Wis- consin conservatives. This support of the national ticket also PH 2744 neutralized any opponents’ allegations of party disloyalty. The Red Gym, on the UW campus in Madison and illustrated here In the 1900 campaign La Follette made such a virtue of his on an undated postcard, was the scene in 1904 for the Stalwarts’ “bolt” GOP loyalty that he soft-pedaled his reform issues and jumped from the Republican convention. Bob La Follette engineered the split on the bandwagon of the party’s leading national issue: reten- by locking out his opponents, by setting up barbed wire around the entrance, and hiring UW football players to act as bouncers to anyone who was not of tion of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. In the a Progressive turn of mind. face of the Democrats’ charge of “imperialism,” La Follette

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PH 4063 (3) Guide Jake Borah, Bob Jr., and Bob La Follette Sr., pose by their day’s work in Crystal River, Colorado, in 1907. Two years before, President Theodore Roosevelt used the same guide and shot a bear on his famous Colorado hunting expedition. La Follette’s presidential ambitions seem evident in his decision to have himself photographed in a similar setting with the same guide.

During his presi- dential campaign in 1924, La Follette fought the good fight on a national scale. He and Young Bob appeared at Yankee Stadium September 21, to participate in Steuben Day cere- monies, which honored the German Revolu- tionary War general, Baron Von Steuben.

WHi(X3)13031 Classified File 673 La Follette’s statewide campaigns captured the very essence of “whistle stops.” He spoke to a crowd in La Valle when photographers captured him in October 1900.

S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY became such an enthusiastic, flag-waving imperialist that he turned himself into a regional edition of his party’s chief cam- paigner and imperialist cheerleader, vice-presidential nominee Theodore Roosevelt. In later years La Follette would adopt a foreign policy that was the opposite of those 1900 stands, and he conveniently forgot what one historian has called his “imperial- ist flirtation.”

here was another aspect of his career that he and others would also tend to forget in later years after he emerged Tas “Fighting Bob,” the fearless crusader for truth, right- eousness, and justice—his political shrewdness and caution. As he later admitted in his autobiography, La Follette knew better than to overload the political agenda when he became gover- nor. Of his three initial programs, he focused on the two that involved the railroad—taxation and regulation. The low taxes that railroads enjoyed on their properties were a holdover from earlier decades when the state had offered such inducements as an incentive to build lines and develop communities. Aside from the railroads themselves, almost no one favored continuing these tax breaks. Regulation proved a bit harder to enact, because many politicians in both parties were beholden to the railroads for favors and financing. But regulation, too, was an idea whose time had come. Other states, particularly in the South, had already established railroad regulatory agencies.

Ironically, La Follette’s fondest program, the direct primary, WHi 5-1582 proved hardest to pass, but it would have the most important Although Bob La Follette had died the year before, an Independence Day political impact. In retrospect, it seems ironic that this measure, celebration at Tomah’s Wayside Inn clearly states that the gathering is “under justified on the sacred ground of popular sovereignty, would have auspices of La Follette Progressive Republicans. By 1926 the name La Follette and had a tough row to hoe. But it did. Not only conservative Repub- the “Progressives” had become synonymous. licans but also the state’s rump Democratic party rose to resist out. Infuriated, the Stalwarts held their own convention at an this assault on a cardinal principle of their existence—the right to uptown theater. Both sides claimed to be the legitimate Republi- select candidates and thereby control access to political office. can ticket, but the Stalwarts were the ones who bore the stigma It took La Follette four years to push through the direct pri- of bolting. This factional warfare gave the national GOP fits. The mary. In the process he fought and won two more reelections, bad blood that later grew between La Follette and Theodore for himself and for majorities in the legislature favorable to his Roosevelt, who was now president and running himself in 1904, programs. This required him to repeat one of the feats that had stemmed in part from what struck him and other national party won him the governorship. He again organized a faction within leaders as dangerous parochial divisiveness. the Republican party, but this time he was not just working for himself. He put together slates of candidates for the state assem- t is popular to regard reform and political creativity as bly and senate based on loyalty to him and his program. This products of large-minded harmony and consensus. But the tactic split the party into well-defined and fiercely opposed fac- Iopposite was the case with Wisconsin progressivism. The tions. La Follette’s followers called themselves “Progressives”— very sharpness of these divisions emboldened the winners, La one of the first uses of what would become the signature word Follette and his Progressives, to push further in the direction of for this era—and his opponents reached back into Republican reform. The “Wisconsin Idea” of drawing on the intellectual party history to call themselves “Stalwarts.” expertise of the University of Wisconsin to create and run inde- This intraparty division exploded in 1904, when both factions pendent commissions in such areas as banking, insurance, and vied—literally—to seize control of the party convention. Gover- natural resources, emerged from these heady days of combat nor La Follette and the Progressives prepared better. They used and victory. La Follette himself moved on to a vacant seat in the barbed wire barriers to restrict access to the University of Wis- U.S. Senate in 1906 with great reluctance, because he wanted consin’s Red Gym, where the convention was being held, and to shepherd more progressive measures through to enactment. stationed football players as guards to keep unwelcome Stalwarts By then, Wisconsin was renowned as the flagship state of

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Lincoln Steffens, La Follette be- came a national figure, “Wiscon- sin’s Little Giant.” This was the first example of what would be- come a common pattern for pro- gressivism at the state level. A group of reformers would seize control of one or both of the parties, often with a dynamic gov- ernor, and push through a pro- gram to clean up political corrup- tion and regulate business. Besides Iowa, other states such as Mississip-

WHi(X3)5776 pi, Missouri, New Phil La Follette campaigning for governor at Allis Chalmers Plant, West Allis, September 20, 1930. Jersey, and Cali- fornia repeated this experience. New Jersey and reform and the laboratory for new ideas of regulation and pop- California were particularly notable because the reform governors ular participation in government. Some of this reputation came there were Woodrow Wilson and Hiram Johnson, both of whom, from favorable publicity. In addition to exposing abuses, the like La Follette, went on to prominent national careers. “muck-raking” journalists pointed to La Follette and his state as Another feature of this pattern that emerged first in Wiscon- shining exceptions and examples of how to make things better. sin was an inevitable conservative backlash. La Follette’s depar- Thanks in part to magazine articles by the famous muckraker ture for Washington created a falling out among his followers

PH 3652(3) The first unemployment check ever issued in the U.S. was to WHi(X3)33375 Neils B. Ruud of Madison on August 17, 1936. Rudd endorsed the check, as did well-known minister and social activist, Walter Rauschenbusch, Phil La Follette signing Unemployment Compensation Law, January 18, 1932. and it can be found today in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Pictured, left to right: Henry Ohl Jr, Elizabeth Brandeis, Paul Raushenbush, John Commons, La Follette, Henry Huber, Harold Groves, and Robert Nixon.

S P R I N G 2 0 0 4 23 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY and led to a partial victory for the Stal- warts. The same thing would happen in other states with progressive movements. Statehouse reformers rarely proved to be a politically long-lived breed.

his was where Wisconsin was dif- ferent, indeed unique. In the TBadger state what proved to be evanescent was not progressive control, but the Stalwart and conservative back- lash. A second wave of progressivism swept the state in 1910. La Follette was re-elected to the Senate, Francis McGov- ern won the governorship, and Progres- sives regained majorities in the Legislature. In the next four years, anoth- er, even bigger program of reform meas- ures saw the light of enactment. The Progressives fell out again in 1914, there- by allowing the Stalwarts to reign again for six years. But in 1920, the Progressives WHi(X3)22749 roared back, to begin a dominance that, Robert M. La Follette Jr. (standing in center with hand in pocket) speaks to a crowd except for brief interruptions, would last in Mauston on October 4, 1936, at a Progressive Party rally. for nearly 20 years. Another, truly unique feature of progressivism in Wisconsin party affiliation but had only run on a Progressive presidential was continued control by La Follette. Unlike other progressive and vice-presidential ticket, not a separate party. By the 1930s, governors who went on to Washington, he ruled over his politi- the Great Depression gave the younger La Follettes the oppor- cal following at home with an iron hand. This control proved to tunity to form a new Progressive party partly in order to retain be a mixed blessing. Its major disadvantage was that La Fol- their following. These Progressives enjoyed a brief, tumultuous lette’s personal relations with other progressives often deter- history in Wisconsin. As governor, Phil was able to push mined how well or how badly the movement fared. In 1910 La through substantial reform legislation, especially in social wel- Follette topped the ticket when he won re-election to the Senate fare. The Wisconsin plans for relief and old age pensions and swelled the victory for the rest of his followers. In 1914, became the model for Social Security at the national level, and however, his vendetta against McGovern—who had defied him such professors from the University of Wisconsin as Edwin in national politics in 1912—was a major factor in the Progres- Witte and Elizabeth Brandeis played a large role in drafting sives’ defeat. La Follette entered into a similar vendetta against the Social Security Act that set up the national system. Like- his one-time top lieutenant, Irvine Lenroot, who had toed the wise, a member of Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission, line in 1912 but later broke with La Follette over intervention in David Lillienthal, became one of the founders and guiding World War I. The fallout between the two men helped to pro- spirits of the Tennessee Valley Authority. long the Stalwarts’ reign. After the war, La Follette patched This later flowering of Wisconsin progressivism ended things up enough with his followers to regain a progressive win abruptly with Phil La Follette’s disastrous defeat for re-election of the governorship in 1920 by John J. Blaine and to gain a tri- in 1938 and his abject failure to expand the Progressives into a umphal re-election for himself in 1922. national party. He never sought elective office again. His broth- La Follette ruled over Wisconsin politically until he died in er, Bob Jr., managed to get re-elected senator on the Progressive 1925. Death, however, did not end his influence. One of his ticket in 1940. Orland Steen Loomis won the governorship on sons, Robert (“Young Bob”) Jr., succeeded him in the Senate, that line in 1942, but he died before taking office. At the end of where he served until 1947. The other son, Philip (“Phil”), World War II, the Progressives disbanded and moved into one later won three terms as governor, in 1930, 1934, and 1936. or the other of the traditional parties. Young Bob’s bid to return They also managed to do something that their father had shied to the Republicans crashed when he was defeated for that away from doing—they left the Republican party. Even in his party’s nomination in 1946 by Joseph R. McCarthy. Other Pro- run for president in 1924, “Old Bob” had not renounced his gressives did become Republicans, but the most significant of

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the younger members of the party turned to the Democratic personalizing issues. Those qualities kept Wisconsin politics at a party to find a new home. Of the Democratic leaders who high temperature, often a fever pitch. This emotional inferno led emerged as serious contenders in Wisconsin politics from the to bad as well as good consequences. Among the consequences late 1950s onward, all of them except one had been Progres- were the repeated internal breakdowns in the progressive coali- sives. These included Gaylord Nelson, William Proxmire, tion, thanks mainly to the father’s and sons’ personal behavior. Horace Wilkie, James Doyle, Carl Thompson, John Reynolds, Another came during World War I when the polarized political atmosphere in Wisconsin was nastier and more repressive than anywhere else, except in the West. The fault did not lie directly with La Follette but, instead, with his opponents, who tried to capitalize on his opposition to the war to wreak revenge on him and try to destroy his power in Wisconsin. He was the source for much of the political divisiveness, but his opponents had taken it to a level of personal attack on his loyalty, character, and even his family, all of which cut far deeper than any barbed wire, lit- eral or virtual, that he had ever constructed. This polarizing, realigning role of a single individual and a family in a state is not quite unique in twentieth century Amer- ican politics. The other shining example comes from a state that is in many ways the polar opposite to Wisconsin—Louisiana. There, Huey Long shook up, dominated, and realigned that Getty state’s politics around himself and his family and established pat- As a now aging “Young Bob” surveys a crowd in Portage on March 17, 1946, terns that lasted about as long as such patterns did in Wisconsin. he witnesses both the anguish of the Progressive Party faithful who wish to What Louisiana’s corrupt, raffish Kingfish and the incorrupt- stay separate from the GOP, and those who believe the independent course has had its run. After the party’s formal decision to dissolve, ible, upright Fighting Bob had in common, besides immense most of the former Progressives actually became Democrats. political talent, was a leftward orientation in favor of the less advantaged and against entrenched privilege, as well as an extraordinary ability to make themselves the central political and Thomas Fairchild. The exception, a birthright Democrat, issue. Both men wrought remarkable achievements. Of the two, was Patrick Lucey. La Follette established a far more respectable, elevated reputa- By the middle of the twentieth century, Wisconsin had come tion for public service and devotion to principle. Transferred to to look like some, though not all, of its neighboring states in the our state, that achievement played an indispensable role in mak- Midwest. It featured clean government, well-run public servic- ing Wisconsin the flagship of reform and the laboratory of es, enlightened social attitudes, and a vigorous liberal wing with- democracy. in one of the two major parties. But this was a far cry from the state’s progressive heyday at the beginning of the century or its second season in the limelight in the 1930’s. Only once after- About the Author ward were the eyes of the nation again on Wisconsin. That was John Milton Cooper Jr. is E. Gordon Fox when the state drew attention during Joe McCarthy’s rampage Professor of American Institutions at the Uni- in the early 1950s—attention that most Badgers would gladly versity of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has have done without. There was nothing remarkable about this taught since 1970. Robert La Follette was a lapse from national fame. It had happened over a century major figure in his first book, and his most before with the eclipse of the Virginia Dynasty of the early pres- recent book is Breaking the Heart of the World: idents. What was remarkable was how long Wisconsin’s day in Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League the sun lasted. Here again, that second least favored of histori- of Nations. Since 1991 he has served on the ans’ explanations, the Great Man, seems inescapable. Without Society’s Board of Curators and is currently La Follette and his sons this simply would not have happened. chair of the Stewardship Committee. He is married to Judith W. It is not necessary to invoke that ambiguous and overused Cooper, who is senior vice-president and associate general word “charismatic” to describe the La Follettes’ roles in making counsel of Credit Union National Association (CUNA). He is a Wisconsin famous. A better description is to note that the pro- member of the First Congregational Church and the Downtown genitor and one of his offspring showed an unremitting, some- Rotary, both in Madison, and a Paul Harris Fellow. times frightening, intensity and a flair for dramatizing and

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