Wisconsin Magazine * of History
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
f"*"'J' I' \ Wisconsin t Magazine * of History TKe La Follette Committee ani, the C.l.O. JEROLD S. AUERBACH Tke Grand OU Regiment STEPHEN Z. STARR Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin RICHARD W. E. PERRIN William Howard Taft and Cannonism STANLEY D. SOLVICK Proceedings of the One Hundred and Eigkteenth Annual Meeting Published by the State Historical Society oj Wisconsin / Vol. XLVIII, No. 1 / Autumn, 1964 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Director Officers SCOTT M. CUTLIP, President HERBERT V. KOHLER, Honorary Vice-President JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President E. E. HOMSTAD, Treasurer CLIFFORD D. SWANSON, Second Vice-President LESLIE H. FISHEL, JR., Secretary Board of Curators Ex-Officio JOHN W. REYNOLDS, Governor of the State MRS. DENA A. SMITH, State Treasurer ROBERT C. ZIMMERMAN, Secretary of State FRED H. HARRINGTON, President of the University ANGUS B. ROTHWELL, Superintendent of Public Instruction MRS. JOSEPH C. GAMROTH, President of the Women's Auxiliary Term Expires, 1965 GEORGE BANTA, JR. PHILIP F. LA FOLLETTE WILLIAM F. STARK CEDRIC A. VIG Menasha Madison Pewaukee Rhinelander KENNETH W. HAAGENSEN ROBERT B. L. MURPHY MILO K. SWANTON CLARK WILKINSON Oconomowoc Madison Madison Baraboo GEORGE HAMPEL, JR. FOSTER B. PORTER FREDERICK N. TROWBRIDGE ANTHONY WISE Des Moines Bloomington Green Bay Hayward Term Expires, 1966 E. DAVID CRONON W. NORMAN FITZGERALD JOHN C. GEILFUSS JAMES A. RILEY Madison Milwaukee Milwaukee Eau Claire SCOTT M. CUTLIP EDWARD FROMM MRS. HOWARD T. GREENE CLIFFORD D. SWANSON Madison Hamburg Genesee Depot Stevens Point MRS. ROBERT E. FRIEND ROBERT A. GEHRKE ROBERT L. PIERCE Hartland Ripon Menomonie Term Expires, 1967 THOMAS H. BARLAND E. E. HOMSTAD MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES FREDERIC SAMMOND Eau Claire Black River Falls Madison Milwaukee M. J. DYRUD MRS. CHARLES B. JACKSON FREDERICK L OLSON DONALD C. SLIGHTER Prairie du Chien Nashotah Wauwatosa Milwaukee JIM DAN HILL MRS. VINCENT W. KOCH F. HARWOOD ORBISON LOUIS C. SMITH Middleton Janesville Appleton Lancaster Honorary Honorary Life Members WILLIAM ASHBY MCCLOY, Winnipeg PRESTON E. MCNALL, Madison MRS. LITTA BASCOM, Madison DOROTHY L. PARK, Madison Fellows VERNON CARSTENSEN MERLE CURTI The Women's Auxiliary Officers MRS. JOSEPH C. GAMROTH, Madison, President MRS. WILLIAM H. L. SMYTHE, Milwaukee, Vice-President MRS. EDWARD H. RIKKERS, Madison, Secretary MRS. WILLIAM E. HUG, Neenah, Treasurer MRS. EDMUND K. NIELSON, Appleton, Assistant Treasurer MRS. W. NORMAN FITZGERALD, Milwaukee, Ex-Officio VOLUME 48, NUMBER 1/AUTUMN, 1964 Wisconsin Magazine of History WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD, Editor PAUL H. HASS, Associate Editor The La Follette Committee and the C.l.O. 3 JEROLD S. AUERBACH The Grand Old Regiment 21 STEPHEN Z. STARR Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin: Prophet in His Own Country 32 RICHARD W. E. PERRIN William Howard Taft and Cannonism 48 STANLEY D. SOLVICK Book Reviews 59 Accessions 71 Proceedings of the One Hundred and Eighteenth Annual Business Meeting of the State Historical Society 75 Contributors 98 Published Quarterly by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published not assume responsibility for statements made by contribu quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 tors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Distributed to mem Copyright 1964 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. bers as part of their dues (Annual membership, $5.00 ; Fami Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial ly membership, $7.00; Contributing, $10; Business and Pro Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. Wisconsin news fessional, $25; Life, $100; Sustaining, $100 or more annual papers may reprint any article appearing in the WISCON ly; Patron, $1000 or more annually). Single numbers, $1.25. SIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY providing the story carries Microfilmed copies available through University Microfilms, the following credit line : Reprinted from the State Histori 313 North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Communica cal Society's Wiscorisir: Magazme of History for [insert the tions should be addressed to the editor. The Society does season and year which appear on the MagazmeJ. Recent Museum Accession This hide painting was willed to the Society hy E. Janet Merrill, a granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Baird of Green Bay. It was formerly exhibited at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay. Hide paintings such as this one were made by various Plains Indians as calendars —known as Winter Counts—tribal histories, or personal histories. Dr. John C. Ewers of the Smithsonian Institution, who was asked to identify the painting, wrote in part: "For some reason, examples of painted hides from the Crow Indians seem to be exceedingly rare. However, I believe that the example portrayed in your photograph is Crow. My mafor reason for thinking this is the fact that the counters of coup are depicted with the front hair swept upward. This hair style is typical of the Crow Indians. "The painting depicts a number of actions, almost certainly from different conflicts rather than a single battle. Lacking a good series of Crow paintings, it is difficult to assign a date to this painting. I think it unlikely that it was executed before the second half of the nineteenth century." The hide, probably elk, measures six feet by six feet. THE LA FOLLETTE COMMITTEE AND THE CLO, By JEROLD S. AUERBACH courageous band of tenant farmers and share croppers had been struggling desperately to T7ARLY in the spring of 1936, Senator sustain their Southern Tenant Farmers Union ^-^ Robert M. La Follette, Jr. submitted Sen in the face of concerted intimidation, coer ate Resolution 266 to the second session of the cion, and oppression. Aided by devoted allies Seventy-fourth Congress. The resolution in Washington, they persistently exerted pres authorized the Committee on Education and sure on New Deal officials to ameliorate their Labor, on which La Follette served, to investi plight. After a private dinner in the Cosmos gate "violations of the rights of free speech Club in February, 1936, called to discuss re and assembly and undue interference with the medies for a wave of sharecropper beatings right of labor to organize and bargain collec and evictions. La Follette promised his assis tively.'" S. 266 expressed two of La Follette's tance. S. 266 marked the redemption of his primary concerns during his first decade in pledge. the Senate: defense of the Bill of Rights, and Concurrently with developments in Arkan advocacy of its particular relevance to the sas occurred the paralysis of the New Deal's needs of industrial workers. principal institution for resolving labor-man Branded earlier in his career as a "Son of agement difficulties, the National Labor Re the Wild Jackass," the forty-year-old Wiscon lations Board. Assailed by the American Lib sin progressive had seemed on occasion to erty League (an anti-New Deal aggregation epitomize poise and caution. But once his pas of dissident Democrats, conservative Republi sions were aroused, his political acumen—like cans, and various members of the Du Pont his quick, nervous stride and his swift ges family), spurned by management, and de tures—reminded observers of his famous fath bilitated by adverse court decisions, the Board er, one of the towering figures of American was deprived of its opportunities to implement history. By the mid-thirties the younger La New Deal labor policy as enunciated in the Follette was speaking of labor organization Wagner Act. Furthermore, its scattered inves and collective bargaining as the cornerstone tigations had revealed a plethora of anti-labor of industrial democracy; his Senate resolu practices that deprived workers of their civil tion was indicative of his fervent commit liberties and their statutory rights. NLRB of- ment to these objectives. Two separate but related problems prompt ed La Follette to introduce the resolution. In ' Congressional Record, 74 Congress, 2 session northeastern Arkansas, since mid-1934, a (1936), 80: 4151. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AUTUMN, 1964 ficials presented their grievances to La Fol win its battle for public opinion. While the lette, whose resolution offered the Board hope antagonists maneuvered for position during of an escape from its impasse.'' the winter of 1936-1937, the La Follette Com In June, after preliminary hearings on the mittee began its examination of four anti resolution had demonstrated the urgency of a union practices which had frustrated labor congressional inquiry, the Senate approved S. organization for decades: espionage, muni 266. La Follette became chairman of the new tions, strikebreaking, and private police. These ly appointed subcommittee, which also in accoutrements of industrial strife represented cluded Utah Democrat Elbert D. Thomas. the underside of American industrial rela During the summer, while a staff was assem tions. They convinced the La Follette Com bled and the investigation planned according mittee that management was conducting "a to NLRB guidelines, the C.l.O. launched its colossal, daily drive in every part of the coun campaign to organize the mass-production in try to frustrate enunciated labor policy. ."" dustries—particularly steel, automobiles, and mining. The C.l.O. drive, erupting during the OPIES are indispensable in every war, and formative months of the La Follette investiga ^ since the 1870's industrial espionage had tion, gave the Committee a new raison d' etre: sapped the strength of American unions. In to blaze a trail for industrial unionism. Staff 1937 the La Follette Committee discovered it members realized that the C.l.O. "want[s] to to be "a common, almost universal, practice in help us and they mean business.'"' The La Fol American industry."" Management knew of lette Committee, in turn, offered its hearings no more efficient method than espionage to as a forum for the presentation of C.l.O.