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Infantryman in Blue Cartoons and Culture James Anderson's Civil War Letters .The Art of H. T Webster 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:10PM Page 2
- VOTE PROGRESSIVE - Sample Ballot If you desire to voto an eiiUi-e parly ticket for sLiite. conyrGSsionsI, legislative and county offices, make a cross (X) or othor mark in the circle (0) tinder the paily dL--sii,^!iu(ioii at the head of the ballot. If you desire to vote for particular persons without regai-d to party, mark in the square at i\w r\i'\\l of the nanu'- of ilic candidate for whom you desire to vole if itbe there, or write any name that you wish to vote for, in the proper place.
democracy — ^^.^^ ;„ his ero-.9n power JO ^^^ ,1 the go--'-""!r'.!i^° on the emblem ballot. The /^ . ^>,e voter is the mark -'^f^, ,v,e top of (^7^
, also test«ies to separated from the Republican Party 2. The cross al . .,^JaHh every Ame;.c_an> I^-^^-^jW- in 19J41934 and launched a new'"'"•'na ''^"•^ m the P^'"=j"^;,h certain •"- ter in both Wisconsin and created equal w' ^,^„. national political histnrv.history. The importance of the sym- : ; c»Ln-s ballot. Dois of the Progressives, from 1978.60.2 the simple yet ultimately 3. The cross s,gn o^ ^^^^^^^ ^, doom£d "X" of the official j ,,, economic P^og .^^ ^,^,^,V,„. the various roles that the various LaFolIette m£n played as governor tion. . _ and U. S. senator, is the focus of 4. The emblem -P^--^^^ an article by John E. Miller. g.ni.ea act.on throug^^^^^^^^^
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State Historic Preservation Officer and Acting Editorial Director Michael E. Stevens
Managing Editor " (IP^^^Utk^. Diane T. Drexler
Associate Editor •^.^. Margaret T. Dwyer F0rever ikall it wave, our Station's ^.^..^v-^^^?"^-^^-^ Emblem, lidding defiance to Rebela and Production Manager Traitors 1 Deborah T. Johnson ^T^ia^-et-^f^ Reviews Editor Katherine Lydon
Research and Editorial Assistants Brian Bengtson, Joel Heiman, John Nondorf, John Zimm
Designer The AVS Group Scooters, Skates, and Dolls THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, published quarterly, is one of the many benefits of Toys Against Delinquency in membership in the Wisconsin Historical Society. Individual memberships are $40.00 per year; senior citizen individual, $30.00; family, $50.00; senior cit Milwaukee izen family, $40.00; institutional, $65; supporting, $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500; life (per per By Daryl Webb son), $1,000. To receive the Wisconsin l^/lagazine of History, join the Society! To join or to give a gift membership, send a check to Membership, Wisconsin Histori cal Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI Fighting for the Cause 14 53706-1482, or call the Membership Office at 888-748-7479. You can also join via e-mail, The Rhetoric and Symbolism [email protected], or at the Society's Web site, www.wisconsinhistory.org (click on "Become a Member"). of the Wisconsin Progressive You can support other Wisconsin Historical Soci ety programs by making a donation to the Wiscon Movement sin Historical Foundation (608-264-6585). The WMH has been published quarterly since By John E. Miller 1917 by the Wisconsin Historical Society (Phone 608-264-6400). Copyright © 2004 by the State His torical Society of Wisconsin. Permission to quote or otherwise reproduce portions of this copyrighted work may be sought in writing from the publisher at A Boy from Tomahawk 26 the address above. Communication, inquiries, and manuscript submissions may also be addressed to The Everyday Wit of [email protected]. Information about the maga zine, including contributor's guidelines, sample arti cles, and an index of volume 84 can be also be H. T. Webster found at the Society's Web site by following the "Publications" link from the home page. Photographs identified with PH, WHi, or WHS are from the Society's collections; address inquiries James Anderson 36 about such photos to the Visual Materials Archivist, 14 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706-1482. Many WHS photos are available through the Wisconsin Infantryman in Blue Historical Images digital service available on the Web site. (From the home page, click "Archives.") By Norman K. Risjord The Wisconsin Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by con tributors. ISSN 0043-6543. Periodicals postage paid at Madison, WI 53706-1482. Back issues, if avail able, are $10 plus postage (888-748-7479). Micro filmed copies are available through University Editors' Choice 50 Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106. Curio 53 On the front cover: Caspar Milquetoast, the quin tessential "Timid Soul" and best-known creation of Where They're Going 54 cartoonist and Wisconsin native H. T. Webster. Back Matters 56 PH1301 26 VOLUME 87, NUMBER 4 / SUMMER 2004 Toys Against Delinq
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Courtesy of the UW-Milwaukee Golda Meir Library Archives, Serial # 29681-1 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:11PM Page 4
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J^ crowd of eager children, about fifty boys ters as positive influences on kids. As the Great Depression M/W^ and girls, milled about the corner of Mil- took root, however, jobs for youth became almost impossible to find, and juvenile delinquency rose dramatically. Juvenile ^^•^X waukee Street and Michigan Avenue early crime rates more than doubled in the United States during J/ m\on an April morning in 1938. The young the 1930s, and a 1936 study on crime in nine middle-sized residents of this downtown neighborhood had begun to northern cities found that Milwaukee had the highest inci dences of juvenile delinquency. The following year youth arrive at the still-closed doors of the city's newest center, a crime in the city doubled.'^ place just for them, a place that held on its shelves the very But it was not the 1936 study or the statistics from 1937 that planted the seeds for the toy loan program. It was fear—fear of thing that they wished for: toys. Posters had recently what children would do with their idle hands if they had no appeared near their schools and in the local shop win toys to fill them. This fear was not based on statistics but on dows stating that here on this corner, on this day, April nine days in the autumn of 1935, and the crime spree that two Milwaukee boys went on before they met a grisly end. 11, at 8:00 AM, children could enter into this center and A bomb blast rocked the usually quiet village of Shore- emerge with a doll, a game, a baseball mitt, or other bor wood on the night of Saturday, October 26, 1935. The explo sion ripped through the suburban Milwaukee neighborhood, rowed treasure. And they were treasured, for the hardship blowing a large hole in the village hall, of the Great Depression had robbed ^^^^^^^^^ breaking windows, and rattling walls of many children of the joys of playing area homes. While police and fire Children's court officials, trucks raced to the scene, the two with even a single toy. When the bombers escaped into the fall night. doors finally opened, excited boys meanwhile, thought Nineteen-year-old Isador "Idzi" and girls rushed in and dolls, trains, Rutkowski and sixteen-year-old Paul play could help combat "Shrimp" Ghovonec had graduated toy trucks, and a host of games greet the youth crime wave. from petty thieves to teenage ed them. After they had thoroughly bombers.^ The following night, Idzi and investigated all the center's shelves, Shrimp bombed two branches of the kids checked out their selections. "Really, truly, it First Wisconsin National Bank. The attacks threw sews," one little girl commented on a toy sewing the city into a state of panic. Police officials sta tioned guards at all banks and public buildings, machine, "now I can make my doll some stepped-up patrols in the city, and called in the FBI clothes!" In the center's first three weeks, 639 to aid in the investigation. Despite these efforts, Idzi and Shrimp struck again on Halloween night. children borrowed toys.^ In an act of defiance, they bombed two police WHS Museum The significant response to this first Toy Loan 1979.64.176 precinct stations, spreading a new wave of fear Genter, and to the others that appeared in its wake, a&b through the city. The bombing campaign came to reflected the stresses that many families endured This Radio Line scooter, an end on November 3. The two boys had met at during those years of financial hardship. It was not cousin to the Radio Flyer Idzi's garage, apparently to create a more sophisti surprising to fmd such a program in Milwaukee, a wagon, is similar to the cated and powerful bomb, when something went ones loaned in community that had provided programs geared to terribly wrong. The bomb detonated. The blast Milwaukee during the toy children and family needs for over two decades. A loan pro^am's first two leveled the Rutkowski garage, literally blowing Idzi toy loan program specifically for children had hard decades. Scooters and Shrimp to pieces. It also ripped the walls off ly seemed necessary only eight years earlier, when in less popular ewer the neighboring Malnarek home. When the house 1930, a Milwaukee Sentinel editorial praised the until their resurgence in came crashing down, nine-year-old Patricia the last few years. city for its low juvenile crime rates. The editorial Malnarek lay dead, buried beneath the rubble. explained that Milwaukee's wholesome environment prevent Idzi and Shrimp's horrific crimes were just the beginning of ed its young from going down the path of delinquency and a youth crime wave in Milwaukee. As the Great Depression crime. The city, the Sentinel proclaimed, furnished children deepened, youth crime jumped dramatically and community with the "right methods of spending leisure time," and the leaders searched for solutions to the crisis. One approach was paper pointed to the city's parks, playgrounds, and social cen- to open Toy Loan Genters throughout the city. These centers
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WMth«r Bulletin MILWAUKEE SENTINEL EDITION iw-iw. tum - mmiain iiAit IM klLWAUldili. M6tBAV. iWnfflBl t ite ****** BOMBER BLOWS SELF ^0 BITS; CHILD KILLED BOYCRllNAL VICTIM'S FRIEND WAS PRODUCT OF SLUM UFE MISSING; NEARBY HOMESJ^ECKED Also covered in the Sentinel was the 100 sticks of Dynamite impact of the bombing Let Go; Whole Block Feels Shock. spree on the city of Milwaukee as a whole. JCilwkukM'a week-long relga of djnunlte Umr came to u abrnpt end jtttndtj &ft«rnooti when tht dyn&miter-~& 21-7eftr-old bof with comnniiiiftlo 1it> llefi and a hatred pf law snd order—bl«« hlandf to Milwaukee Sentinel biU with a roper-bombhehadpIaiuiedtoiiMlait nljbt in a new foTa7«'.il'~ Tbe blast UUed i home, aent a doien p jif^WAUKEE SENTINEL, TRJR'^N bvUdiBgs and A aheet-iron § Brriwri Map Shows Spreading Terror venue m the expk •tood, remnanta Oj miraenloailT nn-^ C two I ON ctiofip £r«f •itrcet. Mai The bomber,', •'Pion;: P: Mitchell street, it( et ap- police record and t, , -™pj youDger cronies, w lice could not asse/ 1 t"f fingerprints. Oni 'j.. were Id injurfd in | DIJUBKO. Four of bis M , - en Uilchell; Oonnd Hrbumk, 4, krotb« |,trtet are: l"* *• ''•«' <*''• members of a grd ''• ^^ nttn I *"- *""• Mj'liurtk. 33, dominance, wej^ b Saf6- mmt imrv\ »n«ow »"*" ot th»
PVtata af Paul Ckavanik—pal Pt 'he.bomb Hsfh Kauowm, aiD ^U« b>
SMi two*, wondarlni whilhu Paul I A Fowl Affiiri w*>M BIU al Oaatt touDd la Uia bla<> .^^^^^^^^^^B Mtr, H uj>, iril ha la Kutpa^ laM. bul pal lea addid Uun mm) •tan* Ht IMr, If Mm «•• caatral pelka Matlaa aiplaalaii U 9^H ^ Iwiti te (top U MaMA^ T" "° " '"" "" '*"" wit"h Rutkirwakl. tap* Ibair IBD- iroB M rata U, CaC t.) | Usaa.'; Maii&na omitctvtt. Tauli panua, aba HM tMT Ucw JUMaa aiUla taar mlua kat
Milwaukee Sentinel, Nov. 4, 1935
The city of Milwaukee was relieved to learn that the nine-day bombing spree was ^K; 5 over, but shocked to learn that the bombers were two teenagers. A Milwaukee Sentinel The Milwaukee Sentinel coverage of the bombing included this photo that clearly shows the devastation caused by the bombers' mistake on a neighborhood in the city's south side
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lent children a variety of playthings in hopes of keeping them out of trouble. The city's children created a complex relationship with the Toy Loan Gen ters. They received recognition for bor rowing toys, games, and sports equipment and in return took owner ship of the toy libraries, aiding staff members. As the Great Depression came to an end, the community's adults began to debate the program's effective ness and cost. This disagreement led to an unsuccessful attempt to close the program in 1943.
I ith youth crime on the rise and horrific crimes being W_^ _^ committed by youths, like Idzi and Shrimp, juvenile justice oflEi- cials continued their search for the root of the problem. The 1935 Blue Book describes juvenile delinquency in Wis consin as being dealt with in regular courts by a judge designated annually by his peers to serve as a juvenile judge with "jurisdiction in all cases involving dependent and neglected children and delinquent children under eighteen years of age." Idzi, had he lived to pay for his crimes, would have been tried as an adult; Shrimp would have been con sidered a juvenile. Two major theories on the causes of juvenile delinquency existed: psychology versus sociology. The first accepted the problem as psy chological in origin. This theory traced its roots to a juvenile delinquency study conducted by William Healy, a noted child psychologist. He used psychologi cal tests, medical histories, and family backgrounds in an attempt to deter mine the motivation of youth criminals. While unable to provide any specific causes, his emphasis on psychology advanced the idea that a child's mental WHS Milwaukee ARC, Manuscript Collection AX development was the key factor in Milwaukee's city hall called citywide attention to the toy loan program and to one of the many toy drives determining delinquency. If children that took place over decades as the program continued into the 1970s. were given the proper mental guidance, reasoned juvenile justice experts, youth crime could be prevented. This helped promote child guidance clinics across the nation. These clinics, which became
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prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s, were grounded in the theo Goodwill Gommunity Genter, churches, and various religious ry that juvenile delinquency was a mental defect that could be and ethnic centers helped combat cultural and moral starva cured through psychoanalysis. By 1931, there were 232 child tion. These agencies worked with approximately thirty thou guidance clinics in twenty-three cities.^ sand children per year during the Great Depression.^ The competing theory accepted juvenile delinquency as a These programs, however, did not prevent Idzi and social problem. Sociologists at University of Ghicago exam Shrimp's nine-day bombing campaign or a dramatic increase ined the environmental basis of youth crime. They believed in youth crime during the 1930s. By 1937 Milwaukee was in juvenile delinquency was not a moral failure or a psychologi the midst of a "juvenile crime wave." Youth offenses cal maladjustment, but rather a reasonable reaction to a increased 34 percent over 1936 and juvenile offenders com child's surroundings. They argued that mitted over half of all car thefts and 71 urban decay, deteriorating neighbor percent of all burglaries. This dramatic hoods, and family troubles devastated jump in youth crime demanded action children. Kids raised in such environ from the city's law enforcement offi ments saw criminals as their role mod cials. Police Ghief Joseph Kluchesky els and sought recognition from campaigned for the creation of a crime juvenile street gangs. This environment prevention bureau within the depart created juvenile delinquents. These ment. The Metropolitan Grime Pre sociologists believed the problem need vention Gommittee called for greater ed to be addressed at the neighborhood emphasis on child guidance and 'lA/HS Museum 1950.7709 level and programs should be created improvements in the children's court.^ Even the youngest child Ghildren's court officials, mean to redirect the activities of delinquent could enjoy a simple yoyo. and potentially delinquent children.^ while, thought the simple act of playing Milwaukee juvenile justice experts ^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^r could help combat the youth crime saw validity in both ideas. In a 1935 wave. By the 1930s, play was seen as a study of youth crime in Milwaukee Gounty, Dr. Gilbert J. tool to help prevent juvenile delinquency and develop good, Rich pointed to both environmental and psychological well-adjusted citizens. Ghild experts argued that play helped aspects of juvenile delinquency. While Rich could not isolate a child develop socially and morally. When a child's "play the source of juvenile crime, he did point to three factors that instincts" were "thwarted" or misdirected, a 1932 White made children most susceptible to becoming delinquent. House Gonference on Ghild Welfare concluded, play became First, kids who lived in poor neighborhoods were the most mischief and mischief led directly to delinquency. In fact, Mil likely to commit crimes. Ghildren from broken homes were waukee had long used play to help prevent mischief and com also likely to have run-ins with the law. Intelligence was the bat juvenile crime. Between 1890 and 1920, Milwaukee fmal factor. Rich argued that kids with low IQ^'s, whom he leaders worked to create wholesome play opportunities, tap labeled "dull children," were more likely to break the law ping into the strength of private organizations such as the than kids of average or high intelligence. In a 1938 report to Boys Glub, Girl Scouts, and Young Men's Ghristian Associa the Milwaukee Metropolitan Grime Gommittee, Earl G. Kel tions. Milwaukee city and county government created an ley agreed with Rich's assessment, but further developed the extensive parks system, supervised playgrounds, and ran connection between the environmental and mental factors. social centers to help keep kids out of mischief ^'^ Kelley argued that "starved environments, starved economi cally, socially, morally, and culturally, breeds dullness." He y the 1930s, using play to prevent juvenile delinquen went on to explain that "dull children," raised in such a cy was part of Milwaukee's juvenile justice system, so starved environment, desire recognition and will do anything it was natural for experts to consider play to combat necessary to get it, including violating the law.^ the most recent youth crime wave. Ghildren's court officials To address the problem of youth crime, Milwaukee leaders noted that a common factor among juvenile delinquents was had developed a sound juvenile crime-fighting apparatus. The the lack of playthings. They pointed to this absence of toys as a children's court and probation department were established to "chief cause" of youth crime. Grime could be prevented, they punish and to rehabilitate youth perpetrators. Civic leaders reasoned, if playthings were provided to delinquent and poten also enacted preventative measures. To prevent economic tially delinquent children. Using the Los Angeles toy loan pro starvation, Milwaukee officials supported the creation of gram as a model, Milwaukee officials decided to open toy numerous private and public welfare organizations such as the libraries in poor neighborhoods where juvenile crime was the Gatholic Social Welfare Society and the Milwaukee Gounty highest.^ ^ Department of Outdoor Relief The Boy and Girl Scouts, By late 1937 the Toy Loan Project had received $1,500 from
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WHS Museum 1985.121.6
WHS Museum 1977.109.1 a - f
WHS Museum 1980.62
The "Racing Ship" board game consists of a Helmets like this one from the 1930s were Colorful puzzles of popular cartoon characters, like Professor board that is a global world map, ca. 1935, with coveted by boys in the toy loan program. Oscar Quackenbush and Oscar, were part of the offerings at several 'round-the-morld routes marked, Although it sports numerous coats of paint, Milwaukee's toy loan program. and color coordinated with the playing pieces. the original colors are orange and black.
the Works Progress Administration to hire staff and open the placed in the Ninth Street Elementary School to reduce youth first toy library. In December, Helen Lange, a probation olTicer crime in the impoverished African-American neighborhood with the children's court, became project supervisor. Lange and on the city's near north side. Kosciuszko Park became home her staff then began a toy donation drive. They placed posters to a center because Toy Loan officials recognized that the in schools and community centers asking for playthings. Lange children of poor and working-class Poles in that south side convinced numerous schools, clubs, and civic organizations to neighborhood were at high risk for getting into trouble. Toy hold "toy days," where people brought old toys to their meetings Loan officials also placed centers in industrial suburbs experi or school to donate to the project. By March, officials had col encing high unemployment. Children in working-class com lected and repaired fifteen hundred playthings. ^ munities like Cudahy and West Allis were also susceptible to bad inffuences, officials believed. By the end of the Great fter the first toy library was up and running, officials Depression, twenty-one toy libraries were operating in almost started collecting toys for new centers. Staffers per- every one of the city's poor neighborhoods.^* A_^ _\ suaded churches, service clubs, and labor unions to Children primarily used their neighborhood Toy Loan hold toy drives that collected thousands of toys. Many local Genter because it provided them with toys and fun. Pho businesses donated billboard space and radio and newspaper tographs captured their smiling, enthusiastic faces as they advertising. Local department stores donated toys left over played with borrowed toys. Kids described the centers as from the 1937 Christmas shopping season and the Milwaukee "swell," "marvelous," and "just grand." "I like it, gigantic!" Brewers and several movie houses held toy days where a toy exclaimed one little boy. The sheer number of loans demon served as the price of admission. ^^ strated the hours of joyous play children experienced. Robert With toys coming in, program officials began opening cen Schoemer checked out ninety toys in one two-and-one-half ters in strategic locations throughout the city. The Italian- and month period, and the six-year-old Golos twins, Irene and Polish-dominated east side had Milwaukee's highest juvenile Alice, amassed 115 loans during that same period.^-' crime rate, so a toy library was established at the comer of However, the Golos twins and other children found more Brady Street and Humbolt Boulevard. A toy library was than just toys at the centers; they also found a nurturing envi-
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ronment. Toy Loan clerks took an 'oy Loan Project Gets More Skates Toy Loan Centers An mfldltloMl M i»irt of roUeri active interest in their patrons, not just •katca hkve b«en donated te the HlwmukM county WPA toy loan I Set Record in Loans project throuBh E. P. Perty, pre«i-j as borrowers, but as children. They fre dent, and H. H. StniUon of the, Kotclusiko and Pulask park toy Ullwaukee Grain »nd Stock ex-,' chanie. it WM •nnoiuiMd Tueedmy. toan centers .this montb are likely Some W p«r»on« at the exchsngaj to Mt a new high record for loans. quently took troubled children under made donatlani to buy the ikatc* Both are reporting a gradual In which, with donation! from clubi.^ crease over May when tbey UOti' churchea'and other groupi. bringi 100 loan.f lo their prevloua high' SZ4 pain the number available their wing. One nine-year-old, nick the 13 toy loan centers OfflclaU records, »el In April. lot the loan centere aald. however.' Kosclusiko, wllh 3,500, was sec that "thouiaodj of pain" are nced-j ond to Red Arrow park, county named "Jack Dempsey" for constantly ed to meet demanda ot children leader, at the end of May. Pula.ikl and reminded houaewlvea to t*le- finished with 2,857 loans. The other Iphone Marquette MST before dla- cardln; akatei or other toye duis South Side center, furnished by getting into fights, was a good example. ling th« bouaa clcaolng ••aMD. the fire department at 1004 W. National avenue, totaled 2.012. During a one-year period ending When the lad first began using his lo May, when county loins amount Roller Skates Donated ed to 133,lSt, the children of Mil- by Grain, Stock Men waukee's south side showed a def neighborhood center, he returned his inite tendency to t»ke advantage of A donBtion of 75 pain of roller the privileges being offered. ikatM to the UUwauhee county Labor unions thus far donated playthings damaged and broken. How WPA toy loan project by 36 meroben 381 pairs of roller skatc.i to the| ot the Milwaukee Grain and Stock Exchange waa announced Tueeday toy loan project- by.E. P Terry, president, and H. U. Children who are not registered! ever, through the intervention of the SIratlon, a member. at tbe centers are being reminded that all are qualified to borrow the The ikatea hrInK to S11 pain the playthings tbey like. The purpoae staff, 'Jack" started taking care of his number which have been xlven to of the project Is to create as much the project hy clubs, lodtre* and happineu as possible for chlldren| unions. ii;iK .ctucu. , U"^U8'> 'he use of games, toys and loans and getting along better with At all 13 toy loan centershav,e reqbeemn so .Pl'X *qulpnient- for skates by chlldi heavy that Ihouuinda ot pairs s needed lo supply tbe demand, proj other children. Another youngster bul ect officials said Tuesday. lied other kids. He even ambushed Plan Toy Loan Center for School in Cudahy neighborhood children outside the toy WPA toy toan project oftlclall Saturday announced plans to estah- llab a new lending center at tbe library and stole their borrowed play KosdUBiko scboc^ CudHby. next Friday. With the completion ot two mon centers on the northeast and things. When the local beat cop caught west sides early in July, a total ot It centen will be In operation this summer. the youngster in the act, the officer Mem ben of the National Associa* FRIDAY, MAY 19. IMS tloR for Childhood Education in convention here this summer will Grl Scout Troop No. 46 appealed to the Toy Loan staff. The study the toy loan program, otfl* dais said. Leads in Toy Donations Miss Uary Leeper. executive sec More than SO toys were given neighborhood clerk got the boy retary at tbe association, visited tht Thursday to the Milwaukee county project headquarters at 923 N. WPA toy loan project by troop No. Broadway Thurtday. Cecelia 4. and Gladys, 5. and (rear) Alfred. 6; Margaret 4S ot the Milwaukee Girl Scouts, the Agn«. 8: Frank. 0; Rose, 12; and Esther. 13. holding Rlchird, 2. involved at the center. Through the first of 167 troops to complete .—Journal Staff Photo, , share of a scout cHmpalgn to gather WPA Toy Lendinff 23,860 Toys Loaned boy's interactions with workers, he not old playUilngs. The troop Is com SKATES, CASH DONATED posed ot 33 girls between th* ages of Record Anticipated In May at 13 Centers • Thirty.flva pairs of roller skalei 10 and 13. Leaders of other troops^ The WPA toy loan cenlprs will •End t3S In cash were donated have made more loans for the llrst During May, 33J60 toys were tak- Wednesday to the WPA toy loan only improved his behavior, but also ready to report donations are asked thter mint hi of the fiscal year en home by children from the IS project, which operates H lend to call the project at Marquette' WPA toy lending eentera In Mil ing centers In the city. The caab rnillns June 31 than during (ha waukee, eatabllthing a new monthly 03S7. Next week 5,000 Boy Scouts entire previous year. It was an came from Ihe Milwaukee Teach.^ high, according to figures released
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U.S. National Archives 69-N-18255-C Even toy cars needed time in the shop after being in the hands of so many enthusiastic youngsters. Adults fiyxd toys, washed and sewed doll clothes, and provided general maintenance.
and Boy Scouts organized toy drives and gave thousands of J hese were not the actions of passive clients, but rather toys to the program. The Junior Red Gross ran the most suc- active participants helping to define the program. cessfal drive, netting 16,612 toys. Ghildren also donated toys T_, Ghildren helped determine what appeared on the through school drives. The 1941 school drive, for example, centers' shelves by donating toys and lobbying staff members was extremely successful, netting over 13,500 toys with the to stock specific playthings. They also aided in the Toy Loan Hartford school alone contributing almost 2,000 toys. '^ Project's operation by volunteering their time to repair toys, /Uong with donating toys, kids also helped the program by put together puzzles, and perform other tasks. Finally, by donating their time. A group of kids volunteered to put recruiting their friends and neighbors as new clients, they together recently-contributed puzzles, ensuring that all the ensured the success and growth of the program. These were pieces were in the boxes. Several Gudahy senior high school the actions of a group of people who had a significant stake in girls washed, ironed, and repaired doll clothes. Ghildren also the Toy Loan Project, and took action to both ensure its suc helped staff members by recruiting new borrowers and help cess and shape the program to meet their wants and needs. ing them with the registration process. Dan Reynolds and However, the Toy Loan Project did not meet the wants Robert Zenisek both enrolled seven neighborhood kids. Patsy and needs of all Milwaukee children. Irving Harris, for exam Best, Mary Rupnik, and Thomas Pringle also recruited and ple, lived just three blocks from his neighborhood Toy Loan enrolled new borrowers. One little boy even took it upon him Genter and never used it. Richard Straka rarely used his self to ensure that loans were returned on time. He constantly neighborhood toy library, stating in an interview given later reminded other borrowers to return loans promptly and pres in life, "The toys were not to my choice." Straka believed that sured kids to bring back overdue toys.^^ grown-ups selected the toys and he was uninterested in the
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center. Other children were not even aware the program program, WPA official Walter Harris asserted that toy loans existed. LaVerne Koelsch Jones and William Gallahan both created the security so important to a child's development. lived just three blocks from their neighborhood toy libraries "Where actual toy starvation has been offset . . . ," he stated, and neither even recalled knowing the program existed.^ ^ "a feeling of inferiority has been overcome. . . ." Principal Despite the fact that not all of Milwaukee's children used Ethel M. Gardener noted better behavior and happy children the program or were even aware of its existence, the Toy at the /Andrew Jackson School. "I have seen some of the tough Loan Project had a large and influential group of adult sup est little children," Gardener explained, "transformed into porters. The city's leading juvenile justice and child experts happy youngsters by the loan of a scooter."23 supported the program and continually lauded its benefits. Supporters also praised the program for helping to build Their most powerful argument was that the program pre character. Milwaukee District Attorney Herbert Staffes vented juvenile crime. Milwaukee attorney Eugene J. Sullivan explained that the centers helped develop the characteristics explained that the toy loan program took away a child's of good citizenship. The Gudahy School Superintendent J. E. propensity to steal. Ninth Street School principal O. A. Beir Jones stated the program instilled a sense of responsibility in stated that since the opening of the Toy Loan Genter in the borrowers. Others argued that the Toy Loan Project devel neighborhood, juvenile shoplifting had been markedly oped sharing, trust, respect for property rights, neatness, curbed. According to Milwaukee children's court judge promptness, courtesy, cooperation, and truthfulness—all August Braun, there was a significant reduction in juvenile aspects of good character.-^^^ crime among children who used the Toy Loan Genters.22 Not everyone in the community was convinced that the Advocates also argued that the toy libraries benefited chil program was a cure-all, however. Detractors believed the Toy dren's mental health. Proponents explained the centers made Loan Project could not develop a child's character or prevent children happier and more content. In an evaluation of the juvenile crime. They were also concerned about the cost of
Children checked out toys, like this doll stove, much as they checked out booh in the library, with a card system, and for a specified amount of time. Children often became more vigilant than the adults in tracking late and lost toys, pressuring borrowers to return their overdue playthings. U.S. Nationai Archives 69-N-18153-C
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the program and felt it was a burden to taxpayers. Initially, Project. The legislation was introduced to the State Senate on however, they refrained from openly criticizing the popular March 19. It quickly won approval in both chambers and was project. Toy Loan opponents apparently believed that taking signed into law on June 10, 1943. Five days later the Gounty on a popular program supported by the city's most prominent Board voted 14—4 to reopen the program.'^" juvenile justice and child experts would be futile. Additional Opponents would continue their campaign against what ly, critics were more concerned about other much larger they saw as an unnecessary and wasteful program for the next WPA projects and the cost of relief programs. The Affiliated thirty years. Within a decade, they succeeded in cutting the Taxpayers Gommittee, for example, privately opposed the program in half, and by 1969 only eight toy libraries were still program during the Great Depression. This organization of operating.30 In 1973 opponents finally closed the program conservative business people, however, called for "drastic permanently.31 reductions" in all welfare budgets. The tax dollars spent on all relief programs, they argued, drained money from the private Jfc t the program's high point, however, the community sector and hindered economic recovery. ^^ Mtrnk. embraced the project and believed it prevented juve- By 1942 World War II defense spending was fueling the Mj W^nile delinquency during those Depression years. economic recovery and many New Deal programs were being While it is impossible to know the program's exact impact, for discontinued. In March, WPA District Director J. R. McQuil children seven to nine, the main users of the program, crime lan announced that the Toy Loan Project would be closed. rates dropped. In the three years before the program began, This thrilled opponents and disappointed supporters. The an average of 129 complaints were filed against children in program's champions, however, quickly called on the the seven to nine age group. In 1937 the number of com Milwaukee Gounty Board of Supervisors to assume responsi plaints against this age group peaked at 143. In the program's bility for the project. On March 24, before critics had the first year, complaints against this same age group dropped 45 chance to mobilize, the Board voted 17—1 to temporarily take percent. For the rest of the Great Depression the crime rate over the project.'^° for children in this age group averaged only 81 complaints per The following year, when the issue of making the project year.-^'^ The Toy Loan Project and the community's other permanent came before the Gounty Givil Service Gommis- preventative measures certainly helped keep younger children sion, opponents seized the moment. Gommissioner Thomas out of trouble. Kattnig insisted on abolishing the program. The Toy Loan The program, however, did more than help reduce youth Project, he argued, "wasted manpower and material and is crime; it also helped poor children cope with the Great useless." It would be more cost-effective, the industrialist Depression. During those years, poor children lived in a argued, to give the few remaining poor families playthings world of hunger and insufficient clothing. Families were rather than to operate costly toy libraries. The Affiliated Tax under the stress of stretched finances and unemployment. payers Associations wholeheartedly agreed. They asserted Many poor kids even moved to cheaper housing in new that the toy libraries had outlived their usefulness and were a neighborhoods, which forced them to make new friends and burden to taxpayers. Work relief, they explained, should be adjust to new schools.•^•^ The children suffering from these turned over to long established and better qualified charities. hardships were the very same children who were the Toy Opponents continued their assault at a special hearing on the Loan Project's clients. The borrowed toys and the nurturing matter. They questioned the legality of the program and won environment they found at the centers helped them cope with dered if Milwaukee Gounty even had the authority to operate a world of poverty and want. kX'i toy libraries. At the conclusion of the hearing the issue of the program's legality was referred to Gounty Gorporate Attorney Notes O. L. O'Boyle.27 •'^"WPA Lending Project Opens," "Children Take Fine Care of Borrowed Playthings," Toy Loan Clipping File, Milwaukee Public Library (MPL). On February 24, 1943, opponents of the toy loan program ^"Crime in Milwaukee," Crime Clipping File, Milwaukee County Historical Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (MCHS); United States Department of Commerce, Histoncal gained a victory. O'Boyle announced that Milwaukee Gounty Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC: Bureau of the Cen did not have the legal authority to run the Toy Loan Project. sus, 1975), 415; Earl C. Kelley, A Statement on Youth Problems: A E£port to the Metropolitan Crime Prevention Committee, Jan. 18, 1938, 4, File 32, Box 2, MSS 2828, John Zussman He explained that the county could compel those on relief to Collection, MCHS; "Why Do Hundreds of Children Drift into the Juvenile Court," Mil waukee Journal, May 26, 1935; "Kluchesky Has Plan to Curb Youth Crime," Milwaukee work, but the type of tasks that they could perform was limit Sentinel, Nov. 21, 1937. ed. The work done at the toy libraries, he stated, fell outside '"^"ShorewoodViWageHaW is Dynamited," Milwaukeejournal, Oct. 27, 1935; "Bomb Vic tims," Milwaukeejournal, Nov. 4, 1935. the approved tasks. Without the power to operate the Toy *"Bank, Public Buildings Are Guarded After Blast," Milwaukeejournal, Oct. 28, 1935; Loan Project, the Gounty Board Supervisors voted unani 'Police, Deputies War on Bombers," Afi^aiawte/ouma?, Nov. 1, 1935; "Clue in Theft of Dynamite Hinted by Ad," Milwaukeejournal, Nov. 2, 1935; "City is Tense While Blasts mously to close down the program.'^° Are Awaited," Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 3, 1935; "Two Killed in Blast; Believed Bomber a Victim," Milwaukeejournal, Nov. 4, 1935; "Bomb Victims," Milwaukeejournal, Nov. 4, Supporters immediately called on the State Legislature to 1935; "Bomber Blows Self to Bits," Milwaukee Sentinel, Nov. 4, 1935. grant Milwaukee Gounty the power to operate the Toy Loan
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^Robert M. Mennel, Thorns and Thistles: Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, 1825-1940 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New Hampshire, 1973), 161-163; Joseph M. Hawes, Children Between the Wars: American Childhood 1920-1940 (New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1997), 98-101; Margo Horn, Before It's Too Late: The Child Guid ance Movement in the United States, 1922-1945 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1989), 14-15. ^Hawes, 98-100; Mennel, 181-195; Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in Amer ica 1790-Present (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1977), 256. '"Why Do Hundreds of Children Drift into the Juvenile Court," Milwaukeejournal, May 26, 1935; Kelley, A Statement on Youth Problems, 3. ^Steven L. Schlossman, Love and the American Delinquent: Theory and Practice of "Progres sive" Juvenile Justice, ii§25-i920 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1977), 137; Kelley, A Statement on Youth Problems, 6. ^"Chief Asks New Bureau to Slash Juvenile Crime," Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 21, 1937; Kelley, A Statement on Youth Problems, 4, 7-9. -^^James Edward Rogers, The Child and Play, Based on Reports of the White House Confer ence on Child Health and Protection (New York, NY: The Century, 1932), 15-17, 22-24, 34; Kelley, A Statement on Youth Problems, 6; John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee (Mil waukee, WI: MCHS, 1999), 268-269; Daniel W. Hoan, City Government: The Record of the Milwaukee Experiment (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936), 287-290, 294-305. ^^'"Toy Library' Plan Favored," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL; 'Toy Loan Project Pro posal to the Works Progress Administration, Jan. 4, 1938" Project File 07704, Box 10, 23Letter to Sanford P. Stark from Herbert J. Staffes, May 2, 1939, Project File 07704, MSS 733, Milwaukee County. Special Committee on Works Progress Administration Box 10, MSS 733, Milwaukee County. Special Committee on Works Progress Admin- Projects Collection, MCHS. istradon Projects Collecdon, MCHS; Memo to Jules H. Burbach from Walter Harris, ^^'Toy Loan Project Starts," '"Toy Library' Plan Favored," "WPA Lending Project March 26, 1940; "Cuts Real Blow To Toy Project," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook. Opens," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL. 2'^'Toy Loan Lending Centers Aid In Accident Prevention," "Medrow Is Aid to Cud 13'Toy Loans Were Made to 29,000 Children During '39," Toy Loan Clipping File, ahy Toy Center," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; "Boys and Girls Ask for Skates At Toy MPL; "AFL Unions Give Roller Skates to Toy Loan Project" United States Works Loan Center," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL; Letter to Sanford P. Stark from O.A. Progress Administration; "Roller Skates Donated by Grain Stockmen," "Church Mem Beir, April 27,1939; Letter to Sanford P. Stark from J. E.Jones, Project File 07704, Box bers Aid Toy Lending Project," "Parish to Collect Toys for Lending Project," "Moose 10, MSS 733, Milwaukee County. Special Committee on Works Progress Administra Lodge Begins Drive For WPA," 'Toys Tickets At Brewers Tilt," 'Toys Will be Tickets to tion Projects Collecdon, MCHS; "Boys and Girls Ask for Skates at Toy Center," Toy Movies On December 16," "AFL Unions to Gift Skates," 'Toy 'Library' Project Starts," Loan Clipping File, MPL. Toy Loan Center Scrapbook, Milwaukee MSS Collection AX, Wisconsin Historical 2^"Asks Abolidon of Toy Project," Milwaukeejournal, Feb. 14, 1943; Memo to the Mil Society Milwaukee Area Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, here waukee County Board of Supervisors from Affiliated Taxpayers Committee, Oct. 23, after cited as Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; "Give Plaque in Toy Drive," Wisconsin 1939, Affiliated Taxpayer Manuscript Collecdon, MSS 8, MCHS; Letter to the Mil Works Progress Administration, Wisconsin Works Progress Administration Profession and waukee County Board of Supervisors from Edwin Zedler, chairman of the Affiliated Service Division (1939), 47. Taxpayers Committee, Oct. 27, 1939, Affiliated Taxpayer Manuscript Collection, MSS l^Toy Loan Centers, Project File 07704, Box 10, MSS 733, Milwaukee County, Special 8, MCHS. Committee on Works Progress Administration Projects Collection, MCHS; Gurda, 2^'Toy and Handicraft Projects Will Close," Milwaukeejournal, March 11, 1942; Pro 173-174, 176-177, 258; "Why Do Hundreds of Children Drift Into Juvenile Court," ceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending March 24, Milwaukeejournal, May 26, 1935; Letter to Sanford P. Stark from O. A. Beir, Feb. 14, 1942, 1149-1150 (March 24, 1942). 1939, Project File 07704, MSS 733, Milwaukee County, Special Committee on Works ^'"Asks Abolidon of Toy Project," Milwaukeejournal, Feb. 14, 1943; Letter to Milwau Progress Administration Projects Collection, MCHS; 'Toys Handed to the WPA Will kee County Board of Supervisors from Edwin Zedler, Chairmen of Affiliated Taxpay Brighten Vacations," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL. ers Committee, Feb. 18, 1943, printed in the Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the ^^Photographs, Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; Photographs of Milwaukee Toy Loan County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 3, 1943, 1167 (March 1, 1943); "Asks Abo- Project in the Photo Gallery on the New Deal Network Web Page, lidon of Toy Project," Milwaukeejournal, Feb. 14, 1943; Proceedings of the Board of Super http://newdeal.feri.org, accessed July 30, 2002; "Youngsters Amass Records for Toy Loan visors of the County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 3, 1943, 1178-1181 (March 1, Borrowing," "Inspection Tours at Toy Loan Centers," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook. 1943). ^^"Cut Real Blow to Toy Project," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL; Works Progress ^° Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April Administration, Wisconsin Works Progress Administration Professional and Service Division 3, 1943, 1178-1181 (March 1, 1943); "County to End 16 of Projects," Milwaukeejour (1939), 46-47; 'Toy Lending Centers Aid In Accident Prevention," Toy Loan Center nal, March 2, 1943. Scrapbook. ^'^Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April ^'"Children Take Fine Care of Borrowed Playthings," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL; 3, 1943, 1270 (March 22, 1^4:^); Journal of the Proceedings of the Sixty-sixth Session of the "Skates Cash Donated," 'Toys for Teen Agers at Loan Centers Soon," "Outside Toys Wisconsin Legislature, Jan. 13-August 3, 1943, 443 (March 19, 1943); Ibid., 873 (May 6, in Great Demand at West Allis Toy Lending Office," "Softballs, Bats, Given to WPA 1943); Ibid., 1184, (May 25, 1943); Ibid., 1215 (June 10, 1943); Proceedings of the Board Project," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook. of Supervisors of the County of Milwaukee for the Year Ending April 3, 1943, 211-212 (June l^"Youngsters Amass Records For Toy Borrowing," 'Jackie Aged 5, is Leading Bor 15, 1943). rower at Toy Center," "10 Children Are Toy Borrowers In This Family," "Schools Will ^'-'"Santa's Helpers Busy In County's Toy Shop," 'Toy Lending Center Year Round Get Posters For Assisting Toy Project," "Schools In Toy Campaign Will Win Honor Affair," 'Toy Project Shift Asked," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL. Plaques," "Mid Year Drive for Toys to Start," "Spread Joy With Toys," Toy Loan Cen ^^The Toy Loan Project became part of the Milwaukee County Department of Public ter Scrapbook. Welfare in 1942- The Department of Public Welfere records for the 1970s are unavail ^^"Spread Joy With Toys," "8,000 Toys Collected for Loan Project Here," "Schools In able. The program's closing date was therefore determined by using the Milwaukee Toy Project Will Win Honor Plaques," "Scouts In Drive To Gather Toys," "Catholic telephone directories. The Toy Loan Project was listed in the directory published in Schools Give Toys," "Mid-Year Drive for Toys to Start," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; Nov. of 1973, but did not appear in the 1974 Milwaukee Telephone Directory. 'Toys Handed To WPA Will Brighten Vacadons," Toy Loan Clipping File, MPL. ^2"WPA Asks Toys For Teen Age Children," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; Frank P. De ^^"Puzzle In Puzzles at Toy Loan Center a Puzzle No More," 'Toy Loan Centers Aid Sio, John H. Sichling, Philippa Rowe, and Robert U. Stolhand, eds.. Report, Milwaukee In Accident Prevention," Toy Loan Center Scrapbook; "West Allies Youth, 6, Leads Juvenile Court Probation Department: Statistic Data for the Years 1930-1944 in addition to Toy Borrowers;" Wisconsin Works Progress Administration, Wisconsin Works Progress Selected Topics on Various Allied Subjects, 15, MSS 2632, Reports Collecdon, MCHS. Administration Profession and Service Division (1939), 47. ^^Doris Bergen, "Introducdon" in Play as a Medium for Learning and Development: A 2^ "Milwaukee Children in the Great Depression Questionnaire" completed by Handbook of Theory and Practices (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Education Books, Richard B. Straka, Oct. 18, 2002, in possession of author; "Milwaukee Children in the 1988), 3; Doris Pronin Fromberg and Doris Bergen, "Introduction" in Play From Birth Great Depression Quesdonnaire," completed by LaVerne Koelsch, Nov. 6, 2002, in to Twelve and Beyond: Contexts, Perspectives and Meanings (New York, NY: Garland Pub possession of author; "Milwaukee Children in the Great Depression Quesdonnaire," lishing Inc, 1998), xviii-xix; David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People completed by William Callahan, Oct. 17, 2002, in possession of author; "Milwaukee in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999), 86, Children in the Great Depression Quesdonnaire," completed by Irving Harris, SS; Hawes, 104-106. December 1, 2002, in possession of author. 22Letter to Sanford P. Stark from Eugene J. Sullivan, April 26, 1939; Letter to Sanford P. Stark from O. A. Beir, Feb. 14, 1939; Letter to Sanford P. Stark from August Braun, May 1, 1939, Project File 07704, Box 10, MSS 733, Milwaukee County. Special Com mittee on Works Progress Administration Projects Collection, MCHS.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. SEPTEMBER 28, 1930 LA FOLLETTES STILL SWEEP WISCONSIN Zona Gale, Painting a Picture of the Family That Has Long Ruled There, Finds the Secret of Its Control Lies in the Education of the State in Its Brand of Social Engineering 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:12PM Page 15
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II I Fighting for the Cause The Rhetoric and Symbolism of the Wisconsin Progressive Movement
By John E. Miller
V ew American states possess a more distinctive or influ- By mid-century, the Progressive Party and many of its leaders m ential political legacy than Wisconsin. During the were dead, but the "Progressive tradition" lived on, having twentieth century, "progressivism" ran like a silver become a shibboleth, honored by former friends and foes thread through the state's history, and it was closely associated alike. Political speakers and newspaper editorialists paying with the La Follette family, starting with Robert M. La Fol homage to the past could hardly avoid an obligatory reference lette, and continuing with his sons, Robert Jr. and Philip. For to the influence of the Progressive tradition, even though several decades, the "Wisconsin Idea"—the belief that the many of them must have known little of its actual content. scholarship of the state's university and the work of the state's While they were in office or competing for power, from the agencies should serve the common man and the public 1890s through 1940, the Progressives could not have achieved good—served as a model for reformers around the country.^ the power and influence that they did without a cadre of well-
In 1934 the Progressive Party first appeared on the ballot as an official party option. Both 'Young Bob" and Phil La Follette had places on the ballot
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In the Stock Pavilion on the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Phil La Follette made his illfated speech with the Progressive fit providing a backdrop.
The Progressive Party fiag although intended to offer the simplicity of an "X" to symbolize the common vote, emerged at a time when the Nazi party's use of the swastika began to create concerns throughout the world.
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organized and highly motivated followers who carried on the necessary work and campaigned for them at the local and county levels. Friends and followers distributed materials throughout the state, hustled for campaign funds and work ers, drummed up organizational support, and supplied the necessary enthusiasm to sustain what was first a faction of the Republican party and, after 1934, an independent political party in the field. Progressives respected and counted upon the leadership provided by the La FoUettes but did not follow their lead blindly. Factionalism within the movement fre quently engendered splits over both goals and the necessary means to achieve them. Progressivism remained a multifac- eted, often fractious phenomenon. Considerable skill and patience were required to obtain a semblance of unity among so many differing interests and viewpoints, reflecting a het erogeneous constituency of farmers, laborers, small busi- nesspersons, professionals, and other groups.2 Women's suffrage occurred during this time period and, as voters, women were part of all of these groups, in addition to bring ing their own concerns to the mix. The key to understanding the unusual success of the Wis /WZ^^a^ - consin Progressive movement lies in its own conception of itself as a cause standing over and beyond the usual petty bickering and interest-group factionalism that, in its view, WHi (X3) 41541 characterized most political organizations. Phil La Follette This cartoon by John T McCutcheon featuring the La Follette "boys" made clear put the idea best in a campaign speech in 1934, when he that by 1930, Wisconsin voters, whether they supported Progressive politics or not, defined the art of statesmanship as the gift of "being able to expected the second generation of La FoUettes to play important roles in forget yourself and to see the cause as greater than yourself"^ Wisconsin's history. By identifying themselves as outsiders trying to reform and purify a corrupt and interest-laden political system, solidly in focused their attention on issues, constantly reiterating how the grip of huge corporations and "the money power," Pro committed they were to basic principles and ideals. Despite gressives were able to reinforce their sense of unity and pur their loudly proclaimed devotion to cherished and eternal pose. Concurrently, they could also see themselves as insiders, principles. Progressives were, of course, experienced and because they frequently were in control of state government, pragmatic political operators. Idealists they were, but practi either in the governor's office or in the legislature, or both, cal idealists. Their rhetoric exalted principle, while their prac and during the 1930s they also had the ear of Franklin D. tices reflected flexibility. For instance, during his first Roosevelt and his New Dealers in Washington. gubernatorial run in 1930, PhU La Follette placed a banking The Progressives were able to capture and wield power in issue—chain banks—squarely at the center of his campaign Wisconsin by fashioning a myth of themselves as an embat strategy. On the topic, he stated to a reporter, "We try to cross tled group of idealists fighting the good fight against a set of bridges as we come to them. Today chain banking must be supremely nefarious villains. This statement does not deny the brought forth and vanquished. Tomorrow will come another importance of specific legislation implemented by the Pro battle. We wiU meet it."* gressives, nor does it fail to acknowledge the charismatic lead The Progressives continually discovered new dragons to ership of the La FoUettes and others, or the high degree of slay, and the lances that they tilted similarly reflected a prac organization that led to the successful achievement of pro tical ability to shift with the circumstances. William B. Hes grams throughout the state. Rather, it implies that so long as seltine, historian and friend of the La Follette family, observed the Progressives were able to project images of themselves as that the "theory of the Progressive Movement was not the ideaUstic purveyors of values and ideals granted special status fevered outpourings of philosophical speculation. It was emi by the citizenry of Wisconsin, they were able to wield consid nently practical and tolerated no torturing questions about erable power in the state, ensuring their survival as an effec the essential righteousness of democracy. It came from Jeffer tive political instrument. son, the Revolutionary fathers, the frontiersmen, and Abra In the pursuit of their goals. Progressives self-consciously ham Lincoln. It accepted the dogmas that the people should
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rule, and that popular wisdom should be the only guide for this would require the improvement of education, new health the representatives of the people."^ and safety legislation, better social services, effective business Like all myths, the Progressive variant had a basis in fact, regulation, and other similar approaches. Progressives drew while it simultaneously embellished and idealized their ideas from a variety of thinkers and social ana that reality. At the heart of the Progressives' phi lysts, including William James, John Dewey, Jane losophy lay a stark dualistic vision of society, Addams, Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. which allowed them to classify people as ene Beard, Thorstein Veblen, Richard T. Ely, and mies or friends: it was slavery pitted against John R Commons.'^ freedom, aristocracy versus democracy, Girded by the insights and principles they wealth and greed versus hard work and fru derived from thinkers such as these, the Wis gality, the huge trusts versus the people. Wall consin Progressives developed a constantly Street versus Main Street. Progressive speakers evolving set of policy prescriptions. During the traced a long-running contest between wealth early 1900s, they were in the forefront of pro and privilege on one side and honest industry on the moting state income taxes and workmen's compen other—a conflict, they asserted, that could sation, estabUshed a variety of regulatory Wisconsin Historicai Museum, 1968.583 be traced back to the beginning of recorded commissions, initiated a primary election history.^ "Fighting" Bob, who at one time system, and experimented with other embodied all Progressive personae, The Progressives' political analysis flowed shared space on this campaign pin reforms. During the 1930s, Wisconsin logically from their historical premises. The with his running mate. became the only state to enact unemploy fundamental problem facing America, in Burton K. Wheeler. He made his ment insurance before the Social Security their view, was inequality of wealth and run for the Presidency in 1924, Act implemented the idea nationwide, and on the Progressive ticket income, underwriting a system of privilege Wisconsin Progressives became leaders in for the few. Excessive corporate power need administering relief, promoting conserva ed to be curbed, wealth needed to be taxed more heavily, and tion and public power, mediating labor disputes, and reor equality of opportunity needed to be restored. Accomplishing ganizing state government.^ Beyond fulfilling the functional requirements of transform ing people's perceptions of society and history. Progressive rhetoric also served to mobilize people for action and to sus tain the movement. From the outset, Robert M. La Follette Sr. put together a highly effective political machine to pro mote the cause and to hold onto office. (Ironically, the man who succeeded in putting Wisconsin's traditional bosses out to pasture emerged as a "democratic boss" himself) After his death in 1925, his sons carried on the task of leadership, as the key figures responsible for maintaining continuity on into the 1940s. From his senatorial office in Washington, Bob Jr. stayed in touch with a little group of leaders back in Madison who had been involved with the elder La Follette and who now gathered around brother Phil, who assumed active lead ership of the Progressive organization after being elected gov ernor in 1930. Although Phil was often accused of acting dictatorially, the guidance that he issued to other parts of the state from Madison, in fact, remained loose. County and local organizations retained considerable freedom of action, nomi nating their own candidates for office and frequently dissent ing from actions taken by the core leadership in Madison.^ Discipline and consensus were promoted by Phil La Fol lette's personal interaction with legislators and party func tionaries; by articles and columns appearing in the Capital Milwaukee Journal, Sept. 17, 1932 Times daily newspaper and The Progressive weekly news "A New Son Rises in Wisconsin " as a herald of Phil's successful run for governor magazine, both published in Madison by La Follette protege also supported his role as preacher or prophet William T. Evjue; by the influence of the Farmer-Labor Pro-
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gressive Federation, an organization that emerged in 1935 to unite the vari ous interest groups; and by frequent radio addresses and speeches by the La FoUettes and other Progressive leaders. In addition, platform conventions, anniversary celebrations, annual memorial services for "Fighting" Bob La Follette at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, and similar gatherings of the faithful served to rekindle fervor and dedication. Every two years, during gubernatori al and other election campaigns, the La FoUettes and their cohorts hit the cam paign trail, exhorting their followers and potential recruits with highly charged rhetoric designed to elevate the Progressives in the minds of their listen ers. Phil La Follette would crisscross the state, sitting in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven car, swigging from a bottle of orange juice while leafing through little black notebooks filled with names and information about local party leaders and activists. At every stop, he sought to reenergize local organizations with words of advice and encouragement and to solicit their sug gestions and ideas. Ultimately, it was those names and personal associations that provided the organizational sinews of the movement. ^'^ Thus, many factors contributed to the Progressives' success over the years, but in the end, nothing proved to be more important than the rhetoric and symbolism they employed. Old Bob La Follette's "conversion" to progres sivism, his refusal of an apparent bribery attempt that he recounted in his Autobiography, became part of the lore of the movement. The language that he used—his "ascension" to power in 1900, his political "pilgrimage," and his period of "martyrdom" during World War I—all imitated some aspect of religion. The Autobiography served as a kind of sacred text, where the prin WHS Name Fiie ciples endlessly preached by Progres sive speakers and publicists assumed In 1939 Bob addressed a crowd using the exhortative style that his father and brother found more natural than he did. Bob preferred the less confrontational roles o/"teacher or pioneer creedal significance.
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Central to the Progressive myth as it evolved over time was a set of four roles (or "personae") which speakers and writ ers used over and over again to identify themselves and to model their behavior: the teacher, the preacher (or prophet), the fighter, and the pioneer. These per sonae were more than simply descrip tive; they were also propagandistic. They served both to justify Progressive actions and to mobilize support for them. In similar fashion, civil rights activists, envi- ronmentaUsts, and similar "movement" groups have also adopted various per sonae in order to broaden their appeal.^ ^ The Wisconsin Progressives reUed heavily on projecting these four dramatic per sonae in order to appeal to their audi ences and invigorate their cause. In their various guises, the Progressives assumed identities that simultaneously aUied them with their followers and elevated them to a higher plane than their opponents. As symbols, these adopted roles helped to rally support, sustain morale, and chan nel thought. These four personae worked to estab lish common ground among the differ ent groups that were joined together in the movement. Rhetorically separating themselves from their opponents offered the Progressives an opportunity to claim a new identity, which strengthened party unity. The personae helped to establish a transcendent identification that ener gized and motivated the membership. ^2 The teacher and pioneer images were essentially positive and constructive, while those of fighter and prophet car ried more confrontational connotations. All four served to weld the Progressives into a cohesive, motivated unit, deter mined to fight for the cause, enlighten the electorate, prophesy the future, and build a better society. Although poHtics always entails conflict, the Progressives— more than most groups—appeared to thrive on conflict and contention. Their rhetoric was heavily oriented toward duaHstic thinking, which promoted unity in the group through negative reference to their opposition.
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The first and perhaps the most frequently utilized persona job now is to close our ranks and face the enemy with a united adopted by the Progressives was that of preacher or prophet. front. United and determined, we shall win the great fight In assuming the mantle of righteousness, they were not, of that is ahead of us."^^ course, unique. There were many things pointing them in this The youthful three-term governor larded his speeches with direction: the inspirational example of their sainted leader. fighting imagery, boasting that he thrived on "a scrap." ^'^ He Old Bob La Follette; their position as an embattled faction could think of no higher praise than to tell his followers that tUting against "reactionary" forces; their status as leaders on they had responded to a chaUenge "like real soldiers."^^ "You the national scene; and their long tradition of action and are the militant shock troops of the future," La Follette told accompHshment in the state. All of these promoted zeal and the members of the Progressive Youth League in 1934.^^ The dedication to the cause. The liberal economist and some-time governor emphasized the advantage of staying on the offen state legislator Harold Groves remembered the Pro sive. "There is only one safe course," he once advised his gressive movement as having "the special warmth of brother, "and that is to attack."20 On the platform, a proletarian fraternity and the fervor of a revival his characteristic gesture was to throw off his coat, meeting." For the La FoUettes and many of their fol roU up his sleeves, and chaUenge his listeners to roll lowers, Progressivism constituted nothing less than a up their sleeves and carry the battle against the secular faith; politics for them was very much like a "reactionaries." religious calling. ^ ^ A spirit of evangelism inflated Brother Bob also relied upon fighting Progressive rhetoric; religious imagery permeat imagery, though less frequently than Phil. Run ed Progressive speeches. Asked to explain the ning for re-election in 1934, he characterized the group's success in Wisconsin, Phil La Follette contest as a battle between good and evil—one responded, "I can best answer that by quot H13118 "between the Progressives who stand for ing an opposition leader who said, 'This It was perhaps ironic that the Liberty more equal distribution of wealth and the Progressive movement is almost a religion.' Bell pin would be the choice for reactionaries of both RepubHcan and Demo Its adherents beUeve in it. They are ready "Fighting" Bob's 1924 presidential cratic parties who have banded together to and willing to stand up and fight for what campaign because it was in the city of exploit the people who have produced the Philadelphia that La Follette's they believe in without the hope of reward wealth." During the debate over the speechmaking style delivered a fatal for themselves."^* blow to his run for the White House Supreme Court "packing" in 1937, he con Images of battles and of fighting out gratulated President Roosevelt for "an weighed even religious language in Progressive rhetoric. inspiring, fighting speech," saying it was a privilege "to fight Although references to "battles," "fighting forces," "troops," in the ranks under your courageous leadership in this historic "generals," and campaign "strategy" are common in politics. struggle." The foUowing year, campaigning in Wisconsin, La Progressives went further than most in their military refer FoUette told a radio audience, "Progressives have fought and ences and battle imagery. "He is a fighter," Albert Hall noted wiU fight any program which strikes at the income and mar admiringly of Old Bob when talking with the muckraking ket of the farmer."21 The Senator's resorting to such images journalist Lincoln Steflfens. "He will never stop fighting."^-' of battle, however, seemed less natural and more perfunctory To his loyal troops, he was "Fighting Bob" and "Battling than it did coming from his father and brother, both of whom Bob." Phil La Follette liked to describe public life in terms of exulted in poUtical jousting. Bob possessed a temperament political warfare, albeit facing it less grimly. When the newly more inclined to restraint, even-handedness, and compromise formed Progressive party entered its first election contest in than they did. His inherent caution made him a reluctant Wisconsin in 1934, Phil exhorted one of his followers, "Our fighter.22
Wisconsin Historicai Museum, 1955.14.69 This small canoe that celebrated Phil La Follette's tenure as governor depicted several symbols, including an owl for wisdom, that supported his role as teacher
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The role of the pioneer, in the process of innovating and votes; it was a chapter in adult education. Phil La Follette buUding, constituted the third persona adopted by the Wis resembled his father in being able to take the most complex consin Progressives. They took pride in the leadership they issues and simplify and dramatize them for his listeners.2^^ had provided to other states in enacting an agenda of social Enacting these personae could easily have slid into over and economic reform. Young Bob La Follette praised the simplification or demagoguery if not exercised with care. Pro Wisconsin Progressives for the way in which, by launching a gressive political education was always, to some degree at new party in 1934, they had "blazed least, indoctrination, but heavy reliance the way for a new political align- upon expert advice from University of ment."23 The historic purpose of the Wisconsin personnel and others state movement, according to editor assured that it would also contain a William Evjue, was "to pioneer and leavening of self-criticism and disinter break new ground."2* In order to ested information.^*^ Knowledge was accomplish that, Phil La Follette necessary, but by itself it was insuffi reminded people, it was necessary to cient. PhU La FoUette told people, "We have leaders who exhibited the same need knowledge, but just as essential, sort of courage and fortitude that had we need people with the courage to put been exhibited by the early pioneers. their knowledge into action. . . . Your The problems unleashed by the real worth to society then will not be Depression, he told a University of Wis measured by what you say alone but by consin graduating class, would be mas what you do."^^ tered only if young /Americans "caught Progressivism was always action-ori the pioneering spirit."23 jjg justified ented. The heroic guises in which indi government spending and regulation viduals presented themselves— by saying they were designed to pre WHi (X28) 3939 preacher, teacher, fighter, pioneer— serve the "essence of individual initia undergirded Progressives' belief that tive, the spirit of the American pioneer, Frederick f ackson Turner, while a history professor on the Madison campus of the University they were performing a special and and the backbone of our present of Wisconsin, taught his "frontier thesis." worthwhile mission. Their zeal and "26 The impact of his teaching about the concept progress. dedication derived in large part from of frontier led directly to the Progressives' their idealistic self-image. Such quali Progressives were connected to the embrace of the role o/"pioneer frontier in another sense—their adher ties enabled the faction to move en ence to the frontier interpretation of masse out of the Republican party in American history popularized by former University of Wis 1934 and establish immediate credibility by electing a United consin historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Worried by the States Senator, seven out of ten Congressmen, and a gover prospects of continuous slow growth, they searched for ways nor, and to make strong showings in the legislature, which to stimulate productive expansion. Senator La Follette became working majorities after 1936. advocated designing innovative ways to induce private cap Ironically, the beginning of the end rapidly followed the ital investment, since the closing up of the frontier had had peak of Progressive achievement and ambition. During the the effect of drying up such investment.2' Meanwhile, his legislative session of 1937, Governor La Follette rammed brother, who had absorbed Turner's theories during his through the legislature a series of important measures on undergraduate years at the University, called during the labor relations, public power, and governmental reorganiza 1930s for ways to establish new "vertical frontiers" that tion that coUectively earned the appellation of Wisconsin's would generate rapid economic growth and complement the "Little New Deal."^2 Then the governor rashly moved ahead horizontal frontiers that Turner had inscribed on the popu to try to establish a national Progressive party that he appar lar consciousness.2^ ently hoped could be fashioned into a vehicle for a presiden Lastly, Progressives frequently portrayed themselves as tial bid on his part in time for the 1940 election. This quixotic teachers who were educating the voters about Progressive effort, which stood little chance of success to start with, principles in the service of democracy. Wisconsin acquired a foundered on a series of misconceived efforts to win voter sup reputation as home to a well-informed and highly intelligent port, especially La Follette's choice of a symbol to demarcate electorate. It was observed that people there would listen to his new "cause"—the "cross-in-a-circle." He told people it political speeches far into the night. Old Bob La Follette could was designed to represent, among other things, the ballot, the carry on for two, three, even four hours with his fact-filled multiplication of wealth, and cooperation among all groups in marathons. For him, a speech was more than an appeal for society. If La Follette actually expected people to react posi-
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Phil La Follette, after leaving the governor's office, made speeches like this one in Madison on April 26, 1939, where the persona o/'prophet or preacher and its exhortative style began to lose its impact and made the governor seem too flamboyant WHi (X3) 22367
tively to this, he was badly mistaken. Immediate responses his appeal both to New Deal loyaUsts and to critics of the Pres centered on the appearance of La FoUette's "mark," as he ident, La Follette managed to alienate large segments of both caUed it; to many observers, it looked too much like a cir groups and to satisfy few. Observers were unsure what to make cumcised swastika. Then, when he frankly stated that he had of the governor's unfamiliar statements and arguments.^ borrowed some of the propaganda techniques of the Euro As soon as the Progressive myth began to lose its power to pean dictators (including, presumably, Adolf Hitler) for "dem persuade, the party feU into decline. Their voter base eroding. ocratic ends," critics savaged him for being fascistic himself. It Progressive party leaders and functionaries themselves began aU was a sad and strange end for a political career that had to question their fundamental premises and assumptions. flashed so briUiantly.33 William Evjue summarized the faith that had bound them Adding to the confusion were the unfamiHar language and together: "Progressives have always maintained that we stand strange references contained in the hour and forty-minute on higher ground than other political groups and that the Pro speech that he gave at a monster rally at the University stock gressive movement does not condone sordid politics which pavilion on April 28, 1938, in his effort to launch his new characterize other parties."^-' Once that sense of superiority National Progressives of America (NPA). In his zeal to extend faded, the demise of the party was not far off.
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One thing, however, remained constant—La Follette's use What happened to drive the Progressives into oblivion of the four Progressive personae that he and his foUowers had after 1938? Many things, including uncertainty about how to long relied upon to symbolize their cause. The NPA, he relate to the New Deal and indecision over transferring into vowed, would enlist fighters ("In our fight we want no con the Democratic party and trying to liberalize it; racking scripts—only volunteers enrolled for the duration of the war"), debates about foreign policy, especially after the outbreak of pioneers ("The time has come when a new trail must war in Europe in 1939; difficulty in raising campaign be blazed"), teachers (who would "take the funda funds; lack of leadership after Phil La Follette mental teachings of the past and apply them to removed himself from the scene; loss of momen the modern world"), and evangelists tum; and, finally, the simple realities of the ("Reduced to simplest truth, freed from American two-party system, which make it very obscuring verbiage, our faith goes forth to difficult for new parties to succeed and achieve conquer. In its best sense this new crusade is longevity. a religious cause").^^ Ultimately, the Progressives went into La Follette's words, however, did not res eclipse because their rhetoric and their symbolic onate with many Progressives nor with their personae lost the power to persuade. The voters opponents. The NPA quickly faded and La Fol who had elected them into office drifted away and lette lost his bid that fall of 1938 for a fourth gave their backing to other candidates who Wisconsin Historical IVIuseum, 1980.137.11 term as governor. Most of the other state were better able to speak their language and The Progressive Party coined this Progressives likewise were ousted from reflect their own opinions. "What Wisconsin symbol to celebrate the birth of the office in a year that was very hard on liber parly, which it believed would needs today," Bill Evjue wrote a fellow Pro als aU across the country. The Progressive continue well into the twentieth gressive in 1944, "is some of the idealism and party continued to hang on as a separate century. No one knew that the party crusading spirit that prevailed back near the entity until 1946, when most of its leaders would exist for barely a decade. turn of the century." When the Progressive elected to fold back into the Republican symbols and personae lost their power to party (a smaller faction chose to go over to the Democrats, convince, the movement lost its reason for being. who were quickly invigorated by their presence).'^' Even before the NPA fiasco of 1938 and the subsequent internecine battles over foreign policy, portents were there for those who could perceive them. The key transition seems to have occurred in 1937, when the governor was simultaneously enacting his Little New Deal and testing the waters for his national third party. La Follette calculated that to have any realistic chance of success he would have to, in his own words, try to "broaden the base" of progressivism. In Wisconsin, the new party had been successful in large part because its candi dates were able to squeeze into office with less then fifty per cent of the vote, while Democrats and Republicans split the remaining votes between them. To be successful nationally, the NPA would have to reach out to new constituencies and address new issues, or so La Follette believed. But many Progressives considered such ideas to be sacri lege. Editor Evjue, a long-time friend and ally who caught the drift of the governor's thinking, did not like what he heard a bit. Nor was he one to keep his concerns to himself. Writing in TAe Progressive in January 1938, his condemnation of the direction he saw the party going carried with it an implicit criticism of the governor himself, who, Evjue believed, was now sacrificing principle for expediency. He warned that "the WHi (X3) 22017 moment the Progressive movement begins to sacrifice the The decision to end the Progressive Party was a difficult one for principles on which it was founded for the sake of expediency Robert La Follette fr., hut in this 1946 cartoon hy Clifford Benyman, and the mere winning of members and voters it will forfeit the 'Young Bob's" return to the GOP appeared to he a breezy decision, confidence of those who have been enlisted in the movement as his "neighborly" chat with labor leader fohn L. Lewis indicated. for years because of devotion to principle."-^^
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During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Wisconsin's Pro ^^Harold Groves, "In and Out of the Ivory Tower" (unpublished memoirs), Harold Groves Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. gressives confronted the same dileninia as many political ^"^La Follette quoted in South Bend (Ind.) News-Times, December 10, 1930. movements do. Having started out at a high pitch of energy l^Lincoln Steffens, The Struggle for Self-Govemment (New York: McClure, Phillips and Co., 1906), 97. and enthusiasm—rhetorically committed to principles and ISphil La Follette to Orland Loomis, September 22, 1934, PFL Papers. high ideals—they sought later to reach out to new members I'^Philip La Follette to Fola La Follette, March 24, 1935, La Follette Family Papers, Library of Congress. and to broaden their base. Ideologies, as they get more prag ISphilip La Follette to Paul V. Bacon, October 14, 1932, PFL Papers. matic, lose their visionary quality, and that, in turn, tends to ^'^Milwaukee Sentinel,'\u\y 15, 1934. 20philip LaFolIette to RobertM. La Follette Jr., January 22, 1943, LaFolIette Family undermine their unity. ^^ First in the interests of launching a Papers, Library of Congress. national third party, then during bitterly fought battles over ^^Maney, YoungBob, 146, 193; RobertM. LaFolIette Jr., radio speech (draft), October 30, 1938, PFL Papers. foreign policy before Pearl Harbor, and finally as the old lead 22Maney, YoungBob, 44-45, 100, 135; Roger T.Johnson, RobertM. LaFolIette, Jr. and the Decline of the Progressive Party in Wisconsin (Madison: State Historical Society of Wiscon ers moved on and the old issues lost their force, the Progres sin, 1964) 20-31. sives discovered their own rhetoric to be more and more 23Robert M. La Follette Jr., radio speech (draft) October 30, 1938, PFL Papers. ^^Madison Capital Times, November 25, 1938. hollow. Its capacity to convince diminished. ^^ Wisconsin State Journal, July 1, 1937. ^^Madison Capital Times, August 1, 1937. But memories of an earlier day—when the La Follette Pro ^'The Progressive, Feb 17, 1934 gressives tilted against the greedy trusts and corporations, ^^Madison Capital Times, January 8, 1937; Eau Claire Telegram, May 4, 1937; Steven Kesselman, 'The Frontier Thesis and the Great Depression," Journal of the History of making Wisconsin a bellwether of reform—remained to Ideas, 29 (1968), 253-268. remind people that for half a century the myth had rung true 2^E. Francis Brown, 'The Progressives Make a New Bid," Current History, 41 (Novem ber, 1934), 153. On the elder La Follette's career as a public speaker, see Eugene A. for a substantial portion of the state's electorate. The four Pro Manning, "Old Bob La Follette: Champion of the People" (Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. gressive personae of fighter, prophet, pioneer, and teacher of Wisconsin, 1966). On Philip La Follette's platform approach, see John E. Miller, "Philip LaFolIette: Rhetoric and Reality," The Historian, 45 (November, 1982), 65-83. were residues of the influence and power that the faction had SOEdwin E. Witte to John Clifford, March 16, 1939, Edwin E. Witte Papers, State His torical Society of Wisconsin. wielded in Wisconsin and of the inspiration that it had pro ^^ Sheboygan Pre55, June 22, 1937. vided for reformers in the state and around the nation. LM^ ^^Miller, Governor PhilipF. LaFolIette, chapter 6. ^^Ibid., chapter 7; Donald R. McCoy, Angry Voices: Left-of-Center Politics in the New Deal Era (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1948), 162-183. La Follette's heavy-hand ed symbolism was amsijor theme of Max Lerner's insightful report, "Phil LaFolIette— Notes An Interview," Nation, 146 (May 14, 1938), 554. La Follette was acquainted with ^On the patriarch and the origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, see David Thelen, Thurman Arnold, whose The Symbols of Government and The Folklore of Capitalism were The New Citizenship: Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885-1900 Robert M. LaFolIette published in 1935 and 1937. Also, toward the end of 1937, Stuart Chase, who had cor and the Insurgent Spirit (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976); Fred Greenbaum, Robert Marion responded with La Follette, sent him an oudine of his forthcoming book on seman LaFolIette (Boston: Twayne, 1975); Bernard A. Weisberger, The La FoUettes of Wisconsin: tics. The Tyranny of Words, which spoke to some of the concerns and fascination the Love and Politics in Progressive America (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1994); and governor had expressed in language and symbols. Nancy C Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Chapel Hill, Universi 34Miller, Governor PhilipF. LaFolIette, 136-151. ty of North Carolina Press, 2000). On the sons, see Patrick J. Maney, YoungBob: A Biog ^^Madison Capital Times, September 2, 1938. raphy of Robert M. LaFolIette, Jr. 1895-1953 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2003) and John E. Miller, Governor Philip F. LaFolIette, the Wisconsin Progressives, 36philip La Follette, "A New Movement" (NPA speech), April 28, 1938, PFL Papers. and the New Deal (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1982). ^'For a general discussion of the decline of the Progressive Party during the late 1930s ^Charles H. Backstrom, "The Progressive Party of Wisconsin, 1934—1946" (doctoral and early 1940s, see Roger T.Johnson, RobertM. La Follette, Jr. and theDecline of the Pro dissertation, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1956) and Lester Schmidt, 'The Farmer-Labor Pro gressive Party in Wisconsin (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1964). gressive Federation: The Study of a 'United Front' Movement among Wisconsin Lib ^°The Progressive, ]3tnu3try 22, 1938. erals, 1934—1941" (doctoral dissertation, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1954). ^^Charles Conrad, "The Transformation of the 'Old Feminist' Movement," Quarterly ^Philip F. La Follette, Speech at Progressive Party Platform Convention, October 2, Journal of Speech, 67 (1981), 285. 1934, Philip F. LaFolIette Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis consin (hereinafter cited as PFL Papers). ^The Progressive, September 27, 1930. ^William B. Hesseltine, "Forty Years the Country's Conscience," The Progressive, 13 (December, 1949), 8. ^Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York: About the Author Vintage Books, 1968), xii, 192-193, 224, 266-267, 442, 463; Cushing Strout, The Prag John E. Miller is an emeritus professor matic Revolt in American History: Carl Becker and Charles Beard (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1966), iii-iv, 109-110. of History at South Dakota State Univer 'Morton White, Social Thought in America: The Revolt against Formalism (Boston: Beacon sity where he taught for more than three Press, 1957); Robert M. Crunden, Ministers of Reform: The Progressives' Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920 (New York: Basic Books, 1982); James T. Kloppen- decades. A scholar of both the Progres berg. Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920 (NewYork: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986). sive movement and the La Follette fam ^Robert S. Maxwell, LaFolIette and the Rise of the Progressives in Wisconsin (Madison: State ily, he is the author of Governor Phil La Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1956) and Herbert F. Margulies, The Decline of the Pro gressive Movement, 1890-1920 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1968); Follette, the Wisconsin Progressives, Stanley P. Caine, The Myth of a Progressive Reform: Railroad Regulation in Wisconsin, and the New Deal (University of Mis 1903-1910 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1970); Samuel Mermin, Jurisprudence and Statecraft: The Wisconsin Development Authority and Its Implications souri Press, 1982). He is also an expert on South Dakota (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1963). icon—and Wisconsin native—Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the ^Backstrom, "The Progressive Party of Wisconsin," Miller, Governor Philip F. LaFolIette, 93-96, 155-156. author of Becoming Laura ingalls Wilder: The Woman l^Miller, Governor Philip F. LaFolIette, 96-97, 189. Behind the Legend (University of Missouri Press, 1998) and lljohn Rathbun, "The Problem of Judgment and Effect in Historical Criticism: A Pro posed Solution," Western Speech, 33 (1969), 154-155; B. L. Ware and Wil A. Linkugel, Laura ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Liter "The Rhetorical Persona: Marcus Garvey as Black Moses," Communication Monographs, 49 (1982), 50-62. ature Meet (University Press of Kansas, 1994). l^George Cheney, "The Rhetoric of Identification and the Study of Organizational Communication," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 69 (1983), 143-158.
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MR, M/LQUeTOAST), OM
STeps /NTO A TRUCK DRIVERS' LUNCH VJf\GOM
Webster's "Timid Soul" was out of his element and almost always in some kind of trouble. "Webby," as hisfiriends called him, was ako a shy and modest soul, although not on the same level as his most fiamous creation, Caspar Milquetoast
All Images In this article are from the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, PH 1301.
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A Boy from Tomahawk The Everyday Wit of H. T Webster
t is not often that an author or artist lives to see one of his quetoast, first appeared in 1924 and was Webster's most characters enter the language, but cartoon character Gas enduring work, but "Life's Darkest Moments," "How To Tor Ipar Milquetoast so captured the imagination of the Amer ture Your Wife/Husband," and his many series on bridge, ican public that the word milquetoast eventually became a poker, dogs, boyhood, fishing, and broadcasting all became a noun. The word is enshrined in the long-running and enduring part of American Heritage Dictionary—"one American culture. who has a meek, timid, unassertive "Webby," despite making it big in nature"—and Harold Tucker Webster is New York, remained throughout his life duly credited as its creator. a creature of an idealized small-town Webster was born in Parkersburg, Midwest, a place where merchants and West Virginia, in 1885, but his family barbers possessed wisdom and small moved to Wisconsin when he was a boy boys longed to join the circus. He had a and he grew up in Lincoln County's keen eye and ear for middle-class Tomahawk, whose population was just foibles, so he celebrated the dreams and over two thousand at the turn of the disappointments of boyhood and the century. At age seventeen he left Toma chit-chat of businessmen, golfers, card hawk for Ghicago, where he spent two At his drawing board, H. T Webster created a daily players, husbands and wives. He gently or three weeks at an art school before dose ofi mirth fior the American reader, despite the mocked and chided; rarely did he skew plunging into the world of newspaper fiact that in 1927, acute arthritis cost him the use ofi er or preach. He had the ability to his right hand. Three months later, he had trained cartooning. In a real sense Webster himself to write—and more importantly, draw—with observe the everyday world, endow it lived the American dream: self-taught his left hand. with his sense of humor, and make it and self-made, he was well paid and into something special. widely honored by the public and by his By the time he hooked up with the peers in journalism and the graphic arts. Herald Tribune, Webster was close to /Vfter marrying in 1916 and serving perfecting the distinctive style that with a group of artists whose work served him brilliantly throughout his helped sell Liberty Bonds during World career. He was a master of needle-sharp War I, he moved to New York in 1919 draftsmanship—a style that reproduced to work for the Herald Tribune, where well in newspapers and invited the he continued doing political cartoons reader to pause for a moment between but also began drawing "Our Boyhood the news of the day and the classifieds. Thrills," a thematic series that evolved Once he hit his stride with various series into "The Thrill That Gomes Once in a of cartoons relating to particular Lifetime." With this, his long and dis themes, the public simply could not get tinguished career was well under way. This undated sketch ofi a cigar smoker with pen in enough of H. T. Webster. He died in hand may or may not have been a self-portrait but During his long career as a social it showed a man hard at work a Webster hallmark 1952, and on April 4, 1953, his last commentator, Webster drew thousands drawing was published in the Herald of pen-and-ink drawings which were printed daily in more Tribune. For the millions of readers who enjoyed Webster's than a hundred newspapers and chuckled over in millions of gentle humor over four decades, it was one of life's darkest /American homes. "The Timid Soul," featuring Gaspar Mil- moments. IK'i
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w^ /v I •• '/ /
^ A, A ' I' V //, ^^ ,fy /, /•/V"////// Ai«^5^' ' / ' /. Copyright Press Publishing! Co. (New York World) 1930/ SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:13PM Page 2 9 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (vtfcAH B7 cu-r-ri(-i& eve H^^LE-S irs Kiv ees-TPiuuow SLIP? HEReav-Tep WHEH VOU \MAt-v-r pLAYTHiMCrS FoR VouP- SlLUV UTTue G-A ,< LJ W:L^ ^\'lf,M/^^l), Mil... ^, '-'> o O Q -&i^^'^: SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14 PM Page 30 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY VALLY OsTRAndE ;/•'/-'// TSMAHAWK v/ij RoeeR^ I rv>Av Be iviisTAKet^ -THIS LOVELY VALei- '_je THE AWAKIFMIMG TO THE Vr^Lue OF PUBLIC ITV AND iHS SeL£CTION OF A M€OIUM ASSURIMe -^ TReMeMDOOS QRCULATIOM ,«f' i< ft^ The small town of Tomahawk, Wisconsin, received an homage from its adopted son in this 1935 cartoon that ako included Webster's trademark mischievous boy and canine sidekick. ,i ill: iii li!^ Copr. 1925 (N. Y. World) Press Pub. CoJ II: '•I It i-Pi MJ on Fehmarv 14. 1925. .^ ^5'i ::^' SEVERAL OF US CHER.1SHE1>"THE AMSmoH To BE CHARLES nWNA GIBSON'S OFFICE BoV WHAT WAS VOURS ? 4«**' During World War I, Webster served, as many artists and illustrators did, in the Division of Pictorial Publicity, leading the cartoonists' section. Charles Dana Gibson, the world's most famous illustrator, headed the DPP, and Webster offered a tribute to him in this frame. EJU' SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14PM Page 31 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14 PM Page 32 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY E2" SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14 PM Page 34 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY WREKD /ABOUTIftATCH/^P , r cwnT ILL Bf ^ I LAST Y6AR WHO TOOK S^L RIGHT BACK. I A GUN Ahit> SHOT HIS J ',' O WAIT HERE , "The Unseen Audience" series began with radio listeners, but Webster and his readers moved with the times, and the strip took on the nascent television audience as well. NO, NOT UKB THAI: o. Q -IHAT? I DON'T IfilNK tiE USED A SHOTGUN 2-Z4-I UGH!Me HEAP PRAVe, ©RAN PA , DID You "A FIRE WATER, ME SCALPUI^ TALK LIK^ PLENTY PAteFAce. Me fHAT" eeFORE BIG- GH(EF=. Aie G-o MOW ^u weMT lb CoLLeGeT ^11/ £? 'ifUi/'f'/- ', I, I If ,1 ' I '//„;(•>-//-,'/".//• > ' I" WM [' /( '/'JiM(/fli/(;ii// //lll,'., tl, ,l./ Webster's sketchbook included figures that werefiarfirom those ^i a time when other cartoonists still employed racist gimmicks like eat^ fieatured in the daily strips: A Sikh police officer, a beggar, and and moronic speech to M partially hidden subject wearing an Asian hat and clothes. SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14 PM Page 35 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY -THE L(?Sf OFTne >He ATLANTA i^cTeXx^y DOES NOT RCSToRe Hl(v, To AOIfcRlCAM C THt RlOHTS *l?VKtH AVA/AV BY HIS VIOLATION OF WARTIME LAW \wei2t MOT feJe^^^'^ ^QjvitviaTAT.OM OFF'<^f 'evei^ 'f til Eugene Debs was an incendiary figure in 1922, and a perennial presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket Webster's political cartoons attracted so much attention in Chicago, when he was with the Daily News, that the state legislature attempted to prohibit cartoonists firom making pictures that were uncomplimentary to Senators and Representatives. The legislation did not pass. SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14PM Page 3 6 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:14PM Page 37 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY James Anderson Infantryman in Blue By Norman K. Risjord he young state of Wisconsin, which had entered the Union in 1848, was about as distant from the South and remote from slavery as any state in the nation. Yet in the first year of the Civil War, 1861, fourteen thousand men volunteered Tfor military service. By the end of the war Wisconsin contributed more troops per capita to the Union army than any other state except Massa chusetts. Why did young Wisconsin farm boys, most of whom had never met a black person and had only the vaguest notion of slavery, volunteer on such a scale and fight so valiantly? For that matter, why did ordinary men of meager education and little worldly experience go so eagerly to war in both North and South? Why did they willingly participate in infantry attacks that were patently suicidal? The answers to these questions can be found in the diaries and letters of soldiers themselves. This essay is based on a chapter in Professor Risjord's hook^ Representative Americans: The Civil War Generation. SUMMER 2004 IS 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15PM Page 3 One of the most remarkable of the collections of Givil War /\merica, and many Union soldiers explained their reasons letters is that of James Anderson from Manitowoc. The col for enlisting as simply a "sense of duty" to defend the country. lection, located at the Green Bay Area Research Genter of the Duty was closely linked to honor, and its opposite, shame, Wisconsin Historical Society, is remarkable because it consists both of which were key elements in the concept of masculin of a diary, with almost daily entries over his entire period of ity in Victorian America. For young men in their upper teens, enlistment, 1861 to 1864, as well as frequent letters to his fam enlistment became a passage into masculine adulthood. ily. Anderson was not given to boasting, and some of the hor Other motives for enlisting included the opportunity for rors of combat that he experienced have to be inferred by adventure, and perhaps even glory, instead of the drudgery reading between the lines of his letters. He survived the war, and sameness of life on a backwoods farm. The government as so many of his comrades and other letter-writers did not. offered privates in the army thirteen dollars a month, with five James Anderson's story provides a Wisconsin context for the dollars extra if they had families. /Anderson's family was poor, broad questions of why men went to war in 1861 and fought his father employed only part-time, and James had little so bravely for the next four years. prospect of higher education. Ifhe could save his army pay to "grub stake" an education, he could rise to wealth and ames Anderson was a tall, fair-haired Scottish boy who respectability. had been bom in Glasgow on Ghristmas Day, 1841. The Within three weeks after Fort Sumter fell, ninety-six men J/\nderson family fled this crime-infested city in 1852, in Manitowoc Gounty had volunteered for the army. The journeyed to America, and followed a common immigrant volunteers simply organized themselves as the Manitowoc route by steamboat into the upper Great Lakes. They disem Gounty Guards, and in the tradition of American militia, the barked in Manitowoc, a mill town on the Manitowoc River. company elected its own officers, including Temple Glark, a Manitowoc was one of the many towns and cities that erupted 34-year-old attorney, as Gaptain. For the next six weeks, the into a volcano of oratory and recruiting rallies when the company, without weapons or uniforms, marched and South fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861. Anderson noted in drilled in a city park, until they were told to report to Gamp his diary that "nearly all labor was suspended [as] men gath Randall, in the capital city, where they were reorganized ered on street corners to discuss the situation." The con into Gompany A of the Fifth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry sciousness of duty was prevalent in mid-nineteenth century Regiment. Su: ER 2 004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15PM Page 3^ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY n July 24 the Fifth Wisconsin packed its gear, boarded rail Oroad cars on tracks near the camp, and departed for Ghicago amidst a mob of well-wishers. From Ghicago, they headed east on the nas cent railway lines of the mid-nineteenth century. Upon arriving in Baltimore, they were given a brief leave in which to sightsee, and Anderson had his first contact with blacks and slavery. He had been opposed to slavery in principle; encountering it in practice hardened his views. "I am more of an anti-slave man than ever," he informed his family. He reported that a black man "here is thought less of than a Horse or Ox and any white man [can] knock him down and maltreat him without fear of the COL. AMASA COBB, Commanding. consequence." He went out of his way to converse with black people on the /^d / street, and he discovered that they 'id^jlt:iAAf^S^- "could talk as intelligently about any subject as a majority of white man." The experience gave him a new, moral S)j2^2A^ (P a^l-4^ <,^ >^J.t.,^^ commitment to the Union cause. In Washington, the Fifth Wisconsin then joined the Union army, grown to nearly one hundred thousand strong, XlXXZ^^ Z^C^^CZ^ yTT-v-t^i- and camped near Fairfax Gourt House "uut-uus^^^ in northern Virginia. In late September the Manitowoc boys got their first taste /^-Hr^^^^AiS^n^olX of combat. The Gonfederates had pulled an artillery battery within range .^=€-0 of the Union camp, and the Wisconsin troops were ordered to push them back. The Gonfederate artillery opened up on them, and federal cannons ~~y6^c:^^ ^•^^^-^j'-z-L.- (yty'-i-'Oi^ answered back. "Their shells came humming over our heads in fine style bursting a short distance from [us] . . . throwing the dirt around us in a lively manner," Anderson excitedly wrote home. The Southerners retired, and no Green Bay Mss 133 one was hurt. War was still fun. The Fifith Wisconsin Volunteers included the Manitowoc County Guards, The sport ended when the army under the command ofi Asa Cobb, who resigned after the battle of Chancellorsville. went into winter quarters that autumn. Officers put the men to work cutting trees in the woods, where concealed Southern snipers fired have to be down in the line of battle all night under heavy upon them. In late October Anderson wrote home: "We have rain. Besides all this our rations did not reach us regular so we seen the hardest times the last week that we have seen so far. would be hungry, wet, and tired all at the same time." We would have to [be] out and chop hard all day and then SUMMER 2004 "ES 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 40 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15PM Page 41 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY eneral George McGlellan, commander of the Army of Wisconsin was in the vanguard of the pursuit. At Williams the Potomac, persuaded Lincoln in the spring of 1862 burg it encountered the Gonfederate rear guard commanded Gto let him mount a massive flank attack. McGlellan by James Longstreet. The Wisconsin boys attacked and then would employ the Union navy to ferry his army down the withstood a ferocious Gonfederate counterattack. When the Ghesapeake Bay, and land on the peninsula formed by the Gonfederate withdrawal turned into a footrace. Union Gen James and York Rivers. That movement would place him at eral Winfield Scott Hancock dubbed the regiment the the rear of the unprotected Gonfederate capital, Richmond. "Bloody Fifth." On April 9 the regiment was ordered into its first serious In the course of the battle, Anderson and a friend became engagement—an assault on Gonfederate earthworks that separated from the company and were taken prisoner by a were part of the Yorktown defense system. The infantry lay troop of Georgia cavalry. The horsemen disarmed them and low while each side pounded the other with cannon fire. started them on the road to Richmond. Passing a thicket too Ordered to attack, the regiment assaulted what Gompany A's dense for horses, Anderson and his friend darted into the surgeon described as "great ridges . . . bristling with bayonets underbrush and got free. Finding his way back to his unit at and covered with men." Anderson later had litde memory of the end of the battle, Anderson was berated by his company the fight other than that he had become confused and nearly commander for losing his rifle. Still exuberant over battle, lost "in the midst of a terrible scene." despite this experience, and full of pride, Anderson wrote The first experience of fierce combat is a surprise and a home: "Our boys fought like devils and have earned a name shock to soldiers of every army in every time because there is for themselves and their state. I do not think there was anoth no way of preparing for the emotional impact. After recover er regiment on the field fought so desperate as ours [and] even ing from the shock, the next reaction of most northern sol our best generals stood and looked on amazed at our brav diers, as recorded in their letters home, was that they never ery." wanted to experience it again. Although most did return to The victory was expensive, for Gompany A suffered its first battle out of a sense of honor and duty, they did it with a vet casualties. Three of Anderson's friends were killed and two more eran's solemnity. James Anderson did not record his reaction wounded. Among the wounded was Gaptain Horace Walker, to his first combat experience even though the siege had who had replaced Temple Glark as company commander. Nev stalled McGlellan's offensive for a month. ertheless, morale improved as the rains ceased and the weather When McGlellan finally resumed the offensive, the Fifth grew warm. On May 9 the regiment broke camp and started up fla.1^/^/^cit eJd^S^mS Anderson 5 own sketch ofMarye'sHill Battleground suggests how thoroughly soldiers came to know the natural and huilt environments, and how simple farms and homes hecame the hattlegrounds of history. Green Bay Mss 133 SUMMER 2 004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 42 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY ""We Conquer or Die." "We Conquer or Die," the regiment's motto, Forever shall it wave, our Nation's ^....-^..L;^^^-^-^'-^ was not simply a tag Emblem, lidding defiance to Rebels and phrase. The Fifith Traitors I Wisconsin included veterans ofi some ofi the bloodiest battles ofi the Civil War. Green Bay Mss 133 the road to Richmond. "We are now within twenty-five miles of much that we all said, 'Wait and See.'" It had taken awhile, that city," wrote Anderson, "and I expect the next letter I send but the eager recruit was now a somber veteran. you will be mailed from that point." The Wisconsin men were right to wait before celebrating. Anderson's assumption that Union forces would soon cap The following day Lee threw the main part of his army at the ture Richmond might have been correct Union forces camped at Gaines Mill. had he been serving under a more The fighting was intense, and the Fifth adventurous and imaginative com Wisconsin was right in the middle of it. mander than George McGlellan. Ever The battle went on throughout the day cautious, McGlellan moved forward and into the night, with both sides suf slowly, and units like the Fifth Wiscon fering the highest casualties yet experi sin, catching his mood, dug rifle pits for enced in the war. "The fight was defense, rather than preparing for a continued long after dark and was one quick-strike offense. McGlellan seemed of the most splendid sights I ever wit both numb and confused. Except for nessed," wrote Anderson, anxious that driving back a counterattack on May 31, his family should be proud of his Manitowoc County Historical Society McGlellan's army sat still for another courage. But, he continued, "the illu three weeks, during which Gonfederate The Manitowoc County Wisconsin Volunteers fiag. sion was dispelled by a musket ball General Robert E. Lee was reinforced which struck me in the leg just above by Stonewall Jackson's army from the Shenandoah Valley. the knee making a painful but not dangerous wound." McGlellan grew ever more cautious and abandoned the he campaign known as the Seven Days' Battle opened capture of Richmond. On the morning of June 28 the Fifth on June 26 when Lee attacked the right side of the Wisconsin was roused at 4:00 AM and started to march at TUnion line at Mechanicsville, several miles to the dawn. The men were bewildered by the southerly direction north of where the Fifth Wisconsin was camped. The attack because they had been expecting to push on toward Rich was beaten back with severe losses, and although "bands were mond. Toward sunset the Gonfederates fell upon the retreat playing" in the Union camp, Anderson wrote that "Our ing column, but they were again beaten back after a hot fight. reg[imen]t was silent as the grave. We had been deceived so Anderson, still nursing his wound, probably did not participate m SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15PM Page 4 3 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY :?^ \) IV \^ Harper's Weekly, April 30, 1864 Newspaper and magazine coverage ofi the Civil War depended both on reporters in thefiield, and on soldiers who wrote and sketched fior their diaries and in letters home There was no censorship ofi letters home and infiormation that in later wars would never be allowed back homefiowedfireely. in the fight. Since he made no mention of being carried by insensible in the road," he later wrote. Gomrades poured wagon, he probably hobbled along with his company on foot. water over his head to revive him, and the regiment, harassed Passing through Savage Station on the morning of June by Gonfederates, continued its flight. Anderson was unable to 29, the regiment saw other soldiers destroying an immense keep up and was lucky to have escaped at all. "Some of the quantity of Union supplies and munitions to prevent them stragglers," he later recounted, "caught some mules that had from falling into enemy hands. The only thing left standing been stampeded by the panic and hitched them to an empty were the hospital tents, where the regiment deposited its sick wagon and about 20 of us proceeded in that way." "Had it and wounded, leaving them to be taken prisoner by the Gon not been for this," he added, "I should certainly have fallen federates. Three of Anderson's friends in Gompany A were into the hands of the enemy." left behind. He, apparently, was healthy enough to keep up On July 1 the main part of McGlellan's army fortified itself with the retreating regiment. atop Malvern Hill and withstood waves of Gonfederate The Fifth Wisconsin had moved about two miles south of attacks in the final battle of the Seven Days. The Fifth Wis the railroad, when, about sunset, the soldiers heard heavy gun consin rejoined the army while the battle was in progress and fire behind them. The Gonfederates had attacked again, and watched the slaughter in horror from a nearby hill. the Battle of Savage Station was under way. The regiment The Fifth Wisconsin re-embarked on the troop transports, took up a position along the railroad bed and withstood three and it was back in Alexandria on September 2. The Wisconsin waves of Gonfederate attackers. When the assault subsided, regiment was ordered to cross the Long Bridge into George the regiment withdrew into the night. At 3:00 AM, wrote town and in Washington to board a train headed north. The Anderson, "we threw ourselves down by the side of the road men were utterly mystified by this sudden, and apparently pur and slept till dawn when we was again aroused and marched poseless, burst of activity. What they did not know was that to join the rest of the Brigade from which we had been cut off." Lee, following his victory at Bull Run, had decided to invade Later that day, June 30, the Union army fought another the North. On September 4 his army splashed across the rear-guard action at the crossroads of Glendale. The Fifth Potomac some forty miles up-river from Washington and Wisconsin was somewhere on the Union flank stationed in a marched to Frederick, Maryland. McGlellan had gathered thick woods. The day was hot, and men were dropping from and positioned the huge Union army between Lee and the exhaustion, among them /\nderson. "My wounded leg had capital, and the Fifth Wisconsin was among them. been troubling me and fatigue over-powered me and I fell As the Wisconsin regiment marched northwest through a SUMMER 2004 IS 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15PM Page 44 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY and the men were regaining some of C^ C'^-'^'^^^ -/'LA,<:^^\^ d their old confidence and sense of A. adventure. They marched, Castleman u-p^ 'f/ /^i J observed, with "the cool determination P of veterans," and he added, "the camp AMA^ -^ ..-^c^^-^S^ at night, even after our long marches, resounds with mirth and music." The Fifth Wisconsin was camped near Brownsville, about half way /^^fel, between Harpers Ferry and Sharps burg, where Lee, having abandoned his plans to invade Pennsylvania, was preparing for battle. Anderson was put on picket duty for two days and two nights. Early on the morning of Sep tember 17, after his regiment had already departed, he was sent up the Hagerstown Pike to Sharpsburg and another mile beyond, where the armies faced one another on either side of Anti- etam Creek. When Anderson joined his company, it was on the front line and under heavy artillery fire. General Win field Scott Hancock, commanding that part of the line, ordered the regiment to attack. The Fifth Wisconsin and Sixth Maine moved into a cornfield that lay between the armies, but at that moment McGlellan countermanded the order and repositioned the two regiments between two of the Union artillery bat teries. Although pinned down by Con federate cannon fire, the Wisconsin troops could observe from where they crouched the terrible bloodletting as wave after wave of blue- and gray-clad men crossed and recrossed the corn field. At the end of that morning, when the fighting shifted to another part of the battlefield, "the wounded and the dead were strewn thick as autumn leaves after a storm." McClellan's order had almost certainly saved Anderson's Green Bay Mss 133 life and allowed him to survive the war. Anderson's letters commented on the daily marches, the lengthy waiting periods between troop movements, After a day of eerie silence in which and the status of prisoners. The high level of basic literacy among Civil War soldiers make their letters Lee expected another attack and and reflections on daily life one of the best resources in American history to understand and assess McGlellan declined to move, the Con a soldier's motivation to fight and to survive. federate army slipped back across the Maryland countryside glorious in late-summer bloom, Potomac and escaped. The Union soldiers, who had hoped Dr. Alfred Castleman, the regiment's chief surgeon and invet that this might be the final battle, realized that the war would erate diarist, noticed a change in the mood and demeanor of go on. McGlellan, fumed Dr. Castleman, "can be nothing the men. The shame of the Peninsula Campaign had receded. short of an imbecile, a coward, or a traitor." SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 45 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY resident Lincoln replaced McGlellan with Ambrose E. PBurnside in early November. If the new commander was a man with ^ energy or even a plan, it was not evi dent. For a month the Fifth Wisconsin marched and camped, then, on the morning of December 11, they were awakened early and put on the road to Fredericksburg, scheduled to cross the Rappahannock River two miles below ^•^r-t'X, the city and form the main attack. Engineers worked all that day erecting the three pontoon bridges that General William B. Franklin's Grand Division was to use in crossing. Early on the morning of the twelfth the Wisconsin regiment moved down to the bridges, each soldier carrying his own ammunition and three days of rations. Fog, mixed with smoke from the previous day's cannonading, shrouded their movements. With the Fifth Wis consin and Fifth Vermont in the front, the division advanced to the Richmond Stage Road. At that point the sun broke through the fog, and, with bayonets ghs- tening, forty thousand men charged for ward to the railroad track that lay at the base of the hill where Stonewall Jackson had placed his Gonfederate troops. At that point Gonfederate skirmishers came out of a ravine on the regiment's flank, and the Fifth Wisconsin came under heavy cannon fire. "We again fell back across the [stage] road," Anderson wrote, "and lay behind a bank which was alongside. We lay there all day and L4^^ IA^^^^. ^/ ^5^^t-v^ night and the next morning was relieved by another reg[imen]t and put into the second line of battle." / -^ • ^ .... Although Gompany A left the Fred ericksburg battlefield without suffering any casualties, the Union army had taken a terrible beating. It had suffered Green Bay Mss 133 thirteen thousand dead and wounded Anderson's letter to his parents and sisters of July 11, 1863, written just days after Gettysburg and gained nothing. The loss cut deep began with his chastisement of his family for not writing and his threat of not writing to them into morale. "There is no use dodging as a punishment. At a time when his family would have naturally been concerned about his safety, the fact," Anderson admitted, "the late it was bewildering that he would have penned such a message. Fredericksburg disaster disheartened our army greatly and there is not a man who does not dread the their fortifications." The regiment's sensitive surgeon. Dr. idea of going across the Rappahannock to attack the enemy in Castleman, had seen enough useless bloodshed and quit the SUMMER 2004 -m 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 46 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY himself." Disgusted with the poor judg ment of the army's commanding offi cers. Colonel Cobb had won election to the House of Representatives in Novem ber and resigned from the army after the Battle of Fredericksburg. Combat had matured Anderson and improved his self-confidence. With little else to do in winter quarters, he pondered his future. He was determined "to succeed in hfe," he told his father, and he thought he had "both the talents and the energy to do so." He was saving his money so he could attend college, and then he thought he might study law. But first he must sur vive the war. And, as it turned out, the for tunes of battle broke in his favor. While Anderson tried to look to the future, the men around him that winter wallowed in depression. "We have none of our original field officers left," complained one of Anderson's friends in January 1863, and "there are so many of the old hands leaving and new recruits coming in that it scarcely seems like the same regiment." The letters of soldiers, both Northern and Southern, indicate that the ability to stand up to the fear and stress of combat stemmed from the soldiers' dependence upon Crt^A^ one another and pride in their unit. /• The same letters indicated that attrition l~t^ .A^ ^4.ui^ ^^-^-- U£r-~i. / and the replacement of familiar faces with new ones were gradually destroy 7 ^ " ^ ing unit cohesion, and with that the unit's fighting ability. Although the men of the Fifth Wisconsin were in a ^iyAj^> funk throughout the winter, spirits and self-confidence returned with the spring. When they were called upon to fight again, they fought hard and well. ri'j '^ /2^^^^^^^^ C:^:'' MajiJ^ .r The regiment never again found itself Green Bay Mss 133 in the front line of a major battle, but Anderson's letter of April 12, 1864, written during some of the most violent days of the war, that was almost certainly not the result spoke of music and singing societies. of conscious decisions by Union divi army. While ordinary soldiers had to serve out their three-year sion and corps commanders. It was the random fortune of a enlistments, officers were allowed to resign at any time. The small cog in a mighty military machine. doctor was a caring man, and Anderson was sorry to see him When on April 30, 1863, the new Union commander, leave. Anderson was even more distressed by the departure of "Fightingjoe" Hooker, crossed the Rappahannock, Lee moved the regiment's commander. Colonel Amasa Cobb. Anderson west to do battle at Chancellorsville. But with an army of only regarded the colonel as "as fine a man as ever lived . . . brave sixty thousand, Lee could leave only ten thousand in the defen as a Lion and he never asks a man to go where he would not sive works at Fredericksburg. Union General John Sedgwick, m SUMME R 2 004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 47 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY with the Fifth Wisconsin as part of his command, entered Fredericksburg and ordered an attack against St. Mary's Heights and the infamous stone wall beneath the hill, the "Slaughter Pen" of the previous December. Gompany A and four other companies of the Fifth Wisconsin were picked for the front line of the attack. On May 1, the men ran across the field through a storm of can non fire, scaled the wall, and dropped onto the thin line of Gonfederates. "Our Boys dashed forward furiously," /Ander son later wrote; "Bayonetted many of the Rebels where they stood and taking nearly all the rest prisoners." They then continued up the steep hill and captured the artillery batteries. U. S. Army Military History Institute WHi (X3) 1740 It was the regiment's first victory in Temple Clark, the 34year-old local Manitowoc Dr. Alfred Castleman, a physician for the regiment, a very long time, but it was a costly one leader, received the support ofi the men and was kept a diary throughout his years ofi service, where he for Gompany A. It suffered eight killed elected Captain ofi the Manitowoc County Guards, recorded his strong opinions about the leadership ofi and fifteen wounded. /Anderson told his in the traditional custom ofi the militia. McCleUan and other generals, family that Lewis La Gount, one of his The Union Army transfierred Clark to the western his concern about the wounded men, and his decision best friends, "was shot down by my side theater within the first year ofi the war. to leave the Army, as officers were allowed to do. and cried out for me to help him back but I told him I could not then but would come back after we ordered to assault the railroad that connected Alexandria had carried the Heights." /Uthough he did return, he could with the Shenandoah Valley. The brigade commander con not find La Gount, so instead he helped other wounded sol sidered the Fifth Wisconsin and the Sixth Maine his best reg diers down the slope to a field hospital. iments, and he ordered them to lead the attack. The On May 5 the Fifth Wisconsin returned to its camp at Wisconsin and Maine boys had fought side by side since /Anti- White Oak Ghurch. It remained there until June 11, when the etam. "No better regiment than the 6th Maine ever men were roused from their tents and pushed into a series of marched," /Anderson claimed, adding that "between them forced marches northwards. The weather was oppressively and the 5th Wisconsin there was a peculiar aflection." hot, and the soldiers trudged silently down the dusty roads, Although ordered to attack with bayonets only, the Wisconsin not sure where they were going or why. Anderson thought veterans defiantly put bullets in their guns. June 14 "the most severe march I ever was on." Nine men in The two regiments flung themselves at the Gonfederate the brigade "dropped dead from exhaustion." works and carried them after fierce fighting. Gompany A took North along the Potomac the regiment tramped, and by fearsome casualties. /Among those who had been with the unit July 1 they were in Manchester, Maryland, some thirty miles from the beginning of the war, three, including Gaptain Walker, from Gettysburg, where the greatest battle of the war had were dead and four were wounded. That engagement ended the already begun. They marched all night long and all the next regiment's fighting for the year. It went into winter quarters at day. By one in the afternoon they could hear the sounds of bat Brandy Station, near Gulpeper in the Virginia Piedmont. tle. They arrived on the field at five and were placed in reserve, Feeling entitled to a battlefield promotion, /Anderson spent ready to go into action should the Gonfederates break through much of the winter angling for a commission as a lieutenant. the Union fiank. The regiment remained in reserve through He felt he had fought hard enough to deserve the promotion, the following day, while the center of the Union line withstood it would bring in more money for his family, and it would Pickett's Charge. Although the Union army suffered more enable him to "spite certain ones [among his friends in Man than twenty-three thousand casualties in the three-day battle, itowoc] who have twitted a little on my being in the ranks so the Fifth Wisconsin came through unscathed. long." He managed to obtain glowing recommendations from By October 5, the Fifth Wisconsin was back in Virginia his superiors, both commissioned and non-commissioned offi camped near Warrenton in the northern Piedmont. On cers, but to no avail. Apparently the only openings were in the November 7, the brigade of which they were a part was "Golored Regiments," which the Lincoln administration was SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:15 PM Page 4£ WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY belatedly forming among the black residents of the North. "I singled out /Anderson for praise, and in letters home /Anderson can get a recommendation for a Golored Regiment commis tried to explain the unusual bond that existed between an sion easy but I will put that off until last," /Anderson wrote eminent if seldom-seen commander and his troops. home, revealing the racial bias of most Northerners. He could /Although his main object in life now was to survive the war, be a strong opponent of slavery, but he was not at aU eager to /Anderson was caught up in the spirit of combat. On May 12 the serve with black troops, even as an officer. Apparently there Fifth Wisconsin was in the thick of the fighting when /Anderson, was no prestige in that at aU. He remained a corporal and running out of ammunition, threw his riffe aside and dashed spent another glum winter. forward to seize an enemy cannon that had been abandoned. His gloom deepened in April 1864 when the War Depart By his side was a member of another company of the regiment, ment, with neither warning nor explanation, arbitrarily and together they turned it about and fired into an advancing extended the term of service for all soldiers in the Fifth Wis line of men from South Carolina. The gun must have been consin for another two full months. This action meant that loaded with canister (light antipersonnel shot), for /Anderson /Anderson's period of enlistment, due to expire on May 10, thought he leveled forty Southern boys with the first shot. /After was extended to the 13th of July. /Anderson was outraged at that, he reported home, "we worked the gun on them until we the unfairness of it, especially after all he had endured. "It fired all the ammunition there was in two limbers and this at a would not surprise me in the least," he grumbled, "if the Reg distance of 10 rods from their riffe pits." /After that, the regiment iment would mutiny about it." was replaced and sent to the rear for rest and recuperation. On June 12, 1864, Grant made the last of his eastward hank t was at this time that General Ulysses S. Grant, now in ing moves, descending on Petersburg, at the falls of the Appo- command of the /Army of the Potomac, proposed to matox River south of Richmond. Gompany A was by now so Idrive, bulldog fashion, straight upon the Gonfederate debilitated by casualty and sickness that it was no longer a fight capital. The Fifth Wisconsin broke camp at Brandy Station, ing unit. /Anderson scribbled in his diary on June 24, "hardly crossed the Rapidan River, and plunged into a cut-over area able to crawl I am so sick." He had been so worn out from bat that Virginians called The Wilderness. tle fatigue and short rations that when the army had made its For three days the Union army advanced on a broad and flanking movement, he had stayed behind. His only interest now ragged front, suffering seventeen thousand casualties in fight was in survival. Finally, on July 13, he was able to write joyfully ing that sometimes went from tree to tree. /Anderson did not in his diary: "Our term of service is expired and we have bid record the number of men lost in Gompany A; perhaps he lost farewell to our comrades." The following day he wrote his par track in the smoke of battle. On May 7 Grant shifted the army ents in triumph: "I thought I would drop you a line to let you to the east in order to utilize the post road that led from Fred know that I am still on this side of the 'Dark River' and with ericksburg to Richmond. General Lee made a stand at Spott- every prospect of soon being with you." On July 20 he boarded sylvania Gourt house, and for the next twelve days the armies a northbound train, and by the evening of the next day he was savaged one another. General Sedgwick was killed by a mus in Ghicago. They were home in Manitowoc by the end of the ket ball in his head while exhorting his men to stand and fight. month, having been entertained in Milwaukee on the way. Only /Anderson was more saddened by that than by the death of fifteen of the original ninety-six Manitowoc Volunteers survived some of his Manitowoc friends. The general had personally to return home with /Anderson. kM Acknowledgments About the Author Kerry A. Trask has done a splendid job of mining the A native of Manitowoc, Norman K. /Anderson papers for the story of this Givfl War soldier, and Risjord earned hiis Phi.D. at tlie Univer the results of his scholarship are Fire Within: A Civil War sity of Virginia and joined tlie hiistory Narrative from Wisconsin (1995). Givil War historian, James department of tlie University of Wiscon M. McPherson examined the letters of 1,076 soldiers, 647 sin-Madison in 1964. His lectures on from the North and 429 from the South, in an attempt to American hiistory were broadcast on determine the soldiers' reaction to war. He quantified his public radio periodically from 1966 to data, compared it with the results of psychological tests con 1989. He retired from teaching in 1993 ducted by the U. S. army during and after World War II, and and now writes history aimed at the general reader. His published the results in 1997 under the title For Cause and recent books include a biography of Thomas Jefferson Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. /Also helpful in (1994); Wisconsin: Tlie Story of the Badger State (1995); the creation of this article were the descriptions of military life and a series entitled Representative Americans, which cur drawn from the letters of soldiers in Bell I. Wiley, The Life of rently numbers four books. Johnny Reb (1943) and The Life of Billy Yank{l952). m SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 4^ WISCONSIN MAG The leather case ofi Anderson's diary kept the pages safie Green Bay Mss 133 lO (rWLt/l/\/J cJfkA^jsaJ f • iLA^'\JLyi ''^^Ml-e...-£Mfe.„.,,2^e^^tM ^UA.'^'-^- '/?lLi^.-_^<: 7i. rt-iJ^M^J Green Bay Mss 133 TJg interior pages ofi Anderson's diary, which he later transcribed. 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16 PM Page 50 -f> EDITORS'•<^ CHOICE Books Events Multimedia Exhibits Resources Locations Vietnam Kaleidoscope They Marched Into Sunlight: Maraniss's sensitive investigation of these complex reactions War and Peace, Vietnam and challenges any stereotyped understanding of the sixties. America, October 1967 Maraniss also explores the over-optimistic assumptions of BY DAVID MARANISS Washington decision-makers and generals in Vietnam that Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 2003. shaped U.S. strategy. General William Westmoreland, for Pp. xvii, 372. Index, notes, bibliography, photos, maps. ISBN 0743217802, .$29.95, hardcover. example, concluded that /America could defeat the Viet Gong and the North Vietnamese /Army by waging a war of attrition. * n October of 1967, the voices of Like others, Westmoreland believed that a growing daily body I peace dramatically captured head- count would eventually force the enemy to surrender. Maraniss J_ lines as a demonstration on the Uni focuses on how these ill-conceived decisions at the top affected versity of Wisconsin-Madison campus against the Dow ordinary soldiers on the ground, often costing their lives. Ghemical Gompany erupted into chaos. Student activists When teaching classes on the Vietnam War at attempted to halt campus interviews by Dow, the infamous UW-Waukesha, I have searched in vain for a book that inte makers of napalm. The result was a bloody confrontation grates the war at home and the war in Vietnam as this book between local poHce and protestors. does. By weaving back and forth between the tumult in Madi Over eight thousand miles away in Vietnam, soldiers of the son and the horrors of the battle in Vietnam, Maraniss helps /Army's First Infantry Division were making their own news the reader never to lose sight of why the whole country became when a search and destroy mission went horribly wrong and divided. In They Marched Into Sunlight, he has transferred the sounds of war engulfed them. Sixty members of the his skills as a biographer, proven in earlier books on Vince undermanned "Black Lions" Second Battalion died in an Lombardi and Bill Glinton, to a wider historical canvas. The ambush and scores more were critically injured. sheer number of individual personal histories that Maraniss Pulitzer Prize winning author David Maraniss interweaves examines may at first seem overwhelming, but the result is a these two stories of war and peace, along with Hterary snap uniquely intimate and multi-layered analysis. It is also remark shots of how policy-makers in Washington hatched the poli able for its fairness, which has been praised by former Madi cies that led to these events, in his gripping new book They son Mayor Paul Soglin, a participant in the Dow protest, and Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and Amer Vice-President Dick Gheney, a graduate student at UW-Madi- ica, October 1967. son. These endorsements from ideological opposites were cited Torn between two equally valid commitments, former Uni by David Zweifel, editor of Madison's Capital Times, when he versity of Wisconsin Ghancellor William Sewell becomes the introduced Maraniss at the 2003 Wisconsin Book Festival, on tragic hero of the conflict on the Madison campus. Because another cold October day in Madison, thirty-seven years later. Sewell made the decision to call in additional police to break up Maraniss's appearance at the Book Festival made it clear to the demonstration, he earned a lasting reputation as the one me that we still need a nuanced guide to the complexities of the primarily responsible for the escalating violence at the Dow Vietnam era. When he first mentioned the ambush of the Black protest. Maraniss does not dispute this interpretation, but he Lion Battalion, an audience member near me burst into makes Sewell more than simply a soulless administrator. applause—proof that the wounds of October 1967 have not yet Sewell, he points out, was an early and outspoken opponent of healed. Maraniss does not claim to offer what he calls "over the war, taking part in the first teach-in against U.S. involve wrought notions of healing" (p. 509), for he knows no writer can ment in Vietnam in 1965. As a faculty member, Sewell was one transcend such enduring divisions. What he gives the reader is of a minority on the faculty senate that had voted against allow "connections," allowing the reader to care about his subjects. ing Dow to interview on campus. Once he was thrust into the David Maraniss's They Marched Into Sunlight can only seat of chancellor, however—an office he did not seek—Sewell help to make us more aware of what was at stake in Madison believed he had to stand by the senate's decision. At the same and Vietnam in 1967—and how the great underlying ques time, he believed that antiwar activists had a right to demon tions of war and peace remain the same. strate against Dow. By trying to honor these confficting beliefs, TIMOTHY B. THERING Sewell drew the ire of both Left and Right in Wisconsin. University ofWisconsin-Waukesha SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 51 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY im Thering asked the author of They Marched into then break them down in notecards by chronology or theme. Sunlight: War and Feace, Vietnam and America, Organization is the key to using such a vast amount of mate TOctober 1967, about how the book grew out of his rial—whether you are dealing with interviews or documents. experiences in Madison, including time spent in the archives of the State Historical Society. Why did you feel it was necessary to address both the beginnings of the anti-war movement and the experi Why did you decide to write this book? Did your own ences of soldiers in Vietnam within the same volume? personal history, being a freshman at the University of Why did you also feel it was important to include the Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of perspective of Vietnamese soldiers 1967, play a role in your revisiting who fought with the Viet this era and these events? Did our Cong/North Vietnamese Army, as current political and cultural cli An Interview with other books on the war had not? mate in any way influence your David Maraniss decision to undertake this project? The essence of this book, the only reason I wrote it, was to try to present The juxtaposition on which the book is based came to me the totality of the experience of that war and that time. I gradually, but the larger notion that I would write a book wanted to show the connections between these very different about Vietnam and the sixties was one that I had carried with worlds that nonetheless were about the same thing. me for many years. ... In a sense I was compelled to do it. Then it became a question of figuring out the structure. The Having studied in-depth the early days of the anti fact that I was a freshman at UW in 1967 was the germ of the war movement in Madison, what impact, if any, do you book, though I am not a character in it until the epilogue. I think the protests had on policy makers? started with what I knew, that early protest against Dow, and worked from there, asking the simple question: What was The antiwar movement had some impact on policy mak going on in Vietnam at the time of the Dow protest? ers, no doubt. You can see President Johnson worrying every day about the growing antiwar movement, and how to deal How did you specifically use the archives of the Wis with it. But then you also see mistakes being made by some consin Historical Society? Which collection or collec student leaders of the antiwar movement at the same time— tions did you find most useful? so it is not an easy answer. As part of the research, my wife and I moved back to Madison for the entire summer of 2001. I spent many after noons at the Wisconsin Historical Society reading and photo Grand Flotilla Commemoration copying documents. It has one of the best archives on the sixties in the nation, and several collections—the Teaching This sum Assistants Association, the papers for the making of The War mer Wiscon at Home, old copies of the first alternative newspaper. Con sin is one of nections; raw footage of the Dow protest donated by the local four states to /ABG affifiate—that were especially valuable to me. commemorate a historic train You conducted 180 interviews in the process of writing and steamboat They Marched Into Sunlight. How did you manage to juggle expedition, by welcoming a reenactment of the 1854 this overwhelming mmiber of personal histories? As a "Grand Excursion Flotilla." Events programmed writer and historian, how did you shape these individual around the reenactment will take place from June 25 stories into a larger and comprehensible narrative? to July 5, and include commemorations of Givil War and voyageur history, and tours of forts and muse The 180 interviews were invaluable, but I could not have ums. Wisconsin locations include La Grosse, Fort written the book based on those alone. /After all, they were Crawford, Prairie du Ghien, Gassvifle, Genoa, De evoking memories from more than thirty years ago. They Soto, Pepin, /Alma, Stockholm, Prescott, and Trem become more valuable, and useful, only when used in addi pealeau. For more information go to www.grandex- tion to documents, letters, and oral histories from that time. I cursion.com. tape record the interviews and transcribe them myself and SUMMER 2 004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16 PM Page 52 WHERE THEY'RE GOING Instead of What They're Reading, we asked our contributors to tell us what places they will visit this summer, in reality or in their imagination, and how those places make them reflect on history. Ml the responses lyri cally evoke summers past and present in Wisconsin. Fort Atkinson Pilgrimage old school houses, now taken over by nature, brought home to me how the BY MILTON J. BATES tides of change have washed over this place. The book of poems I wrote dur his summer I plan to visit sites associated with Lorine ing those weeks. Sand Island Succes Niedecker, arguably Wisconsin's finest poet. Born in sion, explores this intersection of TFort Atkinson in 1903, she lived most of her sixty- cultural and natural history. seven years nearby, on Blackhawk Island. My pilgrimage to Fort Atkinson will include stops at the Niedecker Room in the Judith Strasser retired from her job as Hoard Museum, the collection of her manuscripts and books producer and interviewer for Wisconsin Public Radio's To The at the Dwight Foster Public Library, and her grave in Union Best Of Our Knowledge to pursue a writing career. Her mem Gemetery. oir. Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life, has just Niedecker was a poet of history in the sense that she often been published by the University of Wisconsin Press under wrote about historical events. More sig their Terrace Books imprint. nificantly, though, she gave voice to a place. Before sunset on the day of my visit, I will paddle my canoe past her cabin on Blackhawk Island, recalling Wisconsin's "West Coast" the poem in which she describes a boat BY BOBBIE MALONE much like my own, "pointed toward / my shore / thru birdstart / wingdrip / W spent many years in New Orleans, allured by the Big weed-drift / of the soft / and serious— / Muddy as I imagined the old steamboats loading up and Water." -sheading out. The river is clearer here in the North, but the Upper Mis Milton J. Bates is a professor of English at Marquette Universi sissippi inspires the same historical fas ty. His current project is a study of the Bark River and environs. cination. On Highway 35 between Prairie du Ghien and Prescott, I have been amazed by the physical majesty of the limestone bluffs, the river waters and the multi-layered history of those History on Sand Island who still live along the river's banks. BY JUDITH STRASSER Indian culture is present everywhere, along with the stories embedded in the 'll be returning to the Bayfield area this summer, a place towns built from the spoils of the fur trade, and the lumber I fell in love with the first time I saw it: the peninsula and industries that came later. I dream about exploring the IGhequamegon Bay. In 1998,1 spent three weeks on Sand coulees flanking the area, or taking the Delta Queen up river Island as Artist-in-Residence at Apostle Islands National some fine week in autumn. Lakeshore. Living in a rustic cabin, feeling the cold and wet, going down to the lake to haul water to wash dishes—these Bobbie Malone is Director of the Oflice of School Services at helped me to imagine the hardships endured by the early the Wisconsin Historical Society and author of numerous trappers and traders. Seeing the remains of settler cabins and books about the state and its history. m SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 53 1 ^ Curio ^ WHi (X2) 15203 In this photograph firom the Society's Visual Materials Archive, sunshine weaves itselfiin between the slats ofi the structures that sheltered this ginseng harvest, ca 1935. These women labored to collect the roots ofi the plant, cultivated in the Wausau area fior centuries by native people, French fiur traders, and territorial entrepreneurs. American ginseng (Panax quinquefiolium) is native to rich, hardwoodfiorests in the eastern U.S. and Canada, and the shelters pictured here mimic thefiorest shade patterns that ginseng requires, as the actualfiorest had been cut down decades earlier. The valuable plant is grown and exported, mainly to Asia, where uses have included ayin tonic fior those who areyang (hot) in nature. 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 54 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Letters from Our Readers Today is the first time I've seen the Wisconsin Magazine of The Reverend H.D. Glarke was not an Adventist. He was History and enjoyed reading . . . the article on free schooling a minister of the Seventh Day Baptist Ghurch. If you could [in the Spring 2003 issue]. I have my Dad's diploma dated correct this error, I would appreciate it. The town of Mflton March 29, 1918. The school was /Andrew Jackson Street was founded by Seventh Day Baptists. School which was torn down with the 3rd Ward redevelop —MARGARET B. SAYRE ment in the 1950s. The teacher was Genevive Schwartz and Milton the principal was either A. A. or S. A. Stiners. He had 62 days credited toward a diploma—but one hundred and twenty With great pleasure, and delight, I read the article ... by credits were required for a diploma in Engfish. My Dad Glark Kidder beginning on page 30. passed away in 1974—at 82 yrs. As founder of the Orphan Train Heritage Society of —MARY M. TURDO /America, Inc., I have learned to appreciate everyone interest Milwaukee ed in preserving /America's history. Were it not for caring folks such as Glark Kidder and hundreds of others across the Unit Your Wisconsin Magazine of History is beautiful, and I ed States today engaged in preserving their part of the compliment you on it. Orphan Train era, the history would be lost. You definitely Having finished the reading of Glark Kidder's article, chose a good author to pubfish in this case. "West by Orphan Train" on page 30 [Winter 2003-2004], a Social poficies set to care for today's chfldren reflect the correction is needed to be made as to the Reverend H. D. urgency for knowing what worked, and what did not, with Glarke's ministerial title. I'm the widow of Walter R. Sayre, yesterday's "foster" chfldren. The yearning to know about grandson of the Reverend Glarke, referred to by Kidder, and brothers and sisters is strong within the hearts of many riders the possessor of the leather bound books in which the Rev who never knew, first if they had any siblings, and secondly, if erend recorded, with pictures, his work with his orphan chil they did, what happened to them. Many riders [want] to dren. Glark Kidder used these books as reference for his book make sure [that] children in the foster care system today and Orphan Train and Their Precious Cargo. tomorrow do not have to wonder, but will be told. /jy/^y^A^ ^^^e^^ K^^e^^^^e^/M^ yVo^A^/^€i>^^o^My With this summer issue, Volume 87, whose four issue covers appear WISCONSINJ rWISCONSIN hi'aijazi nj{«^ h '-^tory4| t"iw?i-gazinc of history here, has come to an end. We are once again asking our member readers to vote for their choice of best original article. A Ust of all eUgible writers and articles (excerpts and short essays are not in the running) appears on our Web site, www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh. Look for a special ballot in your July/August issue of Columns. Members can also vote on the Web, or by e-maiUng [email protected], or by regular mail, addressed to Hesseltine Award, Wisconsin Magazine of History, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706. Provide the name of the writer, the article title, and your member number or your name. Voting ends November 1, 2004. Thank you! The editors m SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16 PM Page 55 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Thank you so much for caring about this part of history and for producing an excehent magazine preserving history. The Wisconsin Historical Society —MARY ELLEN JOHNSON Director. Robert B. Thomasgard Jr. Bette Arey, President, Wisconsin Council Springdale, AZ for Local History Officers Bruce T. Bioci<, President, Wisconsin Historical Foundation Please refer to the inside back cover of the Spring 2004 President: Patricia A. Boge David W. Oiier, Senior Vice President, President Beet Mari< L. Gajewsl WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUSINESS PARTNERS Accurate Response DEMCO, Inc. MGIC SPEX Eyewear ADMANCO, Inc. Drum Corps. World Michael, Best & Friedrich Springs Window Fashions Allianl Energy Corporation EDCO Producls Milwaukee Journal Sentinel St. Francis Bank Foundation Alpha Inveslmenl Consulting Group, Hercules Conlraclors and Engineers Murphy & Desmond S.C. Sub Zero Foundalion, Inc. LLC Inlernalional Truck & Engine IMelson Foundalion Thrivent Financial for Lutherans American Family Insurance Group Corporalion IMorlhern Lake Service, Inc. Trapper's Tum, Inc. American Girl Islhmus Architecture IMorthweslern Mulual Life Insurance Twin Disc, Inc. Applelon, Inc. J. P. Cullen &Sons Company Urban Land Interest Robert W. Baird & Company Jackson County Bank Pepsi-Cola Company U.S. Bank-Madison Banla Corporalion Foundalion Kikkoman Foods Phoenix Resource Group Voith Fabrics The Baraboo IMalional Bank Kohler Company The Printing Place Webcrafters-Frautschi Foundation, Inc. Beyer Conslruclion Lands' End, Inc. Project Solutions, Inc. Weimer Bearing Transmission, Inc. Boeller & Lincoln Madison-Kipp Corporalion The QTI Group Windway Foundalion Brass Lighl Gallery The Manitowoc Company, Inc. Racine Federated, Inc. Wisconsin Physicians Service Brian A. Milchell Conslruclion The Marcus Corporalion Foundation, Robert Cox Realty Wollersheim Winery, Inc. Capilal Brewery Inc. Roy Tull Real Estate & Appraisal CGSchmidl Conslruclion, Inc. Marshall & Isley Foundalion, Inc. Rural Insurance Companies Chem-AI, Inc. Marshall Erdman and Associates Sargento Foods Inc. The Coburn Company Marshfield Clinic Sensient Technologies Cress Funeral & Cremalion Service Mead & Hunt Shafer Pharmacy, Inc. CUIMA Mulual Group Foundalion, Inc. Mead Witter Foundation, Inc. Speckled Hen Inn Bed & Breakfast SUMMER 2004 ^ 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 56 } Back Matters 7 Reading the Funny Pages ne of my earliest memories about reading involves newspapers for nearly forty years. Although Webster left Wis the Sunday comics. As a preschooler, I would spread consin for Ghicago and then eventually moved on to the Othe paper out in front of me and try to read the bright lights of New York City, his drawings drew upon his comics. The drawings, of course, were a key to the puzzle, but midwestem values. He deplored bigotry, called for equal sh the real feeling of triumph came from making out the words, rights, and believed in fair play. Although he lived most of his even if they were only those of Nancy and her friend Sluggo. adult life in big cities, Webster poked gentle fun at mild-man Even before I knew nered characters and how to read, I looked celebrated a slower, \ forward to the funny small town existence. pages in the Sunday His most famous char Milwaukeejournal. Sun acter, Gaspar Milque day mornings meant toast, who graces the church, a streusel coifee cover of the Magazine, I cake from Heinemann's has entered the lan ^ Bakery, and having the guage and has come to comics read to me by mean a "timid, meek, my dad. Of the three, or unassertive person." the last was my favorite. Despite the fact that I suspect that being they come to us printed The able to read the comics on a medium fated to motivates many young line bird-cages or people to learn how to become recycled pulp, read. As my vocabu comics serve as signifi lary improved and my cant historical docu tastes changed I grad ments. They are uated from Nancy and commonplace and Priscilla's Pop to the reduce complicated adventures of Dag- issues to their essence. In r wood and Blondie and some ways, they served Beetle Bailey. It took as precursors to today's i H even longer to appreci sound bites, for they £ ate some of the sub both reflect and shape tleties of Pogo ("We popular opinion. Even i have met the enemy nonpolitical cartoons fa and he is us"), the con MR, MlLQUETOi^ST, ON comment on expecta servative politics of Lir A veeeTABLe OieT, tions for family and STeps /NTO A TRUCK Abner (Joanie Phony), DRIVERS' LUNCH w/^eow social life and the inter and the liberal politics actions between people. of Doonesbury (Wal- As such they become den Puddle). Even useful for understanding later, I came to enjoy that old windbag. Major Amos B. the customs, beliefs, and values of times gone by and have earned R Hoople, who was featured in the older-style, single-frame car their place in the Wisconsin Magazine of History. Best of all, they toon. Our Boarding House. are fun. This issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History explores the art (both published and unpublished) of Tomahawk, Wis —Michael E. Stevens consin's H.T. Webster, whose cartoons graced the nation's SUMMER 2004 182977.qxd 6/14/04 1:16PM Page 57 Trout ^^* men L. ^'8'' ^''^ -J Higji Camp McKinley 0 ^^),JtiteL.. nuw'8 Camp ">-- ^..y^Gruftsy L. j_\ Tester Bros, * \ Fishtrap Heritage Tours Dorothy Dunn L. uuy Lake ass^Lake\/V^ Bakers Kelort;. Partridge Lake he Wisconsin Historical Society, in cooperation with the Wisconsin a long weekend, with combinations of car and foot^travel, urban ittle TroitALJ. lie r-r , has developed three regional tours that -and-'r-ural routes, or vigorous hiking and'window shopping. Each H ^^ep4rtment25)t 1 ourism offer a vajiet5^j>fSaeitinations to help people explore their heritage region also features at least one of the Society's sites. Choose one ^ Mcn.ay ^^^ enjoy an educational adventure at the same time. Each regional area to explore, or mix and match between them. Design your own ^^ alarlake tour offers several itineraries that can be u^^^fj! plan a H«ita^ Tour in Wisconsin this year! ^— y—"—V n iJ-^ ^-^ / \ R^, oliy Rtef Resort dJ Y^^ Rice Lhke \~CBack iM^iwel /•Btg^Iusc allonge / mjTw iB E A u ey Cottai Wisconsin Dells/ R ural Roads and ^(^SConsin Waterw^ays ,LAC'Barando " Tx^ City Streets Tour H.H. Bennett Cente'r ^Z»e i^^ S\Wadi e House's Herrling Mill /v PH 6062A/AS 38.2 ;•!• fZ^T. i< Circus World Museum (s**!;. Mllsh s Result - Hansoj] ^\tHoui l rel/ Circus World Foundation p^Design your Heritage Tour online at wvvw.wisconsinhistory.org/sites/heritagetoi 'uflusla L, Dam 182977. qxd 6/14/04 1:16 PM Page 58 Ihe Milwaukee T Loan Program, a WPA project Ihi began in 1938 a: defense against juvenile delinqui continued until 1 For more than th decades, childre borrowed toys, ( \i sporting equipm and games U Ice tl original Cootie G (created in 1949 an avid Minneso angler, William I Schaper).The Wisconsin Histor Museum has an original Cootie Game, pictured ^ and many other and games that J %i^-t children in Milwaulceewoul have enjoyed. Di Webb's article at the Toy Loan Program and its '^^o^^^ delinquent beginnings is featured in this is 1980.144.2 WISOONl__. Wisconsin Historical Society Press • 816 State Street • IVIadison, WI • 53706-1482