WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 58, No. 2 • Winter, 1974-1975 *"*>. "*»»*^ a. THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN JAMES MORTON SMITH, Director Officers HOWARD W. MEAD, President GEORGE BANTA, JR., Honorary Vice-President JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President F. HARWOOD ORBISON, Treasurer ROGER E. AXTELL, Second Vice-President JAMES MORTON SMITH, Secretary Board of Curators Ex Officio PATRICK J. LUCEY, Governor of the State JOHN C. WEAVER, President of the University DOUGLAS J. LAFOLLETTE, Secretary of State MRS. DAVID S. FRANK, President of the CHARLES P. SMITH, State Treasurer Women's Auxiliary Term Expires, 1975 E. DAVID CRONON JOHN C. GEILFUSS LLOYD HORNBOSTEL, JR. FRANCIS PAUL PRUCHA, S.J. Madison Milwaukee Beloit Milwaukee SCOTT M. CUTLIP BEN GUTHRIE ROBERT H. IRRMANN J. WARD RECTOR Madison Lac du Flambeau Beloit Milwaukee ROBERT A. GEHRKE MRS. R. L. HARTZELL JOHN R. PIKE CLIFFORD D. SWANSON Ripon Grantsburg Madison Stevens Point Term Expires, 1976 THOMAS H. BARLAND MRS. EDWARD C. JONES HOWARD W. MEAD DONALD C. SLIGHTER Eau Claire Fort Atkinson Madison Milwaukee NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN MRS. RAYMOND J. KOLTES FREDERICK I. OLSON DR. LOUIS C. SMITH Madison Madison Wauwatosa Lancaster E. E. HOMSTAD CHARLES R. MCCALLUM F. HARWOOD ORBISON ROBERT S. ZIGMAN Black River Falls Hubertus Appleton Milwaukee Term Expires, 1977 ROGER E. AXTELL PAUL E. HASSETT ROBERT B. L. MURPHY MILO K. SWANTON Janesville Madison Madison Madison HORACE M. BENSTEAD WILLIAM HUFFMAN MRS. WM. H. L. SMYTHE CEDRIC A. 'ViG Racine Wisconsin Rapids Milwaukee Rhinelander REED COLEMAN WARREN P. KNOWLES WILLIAM F. STARK CLARK WILKINSON Madison Milwaukee Nashotah Baraboo Fellows VERNON CARSTENSEN MERLE CURTI ALICE E. SMITH The Women's Auxiliary MRS. DAVID S. FRANK, Madtson, President MRS. DONALD F. REINOEHL, Darlington, Treasurer MRS. DONALD R. STROUD, Madison, Vice-President MRS. GORDON R. WALKER, Racine, Ex-Officio MRS. WADE H. MOSBY, Milwaukee, Secretary ON THE COVER: Head and hand moving in a display of ageless vigor, Frank Lloyd Wright in his ninety-first year graphically indicates his suggestions to an associated architect at Taliesin in August, 1957. Richard Vesey of the Wisconsin State Journal caught the architect at work, the promotion and idealization of which was one of the central goals of the Fellowship he and his wife founded in 1932. Volume 58, Number 2 / Winter, 1974-1975 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of The Rise of Wisconsin's New Democrats: Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. A Political Realignment in the Mid-T-wentieth Distributed to members as part Century 91 o£ their dues. (Annual member­ Richard C. Haney ship, $7.50, or $5 for those over 65 or members o£ affiliated societies; family membership, $10, or $7 for those over 65 or Lucas Bradley: members of affiliated societies; Carpenter, Builder, Architect 107 contributing, $25; business and professional, $50; sustaining, Helen Patton $100 or more annually; patron, .1J500 or more annually.) Single numbers $1.75. Microfilmed Organic Living: copies available through Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship University Microfilms, 313 and Georgi Gurdjieff's Institute for the North First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan; reprint volumes Harmonious Development of Man 126 available from Kraus Reprint Robert C. Tivombly Corporation, 16 East 46th Street, New York, New York 10017. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Catholic and Protestant Missionaries Among Society does not assume Wisconsin Indians: The Territorial Period 140 responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second- Michael E. Stevens class postage paid at Madison and Stevens Point, Wis. Copyright © 1975 by the Slate Historical Society of Wisconsin. Book Reviews 149 Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Book Review Index 168 Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. Wisconsin History Checklist 169 Accessions 172 WILLIAM CONVERSE HAYGOOD EDITOR Contributors 176 WILLIAM C. MARTEN ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOHN O. HOLZHUETER EDITORIAL ASSISTANT '^rtr;'^. "^K,. '* ' -• ^H'4W;..., Society's Iconographic Collections Wisconsin's delegates to the 1924 Democratic National Convention which nominated John W Davis as the party's presidential candidate after 103 ballots. Albert Schmedeman, elected governor in 1932, is the second man from the right. 90 The Rise of Wisconsin's New Democrats: A Political Realignment in the Mid-Twentieth Century By Richard C. Haney ISCONSIN politics underwent seats. Again the outcome was owing to a tem­ w> a sweeping realignment in the porary reaction, this time to the McKinley years following World War II. Although Wis­ Tariff and the Bennett Law, which forced consin's first territorial governor was a Demo­ parochial schools to teach all principal courses crat, and a majority of pre-statehood voters such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and U.S. probably considered themselves the same, it history in the English language. By 1894 Re­ was not until the period following World War publicans again controlled the governorship, II that tlie party achieved extensive political the legislature, and all ten congressional seats. power throughout the state. And when it did, The only two Democratic United States Sena­ the liberal or moderately liberal organization tors from Wisconsin between 1865 and 1900 which came into being in the 1950's bore little were "gold" Democrat William F. Vilas and resemblance to its predecessor. railroad magnate Alexander Mitchell's son The Democratic party in the state, although John.i often a political force with gubernatorial vot­ With the opening of the twentieth century ing percentages in the 45 to 49 per cent ranges, came the progressive era of Wisconsin politics. seldom won electoral victories in the period Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and his legions between the Civil and the Second World wars. pre-empted the liberal political position Except for consistently representative minori­ throughout a thirty-year period. Domination ties in the state legislature, Wisconsin Demo­ of the Wisconsin Republican party by La crats experienced only two temporary inter­ Follette and his progressives, as opposed to ludes of prominence before the turn of the conservative "stalwarts" in the same party, century. The first was the capture of the gov­ "rendered nearly impossible any vitalization ernorship by William R. Taylor for one term of the Wisconsin Democrats as a liberal op­ in the 1870's. Taylor won with an unlikely position."^ Democrats fell back upon a con­ coalition of reform and protest groups: farm­ servative, laissez-faire traditionalism, leaving ers upset by a cost-price squeeze, railroads the most important political battles to the disenchanted with GOP Governor Cadwal­ stalwarts and progressives within the GOP. lader C. Washburn's veto of a railroad bridge appropriation, and Germans advocating re­ '- The three best general studies of Wisconsin's po­ peal of the Washburn-signed Graham tem­ litical past are, alphabetically, Leon D, Epstein, Politics perance law. The second Democratic interlude in Wisconsin (Madison, 1958), Robert C. Nesbit, Wis­ occurred in the early 1890's when George W. consin: A History (Madison, 1973), and William F. Peck won the governorship, and Democrats Raney, Wisconsin: A Story of Progress (New York, 1940). captured nine of ten Wisconsin congressional ^ Epstein, Politics in Wisconsin, 37. 91 In the five gubernatorial elections of the 1920's the average Democratic vote was under 30 per cent of the total, neither house of the state legislature ever experienced a Democratic ma­ jority, and in 1922 the Democrats failed to win enough primary votes to be listed as a separate party on the November ballot.^ In the 1930's Wisconsin politics certainly did not conform to the national pattern. While the Democrats won huge majorities throughout the United States, Wisconsin was controlled during most of the decade by the Progressives, a New Deal-oriented third party headed by Governor Philip F. La Follette and U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr., the famous sons of Robert La Follette, Sr. Except for the 1932 election of Albert Schmedeman to the governorship and of F. Ryan Duffy to the United States Senate on the strength of Frank­ lin D. Roosevelt's landslide. Democrats were of no major consequence. They were virtually excluded owing to an alliance between FDR's national Democrats and the Wisconsin Pro­ gressive party, which resulted in Roosevelt and Young Bob La Follette's endorsing one another. La Follette men like David Lilien- thal, John Blaine, and Ralph Immell won major patronage plums from the Roosevelt Administration, while Democrats had to settle for occasional postmasterships. Republicans Society's Iconographic Collections alone furnished the only serious political chal­ Governor Albert Schmedeman signing dental legisla­ lenge to the Progressives. tion in May, 1933. Just as the Depression fostered stalwart- progressive disunion among Wisconsin Re­ The most noteworthy Wisconsin Democratic publicans, so pre-Pearl Harbor foreign policy success between 1900 and 1930 was the election disputes ruptured the liberal-isolationist alli­ of Mayville's Paul O. Husting to the United ance within the state's Progressive party. War States Senate. A progressive Democratic son in Asia and in Europe broke the coalition of of a German-speaking immigrant and a grand­ economic liberals and foreign policy noninter­ son of Solomon Juneau, the founder of