(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 80, No. 4 • Summer, 1997 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFWISCONSIN GEORGE L. VOGT, Director
Officers GLENN R. COATES, President RICHARD H. HOLSCHER, Treasurer GERALD D. VISTE, First Vice-President GEORGE L. VOGT, Secretary PATRICIA A. BOGE, Second Vice-President
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ON THE COVER: By about 1906, as this cartoon depicts, Robert M. La Follette was gaining a nationwide reputation as a trust-buster. An article on La Follette's early presidential aspirations begins on p. 258. WHi (X3) 51080 Volume 80, Number 4 / Summer, 1997
WISCONSIN
ri846, MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette as Presidential Aspirant: 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488. The First Campaign, 1908 258 Distributed to members as part of their dues. Individual member Herbert Margulies ship, $27.50; senior citizen individual, $22.50; family, $32.50; senior citizen family, $27.50; Wisconsin Economists supporting, $100; sustaining, and New Deal Agricultural Policy: $250; patron, $500 or more; life (one person), $1,000. Single The Legacy of Progressive Professors 280 numbers from Volume 57 forward are $5 plus postage. Microfilmed Jess Gilbert and Ellen Baker copies available through University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Communications should Book Reviews 313 be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsi Book Review Index 326 bility for statements made by contributors. Periodicals postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Histor}' Checklist 327 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, Accessions 329 Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488. Copyright © 1997 by the State Contributors 336 Historical Society ofWisconsin.
The Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; Editor cumulative indexes are assembled PAUL H. HASS decennially. In addinon, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Associate Editors Abstracts, Index to Literature on the JOHN O. HOLZHUETER American Indian, and the Combined KiMBERLY S. LITTLE (Interim) Retrospective Index to foumals in History, 1838-1974. Book Review Editor Photographs identified with WTIi CHRISTOPHER W. WELLS negative numbers are from the Historical Societv's collections. WHi(X31)4000 Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., in Washington in 1908. Photograph by WaldonFawcett.
258 Robert M. La Follette as Presidential Aspirant: The First Campaign, 1908
By Herbert Margulies
OVERNOR ofWisconsin from 1901 to campaigns, giving particular attention, G 1906, then United States Senator un naturally, to those of 1912 and 1924.^ But til his death in 1925, Robert M. La Follette there was more to La Follette than presi was not content with these high offices. His dential ambition, and quite understand eye was on a greater prize: the White House. ably his biographers have not focused stead He ran for a presidential nomination, or fastly on the presidential theme. Thus, the for the presidency itself, or seriously con full scope of La Follette's presidential pur sidered one or the other of these efforts, in suit remains to be chronicled. One pur every election from 1908 through 1924, a pose of this article is to rectify the situation year before his death. In the words of histo with reference to the first campaign, for rian George H. Meyer, La Follette "sought the Republican nomination in 1908. the Presidency as persistently as any candi There is another purpose. Occasionally date in American history and honestly be La Follette's actions bore clearly and exclu lieved that the sole motive for his action sively upon the presidency. Much more of was selfless devotion to a cause."' ten, however, they were explicable in terms To be sure, biographers of "Fighting of a variety of motives. Given what is already Bob" have long been aware of his ambi known and generally acknowledged respect tions. They have described his presidential ing La Follette's presidential ambitions and his better-known presidential candidacies, one may reasonably look for the presiden ' George H. Mayer, The Republican Party, 1854- tial aspect in actions that served several pur 1966 (2nd ed. New York, 1967), 293. A friendly poses without questioning La Follette's sin contemporary of La Follette's, political scientist cerity about the non-presidential motives Frederick A. Ogg, remarked of La Follette, "He was over-ambitious to reach the Presidency." Ogg, "Rob for these actions. This matter is of some ert M. La Follette in Retrospect," in Current History, consequence. If presidential ambition was 33 (February, 1931), 685-691, in Roberts. Maxwell, an abiding and important consideration for ed.. Great Lives Observed: LaFollette (Englewood Cliffs, La Follette, then his entire career as gover Newjersey, 1969), 130-138, 136. A recent scholar nor and senator must be reexamined in agrees; see John J. L.Johnson, "A Rhetorical Analysis of Robert Marion La Follette as a Social Movement Leader and Presidential Aspirant, 1897-1924" (doc toral dissertation, Wayne State University, 1989), 2, ^ RobertM. LaFollette, LaFollette's Autobiography 76, 77. (Madison, 1913; 1960 ed.), 208-321.
Copyright © 1997 by the State Historical Sociew ofWisconsin 259 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. WTSCONSIN MAGAZINE Or HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 that light. Partly to illustrate the point, the presidential implications of a number of events leading to the 1908 nomination merit examination. As we shall see. La Follette's very first campaign, for the Republican presi dential nomination of 1908, was both more serious and more prolonged than histori ans and biographers have heretofore real ized. The 1908 race was the first of a series of presidential bids. La Follette made his stron gest try in the next nominating campaign of 1912, as he attempted to head the bur geoning progressive Republican forces against the unpopular incumbent, William Howard Taft. The belated candidacy of former president Theodore Roosevelt side tracked him, as La Follette bitterly re counted in his autobiography.^ La Follette even gave serious consider ation to a bid for the 1916 Republican nomi nation—a fact overlooked by biographers WHi(X3)51093 and historians.* On the surface, the year Charles W. Croiunhart, 1863-1930. seemed inauspicious for La Follette. Roosevelt had led some of the progressives was encouraged about his chances for nomi from the Republican party into a new one, nation after an extensive tour ofthe South; the Bull Moose party; conservative Republi but he was also concerned for the financing cans had further strengthened themselves of a national organization, as he wrote an in the election of 1914; and Woodrow Oregon legislator and supporter, D.C. Lewis, Wilson's Democrats had seized the main in the fall of 1915. In reply, Lewis suggested issues of progressi\ism. The war in Europe, that he see Dr. C.J. Hexamer, president of however, created an avenue of opportunity. the National German-American Alliance— Senator La Follette took a consistently neu whom he said favored La Follette's candi tralist stance and criticized the administra dacy—to arrange for funds, as well as sup tion for allowing American bankers to fi port of newspapers and German-American nance the Allies and American munitions organizations. La Follette told Lewis "there makers to arm them against Germany. He is meat" in his letter. But he feared that a personal meeting with Hexamer would be observed and "subject to misinterpretation," ' For example. La Follette's daughter Fola noted since he. La Follette, stood for neutrality, his candidacy in Wisconsin and North Dakota, for not pro-Germanism. Perhaps, however, a the purpose of presenting a minority report on the surrogate might be dispatched to see platform, but omitted earlier, more ambitious activ Hexamer. La Follette therefore sought ad ity. Belle Case and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette (2 vols.. New York, 1953), 1:562-563. vice from his trusted friend Charles "•La Follette to D. C. Lewis, October 9, 1915; Crownhart and his secretary, John Hannan. Lewis to La Follette, October 15, 1915; LaFollette to Hannan urgently and in detail argued that Lewis, October 25,1915; La Follette toJohnHannan, the secret of a Hexamer connection would October 25, 1915; and Hannan to La Follette, Octo surely get out, and just as surely would cause ber 30, 1915, all in the LaFollette Family Collecdon, severe and permanent damage to La Fol- Library of Congress.
260 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS
Immediately, La Follette began to plan for 1924, as did several interest groups headed by the sixteen railroad brother hoods (meaning organized labor within the railroad industry). In 1924 he accepted the nomination of the newly created Pro gressive party, believing he had a chance to win against two conservative candidates. Through a combination of circumstances, he was badly beaten by the incumbent presi dent, Calvin Coolidge, 15.7 million votes to 4.8 million. (The Democratic candidate, John W. Davis, received 8.3 million.) De feated and ailing, but not despairing. La Follette responded characteristically: he began planning for the next campaign." It was death, not pessimism about his presi dential chances, that removed him from the scene a year later.
N 1891 Robert M. La Follette, a former WHi(X3)51084 I three-term congressman, found himself John Hannan. embroiled in a public controversy with Senator Philetus Sawyerover an alleged ef lette's reputation. Accordingly, the senator fort by Sawyer to bribe him to influence his abandoned the idea.^ brother-in-law, a judge. Wisconsin Repub In April, 1917, the United States entered lican leaders strongly condemned La Fol the war against Germany and Austria-Hun lette for hurting the party, and thereafter gary. For positions that he took in oppo.si- his political career was as an anti-machine tion to the war measures, and for statements leader. In 1900 his enemies negotiated a that he was misrepresented as making. La truce and acquiesced in La Follette's nomi Follette was widely vilified and almost ex nation and election as governor. Very soon, pelled from the Senate. He emerged from however, the battle resumed, in the legisla the war, however, a hero once again to the ture and the political arena, and it was as a many people who for economic and social reformer, bent on regulating railroads and reasons were disaffected during the war. instituting primary elections for party nomi The Republican party was controlled by con nations, that La Follette won reelection in servatives, so when a loose coalition of farm 1902. It was during that campaign that his ers, labor organizations, and middle-class friends began to talk of him as a possible reformers set out to form a third party. La presidential candidate.** Follette indicated his willingness to be their La Follette did not directly speak of the candidate for president. Only their failure presidency at this time. But he did not to unite in 1920 caused him to draw back.® discourage those who did. And he did those
^ David P. Thelen, Robert M. La Follette and the 'Belle and Fola La Follette, La Follette; Insurgent Spirit (Boston, 1976), 125-164. Greenbaum, La Follette; Thelen, La Follette and the '' David L. Waterhouse, The Progressive Movement Insurgent Spirit; Bernard A. Weisberger, The La Fol of 1924 and the Development of Interest Group Liberalism lettes ofWisconsin: Love and Politics in Progressive Amer (New York, 1991), 6-13; Fred Greenbaum, Robert ica (Madison, 1994). Marion La Follette (Boston, 1975), 219. ** Duluth News-Tribune, August 3, 1902.
261 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
moved to New York city. Often, however, the families exchanged visits and Roe, while no longer so politically useful as before in Wisconsin, took on a national role.^ Beginning in November of 1902 and continuing for over a year. Roe tried to arrange one or more speaking opportuni ties in New York city for La Follette. The governor was anxious to come, "if I had plenty of time to prepare for the occasion, and if it was one where there was a fair show for an audience and time enough allotted to do the business." He believed that several reformist magazines would pub licize his speech.^" His obligations to Chau tauqua lectures and the need to campaign in Wisconsin prevented La Follette from giving the major speech he had contem plated, but in March, 1904, he did finally give a minor address to some publishers and others Roe was cultivating.'' La Follette had begun his Chautauqua career in 1902 in neighboring states and in the summer of 1903 he traveled the Chautauqua circuit through the Middle West, Maryland, and upstate New York—an arduous regimen that he would continue, WHi(X3)3103 as time permitted, throughout the balance Isaac Stephenson, La Follette benefactor. of his life. La Follette was of course a mag netic speaker who had first gained promi things that would advance his future candi nence as a college orator. "The itinerant dacy. These included making himself a na platform, especially in the West, was his ele tional figure, in a variety of ways; making ment, the sea he swam in," Bernard Weis contacts with influential people outside his berger has written. "It gave him exposure, native Wisconsin; encouraging reform in income, broad contacts, the thrill of crusad other states, and thus recruiting potential ing, a taste of America awakening to regen allies; and maintaining the friendship of eration." He spoke occasionally on "Ham his most likely financier, the venerable and let," though principally on "Representative very wealthy Marinette lumberman Isaac Government" in 1903. After his lectures, he Stephenson. None of these efforts was in talked politics. The "Representative Govern- consistent with his concern for continuing factional success in Wisconsin; indeed that ' Belle and Fola La Follette, La/'o/Zete 1:112, 127; success was a prerequisite for all else. As to Thelen, LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit, 93. the presidency, 1904 was too soon, but 1908 '" La Follette to Roe, December 15, 1903, in the was not. Robert M. La Follette Papers, Wisconsin State Ar Gilbert Roe was an invaluable political chives, State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Madi son. helper and loyal and trusted friend to La " LaFollette to Roe,Januarv- 18, 1904; Roe to La Follette over the years. Initially La Follette's Follette, January 21, 1904; and Roe to La Follette, law partner, in 1899, after marrying, he January 28, 1904, all in the La Follette Papers.
262 J:mm
\Mli(\fiL':ii61 Gilbert E. Roe in his law offices in Madison. ment" lecture, like its successors in later course I can get in but here and there and years, was itself heavily political. It combined the country seems large. Yet it has already democratic theory with personal narratives spread out from Wisconsin wonderfully and of his battles for the people against party I am adding quite a number of radiating machines and railroads, which deplored the centers with this summer's work." In their taxes he had imposed in 1901 and the strin biography of La Follette—-written consecu gent regulation that he had urged on the tively, not collaboratively, by his wife Belle legislature earlier in 1903.'^ and daughter Fola—the authors empha In 1903, La Follette sensed reform in sized the importance that La Follette at the air, stimulated in part by the begin tributed to his early Chautauqua work in nings of muckraking journalism. The building the progressive movement nation ground was fertile, and happily he plowed ally and helping to bring progressives into it. Thus, for example, after completing his Congress. They did not add, nor did he, Iowa lectures, he wrote his wife: "A few that such a national buildup of progressive more meetings in Iowa and they will have a strength, and his personal involvement in primary election movement organized for that buildup, was essential for a successful business. ... I feel very sure that my work is bid for the presidency.'^ going to do good the country over. Of
'' Thelen, La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit, 49; '••^ Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:165, Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, August 6, 167; Thelen, La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit, 41; 1903, in the La Follette Family Collection; Belle and Weisberger, The La Follettes, 51, 59. Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:167, and 2:1110-1111.
263 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
There were other ments and paying trib prerequisites. One was ute to his great contri continued success in bution. But the railroad Wisconsin. Another was .^^^ commission issue re- money, both to main M ^^m mained unsettled. Rail- tain power in Wiscon 1 road reform and the W sin and ultimately to ^ democratization of poli finance a national cam tics in Wisconsin, La paign. Since 1900 Isaac Follette wrote, "is to Stephenson had been have its wider influence the money-man. In 1901 throughout all the states he contributed the larg of the Union. The eyes est amount towards es of the country are fixed tablishing the Milwaukee upon the struggle now Free Press after the Mil on in this common waukee Sentinel came wealth." In short, Steph under the control of La enson would have fur Follette's enemies. The ther opportunity to Free Press was a constant \\llu\)i4M>90 advance republican gov Senator John C. Spooner, 1898. drain on Stephenson's ernment. Stephenson pocketbook and the was pleased with the let paper's losses, taken together with period ter, but not with the continuing losses of ic campaign contributions, caused Steph the Free Press, which he complained of to La enson to spend more than $500,000 on La Follette at year's end. Follette's cause, according to his later, and So matters stood at the start of 1904, embittered, reckoning.'* when La Follette would move more fully La Follette persistently courted Steph onto the national stage—as a possible can enson. Once installed as governor in 1901 didate for the Senate in 1905 and then for he named a Stephenson man, Henry Over- the White House in 1908.'' beck, as state game warden, a politically La Follette's political enemies—-stalwart powerful office. In 1902 he offered to back politicians and the major railroads that ser\'ed Stephenson for the U.S. Senate the follow Wisconsin—^went all-out in 1904 to block his ing year against the incumbent, John renominations, to control the Wisconsin del Spooner. Stephenson had earlier joined egation to the Republican national conven La Follette because in 1899 he had been tion, and to defeat a proposed primary elec denied a Senate seat by Spooner and oth tion law in a statewide referendum. La ers; but now, for unstated reasons, he de Follette's forces fought with equal fury. They clined. La Follette was at least able to gratify captured the state convention machinery, the lumberman with the promise of pa but most stalwarts walked out and held a rival tronage appointments after his own renomi- convention which they claimed was the le- nation in 1902. The busy governor could not accept all of Stephenson's social invi tations, yet he and Belle occasionally did '' Herbert F. Margulies, Senator Lenroot ofWiscon visit with the Stephensons. When the 1903 sin: A Political Biography, 1900-1929 (Columbia, Mis legislative session concluded. La Follette souri, 1977), 128; Stephenson, Recollections, 221; La wrote Stephenson re'viewing its accomplish- Follette to Stephenson, July 10, 1902, in the La Follette Papers; Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:84, 229; La Follette to Stephenson, May 21, 1903; Edward W. LeRoy to La Follette, May 28, 1903; and '^ Isaac Stephenson, Recollections of a Long Life, Stephenson to La Follette, December 14, 1903, all in 1829-1915 (Chicago, 1915), 215-217, 219, 251, 254. the La Follette Papers. 264 am cmcAGo PAmr TBxmnmt SATTJTBPAY, _^mm is, 1904.. Victor aW Vantquisked in Wiflconsin Republican Contest.
rCopyritfit. IM4, Iv *• Ho««i
SENATOR JOHN C. SPOONER. aOV. ROBERT M. IJV POLLETTB. • c««tMt iwlera Jb« RapobMcMi Natloturf MmnimM; bis tfelagi^laM 1 SMitHrtJnir d«legatio> wat del««tMf. Matter win be urriad ta wwmtAo4 iMt* IB tiM convMittai. cradMidala caoimtttM Bittt p«rhap« to cativ«iittaa ttoor.
WHi{X3)3nO Cartoonist's comment on the Spooner-La Follette gubernatorial contest at the midpoint in the drama, when Spooner still had the upper hand. He wears conservative garb, while La Follette sporis more fashionble, "progressive" clothes.
gitimate one. The Republican national con McClure's Magazine. Collier's Weekly and other vention recognized the "stalwart" (conserva publications also carried stories on La tive) delegation, but La Follette won a state Follette and what he had done in Wiscon Supreme Court test of his nomination and sin. La Follette contributed to the outcome then won reelection. And the voters approved by actively courting Steffens and other jour the primary election law by a margin of more nalists. Gilbert Roe, operating out of New than 50,000 votes. York city, helped out in that center of pub The victory preserved and enhanced La lishing. The immediate goal of La Follette Follette's reputation. Just as valuable in and Roe was to achieve victory in Wiscon that regard was the favorable national pub sin, but happily that target was consonant licity La Follette got from the periodical with a future presidential candidacy."' press during the course of the colorful battle. By far the most important article was "Enemies of the Republic. Wisconsin: '"Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:185; A State Where the People Have Restored Thelen, La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit, 43; La Representative Government—The Story of Follette to Roe, July 27, 1904; Roe to La Follette, August 13, 1904; A. A. Boyden to Roe, August 22, Governor La Follette;" written by the cel 1904; and Richard Lloydjones to La Follette, Sep ebrated muckraker Lincoln Steffens, in tember 1, 1904, all in the La Follette Papers. 265 WHi(X.l) 14092 Robert M. LaFollette and muckraker Lincoln Steffens, circa 1915. Photograph by Mrs. Luther Derwent.
La Follette congratulated Lincoln told, so we need only summarize here.'^ The Steffens for his contribution to the outcome post was to be filled by the legislature in 1905 and said it was just a beginning for a glori as Joseph Quarles's term ended. (In those ous fight in which Steffens would play a days, United States Senators were elected by great part. As David Thelen points out. La state legislatures, not by popular vote.) Itwas Follette had struck a national note during urged on La Follette by friends in Wisconsin the campaign. After rejection of his dele and Washington, most of them alluding to gation to the national convention, he ap presidential possibilities, and La Follette pealed to Republican voters ofthe nation to wanted it That President Roosevelt in his restore the party to its Lincolnian roots and message to Congress of December 6 advanced rid it of corporate control. He reiterated a strong reform program headed by increased the theme in campaign speeches. Thus, regulation of railroads made the opportu Thelen observes, "A vote for La Follette was nity doubly appealing to La Follette, particu a vote for future national leadership."'' larly if he could enhance his credentials be The Senate beckoned La Follette as a fore taking his Senate seat with a Wisconsin stepping stone to the presidency. The story railroad regulation bill to his credit. A major of how and why he got to the Senate has been difficulty arose, however, in the person of
" La Follette to Steffens, November 14, 1904, in '" Herbert F. Margulies, "Robert M. La Follette the La Follette Papers, cited in Margulies, Lenroot, Goes to the Senate, 1905," in the Wisconsin Magazine 58; Thelen, LaFollette and Insurgent Spirit, 43. of History, 59 (Spring, 1976), 214-225.
266 MARGULtES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS
Isaac Stephenson, who himself coveted the seat. The risk of losing Stephenson's support for the Milwaukee Free Press, as well as for campaigns both statewide and national, out weighed all else for La Follette. Three times in the course of a year he tried to win the place for the lumberman—twice after he himself had been elected Senator but notyet seated. Stephenson was reluctant to cam paign openly, and legislators of all factions balked at his election, so all La Follette's striving on his behalf failed. Finally, in 1906, La Follette resigned as governor and went to Washington, hopeful that Stephenson had been mollified by his efforts and pleased that the legislature had adopted a railroad com mission bill, albeit an imperfect measure. At least Wisconsin had caught up with Iowa,
Illinois, and Minnesota, so La Follette could WHi(L'il)7'i champion national reform without embar Belle Case La Follette, Mary La Follette, and Irvine rassment'^ Lenroot at the La Follettes' Maple Bluff Farm, 1906. La Follette gave some indication of the role he would play in the Senate during his reformist legislatures he was already pro Chautauqua lecture tour in the summer of moting in the states he visited. He was less 1905. As he wrote Ike Stephenson from one concerned about immediate legislative of the midwestern states: "It is encouraging accomplishment, which would require com to find how deep an impress our work in promise, than with the generation of na Wisconsin has made upon all this section of tional campaign issues that he might use on the country and how ready people seem to his own behalf and against Old Guard Re take hold for organization." And to Belle he publicans in their reelection efforts. If he wrote of making converts in South Dakota could work in tandem with the popular and promising to come again to promote Theodore Roosevelt, all to the good. If not, the progressive cause. He added, in a light, so be it. In either case, he would maintain a self-deprecating tone, that South Dakota confrontational posture in the Senate. men said they would back him "for Presi dent in the next convention, so you see my ROM the outset. La Follette had no boom is turned loose."^^ Fintention of honoring the tradition that When at last La Follette went to the Sen a new senator make no speeches for a year. ate, he was not bent on working with the Roosevelt had brought the issue of federal mainly conservative Republican senators railroad regulation to the fore. La Follette but on replacing them with more progres had identified himself with that question sive men, sent to Washington by the new in Wisconsin, and it opened to him the chance to win a national progressive fol '^ Stanley P. Caine, The Myth of a Progressive Re lowing. Once the railroad bill cleared com form: Railroad Regulation in Wisconsin, 1903-1910 mittee, he would speak, and would offer (Madison, 1976), 118-119, 132, 149, 155-157, 161, amendments as well. 223; Thelen, LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit, 46. To prepare himself. La Follette solicited ™ Stephenson, Recollections, 237; Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, September 29, 1905, cited in detailed advice from Gilbert Roe, from Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:194. Wisconsin railroad commissioner Profes-
267 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 sor B. H. Meyer, and above all from Irvine rightly settled, seats now temporarily vacant Lenroot. Lenroot, though just thirty-one may be permanently vacated by those who when first elected to the Wisconsin Assem have the right to occupy them at this time." bly in 1900, had quickly gained a place in Afterward, with the help of Democratic sena La Follette's inner circle, as a skilled and tors, he forced roll-call votes on his doomed faithful legislative draftsman and strategist. amendments. In Belle's words, "he knew In the 1903 and 1905 sessions the young that on his extensive summer lecture tour lawyer served as speaker of the Wisconsin he could make people understand the assembly and took a large part in develop significance of their Senator's votes."'^'' ment ofthe railroad commission bill.^' With President Roosevelt's support. La La Follette's dependence in 1906 on Follette was able to put into position for Lenroot and others for legislative aid was adoption at the next session a bill to limit no transitory thing. In 1908, for example, hours of continuous service of trainmen, trying to generate a railroad bill of his own, who at that time frequently worked twenty- as a campaign issue, the senator wrote four or even thirty-six hours without sleep. Lenroot: "I tell you, old man, I need you But in the main, the Senator was content down here. I have not had an opportunity to generate issues. Apart from the railroad to look into a lawbook now in many years, question, the most important of these, he and I get no chance here." Though himself thought, was protection of federal oil and usually short of money, he offered to bring coal lands from private monopoly. "It will Lenroot to Washington "for a while," at his be one ofthe great questions," he wrote Belle.'*^'' own expense, if Lenroot could but manage In the view of most contemporaries and it. He could not, but he continued to ad historians, the Fifty-ninth Congress was re vise the Senator by mail.^^ markably productive. But La Follette dis On April 19, 1906, La Follette used the paraged its accomplishments and found efforts of Lenroot, Roe, and Meyer to de depressing the kind of legislative work that liver a 148-page speech attacking portions produced them. "I can see how the dreary of the railroad bill that had emerged from grind of makeshift and show would in time committee and from compromise talks with sear over and harden the average con Roosevelt. He also argued for amendments science," he wrote his wife. "These alleged that he proposed to offer. La Follette had servants of the people pass legislation like come to the Senate with the reputation of the Meat Inspection bill, the Pure food being a radical. That, combined with his bill, the Pure Alcohol bill, the Rate bill and breach of Senate etiquette in delivering the thus jolly up the people, who do not dis speech, caused many of his colleagues to cover they have a gold brick for some time walk out on him. La Follette took note, and and do not seem to mind so much. ... I am warned: "Unless this important question is glad to go out from time to time during these sessions and look into the faces of my [Chautauqua] audiences. They are help '" La Follette to Roe, February 25 and March 10, ful. They inspire my faith and restore my 1906; and Roe to La Follette, March 9 and 13, 1906, courage. . . ."^^ all in the La Follette Family Collection. On Lenroot's background, see Margulies, Lenroot, 1-69. Lenroot's In 1911, Herbert Parsons, a high-minded assistance to La Follette on the railroad bill is indi moderate Republican from New York city, cated in La Follette to Lenroot, February 22 and 24, 1906; Lenroot to LaFollette, February 26, 1906; and La Follette to Lenroot, March 10, 1906, all in the 2'' Belle and Fola La Follette, La Follette, 1:204- Irvine L. Lenroot Papers, Library of Congress. 205, 208. ^^ LaFollette toLenroot,January8,1908; Lenroot '^^ Ibid., 1:208-209; Thelen, La Follette and the to La Follette ,January 8,1908; La Follette to Lenroot, Insurgent Spirit, 55. The emphasis is La Follette's. January 17,1908; and Lenroot to La Follette,January ^' Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, Febru 21, 1908; all in the Lenroot Papers. ary 7, 1907, in the La Follette Family Collection. 268 KADES: ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, JR.
commented acidulously on La Follette as a the Senate. He had generated issues, espe senator. He thought the Wisconsin man cially on the railroad bill (which ultimately had been put on the Committee on Indian passed as the landmark Hepburn Act), and Affairs "to give him a chance to show what he had secured roll-call votes that he could work there is in him and to accomplish use against some of his senatorial colleagues. some good for the Indians . . . but Senator From late June until December, when Con La Follette is not a worker at his congres gress reconvened. La Follette was on the sional duties. He is a grand-stand player, stump. He spent some time in Wisconsin, taking up certain issues and handling them but mainly he was elsewhere. He delivered effectively. But so far as the day in and day Chautauqua lectures, with their strong po out work is concerned, he is little of a litical component, as well as outright cam factor. . . ."^'^ Parsons did not say that La paign speeches for reform candidates.^^ Follette was lazy, only that he had his own On the stump. La Follette reviewed the self-serving agenda. Both in the Senate and recent congressional session, raised the min on the stump he relished the give and take eral lands issue, and talked of valuation of of debate and the forceful exposition of railroad property as a basis for rate-making, a facts and logic—a role for which he had provision adopted in Wisconsin but not in long prepared himself.'^' He worked hard the Hepburn Act.^" In sixteen states, mainly and intelligently, but in private, not in the midwestern and western ones, after describ committee room. ing the issues involved, he read the roll-call Bernard Weisberger has noted La votes of his audience's senators. Itwas a great Follette's distaste for the conventional role crowd-pleaser: his audiences seemed to love of senator, and suggested his presidential it. This was a technique he had successfully goal: "He had tasted executive power and used in the 1904 Wisconsin campaign, and leadership and he missed it. Even more, he had great faith in it. In Newjersey he read the Senate floor was not the theater of his the roll call against the Republican senators, greatest strength, crowd pleasing. His life one of whom, John F. Dryden, was fighting was cramped by walls. He had found fulfill for renomination against a reformer, George ment as the open air evangelist of democ L. Record. Record lost, but Iowa's reform racy. ..." Weisberger likens La Follette to governor, Albert Cummins, won a Senate William Jennings Bryan, aptly observing, seat. So did Joseph Bristow of Kansas, though "Both men were creations of the moment not immediately.^' in the 1890's when political oratory and At La Follette's request, Lenroot ad improved transportation met and fertilized dressed reform groups in New York and each other and created the golden age of Kansas on the subject of Wisconsin's accom the speaking campaign."^** plishments. He may also have responded If during the 1906 session La Follette to a La Follette telegram saying "Wire Cum lusted for the prolonged speaking campaign mins you will be in Iowa Monday. Very that lay ahead, he did not waste his time in important.'"'^ For a senator, interference in out-of-state nominations was unusual; in ^'^ Parsons to Joseph Deutsch, March 28, 1911, in tervention against incumbents of one's own the Herbert Parsons Papers, Columbia University. party was still more unusual. But La Follette Parsons supported the renomination of President Taft, whom La Follette was likely to oppose, but he was not given to misrepresentation. 2^ Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:211. "Joseph Bristow to C. B. Kirkland, March 20, •''° Wisconsin State Journal, ]u\y 2, 1906; Milwaukee 1909, in the Joseph Bristow Papers, Kansas State Free Press, October 12, 1906. Historical Society, Topeka, quoted in James Holt, -•" Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:215- Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909- 216. i9i6 (Cambridge, 1967), 141. ••"'•^ Margulies, Lenroot, 72; La Follette to Lenroot, ^* Weisberger, The La Follettes, 54. June 1, 1906, in the Lenroot Papers. 269 Robert M. La Follette on the Chautauqua circuit in Eos Angeles in 1907.
270 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS had no interest in politics as usual. The cause would have served almost all of the tradi he served, and his own success as leader of tional two terms. But Roosevelt might yet that cause, depended on a sweeping change succumb to a draft. If La Follette was sincere, of the guard in the Republican party. he may well have been allowing for a possible shift in his own presidential focus from 1908 URING the short session (December, to 1912. A popular, more radical, and friend D 1906, to March, 1907), La Follette con lier Roosevelt might then have been invalu tinued to use the roll call against Senate able to La Follette, not only in helping him colleagues on weekends and holidays.^^ He win legislation that would greatly enhance also persuaded a columnist from Collier's, his reputation and public image, but also in Samuel E. Moffett, to publicize roll calls on securing the party nomination in 1912. One prominent questions. "That will be a tell more term would end it for Roosevelt, while ing thing to do," he wrote Belle, "and will someone else would surely seek two terms. establish a rule which I think the press of La Follette was not put to the test, for the country will have to heed & comment Roosevelt soon backtracked from support on if they do not copy it . . ."•'* for his bills, which the president deemed Early in the session, at Roosevelt's invi politically impracticable. When he sought tation, La Follette called on the president La Follette's help for imperfect legislation, to discuss "the coal matter" and the provi the Senator instead reverted to his familiar sions of his bill. The interview. La Follette lone-wolf role as exhibited on the railroad wrote Belle, "was the most satisfying I ever bill in 1906. He would not reject all coop had with him. It was quite personal and eration with the president, who was widely political—and quite extended and seen as leader of the burgeoning Progres significant." About a month later, in mid- sive movement, but neither would he aban January, 1907, Roosevelt again summoned don his own legislation, however hopeless La Follette. TR admitted that he had dis its prospects in the short run.^® trusted him during the last session, but no If, briefly. La Follette had been prepared longer. He approved the Senator's ideas to adjust to another term for Roosevelt, he on further railroad reform, and said he had simultaneously continued to look to would push them. LaFollette then "brought wards his own 1908 candidacy should Roo up the Presidential matter and told him sevelt not go back on his 1904 statement things should be moving & that his friends Even before Roosevelt disappointed him, should be allowed to know that they might he reported to Belle with obvious pleasure take hold for him. He put up his hands in that reform elements in New York "want protest but not in anger or indignation."^'" the word to go ahead for a 1908 move It is not clear whether La Follette was ment" and that "the progressives here are sincere in offering support, or was simply generally feeling that they have no where sounding out Roosevelt—and also currying else to go for a leader." As for Roosevelt, favor. He knew, of course, that Roosevelt had the Washington progressives felt that his said following his election in 1904 that he stock had weakened and his 1904 state would not seek reelection, since by 1909 he ment precluded efforts for him.^" At the end of the short session, John Spooner, for unstated reasons, retired from ^' Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:226. '"• Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, Decem ber 14, 1906, cited ibid, 1:218. ^^ Robert La Follette to "My Dear Girl and Litde '•* Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, January Ones," December 18,1906; and Robert La Follette to 28 and 30, and February 5,1907, all in the LaFollette Belle La Follette, July (January) 16,1907, both in the Family Collection. La Follette Family Collection. The emphasis is La "" Robert La Follette to Belle La Follette, January Follette's. 7, 1907, in the La Follette Family Collection. 271 Ik*a*ttrad VaiM 0t»t«( S«ac^-"E%sun I f^^^ PloM 3«m«t&ise
272 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS the end, though La Follette men supplied mostof Stephenson's votes, itwas an anti-La Follette leader. Republican state chairman W. D. Connor of Marshfield, who delivered the votes that put Stephenson over.''** Stephenson did not immediately make known his feelings, and he worked with La Follette in the Senate for a time. But La Follette's explanation for his failure to close the contest early, when he visited Madison, did not satisfy him. La Follette explained that the men he talked to in the Wisconsin legisla ture were his friends. To this, Stephenson later rejoined sardonically: "A sudden deli cacy of feeling, I suppose, forbade any zeal ous attempt to influence the action or mold the convictions of these men whom the outer world had erroneously regarded as parts of a well organized political machine."^^ At the time, however. La Follette was unaware of Stephenson's bruised feelings. WHi(X.'i)26713 He used his Chautauqua tour for its usual Anti-La Follette leader William D. Connor supplied the multiple purposes. He visited seventeen votes Isaac Stephenson needed to put him over the top in states, thirteen of them west of the Missis his bid for Senator John Spooner's seat. sippi. Everywhere, he reviewed the recent session ofthe Senate and read roll-call votes work on the stump helped his chances. to appreciative audiences. He studied pub Later, Belle noted that in the fall of 1907 lic sentiment and, in his own mind, com he was widely discussed as a presidential mitted himself to future outright political possibility, and that many articles on the work in the interest of reformers, with an La Follettes appeared in the first half of eye towards post-1908 possibilities. He also 1908."" kept his eyes open for potential campaign Even while away. La Follette took a hand donors. In San Francisco, for example, in organizing his campaign among Wis when Lincoln Steffens introduced him to consin lieutenants. Most importantly in this Rudolph Spreckels, municipal reformer regard, he directed John Hannan to see and millionaire son of sugar magnate Claus William Jennings Bryan andjoseph Bristow Spreckels, La Follette saw in him not im about establishing a biweekly paper, some mediate but future possibilities for financial thing that he and his friends had already support. But La Follette still had hopes for discussed and approved.'" 1908, and understood that his continuing
*" Thelen, La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit, 61; '"* Margulies, Lenroot, 71-72; Herbert F. Margu Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:230-234, 239. lies, The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wiscon '" Thelen, LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit, 185; sin, 1890-1920 {Madison, 1968), 99-101; HerbertF. La Follette to Lenroot, June 20,1907, in the Lenroot Margulies, "Progressivism, Patriotism, and Politics: Papers; LaFollette to James A. Stone, July 15, 1907, The Life and Times of Irvine L. Lenroot," 345-361, in the James A. Stone Papers, Wisconsin State Ar unpublished manuscript in the Wisconsin State Ar chives, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; John chives, State Historical Society ofWisconsin, and in Hannan to Alfred T. Rogers, October 13, 1907; and the Lenroot Papers, Library of Congress. Herman Ekern to Irvine Lenroot, November 7,1907, '^ Stephenson, Recollections, 232. both in the La Follette Papers.
273 ' CM 1 gi^ H u
1 A' ^^•Bf!^
WHi(X3)8907 RobertM. LaFollette; JohnJ. Blaine, Governor of Wisconsin, 1921-1927; and Herman L. Ekern, probably at the La Follettes' Maple Bluff farm.
"Presidential matters are at present at a nary work. Some of the money would go to standstill awaiting the attitude of a certain pay Herman Ekern, speaker ofthe Wiscon friend from Marinette," La Follette's young sin assembly, to take charge of the cam law partner Alfred T. Rogers reported to paign in Madison. Spirited activity ensued Lenroot on July 20. But plans were afoot to in Wisconsin, including the selection of del approach Stephenson, and Rogers was opti egate candidates for the upcoming national mistic that if the La Follette men could get convention. In a very limited way, the cam adequate financing. La Follette could go to paign began to reach out. After visiting Min the party convention as strong as any other nesota, where grain shippers were sympa candidate. He observed that there was strong thetic to La Follette and were organizing, sentiment for La Follette all over the West.*- Lenroot abandoned earlier pessimism. He Very soon the La Follette men resumed foresaw victory in Minnesota and residual strategy sessions and agreed to solicit $500 benefits elsewhere. But the campaign, which contributions from twenty men for prelimi- became official on October 29, 1907, suf fered from its exclusive reliance on nation ally inexperienced Wisconsin men for lead ^^ Rogers to Lenroot,July 20,1907, in the Lenroot ership and on Wisconsin expatriates as Papers. Belle La Follette, writing from Madison, told organizers in their adopted states.*'^ her husband of plans to solicit funds from Steph enson. Belle La Follette to Robert La Follette, July 15 and 17, 1907, both in the La Follette Family Collec ''' A. T. Rogers to Irvine Lenroot, September 25, tion. 1907, in the Lenroot Papers; andjohn Hannan to A.
274 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS
In any case, only so much could be done amount of his subscription, so that others without large sums. Gilbert Roe proposed would realize the need for more money, and that Stephenson be asked for $100,000. would themselves contribute. If that were Ekern called on La Follette when Congress done, he wrote, much could still be accom reconvened in December and the two dis plished in the western states. The senator did cussed Stephenson. A complicating and deli not object. Soon thereafter, Stephenson de cate factor was the upcoming Senate va clared for reelection. At the Republican na cancy. Would Stephenson renege on his tional convention, he paid $1,000 towards earlier promise and seek the long term? Or the expenses of the Wisconsin delegation. could he be brought to publicly reaffirm his Nevertheless, despite Stephenson's grudging non-candidacy and allow the La Follette men generosity, that summer La Follette on the to put forth a preferable candidate, such as Chautauqua circuit tacitly (and vainly) op Lenroot? After two weeks back in Washing posed his renomination, for which Steph ton, La Follette wrote Ekern, "I am doing enson spent copiously.*" La Follette's sup everything I can to establish the right sort of porters opposed Stephenson on the basis feeling. The time has not yet come, in my of his conservative voting record and for opinion, to talk with him concerning the breaking his promise not to run again if matter of succession. I do think while he is elected to the short term. at home that Dahl [Andrew H. Dahl of The Stephenson problem did not cause Madison] and others might have quite a La Follette to abandon hope for the 1908 plain talk with him upon matters which you nomination, nor to slacken his efforts. He referred to when here."** must have realized that his chances were Dahl and Ekern called on Stephenson slender, but at least the party nomination during the holiday season and painted a was not preempted, despite Roosevelt's ef rosy picture of La Follette's prospects for forts on behalf of Secretary of War William 1908. The lumberman disagreed, and gave Howard Taft. Speaker ofthe House Joseph them just $1,000. Weeks later Ekern visited Cannon and others were also in the race Stephenson in Washington. Again he de for the nomination, and it seemed unlikely scribed great possibilities, and asked for that the delegates would arrive at a deci $250,000. In the course of a discussion sion on the first ballot. lasting several hours, Ekern scaled his re Therefore, in the congressional session quest down to $25,000, but Stephenson that began in December, 1907, La Follette refused any contribution beyond the $1,000 set out to develop, dramatize, and identify he had already donated.*^ himself with legislative issues that would work Back in Madison, Ekern wrote Stephen to his advantage at the nominating conven son asking permission to make public the tion. After Nils Haugen, a long-time ally and a tax expert, suggested the issue of a tariff commission and cuts in certain tariff rates. T. Rogers, October 6,1907; W.J. McElroy to Herman La Follette encouraged Haugen to draft a Ekern, October 28, 1907; "Minutes of meeting of bill for him.*' However, neither the presi executive committee, October 29, 1907," "Minutes dent nor Republican congressional leaders of meeting of La Follette Presidential Committee, October 29, 1907," all in the La Follette Papers. Relevant to Minnesota are Herman Ekern to Irvine ^ Ekern to Stephenson, February 10, 1908, and Lenroot, November 7, 1907, in the La Follette Pa Stephenson to Ekern, February 14,1908, both in the pers, and Lenroot to Gilbert Roe, November 8,1907, La Follette Papers; Stephenson, Recollections, 241; in the La Follette Family Collection; also Thelen, La Greenbaum, LaFollette, 76. Follette and the Insurgent Spirit, 66. •" La Follette to Nils Haugen, December 30,1907, "La Follette to Ekern, December 19, 1907, in and January 13, 1908, in the Nils P. Haugen Papers, the La Follette Papers. Wisconsin State Archives, State Historical Society of "= Stephenson, Recollections, 237-238. Wisconsin.
275 WHi(X3)24985 La Follette annoyed other presidential contenders when he joined the race . would touch the tariff question so close to clined. He was onto something bigger, he an election, and La Follette had to wait until wrote Ekern; something that would help 1909 before he could make high drama of the campaign throughout the nation. He tariff schedules. Similarly, a railroad bill that would not give details, except to say that he La Follette encouraged Lenroot to prepare, would need to examine records and wit which would have made enforcement more nesses. He was going to New York for three effective, proved premature.*** What La Fol days "and expect while there to take state lette hit upon instead was better. It was the ments voluntarily given of men whom you emergency currency bill of Senator Nelson would regard as the last men in this country Aldrich of Rhode Island, occasioned by the to furnish me with facts." Days later, reject financial panic of 1907. From the outset. La ing a speech in Michigan, he explained that Follette saw in the bill great political poten in Washington "I can reach a large field, tial. WTren Ekern urged him to speak in and if the course which I am marking out Chicago over the holidays. La Follette de- with respect to work in the Senate is pur sued, I believe I can do quite an effective political work and at the same time dis "* Lenroot to La Follette, December 14, 1907; La charge my public obligation. . . . January, Follette to Lenroot,Januar\-17,1908; and Lenroot to February, March and April will be very im La Follette, Januarv 21, 1908, all in the Lenroot Papers. portant months," he went on. "Whatever I
276 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS do in the Senate gives me the entire country A bout of influenza delayed the senator, but for an audience."*^ finally, on March 17, he prepared to deliver La Follette's enthusiasm was aroused by a preannounced speech which he resumed what he viewed as awonderful opportunity after intervening business a week later.'^ to exploit the public fear of "trusts," a fear Before La Follette could speak, that had burgeoned with the post-1898 pro Aldrich—who was no friend to La Follette liferation of large business combinations, or his amendment—announced deletion such as Standard Oil of Newjersey, Ameri ofthe railroad bond provision. La Follette, can Telephone and Telegraph, and United however, predicted that it would be re States Steel. In the wake of the recent panic, stored later and went ahead with his ad he would expose the power and irrespon dress, which was well-attended by the press. sible behavior of the ultimate trust, the In it, he detailed interlocking corporate di one that controlled all the rest, the "money rectorates, asserting that fewer than a hun trust," and he would tie that trust to the dred men controlled the great businesses provisions of the Aldrich bill. ofthe country. Later in the same speech he La Follette may or may not have known argued that even many of these were sim it in December, but as it turned out when ply pawns, and that actually fourteen men Aldrich reported the bill on January 30, La controlled, in association with or repre Follette had opportunity to tie in the money senting Standard Oil and J. P. Morgan's trust issue with his favorite bete noire, the banking groups.^^ railroads. The Aldrich bill provided that The non-amendable conference report national banks could issue emergency cur on the Aldrich-Vreeland bill came to the rency on application to the comptroller of Senate on May 27, three days before the the currency based on holdings of railroad date set for adjournment. As La Follette bonds, among other things.'''' The very fact had predicted, the railroad bond provision ofthe bill would serve to show the political was restored. Several La Follette amend control exerted by the big financial inter ments were deleted. With the promise of ests. help from two Democrats, La Follette de Capitalizing on his opportunity to the termined on a filibuster. Speaking mainly fullest, in February La Follette offered as ofthe railroad bond feature, he personally an amendment to the railroad bond provi held the floor for almost nineteen hours, a sion his bill for physical valuation of rail record. (He was abetted by thirty-two quo roads, which had been bottled up in com rum roll calls, each ofwhich gave him brief mittee for two years. One of his Wisconsin respite.) Nelson Aldrich, through avariety supporters hailed the step as "the richest of tactics, broke the filibuster and secured piece of work since congress opened."''' adoption ofthe bill. But La Follette reaped In preparation for a major speech de a bonanza crop of national publicity in fending his amendment and attacking the what proved to be a popular cause.^* For bill, especially the railroad bond provision. immediate purposes, however—meaning La Follette solicited help from Lenroot and the 1908 presidential nomination—it was Roe, who in turn put Alfred Rogers to work. insufficient.
^^ La Follette to Ekern, December 20 and 23, "" Lenroot to La Follette, January 21, 1908, and 1907, in the La Follette Papers. John Hannan wrote La Follette to Lenroot, February 22, 1908, both in in similar vein. See Hannan to Herman Ekern, De the Lenroot Papers; Roe to La Follette, February 24, cember 16, 1907, ibid. 1904, in the La Follette Family Collection; Belle and "" Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:240. (Lawrence, Kansas, 1991), 277. '"' Belle and Fola La Follette, La Follette, 1:241- ^' George E. Scott to Herman Ekern, February 243. 13, 1908, in the La Follette Papers. 'Ubid., 1:244-256.
277 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
WHi (X3) 140 Wnl(X3)2103 Nils Haugen, tariff revisionist and LaFollette Congressman Henry A. Cooper of Racine presented team member. La Follette's political program at the Republican national convention in Chicago in 1908.
N June 16 the Republican party con diana. House Speaker Joseph G. Cannon Ovened in Chicago to make its national of Illinois, Senator Joseph B. Foraker of nominations and adopt a platform. La Fol Ohio, and Senator Philander C. Knox of lette had twenty-five of Wisconsin's twenty- Pennsylvania. But Roosevelt had used his six delegates, but no others. He was well political muscle for his choice, and that and favorably known in the West, but his proved sufficient. Taft was nominated on forces remained unorganized. His Wiscon the first ballot, once and for all ending La sin supporters came to Chicago in high Follette's slim hopes. Had Ike Stephenson spirits, nonetheless, and the Senator also contributed what had been expected of came, in secret, to superintend preparation him. La Follette might well have won some of a platform that the august Congressman western delegates, though surely not the Henry A. Cooper of Racine would present nomination. Still, progressivism was grow to the convention as a minority report from ing; La Follette and his friends and allies the platform committee."' looked to the future with optimism. In the balloting for presidential nomi Afterward, Alfred T. Rogers reported on nee. President Roosevelt's choice. Secre the convention to Gilbert Roe. "We accom tary of War William Howard Taft, was op plished much more than we expected and I posed by a group of conservatives: think did great good for our Chief and for Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks of In- our cause," he began. "That La Follette dem onstration when he was nominated was the feature of the entire convention and it was Ibid., 1:257-258. worth many many months of toil to present
278 MARGULIES: LA FOLLETTE S PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS and participate in it. By actual time the Roosevelt demonstration lasted 45 minutes, the La Follette 25 and the Taft 22. Cochems [Henry Cochems, an accomplished young orator] in nominating La Follette made by far the greatest speech made during the convention," he went on. "As you have no ticed in the newspapers, besides this we forced the convention to a separate vote on . . . physical valuation of railroads, publicity of campaign funds and popular vote for U.S. Senator. . . .""" La Follette pledged Taft, the nominee, his support in the campaign, explicitly as suming that Taft was more progressive than the platform."' Ominously for Taft, how ever, that summer the La Follette forces did serious spade-work for their long-dis cussed national magazine. On January 9, 1909, appeared the maiden issue of La Follette's Weekly Magazine La Follette's biog rapher Fred Greenbaum, after describing the first issue, observed: "While later issues reflected the activities of the progressive movement, the magazine was always subor dinate to the advancement of La Follette's career." Within the year, in the pages of *• :• the magazine. La Follette attacked first the WHi(X3),51081 policies ofthe newly elected Taft and finally La Follette's long-time friend and former law partner, the man himself.'*' Gilbert Roe, who encouraged his presidential aspirations. La Follette's creation of the National Progressive Republican League in January, tariff and conservation issues as well as pa 1911, signaled that the senator would con tronage aroused the suspicions and the ire test with Taft for the presidential nomina of progressives other than La Follette. But tion in 1912. Taft's clumsy handling ofthe the Wisconsin man was not entirely un happy that events permitted him to con tinue so soon the national campaign for =•* Rogers to Roe, June 23,1908, in the La Follette progressivism and the presidency he had Family Collection. begun years earlier. The role suited him, " Belle and Fola La Follette, LaFollette, 1:259. ''*' Greenbaum, LaFollette, 82; Margulies, Lenroot, and no setback along the way would ever 84-87. induce him to give it up.
279 WHi(X3).51186 //fwry A, Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture.
280 Wisconsin Economists and New Deal Agricultural Policy: The Legacy of Progressive Professors
By Jess Gilbert and Ellen Baker
In thirty years I have seen little acorns grow to mighty trees whirling in a stratosphere of high wind. Whew! —JOHN R. COMMONS, 1934'
T is well known that University of Wis molded national agricultural policies in the Iconsin economists played a major role in 1930's. During the Progressive era and be New Deal policies relating to labor and yond. Commons, his mentor Richard T. social welfare. Graduates ofthe university's Ely, and (in the College of Agriculture) distinctive school of institutional econom their colleague Henry C. Taylor trained ics, personified by John R. Commons, generations of economists, many of whom shaped the New Deal's Social Security Board went on to envision and administer federal and National Labor Relations Board."^ Less farm programs. These activist-intellectuals well known, however, is that the agrarian sought to democratize the economy version of this same Madison tradition through various "middle ways" between state socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank Roy Barnes, Harold Breimyer, Margaret Christie, David Hamilton, Rob the New Deal included Edwin E. Witte, director of ert Lampman, Olaf Larson, Pat Mooney, Ken Par the President's Committee on Economic Security, sons, and Spencer Wood for commenting on an which drafted the Social Security Act of 1935; Arthur earlier version of this manuscript; and Lynn Mein- J. Altmeyer, who served on the Social Security Board holz for patiently typing and retyping it. Financial from 1935 to 1937, when he became chair of the support for our research was provided by the Wis Board (later Commission) through 1953; Wilbur J. consin Agricultural Experiment Station (Hatch Grant Cohen, who worked as research assistant for both no. 3395), College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Witte and Altmeyer; William M. Leiserson, who served University of Wisconsin-Madison. as executive secretary of the National Recovery ' Myself: The Autobiography of fohn R. Commons Administration's Labor Board (1933-1934), chair of (Madison, 1964; first published in 1934), 74. the National Mediation Board (1934-1939), and '^ At the beginning of the New Deal, Commons one of the three-member National Labor Relations estimated that at least thirty of his former students Board (1939-1943); and DavidJ. Saposs, Chief Econo were working for the new Roosevelt administration, mist ofthe National Labor Relations Board (1935- or, as he put it, "in several ofthe organizations ofthe 1940). See Arthur J. Altmeyer, "The Wisconsin Idea New Whirlwind" (ibid., 76-77). Economist Kenneth and Social Security," in the Wisconsin Magazine of E. Boulding (in "Institutional Economics: A New History 42:19-25 (Autumn, 1958); Theron F, Schla- Look at Institutionalism," in the American Economic bach, Edwin E. Witte: Cautions Reformer, with a fore Review 47:7, May, 1957) ventured that Commons word by Wilbur J. Cohen (Madison, 1969); J. Michael "through his students . . . was the intellectual origin Eisner, William Morris Leiserson: A Biography (Madi ofthe New Deal, of labor legislation, of social secu son, 1967); and Jack Barbash, ed.. The Labor Move rity, of the whole movement in this country towards ment: Conference in Honor of David J. Saposs (Madison, a welfare state." Commons' best-known proteges in 1967).
Copyright © 1997 by the State Historical Society of Wiscon.sin 281 All rights of reproduction in any form reser\ed. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture M. L. Wilson, and Agricultural Adjustment Administrator Chester C. David, circa 1933-1935. Photograph courtesy of the National Archives.
The three Wisconsin professors profoundly to advance a program of federal-county influenced their students and, through planning—what he liked to call "economic them. New Deal agricultural policies.' democracy in action." The undertaking Late in 1938, Secretary of Agriculture was unique in American history: to build a Henry A. Wallace reorganized the huge national system of local committees that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) combined citizen-farmers, scientists, and
" Several historians devote a few pages to the Land Economics (Madison, 1967; first published in Wisconsin origins of New Deal agricultural policy, 1948), 7-17, 22-37. Anti-New Dealers were equally but no one traces them in detail. The best published aware. Thomas H. Eliot, in his Recollections of the New accounts are Paul K. Conkin, Tomorrow a New World: Deal: When the People Mattered (Boston, 1992), 74n, The New Deal Community Program (Ithaca, 1959), 73- recounts the story—possibly apocryphal—ofthe time 80; Richard S. Kirkendall, "L.C. Gray and the Supply in the 1930's when Herbert Hoover was a guest at a of Agricultural Land," ir-i Agricultural History 37:206- luncheon at Harvard. A woman assigned to entertain 07 (October, 1963), and Social Scientists and Farm the former president, desperate for a topic of con Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (Columbia, 1966), 3-5, versation, noted that the plates on which they were 21; and William D. Rowley, M. L. Wilson and the dining were "Harvard plates." "Wouldn't it be fun," Campaign for the Domestic Allotment (Lincoln, 1970), she asked brightly, "to use different college plates for 14—15. New Deal social scientists themselves, of different courses? Soup on the Smith plates; meat or course, were fully aware of the Wisconsin contribu fish on the Yale plates; salad on the Vassar plates; tion. See, for example, R. G. Tugwell and E. C. dessert on the Stanford plates!" "And," responded Banfield, "Government Planning at Mid-Century," the hitherto silent Hoover, "nuts on the Wisconsin in ihe Journal of Politics, 13:142-43 (May, 1951); and plates." Leonard A. Salter, Jr., A Critical Revieiv of Research in
282 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS government administrators in a collective this "Third New Deal" in agriculture." effort to plan and reform public policy. In What, exactly, were they trying to do? launching the program, Wallace said: Part of the answer, of course, was that they were trying to carry on earlier New I look on this work as of most extra Deal programs. In 1933, the immediate ordinary significance coming at this problem was economic relief and recovery. particular time because democracy is In Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural year, so definitely on trial. We haven't the original New Deal established the Agri needed efficient democracy hith cultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) erto. . . .'?>\xl today efficient democracy within the USDA. The AAA paid farmers to is being challenged everywhere, in plant fewer acres of certain commodities; terms which make you wonder as to it succeeded somewhat in raising farm whether in the lifetime of men in prices by controlling production. As an this room perhaps armed forces economist at Montana State College, M. L. from over seas may be entering some capital on this hemisphere. Is democ Wilson had largely developed the AAA's racy destined continually to be self- production control scheme, which he saw defeating in the economic field? Can democracy be made to work after a •'' The "Third New Deal" is a term historians have country is mature? Is it only adapted begun using recently to identify the domestic re to a frontier country? . . . Can a de form initiatives of FDR's second term (1936-1940). mocracy such as ours survive in a This last New Deal merged the interests ofthe first mature civilization? Can it over the two New Deals in sectoral self-government and long years prevent soil and human social reform. It differed from the earlier two by erosion?* emphasizing governmental coordination and ad ministrative management as well as economic plan ning. Its best-known measures were FDR's first Wallace was looking to the new federal- (1937) Executive Reorganization Act, which called county planning program for answers to for a national planning board; more regional plan ning authorities ("Seven Little TVA's"); judiciary these timely questions. reform ("court-packing"); and his 1938 attempt to Behind Wallace stood many institu purge the Democratic party of conservative South tional economists. Undersecretary M. L. erners in Congress. The distinguishing characteris Wilson was the strongest advocate of dem tic of the Third New Deal is that it backfired; not one of these efforts succeeded. See Barry D. Karl, ocratic planning. As part of the depart The Uneasy State: The United States from 1915 to 1945 mental reorganization, Wallace elevated (Chicago, 1983), 155-181, and "Constitution and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics Central Planning: The Third New Deal Revisited," (BAE) as the central planning agency for in the Supreme Court Review (1988); OtisL. Graham, the entire USDA. Two BAE officials, As Jr., "The New Deal," in Graham and Meghan Robinson Wander, eds., Franklin D. Roosevelt: His sistant Chief Lewis C. Gray, the depart Life and Times (Boston, 1985), 285-291; and Maurizio ment's top land economist, and division "Vaudagna, "Recent Perspectives on the Late Thir head Bushrod W. Allin, largely directed ties in the United States," in Storia Nordamericana the new federal-county planning pro 6:161-90 (1989). The concept ofthe "Third New gram. These and other USDA econo Deal" has not been applied to agriculture, yet only mists—a surprising number of them from in this sector did the planning initiatives ofthe late 1930's get off the ground. The agricultural plan the University ofWisconsin—undertook ning program itself has been understudied by histo rians, the major exception being Kirkendall. Social Scientists and Farm Politics, 165-217. Our interpreta * Henry A. Wallace, "The Importance of Plan tion of the program is elaborated in Jess Gilbert, ning in the Development of Agricultural Programs," "Democratic Planning in Agricultural Policy: The March 20,1939, in Record Group 83 (entry 227, box Federal-County Land-Use Planning Program, 1938- 12, folder "BAE Reorganization—1939"), in the 1942," in Agricultural History, 70:233-250 (Spring, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 1996).
283 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 as a step toward national democratic plan such as industrial-capitalist farms in Cali ning that avoided both unregulated capi fornia and plantations in the South, the talism and state socialism. It was a stopgap AAA worked for larger farmers and against measure to deal with the farm emergency. farm workers, sharecroppers, and tenants. Wilson played an important political role Particularly in the Mississippi Delta, the in tirelessly promoting what he termed the AAA's cotton-reduction program displaced "voluntary domestic allotment plan," which many landless farmers. FDR's policy did presidential candidate Roosevelt endorsed not assist, and frequently harmed, the in 1932. After FDR's victory, he picked "lower third" in rural America." The ques Wilson's friend and fellow planner Henry tion remained whether the New Dealers A. Wallace of Iowa to be Secretary of Agri could succeed in fighting persistent pov culture. Wilson himself came to Washing erty on all manner of farms. ton to direct the AAA's crucial Wheat Sec tion. He also successfully urged the use of OOSEVELT responded in 1935 with the decentralized Extension Service, the R, the agrarian part of the Second New outreach arm of the state land-grant col Deal: the Resettlement Administration leges, to organize farmers to administer the (RA). One ofthe most radical federal agen "adjustments" to be made in every county cies, the RA sought to solve the problems ofthe country. Through the Extension-led of poor people and poor land. The RA county farmer committees, millions of farm absorbed three existing agencies, two of ers "signed up" in the new AAA programs.'' which were led by M. L. Wilson and Lewis Itwas an amazing political and administra C. Gray. Beginning in late 1933, Wilson tive feat for 1933, but one which entailed directed a Subsistence Homesteads Pro certain costs—and probable victims. gram, including several anti-poverty efforts. The AAA was oriented toward those com Gray started a massive land-retirement pro mercially successful farmers who benefited gram in the AAA. He handled the federal most from higher commodity prices. In purchase of over 5 million acres of submar- places like Wallace's Iowa and Wilson's ginal land and the consequent resettlement Montana, and generally where family farms of poor families. When the RA was created prevailed, the early New Deal helped most in 1935, Gray became its assistant adminis farmers survive. But in class-based systems trator for Land Utilization. The next year. Gray directed the President's Special Com mittee on Farm Tenancy (with Henry C. ' Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal (New York, Taylor, Secretary Wallace, and Wilson) and 1989), 147-89, provides a good overview of all the drafted its report, a profound critique of New Deal agricultural policies. On Wilson's philoso American individualism and the private phy behind the plan that became central to the AAA, see the following letters, all in the M. L. Wilson land-tenure system. In 1937, Wallace and Papers, Montana State University, Bozeman (con Undersecretary Wilson reorganized the RA tained in the folders indicated): to Mordecai Ezekiel, along the lines suggested by the Farm Ten February 4, 1932 (E-86); Lester Cole, August 14, ancy Report as the Farm Security Adminis- 1931 (E-21); Clarence Poe, Nov. 7,1932 (E-45); A. M. Mellon, January 27, 1933 (E-2); and Chester C. Davis, February 21, 1933 (E-82). Wilson did not develop the scheme alone. He extended some ideas " Sidney Baldwin, Poverty and Politics: The Rise and proposed by John D. Black in 1929 and worked Decline of theFarm Security Administration (Chapel Hill, closely with Mordecai Ezekiel in the early 1930's; 1968), 47-58, 76-84; Daird Eugene Conrad, The Black too was a Wisconsin economist, and Ezekiel Forgotten Farmers: The Story of Sharecroppers in the New was his graduate student. On all of this background Deal (Urbana, 1965) ;Jess Gilbert and Carolyn Howe, to the AAA, see David E. Hamilton, From New Day to "Beyond 'State vs. Society': Theories of the State and New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, New Deal Agricultural Policies," in the American 1928-1933 (Chapel Hill, 1991). Sociological Review, 56:212-213 (April, 1991).
284 Farm Tenancy Committee, December 16-17, 1937. In the front row from the left are first, M.L. Wilson; .second, Henry A. Wallace; and fourth, E.G. Gray. Photograph courtesy of the National Archives, 34434-C. tration (FSA), which continued the Sec the FSA encouraged more production.) ond New Deal in agriculture.^ Enter the Third New Deal, which aimed to By 1938, the USDA offered many new coordinate the first two. Led by Wallace programs—programs which sometimes and Wilson in the late 1930's, the USDA set worked at cross purposes. (The AAA, for out to democratize agricultural policy example, paid farmers not to plant, while through the local/national planning com mittees. Farmers formed the majority of each county-level committee, thus ensur ** Baldwin, Poverty and Politics, 85-192; Conkin, ing that they would help plan as well as Tomorrow a New World, 146-85; Gilbert and Howe, implement policy. County administrators "Beyond 'State vs. Society,'" 214-215. H. C. Taylor of the USDA programs and scientific ex issued a cautious dissent to his former students' proposals; see National Resources Committee, Farm perts from the state land-grant colleges also Tenancy:Repori of the President's Committee (Washing served on the committees. They aimed to ton, 1937), 24, In Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the unif}' federal programs locally, address long- 1930's (New York, 1979), 188-196, Donald Worster term as well as immediate problems, and gives a suggestive interpretation of L. C. Gray's New 13eal activities as European-style "social democracy," develop new policies. Since all the federal but he underplays the significance of like-minded programs affected local land use in some economists in USDA. way, the county committees first addressed
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land-use planning. Lewis C. Gray, assistant BAE chief in charge of Land Utilization, oversaw the agency's land-use specialists, who were based in each land-grant college and worked with a statewide committee of farmers and officials. These state commit tees coordinated the county reports and made their own recommendations for land- 1 use planning. At the federal level, the plan ning program was handled in the BAE by the newly created Division of State and Local Planning, led by Bushrod Allin, an other Wisconsin economist employed by the USDA.-' To the USDA planners, the latest New Deal program meant increased power to combine mass participation (including pre viously unorganized citizens) with technical expertise. It established a network of thou sands of local planning committees involv ing some 200,000 farm men and women, extending from the community, county, and state levels all the way up to Washington. Planning was to be both effective and demo
cratic. As Gray put it, such planning repre \VHi(X:<),>ill85 sented an "intermediate ground between Bushrod Allin, fromlnside BAE (December 1941). laissez-faire capitalism and socialism." Its Photograph courtesy Mrs. Bushrod Allin. strong advocates, including the leadership of both the BAE and USDA, envisioned gress ended the USDA's federal-county plan participatory planning as the best way to ning program, which was opposed by orga democratize the agricultural policy process nizations of larger, wealthier farmers, par and to counter growing opposition from a ticularly the American Farm Bureau powerful conservative coalition.'" Federation. Thus the Third New Deal ended. But the plans of Wallace, Wilson, Gray, The following year, the same Congressional- and Allin failed—or rather were defeated. Farm Bureau coalition effectively killed the In 1942 anti-New Deal conservatives in Con- Farm Security Administration, and with it, the Second New Deal in agriculture. There fore, the Agricultural Adjustment Adminis ^ In addition to Kirkendall, Social Scientist and Farm Politics, and Gilbert, "Democratic Planning," tration was the principal New Deal farm see Bushrod W. Allin. "County Planning Project," in program to survive World War II—contrary the Journalof Farm Economics, 22:292-301 (February, to the intent ofthe institutional economists. 1940); Eller)-A. Foster and Harold A. Vogel, "Coop Until 1943, however, there were viable alter erative Land Use Planning: A New Development in native USDA policies to the "farm programs" Democracy," in Farmers in a Changing World: The Yearbook of Agriculture (Washington, 1940), 1138- of postwar America.'' 1156; and John D. Lewis, "Democratic Planning in Agriculture, 1 and II," in the American Political Science Review, ^5:2^2-49 (April, 1941) and 35:454-69 (June, "Kirkendall, Social Scientists and Farm Politics, 1941). 195-238; Baldwin, Poverty and Politics. 325-385; '" Lewis C. Gray, Land Planning, Public Policy Conkin, TomorrowaNew World, 214—233; Gilbert and Pamphlet no. 19 (Chicago, 1936), 2. Howe, "Beyond 'State vs. Society,'" 216-218.
286 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS
The Third New Deal in agriculture, as scientific expertise. The intellectual advo well as much of the first two, was based cates, then, tried to advance both economic upon some underlying principles. The gov justice and their own professional standing ernment was to play a major and perma in society. But they never fully resolved the nent role in the economy. Additional long- tension between these dual interests; it ap range reforms were necessary, and they peared, for example, in their differing com required the creation of new institutions. mitments to technocracy and democracy.''' Scientists and professionals could help solve Although many social scientists of the social and economic problems. Public time held these ideals, few worked as hard policy was best made and administered by to realize them as a handful of professors citizens and experts working together. at the University of Wisconsin. For nearly While the Third New Deal was more demo half a century, three Madison economists cratic in a participatory sense, it was not struggled to find a middle path between entirely new. Most of its precepts—a posi the excesses of free-market competition tive state, reformist institution-building, and radical socialism: Richard T. Ely (1854- applied technical expertise—had thirty 1943), John R. Commons (I862-I945), and years earlier defined "the Wisconsin Idea." Henry C. Taylor (1873-1969).'" In several Through the infhience of a few Progressive sites at the University of Wisconsin, or professors, then, these ideas ofWisconsin within its orbit, these economists exempli institutionalism culminated in the New fied the idea of reform by moderating class Deal's Department of Agriculture.'- conflict with social-scientific expertise. First, in 1892, Ely established a School of Eco ORfiftyyears—from the 1880's through nomics, Political Science, and History, Fthe 1930's—activist social scientists had which lasted about a decade. The univer sought a "middle way" between revolution sity then created a Department of Political ary socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Economy, into which Ely hired two of his They believed that group conflicts, espe former doctoral students who contributed cially class warfare, might tear the new in mightily to both academe and public policy. dustrial society apart, and they advocated John R. Commons worked closely with Wis reforms to contain them. Their middle way consin Progressives, and Henry C. Taylor included the development of new institu tions that would moderate group antago nism. Sympathetic to farmers and laborers, '' We lifted the "middle way" interpretation from James T. Kloppenburg, Uncertain Victory: Social De these intellectuals wanted to bring the sub mocracy and Progressivism in European and American ordinate classes of industrial society into Thought, 1870-1920 (Oxford, 1986). This outstand responsible positions of political and eco ing intellectual history treats eighteen figures in nomic power, thus transforming capitalism. social and comparative context, including Richard Such reform via compromise and coop T. Ely, John Dewey, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Marquis W. Childs' Sweden: The Middle Way (New eration required expanding governmental Haven, 1936) contributed to the popularity ofthe capacities, particularly the use of social- phrase; Henry A. Wallace added to its general usage in America Must Choose: The Advantages and Disadvan tages of Nationalism, of World Trade, and of a Planned '- The University of Wisconsin was not the sole Middle Way (New York, 1934). In Progressivism (Ar origin of New Deal agricultural policy, of course. lington Heights, Illinois, 1983), Arthur S. Link and Other major intellectual sources included Rexford Richard L. McCormick give a useful summary of G. Tugwell's own brand of institutional economics social scientists' views during the era. and the reform ideas of Henry A. Wallace. Further ''' Their longevity is remarkable. Commons, the more, the agricultural policies themselves arose in shortest-lived of the three at age eighty-three, was reaction to the economic crisis of the Great Depres born the year of Antietam and died at the dawn of sion and resultant social protests; see Gilbert and the atomic age. Ely lived to age eighty-nine; Taylor, Howe, "Beyond 'State vs. Society.'" to ninety-six.
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research projects and by hiring them for positions outside the university, usually as public sen-ants. Wisconsin economists thus formed a dense network of experts that moved in and out of academe and govern ment from the time of their graduate training through the New Deal. Richard T. Ely was one ofthe most influ ential social scientists in late-nineteenth- century America. Like other economist- reformers of his generation, Ely had taken his graduate work in Germany, where he embraced the historical school of political economy. German historical economists opposed the dominant Anglo-American theory of economics, which was deductive, individualistic, and laissez-faire-oriented. The Germans presented an ethical, statist view ofthe discipline. From his professors, Ely learned that academic work should be related to social problems, which were to be studied empirically, inductively, and his torically. Ely was also deeply influenced by evangelical Protestantism; he became a major figure in the Social Gospel move Richard Ely. Photograph courtesy ofthe ment, which used the church's moral sua University of Wisconsin Archives. sion and other resources to address con temporary problems. By the time he established the new discipline of agricul returned from Germany in 1880, Ely's radi tural economics. After World War I, each cal religion and historical economics made professor pursued different middle paths. him sympathetic to the growing labor and Ely founded the Institute for Research on socialist movements in the United States. Land Economics; Taylor left Madison to For their ideals, he and other young leftist build a federal Bureau of Agricultural Eco economists looked back to a producers' nomics; Commons advanced institutional democracy and forward to the cooperative economics. commonwealth; they championed a col lective form of democracy.''' In addition to their scholarly and policy work, these professors educated genera In 1881 Ely became the only teacher of tions of graduate students in a distinctive political economy at the nation's first mod institutional economics, capped by "the ern research institution, the Johns Hopkins Wisconsin Idea." Each combined research with public action and persuaded his stu dents to do the same. Convinced of the '^ See Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social intimate connection between theoretical 5c?«wc(;(NewYork, 1991), I02-109;JosephDorfman, knowledge and practical application, these The Economic Mind in American Civiliza scholars built institutions both inside and tion (New York, 1949), 3:162; Kloppenburg, Uncer outside the university. They trained many tain Victory, 207-208; and an invaluable history ofthe University ofWisconsin Department of Economics social scientists not only by lecturing, but edited by Robert J. Lampman, Economists at Wiscon also by involving them in policy-oriented sin: 1892-1992 (Madison, 1993), esp. 6-9.
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University in Baltimore. His eleven years there were extremely productive; he pub lished seven books and more than fifty ar ticles which applied the methods of Ger man economics to American conditions, including labor and socialism (Christian as well as Marxian). The strong pro-labor stance of Ely's classic Labor Movement in America (1886) went well beyond the gen teel reformism ofthe day. So did his middle- way proposal for public ownership of natu ral monopolies. Ely's "gas and water socialism" attracted municipal reformers, and the Populists and Farmers' Alliance appreciated his call for the nationaliza tion ofthe railroads. He preached his "new economics" as an ethical and scientific ba sis for social reform, and he advocated an increase in professionally trained civil ser vants."' Ely succeeded in refashioning the disci pline as well. His historical and sociologi cal Introduction to Political Economy (1889) sold over 30,000 copies in a decade and (revised and co-authored as Outlines of Eco nomics) remained the leading text in the field until World War II. In 1885, he and other rebels founded the American Eco nomic Association in direct opposition to the dominant individualistic, laissez-faire Frederick Jackson Turner. Photograph courtesy views of Anglo-American theories. The ofthe University ofWisconsin Archives. association's statement of purpose, drafted by Ely, read in part: lieve in a progressive development of economic conditions, which must be We regard the state as an agency met by a corresponding development whose positive assistance is one of of legislative policy. the indispensable conditions of hu man progress. . . . We hold that the Among his graduate students at Johns conflict of labor and capital has Hopkins were many who became national brought into prominence a vast num leaders in the new social sciences, includ ber of social problems, whose solu ing John R. Commons in economics, tion requires the united efforts, each Frederick Jackson Turner in history, Ed in its own sphere, of the church, of ward A. Ross in sociology, and Woodrow the state, and of science. . . . We be- Wilson in politics."
'^ Benjamin G. Rader, The Academic Mind and " Richard T. Ely, Ground Under Our Feet: An Reform: The Influence of Richard T. Ely in American Life Autobiography (New York, 1938), 140; Rader, Aca (Lexington, 1966), 48-90; Kloppenburg, Uncertain demic Mind, 26, 65; YioTim2in, Economic Mind, 3:163- Victory, 209. 164.
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O attract Ely, the University ofWiscon leftist leanings, which he replaced with a Tsin created a School of Economics, Po zeal for professionalism. '-' litical Science, and History under his direc Ironically, 1894 also marked the publica tion. WTien he arrived in 1892, the social tion of Socialism: An Examination of Its Nature, sciences were not strong on the Madison Its Strength and Its Weakness, with Suggestions for campus. More than anyone else, Ely was Social Reform, which presented the views Ely responsible for making Wisconsin into a had gleaned fT"om Marx and the Bible, from preeminent training-ground for activist in Fabian socialists and radical American reform tellectuals. He always advocated the "look ers. He argued that trained, ethical intellecm- and see" method of research, which was als (much like himself) should plan social applied as well as empirical. He envisioned change. Yet he proposed deep industrial— his School as offering a unified approach not merely civil service—reforms to increase to both the study and the betterment of both societal efficiency and class harmony. "Is society: a kind of civilian analog to West there not a golden mean," he asked rhetori Point, or a school for a "new citizenship."'** cally, "between the too litde; namely, rigid, Even before coming to Madison, Ely obstructive, and revolutionary conservatism had begun withdrawing from radical poli . . . and the too much; namely, reckless radi tics and moving toward more "respectable" calism . . . ?" The last third of Ely's popular reform. He ceased his fervent support for book ('The Golden Mean, or Practicable So labor unions and lectured on socialism cial Reform") suggested ideas that prefigured largely to refute its claims. Then came a many Progressive and New Deal policies.^" turning point in his professional life. In Ely's proposed reforms reflected his view 1894 Wisconsin's state superintendent of of society. He saw modern industrialism as education accused Ely of anarchist and so the first truly "organic" or interdependent cialist teachings, and the University Regents societ)'. Like Marx, Ely saw that industrial staged a "trial" that became famous in the capitalism brought about an increased di national battle for academic freedom. (A vision of labor; unlike Marx, he concluded plaque on Bascom Hall on the university that it would produce more class coopera campus commemorates the event.) In his tion and less class conflict It was this spirit defense, Ely did not assert the right to hold of harmony within capitalist society that radical beliefs but rather denied that he could eventually lead to social-democratic held any. His denial relied on a distinction reforms. Ely believed that industry could between his own stance—variously called be brought to a higher ethical plane, and "the new individualism" and "progressive that the best labor unions were conserva conservatism"—and the firebrand radical tive in the sense that they restrained the ism of which he was accused. Except for rank and file. Furthermore, he concluded, occasional relapses, Ely's trial cured him of the state would have to grow in order to meet the growing needs of society.^'
'"Ely, Ground, 185-189; Kloppenburg, Uncer '^ Theron F. Schlabach, "An Aristocrat on Trial: tain Victory, 205-211; Lampman, Economists at Wis The Case of Richard T. Ely," in the Wisconsin Maga consin, 11-15; Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen, zine of History, 47:146-59 (Winter, 1963-1964); The University of Wisconsin: A History, 1848-1925 Charles R. McCarthy, The Wisconsin Idea (New York, (2 vols., Madison, 1949), 1:630-640; David P. 1912), 29; Dorfman, Economic Mind, 3:257; Thelan, The New Citizenship: Origins of Progressiv Kloppenburg, Uncertain Victory, 266; Rader, Academic ism in Wisconsin, 1885-1900 (Columbia, 1972), Mind, 115; Ross, Origins, 137-138. 101, 122, 309. Three years later, Ely's British ™ Richard T. Ely, Socialism (New York, 1894), friends, the Fabian Socialists Sidney and Beatrice 255; Rader, Academic Mind, 97-104. Webb, established a somewhat parallel institu ^' Kloppenburg, (7wc(?rtam Victor)!, 245; Schlabach, tion, the London School of Economics and Politi "Aristocrat on Trial," 149; Dorfman, Economic Mind, cal Science. 4:214; Rader, Academic Mind, 50-56.
290 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS
Another key to running a modern in dustrial society was the trained expert. Ely found the basis of his authority in the pre sumed objectivity of social science. He be lieved that organized capital was too strong and that experts could promote the public good. While he criticized some elites, he advanced his own version of elitism: the expert who was supposed to counteract the power of capital. He admitted his belief in a "true aristocracy," composed not of he reditary nobles but rather of trained ex perts who served "the entire people with all their gifts, natural and acquired." Like Sidney and Beatrice Webb at their new London School of Economics and Political Science, he resolved the tension between democracy and elite control in favor ofthe professional social scientist. Yet as histo rian James Kloppenberg observes:
To suggest that Ely was therefore in terested in social control more than social reform, or efficiency more than equality, introduces a pair of distinc tions that Ely himself . . . would not E. A. Ross. Photograph courtesy ofthe have recognized. Like most of those University of Wisconsin Archives. involved in the progressive reform movement, he believed that demo sciences for decades to come: John R. Com cratic government required expertise mons, Edward A. Ross, and Henry C. Tay in order to deal with complicated so lor. Unlike their mentor, the two older stu cial problems efficiently and respon- dents, Ross and Commons, maintained their sibly.22 leftist politics after 1900 and kept getting fired from academic posts. Ross taught soci HE new century saw Ely as more aca ology while Commons launched the field Tdemic empire-builder than social re of U.S. labor history. Both Ely and the presi former, signaled by his election as president dent of the universit)', Charles R. Van Hise, of the now-moderate, professionalizing showed political nerve as well as professional American Economic Association. Although foresight by hiring these two "radicals" into his School splintered into smaller units, he the Department of Political Economy.^^ chaired the Department of Political Commons was especially important for Economy through 1911 and presided over the development of institutional econom the rise of Wisconsin institutionalism. By ics. He began studying the social sciences 1906, Ely had hired three of his former with Ely at Johns Hopkins in 1888 and doctoral students who would set their mark adopted his professor's historical approach. on Wisconsin economics and other social Commons was also part of the Social Gos-
^^ Kloppenburg, Uncertain Victory, 270-272, 290; ^^ Lampman, Economists at Wisconsin, 17-22; Schlabach, "Aristocrat on Trial," 149. Rader, Academic Mind, 172.
291 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
president. Conservative economists could be represented by the Hkes of Hadley while the radicals might elect Richard T. Ely or Henry George. Commons continued: "Such an assembly would throw a very different light upon the question of compromise. As long as class antagonisms really exist, they will assert themselves, and the only alterna tive is civil war and class domination, or mutual concession." Thus Commons iden tified with working-class interests within a framework of keeping the peace and re forming capitalism.^'' By the time he began working for the National Civic Federation in 1902, Com mons had softened his radical rhetoric. Society as a whole. Commons said, con sisted in "its various forms of collective action," such as labor unions, business associations, and farm organizations. Each sector of society—labor, capital, and agriculture—should act collectively to ad vance its interests in an arena moderated by the state. While his view on state media tion of class conflict set him apart from John R. Commons. Photograph courtesy revolutionary socialists, it also distin ofthe University of Wisconsin Archives. guished him from the mainstream of Americans (influential Americans, at any pel movement, the Christian Socialists in rate) who believed in the "natural laws" of particular, and with Ely he founded the competitive individualism. Commons saw American Institute of Christian Sociology that increasing the powers of government in 1893. At the American Economic Asso posed a threat to democracy, but he was ciation meeting of 1899, he debated Yale's orthodox economist (and AEA president) Arthur T. Hadley on the proper role of ^""John R. Commons, "Economists and Class economists in light of the industrial class Partnership," 1899, reprinted in Labor and Adminis struggle. Commons believed that employ tration (New York, 1913), 59; LaFayette G. Harter, Jr., John R. Commons: His Assault on Laissez-Faire ers and governments, even neo-classical "(Corvallis, Oregon, 1962), 19-22, 39; Ronald W. economists, should recognize trade unions. Schatz, "From Commons to Dunlop: Rethinking He proposed that conflicting economic (i.e. the Field and Theory of Industrial Relations," in class) interests be represented within the Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Prom state. Specifically, he proposed that Con ise, ed. by Nelson Lichtenstein and Howell John Harris (Cambridge, England, 1993), 103-106; Ross, gress be comprised of the elected repre Origins, 194. Over three decades later. Commons sentatives of different organized classes. urged a similar stance for social scientists—this Bankers, if they liked, could elect J. P. Mor time to agricultural economists, including several gan; capitalists, Andrew Carnegie andjohn of his former students who were soon to be New D. Rockefeller. Labor might send trade Dealers; see "Conference on Economic Policy for American Agriculture: Report of Proceedings," unionist Samuel P. Gompers and socialist University of Chicago (September 7-9, 1931), 214- Eugene V. Debs; the Farmers' Alliance, its 216, in the Wilson Papers (E-31).
292 Charles Van Hise. Photograph courtesy ofthe University ofWisconsin Archives.
confident that individuals participating in to Madison at age forty-two, the Wisconsin democratic processes could contain that Idea was taking hold. RobertM. LaFollette threat. His vision did not lodge all power had been governor for three years and his in elite organizations; rather, as Clarence friend Charles Van Hise had just become Wunderlin remarks, it synthesized "Euro president of the university. Over the next pean corporatism, voluntarism, and a decade they made Wisconsin a Progressive uniquely American democratic collectiv showcase—not least because of La Follette' s ism that derived from nineteenth-century use of University of Wisconsin professors. republican political theory and tradi La Follette's was in fact the nation's first tion."'^^ "brains trust," and one unequalled until In 1904, when John R. Commons came Roosevelt's New Deal. John R. Commons was a major player on the governor's team. He drafted the state's civil service law '•"' Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., Visions of a New (1905), shaped its regulation of public utili Industrial Order: Social Science and Labor Theory in America's Progressive Era (New York, 1992), 129; ties (1907), and designed as well as served John Dennis Chasse, 'John R. Commons and the on Wisconsin's Industrial Commission Democratic State," in the Journal of Economic Issues, (1911-1913), which administered many 20 (September, 1986) and "The American Asso new labor laws. Commons also organized ciation for Labor Legislation," in the Journal of and directed the Bureau of Economy and Economic Issues, 25 (September, 1991); Dorfman, Economic Mind, 3:286. Efficiency for the socialist mayor of Mil-
293 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 waukee (1910-1912) and accepted Presi essential point [of commissions] . . . was dent Woodrow Wilson's appointment to the elimination, as far as possible, of a the U.S. Commission on Industrial Rela third party, the arbitrator—whether King, tions (1913-1916). In 1917 Commons was legislature, governor or dictator, handing elected president of the American Eco down rules and regulations from above— nomic Association.2'' and the substitution of rules agreed upon Commons' view of modern society car collectively, by conciliation." This elimina ried with it an evolving view of the social tion of the arbitrator, however, was not scientist. Gradually his notion of the activ fully realized, since administrative commis ist-intellectual shifted from as one who sions effectively served in that capacity. A should forcefully ally with the working class commission which played the role of "in to one who should aim at moderating class vestigator and conciliator" was, in Com conflict. The social scientist was central to mons' opinion, best staffed by trained ex this process of mediation: he or she would perts and representatives of the parties study the "working rules" of a given indus involved.^" try, discover the best institutional arrange ment, and thereby establish standards to NLIKE Ely and Commons, Henry C. which both capital and labor could aspire. UTaylor never experienced a shift away Commons pursued this line of inquirv' in from radicalism, for he never was on the his ten-volume Documentary History of Ameri left. His younger generation of "new social can Industrial Society (1910), which he com scientists" was more attracted to profes piled and edited with the help of students, sionalized public service. Back in the late and in his four-volume History of Labor in 1890's, Ely and Frederick Jackson Turner the United States, which he and his associates had trained the Iowa farm boy who would began publishing in 1918. His labor stud pioneer a new American discipline, agri ies provided fuel for substantial progres cultural economics. Taylor was graduated sive reform in Wisconsin, such as child- from Iowa State College and drawn to labor laws and workmen's compensation, Wisconsin's School of Economics, Political as well as for his advocacy of an administra Science, and History. Looking for a bright tive commission. In Commons' eyes: "The young person to study the economic prob lems of agriculture, Ely greeted him: "You are the answer to my prayers." Ely taught Taylor to value original thinking over exist ^'' Commons later wrote: "I w-as born again when 1 entered Wisconsin. . . . The State Univer ing knowledge; to view wealth and private sity and the State Government, only a mile apart in property as social institutions amenable to a small city, have been a focus, unique among the improvement; and to work for the public, states, for instruction, research, extension, eco not merely for individual, interest. At Ely's nomics, class conflict, and politics." (Myself, 97.) suggestion, young Taylor went abroad in See also his important collection of articles in Labor and Administrations (1913); Selig Perlman, 1899. He entered the new London School "John Rogers Commons, 1862-1945," American of Economics and Political Science and Economic Review, 35:782-786 (September, 1945); took courses with the Webbs, who by then Paul Buhle, "Madison: An Introduction," in Buhle, were friends of Ely. The next year Taylor ed., History and the New Left: Madison, Wisconsin, studied with leading historical economists 1950-1970 (Philadelphia, 1990), 10-13; Harter, John R. Commons, 72-73. The two major contempo in Germany, where agricultural economics rary books on Progressive Wisconsin were both written by former graduate students of Ely: Charles R. McCarthy, The Wisconsin Idea (New York, 1912) and Frederic C. Howe, Wisconsin: An Experiment in -' Commons, Myself, 72-73; Wunderlin, Visions, Democracy (New York, 1912). 102-103.
294 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS was already an established field. He re Galpin, a former student of Harvard phi turned to Madison with his dissertation, losopher William James and a pioneer in "The Decline of Landowning Farmers in the emerging field of rural sociology. When England."'^** Taylor left for Washington in 1919, Hibbard Taylor followed his mentor's designs for served as departmental chair for the next academic empire-building. In 1902, when twelve years. These agricultural economists, Taylor received his Wisconsin doctorate, combined with Ely, Commons, and the so Ely hired him to teach economic history, ciologist Edward A. Ross in theDepartment economic geography, and farm econom of Political Economy (which became Eco- ics. Taylor soon published America's first text in the latter field (1905) in a "Citizen's Library" series edited by Ely. In 1909, Tay lor convinced both the dean ofthe College of Agriculture and President Van Hise, over Ely's objection, to establish the first De partment of Agricultural Economics. Wisconsin's Progressive reformers soon pressured Taylor to deal with the problems attending farm marketing and co-opera tives. Taylor's response signaled his politi cal savvy as well as his professional aims: he expanded his new department by hiring two more professors to conduct the neces sary research, one of whom was Benjamin H. Hibbard. Taylor also hired Charles
'"^ In 1926, supported by Ely, Taylor wrote a de tailed memoir that was not published until recently. Thanks to the editorial guidance of Kenneth H. Parsons, A Farm Economist in Washington, 1919-1925, is now available (Madison, 1992), with the addition of sixappendices, Taylor's 1926 text (pp. 14—17) and Appendix VI ("Henrv- Charles Taylor, 1873-1969: Organizer and First Head of USDA's Bureau of Agricultural Economics" by Kenneth H. Parsons, pp. 256-263) are two sources for this paragraph. See also two fragments from another autobiographical effort in the Henry C. Taylor Papers, W-isconsin State Ar chives, State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Madi son (box 37, folder 2): "A Stage Onward, At the University ofWisconsin, 1896-1899" and "European Influences in My Education, 1899-1901"; Anne Dewees Taylor, "A Bibliographic Guide to the Writ ings of Henr)' C. Taylor, Agricultural Economist, Covering the Years 1893-1957," in a supplement to Agricultural History, 32:1-28 (July, 1958); Kenneth H. Parsons, "B. H. Hibbard, H. C. Taylor, and the Taylor-Hibbard Club," in the Taylor-Hibbard Club Newsletter, 1965 (University ofWisconsin), 2-16; and R.J. Penn, "Henry Charles Taylor, 1873-1969," in the Americanjournal ofAgriculturalEconomics, 51'.999- 1002 (December, 1969). Henry C. Taylor.
295 4 «.„'..».,
Charles Galpin. Photograph courtesy ofthe Benjamin Hibbard. Photograph courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Archives. University of Wisconsin Archives. nomics in 1918), comprised the unique lions to the Distribution of Wealth (1914), he school ofWisconsin institutionalism.^^ expanded his institutional theory of pri After World War I, Ely focused on land vate property. By 1920 Ely finally raised economics and public utilities while Com enough money to fund an Institute for Re mons theorized institutional economics; search in Land Economics—largely from both maintained close ties to public policy mortgage banks, electric companies, real issues. Ely and his Wisconsin students cre estate associations, and the Carnegie Cor ated the applied discipline of land eco poration. But Wisconsin's La Follette nomics. As early as 1889, he ventured that Progressives disapproved of corporate bene public ownership of forests would permit factors, so in 1925 Ely moved with the insti better conservation, long-term planning, tute to Northwestern University. The same and use of trained experts. In his two- year he began the Journal of Land and Public volume Property and Contract in Their Rela- Utility Economics. He co-authored three text books on land economics in the 1920's. Throughout the decade, Ely called for na ^'A fellow lowan friend of Taylor's since their tional land-use planning to rationalize the undergraduate days in Ames, Hibbard had also stud ied with Ely and Turner in Madison and earned his economy, preserve private property, and Ph.D. in 1902. Hibbard returned to teach agricul oppose "Bolshevism."-^" tural economics at Iowa State (where he tutored young Henry A. Wallace) until Taylor called him back to Wisconsin in 1913. See Taylor, Farm Econo ™Ely, Ground, 271ff, 318-320; Rader, Academic mist in Washington, 17-19, 143-146, as well as ex Mind, 193; Dorfman, Economic Mind, 4:213. For a cerpts from an unpublished history of agricultural critical view of Ely' s work during this time, see Robert economics in the Taylor Papers (box 35, folder 10); J. Gough, "Richard T. Ely and the Development of and Marvin A. Schaars, The Story of the Department of the Wisconsin Cutover," in the Wisconsin Magazine of Agricultural Economics, i 909-7972 (Madison, 1972), History, 75:3-38 (Autumn, 1991). 296 The Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities, Sterling Hall, 1925. From the lejt, the third, fourth, and fifth men are Richard Ely, George Wehrwein, and William Ten Haken. Photograph courtesy ofthe University ofWisconsin Archives.
Commons continued his policy work and theory of collective democracy," set forth developed a theory of institutional econom (as Commons wrote) "recently by Henry A. ics. He supported the University Extension's Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, in his New innovative School for Workers. In 1920 he Frontiers [1934], and by myself in my Institu drafted, for the Wisconsin legislature, an tional Economics."^^ By that time. Commons' unemployment compensation bill that an lingering influence—and Ely's—resonated nually suffered defeat until 1932, when Wis mainly through their students. consin became the first state to adopt un employment insurance. During this period. OT so for their younger Wisconsin Commons also published his two major theo N colleague, Henry C. Taylor. Like Ely retical works: Legal Foundations of Capitalism and Commons, Taylor sought to merge (1924) and Institutional Economics: Its Place in Political Economy (1934). Both books illus trated his persistently inductive, historical, •" Commons, "Communism and Collective and interdisciplinary orientation—quite Democracy," in the American Economic Review 25:215 contrary to economic orthodoxy. Commons' (June, 1935); Ernest E. Schwarztrauber, Workers' last formulation of "the middle way," during Education: A Wisconsin Experiment (Madison, 1942), the early New Deal, focused on democracy. 33-37; Hurter, John R. Commons, 75-76. Commons' Between Adam Smith's individualistic de third theoretical work appeared posthumously: The Economics of Collective Action, ed. by Kenneth H. Par mocracy and fascism/Marxism lay "the sons (New York, 1950). 297 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 theory and practice. His applied Depart nalize the output and marketing of their ment of Agricultural Economics moved in individual farms. An early instance of this that direction, but even greater opportu belief was the BAE's research that aimed nity arose in 1919: Taylor went to Washing toward a national land policy. "These expe ton to direct the economic work of the riences in gathering facts regarding land USDA. In 1922, Taylor, with new Secretary settlement," Taylor wrote at the time, "have of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace, consoli confirmed the belief that turning the light dated three departmental agencies into a into dark places is an effective method of new Bureau of Agricultural Economics bringing about reforms." Such social-scien (BAE). The BAE reflected Taylor's educa tific enlightenment depended on an activist tional philosophy of "group thinking, in (not a free-enterprise) state, but one that which the laymen groups had their minds was still voluntary and individualistic.'^' fertilized more or less by the aid of ex With this Progressive tenet in hand, the perts." In addition to other duties, the BAE BAE sought to "make facts useful to farm did the most social-science research in the ers." It gathered and publicized crop and federal government—and it included prob livestock statistics, set and enforced uniform ably the largest body of economic experts commodity' standards, conducted farm man in the Western world.''^ agement and "rural life" studies, centralized The BAE of the 1920's was a continua and disseminated information about co-op tion of Progressive-era reform. Its director eratives, investigated foreign markets, and Taylor and USDA Secretary Henry C. improved domestic marketing (with inspec Wallace (whose son, Henry A., assumed the tions and a news service, including the use of post in 1933) believed that the new science radio). A major development was what were of agricultural economics, joined with posi called "outlook reports," begun in 1923. To tive state action, could moderate both class assist farmers in adjusting their production, conflict and radical policy proposals. In 1923 BAE experts forecast the future supply, de Taylor declared to the land-grant colleges mand, and price of agricultural commodi that radicalism represented "a pathological ties. About this innovative effort, Taylor said: condition somewhere which should be di "The farmers were not told what to do but agnosed and prescribed for by an expert [were] given the facts they needed in order who, because of his training and experi to act intelligently." In all such endeavors, ence, is best able to render this service." Taylor emphasized, the BAE did not pursue Applied social science could also materially a "purely agrarian standpoint" representing improve farm welfare. To these new experts, farmers' interests alone, but rather took "the agricultural economics represented a means national point of view," that of general "so of steering a middle course between laissez- cial welfare." Although these Progressive pro faire capitalism and state socialism. In par grams of the 1920's were not as effective as ticular, they thought that farmers, if given intended, they did lay the policy foundation proper economic information, would ratio- for planning American agriculture during the next decade.'^* •'••^ H. C. Taylor to M. L. W'ilson, March 12,1941, in In addition to making agricultural eco- the Taylor Papers (box 27, folder 1); Harr)C. McDean, "M. L. Wilson and Agricultural Reform in Twentieth Century America" (doctoral dissertation. University '-'' Taylor, "Economics in the Agricultural Course," of California, Los Angeles, 1969) and "Professional 1923, in the Taylor Papers (box 4, folder 1); Taylor, ism, Policy, and Farm Economists in the Early Bureau Farm Economist in Washington, 65; Winter, "Persis of Agricultural Economics," in Agricultural History, tence of Progressivism," 118. 57:64-82 (January-, 1983); Donald L. Winters, "The '^ Taylor, Farm Economist in Washington, 84, 147, Persistence of Progressivism: Henry Cantwell Wallace 202; Donald L. Winters, Henry Cantwell Wallace as and the Movement for Agricultural Economics," also Secretary of Agriculture, 1921-1924 (Urbana, 1970), in Agricultural History, 41:109-120 (April, 1967). 109-144, and "Persistence of Progressivism";
298 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS nomics policy-relevant, Taylor and his BAE led the way in professionalizing the new dis cipline. In 1919 Taylor published Agricultural Economics, which he dedicated to Richard T. Ely, general editor of the textbook series. That year he played a central role in organiz ing the American Farm Economic Associa tion, which elected him president in 1920. He and other BAE members tended to domi nate its annual meetings as well as its new Journal of Farm Economics. The BAE became "the center of professionalism in agricultural economics." Further, Taylor organized the BAE along the lines of a research university, and ofthe University of Wisconsin in particu lar. Existing personnel who were not profes sionally trained as economists (e.g. agrono mists) had to pursue training in economics or face transfer out of the BAE. Taylor and USDA Secretary Henry C. Wallace also be gan the department's Graduate School for the continuing education of the BAE staff The "guest professors" were mainly institu tional economists in the Ely-Commons tradi Henry C. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture. Photograph tion, including the two aging Wisconsin pro courtesy ofthe University ofWisconsin Archives. fessors themselves. A prominent BAE tween research and the state, based on the member later recalled that once Taylor took allure of science, grew not only out of what over an agency, anyone who "wasn' t an econo economists could offer the public, but also mist from Wisconsin" had better start look from what the public—in the form of gov ing for another job.''' The connection be- ernment support—could offer them: re search funds and professional legitimacy. In 1931, the BAE (then directed by a McDean, "Professionalism." WdccniXton,FromNewDay to New Deal, is particularly good at emphasizing former Wisconsin student of Taylor's) spon continuities between the BAE ofthe 1920's and the sored a National Conference on Land Uti ensuing New Deal. lization, which led to several New Deal '••' McDean, "Professionalism." Taylor confirmed measures. In his presentation, an elderly that "the BAE was modeled somewhat after the Richard T. Ely gloried in seeing so many of Department of Agricultural Economics at Wiscon sin. ..." (Taylor to "Bush"Allin, August 14, 1956, in his former students and associates, includ the Taylor Papers, box 5, folder 5). Allin published ing Taylor, L. C. Gray, and M. L. Wilson. the claim in "Galbraith's Stinger," in the Journal of "Many years ago, back in the nineties. . . ," Farm Economics, 38:1055 (November, 1956). Despite he recalled, there had been no agricul all this professionalism, however, Taylor himself tural economics in America. "I was a voice could not escape politics. His main supporter, Henry C. Wallace, died in 1924, as had President Warren crying in the wilderness. . . . Now as I look Harding a year earlier. Calvin Coolidge had reason at this program of this 3-day conference, I to believe that Taylor was campaigning for a national feel that I am in sight of the promised land. farm policy that the President opposed. In 1925, a A splendid program it is. The inspiring new USDA Secretary fired Taylor. The BAE contin idea is that it is called by the United States ued along the same lines he had established, and Taylor went to work for his old mentor at Ely's Department of Agriculture under the lead Institute for Research on Land Economics. ership of the splendid Bureau of Agricul-
299 /.A^- - : •*—
&• f -"^^
WHi(X3)51182 The Taylor-Hibbard Club at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on the steps of Agriculture Hall, spring 1928. Photograph courtesy of Mrs. Bushrod Allin.
tural Economics. . . ."'*"' Ely's students, in nent. Its prestige stemmed primarily from its cluding Commons and Taylor and their stu prominent faculty members, but also impor dents, had established a new discipline and tant were the number and quality of its gradu were now ready to apply it to the national ates. As late as 1930, only three universities problems of agriculture. Acorns were grow trained a large majority of agricultural econo ing into mightv oaks. mists: Cornell, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Because of the unique gathering of progres "OT only was Wisconsin's Department sive professors who taught agricultural eco N of Agricultural Economics the nation's nomics at Wisconsin—not only Taylor, Hib first; it also remained among the most promi- bard, and Charles Galpin but also Ely, Commons, Ross, and (until 1910) Frederick Jackson Turner—graduate students gained •"^ Proceedings of the National Conference on Land a distinctive education. Their tradition of Utilization, Chicago, III, November 19-21, 1931 (Wash institutionalism dominated the social sciences ington, 1932), 126.
300 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS in Madison longer than elsewhere. Indeed, the conservative "neoclassical revolution" in economics—based upon deductive, individu alist theory and abstract mathematical rea soning—largely bypassed Wisconsin for de cades after achieving victory in most universities. The influence of these social reformers-as-faculty members kept graduate students here focused on historical and insti tutional problems as well as policies to solve them. Economics in Madison changed rela tively littie between 1900 and 1930. In other words, because of the persistence of a few professors, Wisconsin economists were dif ferent (or "backward" according to academic fashion) and were therefore especially useful for policy issues.^' Nowhere was this legacy better exemplified than in federal agricul tural policy. In 1919, when Taylor took over the USDA's economic work, two of his doctoral students were already there, and two others soon joined him. Both O E. Baker and O. C. Stine had done historical research with WHi(XS)51094 Taylor in Madison, and they were in the O. E. Baker. USDA unit of agricultural history and geog raphy. Lewis C. Gray then came on to direct in Farm Population and Rural Life, and M. land economics. In addition, Taylor brought L. Wilson in Farm Management and Costs.^** in his rural sociological colleague from Madi Throughout the twenties and thirties, son, Charles Galpin. These four social sci Wisconsin's Department of Agricultural entists became standard bearers in Taylor's Economics provided the USDA with many new BAE. When Calvin Coolidge forced other trained professionals. By 1926, the Taylor out in 1925, his Wisconsin proteges department had granted ninety-five mas remained as heads of six BAE divisions, in ters' degrees and thirty-five Ph.D. degrees. cluding Stine in Statistical and Historical Eighteen of these graduates worked in the Research, Gray in Land Economics, Galpin USDA in 1927 (the same number were academic department heads) and nine were in the Extension Service. In 1933, the New '' Clyde W. Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist Deal's first year, twenty-one graduates of State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of the department were USDA employees, five American Higher Education, 1894-1928 (Madison, others worked elsewhere in the federal gov 1990), 187-203, 221; Mary O. Furner, Advocacy and ernment, and twenty-one were in Exten Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American sion. By 1939, the department had gradu Social Science, 1865-1905 (Lexington, 1975), 304- 305; Ross, Origins, 173-216, 410-418, 468; "Candi ated over 300 masters' and doctoral dates for the Doctor's Degree in Agricultural Eco students. Over 100 were then in U.S. uni nomics in American Universities and Colleges, versities or colleges and ninety in domestic 1929-30," in the Journal of Farm Economics, 12: 518- 522 (July, 1930). Lampman, Economists at Wisconsin, points out that Wisconsin economics maintained its * Taylor, Farm Economist in Washington, 151- distinctiveness through the 1950's. 154.
301 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 government service. Of these latter, nearly seventy masters' and doctoral graduates of Wisconsin's Department of Agricultural Economics worked for the USDA! This group included such distinguished public servants as O. C. Stine, O. E. Baker, Eric Englund (BAE Assistant Chief), Foster F. '^^ Elliott (BAE Assistant Chief), Jesse W. Tapp (AAA Assistant Administrator), and James Maddox (FSA Assistant Administrator) .-'^ -*>^ Three others were Lewis C. Gray (1881-
'^ The two earlier surveys of Wisconsin gradu ates are found in the Benjamin H. Hibbard Collec tion, University of Wisconsin Archives, Madison (Series 9/2/17-2, box 35). The "Graduate Majors of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Uni versity of Wisconsin, January-, 1939" report is in the Taylor-Hibbard Library, Department of Agricul tural Economics, Taylor Hall, UW-Madison. See also Schaars, Story of the Department of Agricultural Economics; Lampman, Economists at Wisconsin, 45- 48; "Oscar Clemen Stine," in the Journal of Farm Economics, 'il:rv-vi (December, 1959); "FosterFloyd Elhott," ibid., 46 (December, 1964); "EricEnglund," in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, WHi(X3).51085 51:732 (August, 1969); 'James G. Maddox," ibid., Lewis C. Gray. 51:1006-1007 (December, 1969); and Arthur W. MacMahon andjohn D. Millett, Federal Administra tors (New York, 1939), 334-335. Although not 1952),- M. L. Wilson (1885-1969), and officially in the New Deal USDA, one other Wiscon Bushrod W. Allin (1899-1968), whose gradu sin graduate deserves mention:JohnD. Black (Ph.D., ate education and early careers illustrate 1919), Chief Economist of President Hoover's Fed the influence of Wisconsin's economics eral Farm Board and constant advisor and outside critic ofthe USDA economists through the thirties tradition. They reveal, as well, the overall and forties. He taught an incredible number of orientation provided by Progressive intel prominent economists, first at the University of lectuals: a combination of social science and Minnesota (1918-1927), then for the next thirty practical action. Gray, Wilson, and Allin years at Harvard University. Two of his earlier grad moved between academe and government uate students who became leading institutional economists in the New Deal USDA were Mordecai service, implementing in the New Deal what Ezekiel and Howard R. Tolley, who, because of they had learned under Ely, Commons, and Black's influence, might be termed academic Taylor. "grandsons" of Wisconsin. See John Kenneth Galbraith, "John D. Black: A Portrait," in James Pierce Cavin, ed.. Economics for Agriculture: Selected EWIS C. Gray was probably the leading Writings of fohn D. Black (Cambridge, MA, 1959), 1- LjAmerican land economist in the twen 19; Bernard M, Klass, 'John D. Black: Farm Econo ties and thirties, certainly the foremost land- mist and Policy Adviser, I920-I942," unpub. diss., use planner in the USDA. An activist- UCLA, 1969, esp. 36-37, n. 52; Hamilton, From New scholar. Gray personified the Wisconsin Day to New Deal. On the more general influence of Wisconsin economists on Tolley, see Richard S. Idea of public action based on rigorous Kirkendall, "Howard Tolley and Agricultural Plan research. Born in 1881 in Liberty, Missouri, ning in the 1930's," Agricultural History, 39:25 (Jan. he received his B.A. and M.A. from Will 1965) and idem. Social Scientists and Farm Politics, iam Jewell College in his hometown, just 15-17. northeast of Kansas City. When he arrived
302 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS in Madison in 1908 to begin graduate study Wisconsin did not cease with the comple in the Department of Political Economy, tion of his dissertation in 1911. Like many Gray had already taught histor)' and eco another intellectual of the Progressive pe nomics at Oklahoma A & M for three years riod, he moved between academe and gov and had attended summer sessions at the ernment service. He taught land econom University of Chicago.*" ics and other courses in both Ely's Political At Wisconsin, Gray took most of his Economy and Taylor's Agricultural Eco graduate seminars with Ely. He attended nomics departments through 1913. He Ely's courses on the Distribution of Wealth briefly studied Southern land tenure for the and the History of Economic Thought and U.S. Census Bureau in Washington. During spent five semesters in his "seminary" on the.se years. Gray pioneered the economics economic theory. He complemented his of natural resources by extending Ely's work work in land economics with courses in on conservation. In "The Economic Possi agricultural economics with Taylor, labor bilities of Conservation" (1913) and "Rent history and economic theory with Com Under the Assumption of Exhaustibility" mons, and the History of the American (1914), Gray combined institutional and West with Frederick Jackson Turner. In neoclassical analysis to develop an econom addition, he studied the Psychology ofthe ic theory of natural resource extraction. American People and general social psy He taught rural economics at the Univer chology with Edward A. Ross. Gray's gradu sity of Saskatchewan (1913-1915) and at ate experience extended beyond course George Peabody College for Teachers in work; he participated, for example, in Nashville (1915-1919). In 1918, while a Taylor's informal weekly seminar that dis professor in Tennessee, he directed that cussed the "country life problem" in 1910. state's price-fixing division ofthe U.S. Food His dissertation on the colonial history of Administration.'''^ plantation agriculture in the South further Gray maintained a correspondence with reflected the influence of these teachers. Commons, Taylor, and Ely throughout his His combination of land economics and career, and he benefited from the interces agricultural history exemplified the Wis sion of his former professors. Commons consin tradition: policy-oriented research had nothing but praise for Gray in his rec firmly grounded in empirical study.*' ommendation to the University of Saskatch Gray's connection to the University of ewan. The two exchanged ideas on land economics in the 1920's as Gray formu '"' Henry C. Taylor, "L. C. Gray, Agricultural His lated his book on agricultural economics torian and Land Economist," in Agricultural History, for high school students, which was in a 26:165 (October, 1952); E.H.W. and H.C.T., "Lewis "Social Science" series edited by Ely. The Cecil Gray, 1881-1952," in the Journal of Farm Eco influence Commons wielded on Gray was nomics, 35:157 (February, 1953); PhillippeJ. Crabbe and Irene M. Spry, "Lewis Cecil Gray: Pioneer of more than matched by Ely, whose first vol the Economics of Exhaustible Natural Resources," ume of the Journal of Land and Public Utility manuscript, Universite Laval, Departement Economics included Gray's overview of "The D'Economique, Cahier 7803 (Quebec, Canada). Field of Land Utilization." Furthermore, "" University of Wisconsin-Madison Registrar; Taylor, Farm Economist in Washington, 143; Kirkendall, "L. C. Gray and the Supply of Agricul *'^ Gray, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 27:497-519 tural Land," 206; Taylor Papers (box 35, folder 10). (May, 1913); ibid., 28:466-489 (May, 1914); Phillippe The Country Life Movement was the agrarian ver J. Crabbe, "The Contribution of L. C. Gray to the sion of Progressivism, consisting of governmental Economic Theory of Exhaustible Natural Resources and religious inquiry into rural life. See Clayton S. and Its Roots in the History of Economic Thought," Ellsworth, "Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Com in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Manage mission, "in Agricultural History 34:155-1572 (Octo ment, 10:195-220 (1983); Crabbe and Spry, "Lewis ber, 1960). Cecil Gray."
303 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1 997
Ely and Gray exchanged approximately 250 experts. When he had begun graduate letters between 1913 and 1940, ranging school more than thirty years before. Gray from Ely's advice on real estate investment recounted, laissez-faire ruled the minds to more theoretical speculation on land of economists, and there was no "public economics.*^ action" to correct the traditional land Taylor kept in even closer touch with policy of rapid privatization: "At the Uni Gray. When he moved from Wisconsin to versity of Wisconsin, however, under the Washington in 1919 to lead USDA's eco inspiration of R. T. Ely and H. C. Taylor, nomic work, Taylor replaced the agrono far more attention was then given to land mists with agricultural economists of his and its problems than in any other Ameri own choosing. Foremost among them was can institution. This was largely due to the Gray, who became the first head ofthe Divi influence on Ely and John R. Commons sion of Land Economics. Three years later, of the German Historical School, with its Gray's division became the core of Taylor's emphasis on social objectivity, relativity, new Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and the profound importance of man- where they continued working closely to made institutions." Taylor had founded gether. Even after Taylor's forced departure the BAE as well as his own Division of in 1925, the Division of Land Economics Land Economics; Gray claimed that both remained the numerical and theoretical cen Taylor's BAE and Ely's Institute for Re ter of the BAE. Gray served as president of search in Land Economics had fed di the American Farm Economic Association rectly into New Deal programs.'*'' in 1928. Throughout the late twenties, Taylor Like his Wisconsin mentors Ely and Tay stood as a steady sounding board for Gray's lor, Gray stressed the importance of scien revisions of the 1911 dissertation. In his tific experts. While expressing sympathy for introduction to Gray's two-volume History of the "democratic process," Gray believed that Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 the scientist "is required not only for techni (1933), Taylor expressed admiration for the cal reasons but also because the specialist can extraordinary twenty-two-year commitment be reasonably detached and disinterested." to this "sideline." Gray's main work at the Committees of citizen-farmers themselves time culminated in his central role at the could not solve complex local and national 1931 National Conference on Land Utiliza problems, which required "the leadership of tion, which led to the New Deal land-use technical specialists" who "can see all the planning programs that he directed—con relations and the interrelations of the plan secutively, in the AAA, RA, and BAE.**** ning process on the various planes, local, In 1939, in his swan song to the econo state, regional and national. ..." For Gray, as mists he had led for two decades, Lewis C. for Ely and Taylor, leadership by experts was Gray drove home two points: the Wiscon essentially compatible with democracy.*^ sin origins of the New Deal USDA's land- use program and its reliance on technical ILBURN Lincoln Wilson, deeply M democratic, was less comfortable with this technocratic stance. Born on an Iowa •*^John R. Commons Papers, Wisconsin State Archives, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madi son- (box 3, folder 3; box 4, folder 2); Richard T. Ely Papers, State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Madi •"^ Gray, "Evolution of the Land Use Program of son (boxes 58 and 63); Crabbe and Spry, "Lewis Cecil the United States Department of Agriculture," March Gray." 22, 1939, Record Group 83 (entry 213, box 1, folder ^* Anne Dewees notes on L. C. Gray, August 25, "Washington BAE Conference"), in the National 1939, in the Taylor Papers (box 41); Taylor Papers Archives. (box 12, folder 5); Taylor, Farm Economist in Washing "^^ Ibid.; see also Kirkendall, Social Scientists and ton; McDean, "Professionalism," 65-67. Farm Politics, 184.
304 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS
investigation and policies based upon such investigation." Although Wilson later became disenchanted with Ely's growing conserva tism and elitism, he accepted Ely's views on the social origins of private property and the need for state action on land policy.**^ Ely may have attracted Wilson to Wiscon sin, but he was not the main influence on his graduate training. Wilson took land and agricultural economics courses with Hibbard as well as Ely. Hibbard proved less philo sophically challenging than Wilson had hoped: "His philosophy was not [one] that would ever result in any action by anybody." The graduate program that Taylor had es tablished gave Wilson the opportunity to pursue a range of interests. By his own ac count, agricultural economics played a less important role than did his studies in other social sciences: "The things that fundamen M. L. Wilson. Photograph courtesy ofthe tally affected my thinking were these institu University of Wisconsin Archives. tional ideas from Professor Commons's courses, social psychology and social behav farm in 1885, "M. L." studied agriculture at ior from Ross's course, and Ely's philoso Iowa State College. Rather than immediately phy, which was to quite an extent this his entering graduate school, he struck out for torical-institutional type."'*^ the West, first farming in Nebraska (1907- Commons most influenced Wilson in the 1909), then in Montana. He soon went to way that he approached social and economic work for Montana's new Extension Service, principles. Commons showed that the becoming head ofthe agency in 1915. Twelve economy was not governed by fixed, abso years on the Great Plains convinced Wilson lute laws but instead was always in flux, al that—in order to help farmers the most—he ways changing. Ethics, furthermore, guided needed to better understand their social and the social scientist in evaluating and under economic problems. This desire led him in standing the transactions that took place 1919 to the institutional and agricultural within the economy. Wilson later recalled economists in Madison.''' that Commons' class on "the isms"—social While Wilson was still state extension ism, anarchism, and syndicalism—^was "one agent, he corresponded with Ely regarding of the best and most original courses that I the American Association for Agricultural Legislation (AAAL), an organization that Ely, Taylor, and Gray had helped start. Similar to '** "The Reminiscences of Milburn Lincoln Wil other Progressives in his belief in the need son," Columbia Oral History Collection, Columbia University (microfiche ed.), 306; Ely Papers (box 58, for reform (but not radical) measures, a folders 2 and 5; box 59, folder 6; box 60, folder 1); young Wilson wrote to Ely: 'The truth is . . . McDean, "M. L. Wilson and Agricultural Reform," that we [AAAL] stand neither for conserva 108-109; Rader, AcarfmzcMmd, 201-202. The AAAL tism nor for radicalism . . . but for impartial was most probably modeled on the American Asso ciation for Labor Legislation, founded by Ely and Commons. '" McDean, "M. L- Wilson and Agricultural Re '" Wilson, Columbia Oral History Collection, 305- form," 1-94. 307; University of Wisconsin-Madison Registrar.
305 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTtJRY SUMMER, 1997 ever took. It was institutional and psycho Taylor had left Wisconsin for Washing logical and historical and behavioristic." He ton just as Wilson arrived, but he nonethe summed up his mentor's views on democ less deeply influenced Wilson. Taylor, of racy: "If you carried the idea of the indi course, established the program in agricul vidual to an extreme, you had anarchy. If tural economics. Secondly, Taylor, im you carried the idea of the group or the pressed with Wilson on a fact-finding trip labor union to an extreme, you had syndi to Montana, hired him to lead the BAE's calism. If you carried the idea ofthe state to important Division of Farm Management an extreme, you had socialism. But democ and Costs from 1924 to 1926. Wilson quickly racy was something that had involved in it became one of the intellectual leaders of the indi\idual and certain degrees of lib the BAE as well as of other organizations. erty, . . . and group action, and . . . the state. In 1925 he was elected president of the The.se three forces were pulling against each American Farm Economic Association, and other, so to speak, in democracy.'"^" he concluded his presidential address by Wilson took from Commons the idea saying that academic research was not that farmers needed to organize in a man enough; agricultural economists had to ar ner similar to that of labor unions in order rive "at a basis for action in the dynamic toexert their "institutional class pull" on realm of economic life."'- the national income. While Commons was Taylor played a central role in helping by reputation a labor economist, Wilson Wilson organize the Fairway Farms Corpo nonetheless "talked a good deal with [him] ration of Montana, a "social reform dis about agricultural problems, and . . . found guised as a scientific experiment." To assist that he had a great deal [of] interest in co landless farmers in becoming successful operatives and knew a great deal about owners, Taylor, through intermediaries, [their] history." From Commons andjames secured a $100,000 loan from John D. H. Tufts, a pragmatist philosopher and Pro Rockefeller, Jr. When Fairway Farms incor gressive reformer at the University of Chi porated'in 1924, its nine-member board cago, Wilson learned about the need for included Wilson, Taylor, Ely, and two other "proportional increase in political educa economists. Wisconsin professors Benjamin tion, in understanding the processes of Hibbard and George Wehrwein (Ely's stu democracy" as the state grew in size and dent and successor as land economist in scope. As he put it, one "didn't need to be Madison) also actively worked on the afraid of the 'state' if it was a democratic project. Fairway Farms became a model for state. "^' some of the more reformist programs of the New Deal, reflecting Wilson's influ ence and thus that of his Wisconsin teach- '""Ibid., 299-301; Wilson also mentioned Com mons' evening seminar on value, which he attended his first semester. Wilson's academic transcript shows never did earn a Ph.D. At Chicago he studied with no formal course work with Commons, but he clearly the Progressive philosopher James H.Tufts, who co- states that he took such cotirses. Late in the New authored fi/tzci- (1908) with John Dewey. See Wilson Deal, Wilson had very similar recollections of Com Papers (Home Office Collection, box 1, folder "Bio mons; see O. E. Baker, Ralph Borsodi, and M. L. graphical Notes 1969-71"); Wilson, "M. L. Wilson," Wilson, Agriculture in Modem Life (New York, 1939), in American Spiritual Autobiographies: Fifteen Self-Por- 279-281.' traits, ed. by Louis Finkelstein (New York, 1948), 16- '•' After Wilson earned a master's degree in agri 17; Wilson, Columbia Oral History Collection, 302- cultural economics from Wisconsin, Commons urged 03,323; and McDean, "M. L. Wilson and Agricultural him to pursue a doctorate in philosophy. He did .so, Reform," 161-64. on a part-time basis, at the University of Chicago and '^Wilson, "The Source Material of Economic later at Cornell University. When he returned to his Research and Points of View in Its Organization," in post in Montana, Wilson took doctoral courses only the fournal of Farm Economics, 8:9 (January, 1926); one quarter each year between 1920 and 1923; he TicyXor, Farm Economist in Washington, 151, 187.
306 WHi(XS),>>1184 George Wehrwein. Photograph courtesy ofthe University Bushrod Allin as an undergraduate at the University of ofWisconsin Archives. Wisconsin. Photograph courtesy of Mrs. Bushrod Allin.
ers. In 1931, after a long research trip to of self-introduction to the BAE's Bushrod the Soviet Union to compare its large, state- W. Allin in 1931, he mentioned two fellow owned wheat farms with Montana's, Wil Madison graduates. These friends they held son remarked that Americans must develop in common had told Wilson that no one "some system midway between excessive "has a better slant on John R. Commons' communism and excessive capitalism." Wil ideas than you have." Accordingly, Wilson son later wrote to Taylor: "There are but invited Allin to an upcoming conference few people who have had so much influ "to inject the John R. Commons' point of ence on my thinking or who have given me view. ..." Wilson went on to proclaim Com so much appreciation of fundamentals as mons "one of the great original and inven well as an inspiration to be up and doing. It tive minds of his period. I, therefore, feel was the seminars that you led [at BAE] that any discussion of national agricul which taught me the meaning ofthe demo tural policy without bringing in the ideas cratic processes and group thinking."'^'' ofjohn R. Commons with reference to Wilson used his Wisconsin connection to economic organization up to date is more contact other policy economists. In a letter or less incomplete." After another ex change, Allin wrote: "I am glad to see that =^ Russel Lord, Men of Earth (New York, 1931), you are planning to keep lined up with 287; Wilson, "The Fairway Farms Project," in the the farmers themselves. The most effec Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 2:156- tive work in agricultural economics lies in 171 (April, 1926); Wilson to Taylor, March 28, the direction of guiding the farmers in 1939, Taylor Papers (box 27, folder 1); McDean, "M. L. Wilson and Agricultural Reform," 176, 213. their own actions, not in scientific aloof-
307 WHi(X3)5118,'! Bushrod Allin, far right, shows cattle with his classmates at the university. Photograph courtesy of Mrs. Bushrod Allin. ness. Yours for a more effective collective consin people produced milk, drank beer, control of the individual." Finally, after and opposed Prohibition." Allin first sought many confidential exchanges over policy, out John R. Commons when he joined the Allin wrote to Wilson after President-elect undergraduate debating squad and encoun Roosevelt had picked Henry A. Wallace as tered subjects about which he knew "next to Secretary of Agriculture: "If Wallace will nothing," including the conflict between surround himself with men of your phi labor and business and the open shop. AJlin's losophy—the philosophy ofjohn R.— he forays into agricultural economics at this will teach some economics to a lot of eco time—during the wartime boom in produc nomic illiterates in high places. He must tion—left him confident that monopolies do so.""'' Doubtless, 'John R." was proud posed littie threat to, and cooperatives little of these two Wisconsin students. opportunity for, agricultural advancement. After graduating in 1921, however, he discov USHROD Allin was considerably ered that the postwar economic depression Byounger than Wilson and Gray. He was had made it too difficult for him to start a born on a Kentucky farm in 1899, moved dairy farm of his own.''' with his family to Texas in 1903, and in 1917 Instead, Allin found work on a farm-cost- went to the University ofWisconsin to begin accounting project of the USDA and his undergraduate education in animal hus Wisconsin's College of Agriculture, a posi bandry. Allin later recalled the cultural con tion he obtained through the indirect influ flict that he experienced in Madison: 'There ence of Henry C. Taylor. He went to farmers I was, a grandson of a Confederate veteran to discuss improved technology, but found who loved Jerseys and Woodrow Wilson, instead that the farmers "wanted to talk more moving in among a bunch of Yankees who about low farm prices, high taxes, debt, and preferred Holsteins and La Follette. . . .Wis high interest rates. Farm economics here
" Wilson to Allin, August 27, 1931; Allin to Wil •" Allin, 'The Agricultural-Business Conflict" (draft), son, November 24, 1931; Allin to Wilson, February 1958, pp. 6-14, in the Bushrod W. Allin Papers, Iowa 27, 1933; all in the Wilson Papers (E-69). State University, Ames (box 4, folder 3).
308 WHi(X3)51087 Henry C. Taylor talking to men with agricultural interests. began for the first time to take on a meaning of farm and city tax burdens. Allin completed much broader than farm technology or effi his dissertation within a year and published it ciency. It took on a living quality it had never as a college bulletin. From 1926 to 1928 he possessed in the classroom." In short, Allin's taught agricultural economics, land econom encounter with actual farmers reached the ics, and farmer movements at Wisconsin. In point toward which John R. Commons had 1928 he moved to Connecticut to study for consciously striven: namely, listening to the est taxation for the USDA before joining the people themselves rather than applying one's BAE in 1930. During the New Deal, Allin own theories indiscriminately to them.^'' worked in the AAA's Program Planning Divi In 1923 Allin finished his work as a cost sion and the Secretary's Office of Land Use accountant and began graduate school back Coordination before directing the BAE's Di in Madison. Hibbard the agricultural econo vision of State and Local Planning through mist served as his advisor. Allin described his out its existence (1939-1942). Of die latter own misgivings about the "extremely theo 1930's, he wrote: "It was truly the Roosevelt retical and academic flavor" and "negative or Revolution. I loved it. There was more 'de do-nothing tone" ofthe theses that Hibbard mocracy in action' during this period than had directed, and, indeed, of Hibbard's own in any other period in my life time."^'' work. Allin wanted to study "the issues being Allin studied formally with neither Taylor raised by the McNary-Haugen [agricultural nor Ely, but he always considered himself policy] debate" in Congress, and he was sur one ofjohn R. Commons' disciples. As he prised to find that Hibbard supported his confided to Benjamin M. Selekman of the efforts and suggested a topic: a comparison Harvard Business School, "I, too, studied
'"'"Ibid., 13-15; "Biographical Sketch," August 18, "y^jjj^^"Th e Agricultural-Business Conflict," 1937, Allin Papers (box 2, Folder 33). 23-38.
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WHi(X3)51086 r/ie best and the brightest of agricultural economics in the early twentieth century. Note Benjamin Hibbard, Richard T. Ely, Henry C. Taylor, M.L. Wilson, and Eric Englund.
under Commons and considered him to be Taylor influenced Allin primarily through the genius of our age. ..." Later he sent a his direction of the Bureau of Agricultural reprint of one of his institutionalist articles Economics and his role as a man of action. to Edwin E. Witte, the Wisconsin economist As Allin noted, "Because his Bureau was who had helped frame the Social Security intermittently called upon to make analyses Act: "[The article] represents the reaction to to provide a basis for action, its lasting and current events of one who took his work at continuing service was its influence in giv Wisconsin at a time when Commons' ideas ing research men the will to action by modi were 'seeping through' the heavy filter ofthe fying their college-bred laissez-faire assump curriculum to some of the students." In his tions. These men can be found in influential presidential address to the American Farm and strategic positions throughout the gov- Economic Association, AlUn urged agricul tural economists to live up to their applied November 3, 1953, both in the Allin Papers (box 3, heritage, citing Henry C. Taylor, M. L. Wil folders 12 and 13); Allin, "Relevant Farm Econom son, and especially John R. Commons.^** ics," in the Journal of Farm Economics 43:1007-1018 (December, 1961). AUin's doctoral cohort at Wis consin included Witte, Elizabeth Brandeis '** Although the university records do not indi Raushenbush, and Arthur J. Altmeyer in econom cate any formal coursework, Allin's reminiscences ics and Foster F. Elliott, Roland B. Renne, and clearly state that he studied with Commons. Allin Theodore W. Schultze in agricultural economics. to Selekman, January 8, 1952, and Allin to Witte, See Lampman, Economists at Wisconsin, 45-49.
310 GILBERT AND BAKER: NEW DEAL ECONOMISTS ernment, in farm organizations, and in pri Agricultural economics was a vital part of vate enterprise. Some of them have even the Wisconsin school of institutionahsm. The gone back to the universities where they are founders of the tradition dominated all eco teaching men to think about action as well nomics education in Madison from Richard as justification for inaction.""'^ T. Ely's arrival in 1892 until John R. Com Allin extended his praise of Taylor to his mons' retirement forty years later, punctu alma mater for making the Wisconsin Idea a ated by Henry C. Taylor's creation of the real force in American society. Like Ely, Com Department of Agricultural Economics in mons, and Taylor, Allin believed that "sci 1909. The persistence of these professors ence (both social and natural) is more than a and their old-fashioned approach to eco body of knowledge; it is primarily a method nomics—historical, ethical, statist, applied— of investigation by experiment" The "look meant that graduate students in Wisconsin and see" method of Wisconsin economists as late as the 1920's could imbibe the radical- provided the "final test of scientific standing" reformist ideas ofthe 1890's. To be sure, this as well as the basis for an integration of policy ideological time lag ill-prepared young econo and scholarship, best represented, as Allin mists for top posts elsewhere in academe; but remarked, by La Follette's use of Commons it proved ideal for the activist policy jobs "as America's first 'braintruster.'"''" created by the New Deal. This Wisconsin legacy culminated within the U.S. Depart N 1937, Bushrod Allin posed the ques ment of Agriculture ofthe I930's, especially Ition: "Is Planning Compatible with Democ in the Second and Third New Deals. The racy?" In the face of laissez-faire theoreticians, roots of the reformist Farm Security Admin he declared, "democracy cannot be preserved istration and of the Bureau of Agricultural without planning." After citing USDA leaders Economics' county land-use planning pro Henry A. Wallace and M. L. Wilson as being gram stretched all the way back to Ely's study both anti-bureaucratic and anti-dictatorial, he of political economy in Germany. quoted Richard T. Ely's 1920 call for a na Ely's nineteenth-century students. Com tional land policy. He then went on to praise mons and Taylor, as well as their students at the "years of planning and agitation by Pro Wisconsin, all sought a "middle ground" be fessor John R. Commons" in developing un tween state socialism and unregulated capi employment insurance for Wisconsin—ideas talism. Given their general orientation, the that in the New Deal were "taking hold ... of six activist-intellectuals (Ely, Commons, Tay the federal government." He concluded by lor, Gray, Wilson, and Allin) divide into two noting: 'Those who voice the loudest objec lines, depending upon their commitments tions to the planning now being done are the either to participatory democracy or to rule disappointed politicians, the orthodox econo by technocratic elites. Fundamentally, Com mists, and the business men who think their mons, Wilson, and Allin were more demo interests are likely to be adversely affected by cratic; Ely, Taylor, and Gray, more elitist. any plans made by farmers, workers, and un Ely was most influential on Taylor, both conventional economists."''' There can be no of whom studied historical political economy doubt whose side Alin was on. in Germany and worked with the techno cratic Webbs of the London School of Eco "•'Allin, "Galbraith's Stinger," 1055. nomics and Political Science. Both founded ''"Allin, "The Development of the Social Sciences major academic departments at the Univer and Their Relation to the Use of Scientific Informa sity of Wisconsin, where they shaped L. C. tion in Human Progress,"July 3, 1958, Allin Papers Gray's Progressive education. While the two (box 1, folder 51). professors later cautioned against certain ''' Allin, "Is Planning Compatible with Democ racy?" in the American Journal of Sociology, 42:513, aspects ofthe New Dealthat Gray applauded, 518-520 (January, 1937). all three agreed that scientific experts, and
311 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 economists in particular, should play a much AAA. Their county planning program of larger role in directing public policy and the Third New Deal, led by Allin, attempted effecting social change. This was Ely's in instead to democratize agricultural policy. tent in creating his School of Economics, This federal/local effort to plan American Political Science, and History in 1892 and agriculture was based upon the coopera Taylor's in establishing the federal Bureau tion—and the synthesized views—of farm of Agricultural Economics thirty years later. ers, scientists, and administrators. Such Gray's leadership of the BAE's Division of democratic planning owed its origins and Land Economics from 1919 through the its direction largely to economists from the 1930's similarly focused on how technicians Universit)' ofWisconsin. could better manage the natural resources In "Beyond Economics," his contribu of society. In addition to the New Deal's tion to the 1940 Yearbook of Agriculture, reformist but highly centralized Resettle Undersecretary M. L. Wilson of the U.S. ment Administration, which Gray helped Department of Agriculture espoused what lead in the mid-thirties, all these public agen he called a "practical and peculiarly Ameri cies offered "top-down" expertise and tech can" approach to social reform, based on nical assistance to American farmers. Ely, philosophical pragmatism, cultural anthro Taylor, and their student Gray well repre pology, and economic institutionalism. He sent the social-science elitist side ofthe Wis well knew that Wisconsin economics was consin Idea. not the only intellectual source for policies The John R. Commons line from Wis of national reform. But, later recalling his consin was less technocratic, more demo graduate student days, he said, "At that cratic; certainly that was the lesson he im time, the University ofWisconsin was called parted to M. L. Wilson and Bushrod Allin. a very liberal institution in its economics, All three were committed to gradual social sociology and political science, and these change led by representative "citizen groups" were views that I got pretty much there."''"^ (comprised, for example, of capitalists, Indeed there is no denying the profound workers, farmers, and consumers) working impact of Wisconsin's institutional econom in concert with social scientists. More in ics on federal agricultural policies in the fluenced than Ely, Taylor, and Gray by prag 1930's. The teachings of Ely, Commons, matic philosophy and social psychology, and Taylor were borne from the Madison Commons, Wilson, and Allin devoted their campus by their reform-minded proteges energy to participatory planning by means into the New Deal Department of Agricul of compromise and consensus-building. ture—and thence across the land. Wilson introduced some of his professor's ideas to American agriculture in the de centralized farmer administration of the ''^Wilson, "Beyond Economics," in Farmers in AAA during the First New Deal. By 1938, a Changing World: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940 however, Wilson and other USDA institu (Washington, 1940), 936; Wilson, Columbia Oral tional economists in recognized the domi History Collection, 579. This 1940 Yearbook is an amazing social-scientific monument of the New nant class biases that were built into the Deal Department of Agriculture.
312 BOOK REVIEWS
The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evo thesis, Webb's conception ofthe Great Plains, lution, and Geography. By JAMES E. VANCE, or the social benefits of the construction of JR. (The Johns Hopkins University Press, the transcontinental railroad. The remain Baltimore, 1995. Pp. xvi, 348. Illustrations, der of the book is topical, consisting of four maps, notes, index. ISBN 0-8018-4573-4, main chapters on the origins of railroads in $39.95.) the United States, the expansion of systems across the Middle West, the geography ofthe Although the subject of railroad develop North American railroad company with a ment on the North American continent has focus on American corporations, and the entranced scholars and history buffs for de evolution of railroads in Canada. Of special cades, until the publication of this book no interest are the lengthy geopolitical treat one had attempted an overarching, grand ments of two issues in nineteenth-century treatment from a geographical perspective. railroading, the competition for economic There had been monographs and scholarly hinterlands among Atlantic entrepots as rail papers on specific epochs, regions, corpora roads were introduced to North America, tions, colonization strategies, technological and the numerous routes proposed for the innovations, and other topics, but none which transcontinental railroads in both the United interpreted the developing railroad network States and Canada, and the corporate per from the 1820's to the present within abroad, spectives on the construction of those routes spatial theoretical framework. Historical ge which were brought to fruition. The recur ographers have always emphasized the im ring discussions of engineering aspects of portance of transportation in the economic railroad construction and operation, which development of North American regions but often reflected the physical geography ofthe few have chosen to focus on the geography regions traversed by railroad lines, add a of a single transport mode as James E. Vance, useful dimension to the book. Jr., does in this volume. Vance has produced a workmanlike book Vance takes as an organizing principle which traces the emergence of the North the notion that the system of railroading that American railroad on a grand scale. There emerged on this continent is distinctively is sufficient detail and local color to ac American. The introduction is used to de quaint the casual reader with events and velop this thesis, comparing and contrasting personalities in the history of railroading, the geographic environments and operating but the general focus is on the macro-envi characteristics of the initial railroads in Brit ronment within which railroad lines were ain and North America. While the evidence built and systems or networks of railroad Vance presents is both convincing and enter companies emerged. This is a book that taining, this is hardly a subject of historio- only a historical geographer could have writ graphic debate on the order of the Turner ten, but it falls short of this reviewer's expec-
313 A lumber train crosses the Chippewa River near Eau Claire, September 1, 1882. tations in a number of areas. First, Vance amined in this volume, without pro\'iding fails to evolve a model similar to his mercan the reader with the references necessary to tile model to describe the evolution of the study these topics on their own. The prose is corporate railroad network, although the extremely erudite, and the text is lavishly building blocks are there for the asking in illustrated with photographs and interpre the previous work of Grodinsky, Klein, tive maps as those familiar with Vance's work Conzen, and others. Second, it is disappoint have come to expect. ing that the story isn't carried up to the The reader seeking an single volume present. The recent and continuing rounds overview of the history and geography of of mergers, the geography of railroad aban American railroading will find this book donment, the role of inter-modal transport quite useful. While well-read railroad en and the revitalization of the modern rail thusiasts will also appreciate this book, they road corporation (if not, alas, railroad pas are likely to be disappointed in both the senger service) are all worthy topics for in breadth and depth of the major chapters. terpretation within a broad historical On the whole, however, Vance's work is a geographic context These developments solid contribution which sets the stage for constitute a phase in the history of North new undertakings by economic historians, American railroads that has evolved natu geographers, and railroad historians. rally from the events chronicled and inter preted by Vance, and form part of the dis RUSSELL S. KJRBY tinctively American system of railroading. Milwaukee Additionally, there is no bibliography and while there are endnotes it is clear that the The Jeffersonian Dream: Studies in the History author was highly selective in his choice of of American Land Policy and Development. By secondary sources. Vance is quite apolo PAUL W. GATES. Edited by ALLAN G. and getic concerning ntimerous topics which MARGARET BEATTIE BOGUE. (University of for one reason or another could not be ex New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1996. Pp.
314 BOOK REVIEWS
XX, 172. Notes, bibliography, illustrations. to lumbermen who, in Gates' words, prac ISBN 0-8263-1699-9, $42.50.) ticed "reckless and prodigal cutting of tim ber." The greatness of Cornell University, Historians may now enjoy in a handy Gates understood, depended on the envi volume the fruits of six decades of careful ronmental degradation of northern Wiscon research on public land policy by Paul W. sin. Gates' 1943 history helps make sense of Gates. Editors Allan and Margaret Beattie today's headlines as Cornell University con Bogue have chosen some famous articles tinues to press its claims in court, and in the published by Gates, such as his 1942 "The Wisconsin Legislature, to sub-surface miner Role of the Land Speculator in Western als in the lands once located by Ezra Cornell. Development," some less well known pieces Gates is probably best known for his 1936 from later decades including a 1985 essay article "The Homestead Law in an Incon on the historical background ofthe so-called gruous Land System," a piece published in "Sagebrush Rebellion," and, of interest to the American Historical Review that argued readers of this Magazine, an excerpt from that the 1862 Homestead Act was not a The Wisconsin Pine Lands of Cornell University. triumph of American democracy. Instead, The volume also includes an endearing au the principle of free land for settlers was tobiographical essay by the 94-year-old Gates, simply grafted onto an existing system of sketching his life from clergyman's son to land sales and special-interest donations. professor of history at Cornell University. This early, populist Gates was a leading critic Gates' writings on land policy roughly of the failings of the nineteenth-century divide into three chronological phases: polity in living up to the "Jeffersonian 1) the 1930's and 1940's with a focus on Dream" of an available farm for every will conflicts between settlers and speculators ing family. The editors of this volume chose over the transfer of the public domain to not to reprint the "Incongruous" essay, in private ownership in the Mississippi Valley; stead, offering Gates' second thoughts on the subject in a 1962 essay, "The Homestead 2) the later 1950's into the 1970's with a Act: Free Land Policy in Operation, 1862- reappraisal of the workings of the public 1935." The more mature Gates had the bene land system, and new work on California fit of a quarter-century more distance from land titles and ethnic conflict; and 3) the the end of actual homesteading in the lower 1980's on the twentieth century history of 48 states; Gates acknowledged the misuse federal resource policy. The operative words and frauds committed under the Homestead are "roughly divide" since Gates somehow Act, but found them inconsequential in com found time in the mid-1960's to write the parison to the one-and-a-half million fami magnificent History of Public Land Law Devel lies who benefited under the law. A more opment, a now out-of-print 800 page volume subtle example of how the postwar Gates that, indeed, should be on the desk of every tempered his earlier views may be found in historian interested in federal land and re the essay "From Individualism to Collectiv source policy history. ism in American Land Policy," written in Gates-as-populist, and as prescient envi 1953. Here Gates sketched a history less ronmentalist, is clearly on display in the frag celebratory of the drive of individual settlers ment taken from The Wisconsin Pine Lands of to acquire land, and more of a history set Cornell University, published in 1943. This ting private ownership at continuing odds splendid book analyzed the history of land with public ownership and management of scrip awarded to New York State under the land. From this perspective, Jefferson's Agricultural College Act of 1862, and how dream worked reasonably well in providing New York entrusted Ezra Cornell with the farms in the Mississippi Valley, but was sub task of turning scrip into an endowment for sequently abused in the plundering of other what became Cornell University. Cornell's natural resources from the public domain. solution was to use the scrip to acquire large Only a wise and progressive conservation blocks of Chippewa Valley pineland for sale
315 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 movement halted rampant individualism, family particularly his wife Deborah, his or at least so it seemed in 1953. Writing in gradual estrangement from Joseph Gallo 1985 about the Sagebrush rebels. Gates had way and William Franklin (his longtime po to admit that the forces of private owner litical ally and his son, respectively), his un ship and exploitation were far stronger and successful advocacy of a western colonization more persistent in western American his scheme, his role in disclosing the infamous tory than previously thought Hutchinson-Oliver letters, and his growing antipathy for British imperial policy toward JAMES W. OBERLY America. Morgan also calendars Franklin's University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire meetings with British intellectuals men such as David Hume, Lord Kames, Richard Price, The Devious Dr. Franklin, Colonial Agent. By Joseph Priestly, Adam Smith, etc. Never, DAVID T. MORCTAN. (Mercer University however, does Morgan dwell on what Frank Press, Macon, Georgia, 1996. Pp. xi, 273. lin and these thinkers discussed. Illustration, notes, bibliography, index. Morgan's overall thesis that Franklin was ISBN 0-86554-525-1, $34.95.) devious is unconvincing. Perhaps my dis agreement with Morgan on this point is By any measure, Benjamin Franklin was merely a matter of degree and not really an extraordinary man. He lived to be eighty- one of substance. Certainly Morgan is sym four and only during the last few years did his pathetic toward Franklin, but not, I think, health force him to slow down. During the empathetic. He views Franklin as a lobbyist period 1757 through 1775 (when Franklin with all the pejorative attributes thatwe now was fift)'-one to sixty-nine years old), when associate with special-interest groups. Read most men reached the heights of their ca ing Morgan's text, however, I felt much reers and then retired or died, Franklin spent more empathy for Franklin, viewing him as two tours of duty covering more than fifteen a "diplomatic" agent as well as a lobbyist. years as a colonial agent in England. Instead Franklin's job as a colonial agent was to of ending in retirement, this long period of represent his constituency. Sometimes that service prepared him for the most important entailed a specific task for which the colo years of his career. While representing Penn nial legislature provided instructions, as sylvania, Georgia, Newjersey, and the lower when the Pennsylvania assembly wanted house of the colonial legislature of Massa Franklin "to call for the overthrow of the chusetts as a colonial agent resident in Lon proprietors in favor of a royal government don, Franklin was transformed from a leader for the colony." Other duties included work of a partisan provincial faction into an Ameri ing to obtain the approval of colonial legis can with a national and international per lation by the king and council. Colonial spective. The experiences in London pre agents were also expected to monitor Par pared Franklin to become a leader in the liament, making sure that it did not pass movement for American independence, legislation detrimental to the agent's colony America's first great diplomat, and later an and working to gain passage of beneficial acknowledged statesman who helped to revo acts. In these roles the colonial agent acted lutionize the government ofthe United States. as a lobbyist, and Franklin had a moderate David Morgan analyzes Franklin's career as a degree of success in this capacity. colonial agent and chronicles this amazing But colonial agents also had a more gen metamorphosis. eral role of representing the interests of After reading Morgan's book, I came their colony a role more akin to a diplomat. away only half satisfied. He does an excel It is this area in which Morgan has little lent job in detailing Franklin's animosity empathy for Franklin. For instance, Mor toward Thomas and Richard Penn (the gan cannot understand what motivated Pennsylvania proprietors), his enjoyment of Franklin to send the Hutchinson-Oliver let London society, his ambivalence toward his ters to the Massachusetts assembly. (These
316 BOOK REVIEWS letters from Massachusetts Governor Tho mas Hutchinson and Lt. Governor Andrew Oliver, written to a number of correspon dents in England, denounced the popular leaders who opposed British imperial policy and advocated a forceful imperial response.) "The Doctor," Morgan says, "had badly mis calculated" by sending the letters to Massa chusetts. Franklin, however, as a conscien tious agent, had no choice but to forward these explosive letters back to the Massa chusetts assembly, even though it might ruin his career and perhaps cause him to be indicted on criminal charges. As a colonial agent—a "diplomat"—he was duty bound to transmit this kind of information. The fact that Morgan (in myjudgment) does not adequately prove that Franklin was devious does not seriously damage the book's credibility. Morgan's over-arching thesis can be kept or discarded at the reader's will. The book, which is written in a lively style, provides an excellent synthe sis of this important phase of Franklin's career and the seemingly irreversible march WHiCXSjBOSS.") toward American independence spurred United Farm Workers call for a strike . . . on by the divergent views of the constitu tional relationship of the colonies within Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas, The Immi the British Empire. Anyone interested in grant Left in the United States, admirably fills how Benjamin Franklin became an Ameri this void in the current scholarship. can revolutionary will enjoy Morgan's book. This collection of original essays on im migrant radicalism advances our under JOHN P. KAMINSKI standing of both immigrant culture and University of Wisconsin—Madison the American Left in several ways. First, the identification of the topics explored consti The Immigrant Left in the United States. Ed tutes recognition of an untold story that is an ited by PAUL BUHLE and DAN GEORGAKAS. important part of American social history. By (State University of New York Press, Al examining the history of Left politics and bany, 1996. Pp. iv, 349. Notes, index. ISBN social organization in a variety of immigrant 0-7914-2884-2, $23.95, paper.) communities, these essays expand historians' knowledge of persons and groups whose lives Since Frank Thistlewaite's pioneering and radical activities have not typically been work called attention to the place of Euro the subject of previous historical inquiry. As a pean immigration to America in the wider result, we are reminded of the richness and patterns of international population move diversity characteristic of worker culture in ment, immigration studies has become a American history. fruitful field of historical investigation. With An important theme linking most of the exception of George E. Pozzeta's Immi the contributions to this volume is atten grant Radicals (1992), the rich experience tion to the significant transnational dimen of the immigrant Left has not received the sion of immigrant radicalism. Particularly attention it deserves. The publication of successful in establishing the power of in-
317 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY- SUMMER, 1997 ternational linkages among radicals are of immigration history and charts the Michael Miller Topp and Mary E. Cygan in course for research to come. their respective explorations ofthe Italian- American and Polish-American Left. In JAMES J. LORENCE deed, most essays in this book establish the University of Wisconsin Center-Marathon importance of transnational discourse County among proponents of radicalism. As noted in a useful introduction, the Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture. By collection departs from traditional scholar RiMA D. APPLE. (Rutgers University Press, ship on immigrant culture by questioning New Brunswick, Newjersey, 1996. Pp. xi, the assumption of "upward mobility and 245. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 0-8135- inevitable assimilation." Most essays empha 2277-3, $48.00, cloth; ISBN 0-8135-2278-1, size important survivals of old world cus $18.95, paper.) toms, behefs, and political ideas. Buhle's essay on Jewish radicalism, for example, lu Unicaps, the one-a-day multivitamins of cidly summarizes the residual power of Yid my childhood, may have imprinted me with dish culture as an influence on social and "vitamania" despite medical school teach political thought. He argues convincingly ings in the 1960's emphasizing that more- that "the sources of alienation have not been than-adequate nutrition was provided by stilled by generations of prosperity." the typical middle class American diet. Vi Another aspect of the radical tradition tamin supplements, we were told, were ex illuminated by these studies involves the pensive excesses that were not only unnec key connections among neighborhoods, essary but, in some cases, potentially toxic. communities, labor groups, and immigrant With this in mind, how do I explain my culture. Among the strongest essays in this current daily intake of vitamin E and a regard is Dan Georgakas's study of Greek- multivitamin containing varying amounts American radicalism, which stresses the im of most every conceivable vitamin and min portance ofthe coffee-house and the work eral. The answer—it can't hurt (if toxic place as focal points for radical activity. In doses are avoided), it might be helpful, a well-written sur\'ey, Georgakas establishes and it really doesn't cost that much. the existence of a strong Left tradition In Vitamania, Rima D. Apple, who among Greeks, rooted in the IWW experi teaches at the University of Wisconsin in ence and coffee-house debates. Rejecting Madison, takes a close and thoughtful look previous historical analyses, he decries the at what has become a many-billion-dollar- "cultural amnesia" which has wiped out a-year industry and a cultural phenomenon the memory of Greek radicalism. in the United States. As part ofher conclu Many of the essays implicitly call atten sions, she writes: tion to the same point. Douglas Monroy, for example, rescues the history of a Mexican- Researchers used the science of vita American radical tradition that was the prod mins to build successful research ca uct of a long history of racial oppression. reers. Health-care professionals used Especially valuable is his excellent review of the science of vitamins to enhance Mexican-American labor organization and their professional and financial posi the work ofthe militant AsociacionNacional tions. Advertisers used the science of Mexico-Americana (ANMA). vitamins to entice consumers, espe Taken as a whole, the essays in this col cially women, to buy vitamin prod lection break new ground in the history of ucts. Manufacturers used the science immigrant culture. Moreover, it does so by of vitamins to build a lucrative indus tapping sources, memories, and experi try. Government officials used the sci ences heretofore unexplored. The book ence of vitamins to regulate the indus makes a significant contribution to the field try. Consumers used the science of
318 BOOK REVIEWS
vitamins to claim control over their own health care. COMFUMBNTS OP 0. 0. MEtn/iS. Her book, a well-written exploration of ^ lORWEGIAl each of these points, provides balanced dis cussions of issues that more often than not still elude clear resolution. Wisconsinites will be Sarsaparilla. 111 particularly interested in Harry Steenbock's " Price 50 Gents, ' vitamin D research at the University of Wis raaber, consin, and the debate about whether his Tor iciies I Pains. discoveries should be patented. Patents were alleged to ensure high standards of quality Coro control (a noble goal), to protect the Wiscon Spp, sin dairy industry from the oleomargarine Sure Cure for Cure interests (a less noble but patriotic goal), and Colds and Couite.. ID Cents. to allow those involved to make money (a universal goal). Opponents argued that the 1808 results of research supported by public mon ies should be made freely available to all of humankind. Steenbock choose the patent route, and from this evolved the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARE) to ad minister these and other patents derived from "^-ikm work done by university faculty and staff. Vitamania examines a series of vitamin battlegrounds—^whether vitamins are foods to be sold in grocery stores or drugs to be sold in pharmacies (who gets rich—the gro cer or the pharmacist), whether Linus Paul ing was right when he claimed that huge doses of vitamin C did wonders for the com WHi(X3)50334 mon cold (a Linus Pauling brand of vitamin This advertisement from 1898 hawks herbal medicine. is currently being advertised on talk radio), and whether the Food and Drug Adminis vitamins and other dietary supplements (me tration (FDA) should exercise control over latonin being the current craze) to get the the vitamin industry to protect consumers sense that the spirit of that great American (who were sometimes depicted as ignorant, showman, P. T. ('There's a sucker bom every gullible, and easily manipulated dupes) from minute") Bamum, is fully operative within unscrupulous advertising claims. this industry. Whether the public wants, needs, Over several decades, the struggle with the or deserves greater protection from the sci- FDA took on epic proportions with the FDA ence/pseudoscience of vitamins remains portrayed as either the protector of public open to question. While Vitamania, does not interest or a monster with an insatiable appe resolve these many issues, it lays them on the tite for power and control. Wisconsin's very table in a way that educates, enlightens, and own U.S. Senator Bill Proxmire, never a friend entertains. It is well worth reading. of the FDA, was instrumental in the enact ment by Congress of a law that greatiy re JAMES W. JEFFERSON, M.D. stricted the powers of the FDA to regulate University of Wisconsin-Madison vitamin products. All one has to do today is listen to talk radio and hear the extravagant Organizing the Unemployed: Community and and unsubstantiated claims being made for Union Activists in the Industrial Heartland. By
319 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
JAMESJ. LORENCE. (State University of New During the initial years of the Depres York Press, Albany, 1996. Pp. xviii, 407. sion, 1929-1933, as Lorence demonstrates, Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. radicals, mainly Communists and socialists, ISBN 0-7914-2988-1, $22.95.) provided the basic strategy, key cadre, and ideological motivation for building mass or According to U.S. government statistics, ganizations of unemployed workers. With a the number of unemployed workers dur strong base among the Finnish-Americans ing the Depression reached a zenith of 18 of the Upper Peninsula, the Communist million in 1933. In a total population of party played an instrumental role in orga 123 million where, unlike today, ordinarily nizing the unemployed there. Likewise, in there was only one wage earner per house Detroit the CP took the lead in building hold, this was an astounding number of organizations of unemployed workers. unemployed workers, a number that re With the election of Franklin Roosevelt vealed perhaps more than any other statis in 1933, the launching of the New Deal, tic the enormity of the most severe crisis and the establishment of large scale public that capitalism has yet encountered. works projects to put the unemployed to Today the number of unemployed work work, efforts to organize the unemployed ers, by whatever flawed reckoning, ranges in began to shift toward organizing the tem the single digits as a percentage ofthe employ porarily employed W.P.A. and other feder able work force. To be sure, these relatively low ally funded project workers. percentage figures scarcely convey the fact that Following the emergence of the United there are today millions of Americans out of Automobile Workers union in 1936, the ap work amidst an economy generally considered proach to organizing the unemployed began healthy. The problem today, however, is not so to change even more dramatically. The un much a lack ofjobs per seas it is a lack of decent- employed, especially in Detroit, included thou paying jobs which provide a living wage. Mil sands of laid off auto workers, particularly lions of Americans are barely getting by, hold after the beginning of the "Roosevelt reces ing down low-w^e, dead-end jobs, many of sion" in 1937. The UAW recognized the criti which are only part-time with no benefits. In cal importance of organizing the unemployed deed, workers are frequently compelled to hold in order to prevent scabbing and to retain the two or even three jobs just to make ends meet. allegiance of its unemployed members. For Today's problem, in contrast to the 1930's is the duration of the Depression the UAW primarily one of underemployment rather served as the primary organizer of the unem than unemployment. The question of what ployed in Detroit and nearby auto towns. UAW to do about this problem begs for an answer. efforts to organize the unemployed contin At least part of that answer might lie in ued despite fierce internecine fighting among an examination of how working people in radical currents within the union, including the 1930's confronted being unemployed. the social democrats around Walter Reuther To our good fortune, James J. Lorence's and hisbrothers Roy and Victor, members Organizing the Unemployed: Community and and supporters of the Communist party, and Union Activists in the Industrial Heariland the current organized by Jay Lovestone, the offers us a view of how unemployed work leader of an earlier right split fi"om the CP. ers in the state of Michigan organized dur Commencing in 1940 and continuing ing the Depression to fight for jobs and through the entrance of the United States decent wages. into World War II, massive U.S. govern Dedicated to William Appleman Will ment spending for military hardware cre iams, Lorence's book, in ten chapters, looks ated hundreds of thousands ofjobs in De at efforts to organize the unemployed in troit. As the number of unemployed three rather distinct segments of the De workers drastically diminished so too did pression. His study concentrates mainly on the efforts to organize them. two areas, Detroit and the Upper Peninsula. On the whole Lorence's book is well worth
320 BOOK REVIEWS reading. The density of his scholarship is Lord Churchill's Coup: The Anglo-American evidenced by some seventy-one pages of notes Empire and the Glorious Revolution Reconsid and an eighteen-page select bibliography. ered. By STEPHEN SAUNDERS WEBB. (Alfred The twenty-five-page index is quite useful. A. Knopf, New York, 1995. Pp. xiv, 399. Although Lorence's blow-by-blow account of Illustrations, notes, appendix, index. ISBN efforts to organize the unemployed occa 0-394-54980-5, $30.00.) sionally becomes tedious, it is nonetheless a case study chock full of relatively littie-known In a radical revisionist study. The Governors '- infoiTnation. A particular strength ofthe book General: The English Army and the Definition ofthe is Lorence's understanding ofthe centrality Empire, 1569-1681 (1979), Stephen Saunders of Communists and socialists in providing Webb asserted that English imperial policy the impetus for the efforts to organize the was formed not by a mercantilistic and parlia unemployed, although at times he misses the mentary tradition but by a militaristic and mark. He undervalues, for example, the role authoritarian one. The army's officer corps, that Trotskyists (curiously and erroneously nurtured in the crucible of wars and by service referring to them throughout as "Trotsky- in garrison government, administered the ites") played in organizing the unemployed, Anglo-American empire. Emphasizing the noting only Bert Cochran's role while seem years 1681 to 1698, Lord Churchill's Coupdrives ingly unaware that the legendary Flint social this thesis forward, setting the stage for a fu ists, Genorajohnson (Dollinger) and Kermit ture volume which will probably concentrate Johnson had become Trotskyists by 1937. It on the impact on Anglo-America of the next also would have been useful to explain the century's imperial wars between England and origins of the "Lovestoneites" and to locate France. Lord Churchill's Coup focuses on the the various zigs and zags that the Communist "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, a brilliant mili party's organizing strategy took in the con tary coup supported by Anglican army officers text of the political needs of the Stalinist and priests, who rejected the efforts of Roman bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. Catholic James II, aided by Louis XTV, the These concerns notwithstanding, Lorence "French Hitier," to impose Catholic absolut should be commended for enriching our ism on the empire. knowledge and appreciation of a very signifi At the center of the coup, dubbed by cant chapter in the history of working people Webb the "Protestant putsch," was John in the United States. Perhaps he most viscer Churchill, a charming and ruthless courtier ally engages his readers with his concluding and a military and diplomatic genius. remarks: "If American unionism is to be revi Churchill rose from obscurity to become the talized, it cannot afford to ignore workers on most powerful subject in England, a man so the fringes of the modem economy. As labor influential that in 1685 he ensured the suc turns to new leaders for a new century, the cession of his patron James II. Devotion to union conciousness of the 1930's gains new his AngUcan faith and his nation's Anglican relevance. The Depression vision of unionism constitution, and his professional fear (James as a social movement, now clouded by chang was not sufficiently generous) prompted ing values and the uncertainties of the mod Churchill to lead the coup that installed as em competitive environment, may be revived king William of Orange, the Dutch Protes as a solution to the problem of deepening tant husband of James's daughter Mary and social divisions. An effective union reaction to the major European foe of Louis XTV. Out- the impending crisis will require all the ideal maneuvering Churchill, William decided to ism and creativity of the UAW's formative rule England himself and soon disgraced years. Labor's response is likely to shape the Churchill, forcing him into opposition. The future of industrial democracy in America." wily Churchill drew closer to Princess Anne, a second daughter of James and another of PATRICK M. QUINN his patrons, and bided his time, eventually Northwestern University regaining William's good graces. When Anne
321 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 became queen in 1701, a well-rewarded Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Churchill was in place "to outdo the accom Dewey. By WAYNE A. WIEGAND. (American plishments in Europe of every English sub Library Association, Chicago, 1996. Pp. xx, ject known to history and to permanently 403. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 0-8389- alter American politics, culture, and empire." 0680-X, $35.00.) The "Protestant putsch" also "overspread America." Despite the distance between them, Irrepressible: impossible to control or re the American colonies responded to strain. England's political and religious struggles. Reformer: someone who improves things by Contests erupted for the control of nine co alteration, correction or removal of defects. lonial governments and, as in England, a union of "red coats" and "black coats" estab Professor Wayne A. Wiegand could not lished authoritarian governments. Coveting have chosen a better title for his biography America and fearing France's imperial de of Melvil Dewey. Both words seem almost signs, Churchill convinced William to make too mild for this man whose name every the war against France for liberty in Europe library user recognizes but of whose mul also a contest for hegemony in America. tiple lifetime interests hardly anyone is Churchill littered America with army officers aware. He was totally dedicated to his life's who had served with him in Tangier, Eu work but in that dedication he was very rope, and Britain and who were involved in manipulative with money and people. He the coup. The "Romanesque legionary colo could not understand why everyone did nization" of America continued after not fall into line-behind him-immediately. Churchill's death; and the American gover Born in 1851 to Yankee parents living in nors-general anglicized the empire by instill northwestern New York state, he attended ing his constitutional and religious principles. Amherst College where he received a classi According to Webb, Churchill's devo cal nineteenth-century education. While still tion to Anglicanism was at the core of his at college he developed the reform themes opposition to James. Webb admits that ide that woirld guide the rest of his life: spelling ology drives men's actions, but he does not reform, metric measurement reform, educa adequately discuss the nature of Angli tion reform, and library reform. In addition canism, or for that matter the constitutional to these activities, in 1905 he developed a or military ideologies impacting on resort at Lake Placid, New York which pro Churchill. What made Anglicanism so at moted winter sports as well as summer recre tractive to Churchill? Did it have some deep, ation and which, after his death in 1931, spiritual meaning for him? Or did he simply hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. prefer it to Catholicism, which he profoundly But Dewey had a dark side which this biogra feared? Webb's distinction between abso phy covers in a very even-handed way. He was lutist and authoritarian regimes smacks of both a sexist and an anti-Semite. Several fe the strained dichotomy drawn between au male associates accused him of sexual harass thoritarian and dictatorial regimes by ment, and he insisted on excludingjews from present-day apologists for American support his Lake Placid club. of unsavory foreign governments. Although Dewey used a type of short Webb's research is impressive, and his hand called Lindsley's Tachography and sweeping and provocative theses are deftly wrote most of his letters and papers using argued. The writing is vigorous, clear, some simplified spelling, neither he nor a few times eloquent, though one quarrels with other reformers were able to convince many the incessant (almost merciless) hammer people of the value of these reforms. (He ing of the major points. But, then, Webb even changed his OWTI name from Melville passionately writes revisionist history. to Melvil and for a short time from Dewey to GASPARE J. SALADINO Dui.) His efforts at metric reform have fared University of Wisconsin-Madison a little better. In 1975 Congress passed the
322 , f JMR,
The American Library Association poses for a group portrait in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1896.
Metric Conversion Act, but it has not re to Columbia-a university since 189(>-and, sadly, ceived widespread popular acceptance. closed in 1992. Dewey was also involved in the Where Dewey did succeed was in educa founding ofthe American Library Association tion and library reform. From 1889 to 1906 and the New York State Library Association, he served as State Librarian and Secretary to and he organized and spoke at many of their the New York State Board of Regents, a su early conventions. pervisory and administrative body empow Wisconsin was aware of library reforms ered to charter schools and distribute public taking place in the East. The legislature funds. Dewey took hisjob seriously, weeding passed a law in 1872 allowing local units of out bogus "diploma mills" and establishing government to tax its citizens up to one mill an adult education extension program that on the dollar of taxable property for the was very much ahead of its time. support of a public library. Sparta, Black Last but not least, Dewey's contributions to River Falls, and Madison were tlie first three librarianship are legion. He was an organizer communities to take advantage of the new par excellence. His firstjob was as librarian for law. In 1891 the Wisconsin Library Associa Amherst College. It was during this time that tion was founded and in 1895 the state es he studied others' suggestions for library col tablished the Wisconsin Free Library Com lection classification and developed his deci mission, which among other activities started mal scheme, which he copyrighted in 1876. training classes for librarians. From 1879 to 1883 he was in business for Professor Wiegand has written a very himself selling library, metric, and spelling detailed, informative, and readable book reform products. Then Columbia College in on a man who contributed a great deal to New York City asked him to become their education and libraries at the turn of the librarian. It was here that he developed the twentieth centur)'. first training program for librarians, which he took with him to Albany in 1889 when he ANN WAIDELICH became the Secretary of the Board of Re Librarian, Madison Public Library gents. In 1926 the program transferred back President, Historic Madison, Inc.
323 wnnx'.r.iiii'i Leo Crowley.
The President's Man: Leo Crowley andFranklin Klan. Following the Democratic victory in Roosevelt in Peace and War. By STUART L. Wisconsin in 1932, Weiss writes, Crowley WEISS. (Southern Illinois University Press, functioned as the state's "de facto gover Carbondale, 1996. Pp. xii, 295. Illustration, nor" under Albert Schmedeman's nomi primary sources and abbreviations, notes, nal leadership. Thereafter, operating from index. ISBN 0-8093-1996-9, $39.95.) a national base, Crowley aided Franklin Roosevelt in Wisconsin and Minnesota by Stuart Weiss has written a biography of forging alliances with third parties. Leo Crowley, and also something of a de Crowley's Irish Catholicism, personal tective story. charm, and skill as a conciliator all made Crowley was born in Wisconsin in 1889 him politically useful to Roosevelt, even into an Irish Catholic family of modest though, Weiss notes, Crowley's Democratic means. He started in business at a young allegiance was based on ethnic and reli age and quickly rose to a position of promi gious heritage rather than on an ideologi nence in real estate and banking. Hard hit cally based commitment to the New Deal. by the Great Depression and heavily in The heart of the book details Crowley's debt, Crowley nevertheless managed to stay career as a Washington bureaucrat. Begin afloat. ning with the Federal Deposit Insurance Crowley's political activities began in Corporation, Crowley moved from the New Madison as an opponent of the Ku KLlux Deal Era to World War II to direct the
324 BOOK REVIEWS
Alien Property Custodian's Office, the In the Company of Women: Voices from the Office of Economic Warfare, and the For Women's Movement. By BONNIE WATKINS AND eign Economic Administration. In each NINA ROTHCHILD. (Minnesota Historical instance he relied upon able staff people, Society Press, St Paul, 1996. Pp. xiii, 348. demonstrated loyalty to the President, and Glossary, name index. ISBN 0-87351-328-2, was skilled at dealing with members of Con $29.95.) gress. As Weiss puts it, Crowley understood that discretion, a degree of "manipulation, Between 1991 and 1993, Bonnie Watkins and easygoing ways were essential for an and Nina Rothchild interviewed 127 Min administrator." nesota feminist women. The inter\'iewees The beginning of the end of Crowley's ranged from twenty-one to ninety-three public career came with Harry Truman's years of age and included farm and urban ascension to the presidency. Crowley had women, Caucasians and women of color, favored his patron Jimmy Byrnes for the professionals and clerks, "first" women and 1944 Democratic vice-presidential nomi younger women who have benefited from nation and his lack of regard for Truman thirty years of agitation. This wonderful continued thereafter. The single most fa compilation of excerpts from seventy-six mous episode of Crowley's career occurred oral history interviews is organized into under Truman's watch: the abrupt cutoff two sections. In "Beginnings," women de of lend-lease to the Soviet Union in May, scribe how they became feminists and in 1945. Truman made Crowley the culprit, "Sisterhoods" interviewees discuss feminism an accusation the latter bitterly resented. as it relates to their work in art, politics, Weiss concludes that the story was more education, law, religion, and health. Each complex than then known, that Crowley chapter is preceded by a short synopsis and was only one of a number of key players, each excerpt includes a brief but helpful others among whom were Will Clayton and biographical introduction. Topics and Joseph Grew. Crowley's Washington career themes overlap among the individuals and ended shortly thereafter. chapters. There is no resulting confusion That career unfolded under a shadow- or meaningless repetition, however, be the detective story part of Weiss's account. cause the commonalities are natural ones. He began his study, Weiss recounts, essen For all women—young or old, black or tially by "accident," and as he pursued his white, rich or poor—involvement in the research he was met by hostility from among women's movement begins with the "click," Crowley's surviving relatives and associates. that moment when one sees the link be Eventually Weiss pieced together a story of tween individual experience, status and "fraudulent" banking practices in Madison privilege, and gender roles. P'or some and a "cover-up" that extended to Washing women, the "click" comes in a flash of ton. The skeletons in Crowley's closet re insight, as for interviewee Sara M. Evans mained concealed, Weiss concludes, in good who said, "In 1964, I read Betty Friedan's part because of Crowley's political and ad book and I was an instant convert. I was not ministrative usefulness to the White House. going to have the 'problem that has no Weiss has done a commendable job. name.'" Eighty-three-year-old Edna I. There are, admittedly, gaps in his story, Schwartzre recalled that her "click" came instances where he necessarily resorts to at the age of fourteen when she alone was conjecture, relying upon "small scraps of punished because a boy wanted to kiss her testimony, rumor, hearsay, observations in school." Right then, I became a feminist then, and reflections later." More the credit I didn't know what it was, but I knew some to him for persevering. how the treatment was never going to be THEODORE ROSENOF the same, if you were a girl." For others it is Mercy College a lengthy and occasionally painful process. Comwall-on-Hitdson, New York With the "click" comes consciousness and
325 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 questions, the most common of which is special value to those interested in the pro undoubtedly "WTiat do I do now?" cesses of politics and the methods by which As this volume brilliantly demonstrates, the powerless try to obtain political clout.) the answer to this question is as diverse as The women are articulate, as might be ex the female population itself. From filing pected from activists in a movement whose class action suits to the abolition of women's basic criteria for inclusion is questioning gen public pay toilets, from feminist theater to der roles and the nature of power. Athough anchoring the evening news, from estab a number ofthe women experienced fatigue lishing the first battered women's shelter or burnout from the work level, harassment, to saving oneself, Minnesota women have lack of support, and the degradation they worked to remove the boundaries that limit were fighting, they also expressed satisfac life's possibilities. Sometimes the answer tion about the gains made." Those words like was as "simple" as refusing to quit a bank 'sexual assault' and 'battered women,' all ing position as expected when one became those words that came into the lexicon later, pregnant, sometimes as difficult as suing we thought werejust 'life,'" said one inter for pay equity. Each story is unique, and viewee. Another noted, "I think the great gift the appropriate, but uncommon, inclusion and legacy of the women's movement was of usually unheralded women, such as po that it changed [the] culture. ... It changed lice officers, former prostitutes, and Chi- institutions—imperfectly, struggling, a lot of cana beauticians, forces one to question once work to be done—but it opened the possi again the tired notion that the women's bilities up." Whether one agrees or disagrees movement was led by and benefitted only with the principles and methods of the white middle-class women. women's movement, none can argue its im This volume is remarkable for several rea pact upon American society. This volume sons. It establishes as few other works have provides a means by which to understand its done the remarkable breadth ofthe women's origins and appeal to such a diverse cross- movement. Moreover, it does so without ap section of women. In the Company of Women is parent bias or heavy-handed editorial med exciting, energizing, and an excellent ex dling with the stories. These interviewees ample of how documentary editing can be speak for themselves, sometimes disagree with done. each other, and their excerpts seem largely As a historian and archivist, this free of self-censorship. Their personalities reviewer's only caveat is that one wishes to are e\'ident and their descriptions are lively know if the original interviews and/or tran and engaging. The interviews with political scripts ofthe entire collection of 127 inter activists are generally free of the annoying views are available at an archival repository self-aggrandizement that mars so many of for more in-depth research. their interviews or autobiographies, male or KAREN M. LAMOREE female. (These particular inteniews are of Madison, Wisconsin
Book Reviews Apple, Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture, reviewed Vance, The North American Railroad: Its Origins, Evolution, by James J. Jefferson 318 and Geography, reviewed by Russell S. Kirby 313 Buhle and Georgakas, The Immigrant Left in the United Watkins and Rothchild, In the Company of Women: Voices States, reviewed by JamesJ. Lorence 317 from the Women's Movement, reviewed by Karen M. Gates, The Jeffersonian Dream: Studies in the History of Ameri Lamoree 325 can Land Policy and Development, reviewed by James W. Webb, Lord Churchill's Coup: The Anglo-American Empire Oberly 315 and the Glorious Revolution Reconsidered, reviewed by Lorence, Organizing the Unemployed: Community and Union Gaspare J, Saladino 321 Activists in the Industrial Heartland, reviewed by Patrick Wiegand, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey, M. Quinn 320 reviewed by Ann Waidelich 322 Morgan, The Devious Dr. Franklin, reviewed by John P. Weiss, The President's Man: Leo CrowUy andFranklin Roosevelt in Kaminski 316 Peace and War, reviewed by Theodore Rosenoff 324 326 Wisconsin History Checklist Foote, Charles M. Plat Book of Dane County, Wisconsin Drawn From Actual Surveys and Recently published and currently avail the County Records by CM. Foote & J.W. able Wisconsiana added to the Society's Li brary are listed below. The compilers, James Henion. (Madison, Wisconsin, cl996. D. Buckett, Gifts and Exchanges Librarian, Pp. 278. Illus. No price hsted. Available and Susan Dorst, Assistant Acquisitions Li from Great Graphics!, 3308 University brarian, are interested in obtaining infor Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53705.) Re mation about (or copies of) items that are print ofthe 1890 edition. not widely advertised, such as publications of local historical societies, family histories and genealogies, privately printed works, Gurda, John. Path of a Pioneer: a Centennial and histories of churches, institutions, or History ofthe Wisconsin Electric Power Com organizations. Authors and publishers wish pany. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cl996. Pp. ing to reach a wider audience and also to ii, 282. Illus. No price listed. Available perform a valuable bibliographic service are from Wisconsin Electric Power Com urged to inform the compilers of their pub pany, 231 West Michigan, P.O. Box 2046, lications, including the following informa tion: author, title, location and name of Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201. publisher, date of publication, price, pagi nation, and address of supplier. Write Susan Heath, Jim and Heath, Kathie. Clark Dorst, Acquisitions Section. County, Wisconsin Cemeteries, Volume III: City of Neillsville, Township of Pine Valley. (Merrillan, Wisconsin, cl997. Pp. 172. Adler, Den. Janesville Fife &'Drum: a 20-Year Illus. $35.00 plus $3.00 postage and han History. (Janesville,'VV'isconsin cl997. Pp. dling. Available from West Central Wis [130]. Illus. No price hsted. Available consin Genealogy, W 10254 Gaylord from author, 320 Oakland Avenue, Road, Merrillan, Wisconsin 54754- Janesville, Wisconsin 53545-4136.) 7933.)
Ahlgren, Dorothy Eaton and Beeler, Mary Jackson County, Wisconsin, Cemeteries, Volume Cotter. A History of Prescott, Wisconsin: a I, Riverside Cemetery. (Merrillan?, Wiscon River City and Farming Community on the sin, 1992. Pp. 76. Illus. $18.00 plus $3.00 St. Croix and Mississippi. (Hastings, Min postage and handling. Available from nesota, cl996. Pp. 605. Illus. $28.00 plus West Central Wisconsin Genealog)', W $4.00 postage and handling. Available 10254 Gaylord Road, Merrillan, Wiscon from Prescott Area Historical Society, sin 54754-7933.) 235 Broad StreeL Prescott, Wisconsin 54021.) Murray, Catherine Tripalin. Grandmothers of Greenbush: Recipes and Memories of the Bookstaff, Manning M. Index to Deaths Re Old Greenbush Neighborhood, 1900-1925. ported in "The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, " (Madison, Wisconsin, cl996. Pp. xvi, 1962-1996. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 151. Illus. $18.95. Available from Green cl997. Pp 158. $25.00 plus $5.00 post bush . . . remembered, 1421 Wyldewood age and handling. Available from au Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53704 thor, 2820 West Mill Road, Unit G, Mil waukee, Wisconsin 53209.) Nelson, Barbara A. and Holzbog, Margaret S. Richfield Remembers the Past. (Huber- The Family History of Daniel Patrick Hardy. tus?, Wisconsin, cl996. Pp. v, 504. Illus. (Mequon?, Wisconsin, 1996? 1 vol. No $30.00. Available from Town of Rich price listed. Available from George A. field, Washington County, 4128 Hardy, 12427 North Golf Drive, Meqoun, Hubertus Road, Hubertus, Wisconsin Wisconsin 53092.) 53033.) 327 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
Peters, Roger M. Wisconsin Soda Water Bottles, Pp. 224. Illus. No price listed. Available 1845-1910 (Madison, Wisconsin, Wild from Winneconne Historical Society, Goose Press, cl996. 3rd edition. $30.00 P.O. Box 262, Winneconne, Wisconsin plus $3.00 postage and handling. Wis 54986-0262.) consin residents add $1.65 sales tax. Available from author, 4333 DeVolis Weber, John III. A Story About the Famous Parkway, Madison, Wisconsin 53711.) Moor (Mud) Baths of Waukesha, Wisconsin. (Waukesha, Wisconsin, cl997. Pp.130, Poff, Ron. From Milk Can to Ecosystem Man g-1. Illus. No price listed. Available from agement: a Historical Perspective on author, P.O. Box 5, Waukesha, Wiscon Wisconsin's Fisheries Management Program, sin 53187-0005.) 1830's-1990's. (Madison, Wisconsin, 1996. Pp. 16. No price listed. Available Where the Wild Rice Grows: a Sesquicentennial from Wisconsin Department of Natural Porirait of Menomonie, 1846-1996, edited Resources, Box 7921, Madison, Wiscon by Larry Lynch and John M. Russell. sin 53707.) (Menomonie, Wisconsin, 1996. Pp. xiii, 252. Illus. $20.00 plus $3.50 postage and Powers-Abertz, Sally. Index to 1893 Plat Map, handling. Available from Greater Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. (Fond du Menomonie Area Chamber of Com Lac, Wisconsin, 1995. Pp. 114. $20.00 merce, P.O. Box 246, Menomonie, Wis plus $1.50. Available from author, 168 consin 54751.) South Royal Avenue, Fond Du Lac, Wis consin 54935-5336.) Cover tide is 1893 Winneconne High School, Alumni Directory, Plat Book Index, Fond du Lac County, Wis 1896-1996. (Winneconne, Wisconsin, consin. 1996. Pp. 73. No price hsted. Available from Winneconne Historical Society, Rentmeister, Jean R. A Guide to the Cemeteries P.O. Box 262, Winneconne, Wisconsin of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. (Tucson, 54986.) Arizona, 1996. 1 vol. Illus. $10.00 plus $2.25 postage and postage and handling. The Wisconsin Historic Traveler: a Guide to Available from author, 4601 East 25th Wisconsin's Heritage Sign Program. (Madi Su-eet, Tucson, Arizona 85711-5720.) son, Wisconsin, 1997? Pp. 100. Illus. No price listed. Available from Wisconsin A Tradition of Excellence: Winneconne Commu Department of Tourism, 123 West Wash nity School District, 1848-1996. (Friend ington Avenue, P O Box 7976, Madison, ship, Wisconsin, New Past Press, cl996. Wisconsin 53707-7976.)
328 Accessions taining to the Francis (orFrance) family and, through marriage, the Person family. Pre Services for copying all but certain sented by Don Francis, New York, New York. restricted items in its Archives collections A thesis, "A Study of the City County are provided by the Society. building as projected by Frank Lloyd Wright and its Relation to the Civic Center and the A brief memoir, ca. 1900, by Frances Lake Shore Treatment," submitted in 1939 Tappan Fox about growing up in Madison by Charles WilliamFrothingham for a master's during the 1860's and 1870's, including de degree at the University of Wisconsin, in scriptions of Camp Randall during the Civil cluding text, photographs of Wright's plans, War, the early days of Grace Episcopal and photographs of the model built by Church, Madison as a summer resort, and Frothingham based on Wright's plans for family anecdotes. Fox moved to Milwaukee the Madison city-county building and civic in 1882. There is a description of Milwau center. Presented by Alden Aust via Mary kee's Third Ward fire on October 28, 1892, Jane Hamilton, Madison. and of an 1893 storm which resulted in the Granger-Brandt family genealogical infor wreck of the ship Cummings. Presented by mation, 1757-1986, on the descendants of Thomas M. Slater, Milwaukee. James Granger (1826-1883) of Roscoe, Il Correspondence, genealogical charts, linois, including biographical information and photocopied or transcribed Bible on Joseph Granger Brandt, a grandson who records and deeds index entries, 1759- took the name Brandt after adoption and 1975, compiled by Don Francis and per became a professor and dean at the Uni-
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329 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 versify of Kansas (1915-1933). Presented control programs with the Civilian Conser by Marian Granger, La Crosse. vation Corps and the Civil Works Adminis Correspondence 1963-1970, of Ronald tration in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, 1933- J. Grele, a New Left activist, concerning the 1934. Also included is information and conception and publication of "Le\iathan," photographs documenting the construc a political review magazine, plus several tion of the breakwater in the Milwaukee letters from Tom Hayden about the Stu harbor, 1929, and photographs document dents for a Democratic Society's Economic ing erosion control projects undertaken as Research and Action Project in Newjersey. part of the Coon Valley Demonstration Presented by Ronald J. Grele, Los Angeles, Project, 1935-1939. Presented by Frank P. California. Erichsen, Dunwoody, Georgia. Photocopies of military records and let Reminiscences by Laura Grisim of her ters, 1866-1885, written by Lieutenant uncle, George Brereton, who went to Colo George R. Griffith to his wife Julia while on rado around 1860 in search of gold and campaigns in the Dakota and Wyoming carried nuggets home to Dane County, hid territories, describing his activities and ex den in a belt to thwart robbers. Presented pressing his loneliness and his efforts to by Laura Grisim, Seattle, Washington. have her join him at Camp Robinson. Pre Recollections by Marie Sophia Koberstein sented by Jon Griffith, Madison. Guethlein (1884—) about growing up be A diary and accompanying photographs tween 1884 and 1904 near Durward's Glen by civil engineer Frank P. Erichsen detailing in Sauk County, including descriptions of his experiences working on soil erosion family life and her training as a seamstress.
WHi(, Combating erosion on a pasture.
330 ACCESSIONS
Presented by Marie S. K. Guethlein, Bara in EastHaddam, Connecticut, in 1799, who boo. came to Crawford County about 1855. His A 1988 reminiscence by Philip S. descendants continued westward to Iowa, Habermann about duck and goose hunting California, and Oregon. Presented by with live decoys in southern Wisconsin dur Corinne (Mrs. F. M.) Hoffpauir, Rock ing the 1920's, including details about rais Springs, Wyoming. ing the decoys, deploying them, blinds, Papers, 1943-1986, oiErling RalphJacobson and aspects of the landscape in the area (1901-1964), a Bonduel native who served near Lake Wisconsin. Presented by Philip as a U.S. Navy chaplain in the Pacific and as S. Habermann, Madison. a Lutheran minister in civilian life, includ Photocopied papers, 1938-1958, oi Paul ing a diary kept during 1943-1944 while F. Harloff {1868—), a Madison electrical con based at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, tractor instrumental in persuading Frank a narrative genealogy and a chart concern Lloyd Wright to design a civic center for ing his ancestry in the Ramseth family, and Monona Terrace. Included are letters be other biographical items. Presented by tween Harloff, Wright, and Wright's staff; Malcolm Rosholt, Rosholt. newspaper clippings; a document prepared Transcript of a 1995 interview with Alice by Wright titled "Olin Terrace: Facts Con Jensen, formerly of Adams, Wisconsin, con cerning the Scheme [for] Hanging Gar cerning her experiences in the Army Nurse dens Constructed Above the Lake"; specifi Corps during World War II, mainly at a cations for a scale model of the building; station hospital in Townsville, Australia. The and a 1991 article about Harloff and his role interview describes the hot climate, living in the project. Loaned for copying by James and working conditions, the nature of A. Harloff, Solana Beach, California. wounds and treatments (including the use Notes compiled in 1978 by Ruth Harlow of maggots), moving to the Dutch East on Colonel George Boyd (1779-1846), In Indies and living in the jungle just after the dian agent at Mackinac, Michigan, and Japanese invasion, and many anecdotes. Green Bay, and his descendants; includes Presented by Alice Jensen via Virginia mention of the surnames Hamilton and Palmer, Milwaukee. Masse. Presented by Ruth (Mrs. Alfred) Excerpts from and comments on dia Harlow. ries, 1873-1887, kept by Enos Lloyd Jones Miscellaneous papers, 1860-1908,1950, (1853—) of Spring Green, compiled by his of Cordelia Adelaide Harvey (1824-1895), the son, Chester Lloyd Jones. Entries give a wife of the Civil War-era governor of Wis general picture of life in nineteenth-cen consin, including correspondence concern tury rural Wisconsin. Presented by Eleanor ing lot sales and taxation of Harvey's prop Cussler via Mary Jane Hamilton, Madison. erty holdings in Green Bay, and a sketch Correspondence and newsclippings per map of the holdings, plus a photocopied taining to the sinking of the Athenia, first typed reminiscence concerning her Civil ship sunk during World War II by a Ger War work as state sanitary agent for Wiscon man submarine, and the survival of Jeanette sin regiments, her personal visit with Presi C.Jordan, former Latin teacher at East High dent Lincoln, and establishment of Harvey School, Madison, Wisconsin, and Florence Army Hospital in Madison. Presented by Hargrave, former assistant principal ofthe James Sutherland, Tucson, Arizona, via S. school. Presented by the Estate of Jeanette C.Johnson, Racine, and by Julie Brickley, C.Jordan via William B. Smith, Madison. Sturgeon Bay. Manuscript narrative genealogy com Genealogical notes, compiled ca. 1968 piled by Cleo Clark Kane, covering ca. 1813- by Corinne Hoffpauir, on the family of 1986, on the John and Huldah Enos family Rosivell Graves, a Methodist minister born of Rock County. Other surnames mentioned
331 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997 include Clark, Coe, Gulliford, Kelsey, Scotland; compiled in 1923 by Fannie O'Kane, and Stanley. Presented by the Wis Quiggle McDonald (1861—). Many ofthe consin State Genealogical Society via families lived in Lycoming County (later Marilyn Bailey. Clinton County), Pennsylvania, and Fort Two 1864 letters and a postmarked en Scott, Kansas; some lived in Grant and velope written by Captain yo/in A. Kellogg of Jefferson counties. Other surnames men the 6th Wisconsin Infantry from inside Con tioned include: Bigger, Campbell, Else, federate military prisons to Governor Lewis Hanna, and Smith. Presented by Vivian ofWisconsin informing him that, contrar)' Henderson, Whitewater. to rumor, he had not been killed in action A history of the Meeker family, compiled and asking for a promotion. Removed from in 1989 by Michael A. Meeker, tracing its State Archives Series 1200. origins in England, immigration to America Genealogical records and correspon in the 1600's, and subsequent settlement dence, 1978, compiled by Edith Knilans throughout the United States, illustrated relating to the descendants of Reed Lemuel with photographs. Presented by Michael A. Brockway and Sarah Ellen Knilans of Meeker, Madison. Janesville, and Benjamin Frederick Ells, Jr., A personal narrative written ca. 1940 by and Julia Ann Knilans of'WaWforth County, Elsie R. Merz of Milwaukee. After a brief who lived in Iowa after their marriage. Pre autobiographical chapter describing her sented by Edith Knilans, Whitewater. German-American background and child A typewritten history of early dentistry in hood, Merz describes a personal spiritual Marathon County, compiled 1921-ca. 1946, awakening in 1934, and analyzes societal by Dr. August Henry Lemke (1868-1946), issues such as unemployment, low wages, charter member of the Marathon County virtue, and morality in terms of Christian Dental Society, consisting of biographical doctrine. Presented by Iris Petersen, Lone sketches and stories relating to dentists who Rock. practiced in that area. Presented by Mrs. A. Miscellaneous family Bible record pages, H. Lemke, through Dr. J. H. Kolter, and by 1780-1919, consisting of original pages Freek Vrugtman, Hamilton, Ontario, from family Bibles containing birth, mar Canada. riage, and death records from the King, "London Air-Raid Letters, " consisting of Spencer, Swift, and Thompson families. typed transcriptions of letters written by The donors operated a book shop so these various members of an English family to families may not be related to each other. "Uncle Harry" in the United States, dated Presented by the Nevitts, Oshkosh. November 15 to December 18, 1940, de A biography of Tyler Dennett (1883- scribing conditions in the London area 1949), written by his sister, Mildred D. during the blitz. Presented by Robert Gen Mudgett, detailing his youth and career as try via E. David Cronon, Madison. a minister, teacher, writer, and president Two papers written by adherents of as of Williams College. Presented by Mildred trology involved with the Madison Equinox D. Mudgett, Montecito, California. Festival of 1981. Presented by Mark Matson. A narrative genealogy prepared in 1985 Minutes, 1886-1889, of Madison Medical by Jon P. Neill on the descendants of Club meetings, often including details of Mathias Bechtolt, a German immigrant who medical discussions held there. Presented settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, be by the State Medical Society ofWisconsin. fore the American Revolution. Mathias, Jr., Fift)' pages of handwritten genealogical was a western pioneer, first farming in Ohio notes, ca. 1923, on the descendants ofjohn and later settling in Green County. Pre Reeder, born ca. 1795 in Pennsylvania, and sented by Jon Patraic Neill, Jacksonville, Alexander McDonald, born 1776 in Ayreshire, Florida.
332 ACCESSIONS
Genealogical charts and documents, mation. Presented by Floyd L. Haight, Allen 1830-1979, compiled by Mary Ann Nelson, Park, Michigan. of members of the Langevin family of Que Birth records, 1857-1902, from a family bec, Canada, who came to Wisconsin and Bible for members of the Pippin and Kever Minnesota in the mid-1800's; includes men families, some of whom were residents of tion ofthe Devaney surname. Presented by Richland County. Presented by Mary E. Mary Ann Nelson, St Paul, Minnesota. Normington, Beloit Typed transcription of a diary kept by Part two of a larger work by James Hart Amos Jones Osgood (1832—) of North Purdy tracing the descendants ofthe Purdy Yarmouth, Maine, in 1854 during a trip family of New York. This section focuses on which took him through New York, Ohio, Maj. Obadiah Purdy and his descendants, Illinois, Wisconsin, and into Canada. In 1747-1906, some of whom were early set cluded are observations about economic tlers in the Fox Lake, Portage, and Fond conditions in various locales, the behavior du Lac areas and others who settled around and customs of people he met, and de Red Wing, Minnesota. Also included is in scriptions of the countryside and various formation about the Neill family, 1837- towns in Wisconsin, including Kenosha, 1931, copied from a family Bible, and ge Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Menasha, Green Bay, nealogical and military data about Victor Appleton, and Sheboygan. Presented by Simpson Neill (1884—). Presented by Lila Elizabeth S. Baxter, Newington, Connecti Neill Hillyer, Madison. cut. Family history and genealogical charts, Original land patent, 1843, [seal miss 1728-1977, compiled by Wanyce Sandve ing] granting three sections of land in Wis (1909-) for the families of Ole Johannes consin Territory to Pierre Paquette under Sandve, descended from Lars Helgeson, and the termsof the Winnebago Treaty of 1832. his wife, Gustine Marie Gran, both of whom Presented by the Rock County Historical came from Karmoy, Norway to Norway, Society, Janesville. Iowa in the 1890's, and later settled in Bar A letter dated March 18, 1885, signed by ron County. Presented by Mr. and Mrs. J. all the constitutional officers ofthe State of Reuben Sandve, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Wisconsin plus members of the State Su Papers, 1951-1972, including a brief his preme Court recommending Richard Pauli tory of Chester A. Scales (1914—) and his of Racine, for the post of Under Secretary family of Highland, Wisconsin, based on of the American Legation at Paris, France. interviews with Mr. Scales, probably con Presented by Martin E. Cupery, Friesland. ducted by Valerie Clingan. An African A 1988 letter describing the discovery of American born in St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. the Cave ofthe Mounds in Dane County in Scales migrated to Madison in 1950 where 1938 by Selma E. Pernot's father, Fred he married. The history describes the dis Kutzke, while working on a state highway crimination suffered by the Scales in Edger project Presented by Selma E. Pernot, ton, Madison, and Highland, resulting from Brooklyn. their interracial marriage. Also included in Letters, 1863-1883, written to Edward the collection are photocopies of family Phillips, Oakfield, Fond du Lac County, by documents, photographs, a centennial an relatives living in Nevada, Iowa, Dakota, niversary booklet for the Christ Lutheran and Wisconsin, describing their lives and Church, Highland, and one for St. Peter's discussing family concerns. Presented by Lutheran Church, Muscoda. Loaned for B. W. Bernicke, Eau Claire. copying by Chester A. Scales via Valerie Genealogical charts of the Zimbeck family Clingan, Highland. accompanied by 1975 correspondence Photocopied letters and transcripts, from Edward Piper with additional infor 1812-1880, written to Edward C. Sharp by
333 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SUMMER, 1997
family and friends both before and after nessee, and Chicago, back to slavery in his immigration to Madison from England, 1850, through sharecropping, land owner ca. 1850. The letters describe economic ship, and migration north. Presented by and religious conditions in England and Katherine Taylor, Milwaukee. several, written by a brother, illustrate the Papers, 1949-1976, consisting of corre life of a merchant seaman. Presented by spondence and autobiographical writings, Mary Roden Schmedeman, Lakeland, many written while terminally ill, by Jack Florida. Telfer (1907-1974), who grew up in La A two-part memoir, ca. 1933-1995, by Farge, and served as a minister in Congre Jack T. Sneesby, a life-long resident of Wis gational churches in Wisconsin, Iowa, Kan consin, concerning his youth in various sas, Georgia, and California. The writings cities, his World War II experiences in the concern his memories of trapping mink 338th Infantry Regiment, his 1944 capture and of World War I in La Farge, of experi and seven months of captivity at Stalag IIIB ences as a pastor in Oconomowoc and Ot- at Furstenburg and at Stalag IIIA at tumwa, Iowa, of a bicycle trip through Eu Luckenwalde. Presented by Jack T. Sneesby, rope with students in 1950, and other Brookfield. activities. Presented by L. Elmer Lush- Autobiographical memoir, covering bough, Baker, Montana. 1870-1894,writtenhy Anna Leona Lansworth A report written by William Fletcher Stanley about growing up in Primrose, Dane Thompson (1929-), who accompanied Rob County, and in Dorchester, Clark County; ert Jedliczka on his 1988 visit to Camp McCoy with details about her family, play activi where he had been a prisoner of war in ties, Indian visitors, education, and her first 1944 and 1945, with Jedliczka's reminis jobs as a school teacher. Presented byjohn cences about the camp. Presented by Will S. Renter, Arcadia, California. iam F. Thompson, Madison. Genealogical papers, 1918-1979, includ A family history, 1938-1977, prepared ing photocopies of an Aebli family geneal by Marjorie H. Thurston (1902-) on ogy (in German), compiled by Betty D. Mathias Hagmann, who emigrated from Steelman, from "Genealogy of the Glarus Switzerland to Sauk County in 1847, and District," Glarus, Switzerland, tracing the his sister, Dorothea Hagmann Guntli, who family line of immigrant Johann Jakob Aebli, came to Wisconsin in 1853. Presented by who came to Green County before 1864, Marjorie H. Thurston, St Paul, Minnesota. back to FridU Aebh (1590-1663) andRosina A brief reminiscence and family history Leuzinger ( ?-1629). Includes English trans by Nettie Mildred Knudsen Thut, covering lation and genealogical chart with infor the years from about 1900 to 1982, includ mation dating to 1953. Presented by Betty ing information about growing up on a D. Steelman, Pleasantville, Newjersey. farm in Wood County, her education, her Genealogy compiled in 1937 by Elmer faith in Christian Science, and other de E. Sugden (1887-) of Henry Bush (1829- tails. Presented by Evelyn Thompson, Ore 1895), born in Stickney, England, and im gon. migrating to the United States in 1854. Funeral record book, 1886-1918, ofthe Surnames represented include Heath, Mor Rev. Lrving Towsley, who served congrega rison, Nightingale, Padden, Sugden, and tions in Mukwonago and Stoughton, Wis Tulledge. Many descendants lived in Wis consin, as well as churches in New York, consin and Minnesota. Presented by Rob Maine, and Vermont, including the name ert A. Bjerke, Manitowoc. and age of the deceased, place of birth, A photocopied seven-page paper by cause of death, place of funeral service and Katherine Taylor for a history class in 1976 interment, notes about relatives and mi tracing her family, of South Carolina, Ten grations from other states and countries.
334 ACCESSIONS fees collected, and general notes about and including anecdotes, clippings, and a unusual weather, etc. Presented by John photo of the author who immigrated to O. Holzhueter, Mazomanie. Pewaukee in 1849. Family names men Manuscript copies of two letters, 1796 tioned include Booth, Greenbank, Moser, and 1799, from Noah Vilas to his son Moses, Toulmin, and Whaley. Presented by the advising him to study diligently and con Delafield Public Library, Delafield. gratulating him on his marriage. A descen A memoir by Elmer A. Winters about the dant of these men was Wisconsin political mobilization and training of the 32nd In leader William F. Vilas. Presented by fantry Division of the Wisconsin Army Na Charles Harrison Vilas II, Branford, Con tional Guard during the Berlin crisis of necticut 1961. Presented by Elmer A. Winters, Eau Genealogical charts and information, Claire. 1986, on the ancestors of John A. Warren Photocopies of original Yantz family let (1950-), some of whom lived in Dunn ters, 1862-1870, and their typed transcrip County, and ancestors of his wife, Jean Marie tions/translations, written by brothers Pe Schulenburg, mostly of Dane County, en ter, John, and George Yantz to their parents compassing the years 1722-1984 and in and to their sister, Christine Shaller, in cluding the family names Bolster, Dewey, Thompsonville, Racine County, during Ecker, Fassbender, Fox, Hermann, Koch, their Civil War service with the Wisconsin Pier, Thielke, and Wolf. Presented byjohn 2nd and 4th Cavalries, and the 22nd Wis A. Warren, Palmyra. consin Infantry. There are also a few mis A narrative genealogy, 1905, primarily cellaneous family letters from this time pe ofthe paternal line of Leonard Whaley Willan riod. Presented by Robert J. Peterson, (1814-) dating back to 1644 in England Parkville, Minnesota.
335 Contributors
HERBERT F. MARGULIES is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he taught from 1959 to 1995. He took his Ph.D. at the University ofWisconsin, Madison, and there developed a strong interest in Wisconsin politics in the early twentieth century that led to a study of national politics in the same period. He has written books on Wisconsin politics, Irvine Lenroot ofWisconsin, the Senate battle over the League of Nations, and most recently Reconciliation and Revival: James R. Mann and the House Republicans in the Wilson Era (Greenwood, 1996), along with many articles, some published in the Wisconsin Magazine of History.
JESS GILBERT is Professor of Rural Sociol ELLEN BAKER is a doctoral candidate in U.S. ogy at the University of Wisconsin, Madi women's history at the Universit)' ofWiscon son. He received his Ph.D. in 1983 from sin, Madison. She is researching and writing Michigan State University. He studies the about a left-wing miners' union in New history and sociology of United States land Mexico, whose dramatic 1950 strike, in which tenure, family farming, and agricultural women took over the picket lines, inspired policy. He is currently writing a book on the independent film Salt of the Earth. Ofthe agrarian intellectuals, democratic planning, luminaries in the article, Baker probably and the "Third New Deal" in agriculture. likes Bushrod Allin the best, although M.L. Wilson comes in a close second.
336 THE BOARD OF CURATORS
THOMAS H. BARLAND VIVIAN L. GUZNICZAK ViRt;iNiA R. MACNEIL Eau Claire Franklin Bayside JANicK M. BFAUUIN CHARLES E. HAAS GEORGE H. MILLER Madison La Crosse Ripon JANE B. BERNHARDT BETTE M. HAYES DOUOLAS A. GtilLVIE Cassville De Pere Hortonville PATRICIA A. Bot;E FANNIE E. HICKLIN JERRY PHILLIPS La Crosse Madison Bayfield DAVID E. CLARENBACH RICHARD H. HOLSCHER MARY CONNOR PIERCE Madison Milwaukee Wisconsin Rapids GLENN R. COATES GREOORV B. HUBER FRED A. RISSER Racine Wausau Madison JOHN M. COOPER, JR. MRS. PETER D. HUMLEKER, JR. BRIAN D. RUDE Madison Fond du Lac Coon Valley NESS FLORES THOMAS MOUATJEFERIS II JOHN M. RUSSELL Waukesha Janesville Menomonie STEPHEN J. FREESE RASMUS B. A. KALNES MARY A. SATHER Dodgeville Eagle New Richmond PAUL C. GARTZKE RUTH DE VOUNC. KOHLER GERALD D, VISTE Madison Kohler Wausau
LAWRENCE T, RIORDAN, President, Friends ofthe Stale MARVEL ANDERSON, President ofthe Wisconsin Council Historical Sodety of Wisconsin for Local History ROCKNE G. FLOWERS, President ofthe Wisconsin Hislory DAVID W. OI.IEN, Senior Vice-President, University Foundation of Wisconsin System
Friends ofthe State Historical Society ofWisconsin
Officers LAWRENCE T. RIORDAN, Wausau NANCYJ. EMMERT, Madison Pre.sident Treasurer JENNIFER EAOER EHLE, Evansville JENNIFER EA(;ER EHLE, Evansville Vice-President Past President KATHY L. RIORDAN, Wausau DELORES C. DUCKLOW, Madison Secretary Staff Liaison
Trustees NANCY B. ALLEN BARBARA J. KAISER West Bend Madison RUTH WHITE ANDERSON DONNA M. KALNES Edgerton Eagle ALETA BARMORE C;HRIS KERWIN Middleton Madison SHIRLEY BARTLEY BARBARA A. NORDSTROM Bloomington Manitowoc LAWRENCE BEHLEN MARGUERITE OTTO Clreen Lake Racine PATRICIA COCHRAN KATHY L. RIORDAN De Pere Wausau Jo GREENHALGH MARK H. SURFUS Madison Manitowoc HARVA HACHTEN GEORGE A. TALBOT III Madison Madison FANNIE E. HICKLIN JACK WIEDABACH Madison Fox Point THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY SHALL promote a wider appreciation of the American heritage with particular emphasis on the collection, advancement and dissemination of knowledge ofthe history of Wisconsin and the West —Wisconsin Statutes, Chapter 44
WHi(XS).'JI090 Richard T. Ely and Henry C. Taylor on the steps ofthe University of Wisconsin's Agriculture Hall, 1919. An article on the influence ofWisconsin professors on New Deal agricultural policies begins on page 280.