Gov. Robert La Follette, Sr., US Senate & Congress

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=593&ref=wvr

Everything you wanted to know about Robert M. La Follette Sr.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette,_Sr.

"Robert Marion "Battling Bob" La Follette, Sr. (June 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925), was an American Republican (and later a Progressive) politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the Governor of Wisconsin, and was also a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (1906 to 1925). He ran for President of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in 1924, carrying Wisconsin and 17% of the national popular vote.

"His wife Belle Case La Follette and sons Robert M. La Follette, Jr. and Philip La Follette led his political faction in Wisconsin into the 1940s. La Follette has been called 'arguably the most important and recognized leader of the opposition to the growing dominance of corporations over the Government' and is one of the key figures pointed to in Wisconsin's long history of political liberalism.

"He is best remembered as a proponent of progressivism and a vocal opponent of railroad trusts, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected La Follette as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert Taft. A 1982 survey asking historians to rank the 'ten greatest Senators in the nation's history' based on 'accomplishments in office' and 'long range impact on American history,' placed La Follette first, tied with Henry Clay."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette,_Sr.

• US Representative from Wisconsin
• Governor of Wisconsin
• US Senator, Wisconsin
• Presidential candidate, Progressive Party, 1924

Probably from a book about the La Follettes:

Bob's father had been very enthusiastic about coming to WS. He said he expected to live among these hills to an age equal to his grandfather's. But eight months after Bob's birth he died of an illness then diagnosed as a complication of pneumonia and diabetes.

Josiah La Follette knew he must die. He said he had no fear of death but dreaded to be forgotten. This thought, often repeated by his mother, made a deep impression on Bob. He thought of his father by day and dreamed of him at night. His father held somewhat liberal religious views and had never joined any church. When Bob came to realize that the strict orthodox doctrine which pervaded the family atmosphere during part of his earlier years would condemn his father to eternal punishment, his spirit revolted at the thought. The desire was strong for a Hereafter where he might know his father. He resented any religious teaching that closed the gates of Heaven to so just and upright a man as he knew his father to be. All that took place at the time of his father's death and illness was, I believe, more vivid to Bob's imagination than if he had been old enough to remember what happened.

The funeral services for Josiah La Follette were very simple, just a prayer by his neighbor and good friend Deacon David Thomas, and some hymns. They were too far away to get a minister. When the little brother Marion died, he had been buried on a hillside of the farm in sight of the house. The mother wanted the child buried with his father. The boy's coffin was taken from the grave, which had been carefully boarded up, and brought to the house and opened. The child's face was perfect as if asleep. While they were looking, it fell to ashes. Father and son were taken to the Postville cemetery on Green's prairie and placed together in one grave.

I have heard Bob say he often pictured the sad home journey his mother made on that cold, dreary winter day. She often recounted her suffering to her children; for, though a woman of courage and fortitude, she expressed her emotion freely and vividly in words. A boyhood friend, who was their nearest neighbor, remembers his mother saying that little Bob wold often ask: "Mrs Osmundsen, won't you come to see my mother? She is so very lonesome."

When Bob La Follette was three years old, his half-sister, Ellen Buchanan married Dean Eastman, a good-looking, upstanding, hard-working young man from Maine. Dean taught school, played the fiddle at country dances, and led the singing at church services. Mother La Follette took Dean to her heart, as she duid all her "in-laws." She relinquished her dower right in the Buchanan estate to provide a good home for her daughter and son-in-law, who with their large family were an intimate part of Bob's life.

In 1894, after his mother's death, it was decided to move the father's remains to Madison for burial beside her. Bob consulted his friend, Dr. Cornelius Harper, as to the necessary preparations and with his brother, William drove to Postville on this mission. When the gravedigger got down to where the coffin had been, they found it had disappeared; but the outlines could be traced in the surrounding clay. Bob himself carefully removed the relics of his father's skeleton. Dr. Harper, who assisted at the reburial in Madison, says that before the coffin was finally closed Bob studied the relics carefully. He commented on the prominent forehead, the small hands and feet. They talked for more than an hour. Bob asked many questions and seemed intent on reproducing in imagination the form of his father as he looked in life.

Bob's boyhood impressions of Primrose, WS had a deep and abiding influence on his character and career. So enduring were his memories of neighbors, incidents, and early experiences that through his vivid description they became a part of our family traditions. Bob would often tell his children how he had ridden horseback Sunday mornings to the home of his father's friend, Deacon David Thomas, to give him a shave, and Bob said "he had a beard like wire, so it was no easy job."

David Ash, born in 1792, was a near neighbor and a remarkable man who Bob said "must have been a soldier, for he tried to make a soldier out of me. He would come to our house when I was about four years old and after my night clothes were on, he would give me his cane and put me through the military maneuvers in front of the fire-place."

From Chapter II (probably of a book, not sure):

"My Name Is Bob La Follette"

In 1862, when Bob was seven, his mother married Deacon John Z. Saxton of Argyle, WI, who was twenty-six years her senior. Generally known as "Uncle John," he was looked upon as a leading citizen. For some thirty years he had lived in Lafayette County, had been town chairman, leading merchant, and postmaster of Argyle, and had at one time also kept a hotel. Although a rival store had been recently started, Uncle John had a good country trade and was considered prosperous -- even wealthy for those days.

I never heard Bob say how he felt when his mother married John Saxton. But he would have gone to the stake for her, and this loyalty may have kept him from ever expressing his own feeling. Such an experience, at best, is usually a hard ordeal for children. He had never known his father, but his devotion to his memory was almost morbid. Even in childhood the fortitute, which carried him undaunted through so many bitter conflicts in afterlife, doubtless helped him bear his first great trial of his childhood. He insisted on keeping his own name. When he started school at Argyle, he went up to a group of boys who were playing together and said: "My name is Bob La Follette, what is yours?" If ever strangers called him "Saxton," he would correct them: "My name is La Follette."

Although Saxton was a severe disciplinarian, Bob never spoke of his stepfather with anything but respect. Sometimes, however, he would tell humorous stories and mimic the conversations in the store between the customers and the very deaf old man who found it hard to understand what they wanted.

Bob said his stepfather taught him good behavior; never to leave a door open, to close it and do it quietly; good table manners.

GEDCOM Note

[Case.FTW]

Facts about this person:

Occupation Governor of Wisconsin

Lafollette, Robert M. Lived in: 4 Ward Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin Series: T623 Microfilm: 1783 Book: 1 Page: 47

ROBERT LAFOLLETTE

Robert Marion LaFollette, (1855-1925), American political leader. A founder of the Progressive Movement, he was a spearhead for political reform in Wisconsin and the nation for 25 years. Unwilling to compromise on principle, "Fighting Bob" LaFollette earned the deep admiration of his supporters and the hatred of many foes.

LaFollette was born in Primrose, Wis., on June 14, 1855. A farmer's son, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1879 and practiced law in Madison. In 1880 he defied a local political leader to win the office of district attorney. He then served (1885-1891) as a REPUBLICAN in the U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The Governorship

Defeated in 1890, LaFollette resumed his practice. In 1891 he became convinced that Sen. Philetus Sawyer, a wealthy lumberman, had tried to bribe him in connection with a legal case, and LaFollette's outrage triggered 50 years of bitter political rivalry. From then on the real division in Wisconsin was almost always between pro- and anti-LaFollette factions rather than between Republicans and DEMOCRATS. He remained a Republican, and was opposed by conservatives in both parties. LaFollette's subsequent rise coincided with unrest among farmers angry at Eastern capitalists who controlled money and credit and who dictated railroad freight rates. Supporting LaFollette, they were joined by small businessmen, professionals, and intellectuals disturbed by how wealthy businessmen controlled access to political power.

This progressive spirit flourished elsewhere, but nowhere better organized than under LaFollette in Wisconsin. A brilliant orator, he campaigned across the state for years. After twice losing the nomination for governor under the convention system, he was elected in 1900. Reelected in 1902 and 1904, he achieved many of his goals. Wisconsin was the first state to adopt the primary for nominations for state offices. A new law taxed railroads on the value of their property, ending an inequity. Taxes on corporations permitted the state to pay its debts. A railroad commission was created to regulate rates. Funding for education was increased. A civil-service law was adopted. This legislation was drafted by political and social scientists and economists, a feature of the "Wisconsin Idea."

The Senate

Elected to the U.S. SENATE in 1905, LaFollette took his seat in 1906. In Washington, he fought the same forces of privilege he had defeated in Wisconsin. A few progressive Republicans joined him, and they often held the balance of power in a Senate closely divided between the two parties. LaFollette opposed the protective Payne-Aldrich tariff and worked to regulate the railroads and other industries. He sought the GOP presidential nomination in 1908 and 1912. He founded LaFollette's Weekly Magazine (1909) and the National Progressive Republican League (1911). In one of his finest achievements, he secured approval of a bill protecting the rights of seamen.

Representing a state with a large German population and reflecting Midwestern isolationism, LaFollette opposed President WILSON's support for the Allies after war broke out in Europe in 1914. When LaFollette opposed the arming of U.S. merchant ships, Wilson denounced the "little group of wilful men" who he said had made the government "helpless and contemptible."

In April 1917, LaFollette voted against declaring war. When he continued to criticize the war, an attempt was made to expel him from the Senate for disloyalty. (In 1957 the Senate voted LaFollette one of the five most outstanding senators of all time.) He also opposed the Treaty of Versailles.

Legacy

Reelected by a landslide to a fourth term in 1922, LaFollette mounted an independent campaign for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES in 1924 and won 17% of the vote. (See PROGRESSIVE PARTY.) Exhausted by this effort, he died in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 1925. After he died his sons, Robert and Philip, carried on his work. Robert Marion Lafollette, Jr. (1895-1953),his father's secretary, succeeded him in the Senate. Though cautious by nature and frequently ill, he won great distinction during 21 years in the Senate. An authority on tax legislation, he was also active in behalf of labor and civil liberties. His last majo rachievement was the Congressional Reorganization Act of 1946. In that year he lost to Joseph R. McCarthy in the Republican senatorial primary. Philip Fox LaFollette (1897-1965), inherited his father's fiery temperament. Ambitious and aggressive, he served three terms as governor (1931-1933, 1935-1939). He won passage for the nation's first unemployment compensation act, pushed through programs to aid workers and farmers, and reorganized the state government.

Donald Young Editor, Adventure in Politics: The Memoirs of Philip LaFollette