Robert M. La Follette is the subject of one of the two statues representing Wisconsin in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. He served Wisconsin as a U.S. Representative, Governor and U.S. Senator.
La Follette also ran for U.S. President a few times seeking the Republican Party nomination. He was unsuccessful in those attempts.
In the 1924 Presidential Election, he ran as a Progressive Party candidate, winning 16.6% of the popular vote, an impressive third party performance. Calvin Coolidge won that election with a majority of the popular and electoral vote. La Follette won 13 electoral votes, carrying his own state of Wisconsin.
Theodore Roosevelt’s attempt at a third term in the 1912 U.S. Presidential Election as a Bull Moose Progressive Party candidate was the most successful third party presidential candidate in the history of the U.S. Roosevelt won 88 Electoral votes and 27% of the popular vote, carrying 6 states in that election.
Robert La Follette was born June 14, 1855 on a farm in Primrose, Wisconsin. He was the youngest of five children born to Josiah La Follette and Mary Ferguson.
Josiah died just eight months after Robert was born, and in 1862, Mary married John Saxton, a wealthy, seventy-year-old merchant.
The family moved to John Saxton’s home in Argyle, but by 1867, she returned to the Primrose farm with her aging husband and children. Bob stayed in Argyle to finish school. He lived with friends and supported himself by barbering in the local hotel.
At age 14, Bob returned to the Primrose farm, gaining knowledge of crops and livestock. He often traveled to Madison to sell the farm’s produce.
When John Saxton died in 1872, Bob, his mother, and his older sister moved to the nearby town of Madison. Bob began attending the University of Wisconsin in 1875 and graduated in 1879.
Bob was a mediocre student, but won a statewide oratory contest and established a student newspaper named the University Press. He was deeply influenced by the university’s president, John Bascom.
La Follette met Belle Case while attending the University of Wisconsin. They married on December 31, 1881. Belle was an excellent student and helped Bob graduate. They had four children, two daughters and two sons.
Belle was active in the women’s suffrage movement. She also wrote and edited a weekly “Home and Education” column for La Follette’s Weekly Magazine, a magazine started by her husband and that later became The Progressive.
Robert La Follette was a talented orator. He had displayed early signs of that talent at age 3 when he recited a poem in the newly built schoolhouse near his Primrose home.
His powerful voice was a factor in his political successes. Belle was also an important asset in these endeavors. In 1881, at age 26, he was elected Dane County District Attorney.
In 1884, La Follette was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. His principal concerns in his three terms as congressman were economical government and protection for his district’s farmers.
In a speech to Congress in 1886, La Follette noted that the success of dairy farms was crucial to the success of the nation:
“Almost all of the farmland in this country is held and owned by men who cultivate it. Ownership of soil means ownership of home, and I tell you that the government whose people build and own their own homes lays broadest and deepest its foundation. Such homes, no matter how humble, are pledges of the perpetuity of the nation.“
In 1890, La Follette lost his election in a Democratic landslide. However, that did not end his political career. He went on to run for Governor of Wisconsin. La Follette despised political bosses and set up a faction of Republicans that were disaffected with the party.
He lost his election for governor in 1896 and 1898 but won in 1900. As Governor of Wisconsin, La Follette compiled a progressive record, implementing primary elections and tax reform.
La Follette won re-election in 1902 and 1904, but in 1905 the legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. There he emerged as a national progressive leader and often clashed with some powerful members of his own Party.
As a Senator he pushed for dismantling the business trusts, supported environmental protection, labor unions right to strike, and the 17th Amendment allowing for direct election of U.S. Senators.
In 1912, after being seriously considered as the Republican presidential candidate, La Follette was passed over when Theodore Roosevelt entered the race. Bitterly disappointed, La Follette supported Woodrow Wilson’s election and his early neutrality policies. He adamantly opposed America’s entry into World War I.
After the war, he campaigned against the Treaty of Versailles and U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Critics declared his war opposition political suicide, but he was reelected to the Senate in 1922.
Robert M. La Follette served in the U.S. Senate until 1925. In 1924, he ran for U.S. President as a third party candidate. He lost to Calvin Coolidge, but did win 16.6% of the popular vote, impressive for a third party candidate.
La Follette died in Washington, D.C. of a cardiovascular disease, complicated by bronchitis and pneumonia, on June 18, 1925, four days after his 70th birthday.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)