Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Follette died, she refused public life; instead, she devoted herself to the
Progress-
ive
magazine, which Bob had founded. Her own activism may be best remembered
in her moving, eloquent 1913 speech to a transfixed U.S. Senate Committee on Wo-
man's Suffrage, during which she quoted Abraham Lincoln in asking, “Are women
not people?”
Fightin' Bob's most radical creation was the Wisconsin Idea. Officially a system
whereby the state used careful research and empirical evidence in governing, in reality it
meant that La Follette kept a close-knit core of advisers as de facto aides. His was the first
government—state or federal—to maintain expert panels and commissions, a controversial
plan at the time. Some criticized it as elitist, but he argued that it was necessary to combat
well-funded industry cronyism.
Robert La Follette's most (in)famous personal crusade was his strident opposition to U.S.
participation in World War I due equally to Wisconsin's heavy German population and La
Follette's vehement pacifism. He suffered tremendous regional and national scorn and was
booted to the lower echelons of politics. Interestingly, when the United States officially
entered the war, Wisconsin was the first state to meet enlistment requirements. Eventually,
La Follette enjoyed something of a vindication with a triumphant return to the Senate in
1924, followed by a final real presidential run.
Also a political activist, Bob's wife, Belle La Follette, mounted a long-standing crusade
for women's suffrage that helped the 19th Amendment get ratified; Wisconsin was the first
state to ratify it. In other political trends starting around the turn of the 20th century, Mil-
waukee began electing Socialist administrations. Buoyed by nascent labor organizations in
the huge factory towns along Lake Michigan, the movement was infused with an immig-
rant European populace not averse to social radicalism. Milwaukee was the country's most
heavilyunionizedcity,anditvotedSocialist—atleastinpart—rightthroughthe1960s.The
Progressive banner was picked up by La Follette's sons, Phil and Robert Jr., and the Wis-
consin Progressive Party was formed in 1934. Robert Jr. took over for his father in the U.S.
Senate, and Phil dominated Wisconsin politics during the 1930s. Despite these efforts, the
movement waned. Anemic and ineffective from internal splits and World War II, it melded
with the Republican Party in 1946.
