Robert Marion La Follette, Sr.

Robert Marion La Follette, Sr. (1855-1925), one of the principal leaders of the U.S. Progressive movement.

La Follette was born June 14, 1855, in Primrose, Wisconsin, and educated at the University of Wisconsin. He was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1885 to 1891, serving on the Ways and Means Committee and taking a prominent part in the framing of the McKinley Bill of 1890. Imbued with Populist beliefs, he entered local Wisconsin politics upon returning from Congress and was elected governor of the state in 1900. With the backing of the strong political machine he built while in that office, La Follette instituted many reforms, including measures for the nomination of candidates by direct vote and the regulation of railroad rates. He also introduced new political techniques, such as direct appeal to the electorate on questions of policy, the veto accompanied by an executive message as a means of forcing legislative agreement, and the reading of the voting records of opposing candidates during political campaigns.

In 1906, La Follette, having earlier been elected to the U.S. Senate, resigned the governorship and remained a member of the Senate until his death. He became a leader of the Progressive wing of the Republican Party and often opposed the party leadership. La Follette's most spectacular dissent occurred when he voted against United States entry into World War I. He continued his isolationist policy in the postwar period, opposing American participation in the League of Nations and the World Court. In domestic affairs, La Follette advocated public ownership of waterpower and railroads, progressive income taxes, government control of banking, industry, and natural resources, and the abrogation of the power of the Supreme Court to declare legislation unconstitutional. He was one of the sponsors of the Senate investigation into the Teapot Dome naval oil lease.

La Follette broke completely with the Republican Party after its 1924 convention rejected his platform proposals. He organized the League for Progressive Political Action and became its presidential candidate in the same year. With combined agrarian and labor support, including that of such organizations as the American Federation of Labor, the agrarian Non-Partisan League, and the Socialist Party, La Follette received 13 electoral votes and about 4,831,000 popular votes, badly trailing the Republican and Democratic candidates. He returned to his Senate post and died in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 1925.