La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences is a remarkable primary document of the Progressive Era. Originally published in 1913, it remains in print today and has the dubious honor of being one of Richard Nixon's three favorite books.Footnote 1 It illuminates the crucial role that La Follette's home state of Wisconsin played in molding La Follette as a man and as a politician, thereby influencing his national progressive agenda; but it also reveals much more.
The La Follette family in 1910. Phil (the future governor of Wisconsin) sits in front of his father and between his sister Mary and his brother, Bob Jr. (who would succeed their father in the U.S. Senate). Fighting Bob sits between his oldest child, Fola, and his wife Belle. Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, WHi-82953.
In writing La Follette's biography, I of course poured over countless documents: his diaries, letters, and other papers. I've read everything he said on the floor of the U.S. Congress and every word he wrote in La Follette's Weekly Magazine. However, to capture the essence of Bob La Follette, all one really needs to do is read his autobiography. It reveals, in one tidy package, the heart and soul of Fighting Bob, and, as such, makes plain the good, the bad, the ugly—and the glorious.
The autobiography came about in part because La Follette needed money. My fellow panelist Matt Rothschild today edits The Progressive, the magazine that began as La Follette's Weekly Magazine. The title has changed—but the magazine's perpetual state of debt, as the editor can attest, has not.Footnote 2 During the sweltering summer of 1911, La Follette was holed up in his Senate office in Washington with muckraking journalist Ray Stannard Baker, editor of American Magazine, for whom La Follette had agreed to write, for a fee, an autobiographical series. Collaborating closely, the two began to write a series of ten articles, the first of which was published in October of 1911.Footnote 3
There were political as well as financial motives for the articles. Fighting Bob wanted all the publicity he could get, reasoning that the time was ripe for a La Follette presidency in 1912. The ideas and programs that he had painstakingly developed and promoted for years were being woven into the fabric of the nation. As the campaign approached, La Follette played a leading role in forming the National Progressive Republican League, an organization that included senators and governors and advocated more genuine democracy through direct primaries; the direct election of senators; a thoroughgoing corrupt practices act; and the initiative, referendum, and recall. In his mind, it was his turn to occupy the White House. He was the true progressive, the leader of a powerful political league, and the logical choice—all facts leading to a triumphant scenario that could be spoiled only if former president Theodore Roosevelt, that insincere grandstander, decided to return to the presidential stage and seek a third term.
Perpetually overextended, physically and financially, La Follette was devastated by the desertion of some of his key, and previously faithful, supporters in favor of a possible Roosevelt candidacy. La Follette refused to withdraw from the presidential race. In early February 1912, he gave a rambling, hostile speech that so insulted his audience of newspaper and periodical publishers that it permanently damaged his reputation and led to the breakup of the progressive alliance he had worked hard to create.Footnote 4 It was in the immediate aftermath of this unfortunate speech that La Follette decided to revise the American Magazine articles and publish them in book form with three new chapters added to, in his words, “give the history of this damned campaign.”Footnote 5 As Roosevelt famously threw his hat into the ring, an infuriated La Follette worked feverishly to bring his story up to date. As details of those chapters leaked out, the book's publisher, Doubleday, grew alarmed by threats of libel suits. The contract was cancelled by mutual consent. La Follette mortgaged his home in order to publish the book himself.
So what are the “bad” and “ugly” elements of La Follette's autobiography, as it first appeared on April 10, 1913? According to some, none. His collaborator Ray Stannard Baker called it “a remarkably clear, calm, and convincing narrative.”Footnote 6 A few reviewers credited the final three chapters, in which La Follette lambasts Roosevelt, with finally revealing the true nature of the former president: lukewarm and fickle in his commitment to progressive reform, so ruthless in his desire to regain power that he would stop at nothing for the sake of power alone; a dishonest traitor to the La Follette candidacy and the progressive cause.Footnote 7
Most reviewers, however, were appalled by the final three chapters. They were amazed by La Follette's claims that he might well have secured the nomination had he not been stabbed in the back by Roosevelt and his cronies. Fighting Bob's all-out efforts to vilify the former president garnered reactions from mild distaste to complete disgust.Footnote 8 La Follette was branded as bitter, preachy, pompous, and rancorous—as petty, selfish, and self-aggrandizing as he accused Roosevelt of being.Footnote 9 Noted the New York Times, “He constantly weakens his narrative by telling what he assumes to know is in Roosevelt's mind.”Footnote 10 Such critics were right: Those final three chapters reveal how La Follette's greatest strengths could become his worst weaknesses.
Overly detailed and stridently self-righteous, the concluding section is reminiscent of his ill-fated speech in Philadelphia, the text of which La Follette appended to his final chapters. The speech, like the final third of the book, was accurate for the most part—it was the way that he delivered it that left La Follette vulnerable to criticism. In discussing his botched presentation of the speech, he acknowledges only that he was not at his best and “talked too long without realizing it,” ignoring the fact that he repeated himself multiple times and frequently abandoned his text to speak extemporaneously.Footnote 11 He also ignored that he was generally obnoxious that night, that he had grown so angry and wounded by rejection that his stridency undercut his dignity, ultimately undermining his credibility. Reprinting the text from which he had widely strayed hardly vindicated La Follette's performance.
The final third of his autobiography highlights La Follette's best and worst qualities, which were often one and the same: tremendous attention to detail; a determination to expose wrongdoing, heedless of the personal or political consequences; and unwavering confidence that he—and perhaps he alone—knew what was best for the progressive cause, and that those who disagreed with him could not be sincere in their different opinion, but must be corrupt and evil. There is much in the final third of the book that is bad and ugly.
So what makes La Follette's Autobiography not just good, but glorious? There can be no better accounting of all that made La Follette the personal hero of his home state—and of fervent followers all across the land. Almost every reviewer, even the ones who hated the final three chapters, loved the first ten, calling them entertaining, insightful, moving, and sincere. They praised La Follette for his courage, high ideals, and devotion to the truth.Footnote 12 As well they should. Anyone looking for an understanding of what the combined Gilded Age and Progressive Era was about should read La Follette's Autobiography. As Allan Nevins wrote in his foreword to the 1960 edition, “For an understanding of Bossism, Reform and Progressivism as they were known in the United States between 1890 and 1912, this book is the most illuminating as well as the most interesting work in existence. It carries us into the very heart of Progressive sentiment and principle.”Footnote 13
La Follette wrote in his introduction, “Every line of this autobiography is written for the express purpose of exhibiting the struggle for more representative government which is going forward in this country, and to cheer on the fighters for that cause. . . . It expresses the hopes and desires of millions of common men and women who are willing to fight for their ideals, to take defeat if necessary, and to go on fighting.”Footnote 14 It is this singularity of purpose that makes La Follette's Autobiography so compelling.
Although the first chapter of the first edition includes a couple of childhood photographs, there is little of La Follette's family background and childhood in the narrative. The story begins in 1880 when he is already twenty-five years old and deciding to run for district attorney of Dane County, Wisconsin, cementing the impression that La Follette was first, last, and always a politician. By the top of the second page, he is already pitted against one of the many bosses and machines in control of politics in his state and across the nation. Still, even as he immediately immerses his readers into his battles, he reminds them of the ongoing nature of the struggle for what is right. He tells of being inspired by the principled men who came before him to wage his unending battle for true representative government. Moreover, he states unequivocally the power of the people: “The only way to beat boss and ring rule [is] to keep the people thoroughly informed. Machine control is based on misrepresentation and ignorance. Democracy is based on knowledge. It is of first importance that the people shall know about their government and the work of their public servants. ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.’”Footnote 15
La Follette knew the truth, and he knew the people of Wisconsin just as thoroughly as he understood the forces that oppressed them . . . and him. Surveying the corrupt politicians, the powerful trusts, the exploitation and waste of natural resources, and a thousand other abuses in the new industrial, urban age, La Follette put his finger on the problem. “The supreme issue, involving all the others, is the encroachment of the powerful few upon the rights of the many.”Footnote 16 In order to thwart the two most powerful forces of boss rule—patronage and the large sums of money behind it—La Follette set out to build up and maintain “an intelligent interest in public affairs in my district and afterward in the state . . . [do so] and you have laid firmly the foundations of democratic government.”Footnote 17 “The will of the people shall prevail,” he promised his fellow Wisconsinites in 1898, “The fight is on. It will continue to victory. There will be no halt and no compromise.”Footnote 18
In his autobiography, La Follette detailed some of the important victories already won in that fight. He had taken advantage of the famed Wisconsin Idea, which emphasized cooperation with the University of Wisconsin and was ultimately termed the fourth branch of the state's government. That partnership was credited with stimulating more genuine reform in state and national politics than any other influence in the previous forty years.Footnote 19 Wisconsin led the nation in many aspects of the fight to distribute more equitably the nation's wealth and power. By 1906, when La Follette left the governor's chair for a senate seat, many of the state's progressive reforms were eagerly adopted by progressive governors across the nation. Wisconsin boasted a thoroughgoing and efficient reform of railroads and other powerful utilities, civil service reform for state officials, a stringent anti-lobby law that required lobbyists to register with the secretary of state and to publish details of contracts with legislators, stronger provisions against corrupt practices, conservation measures including the forest conservation program, tax reforms, and nominations by primary elections.
It becomes clear in his autobiography why La Follette was so beloved by his followers. He not only fought successfully on their behalf, he trusted them. He believed in their intelligence. They flocked to his speeches and read his magazine and his book because he spoke in words they could understand about things that mattered to them. He reminded them that, in a proper democracy, they should have the power; and he told them in clear terms how to go about achieving genuine reform. His was an optimistic and inviting message.
In the inspirational words of Fighting Bob, “Mere passive citizenship is not enough. Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from men who are aggressive for what is wrong.”Footnote 20 La Follette thrived on dramatic confrontations. His autobiography is filled with intense moments in which, heedless of the consequences, he fearlessly stands up to powerful but corrupt men. According to the New York Times, it was “a record of a long, gallant and single-handed fight,” told with “simplicity and force.”Footnote 21 Political scientist Charles A. Beard told La Follette that he was pleased by “how quick you get to the point and illuminate every big problem in American politics by your own story.”Footnote 22 La Follette's self-portrait as indefatigable lone crusader made the book, according to Ray Stannard Baker, “of great value to many struggling young men, who aren't sure yet that the long fight is the one that wins—really wins.”Footnote 23
La Follette's ability within the pages of his autobiography to make plain the political problems of the day and his own dedication to solving them established all the more firmly his reputation as a tireless and righteous reformer. The people of Wisconsin believed him and gave him the political power to introduce important reforms onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, sent him their complaints and ideas for the solution to those complaints, and made public their hearty approval when he courageously swam against the tide of his colleagues.
As detailed in his autobiography, La Follette, armed with the support of his constituents, was by 1912 leading some of the progressive movement's successes on the national level, making important gains in tax reform, industrial working conditions, workers' compensation, electoral reform, education, public health, and women's suffrage. Written, as he put it, “from the field,” his autobiography provides a sense of immediacy and a ringside seat to one of the most exciting and meaningful movements in American history. I only wish he had provided a second volume, covering 1913 to 1925, detailing, among other important endeavors and accomplishments, his heroic opposition to U.S. entry into World War I and his independent bid for the presidency in 1924, in which he garnered a spectacular 17 percent of the vote.
La Follette's Autobiography, like its author, was not perfect. Still, as journalist William Allen White concluded, “When all is said and done, he and the insurgent group are the best element—the most sincere, the nearest to the people, the most truly representative of our national opinion. And it is too much to demand that they be immaculate white giants. Almighty God carves out his ends with dull tools—always.”Footnote 24
La Follette's Autobiography was written one hundred years ago. Despite its flaws, it retains its vitality and relevance. What Nevins wrote a half century later remains true: La Follette's Autobiography deserves “a careful reading by conscientious citizens; for the battle La Follette led still goes on, and the lessons he instilled still need pondering.”Footnote 25
