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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2011
The conundrum of Progressive Era reform flowering simultaneously with the institutionalization of Jim Crow, the establishment of the Asiatic Barred Zone, and the introduction of European immigration restriction fascinates historians, even as it agitates them. From a contemporary, post-civil-rights-era perspective there is something deeply disturbing—and disappointing—about progressivism and racial and ethnic bigotry apparently going hand in hand. Was progressivism inherently racist and ethnically chauvinistic, or are we dealing simply with a case of practically minded politicians bowing to bigotry to achieve political results? An investigation of the ethnic and racial side of Robert M. La Follette Sr. hardly promises to answer this question fully. The progressive movement remains well-nigh impossible to pin down in exact analytical terms. Still, it may be argued that La Follette was an unusually uncompromising politician who proved willing, at least during the latter part of his career, to sacrifice practical results for idealistic principles. If La Follette's progressivism was of a purer strain than that of many a result-oriented pragmatic politician, was it less bigoted?
1 See for instance Southern, David W., The Progressive Era and Race: Reaction and Reform, 1900–1917 (Wheeling, IL, 2005), 1–2Google Scholar; Gerstle, Gary, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ, 2001), 13–128Google Scholar; McGerr, Michael, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement (Oxford, 2003), 182–218Google Scholar; Dyer, Thomas G., Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (Baton Rouge, 1980)Google Scholar.
2 On La Follette's conception of himself as a political prophet, especially following his disastrous run for the presidency in 1912, see Cooper, John Milton Jr., “Robert M. La Follette: Political Prophet,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 69 (Winter 1985–86): 91, 104Google Scholar.
3 On the genesis of La Follette's Autobiography, Unger, Nancy C., Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Chapel Hill, 2000), 186, 200–201Google Scholar.
4 Torelle, Ellen, ed., The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette (Madison, 1920)Google Scholar. On Torelle's marriage, Wisconsin State Journal, Jan. 28, 1917. Also, Hutchinson, John F., “The Nagler Case: A Revealing Moment in Red Cross History,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 9:2 (1992): 178–81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. In 1920, the Nagler case, which had been appealed to the United States Supreme Court, was quietly dropped.
5 An 1886 congressional speech dealt with the margarine controversy of that decade; an 1888 address with African Americans, see Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 59–60. On La Follette's emergence as a reformer, see Brøndal, Jørn, Ethnic Leadership and Midwestern Politics: Scandinavian Americans and the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890–1914 (Northfield, MN, 2004), 154–60Google Scholar.
6 Follette, Robert M. La, La Follette's Autobiography (Madison, 1913), 19, 50Google Scholar.
7 La Follette's Autobiography, 18; the same statement is found in Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 183.
8 Unger, Fighting Bob, 88. See also Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 362–63.
9 Case, Belle and Follette, Fola La, Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925 (New York, 1953), 1:69Google Scholar.
10 On La Follette devoting important campaigning time to polishing his autobiography in 1912, Unger, Fighting Bob, 208–209.
11 Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 261–62.
12 La Follette's Autobiography, 56–59, 71–73, 163–64, 374–75.
13 Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 329–30.
14 La Follette's Autobiography, 222–23.
15 Ibid., 222–23, 310.
16 Ibid., 13, 177.
17 Ibid., 22–23.
18 Ibid., 229.
19 There is brief reference to the Scandinavian accent of Norwegian-born Andrew Furuseth. Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 371–72.
20 Ibid., 364.
21 Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, 1988), 194–233, 242–50, and 264–65Google Scholar. Nichols, Christopher McKnight, “Rethinking Randolph Bourne's Trans-national America: How World War I Created an Isolationist Antiwar Pluralism,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8 (Apr. 2009): 217–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 La Follette's Autobiography, x; also quoted in Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 182. On La Follette's early use of the term “Progressive movement,” see Brøndal, Ethnic Leadership, 160.
23 Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 362–63; on La Follette's use of the term “human race,” Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 146, 147, 182, 366.
24 Ibid., 261–262.
25 For La Follette's use of the term “Yankee,” La Follette's Autobiography, 223; and Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 128, 363, 395.
26 Quoted in Unger, Fighting Bob, 322n9.
27 Kennedy, Padraic Colum, “La Follette's Imperialist Flirtation,” Pacific Historical Review 29 (May 1960): 137, 142CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kennedy, , “La Follette's Foreign Policy from Imperialism to Anti-Imperialism,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 46 (Summer 1963): 287–88Google Scholar.
28 Quoted in Weisberger, Bernard A., The La Follettes of Wisconsin: Love and Politics in Progressive America (Madison, 1994), 158Google Scholar.
29 Southern, The Progressive Era and Race, 130–31.
30 Burgchardt, Carl R., Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: The Voice of Conscience (New York, 1992), 26Google Scholar.
31 Unger, Fighting Bob, 90.
32 New York Times, Oct. 21, 1924.
33 New York Times, Aug. 8, 1924.
34 “Progressive Party Platform of 1924” at “The American Presidency Project: Political Party Platforms,” ed. John Wooley and Gerhard Peters, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php (accessed Sept. 1, 2010).
35 On La Follette's seat on Indian Affairs during his second term, Belle C. and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 1:81.
36 Hoxie, Frederick E., A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln, NE, 1984), 70Google Scholar; Parman, Donald L., Indians and the American West in the Twentieth Century (Bloomington, IN, 1994), 1Google Scholar.
37 On the route of the Dawes bill (S.54) through the House of Representatives, see Journal of the House of Representatives, 49th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, 1887), 99, 105, 130, 145, 150, 217, 222, 304–305, 336, 372, 383–84, 684.
38 La Follette's Autobiography, 59. Belle C. and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 1:64.
39 Parman, Indians and the American West, 76–79; Bolt, Christine, American Indian Policy and Reform (London, 1987), 106Google Scholar; Thorne, Tanis C., The World's Richest Indian: The Scandal Over Jackson Barnett's Oil Fortune (Oxford, 2003), 148Google Scholar.
40 New York Times, Dec. 13, 1916; Journal of the Senate, 64th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, 1917), 21.
41 New York Times, Dec. 15, 1916; Journal of the Senate, 1917, 23.
42 New York Times, Dec. 14, 1916; Journal of the Senate, 1917, 22.
43 New York Times, Dec. 13, 1916; Journal of the Senate, 1917, 20.
44 On the symbolic niche, Brøndal, Ethnic Leadership, 152–62.
45 Quoted in ibid., 162.
46 La Follette's Autobiography, 134; Wyman, Roger E. “Wisconsin Ethnic Groups and the Election of 1890,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 51 (Summer 1968): 285–86Google Scholar; Brøndal, Ethnic Leadership, 154.
47 Quoted in Brøndal, Ethnic Leadership, 197.
48 Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 364.
49 Cf. New York Times, Sept. 22, Nov. 9, 1924
50 Southern, The Progressive Era and Race, 48–49; La Follette's Autobiography, 32; Torelle, The Political Philosophy, 374.
51 Journal of the Senate, 1917, 23, 122.
52 New York Times, Dec. 14 and 15, 1916.
53 Journal of the Senate, 1917, 22–23.
54 Quoted in Belle C. and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, 1:587.
55 Journal of the Senate, 1921, 68, 70.
56 Journal of the Senate, 1924, 270, 281–82, 346–52, 357, 408.
57 New York Times, Sept. 16, 1924.
58 Margulies, Herbert F., The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890–1920 (Madison, 1968), 160Google Scholar.
59 New York Times, Nov. 2, 1924.
60 New York Times, Sept. 22, 1924.
61 Southern, The Progressive Era and Race, 2.
