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Robert M. La Follette Sr. Quotes

Robert Marion La Follette Sr. was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the Governor of Wisconsin. A Republican for most of his career, he ran for President of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election. Historian John D. Buenker describes La Follette as "the most celebrated figure in Wisconsin history."

Born and raised in Wisconsin, La Follette won election as the Dane County District Attorney in 1880. Four years later, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he was friendly with party leaders like William McKinley. After losing his seat in the 1890 election, La Follette embraced progressivism and built up a coalition of disaffected Republicans. He sought election as governor in 1896 and 1898 before winning the 1900 gubernatorial election. 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 United States Senate. He emerged as a national progressive leader in the Senate, often clashing with conservatives like Nelson Aldrich. He initially supported President William Howard Taft but broke with Taft after the latter failed to push a reduction in tariff rates. He challenged Taft for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1912 presidential election, but his candidacy was overshadowed by that of former President Theodore Roosevelt. La Follette's refusal to support Roosevelt alienated many progressives, and, though La Follette continued to serve in the Senate, he lost his stature as the leader of that chamber's progressive Republicans. La Follette supported some of President Woodrow Wilson's policies, but he broke with the president over foreign policy. During World War I, La Follette was one of the most outspoken opponents of the administration's domestic and international policies.

With the Republican Party and the Democratic Party each nominating conservative candidates in the 1924 presidential election, left-wing groups coalesced behind La Follette's third-party candidacy. With the support of the Socialist Party, farmer's groups, labor unions, and others, La Follette briefly appeared to be a serious threat to unseat Republican President Calvin Coolidge. La Follette stated that his chief goal was to break the "combined power of the private monopoly system over the political and economic life of the American people," and he called for government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, and protections for civil liberties. His diverse coalition proved challenging to manage, and the Republicans rallied to claim victory in the 1924 election. La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, one of the best third party performances in U.S. history. He died shortly after the presidential election, but his sons, Robert M. La Follette Jr. and Philip La Follette, succeeded him as progressive leaders in Wisconsin. Wikipedia  

✵ 14. June 1855 – 18. June 1925
Robert M. La Follette Sr. photo
Robert M. La Follette Sr.: 22   quotes 1   like

Famous Robert M. La Follette Sr. Quotes

“Rather in time of war the citizen must be more alert to the preservation of his right to control his government. He must be most watchful of the encroachment of the military upon the civil power. He must beware of those precedents in support of arbitrary action by administrative officials, which excused on the plea of necessity in wartime, become the fixed rule when the necessity has passed and normal conditions have been restored.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“I think all men recognize that in time of war the citizen must surrender some rights for the common good which he is entitled to enjoy in time of peace. But, sir, the right to control their own government according to constitutional forms is not one of the rights that the citizens of this country are called upon to surrender in time of war.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“Free government is government by public opinion. Upon the soundness and integrity of public opinion depends the destiny of our democracy.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

“The basic principal of this government is the will of the people. A system was devised by its founders which seemed to insure the means of ascertaining that will and of enacting it into legislation and supporting it through the administration of the law. This was to be accomplished by electing men to make, and men to execute the laws, who, would represent in the laws so made and executed the will of the people. This was the establishment of a representative government, where every man had equal voice, equal rights, and equal responsibilities. Have we such a government today? Or is this country fast coming to be dominated by forces that threaten the true principle of representative government?”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

“The Danger Threatening Representative Government” Speech (1897) http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/pdfs/lessons/EDU-SpeechTranscript-SpeechesLaFollette-DangerThreatening.pdf

“To befool and mislead the people, to falsify public opinion, is to pervert and destroy a republican form of government.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

“Wealth has never yet sacrificed itself on the altar of patriotism.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"La Follette Fights for Higher War Tax", New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05E3DE123FE433A25751C2A96E9C946696D6CF (August 22, 1917)

Robert M. La Follette Sr. Quotes about war

“Mr. President, our government, above all others, is founded on the right of the people freely to discuss all matters pertaining to their government, in war not less than in peace, for in this government the people are the rulers in war no less than in peace.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“It is no answer to say that when the war is over the citizen may once more resume his rights and feel some security in his liberty and his person. As I have already tried to point out, now is precisely the time when the country needs the counsel of all its citizens. In time of war even more than in time of peace, whether citizens happen to agree with the ruling administration or not, these precious fundamental personal rights-free speech, free press, and right of assemblage so explicitly and emphatically guaranteed by the Constitution should be maintained inviolable.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“The universal conviction of those who yet believe in the rights of the people is that the first step toward the prevention of war and the establishment of peace, permanent peace, is to give the people who must bear the brunt of war's awful burden more to say about it.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“More than all, the citizen and his representative in Congress in time of war must maintain his right of free speech. More than in times of peace it is necessary that the channels for free public discussion of governmental policies shall be open and unclogged.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)

“There is another plane of thought into which some have entered. It holds up a vision of a society redeemed by true democracy. It believes in a time when monopoly shall be no more, and labor and capital, no longer at war, shall cooperate to the wiping out of involuntary and undeserved poverty in an era of industrial equality and social peace.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"The Basis of the Struggle", July 31, 1909, La Follette's Weekly Magazine. Quoted in Matthew Rothschild, Democracy In Print : The Best of The Progressive Magazine, 1909-2009. Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.

Robert M. La Follette Sr. Quotes

“I shall support the President in the measures he proposes when I believe them to be right. I shall oppose measures proposed by the President when I believe them to be wrong.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Speech before Congress (April 4, 1917), Congressional Record—Senate, April 4, 1917, 224–225.
Context: Mr. President, I had supposed until recently that it was the duty of senators and representatives in Congress to vote and act according to their convictions on all public matters that came before them for consideration and decision. Quite another doctrine has recently been promulgated by certain newspapers, which unfortunately seems to have found considerable support elsewhere, and that is the doctrine of “standing back of the President” without inquiring whether the President is right or wrong.
For myself, I have never subscribed to that doctrine and never shall. I shall support the President in the measures he proposes when I believe them to be right. I shall oppose measures proposed by the President when I believe them to be wrong.

Support

“The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern corporation.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

“The Danger Threatening Representative Government” Speech (1897) http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/pdfs/lessons/EDU-SpeechTranscript-SpeechesLaFollette-DangerThreatening.pdf
Context: Since the birth of the Republic, indeed almost within the last generation, a new and powerful factor has taken its place in our business, financial and political world and is there exercising a tremendous influence. The existence of the corporation, as we have it with us today, was never dreamed of by the fathers…The corporation of today has invaded every department of business, and it’s powerful but invisible hand is felt in almost all activities of life. The effect of this change upon the American people is radical and rapid. The individual is fast disappearing as a business factor and in his stead is this new device, the modern corporation.

Business

“America is not made, but is in the making…Mere passive citizenship is not enough. Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from those who are aggressive for what is wrong.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"The Perils of Passive Citizenship", Speech in Washington, D.C. http://www.speeches-usa.com/Transcripts/robert_lafollete-perils.html (August 11, 1924)

Men

“The supreme issue, involving all others, is the encroachment of the powerful few upon the rights of the many.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

“Publicity, discussion, and agitation are necessary to accomplish any work of lasting benefit.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

Spoken in Evansville, IN (July 7, 1906), As quoted in Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics, Michael Wolraich (2014)

“It has been well said that: "An enslaved press is doubly fatal; it not only takes away the true light; for in that case we might stand still, but it sets up a false light that decoys us to our destruction."”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Light , Falseness

“Except for the subserviency of most of the metropolitan newspapers, the great corporate interests would never have ventured upon the impudent, lawless consolidation of business, for the suppression of competition, the control of production, markets and prices.
Except for this monstrous crime, 65 per cent of all the wealth of this country would not now be centralized in the hands of 2 per cent of the people.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

People , Business , Country , Wealth

“The setting up of a new, invisible and all powerful government in this country, within the last twenty years, in open violation of fundamental and statutory law, could not have been accomplished under the steady fire of a free and independent press.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Law , Country

“When the Morgan and Rockefeller interests harmonized to consummate the great wrong, they well understood that they could not achieve their purpose against a hostile press. Hence they "took over" the newspapers.
This does not necessarily mean the ownership of all newspapers. The perfection of the modern combination is little less than a Fine Art. Here again control is better than outright ownership. And control can be achieved through that community of interests, that interdependence of investment and credits which ties the publisher up to the banks, the advertisers, and special interests.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Hostility , Art , Communication , Perfection

“Where public opinion is free and uncontrolled, wealth has a wholesome respect for the law.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

Law , Wealth

“To control the American market is to own America.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr.

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

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