'APush History Term Paper Essay\r'

'Robert La Follette, the son of a small farmer, was natural in Dane County, Wisconsin, on 14th June, 1855. He worked as a farm labourer before debut the University of Wisconsin in 1875. In 1876 La Follette met Robert G. Ingersoll. He subsequent recalled: â€Å"Ingersoll had a tremendous influence upon me, as indeed he had upon many young men at the time. It was not that he changed my beliefs, but he change give in my mind. Freedom was what preached: he wanted the shackles off everywhere. He wanted men to think boldly or so all things: he demanded intellectual and moral courage.” afterwarfareds graduating in 1879 he set up as a lawyer and the following year became regularise Attorney of Dane County. Elected to Congress as a Republican, La Follette was extremely critical of the behaviour of whatsoever of the party bosses. In 1891, La Follette announced that the adduce Republican boss, Senator Philetus Sawyer, had offered him a bribe to fix a court case.\r\nOver the n ear six eld La Follette built up a stanch following within the Republican caller in opposition to the power of the official leadership. Proposing a create mentally of impose reform, corporation regulation and an extension of policy-making democracy, La Follette was elected governor of Wisconsin in 1900. formerly in power La Follette employed the schoolman staff of the University of Wisconsin to draft bills and administer the laws that he introduced. He later recalled: â€Å"I made it a policy, in order to bring all the reserves of experience and inspiration of the university more to the wait on of the people, to appoint experts from the university wheresoever possible upon the important boards of the state †the civil service commission, the railroad commission and so on †a relationship which the university has always encouraged and by which the state has commodiously profited.” La Follette was also successful in persuading the federal government to introd uce much necessary reforms.\r\nThis included the regulation of the railway industry and equalized tax assessment. In 1906 La Follette was elected to the Senate and over the next few years argued that his main role was to â€Å" value the people” from the â€Å"selfish interests”. He claimed that the nation’s economy was dominated by fewer than vitamin C industrialists. He went on to argue that these men consequently used this power to control the political process. La Follette corroborationed the growth of trade unions as he saying them as a check on the power of large corporations.\r\nIn 1909 La Follette and his wife, the feminist, Belle La Follette founded the La Follette’s Weekly Magazine. The journal campaigned for women’s suffrage, racial equality and other progressive causes. capital of Nebraska Steffens argued: â€Å"La Follette is the opposite of a demagogue. Capable of rasping invective, his oratory is impersonal; passionate and emo tional himself, his speeches ar temperate. Some of them are so loaded with facts and such(prenominal) closely knit arguments that they demand careful reading, and their issuing is traced to his delivery, which is forceful, emphatic, and fascinating.”\r\nArt Young, The Masses (1917)\r\nLa Follette supported Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election and approved his social evaluator legislation. However, he complained that he was under the control of considerable business and was totally opposed to Wilson’s last to enter the First World War. Once war was declared La Follette opposed conscription and the head of the Espionage Act. La Follette was accused of treason but was a popular hero with the anti-war movement. Lincoln Steffens was a great supporter of La Follette: â€Å"Governor La Follette was a powerful man, who, short but solid, swift and headstrong in motion, in speech, in decision, gave the impression of a tall, a big man… what I saw at my fi rst sight of him was a sincere, yearning man who, whether standing, sitting, or in motion, but the gracility of trained strength, both physical and mental…\r\n alternatively short in stature, but broad and strong, he had the gift of muscled, nervous power, he kept himself in training all his life. His sincerity, his integrity, his complete devotion to his ideal, were patent; no one who heard could suspect his singleness of purpose or his courage.” La Follette became the candidate of the industrial Party in the 1924 presidential election. Although he gained support from trade unions, individuals like Fiorello La Guardia and Vito Marcantonio, the Socialist Party and the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, La Follette and his running partner, Burton K. Wheeler, only won one-sixth of the votes. Robert La Follette died on 18th June, 1925.\r\n'