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"FIGHTING BOB" LA FOLLETTE, PART II

© John S. Cooper

La Follette's 1912 campaign ended, for all practical purposes, on February 12. On that night, he addressed the Periodical Publishers Association. La Follette arrived late. He was ill, and worried about his daughter who was in the hospital and scheduled for surgery. La Follette was normally a dynamic, inspiring speaker. But this night, everything went wrong. It was already late when he got up to speak, and he pulled out a large manuscript and explained why he was going to read it rather than speak as he normally did. He said, “For fear there may be some here who will not report what I say correctly, and because I am going to say some things I consider important, I want to have a record of them.” After this insult to his audience of publishers and reporters, he never won the crowd back again.

Things got even worse. After reading from his manuscript for a while, he realized things were going badly and began speaking off the cuff. When that didn’t work, he went back to his manuscript, repeating points he had already made while speaking off the cuff. At one point, after outlining the problems of capitalist control of the economy, he asked the rhetorical question, “Is there a way out?” In answer, a man got up and yelled, “We hope so!” and left the room. As his anger increased, La Follette’s attacks on the press became stronger and harsher.

When La Follette finally sat down at the end of his speech, the toastmaster, Don Sietz of the New York World, made a statement of his own. He told the audience, “I want to apologize to the newspaper press of the country in general for the foolish, wicked and untruthful attack that has just been made on it.” For the next few days, papers all around the country ran stories about La Follette’s collapse at the banquet. There were even stories that he had suffered a mental breakdown or that he had been drunk. Whatever chances he had of winning the nomination in that year of the progressives ended that night.

La Follette continued to champion progressive issues in the Senate. One that gained him national attention, and national abuse, was his anti-war stance. As the war in Europe grew in scope, it threatened to draw the U.S. into the conflict. President Wilson wanted a bill authorizing him to arm merchant ships to help protect them against the unrestricted submarine warfare being carried out by Germany. La Follette was one of the leaders of a group of Senators who determined to kill the bill by means of a filibuster (a long speech designed to prevent action from being taken). Wilson referred to them as a “little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, who have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” They succeeded, but then Wilson discovered that he had the authority to arm the ships as commander-in-chief.