Bibliography

Some bibliographies guide the reader to further research or an overview of all the materials conceivably related to a topic that may have shaped the author’s views. Other bibliographies list the materials actually drawn on for the work at hand and cited in the notes. This bibliography is of the latter variety. Some of the general works listed in it—particularly existing biographies of the La Follette family members—would be useful to those who want to learn more about any of the subjects touched on here.

MANUSCRIPTS

As the notes make clear, the basic source of this book is the La Follette Family Papers in the Library of Congress, which has prepared an excellent register of the papers it holds. The mass of material is enormous, numbering approximately 414,000 items in nearly 1,400 containers, but the heart of it for me was in the 56 containers in Series A, predominantly consisting of correspondence among the family members. Series B and C comprise the papers of Robert M. La Follette and Robert M. La Follette, Jr., including considerable documentary and otherwise official material accumulated or created by them and their staffs during their combined forty-one years in the United States Senate. Their files of outgoing and incoming personal correspondence are richly rewarding. Series D and E include the papers of Belle Case and Fola La Follette. Again, there is gold for present and future historians in their public writings and personal correspondence, particularly in the “biography” files of clippings, interviews, and memorabilia that they accumulated during their work on the two-volume life of Old Bob. Two very small series (three containers in all) contain papers of Philip and Mary La Follette. A 19-container series of the papers of Gilbert E. Roe and a one-container set of papers of Alfred T. Rogers represent these two onetime law partners of Old Bob and lifelong friends of the family. Finally there is Series J, 140 containers of the National Progressive Republican League, organized to support La Follette’s 1912 presidential bid. I did not consult these last, or other related collections of La Follette associates and fellow progressives (such as Louis Brandeis and Ray Stannard Baker), also in the Library of Congress.

The other principal collection that I used was the Philip Fox La Follette Papers in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison. These are in three series, the first of them devoted to public papers and the second and third, in which I did my work, consisting of Phil’s personal correspondence and that of other members of his family—many of them, but by no means all, duplicates of those in the Library of Congress. I also found good personal material in two other sets of papers at the State Historical Society, those of Gwyneth K. Roe, Gilbert Roe’s wife, and of Frederick W. and Nellie D. MacKenzie. He was for a time the editor of La Follette’s Weekly Magazine (later simply La Follette’s Magazine and after 1929 The Progressive), and she was secretary to Robert La Follette, Sr., from 1901 to 1916, and to Robert, Jr., for a brief period in the 1930s.

The State Historical Society of Wisconsin also has a collection of Old Bob’s pre-1905 papers (available at other libraries on microfilm), which are primarily political and which I did not use, as well as several collections of papers of La Follette political colleagues and friends which I likewise did not use because the focus of my book was the immediate family rather than the ups and downs of progressivism in Wisconsin. I hope that others may be spurred to pick up where I leave off.

In summary, then, the principal manuscript collections were: La Follette Family Collection, Library of Congress; Philip Fox La Follette Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Frederick W. and Nellie Dunn MacKenzie Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Gwyneth K. Roe Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

The reader will note that the book is primarily a record of the world as seen through La Follette eyes. I make no bones about that; it was precisely what I wanted to convey, but I hope it is clear in the text that I am aware of the boundaries of that conscious approach and most decidedly hope that I have not had the last word.

PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

Congressional Record

PERIODICALS AND NEWSPAPERS

I have listed below only those papers and magazines from which I actually quoted material. It will be noted that I have not used Madison or other Wisconsin journals, and have therefore not given a sense of the enormous hostility that the La Follettes could provoke. I could have done so and likewise found materials that illustrated the passionate loyalty of their adherents. But again, this was not quite my purpose: the La Follettes believed that they were part of a happy few fighting the massed powers of reaction, and how they responded to those beliefs is the central theme of this story. I would be greatly interested if someone of goodwill and objectivity would do a study on the intense feelings about the La Follettes in Wisconsin and what they revealed.

The newspapers I consulted include New York Times, Washington Evening Star, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and Chicago Tribune.

Of the magazines I used, La Follette’s Weekly Magazine (see above for various name changes) was indispensable in following the political reactions of two generations of La Follettes to changing events. I also consulted these magazines: American, Arena, Harper’s, McClure’s, Nation, New Republic, Survey, and Wisconsin Magazine of History.

INTERVIEWS

I was able to interview one man who knew and remembered the senior La Follettes, Ralph Sucher, who became their son-in-law in 1921. All of the La Follette children are dead; I was able to interview two of their six surviving grandchildren: Mary’s daughter, Joan, and Robert, Jr.’s son Bronson. I was also gratified to get interviews with two Madison friends and associates of Philip and Isen La Follette: Mary Sheridan, who was managing editor of The Progressive for many years (her husband, Morris Rubin, was editor); and Gordon Sinykin, who was Phil’s law partner and political adviser. The interviews took place as follows: Mary Sheridan, Aug. 28, 1987; Gordon Sinykin, Sep. 1, 1987; Ralph Gunn Sucher, Apr. 30, May 1, 1988; Joan La Follette Sucher, July 5, 1988; Bronson Cutting La Follette, Nov. 2, 1989.

BOOKS

As I indicated in my notes to Chapter 1, Robert La Follette’s life story is inseparable from the history of the Progressive movement, and in the last thirty-five years, historians have been subjecting that movement to sharp critical scrutiny. I have not attempted to list here the various works, old and new, that I consulted, but I would recommend to the reader who wants a summary of the trends the article “In Search of Progressivism,” by Daniel T. Rodgers, in The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects, edited by Stanley Kutler and Stan Katz (Baltimore, 1982). It focuses on changes in the way historians see and describe the movement, starting mainly in 1970. It does not do full justice to the “revisionism” that began fifteen years earlier with Richard Hofstadter’s The Age of Reform from Bryan to FDR (New York, 1955), but it is a good overview and offers a fine bibliography. I disagree strongly, however, with its central point, that historians have failed to find any central essence of progressivism and have concentrated instead on what disparate interest-groups supported “progressive” measures, how they interacted and communicated, and what various kinds of rhetoric they employed. Rodgers concludes that this trend toward dissection and microscopic analysis (in which ideas such as progress, honest government, and citizenship disappear totally or become quaint slogans) does not blur our understanding of a political phenomenon; rather, he says, to “abandon the hunt for the essence of the noise and tumult of that era may not be . . . to lose the whole enterprise of historical comprehension. It may be to find it.” To me, this is a bit like saying that if you spend time studying the physiology of the taste buds and the chemical ingredients of a peach (water, fiber, fructose, etc.) you will get closer to knowing why people enjoy eating peaches. I am, to put it mildly, unpersuaded, but Rodgers will inform a reader of where to look for contemporary studies of the era.

Getting down to the La Follette family itself, there are, first of all, family memoirs by Old Bob himself, by his son-in-law George Middleton, and by his son Phil. The “big” biography of Bob is the one by his wife and daughter. A recent biography of Belle was prepared by her granddaughter (Phil’s daughter) in collaboration with her husband and an outside writer. These are:

La Follette, Robert M. La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences. Madison, 1968.

La Follette, Belle Case and Fola La Follette. Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925. 2 vols. New York, 1953.

La Follette, Philip. Adventure in Politics: The Memoirs of Philip La Follette. Edited by Donald Young. New York, 1970.

Middleton, George. These Things Are Mine: The Autobiography of a Journeyman Playwright. New York, 1947.

Freeman, Lucy, Sherry La Follette, and George A. Zabriskie. Belle: The Biography of Belle Case La Follette. New York, 1986.

To these might be added a volume of selections from his writings and speeches up to 1920: The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette. Compiled by Ellen Torelle. Madison, 1920.

The next category of books consists of biographies of La Follettes by nonfamily members. Surprisingly, there are only two “regular” biographies of La Follette, Sr., quite brief:

Thelen, David P. Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit. Boston, 1976. Reprint. Madison, 1986. Thelen has a good bibliography, especially rich in works on progressivism dating from the 1960s.

Greenbaum, Fred. Robert Marion La Follette. New York, 1975.

In addition, there is a complete, if not exactly sparkling biography of Robert La Follette, Jr.:

Maney, Patrick J. “Young Bob” La Follette: A Biography of Robert M. La Follette, Jr., 1895–1953. Columbia, Mo., 1978.

The following primary and secondary works were also valuable to me:

Ashby, LeRoy. The Spearless Leader: Senator Borah and the Progressive Movement in the 1920s. Urbana, Ill., 1972.

Auerbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis, 1966.

Baker, Ray Stannard. American Chronicle. New York, 1945.

Cole, Wayne S. America First: The Battle against Intervention, 1940–1941. Madison, 1953.

Curti, Merle, and Vernon Carstensen. The University of Wisconsin: A History, 1848–1925, 2 vols. Madison, 1949.

Glad, Paul W. The History of Wisconsin. Vol. 5, War, a New Era, and Depression, 1914–1940. Madison, 1990.

Graham, Otis. An Encore for Reform: The Old Progressives and the New Deal. New York, 1967.

Howe, Frederic C. The Confessions of a Reformer. New York, 1925.

Johnson, Tom L. My Story. New York, 1911.

Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. New York, 1980.

Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York, 1963.

——. The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–1932. Chicago, 1958.

Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917. New York, 1954.

Lowitt, Richard. George W. Norris: The Persistence of a Progressive, 1913–1933. Urbana, Ill., 1971.

MacKay, Kenneth. The Progressive Movement of 1924. New York, 1947.

Margulies, Herbert F. The Decline of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890–1920. Madison, 1968.

Maxwell, Robert S. La Follette and the Rise of the Progressives in Wisconsin, 1890–1928. Madison, 1956.

Nesbit, Robert C. Wisconsin: A History. Madison, 1973.

Norris, George W. Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of George W. Norris. New York, 1961.

Perrett, Geoffrey. America in the Twenties: A History. New York, 1982.

Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. The Politics of Upheaval. Boston, 1960.

Steffens, Lincoln. The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. New York, 1931.

Thelen, David. The Early Life of Robert M. La Follette, 1855–1884. Chicago, 1966.

——. The New Citizenship: Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885–1900. Columbia, Mo., 1972.

The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. 8 vols. Edited by Elting E. Morison. Cambridge, Mass., 1951–1954.

White, William Allen. The Autobiography of William Allen White. New York, 1946.