[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6478-S6479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, SR.

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I say a few words to honor the 
extraordinary life of Robert M. La Follette Sr., on the 150th 
anniversary of his birth. Throughout his life, La Follette was revered 
for his tireless and deeply principled service to the people of 
Wisconsin and to the people of the United States. His dogged, full-
steam-ahead dedication to his life's work earned him the nickname 
``Fighting Bob.''
  Robert Marion La Follette, Sr., was born on June 14, 1855, in 
Primrose, a small town southwest of Madison in Dane County. He 
graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1879 and, 
after being admitted to the state bar, began his long career in public 
service as Dane County district attorney.
  La Follette was elected to the United States House of Representatives 
in 1884, and he served three terms as a member of that body, where he 
was a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
  After losing his campaign for reelection in 1890, La Follette 
returned to Wisconsin and continued to serve the people of my state as 
a judge. Upon his exit from Washington D.C., a reporter wrote, La 
Follette ``is popular at home, popular with his colleagues, and popular 
in the House. He is so good a fellow that even his enemies like him.''
  He was elected the 20th Governor of Wisconsin in 1900. He served in 
that office until 1906, when he stepped down in order to serve the 
people of Wisconsin in the United States Senate, where he remained 
until his death in 1925.
  As a founder of the national progressive movement, La Follette 
championed political reform, civil rights and workers' and women's 
rights throughout his career. As governor, he advanced an agenda that 
included the country's first workers compensation system, direct 
election of United States Senators, and railroad rate and tax reforms. 
Collectively, these reforms would become known as the ``Wisconsin 
Idea.''
  His terms in the House of Representatives and the Senate were spent 
fighting for women's rights, working to limit the power of monopolies, 
opposing pork barrel legislation, and rooting out political corruption. 
La Follette also championed electoral reforms, and he brought his 
support of the direct election of United States Senators to this body. 
His efforts were brought to fruition with the ratification of the 17th 
amendment in 1913. Fighting Bob also worked tirelessly to hold the 
government accountable, and was a key figure in exposing the Teapot 
Dome Scandal.
  La Follette earned the respect of such notable Americans as Frederick 
Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Harriet Tubman Upton for making 
civil rights one of his trademark issues. At a speech before the 1886 
graduating class of Howard University, La Follette said, ``We are one 
people, one by truth, one almost by blood. Our lives run side by side, 
our ashes rest in the same soil. [Seize] the waiting world of 
opportunity. Separatism is snobbish stupidity, it is supreme folly, to 
talk of non-contact, or exclusion!''
  La Follette ran for President three times, twice as a Republican and 
once on the Progressive ticket. In 1924, as the Progressive candidate 
for president, La Follette garnered more than 17 percent of the popular 
vote and carried the state of Wisconsin.
  La Follette's years of public service were not without controversy. 
In 1917, he filibustered a bill to allow the arming of United States 
merchant ships in response to a series of German submarine attacks. His 
filibuster was successful in blocking passage of this bill in the 
closing hours of the 64th Congress. Soon after, La Follette was one of 
only six Senators who voted against U.S. entry into World War I.
  Fighting Bob was outspoken in his belief that the right to free 
speech did not end when war began. In the fall of 1917, La Follette 
gave a speech about the war in Minnesota, and he was misquoted in press 
reports as saying that he supported the sinking of the Lusitania. The 
Wisconsin State Legislature condemned his supposed statement as 
treason, and some of La Follette's Senate colleagues introduced a 
resolution to expel him. In response to this action, he delivered his 
seminal floor address, ``Free Speech in Wartime,'' on October 16, 1917. 
If you listen closely, you can almost hear his strong voice echoing 
through this Chamber as he said:

       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.

  Of the expulsion petition filed against him, La Follette said:

       I am aware, Mr. President, that in pursuance of this 
     general campaign of vilification and attempted intimidation, 
     requests from various individuals and certain organizations 
     have been submitted to the Senate for my expulsion from this 
     body, and that such requests have been referred to and 
     considered by one of the Committees of the Senate.
       If I alone had been made the victim of these attacks, I 
     should not take one moment of the Senate's time for their 
     consideration, and I believe that other Senators who have 
     been unjustly and unfairly assailed, as I have been, hold the 
     same attitude upon this that I do. Neither the clamor of the 
     mob nor the voice of power will ever turn me by the breadth 
     of a hair from the course I mark out for myself, guided 
     by such knowledge as I can obtain and controlled and 
     directed by a solemn conviction of right and duty.

  This powerful speech led to a Senate investigation of whether La 
Follette's conduct constituted treason. In 1919, following the end of 
World War I, the Senate dropped its investigation and reimbursed La 
Follette for the legal fees he incurred as a result of the expulsion 
petition and corresponding investigation. This incident is indicative 
of Fighting Bob's commitment to his ideals and of his tenacious spirit.
  La Follette died on June 18, 1925, in Washington, D.C., while serving 
Wisconsin in this body. His daughter noted, ``His passing was 
mysteriously peaceful for one who had stood so long on the battle 
line.'' Mourners visited the Wisconsin Capitol to view his body, and 
paid respects in a crowd nearing 50,000 people. La Follette's son, 
Robert M. La Follette, Jr., was appointed to his father's seat, and 
went on to be elected in his own right and to serve in this body for 
more than 20 years, following the progressive path blazed by his 
father.
  La Follette has been honored a number of times for his unwavering 
commitment to his ideals and for his service to the people of Wisconsin 
and of the United States.
  Recently, I was proud to support Senate passage of a bill introduced 
in the other body by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin that will name the 
post office at 215 Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard in Madison in La 
Follette's honor. I commend Congresswoman Baldwin for her efforts to 
pass this bill.
  The Library of Congress recognized La Follette in 1985 by naming the 
Congressional Research Service reading room in the Madison Building in 
honor of both Fighting Bob and his son, Robert, Jr., for their shared 
commitment to the development of a legislative research service to 
support the United States Congress. In his autobiography, Fighting Bob 
noted that, as governor of Wisconsin, he ``made it a . . . policy to 
bring all the reserves of knowledge and inspiration of the university 
more fully to the service of the people. . . . Many of the university 
staff are now in state service, and a bureau of investigation and 
research established as a legislative reference library . . . has 
proved of the greatest assistance to the legislature in furnishing the 
latest and best thought of the advanced students of government in this 
and other countries.'' He went on to call this service ``a model which 
the federal government and ultimately every state in the union will 
follow.'' Thus, the legislative reference service that La Follette 
created in Madison served as the basis for his work to create the 
Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress.
  The La Follette Reading Room was dedicated on March 5, 1985, the 
100th

[[Page S6479]]

anniversary of Fighting Bob being sworn in for his first term as a 
Member of Congress.
  Across this magnificent Capitol in National Statuary Hall, Fighting 
Bob is forever immortalized in white marble, still proudly representing 
the state of Wisconsin. His statue resides in the Old House Chamber, 
now known as National Statuary Hall, among those of other notable 
figures who have made their marks in American history. One of the few 
seated statues is that of Fighting Bob. Though he is sitting, he is 
shown with one foot forward, and one hand on the arm of his chair, as 
if he is about to leap to his feet and begin a robust speech.
  When then-Senator John F. Kennedy's five-member Special Committee on 
the Senate Reception Room chose La Follette as one of the ``Five 
Outstanding Senators'' whose portraits would hang outside of this 
Chamber in the Senate reception room, he was described as being a 
``ceaseless battler for the underprivileged'' and a ``courageous 
independent.'' Today, his painting still hangs just outside this 
Chamber, where it bears witness to the proceedings of this body--and, 
perhaps, challenges his successors here to continue fighting for the 
social and government reforms he championed.
  To honor Robert M. La Follette, Sr., on the sesquicentennial of his 
birth, last week I introduced three pieces of legislation. I am pleased 
to be joined in this effort by the senior Senator from Wisconsin, 
Senator Kohl. The first is a resolution celebrating this event and 
recognizing the importance of La Follette's important contributions to 
the Progressive movement, the state of Wisconsin, and the United States 
of America.
  We also introduced a bill that would direct the Secretary of the 
Treasury to mint coins to commemorate Fighting Bob's life and legacy. 
Our third bill would authorize the President to posthumously award a 
gold medal on behalf of Congress to Robert M. La Follette, Sr. The 
minting of a commemorative coin and the awarding of the Congressional 
Gold Medal would be fitting tributes to the memory of Robert M. La 
Follette, Sr., and to his deeply held beliefs and long record of 
service to his state and to his country.
  I thank the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee 
for their assistance in passing our resolution honoring Fighting Bob 
today, on the 150th anniversary of his birth. And I thank my colleagues 
for honoring Robert M. La Follette, Sr.'s character, his integrity, his 
deep commitment to Progressive causes, and his unwillingness to waver 
from doing what he thought was right. No one has fought harder for the 
common man and woman, and against corruption and cronyism, than 
``Fighting Bob'' La Follette, and I consider it a privilege to speak in 
the same Chamber, and serve the same great State, as he did.

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