Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and wife

[Clarence]

Robert M. La Follette, Sr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also known as "Fighting Bob" La Follette) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman, the 20th Governor of Wisconsin from 1901 - 1906, and Senator from Wisconsin from 1905 - 1925 as a Republican He ran for President of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 elections, carrying Wisconsin and 17% of the national popular vote. He is best remembered as a proponent of Progressivism, and vocal opponent of railroads, bossism, World War I, and the League of Nations. In 1957, a Senate committee selected La Follette as one of five of their greatest Senate predecessors. A 1982 survey of historians that asked them to rank the "ten greatest Senators in the nation's history" based on "accomplishments in office" and "long range impact on American history," placed La Follette first, tied with Henry Clay.[1] His wife Belle Case La Follette and sons Robert M. La Follette, Jr. and Philip La Follette led his political faction in Wisconsin into the 1940s. La Follette has been called “arguably the most important and recognized leader of the opposition to the growing dominance of corporations over the Government.”[2]

In the early 1890s he began to believe that much of the Republican party had abandoned the ideals of its antislavery origins and becoming in order to become a tool for corporate interests. In his home state he was convinced that the timber and railroad industries had too much sway over the party.[2]

His wife was a champion of womens sufferage and quite famous on her own.

Belle Case La Follette - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Belle Case La Follette (April 21, 1859 – August 18, 1931) was a lawyer and a women's suffrage activist in Wisconsin. La Follette worked with the women's peace party during World War I. At the time of her death in 1931, the New York Times called her "probably the least known yet most influential of all the American women who had to do with public affairs in this country".

There's something relevent about them. They faced similar political threats as we do today. New to me