And now, for something Wisconsin…
Here are my husband and I, hanging out with fellow Wisconsin native Fighting Bob La Follette in the U.S. Capitol. (We were playing tourist in Washington, D.C., after the Malice Domestic conference.)
Have people outside of Wisconsin heard of Fighting Bob? He’s consistently ranked as one of the greatest U.S. Senators ever, and we are very proud of him.
Back in Wisconsin, in the 1890s, one of his own party’s bosses offered Robert M. La Follette a bribe. Big mistake. Outraged, he spent the rest of his life fighting against political corruption. He championed the voice of the people against the big money interests of the time (railroads and lumber barons.) And as governor and later U.S. Senator, he eventually won a wide variety of reforms.
- He worked for primary elections and direct election of senators.
- He supported women’s suffrage and racial equality, the interests of workers and small farmers, conservation of state resources, and the Wisconsin Idea.
- He battled powerful monopolies, party machines, and US entry into World War I, even when those stands looked like political suicide.
For almost a century after Fighting Bob, Wisconsin enjoyed a reputation for clean government and social progress. That’s probably one reason we’re seen as such a “nice” state—and it took a take-no-prisoners firebrand politician to get us there.
You can learn more about Robert M. La Follette here, and actually see and hear him speak in this YouTube clip, recorded in 1924, a year before his death.
P.S. There’s a La Follette High School in Madison, Wisconsin, and I’ve always thought it a shame their sports teams aren’t known as the Fighting Bobs. (Instead, they’re the Lancers—which is okay, I guess, but…) Luckily, I have a fictional little Wisconsin town in my mystery series. I’m going to figure out a plausible reason to name their high school La Follette High, too, and their sports teams will be the Fighting Bobs and the Fighting Belles (after Belle Case La Follette, Bob’s wife and worthy of a whole blog post of her own.) The joys of being a writer…