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Senate Years of Service: 1906-1925 Party: Republican
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LA FOLLETTE, Robert Marion, (father of Robert Marion La Follette, Jr.),
a Representative and a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Primrose, Dane County,
Wis., June 14, 1855; graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1879; studied law;
admitted to the bar in 1880 and commenced practice in Madison, Wis.; district attorney of Dane
County 1880-1884; elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first Congresses
(March 4, 1885-March 3, 1891); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1890 to the Fifty-second
Congress; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Agriculture (Fifty-first
Congress); resumed the practice of law in Madison, Wis.; Governor of Wisconsin 1901-1906, when
he resigned, having previously been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States
Senate on January 25, 1905, for the term beginning March 4, 1905, but did not assume these duties
until later, preferring to continue as Governor; reelected in 1911, 1916, and 1922, and served from
January 2, 1906, until his death; chairman, Committee on the Census (Sixty-first and Sixty-second
Congress), Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia (Sixty-third through
Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Manufactures (Sixty-sixth through Sixty-eighth Congresses);
one of the founders of the National Progressive Republican League and several times unsuccessfully
sought the Republican and Progressive Party presidential nominations; died in Washington, D.C.,
June 18, 1925; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Wis.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; La Follette, Belle C., and Fola La Follette. Robert M. La Follette. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1953; Unger, Nancy C. Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2000.
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