Fighting Bob LaFollette

There are several noteworthy events in May of 1923 that I haven't gotten around to highlighting in these Saturday History Tours, so it wasn't easy picking which one to end the month with today. I've decided that it's time to start paying attention to Wisconsin Senator Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette.

"That Kid from Wisconsin Again" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. May 16, 1923

LaFollette still holds a place of honor here in his home state. There are streets and schools named for him all over the place here. Save for a COVID hiatus, Madison progressives have held Fighting Bob Fest every fall since 2002 (although its website appears to have been taken over by some unrelated commercial venture these days). 

His son Robert Jr. succeeded him in the Senate; his other son, Philip, served three terms as Wisconsin Governor in the 1930's. Grandson Bronson LaFollette was elected Wisconsin Attorney General from 1965 to 1969 and again from 1975 to 1987. A great-grandson and distant cousin of Bronson, Douglas LaFollette, recently resigned as Wisconsin Secretary of State, an elected post he had held since 1974.

But you don't find a lot of love for Senator LaFollette in the editorial cartoons of a century ago. Republican partisans did not care for his open rivalry with his fellow Republican in the White House, President Warren G. Harding. Democrats remembered his opposition to Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy leading up to and during World War I.

"Valuing an Old Masterpiece" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1923

Regarding these cartoons, Senator LaFollette had for ten years charged that U.S. railroads were overvalued, allowing them to overcharge for passenger and freight travel. Following Progressives' gains in the 1922 election, his charges finally had to be taken seriously by Senate leadership, which promised to have the Senate's Interstate Commerce Commission hold hearings.

"Shoe the Old Horse..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, May 31, 1923

LaFollette protested that those hearings would be against Senate rules, in that the 68th Congress had still not been called into session — and would not be called into session for months to come. Four seats on the commission were left vacant at the end of the 67th Congress. Progressives wanted a greater say on the commission, but the Senate couldn't seat new members before being called into session. At May's end, it appeared that no hearings would be held, and no legislation offered.

The other Senator in Darling's cartoon is Smith Brookhart (R-IA).

"Making Progress" by William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. May 13, 1923

The Progressive bloc of Republicans in the House and Senate, LaFollette included, were isolationists. So was conservative President Harding, until convinced by his Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, to support a proposal for a World Court to adjudicate international disputes before they could break into open warfare.

The other Republicans in William Morris's cartoon are Senators William Borah (R-ID), George Moses (R-NH), Hiram Johnson (R-CA) and Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA). Lodge was not one of the Progressives, but had found isolationism useful against the Wilson administration in 1918 and 1920.

"The Move that Will Settle the Argument" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1923

LaFollette had turned down the idea of running for president on the Farmer-Labor Party ticket in 1920, but was now entertaining serious talk of running on the Progressive Party ticket in 1924. Sitting atop the elephant's rump in Gale's cartoon, Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA, Teddy Roosevelt's running mate in 1912) would eventually challenge Calvin Coolidge for the 1924 Republican presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, President Harding announced what would be a fateful speaking tour of the American West from Alaska to California in the coming summer.

"Ready to Follow the President..." by Wm. A. Ceperley in Davenport Democrat, May 27, 1923

My thanks to D.D. Degg at Daily Cartoonist for identifying "CEP" for me. I was running into a lot of dead ends trying to identify the Davenport Democrat's cartoonist. (It didn't help that Davenport was the name of a much more famous cartoonist.) There is no mention of CEP in this "Our Iowa Heritage" article on Iowa cartoonists, in spite of its having a contributor from the Democrat's successor newspaper, the Quad City Times, or in "Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years," including its list of cartoonists on page 246.

Not so much in this particular cartoon, but Ceperley's style is often reminiscent of that of fellow Iowan J.N. "Ding" Darling. Yet where Ding was generally Republican, Ceperley leaned Democratic. His last cartoon in the Davenport Democrat ran on January 1, 1933 but he continued as City Editor of the paper until 1937; he died in 1956.

"In an Open Field" by William F. "Wilfred" Canan in Minneapolis Daily Star, May 23, 1923

This cartoon by Wilfred Canan (pen name Billican) may be the closest thing I'll find to one sympathetic to Senator LaFollette. Canan (1889-1929) began his cartooning career drawing for publications associated with the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota, a leftist political organization that gave rise to the Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota. 

Harding in this cartoon is singing an 1850 hymn by Emily Oakley based on the parable of the sower:

Sowing the seed by the wayside high,
Sowing the seed on the rocks to die,
Sowing the seed where the thorns will spoil,
Sowing the seed in the fertile soil:
O what shall the harvest be?

Given 100 years worth of hindsight, the parable of the rich fool also comes to mind.