Dynastic Downfall

Dynastic Downfall

Up to last week no La Follette had ever been defeated for public office in Wisconsin in the 20th century. For 25 years the late great political dynast Robert Marion La Follette kept getting himself elected regularly as Governor or Senator. When he died in 1925, his son & namesake inherited his seat in the Senate, his power at home. Two years ago his younger son. Philip Fox La Follette, first charged into the State arena to joust Walter Jodok Kohler, stalwart Republican, out of the governorship. In last week's primaries Mr. Kohler, middle-aged manufacturer of plumbing fixtures ("Kohler of Kohler") won back the Republican gubernatorial nomination together with the distinction of being the first man to defeat a La Follette since 1892.

Not only was Governor La Follette denied renomination by a 95,000-vote majority (he defeated Governor Kohler by 127,000 votes in 1930) but big, blatant Senator John James Elaine, a La Follette "Progressive," went down into the dust before a young conservative upstart named John Bowman Chappie, editor of the Ashland Press. The La Follette dynasty had been rocked to its foundations. All that kept it from toppling out of sight was the presence of "Young Bob" in the Senate for at least another two years.

The La Follette-Kohler campaign was bitter enough to split families, break old friendships. Governor La Follette had tackled the Depression with a relief program involving higher taxes on wealth, made work in the form of grade-crossing eliminations. His opponent's campaign slogan was "Cut Costs with Kohler." Harping on economy Candidate Kohler flayed the grade-crossing program as "La Follette roller coasters," warned that the La Follette tax program was driving industry and business from Wisconsin.

Editor Chappie's campaign for the Senate started last spring on the White House steps after lunching with the President. His antipathy for the La Follette regime dated back to a visit to Madison to protest a tax bill. "These State officials." he said, "heckled me, and I didn't like it. They threatened me with a subpena. I got fighting mad and have been fighting ever since." At Yale (Class of 1924) Candidate Chappie gained publicity as a "radical." In Wisconsin he campaigned lustily in & out of the State as a Republican fundamentalist. He flayed the La Follettes as "political racketeers." He excoriated ambitious Dr. Glenn Frank's University of Wisconsin as a hotbed of Communism, free love and atheism, with a faculty of "pinks." He was out to rescue the State from Socialism. A roaring reactionary, he battled those who "would poison the wellsprings of American liberty," and endeared himself to the D. A. R. Without money or organized support he campaigned in a cheap car, put up at tourist camps, peddled his speeches for cash.

President Hoover's campaign managers expressed delight at the overthrow of a dynasty that for years has been a thorn in the side of regular Republicanism.

Disinterested observers thought the Wisconsin vote had less to do with issues, conservative or radical, than with a widespread popular revolt against all present officeholders. As in Maine, it seemed to be a case of turning out the "ins.''* Voters, resentful of hard times and high taxes, struck against public officials rather than for their opponents. Last week it was Governor La Follette and Senator Elaine who suffered; in November President Hoover, most distinguished "in," may be a victim of the same psychology.

Another non-partisan explanation of the La Follette defeat lay in the behavior of Wisconsin's Democrats. Wisconsin may participate at will in either party primary. For years the La Follette dynasty has had strong Democratic support. Only 17,000 Democrats voted in their party primary in 1930, compared to 450,000 who cast their ballots for Al Smith two years before. Last week more than 125,000 Demo-rats walked out on Governor La Follette to nominate their own candidates--Madison's Mayor Albert George Schmedeman for Governor and Francis Ryan Duffy for Senator.

* Five Senators, 47 Representatives have been defeated to date in 1932 primaries.

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