LA FOLLETTE DEAD

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 142, 19 June 1925, Page 5

LA FOLLETTE DEAD

NOTED AMERICAN

SENATOR

INSTIGATOR OF TEAPOT DOME

INQUIRY

AN EX-PRESIDENTIAL CANDI

DATE,

(fI.VITED TRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received 19th June, noon.)

WASHINGTON, 18th Juno.

Senator La Follelle died to-day, at tho age of 70, of heart weakness following 'bronchial'asthma.

Senator. La ■ Follette started life on a Wisconsin farm, and climbed his way through most of the Stale offices to become a■■ Senatorof the United Stales, which office he hold for twenty years. He reached the climax of his career last year when he entered the Presidential campaign, polling five million votes against-Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Davis as an Independent, for which he was later ousted from the Republican Party and deprived of seniority honours. Since then his health has gradually failed, and it is believed-that his strenuous campaign hastened his end.. Senator La Follette was the instigator of the sensational Teapot Dome investigation.

Robert Marion La Follette- was a graduate of the Wisconsin State Univer-. sity, which afterwards attained, largely through his stimulus, a remarkable place among the 'world's institutions of democratic culture. As a young lawyer he began tho fight with the political bosses, which he continued up to the time of his death. He went to Washington, as Congressman; was thrico elected Governor of Wisconsin after a. prolonged conflict with the Bepublican machine, and then, nineteen years ago, won the seat in the Senate from which his enemies-were unable to dislodge him. As State. Governor he inaugurated the economic and educa-. tional policies, and the experiments in direct democarcy, for ..which. Wisconsin became celebrated. As Senator he followed his own line in national, affairs; the declared enemy of monopolist power, whenever found ; the ruthless champion of clean government and of the old idea of American independence. He was ex-traordinarily-persistent, courageous, aud single-minded. There were many critical periods in his political life, when he was left almost alone to fight the battles of aonce healthy party. 'So strenuous was his fight for the cause that in later years he was known as-the "lone wolf." He ■was nearly 70 years of age when nominated for the Presidency of the United States last year, as an Independent. Hx> was the only, possible nominee of the Progressives, who are a large body of citizens but a non-existent party. Their champion was' anything' but "eager to come out, having only just recovered from- an exhausting illness. He knew that tho third candidate could not be the head of an organised army. He knew, further, that he himself, his own character-and record, was the single unifying force on the Progressive sido. It was, nevertheless, virtually impossible for him-to resist tho call, and it-•was admitted, .that the advanced sections of American, opinion, mobilised behind Mm in striking fashion.