LA FOLLETTE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 6 March 1912, Page 2

LA FOLLETTE.

AND THE AMERICAN PEESI DENCY. '

■A DESCRIPTIVE ARTICLE

A cable recently brought the news thai Mr. W. J. Bryan, recommended SenatorLa Follette sis a candidate for the Amercan Presidency. It was, ho said, Mr Bryan, who commenced Mr. Taft's great reforms. He was a progressive before Mr. Roosevelt learned to. spell the word. He is short, with, very square and very an upstanding crop of hair and a good broad shoulders, a high forehead, an<l deal of manner—one would call it selfconsciousness if he had an unoccupied moment in which' 1 to be self-conscious, writes Wm. B. Hall in "The World s Work." He started right :he was born in a log cabin. His father's family were Huguenots, but they had been in the United States a hundred years before the hero of this tale was born. His father died when he was a child, but the son managed to get the best education aiforded by the State of Wisconsin. end:ng so far as formal schooling is concerned, at the State University—though Wisconsin and La Follette have been engaged in mutual education ever since. He" was a boy orator, like Bever'.dge and Bryan. His chief youthful -feat- was the speech with which he won an inter-State ora-' torial contest back in 1879.

Running a fourth time for Congress, La' Follette was defeated. He had not. in truth, done anything in Washington to . win him undying glory, but his defeat was not personal ; it was a Democratic eweep in 1890.

The Democratic triumph had a twofold effect oti La Follettc-'s career. It brought him home from Washington, and it caufe<l him to break with tilt machine of his narty.

One day t La Follette. received a letter from Senator Sawyer, asking for a private confer-once in Milwaukee. The two men met. La Follette says that Sawyer offered him a money bribe for his influence with Judge Siebecker. Indignantly refusing it La Follette told his brother-in-law. The latter resolved not to fiit in the case. His withdrawal provoked sensational theories, and it b:-came necessarv to tell the story. From that moment" La Follette and the Organisation were bitter enc-mies. He thought no mor e of Washington, but set his mind and his heart on dethroning th e .grafters who rilled the Republican, Party in the Badger .State. V DEFEATS DO NOT MATTER.

In ISO 4, La Folfette. after several bitter and di.-Mippoiniing defeats, was'a candidate for the Governorship for a fifth time. This time he smote the enemy hip and thigh. The Legislature Was his, and tho statute books were his to write in what lie would. He put into them the first of the remarkable series of legislative enactments, that place Wisconsin in the van of the politically;and social". > advancing ft'at-cs—a direct nrimarv law. a corrupt "T>rnct-ices law, "an anti-lobby law, a pub.lic utiutks law, a clyi] service law, a tax law. all• thoroughly digested, practical, equitable. It was April, 1910, when La Follette made' his New- England Merger speech of '20,000 words. It was in opposition to the merger clause of 'President Taft ? Court cf ; Commerce _ .Bill, and consisted aimbst ' entirelv : ' of 'ah ' prcces.s by which the New York, .New Haven, and Hartford Railway Company had acquired a monopoly of ,the carry, ing trade of New England—a story c J dramatic interest told for the first time This little man with t-h-3 up-reache<i crop of iron-gray hair has brought intt the Senate more of tiie nicturesque thai' has been seen there since the day of the mighty gladiators of ante-bellum times La Follette is completely satisfying. H< nothiinr in a commonplace way ; he is constitutionally incapable of it. Lr Follette is a pageant all by himself. If he were not a politician he would fc-e an actor, but ' John E. M'Cullough told him that soJehort a man would have nr chance on the stage. So he has dramatised —himself, and gives a continuous performance of rarest skill and power. Th.ere is no mere finished orator living. He speaks with quiet im-prrssivenc-ss. standing- with' rigid bodv. and head, only'the bright, glancing eve. the movement of a finger, the thrilanr ►pause and accent- making the point—ar Edwin Booth' used to do in th e cart of la.oro. He looks like Booth. He looks like a celebrated patent medicim proprietor, who ornaments the paper* with his countenance and uplifted fingei Which is neither to his credit nor Reproach. SOME STRIKING FEATURES. .

Again his voice peals and booms, and his whole body goes into action. H.i? gestures are singularly graphic, pantomimic. He has the gift of phrasing. Insincere? .■'Not. a. of it- Was there ever purer sincerity than. .Alan Breck, i*i tarnished finery, wiping ..his sword anc. looking about,on his victims and..crying : "Am I no' the bonny fighter?., Robert Louis Stevenson, would have found 1.0 Follette a man after his own heart. They would have agreed that "a fine action is■ the better for a piece of purple.' La Follette does nothing without a cock of .the. hat and a supererogatory, tinkle of the sword. He starts in an amplitude ot costume; watch liim in his s-hirt sleeve.liarari"uiftg a crowd of farmers from the tail-end of a cart, and you can see that he feels the toga falling from his shoulders. He ■ likes to feed, "cliicken s and plough on his Wisconsin .farm, but he -does°both in the grand manner;. He hasn't a" "particle of humour; his friends swear he- has, but they haven't any themselves; besides, they claim, and believe, that "Bob" La Folette has every virtue, earthly and celestial. Those who doliate him ileartily find it very easy to like him very much, to laugh at him a little, to admire him sincerely, and to exclaim, with, or at least after Macaulay . Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in. war As Robert Marion La Follette, with the gallant pompadour?