TO ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, MY FRIEND
Thompson, Luey
To Robert M. La Foilette, My Friend By Lucy Thompson Hers was an inspiring, abiding, generous friendship. From the days we entered the University together so many years ago, to the end of her life...
...People come to him with their perplexities and troubles, nor only his friends, but those who know him slightly or not at all, and they tell him things which they never expected to tell anybody, things which perhaps they hardly knew they thought or believed themselves...
...Our readers will I am sure, respond with gratitude and appreciation to this irreplaceable appraisement of a great character.—B...
...One night recently he came out of his study to join his family and some house guests on their return from the theater...
...In proof of this I may say that no one enjoys it more than his wife and his children...
...In my long acquaintance with him, he always rang true...
...To try to sum up in a few pages the observations of many years, when the field of observation is so fertile, is not a satisfying task, I can add here, however, only a word as to that question which some one is sure to ask when the conversation turns upon Senator La Follette, "Is he sincere...
...Courage of Convictions IN SPITE, however, of Robert La FoIIette's freedom in friendly intercourse, his readiness to listen, and his ability to get another's point of view, he is unyielding when it comes to a question of inner conviction...
...Reading aloud is with him one form of self-expression and he puts into it the skill in interpretation which came near carrying him on to the stage...
...often relations between them have been ruptured entirely...
...His friendships are permanent, too...
...Entire fellow feeling" is a phrase I cannot get away from in trying to describe his attitude toward those with whom he comes into personal touch...
...Such rare people...
...It gave us a sense of bigness...
...This is the great underlying fact that must be grasped by any one who tries to understand his career...
...He has had no theories to advance, but has himself been drawn on step by step by his recognition of certain definite evils in legislation or in practice affecting the people injuriously, and by his determination to find, and apply, remedies for these evils...
...What thrilled us then and has kept the remembrance fresh all these years, was the glimpse we got of his inner nature—the quick sympathy and understanding, the revolt against injustice, the generous spirit which would not let him rest until he had done what he could to right a wrong, the utter absence of anything like resentment of our earlier opposition, with instead, perfect confidence in our friendship and loyalty and a certainty that we were as ready as he to take a stand against injustice...
...It is true," he kept insisting, and it remained in the speech to become one of the best known examples of well-founded political prognostication...
...and it wasn't such a bad name...
...It came to him in one of the flashes of intuition which are characteristic of him, the result, as I believe intuitions generally are, of a constructive imagination acting upon a clear understanding of the conditions and relations involved...
...But an occasion came when I got a different view of him...
...but whatever touches man, either individually or in the mass, is vital to him...
...He likes to have them about him...
...nor has he lost what I must call, for lack of a better name, his approachability...
...Wouldn't you like to hear it...
...and the knight who in medieval times broke his lance in the cause of the helpless and oppressed would very likely be found today leading an insurgent movement in politics...
...My roommate and I were finishing lessons late one spring evening when we were summoned downstairs to find there this same "Bob" La Foilette, come to bring us word of the expulsion from the University that afternoon of one of our closest friends, a girl of our class whom we greatly admired and loved, and who was guilty of nothing more serious than a trifling infraction of the rules in connection with her attendance at a fraternity dance the night before...
...He is at his best then, a rare companion...
...He is democratic, not primarily through any mental conception or intellectual acceptance of the principle of democracy, but because he draws no line whatever between himself and others, using the word others here in a comprehensive way...
...but in no case can I remember having heard him speak of this situation with anything but regret...
...If he finds in a man a common aim or purpose, he accepts him as a whole, and his affectionate interest in him thereafter embraces every fact of his life, public and private...
...That is why he has moved slowly in his political development—for however rapid his progress may have seemed to those who were lagging far behind, it has in reality been both slow and cautious...
...No argument can turn him from a course he has once determined upon as intrinsically right...
...It is from that side that the appeal to action always come to him...
...It is an accepted belief among their intimates that the exceptional promptness of his young sons at the breakf...
...It is hard for his friends sometimes to understand when this point has been reached, but they have come to rely upon the correctness of his final judgment, even when they cannot follow the route by which he arrived at it...
...Her rare mind, charm of personal-ity, beauty of character, joy in life, made her comradeship seem an indispensable part of our family life...
...Feeling ran high, and I, with no understanding of the principles involved, looked upon him as an outsider and a demagogical disturber of the peace, just as so many others on the "inside" have done since...
...This explains perhaps why his employes invariably count him as their friend...
...He is little interested in theories and abstractions...
...It was a sight to be remembered to see the two together—Harper, tall and broad-shouldered, with mobile face and quick movement, La Foilette small of stature, but always determined and forceful— flinging back and forth their ready wit, and showing to an extent unusual in men their affection and admiration for each other...
...Through it I have had an opportunity to observe at close range both his public and private life, and to form a pretty clear idea of the springs of his action...
...But words are curious things...
...he said to me recently...
...La Foilette will exclaim, referring to the comments of certain critics, "and they say I married a man who has no sense of humor...
...Friendship Was Unlimited ROBERT LA FOLLETTE'S capacity for friendship is almost unlimited...
...I think we called it chivalry then...
...His nature is singularly rich on the human side...
...When he interrupted his first speech in the Senate with the now famous prophecy that the seats then vacant temporarily might soon, through the will of an aroused people, be vacated permanently by those having at that time the right to occupy them, the audacity and unexpectedness of it fairly took away the breath of those among his friends who heard it...
...In his autobiography he tells of his love for his college friend, Sam Harper, who fought side by side with him in his early political battles...
...People and events impress him vivid-ly, and he has the power of carrying his vividness over into his talk...
...The humor is always fresh brought to the surface by the trend of the talk...
...This was the beginning of a close personal acquaintance, which through association in classroom and co-operation in college activities ranging from the production of a French play to the editing of the college paper, grew into a warm friendship...
...he asked, and late as it was and tired as he was, he read it to his little audience, who did want very much to hear it, and went back to his work at one o'clock or thereabouts, refreshed in mind and body...
...Sometimes he breaks a hard night's work in this way...
...They understand that the intensity of his action and speech is rooted, not in bitterness as so many assume it to be, but in the strong fellow-feeling that makes the wrongs of others his own...
...Faculty Rescinded Vote EXACTLY what form of protest he proposed is immaterial, especially as the faculty rescinded its vote the next day...
...C. L. E VEN IF the autobiography of Senator La Foilette, which is now ap- pearing serially in the American Magazine, were not of such commanding interest and importance because of his political experience, it would still be of great value for the revelation it makes of the man himself, his warm heart, his broad sympathies, his strong friendships, his quick recognition and generous admiration of great qualities of mind and heart wherever found...
...Friendships Were Lasting THE breadth of his affections does not mean lack of depth...
...I am always freshly surprised at this question, when his entire life seems to me to be such a clear answer to it...
...The sharp political battles in Wisconsin have put some of his old-time friends into the ranks of the enemy...
...The chief joy of the struggle for him is in the close contact it gives him with his fellows...
...But they could make no impression on him...
...He does not detach qualities, making use of this or that which a man has to offer and rejecting the rest...
...Could Be Humorous THERE is in his talk also a humorous quality which adds greatly to the enjoyment of these gatherings...
...st table is due to their fear of missing otherwise some of his amusing comments on the news of the morning...
...Contrary to the general belief, he is most dramatic when most natural...
...It was the first time we had come in contact with anything of this sort...
...He never sees himself singly, but always as one of a group, the leader perhaps, but one with them in interest and purpose, whether it be the small group struggling from bad conditions or to be benefited by bettered ones...
...Classmates at University THE knowledge of this quality in him came to me early...
...Easy to Approach WHILE his energetic and dynamic nature has forced him to play an important part in the life of his times, he never lost his simple tastes and his keen interest in all the little things that go to make up daily life...
...During the days and nights of "Sam's" fatal illness, "Bob" hardly left his bedside, and for years it was impossible for him to speak of his friend without strong emotion...
...He is never happier than when he has a group of friends at his table or sharing in his after-dinner relaxation, crowding off for a time the work which will probably keep him at his desk until morning...
...and after an especially hearty laugh at some unexpected humorous turn in his thought or in his handling of a story, Mrs...
...He gives confidence freely, too...
...It has the effect of taking him out of himself into another world from which he comes back with revived powers...
...Those who know him intimately never think of the clenched fist, but always of the blaze of righteous indignation which prompts the blow...
...From the days we entered the University together so many years ago, to the end of her life devoted to others, she was our constant, helpful, sympathetic friend...
...and the fact that he knows his invitation cannot be accepted detracts not at all from the genuineness of the wish...
...It seemed to them too extreme to have any chance of being justified by the events of the near future...
...This was strengthened later by his marriage to another classmate, a well-loved friend...
...The news had reached him that evening through some faculty "leak," ahead of the official announcement, and he had come to us at once, too full of indignation and a burning sense of the injustice of this extreme penalty to wait until morning, even, to ask our aid in uniting the class in common protest...
...To read again her tribute written for the New Century in 1912 was like finding the lost chord...
...We were classmates at the University of Wisconsin...
...This is in a sense a true picture, since he never hesitates to strike a blow when needed, but it puts the emphasis in the wrong place...
...Such a fine group of them...
...This basis of broad human sympathy gives him the advantage of identifying himself closely with those for, and with whom he works...
...and the share that I have had since in their happy comradeship has been an important element in my life...
...The statement was entirely unpremeditated...
...Come and live with us," he says sometimes in an especially strong wave of friendliness...
...While treating big things always with seriousness and earnestness, the humor of a situation never escapes him...
...There is nothing of the patron about him, satisfied with a one-sided intercourse...
...For this he is well equipped both by his great power of sympathetic understanding and by his talent as a listener...
...His public life has been such a succession of fights against entrenched privilege of one sort or another tha,t the picture which his name summons up in the minds of most people is that of a man with fist clenched ready to strike a fresh blow...
...This means a constantly widening circle of friends, which is to him the supreme satisfaction of his life...
...Something in the talk reminded him that he had Synge's play, "The Shadow of the Glen," waiting to be read...
...Sincerity means something quite different to those who ask the question, and so I can only answer for myself, that he fulfills to the utmost my definition of sincerity...
...His desire is always to draw near to his fellow men and to find out what they have in common...
...Much that would otherwise be quite uninteresting gets a humorous twist in passing through his mind and comes out brilliant in conversation...
...Certainly the qualities we discovered that evening in "Bob" La Foilette and called chivalry are the same that make him today a champion of the people against the "powers that prey...
...I once heard him give a powerful interpretation of Stephen Phillips" "Herod" when he was scarcely able to sit up, and at the end of the reading he was physically stronger than at the beginning...
...Sometimes, in the evening, instead of talking, he reads aloud an act or two from a Shakespearean play, perhaps, or some other drama, or one of the Darby O'Gill stories, in whose rich Irish humor he delights...
...It is doubtful if any one for whom he has once had a friendly feeling ever drops entirely out of his affections...
...It is only when he becomes conscious of himself that his speech stiffens, only when he becomes overconscious of his audience that he ceases to be dramatic...
...He makes them feel that they have a real share in his life...
...I, an ardent partisan of the fraternities...
...You cannot know Senator La Foilette without knowing his friends...
...In the class politics of our freshman year, we were on opposite sides, he the leader of the anti-fraternity forces in a stand against the monopolization of class offices and "ring" control of class activities...
...The most dramatic speech I ever heard him make was on an occasion when I constituted the entire audience and he was telling me, months after it happened, the story of the Milwaukee convention at which his pledged delegates were bought by the opposition...
...He finds in it both recreation and rest...
...Chivalry in its highest sense implies broad fellowship and community of interest...
...The little gathering of friends at his house that evening besought him to have the "prediction left out of the published record...
...Aren't we fortunate in our friends...
...Certainly if sincerity means steady devotion to principle, if it means sacrifice of time and strength and material prosperity in the service of principle, if it means accepting defeat rather than abandoning principle, then Senator La Follette must be reckoned sincere...
...There was never a more truly hospitable household than that of the La Follettes...
...Always I have found their sources in the same broad layer of generous fellowship...
...The recital was electric in its intensity...
Vol. 18 • September 1926 • No. 9
