Robert Marion La Follette

1855, June 14, born in a log cabin in Primrose township, Dane county, Wisconsin.

1860-1874, worked on the farm and attended the district school. Popular in school exhibitions.

1874-1880, took the collegiate and law courses in the Wisconsin University. Excelled in debate and oratory. In 1879 the winner of the oratorical contest at the University, the state contest and the inter-state oratorical contest at Iowa City.

1879, married Miss Belle Case, his University classmate, who also won oratorical honors, among them the Lewis prize, the highest honor, at her graduation. She later studied law, being the first woman to graduate from the University Law School. She strikingly parallels her husband in face and manner and in intellectual strength and characteristics.

1881-1885, District Attorney of Dane county.

1885-1891, Representative in Congress. Youngest member at entrance. As member of the Committee on Ways and Means was associated intimately with McKinley in framing the Tariff law that bears his name. Gained a national reputation as debater and statesman.

1891-1901, practiced law, enjoying a clientage more than state wide and achieving distinction in his profession second to none outside the metropolis of the state. During these years active in politics and prominent in the councils of Republican party. Delegate to the National Republican Convention at St. Louis 1896.

In February 1897, he delivered his famous address at the University of Chicago on the "Menace of the Machine."

In March, 1898, at Ann Arbor he advocated the "Nomination of Candidates by the Australian Ballot, and in September, 1898 he spoke before the State Agricultural Society at Milwaukee on "Dangers that threaten Representative Government."

Leader in reform measures and the candidate of the reform element of his party for the nomination for governor in 1896 and 1898: in 1900 unanimously nominated for Governor of Wisconsin and elected by the largest plurality ever given a candidate for that office.

ERNEST N. WARNER.