Heir to the Progressive tradition of the La Follette family and three term governor of Wisconsin, Philip Fox La Follette was born in Madison, Wisconsin on May 8, 1897. He began his education in Madison while his father, Robert M. La Follette Sr., was governor and continued it in Washington, D. C. during the elder La Follette's years in the Senate.
In 1915 Philip La Follette returned to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin. Although he shared his father's non-interventionist position on World War I, he interrupted his studies to enlist in the army in the spring of 1918. Discharged as a second lieutenant on December 24, 1918, he returned to the University to graduate in June 1919. In February 1922, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School and began practice with his father's law firm in Madison. He married Isabel Bacon of Salt Lake City, Utah on April 14, 1923.
Philip La Follette inherited Progressive ideals and an active interest in politics from his father and his mother, Belle Case La Follette. Like his father, Phil was aggressive and impetuous; qualities which combined with his driving political ambition to become both an asset and a liability to his political career. From an early age, Phil and his older brother Bob Jr., were their father's trusted political confidants and active in his campaigns. Phil's own political career began in 1924 when he left his legal practice to work for his father's independent Presidential candidacy and to launch his own campaign for Dane County District Attorney. Phil won the Dane County election easily but, after only one term, returned voluntarily to private practice, and took on part-time teaching duties at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
La Follette returned to active politics in 1930 by declaring his candidacy for the governorship. Aided by persistent campaigning and the voter's general economic dissatisfaction, he was successful against his conservative opponent in the Republican primary, and in November won an easy victory in the general election. As governor La Follette vigorously attacked the depression in Wisconsin, and several of his programs became models for subsequent national legislation under President Roosevelt. La Follette, however, maintained that distinct differences existed between his program and the New Deal. Wisconsin's governor asserted that his program, “collective individualism,” relied upon individual initiative rather than the outright relief of the New Deal. The key to this program lay in framing public policy to make it advantageous for the private sector to adopt socially beneficial programs; consequently the government did not have to carry out these programs or pass legislation forcing business to do so. Measures which Phil La Follette advocated during his first term included state and municipal ownership of public utilities, a program to put unemployed men into re-forestation work in Northern Wisconsin, unemployment insurance, and a unified state labor code similar to the Norris-La Guardia Act later adopted by the Federal government. Strongest opposition to La Follette's policies came from the conservative controlled State Senate which labeled his policies radical and socialistic. Much of his program became law, but the conservatives effectively blocked the heart of the governor's effort--government ownership.
In 1932 La Follette sought re-election, but was defeated in the primary by a conservative opponent largely because the depression had grown worse in Wisconsin and because of the national movement away from the Republican party. After the election La Follette toured Europe to write a series of articles on the developing situation abroad. Upon his return he briefed President Roosevelt and apparently declined offers of several positions in the New Deal. Instead he returned to his law practice in Madison.
Phil La Follette and other progressives had traditionally considered Wisconsin Democrats as conservative as the Republicans. They felt association with either party was distasteful and, as a result, established the Progressive Party on May 19, 1934. Phil La Follette headed the new party's ticket and was elected governor by an easy margin. During his second term, La Follette's efforts were again directed toward a public power program and toward the Wisconsin Works Bill, a completely state controlled works and relief program. Neither of these measures passed, but the Progressive Party approached the 1936 election at the height of its popularity.
In that election La Follette won an unprecedented third term and the Progressive Party captured a majority of both legislative houses. During the third term La Follette forced through some important segments of his program, including the Wisconsin Development Authority and a state government reorganization bill, but the tactics he used angered many Progressives. This term also witnessed the governor's most serious political failures: the dismissal of University of Wisconsin President Glenn Frank, a move readily interpreted as vindictive; and the establishment of the National Progressives of America (NPA), a third party with fascist overtones intended to launch La Follette as a presidential candidate.
Despite these setbacks Phil La Follette ran for a fourth term in 1938 against a coalition of Republicans and Democrats. By that time, however, the initiative for many of the reforms sought by La Follette had moved to the federal government. These factors combined with the widely held belief that the governor was more interested in national political aspirations than Wisconsin problems, and the dissatisfaction of some of the farm element with his labor policies led to La Follette's defeat. After the election, at age 41, Phil La Follette retired as an active political candidate.
Subsequently La Follette became active in the pre-World War II isolationist movement and the America First organization. This association and the NPA effort convinced many observers that La Follette had undergone a conservative shift, and henceforth the Progressives denied him their support. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, La Follette received a commission in the U.S. Army and served on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur. At the war's end he returned to Wisconsin but, since he was in disfavor among the Progressives, his opinions were not sought when the party returned to the Republican fold in 1946. La Follette campaigned for MacArthur in 1948 and Earl Warren and Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, but, since he was also suspected by the Republicans, his efforts were on the periphery of the political scene.
From 1955 to 1959 La Follette resided in New York City as patent counsel and director of Hazeltine Electronics. He then retired to practice law in Madison on a part-time basis and to work on his autobiography (Adventure in Politics, New York 1970) which was incomplete at the time of his death on August 18, 1965. His wife, Isabel Bacon La Follette, who completed arrangements for publication of the autobiography, died on September 19, 1973.
