Emanuel Lorenz Philipp (1861-1925), twenty-third governor of Wisconsin, was born on a farm near Honey Creek, Sauk County, Wisconsin, the son of Luzi and Sabine Philipp. His father was a native of Switzerland who came to Wisconsin in 1849. Emanuel Philipp was educated in the public schools of Sauk City, Wisconsin, and at the age of eighteen became a school teacher. At about twenty he became a telegraph operator, and later, train dispatcher for the Chicago and Northwestern railroad. It was during this period that Philipp married Miss Schwake of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and the first letter of the Philipp collection, October 13, 1887, is a letter from Philipp to his bride-to-be two weeks in the future.
He moved to Milwaukee and from 1889 to 1902 held various executive positions with the Gould system lines and with the Schlitz Brewing Co. and its affiliates. He managed a lumber and stave company in Mississippi (1894-1902), and founded the town of Philipp, Tallahatchie County, Miss. In 1903 he organized the Union Refrigerator Transit Co. of Wisconsin, purchasing the equipment of the URT of Ky. (a Gould family property), and eventually built the firm into one of the most successful refrigerator transit companies in the country.
A Republican, Philipp supported Robert M. La Follette for the governorship in 1900, and assisted in forming a coalition that led to La Follette's nomination and election. With other conservative Republicans, however, he soon grew dissatisfied with La Follette's tax policies, especially in respect to railroads, broke with him in 1901, and after 1904 became one of the ablest leaders of the Stalwart faction of the party. Philipp was the author of The Truth about Wisconsin Freight Rates (1904) and Political Reform in Wisconsin (1910), both books criticizing La Follette's progressive program. In 1914, with the Progressive faction of the Republican party badly split, Philipp was successful in winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and in November 1914, was elected governor. He was twice re-elected, and served from January 1915 to January 1921.
Although at first charged by some of the progressive leaders with corruption and too great an interest in the railroads, Philipp's scrupulous integrity could never really be challenged. During his administration he favored reduction of expenditures and limitations on independent boards; he provided state aid for the improvement of rural schools; he established the state system of accounting, the State Department of Agriculture, and the State Conservation Commission. With the threat of World War I imminent, Philipp favored neutrality, but vigorously supported the war effort once the U.S. was involved. He organized the state council of defense, and the state food administration, and equipped the Wisconsin National Guard for federal service. As much as any man, Philipp was successful in combatting the violent war hysteria of the time, and was elected to his third term on a platform that both supported the war effort and upheld constitutional liberties. Philipp was also instrumental in establishing a four-year medical course at the University of Wisconsin and in constructing the Wisconsin General Hospital.
He was not a candidate for re-election in 1920 and, after leaving the governor's office, retired to his home in Milwaukee where he served as regent of Marquette University, and was a director of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. He also was president of the Mi Lola Cigar Company and again of the Union Refrigerator Transit Company. In 1923, he became president of the Milwaukee Association of Commerce. Philipp died suddenly in Milwaukee on June 15, 1925.
