Roosevelt administration (1906–1909) La Follette immediately emerged as a progressive leader in the Senate. At first, he focused on a railroad regulation bill making its way through the Senate; He also began campaigning across the country, advocating for the election of progressive senators. Conservative party leaders, including Spooner and
Nelson W. Aldrich, detested La Follette, viewing him as a dangerous
demagogue. Hoping to deprive La Follette of as much influence as possible, Aldrich and his allies assigned La Follette to insignificant committees and loaded him down with routine work. Nonetheless, La Follette found ways to attack monopolistic coal companies, and he pressed for an expansion of the railroad regulation powers of the
Interstate Commerce Committee. With the help of sympathetic journalists, La Follette also led the passage of the 1907 Railway Hours Act, which prohibited railroad workers from working for more than 16 consecutive hours. Though he initially enjoyed warm relations with President Roosevelt, La Follette soured somewhat on the president after Roosevelt declined to support some progressive measures like physical valuation of Railroad properties. When Roosevelt did not support La Follette's bill to withdraw mineral land from corporate exploitation, La Follette told to Belle that Roosevelt "throws me down every day or so". Meanwhile, La Follette alienated some of his supporters in Wisconsin by favoring Stephenson, his main donor, over Lenroot in an election to fill the seat of retiring Senator John Coit Spooner. After the
Panic of 1907, La Follette strongly opposed the
Aldrich–Vreeland Act, which would authorize the issuance of $500 million in bond-backed currency. He alleged that the panic had been engineered by the "Money Trust", a group of 97 large corporations that sought to use the panic to destroy competitors and force the government to prop up their businesses. La Follette was unable to prevent the passage of the bill, but his 19-hour speech, the longest
filibuster in Senate history up to that point, proved popular throughout the country. Beginning in 1908, La Follette repeatedly sought election as the president. La Follette hoped that the backing of influential journalists like Lincoln Steffens and
William Randolph Hearst would convince Republican leaders to nominate him for president in 1908, but he was unable to build a strong base of support outside of Wisconsin. Though he entered the
1908 Republican National Convention with the backing of most Wisconsin delegates, no delegates outside of his home state backed his candidacy. At the start of the convention, Secretary of War
William Howard Taft was President Roosevelt's preferred choice, but Taft was opposed by some conservatives in the party. La Follette hoped that he might emerge as the Republican presidential nominee after multiple ballots, but Taft won the nomination on the first ballot of the convention. In early 1909, La Follette launched ''
La Follette's Weekly Magazine'', which quickly achieved a circulation of well over 30,000. An early associate editor of the magazine was the writer
Herbert Quick. In March 1924, La Follette contributed to the appointment of African-American Walter I. Cohen as Comptroller of the Port of New Orleans.
Battling the Taft administration (1909–1913) Along with
Jonathan P. Dolliver, La Follette led a progressive faction of Republicans in the Senate that clashed with Aldrich over the reduction of tariff rates. Their fight for tariff reduction was motivated by a desire to lower prices for consumers, as they believed that the high rates of the 1897
Dingley Act unfairly protected large corporations from competition and thereby allowed those corporations to charge high prices. Despite a widespread desire among consumers for lower prices, and a party platform that called for tariff reduction, Aldrich and other party leaders put forward the
Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, which largely preserved the high tariff rates of the Dingley Act. With the support of President Taft, the Payne–Aldrich Tariff passed the Senate; all Republican senators except for La Follette's group of progressives voted for the tariff. The progressives did, however, begin the process of proposing the
Sixteenth Amendment, which would effectively allow the federal government to levy an income tax. In late 1909, Taft fired
Louis Glavis, an official of the
Department of the Interior who had alleged that Secretary of the Interior
Richard A. Ballinger favored the illegal expansion of coal mining on government land in
Alaska. The resulting
Pinchot–Ballinger controversy pitted Ballinger and Taft against
Gifford Pinchot, the head of the
United States Forest Service and a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. La Follette's progressives strongly criticized the Taft administration for its handling of the controversy and initiated a congressional investigation into the affair. La Follette's successful re-election campaign in early 1911 further bolstered his position as the leader of the progressive faction of the Republican Party. In January 1911, after consulting with sympathetic journalists and public officials, La Follette launched the National Progressive Republican League, an organization devoted to passing progressive laws such as primary elections, the direct election of U.S. senators, and
referendums. La Follette hoped that the league would also form a base of support for a challenge against Taft for the 1912 Republican presidential nomination. By mid-1911, most progressives believed that the battle for the 1912 Republican nomination would be waged between La Follette and Taft, but La Follette himself feared that Roosevelt would jump into the race. Many progressive leaders strongly criticized La Follette for focusing on writing his autobiography rather than on campaigning across the country. La Follette believed that his autobiography would help him win votes, Roosevelt announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in early 1912, but La Follette rejected the request of Pinchot and some other progressive leaders to drop out of the race and endorse the former president. In Philadelphia on February 2, 1912, La Follette delivered a disastrous speech to the Periodical Publishers Banquet. He spoke for two hours before an audience of 500 nationally influential magazine editors and writers. Congressman
Henry Cooper, a friend and ally of the senator, was there and made a memorandum:La Follette killed himself politically by his most unfortunate (worse than that) speech. It was a shocking scene. He lost his temper repeatedly—shook his fist—at listeners who had started to walk out too tired to listen longer—was abusive, ugly in manner....From the very outset his speech was tedious, inappropriate (for a banquet occasion like that), stereotyped; like too many others of his [it was] extreme in matter and especially in manner....LaFollette's secretary, came over to me…and with a dejected, disgusted look said softly to me—"This is terrible—he is making a d___d fool of himself." It ends him for the Presidency. Most of the audience decided La Follette had suffered a mental breakdown, and most of his supporters shifted to Roosevelt. La Follette's family said he was distraught after learning that his daughter, Mary, required surgery. She recovered but his candidacy did not. Nonetheless, La Follette continued to campaign, focusing his attacks on Roosevelt rather than Taft. La Follette hoped to rejuvenate his campaign with victories in the
1912 Republican primaries, He continued to oppose Roosevelt at the
1912 Republican National Convention, which ultimately re-nominated Taft. Roosevelt's supporters bolted the Republican Party, established the
Progressive Party, and nominated Roosevelt on a
third party ticket. La Follette continued to attack Roosevelt, working with conservative Senator
Boies Penrose, with whom La Follette shared only a dislike of Roosevelt, to establish a committee to investigate the sources of contributions to Roosevelt's 1904 and 1912 campaigns. A filibuster threat by La Follette helped secure the passage of the enabling resolution. La Follette otherwise remained neutral in the three-way general election contest between Roosevelt, Taft, and the Democratic nominee,
Woodrow Wilson. With the Republican Party split, Wilson emerged triumphant in the
1912 election. La Follette's conduct during the campaign destroyed his standing as the leader of progressive Republicans in the Senate, as many progressives believed that La Follette's refusal to work with Roosevelt had damaged the progressive cause and abetted Taft's re-nomination as Republican candidate.
Wilson administration (1913–1921) La Follette initially hoped to work closely with the Wilson administration, but Wilson ultimately chose to rely on congressional Democrats to pass legislation. Nonetheless, La Follette was the lone Republican senator to vote for the
Revenue Act of 1913, which lowered tariff rates and levied a federal income tax. La Follette, who wanted to use the income tax for the purpose of
income redistribution, influenced the bill by calling for a higher surtax on those earning more than $100,000 per year. La Follette and his fellow progressives challenged Wilson's proposed
Federal Reserve Act as being overly-friendly towards the banking establishment, but Wilson convinced Democrats to enact his bill. La Follette also clashed with Southern Democrats like
James K. Vardaman, who directed the farm benefits of the
Smith–Lever Act of 1914 away from African-Americans. In 1915, La Follette won passage of the
Seamen's Act, which allowed sailors to quit their jobs at any port where cargo was unloaded; the bill also required passenger ships to include
lifeboats. In the 1914 mid-term elections, La Follette and his progressive allies in Wisconsin suffered a major defeat when conservative railroad executive
Emanuel L. Philipp won election as governor. La Follette fended off a primary challenge in 1916 and went on to decisively defeat his Democratic opponent in the general election, but Philipp also won re-election. By 1916, foreign policy had emerged as the key issue in the country, and La Follette strongly opposed
American interventions in Latin America. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, La Follette praised the Wilson administration's policy of neutrality, but he broke with the president as Wilson pursued policies favorable to the
Allied Powers. Theodore Roosevelt called him a "skunk who ought to be hanged" when he opposed the arming of American merchant ships.
Opposition to American involvement in World War I La Follette opposed United States entry into World War I. On April 4, 1917, the day of the
vote on a war declaration by the US Congress, La Follette in a debate before the US Senate said, "Stand firm against the war and the future will honor you. Collective homicide can not establish human rights. For our country to enter the European war would be treason to humanity." Eventually, the U.S. Senate voted to support entry to the war 82–6, with the resolution passing the House of Representatives 373–50 two days later. La Follette faced immediate pushback, including by the
Wisconsin State Journal, whose editorial claimed La Follette to be acting on behalf of German interests. The newspaper said, "It reveals his position to be decidedly pro-German (and) un-American... It is nothing short of pathetic to witness a man like La Follette, whose many brave battles for democracy have endeared him to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Americans, now lending himself to the encouragement of autocracy. And that is all it is". After the U.S. declared war, La Follette denounced many of the administration's wartime policies, including the
Selective Service Act of 1917 and the
Espionage Act of 1917. This earned the ire of many Americans, who believed that La Follette was a traitor to his country, effectively supporting Germany. It also resulted in a
Senate Committee pursuing a vote to
expel him from the Senate for disloyalty, due to an antiwar speech he made in 1917; the Committee ultimately recommended against expulsion and the Senate agreed, 50–21, in early 1919. After the outbreak of the
Russian Revolution in late 1917, La Follette supported the
Bolsheviks, whom he believed to be "struggling to establish an
industrial democracy". He denounced the
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1919, which he thought stemmed from Wilson's desire to prevent the spread of socialism. During the
First Red Scare, a post-war period in the United States marked by the widespread fear of socialism and anarchism, La Follette condemned the
Palmer Raids, sought the repeal of the Espionage Act, and proposed amnesty for political prisoners like
Eugene V. Debs. Along with a diverse array of progressive and conservative Republican senators, he helped prevent the U.S. from ratifying the
Treaty of Versailles. La Follette believed that the
League of Nations, a vital component of the Treaty of Versailles, was primarily designed to protect the dominant financial interests of the United States and the Allied Powers.
Harding–Coolidge administration (1921–1924) '' cover, December 3, 1923|alt=A pencil sketch of La Follette, as pictured on the cover page of the Time magazine (December 3, 1923 cover) La Follette retained influence in Wisconsin after the war, and he led a progressive delegation to the
1920 Republican National Convention. Nationwide, however, the Republican Party had increasingly embraced conservatism, and La Follette was denounced as a Bolshevik when he called for the repeal of the 1920
Esch–Cummins Act. After the Republican Party nominated conservative senator
Warren G. Harding, La Follette explored a third-party presidential bid, though he ultimately did not seek the presidency because various progressive groups were unable to agree on a platform. After the
1920 presidential election, which was won by Harding, La Follette became part of a "farm bloc" of congressmen who sought federal farm loans, a reduction in tariff rates, and other policies designed to help farmers. He also resisted the tax cuts proposed by Secretary of the Treasury
Andrew Mellon, and his opposition helped prevent Congress from cutting taxes as deeply as had been proposed by the secretary of the treasury. In 1922, La Follette decisively defeated a primary challenge from conservative allies of President Harding, and he went on to win re-election with 81 percent of the vote. Nationwide, the elections saw the defeat of many conservative Republicans, leaving La Follette and his allies with control of the balance of power in Congress. After the Supreme Court struck down a federal
child labor law, La Follette became increasingly critical of the Court, and he proposed an amendment that would allow Congress to repass any law declared unconstitutional. La Follette also began investigations into the Harding administration, and his efforts ultimately helped result in the unearthing of the
Teapot Dome scandal. Harding died in August 1923 and was succeeded by Vice President
Calvin Coolidge, who was firmly in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. In 1920–21, La Follette continued his support for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, in addition to his vigorous denunciation of imperialism and militarism in that conflict and beyond. In the American and British versions, he continued to oppose the treaty oversight settlement and continued to reject the League of Nations. He advocated self-government for Ireland, India, and Egypt, as well as the withdrawal of foreign interest from China. By 1922, he focused primarily on domestic affairs. ==1924 presidential campaign==