num_pages: 205
description: This is the story of America's intervention on the side of the Allies in World War I, and the heroic stand of Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin, against it. La Follette is generally regarded to be one of the greatest U.S. Senators of all time. However, few Americans are aware that he was one of only six Senators to vote against the declaration of war on Germany in 1917, and virtually the only member of Congress to openly question the wisdom of that decision afterwards. His willingness to do so led to a serious attempt to expel him from the Senate. On September 20, 1917, Senator La Follette gave a speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, ridiculing the reasons for which America went to war. Many, most notably former President Theodore Roosevelt, called the Wisconsin Senator a traitor. After the war, La Follette severely criticized the Versailles Treaty and correctly predicted that it would lead to another European war. When he ran for President in 1924 on the Progressive ticket, he often defended his views on World War I. By the 1930s, many and possibly most Americans came to agree with the La Follette view that U.S. intervention on the side of the Allies was a mistake. After 1941, however, most Americans assumed that if we had to fight Hitler, we also had to fight the Kaiser in 1917. The Kaiser's Senator assesses the arguments for and against the La Follette position and compares it to the contrary views of Woodrow Wilson, who after much hesitation joined the Allied cause and of Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated war with Germany soon after the European war began.
language: English
title: The Kaiser's Senator: Robert M. Lafollette's Alleged Disloyalty During World War I
titlecomplete: The Kaiser's Senator: Robert M. Lafollette's Alleged Disloyalty During World War I
publisher: Amchan Pubns