The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1902-07-25
LAFOLLETTE'S SLUMP.
State Convention Staggers Thou
sands Nho Believed in Him.
THE MANS GOOD AND HIS HARM
Chat of State Topics-Justice Dixon's
Witty DecisiOn-Millions
in Lumber.

Madison Wis, July 22.-Well, the
state convention has come and gone
and the Republican party is in about
as bad a way as before-worse, be-
cause Governor LaFOllette has shown
his hand in the Spooner matter, and
no man by one act ever so staggered
adherents-sO undermined simple faith.
Many of us felt as Little Nell did in
''Old Curiosity Shop when she saw
the old grandfather gambling her earn
ings away-frOm that hour he must be
watched night and day and she had
no one but herself to depend upon.
Slowly the impression is making it's
way even to the remOtest farm that
this interesting man has limitations
that sadly cOnfound his professed
programme of reform. 1t is feared that
generosity, breadth, consideration, the
Submergence OF personal prejudice and
hostility i'll the public good, in short,
the large, sane, conservative quality
of statesman are lacking in LaFol-
lette; that hate, jealousy and ambition
have dismantled his motives and use
fitness. l hope it may not be so, but
it looks that way. He has done great
service in eliminating for the time be-
1nglng the corporation from political
control, in adopting for Republicanism
some fresh, modern issues that inter-
est people and which the Democratic
party would otherwise soon pre-empt;
and in bringing young men to the front
in some good wars. He has set an eX-
ample to the nation of what a revised
Republicanism is to be; he has re-
ViVed and reOrganiZed the Republican
party in Wisconsin. This one must
cOncede. Republicans are to stay in
sanity and the justice are to dominate
it. LaFollette built the castle, but
whether he has the princely bearing TO
grace it is now Il question.
1t is Il serious thing to deprive a
state and the country of such ma
tured stateman and useful public man
us SpOOner, but it is on his programme
There is no longer any doubt of this.
Country people accept the resolu-
tons, as the great body of delegates
did, in good faith. They still conceive
the governor will ''let Spooner have the
next LEGISLATURE if he will stand OH
nj hnt no cIo
to the wheels know better. A few
men about saFollette, the only ones
who have influence with him, look on
politics as a game; they are in it to
win-and Spooner must go. The plan
is to get the senatOrship into friendly
Observation-Disclosures if possible. If he
does not get it now, he runs great
risk, for by 1905, when Quarles' term
is up, LaFolletteism will likely have
run its course. Hot fires burn out
quickly, and the state cannot stand
this tension much longer.
Governor LaFOllette is a strange
man. He has some of the marks of
the demi-god. If he had that unswerv-
Ing devotion to duty, which in New
England is called the humble walk in
the fear of God,"-that John White
head has-LaFollette might be an Ed
mund Burke. But getting himself in
the background, losing his life to save
it, forgetting himself in his cause
this is an unknown tongue to Governor
LaFollette
Fun in Court Decisions.
Chief Justice Dixon had a most keen
sense of humOr. In Owens VS.. State
~ Wis. 456, the court had occasion to
consider an act passed by the first leg
islature before the state was admitted
In the opinion the learned jurist dis
courses as fellows:
''In thus considering the act, we
cannot forbear remarking it as a most
singular instance of the sparing hand
OF legislation in this state, that there
should be found upon our books a
statute SO old as this, the work of the
first legislative body assembled after
our organization and admission as
state. 1t stands, we believe, without
rival or peer, as the only statute of the
state of Wisconsin which has been per-
mitted to attain the venerable age of
nearly thirty-three years. This leads
to serious reflections as to the untime-
~ fate of most of our legislative en-
actments, not only the companions of
this, which have long since faded and
gone but also those which have after,
numerous progeny, nearly all of
which seem to have been infected with
some fatal disease, which was very
soon TO work their destruction. They
have persisted mostly in infancy, the
average period of life being about one
year; but those which have survived
that period have seldom attained the
- 49, IL