Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-21
VICTORY PUTS PHIL LA TOILETTE
IN FIGHTING FATHERS CLASS
23O Speeches Made in Wisconsin Race for
Governorship Occupied Is Years
Ago by Famous Bob
Special Dispatch to The st

Special Dispatch to The star
MILWAUKEE, Wis, September 20
(N.AN.AD.-"Just like, his dad" That's
what Wisconsin people say of Philip r.
La Toilette, second SON Of the famous
Bob" and now, at the age Of So, win
ner Of the Republican nomination for
Governor.
Republican nomination in Wisconsin
is equivalent TO election, and young
Philip will take up his duties at Madi-
son as one of the. youngest men ever
elected Governor in any state. His
father was 40 when he became Cover
nor.
Philip La Toilette, or Phil as he pre-
fers was reared in the atmosphere of
politics. Before he was chosen by the
progressive Republican faction as the
trump card against Gov. Kohler and
the conservative faction of the Re-
publican party, he had been making
campaign speeches for 10 years, and he
had served from 1924 to 1925 as Dane
County district attorney His father
held that post Al years before.
Makes gao Speeches.
Slight, weighing less than 1870, Phil
La Toilette went through vigorous
governorship campaign of $50 speeches
without faltering. He drove his flivver
in each, in one day.
The same gestures and the same fire
that made his father a colorful cam
paigner are his. His campaign auditors
found that he could attack the vested
interests" with apt quotations from the
Bible, from other classic literature, or
from Supreme Court decisions with an
ease and charm that marked him as a
man Of learning.
One must go back 20 years to learn
why Phil La Toilette was able to make
such an impression on the stump. AS
a boy he would sit at the feet of his
father at Maple Bluff Farm, miles
from Madison, and listen for hours to
political talk and discussions of the
drama. literature, economics and science.
With his family around him, Senator
La Toilette read aloud until late in the
evening. One of his faV6rite books was
Darby O'Gill and the Good People, /"
by Mrs. Herminie Kavanagh. The Sen
ator read these stories in the Irish dia-
lect.
Phil Also Read Aloud.
AS Phil La Toilette grew older he, too,
would read aloud the stories Of Darby
O'Gill, to the delight of his friends,
He mastered the Irish dialect just as
his father had. Reading aloud devel-
Oped his diction, and MS 1rlendS could
detect in his voice the same ring and
the same dramatic force that charac-
terized his fathers speech.
AS he grew to manhood Phil La Fol-
lette continued to read. Biography and
history are his chief interests. While
other. young men were indulging in
lighter diversion he was reading the life
of Napoleon or engaging in debate Of
the Athenae Literary Society at the
University of Wisconsin, where ne was
an honor graduate in law in l922.
When Phil was in the Law School
Miss Isabel Bacon, Salt Lake City, was
a senior majoring in sociology. Phil
was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fra
ternity and she belonged to Alpha Phi
Sorority. The two were among the
organizers of the Walrus Club, where
they talked about shoes and ships and
sealing wax and cahbages and kings
every Sunday night.
The two have been married seven
years now, and talk in their home is
still pretty much about "capbages and
kings" They have two children, Rob-
ert M La Toilette, Sd, who, at 4, is
already making oratorical gestures, and
Judith La Toilette, 2.
| As part-time lecturer In law ct