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State and National Politics in 1920 The cause of progressivism suffered a serious blow with Asle Gronna’s defeat in the North Dakota primary election. La Follette wrote to Gronna on 23 July: “North Dakota has sustained a loss which cannot well be replaced.”1 He worried about the political situation in Wisconsin as well and told Gronna that “some of the reactionaries and possibly some of the pseudo Progressives” would make the fall election a difficult one in the state. National politics, however, concerned him the most. The field of candidates for the presidency, divided between the merely lackluster and the truly appalling, kept La Follette thinking about a late run for the office. He wrestled all summer with the pros and cons of becoming a candidate himself. If for no other reason, La Follette’s poor health should have ruled out his running for the presidency. He wrote on 3 August to Dr. John Stokes, one of his physicians at the Mayo Clinic: “I feel energetic in the morning and through most of the day, but [find] myself a bit weary by mid-afternoon.”2 By pacing himself carefully, the convalescent La Follette could “get about the farm a great deal and do quite a few little things.” On the thirteenth, his son, Bobbie, responded to a speaking invitation: “Senator La Follette is not making speaking dates as yet because he is not sure when he can go out.”3 Bobbie would continue to take care of most of his father’s correspondence until well into September, routinely informing constituents that the senator was unavailable to speak or even to attend regularly to his office work. Presidential campaigning in America had not yet turned into the open-ended endurance test of fundraising activity that it is today, but even for the relatively undemanding pace of the race for the White House in La Follette’s day his physical liabilities would have posed an insuperable obstacle. Well into September, La Follette kept the door slightly ajar for a presidential run, but then bowed out. 335 15  The  Campaign and the Harding Administration, to the Washington Armament Conference La Follette devoted himself in the 1920 campaign to state politics, which dealt heavily that year with international affairs. As the campaign entered its final month, he invited Senator William E. Borah of Idaho to come to Wisconsin to speak about the League of Nations. In the 7 September Republican primary election for the Senate, Irvine Lenroot had defeated James Thompson , “the Progressive Republican candidate, who is unalterably opposed to the League, with or without reservations.”4 The National Republican Committee had provided huge amounts of money for the conservative Lenroot, successor to the deceased Paul Husting in 1918. Had not a second progressive candidate entered the race, La Follette thought that Thompson would have won in Wisconsin, a strongly anti-league state. Much to La Follette’s displeasure, a prohibition progressive running strictly on the “wet” issue diverted enough votes from Thompson to give Lenroot the win for the Republican nomination. Professor Paul Reinsch, a one-time collaborator with La Follette, had taken the field as the strongly pro-league Democratic nominee. Thompson would make it a three-way race, campaigning as an independent progressive candidate on a straight anti-league platform. The defining issue of the contest would be the League of Nations. The Thompson candidacy, La Follette insisted, “offers an opportunity to deal a smashing blow at the League.” He entreated Borah to come help Wisconsin progressives deliver that blow. La Follette added that before the primary he had been unable to take to the stump “because of the condition of my health on account of my recent operation.” Now he would take an active part for Thompson. Borah replied on 12 October. He recounted in detail the ongoing battle in Washington over the Treaty of Versailles. Borah, La Follette, and Hiram Johnson of California had led the “irreconcilables” in the Senate, a faction that opposed the treaty in any form, even with the reservations against the League of Nations proposed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s faction. On 19 November 1919, the treaty with the Lodge reservations and then in its original form had been voted down in the Senate. In February 1920, the Senate had taken up the issue of the treaty again. On 19 March, the Senate voted on the treaty with fifteen reservations, but it fell seven votes short of the required two-thirds majority...

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