On Wisconsin

On 28 April 1938, Wisconsin Governor Philip LaFollette, son of legendary Wisconsin Governor Robert LaFollette and brother of Senator Robert (‘Young Bob’) Lafollette, used the UW-Madison Stock Pavilion as the venue to launch a new political Party, the National Progressive Party, which was essentially an extension of the Progressive Party of Wisconsin, which had been so successful. Eclipsed by rising support for FDR’s ‘New Deal’ and lambasted by critics as looking more like a rally befitting European Fascists, the movement was doomed almost as soon as it began. The Party symbol, an ‘X’ within a circle meant to represent the marked ballot of a voter. Few found it appealing.