The Pittsburgh Press (August 14, 1946)
Senate race lost, LaFollette admits
Ex-Marine wins in Wisconsin primary
MILWAUKEE (UP) – Sen. Robert M. LaFollette Jr., the last of the three “Fighting LaFollettes,” was defeated in a primary election which ended an American political epoch of more than 40 years.
Sen. LaFollette conceded that he had lost the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate to an up-and-coming young judge and war veteran, Joseph R. McCarthy.
The defeat apparently will eclipse the LaFollette family and their once formidable Progressive movement from the national political scene for the first time in 41 years.
Shortly after he conceded his defeat, Sen. LaFollette indicated he would not seek re-election as an independent in the November voting.
He recalled that in an address last March he had said he would not run as an independent if he lost the Republican nomination. Asked if he meant to reiterate that statement in the light of his primary defeat, Sen. LaFollette said: “I’m not reiterating it, but you can refer to it, and you won’t be wrong.”
Oldest governor winning
Meanwhile, Gov. Walter S. Goodland, the nation’s oldest governor at 83, appeared headed for renomination. In the Republican primary voting he led his closest opponent, Ralph Immell, former Progressive and long-time friend of Sen. LaFollette, by 27,000 votes with votes counted in 2,765 of the state’s 3,146 precincts.
Nearly complete returns from yesterday’s primary election today gave the GOP Senate nomination to Circuit Judge McCarthy of Appleton.
Judge McCarthy, 37, was elected a circuit judge when he was only 29. He was a Marine captain and aerial gunner serving in the South Pacific during World War II.
List election figures
Judge McCarthy apparently drew his strongest support from war veterans and from the industrial area of Milwaukee, which previously had been a LaFollette stronghold.
Sen. LaFollette conceded defeat when the vote was in from all the scattered precincts. The count at that time was: Judge McCarthy, 198,492; Sen. LaFollette, 191,453.
Many Wisconsin voters cannot remember when there has not been a LaFollette in a major public office. Besides the two “Fighting Bobs,” another LaFollette, Philip, was three times governor of Wisconsin until his tenure was snapped in 1938.
Since the turn of the century there always has been a LaFollette either as U.S. senator or as governor.
The elder Robert LaFollette was his state’s chief executive from 1900 to 1906 and from the governor’s chair he went to the Senate, where he served until his death in 1925. “Young Bob” stepped into his father’s shoes and had been re-elected regularly since.
Sen. LaFollette had been attacked as a nationalist by Democratic opponents, who cited his vote in the Senate against the British loan.
Abandon independent move
When “Young Bob” LaFollette led his Progressives back into the Republican Party last March, he abandoned the independent organization he and his brother had tried to develop throughout the Midwest.
In leading his party back to the GOP fold, Sen. LaFollette said he “had no illusions about some of the elements of the Republican Party” but admitted frankly that the Republicans offered the best hopes of winning in Wisconsin.
“Young Bob” was a vigorous and consistent foe of internationalism, a viewpoint inherited from his father, who fought American entry into World War I.
Will face New Dealer
Judge McCarthy was the youngest Circuit Court judge in the state when he left his $8,000 post on the bench to enter service as a buck private in the Marines.
He was sent to officer’s training school and commissioned a second lieutenant.
Judge McCarthy will run against H. J. McMurray, New Deal congressman from Milwaukee, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination, in the November election.
The Republican contests for the Senate and gubernatorial nominations attracted national attention in yesterday’s primaries. A traditionally Republican state, Wisconsin seldom has elected Democrats to these posts.
Daniel W. Hoan, former Socialist mayor of Milwaukee for 25 years, won the Democratic nomination for governor easily over his only opponent, Stanley Z. Fajkowski, Milwaukee tavern keeper.
Nine of 10 incumbent congressmen were renominated. The tenth, Rep. Thaddeus Wasielewski of Milwaukee, trailed slightly behind Edmund Bobrowicz, CIO-backed World War II veteran, for the Democratic nomination from the fourth district.