Talk:Doug La Follette

Relationship

• LaFollette is not related to the famous Wisconsin progressive Robert M. La Follette, Sr., the former Wisconsin governor and United States Senator. In fact, Douglas even changed the spelling of his last name to match that of the more famous "Fighting Bob" La Follette.
• LaFollette is a first cousin twice removed of Robert M. La Follette, Sr., the former Wisconsin governor and United States Senator.

A previous version aid that the subject is "first cousin three times removed". "First cousins, twice removed" means that one person's grandparent is the other's great great grandparent. The subject was born in 1940, in Iowa. Bob La Follette was born in 1855.[1] Presumably his grandfather was born around 1800. Is it reasonable that the subject's family had only 4 generations in 140 years? That doesn't seem possible. Given that stretch, and because there are sources on both sides, I'm inclined to remove all reference to the matter pending a really good source. -Will Beback 22:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• Doug LaFollete in his website stated he was a first cousin twice removed to Robert M. La Follette, Sr.. [2] Thank you-RFD 14:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That article is clearly a copy of this Wikipedia article. -Will Beback 18:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

RFD, I think what Will was talking about is an independent source. I have seen LaFollette talk about this relationship, but he also said, "Uh, I think" after it in a news article. So it needs to be more fully verifiable. NickBurns 22:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I added or tweaked that claim at one point so I feel ownership of its resolution. I couldn't find a reliable source like a newspaper sorting out the claim, only reports of the disputed relationship. I snooped around in a bunch of genealogy sites (unciteable, I'm aware, but I'm trying to find pointers for research), and I'm reasonably sure of the following points:

• The name La Follette is all but unknown in France. It was an invention of four brothers (said to have been named Le Follet) who came to fight with Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette and stayed. Thus a La Follette or LaFollette is very probably descended from one of these related men.
• By Robert M.'s time there were already dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His branch came from Kentucky by way of Indiana.
• Others in this branch did end up in Iowa, including Des Moines, Doug's birthplace. There may easily have been distant cousins from one of the other branches (two from Ohio, one from Virginia) who ended up in Iowa as well.
• Here there is a gap of decades. I also don't have Doug's parents' names.
• My best guess based on what I have is that any Des Moines LaFollettes may have descended from Usual La Follette, who was Robert M.'s great-uncle. This would make Doug a second cousin twice removed (or thereabouts).
• At the same time, I have nothing disproving his descent from an uncle of Robert M.'s (he had five). I suspect if this were the case, though, Doug would be more certain of the relationship.

Again, this is not citable, but I'm hoping it will lead me to something. This will probably require offline research to resolve. I do note that I haven't seen any of Robert M.'s descendants making a fuss. --Dhartung | Talk 08:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Documented Relationship

Per The Milwaukee Journal - Feb 10, 1970; Former WI Attorney General Bronson La Follette (Fighting Bob's Grandson)and WI Secretary of State Doug La Follette agree that Doug is a second cousin, three times removed from Fighting Bob. It would probably be easier to relate Doug to Bob Jr (Senator) or Phillip (WI Gov). It may also be easier to say he is the 3rd cousin of WI AG Bronson.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19700210&id=FtsjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NygEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7393,5379077

Doug is a 2nd cousin to Gov. Phil and Sen. Bob Jr, as well as a 3rd cousin to WI AG Bronson. He actually served with Bronson from 75-79 and 83-87 (although, from the above link, Bronson didn't seem to think much of Doug). I have a partial family tree, but don't know how to upload it.

The way I understand the family tree is as follows:

• Bronson's Tree*

Jesse La Follette begot Josiah La Follette begot Robert M. La Follette Sr (Gov/Sen) begot Robert M. La Follette Jr (Sen) begot Bronson La Follette (AG) (65-69,75-87)

• Doug's Tree*

Jesse La Follette begot Fighting Bob's Uncle begot Fighting Bob's First Cousin begot Fighting Bob's 2nd Cousin (son of First Cousin) begot Doug La Follette (SoS) (75-79,83-14)

We can see that Jesse La Follette is the common link. It should also be pointed out that WI Gov Phillip La Follette was Bob Jr's brother, Bronson's uncle, and Doug's 2nd cousin.

Deleted material

Discussion deleted per WP:LIVING because it contains unsourced and poorly sourced, libelous material which cannot be separated from the discussion as a whole.

Relevant part of WP:LIVING is:

"Editors should remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material from biographies of living persons and their talk pages, and may do so without discussion; this is also listed as an exception to the three-revert rule. This principle also applies to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia. Administrators may enforce the removal of unsourced material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel.

Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see WP:CSD criterion A6).

Jimmy Wales has said: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." [1]

He considers "no" information to be better than "speculative" information and reemphasizes the need for sensitivity: "Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia." [2]"

This talk page will be watched closely to see if anyone re-inserts this discussion. If they do I will take this matter all the way to Jimbo if I have to.

70.108.100.130 21:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Western States Center

I don't see any indication that the Western States Center is an extremist group. They appear to be a standard progressive organization that occupies about the same region of the political spectrum as does LaFollette. -Will Beback 21:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Inflammatory, one-sided rhetoric and a heavy emphasis on identity politics, plus the dead giveaway which is the use of the term, "anti-immigrant". If the Western States Center is a "standard progressive organization" then Liberty Lobby is a "standard conservative organization", which they aren't. The author of that article also wrote for Portland Indymedia (anarchist/extreme leftist) and involved with CAUSA. A spitball analysis of the Western States Center based on their rhetorical style is: probable offshoot of the Communist Party USA formed as part of their attempt to "mainstream" their cause using identity politics (everything revolves around race, gender, and systemically oppressed groups) and "progressivism" as a cover. 70.108.115.246 23:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This all appears to be your opinion. I see that the organization has received funding from mainstream foundations, like the Tides and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. -Will Beback 23:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

If you have some evidence for why you think this group is extreme, please provide it. You seem to be basing that judgement on your own political views. -Will Beback 03:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Three revert rule

I am glad to see that the three revert rule does not apply to removing poorly sourced, libelous material from biographies of living persons. Now why would Will Beback and [personal attack removed] Felonious Monk not understand this rule? Are either of them fit to be admins on Wikipedia if they do not understand this simple rule? 70.108.123.98 02:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Bio

I find this interesting [ try to edit this page]. I thought, hey, he has a wiki!--Rayc 05:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the link above. It no longer pointed at LaFollette's bio. Capitalismojo (talk) 12:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Political family

If anyone has a source showing that the subject is related to the famous political family please share it. -Will Beback 16:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we're back to the situation we had before, which is reliable sources reporting what he says about himself. I think we need to stop having it in or out and put it in as an attributed claim. If we keep any statement about it out of the article drive-by editors will just want to add it.

• he is, by his own description, a "shirt-tail cousin" to former governor and U.S. Sen. Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette [3]
• Doug La Follette, a distant cousin of "Fighting" Bob La Follette [4]
• a member of one of Wisconsin’s most distinguished political families [5]
• The distant cousin of "Fighting Bob" La Follette [6]

I plan to hit the library and do some reading from when he first ran. At the time Fighting Bob's grandson Bronson La Follette was an active Wisconsin politician, serving discontinously as state Attorney General. --Dhartung | Talk 17:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, the Nancy Unger biography Fighting Bob La Follette: Righteous Reformer repeats the claim that Doug's great-grandfather and Robert Sr.'s father were brothers, but I think you and I are in agreement that this is unlikely to be correct. The one thing we may be able to cite (other than just flak about it) is that he is said to have capitalized the F as an adult, allegedly to better emphasize the familial relationship (but we don't know when he started doing that, even if true). --Dhartung | Talk 18:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

For the time being I've added back "distant cousin". -Will Beback 18:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Has there been any more info on this? I looked at this page specifically to see if he was related to the La Follettes. If there's no definite answer, can some of the research above be cited with a comment that "The relationship is not known"? If anything, to avoid someone coming in and putting it in some original research themselves. 69.95.234.19 (talk) 16:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Party Identification

I added a brief clause to the intro that Identified him as a Democrat. This seems to be correct. I feel every US politician with a more-or-less permanent party affiliation should be identified that way in their Wikipedia article, but I don't know if there's a policy on this question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MiguelMunoz (talk • contribs) 18:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Name

The subject appears to have added a space between "La" and "Follette". That's a minor change. (See Cecil B. DeMille vs Agnes de Mille). However I'm not sure that he's widely known as "Douglas J.", instead of "Douglas" or "Doug". Why the extra initial?   Will Beback  talk  23:50, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Seeing no further discussion, I'll move the article to "Doug La Follette".   Will Beback  talk  20:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

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