La Follette became a part of the burgeoning progressive movement, that rose in response to conditions of the long Gilded Age. By the late 19th century, the economy was unregulated, unstable at best, and frequently rocked by recessions and depressions. Immigrants poured into cities, providing much of the labor force of a newly industrialized America, which saw its economy become the largest in the world—thanks in large part to their low wages. Dreams of the U.S. as a land of glorious opportunity seemed available exclusively to the already wealthy. Most Americans worked menial, often dangerous, jobs that were so low paying that entire families had to work to survive. After long hours in dangerous conditions, workers returned to urban ghettos rife with poverty, crime, and disease. Precious, nonrenewable resources were decimated, with no thought to their conservation, let alone preservation.
Too often, government appeared, at best, helpless to curb the harmful excesses, and, at worst, a willing collaborator in the profitable carnage. Politicians like New York’s Boss George Plunkett spoke openly and approvingly of “honest graft.” A seat in the Senate (often referred to as "the Millionaire’s Club") could be purchased merely to increase a wealthy man’s status. State legislators frequently chose U.S. senators thanks to backroom bribes.
Powerful trusts cornered markets and set prices, controlling such necessities as beef, steel, sugar, oil, and money. The attitudes of the wealthy businessmen who dominated the Gilded Age were summarized by George Frederick Baer, the spokesman for the coal mine owners during the anthracite strike of 1902: “The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men of property to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property rights of the country.”
La Follette fiercely disagreed, and saw the ownership class as a “hostile force” that threatened to “thwart the will of the people and menace the perpetuity of representative government.”
La Follette and his fellow progressives dedicated themselves to fighting for a better future of the nation. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1884 and served three terms. But his first two bids for Wisconsin’s governorship failed because opponents bribed delegates at the state’s Republican nominating convention. In 1900, he undertook a third bid, promising to eliminate the corruption of the increasingly powerful political bosses and machines by enacting the direct nomination of all political candidates.
His determination to return power to the people galvanized voters and carried him to victory.