FORMER U.S. SENATOR
-
July/August 1999
Volume50Issue4
My father grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and to his dying day he believed that the two greatest Americans were “Old Bob” La Follette and Abraham Lincoln. I caught the interest from him. But the more I read about Lincoln and his personal struggles and his efforts for the less fortunate—and his greatness of spirit—the more fascinated I became.
“I WENT TO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS and asked an idiotic question: Did they have anything on Lincoln there? ’