Every week in Forward, our Monday newsletter about the week ahead in Wisconsin government and politics, Brittany Carloni shares a short story from Wisconsin history.
We like to select stories that tie into current events to illustrate how the past speaks to the present. Whether it’s Teddy Roosevelt, after being shot in Milwaukee, warning against factional fighting or the origins of multicultural centers on university campuses or the spirit of gift-giving tied to the first evergreen tree in the Capitol rotunda, the past teaches us a lot about the present.
Today we present the last 12 editions of Back Words. If you like local history tidbits, political analysis and a preview of upcoming state government happenings, make sure you’re subscribed to Forward.
Oct. 6, 2025
On Oct. 6, 1917, just six months after the U.S. entered World War I, Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette Sr. spoke for three hours on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the importance of free speech during war time.
“Fighting Bob” earlier that year voted against Congress’ declaration of war with Germany and criticized war time initiatives from President Woodrow Wilson’s administration. His remarks followed news that a Senate committee received a resolution to expel him from the chamber.
“Our government, above all others, is founded on the right of the people freely to discuss all matters pertaining to their government, in war not less than in peace,” reads a copy of La Follette’s remarks published in the congressional record. “For in this government the people are the rulers in war no less than in peace.”
Oct. 13, 2025
On Oct. 14, 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot during a campaign stop in Milwaukee while he sought a third term for president as a member of the Progressive Party.
The shooting occurred as Roosevelt left the former Gilpatrick Hotel on his way to give remarks at the Milwaukee Auditorium. Despite his injuries, Roosevelt followed through with the speech.
“Every good citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one another, when we shall see the creed of the ‘Havenots’ arraigned against the creed of the ‘Haves,’” Roosevelt told the crowd, even as supporters implored him to seek medical attention. “When that day comes then such incidents as this to-night will be commonplace in our history. When you make poor men — when you permit the conditions to grow such that the poor man as such will be swayed by his sense of injury against the men who try to hold what they improperly have won, when that day comes, the most awful passions will be let loose and it will be an ill day for our country.”
The episode made headlines the next day. The front page of the Oct. 15 afternoon edition of the Green Bay Press Gazette read: “Crank Shoots Roosevelt at Milwaukee; Wound Not Dangerous.”
Oct. 20, 2025
A Wisconsin Historical Society marker notes that on Oct. 20, 1856, abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a speech in Beaver Dam about the “brutality and immorality” of slavery. Douglass was born into slavery but escaped and grew to become a renowned activist, writer and speaker.
Newspaper notices show Douglass spoke in several other Wisconsin cities during that period. A Kenosha newspaper at the time previewed his visit to the city, describing Douglass as “the eloquent champion of freedom.” Though there isn’t a record of his Beaver Dam speech, his July 5, 1852, speech in Rochester, New York, had a similar theme.
“The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie,” Douglass said. “It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union.”
Oct. 27, 2025
As election season ramped up in 1908, the “Red Special” train carrying Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs made stops in Wisconsin on Oct. 30 and 31 and Nov. 1 during his third campaign for the White House.
An Oct. 31, 1908, story in the Social-Democratic Herald quoted Debs at a stop in Beloit.
“The last panic, so-called, occurred under a Democratic administration in 1893. The Republicans were swift to exclaim, ‘Behold, the fruit of Democratic misrule!’” Debs said. “Up to this time the working class had not yet learned to any great extent to think or to act for themselves. They were still responsive to the plea of the capitalist demagogue. Hundreds of thousands of them swept from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, and that party went into power upon that issue.”
Debs ran for president again four years later with a Wisconsin connection. In 1912, former Milwaukee Mayor Emil Seidel ran as the Socialist Party’s vice presidential candidate.
Nov. 3, 2025
On Nov. 3, 1998, Wisconsin voters elected Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson to an unprecedented fourth term. He was first elected to the governor’s office in 1986.
Thompson won the 1998 election with 60% of the vote to Progressive labor attorney and Democrat Ed Garvey’s 39% of the vote. That same night, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold won re-election against Republican Mark Neumann by only 2 points.
On election night, CNN senior political analyst William Schneider noted 58% of moderate voters picked Thompson, but only 41% voted for Neumann.
“This really epitomizes the two faces of the Republican Party,” Schneider said. “There’s going to be a split in the Republican Party coming between the governors’ wing, which is dominated by pragmatists and moderate Republicans who are inclusive in their appeal, and the congressional wing of the Republican Party which is dominated by conservative ideologues. Why are the two wings different? Well, clearly, governors represent a whole state, so they have to represent a more diverse constituency and they have to run a government and make things work, whereas members of Congress have much smaller constituencies in the House of Representatives and they can be more ideological and more partisan. I think we’re going to see this division getting bigger and bigger.”
Thompson resigned as governor in 2001 to serve as the secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.
Nov. 10, 2025
On Nov. 12, 1836, Wisconsin’s first territorial Gov. Henry Dodge signed the first law approved by the territorial legislature, which set expectations for the conduct between citizens and elected officials.
The legislation authorized the “by fine and imprisonment” of members of the public who disrespect lawmakers or threaten those elected officials for anything they said or did while in session. Fines could not exceed $200, and a prison sentence could not extend beyond 48 hours for one incident. A $200 fine in 1836 would equal roughly $6,000 in today’s dollars.
The initial law also allowed each chamber of the territorial legislature to expel a member with a two-thirds majority. But it exempted lawmakers from arrest during a session “in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace.”
Nov. 17, 2025
On Nov. 21, 1968, 94 Black students participated in a mass demonstration in University President Roger Guiles’ office at what we know today as the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. The event later became known as “Black Thursday.”
The students sought a series of demands from the university, including providing courses on Black literature and history, hiring Black faculty and creating an African-American cultural center for Black students.
“We envision the center as a place where on a cold winter night any student, black or white, can come and in one minute throw off all the unpleasant association of the university proper and enter the center in a spiritual as well as an intellectual experience,” sophomore Sandra McCreary told the Oshkosh Northwestern in the days after.
Oshkosh police later that day arrested the students for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct for occupying the president’s office and damaging materials from thrown typewriters to broken windows. In December, the Board of Regents chose to expel 90 of the students who participated in the demonstrations. But changes came in the months following Black Thursday, including a new intercultural center that opened in 1969.
Nov. 24, 2025
On Nov. 24, 1959, Wisconsin leaders celebrated the opening of a 15-mile stretch of Interstate 90 between Beloit and Janesville. A program from the dedication ceremony described the project as “the largest single segment of four-lane highway to be completed at one time in the history of Rock County.”
Then-Gov. Gaylord Nelson said he hoped the project would reduce traffic accidents and hailed its completion as an example of how officials working together from multiple levels of government “can bring about civic progress.”
“As Governor of Wisconsin I am pleased to note that this cooperation, combined with the foresight and high standards of the citizens of this area, has resulted in providing Wisconsin motorists as well as visitors with the best transportation facility available,” Nelson wrote in a program message.
Dec. 1, 2025
On. Dec. 2, 1954, the U.S. Senate voted 67-22 to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who was known for his anti-communism crusades and investigations in Congress. The charges were for the failure to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections in 1952 and the “abuse” of the Select Committee to Study Censure in 1954.
McCarthy answered “present” on the vote while fellow Wisconsin Republican Sen. Alexander Wiley was absent from the chamber that day on official business, according to the congressional record.
The Senate’s vote came after McCarthy’s hearings in April that year on alleged security issues in the U.S. Army, which further damaged the Wisconsin senator’s reputation. The hearings included the infamous moment when army lawyer Joseph Welch, after McCarthy questioned the communist ties of one of Welch’s colleagues, asked: “Have you no sense of decency?”
In the weeks prior to the official censure vote, McCarthy appeared on the debut program of political show “Face the Nation” where he criticized Democrats and called the upcoming Senate proceedings a “lynch bee.”
“When they’re not basing their vote upon the counts set forth, when they base their vote upon political reasons,” McCarthy said on the program. “When they say ahead of time in effect regardless of what the evidence says, ‘This man has been fighting communism, he’s been shouting that for over 20 years the Democrat party has been infiltrated, therefore we’re going to get him,’ I think lynching bee is a good name for it.”
Dec. 8, 2025
On Dec. 7, 1943, two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Wisconsin was christened by Wisconsin first lady Madge Goodland. Official construction on the battleship started in January 1941.
A story on the events in the Wisconsin State Journal said Goodland practiced breaking the ceremonial champagne bottle ahead of the christening by shattering bottles of sherry against the executive residence.
Then-Gov. Walter S. Goodland also attended the christening and called the USS Wisconsin celebration “thrilling and inspiring.”
“What more appropriate than to dedicate this immense fighting craft to the men and women engaged in the world war in which this ship will soon participate,” Goodland said in remarks that day. “And especially to the 250,000 gallant men and women who hail Wisconsin as their home.”
The ship was officially commissioned in April 1944.
Dec. 15, 2025
On Dec. 14, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling upheld former President Joe Biden’s election win in the state and rejected a lawsuit from President Donald Trump and his campaign that sought to overturn the election results.
Justice Brian Hagedorn, a conservative, joined liberal Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky in the majority while conservative Justices Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented.
Hagedorn, who wrote the majority opinion, criticized the timing of the Trump campaign’s challenges to Wisconsin’s results, claims which “must be brought expeditiously.”
“Our laws allow the challenge flag to be thrown regarding various aspects of election administration,” Hagedorn wrote. “The challenges raised by the Campaign in this case, however, come long after the last play or even the last game.”
Dec. 22, 2025
The first evergreen tree placed in the Capitol rotunda during the Christmas season was in December 1916 as the new building neared completion, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
A 40-foot tree for the rotunda arrived in Madison that year from northern Michigan, news reports show. It was lit on Dec. 23, 1916, during a two-day Christmas celebration organized by the local Rotary Club, which included donated gifts to “every child in the city” from the Capitol Mutual Club.
“Hundreds of children of all ages and sizes tried to stand still yesterday afternoon and listen to the strains of ‘Holy Night’ and other devotional strains interspersed with popular airs at the Rotary club celebration while their eyes were glued on the wonderful tree in the rotunda of the capitol, and the huge baskets of gifts furnished by the Capitol Mutual Club near it,” a Dec. 24, 1916, Wisconsin State Journal story wrote of the festivities. “The singing was very nice but judging from the howl that went up when Santa Claus began to distribute the gifts, the music was not the most interesting feature of the program.”
An evergreen tree is placed in the Capitol rotunda every year during the holiday season while political party leaders have disputed calling it a Christmas tree or a holiday tree. Gov. Tony Evers gave the 2025 balsam fir from Oconto County the theme “The Learning Tree.”
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