"Any list of best United States Senators would have to include "Young Bob" La Follette, whose career spanned the tumultuous years from Coolidge prosperity, through the Great Depression and World War II, to the Cold War and McCarthyism. The son of Wisconsin's legendary progressive leader, "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Young Bob entered the Senate upon his father's death in 1925. At the age of thirty, he was the youngest senator since Henry Clay.

He made his mark on national life as a key architect of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a leading champion of labor rights and civil liberties, and author of legislation that endures to this present day." "Young Bob was one of the best senators in history but also one of the most tragic. In 1946, at the height of his national prominence, La Follette lost his Senate seat to Joseph McCarthy. Seven years later, with McCarthy very much on his mind, La Follette committed suicide."--BOOK JACKET.