The Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 12, number 4, June 1929

              the lincoln and la follette families in pioneer drama louis a wakren r i ahe spirit of abraham lincoln welcomed the late rob l ert m lafollette into his legislative duties in the na tion's capitol in writing about his first morning in wash ington the senator says before breakfast i went to lin coln park and stood with bowed head before ball's statue of lincoln in commenting on this incident in after years he remarked that he had never forgotten the sensations of that moment if he had known of the close contacts between the ancestry of lincoln and his own forbears and their joint struggles in the kentucky wilderness the inspira tion of that early morning experience in the capital city would have been greatly accentuated neither lincoln nor lafollette paid very much atten tion to genealogy although both men prepared autobiog raphies they contributed practically nothing to our knowl edge of their family lines lafollette says very little about his ancestry in the biographical history which he published all the information he sets forth about his father whom he does not name is found in one line he was a kentuckian by birth and had been a pioneer settler from indiana."1 we are not to assume however that he did not have some knowl edge about his people for a small handbook on the lafol lette family had already been published lincoln knew less than lafollette about his an cestry the name of but one of his four grandparents was known to him and he had very little information about director lincoln historical research foundation of the lincoln national life insurance company 1 lafollette autobiography 6