It seems only right that on this day, Veteran’s Day, I finished the last page of Nancy Unger’s biography, “Fighting Bob La Follette.” Today we pause to honor the courage displayed by service members—the willingness to risk life and limb for the security of the nation. Yet, this day also serves as an opportune moment to reflect on a different, often rarer, form of valor: political courage. To stand against the tide of public opinion, party pressure, or even presidential authority. When examining the history of such courage, few acts shine brighter than the vote cast by Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin against the United States’ entry into World War I. An act of conscience stands in stark contrast to the recent, heavily criticized compromise by eight senators who voted with the Republicans to end the protracted government shutdown.

In 1917, as pro-war fever swept the Senate, La Follette stood almost entirely alone. He filibustered the arming of merchant ships and, when the final declaration of war was called, he was one of only six senators to vote "nay." La Follette’s courage was rooted in a deep progressive conviction: he believed the war was driven by corporate financial interests, that it would divert attention from essential domestic reforms, and that it lacked genuine popular support. As a result, he was censured by his own state legislature, faced accusations of treason, and was vilified by the press. The faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison censured him in a round-robin petition. His was the courage of principle, a defiant, solitary posture against immense institutional and popular pressure, maintaining that the lives and liberties of citizens trumped the rush to conflict. He willingly sacrificed his immediate standing for what he saw as a moral imperative.

One might say in today’s Senate we’ve seen a different kind of calculation. As the government shutdown has dragged on, a small bloc of eight senators broke ranks. They provided the votes necessary to advance a compromise funding measure, even though it failed to secure several key policy demands, most notably on health care subsidies. Very little was gained.

If faced with the modern shutdown, I think La Follette would have rejected the compromise, looking at the shutdown not as a temporary emergency to be relieved, but as a symptom of a deeper, corrupting influence on government. As a champion of the common citizen—the farmer and the laborer—he was vehemently opposed to what he called "the selfish interests" dominating politics. He would have likely viewed the shutdown as a necessary, if painful, pressure point to expose the failures of the status quo and force a more fundamental political concession from the opposition, perhaps railing against the corporate lobbyists and financial powers he believed funded the political deadlock. For La Follette, relief for the people was essential, but it could not come at the cost of surrendering the core progressive principle he was fighting for. He specialized in enduring political hardship to bring about structural reform, making it highly probable he would have remained steadfast on principle, refusing to join the compromisers. Whether their action was a profile in political cowardice or a tough-minded decision to put functional governance over ideological victory will most certainly be up for debate.

I highly recommend Unger’s book. If you’d like something shorter, check out Mike Miller’s article, “Born under a cloud of war.”