COPYRIGHTED, 1898, BY A. M. THOMSON, MILWAUKEE, WIS. COPYRIGHTED, 1899, BY E. C. WILLIAMS, ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY Sot for 106, 574 JK, JK 2295 739 PREFACE. The first draft of this "Political History of Wisconsin," by A. M. Thomson, was made for The Milwaukee Sentinel, and published in the Sunday edition of that newspaper from week to week until concluded, the initial installment appearing in the issue of January 2, 1898. A resident of Wisconsin for nearly fifty years, and during most of that time active and influential in journalism and politics, Mr. Thomson was widely regarded as the man above all others best fitted to write the history of politics in Wisconsin, and he undertook the task in response to numerous urgent requests. It proved to be the final work of his life. When the closing chapters saw the light of print, he was on his death-bed. But even in the extremity of mortal illness, his mind was busy with the history, and he wrote several letters to publishers with reference to bringing it out in book form. He carefully revised the earlier chapters for final publication, and gave explicit directions, which have been scrupulously carried out, regarding the revision of the remainder. It is the belief of those who have been concerned in the erection of this monument fashioned by his own brain and hand, that, in the artistic and substantial form in which it is here presented, his work appears as he would have wished to see it. The history which Mr. Thomson proposed to write begins with the Ordinance of 1787 and comes down to the election of Scofield and McKinley in 1896. It is not constructed on the lines of what is termed critical history, which is generally dry; neither is it a mere chronicle-a chronicle is also dry. Mr. Thomson's work is for the most part cast in the narrative form. The chief personages with whom it deals were intimately known to the author, and he draws them from life, illustrating their characteristics by happy anecdotes. His easy, graceful, lucid style invests |