Genial industrialist Julius Heil didn’t just beat Progressive governor Philip La Follette in the 1938 Wisconsin gubernatorial race—he trounced him. It wasn’t all Heil’s doing, though. Thirty years of Progressive policies had convinced Republican and Democratic Party regulars to band together for the express purpose of defeating the Progressives and throwing La Follette out of office. When the ballots were counted, Heil, who had never before held political office, won 543,675 votes to Governor La Follette’s 353,381.1
After three terms, La Follette had left his mark on state agencies with more government control over the electric utility and banking industries, but when Heil swept in, the industrialist promised voters that he would reorganize the government along business lines. Progressives, he suggested, had squandered their mandate and ignored what the people wanted: “A business government, rather than a political state government, is at hand,” Heil said in his inauguration speech. “Rigid economy must, and will, be practiced…. Waste and extravagance are at an end. Idleness and indifference in public office must stop.”2 Despite these promises to the people of Wisconsin, Heil quickly encountered unforeseen political and economic roadblocks, and though he managed to win reelection in 1940, he was roundly defeated when he sought a third term.
What made Julius Heil so attractive to Wisconsin voters in the 1930s and early 1940s was the fact that he didn’t act like a career politician. Called “jolly” and “genial” in the newspapers, Heil embodied the promise of prosperity and rejuvenation as the state was emerging from the throes of the Great Depression. His rags-to-riches story, unwavering optimism, and frequent humorous and off-color outbursts at first attracted Republican voters as well as many Democrats. The pressures of political office, however, along with the increasingly sour press coverage of his job and the realignment of political parties in the state, led to Heil’s defeat in 1942. Bruised but never beaten, Heil ultimately returned to his role as an industrialist, having made his mark on Wisconsin.
From Rags to Riches
The last of Wisconsin’s governors to be born outside of the United States, Julius Peter Heil lived in Brauneberg, Germany, until he was three years old. That year, 1879, his parents immigrated to Wisconsin and settled on a farm in New Berlin, in Waukesha County.3 Heil would later dwell fondly on the fact that his early life as the son of poor immigrant farmers prepared him for the hard work of building a successful manufacturing company. And while he would also proudly call himself a Christian and praise the people of Wisconsin for their commitment to their shared faith, some sources suggest that Heil was, in fact, Jewish.4
After leaving the Mill Valley rural school at the age of twelve, Heil started working for the L. S. Winton and Son General Store at Prospect Hill doing odd jobs, including gathering potatoes and maple sap. An orphan by the age of fourteen, Heil moved to Milwaukee and found a job at the Milwaukee Harvester Company as a drill-press operator. He was young, ambitious, and looking for new experiences. When work at the Falk Corporation was offered to him, Heil became a boiler fireman and blacksmith
