Background
He was born in Swanton, Vermont on March 6, 1850.
He was born in Swanton, Vermont on March 6, 1850.
At the age of five he was taken to Iowa, where his education was irregular.
He was successful in business. After 1872 he was continuously interested in lumber, as employee, partner, and owner; first, at Dubuque, and later at Necedah, where the rich forests of the upper valley of the Wisconsin River were yielding great rewards to the pioneer lumbermen.
In 1896 his firm is said to have cut 25, 000, 000 feet of lumber. He served for two terms in the Wisconsin Assembly, during the political upset of 1890, which broke the old Republican control of the state. In the new alignment for the election of 1892 (for the Republicans had carried only one of the nine congressional districts of the state in 1890), Babcock secured nomination and election to Congress from the third Wisconsin district; and in Congress, among the thin ranks of the Republican minority, he took a prominent position from the day of his entrance.
He was assigned to the Committee on the District of Columbia, becoming its chairman after the Republican victory of 1894, and remaining throughout his service a leader in matters affecting the government of the National Capital. He was named as the Wisconsin member of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee when it organized in the autumn of 1893.
The resignation of its chairman in the following spring brought him into unexpected prominence as acting chairman, and then as chairman of the committee. He had full charge of the campaign of the Republican party in 1894, showing himself to be adroit and patient, with a head for detail. He gained the confidence of his associates and retained the chairmanship through five ensuing campaigns. Under his direction the control of Congress was taken from the Democratic party, and thereafter it was a question only of the size of the Republican majority. In his state relationships he was contestant for the United States Senate, to succeed John L. Mitchell, but was defeated by a Republican rival, Joseph V. Quarles. He was induced by this defeat to give his support to Robert M. La Follette, who was then fighting the regular organization of the Republican party, and who was elected governor in 1900. But he broke with La Follette before the next election in 1902, and with the latter ascendant had difficulty in securing renomination in 1902 and 1904. In 1906, at the first test of the new primary election law, he won his eighth consecutive nomination; but he was defeated in the election by a Democrat to whom the La Follette progressives gave many votes.
In 1900 and 1901 Babcock was greatly alarmed by the big business mergers, and he advocated a repeal of the protective duties upon steel products a year before the so-called Iowa Idea was launched. After his defeat in 1906 he removed his residence further north in Wisconsin, into Vilas County; and thereafter he divided his time between his new home and Washington, where he died in 1909.
