State senator elected in 1911, who spent five terms crusading against alcohol, cigarettes, and other moral vices until his retirement in 1931. Born in Janesville Aug. 9. 1855, Teasdale grew up and spent most of his life on a farm near Sparta, in Monroe Co., graduating from the Univ. of Wisconsin Law School in 1882. Appointed by La Follette as a district attorney in 1905, he won re-election and then moved on to the state Senate, where he was said to have introduced more bills to reform public morality than all the other senators combined (nearly all were unsuccessful). In 1913-1915 he chaired a detailed investigation into prostitution around the state that resulted in a wealth of now-historical data about working-class women's lives that would otherwise have been lost. A friend of La Follette, Teasdale also supported government regulation of railroads and other Progressive reforms. He died January 14, 1936, in San Antonio, Texas, where he was wintering.

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[Source: Milwaukee State Journal, Jan. 14, 1936]