Wisconsin assumed that the trouble with our politics is not with our people, but with the machinery with which the people work. And Wisconsin has taken the kinks, the angles, the circumlocution out of government. It has established a line of vision as direct as possible between the people and the expression of their will. Official have become agents or servants, rather than principals or bosses. They are free to serve without fear or favor to those who contribute to campaign funds or of the boss who barters in legislation and keeps his retainers in office as long as they are obedient to his will.
The achievements of Wisconsin came through freedom, through freedom in thought as well as in action. There was an end of fear. Men dared stand for ideas. Freedom of speech and research was preserved in the university. The by-products of political freedom were greater than the direct political gains which followed.
[…]
The achievements of Wisconsin are the achievements of democracy. Through it the aspirations of the state have found expression.
Frederick Clemson Howe, Wisconsin: An experiment in democracy (New York: Scribner, 1912).
http://viewshed.matinic.us/2012/06/05/343/