In 1911 Richard Lloyd Jones, an associate editor at the muckraking magazine "Collier's", became interested in buying the paper from Wilder. U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. encouraged this purchase to such a degree that he arranged for wealthy supporters of the progressive cause to lend Jones $85,000 of the $100,000 necessary to make the deal. Jones hired former "State Journal" reporter William T. Evjue as his managing editor. Jones ramped up the paper's already liberal views with hard-hitting, provocative editorials that attacked big business and brooked no compromise. Soon the "State Journal" was the leading progressive daily in Wisconsin. The paper made its first two endorsements of a Democrat for U.S. president (Woodrow Wilson, in 1912 and 1916), endorsing only four other Democrats for that office in its history. Under Jones the "State Journal" also became a steady advocate for Prohibition.