A Radical's Greening

When Paul Soglin, then only 27, upset a conservative Republican to become mayor of Madison, Wis., a year ago last April, the students who supported him hailed his victory as a sign that their day had finally come. But the erstwhile University of Wisconsin radical lost little time in setting his supporters straight. Climbing onto a stage during a ball celebrating his inaugural, the long-haired, mustachioed Soglin stripped off his dress shirt to reveal a T shirt bearing the legend MELLOW MAN. Said Soglin: "It's going to take those mellow men and mellow women to put this city together in the next two years."

Now, halfway through his term in office, Soglin seems to have succeeded in doing just that. He has not moved fast or far enough to satisfy his more radical backers, nor has he gone too far for many of the middle-class merchants who formerly controlled the pleasant, lake-bordered city of 176,000. But he has managed to get both groups talking with each other and, in the process, given the city a year of good, if unconventional government.

The greening of Soglin, a native of Chicago, from protest to power was gradual. A hard-core member of the antiwar movement, Soglin graduated from the university in 1966, stayed on in Madison for graduate work, law school and eventually politics. In 1968 his fellow students took advantage of their control of the city's Eighth District to elect him to the Madison city council.

Even as an alderman, however, Soglin remained an outsider. He continued to take part in student demonstrations, was twice arrested and, on one occasion, bailed out by a sympathetic fireman. He clashed with Mayor William Dyke over such issues as police brutality and budgets. But he also learned about municipal government, studying substantive subjects such as housing and transportation and getting a feel for such arcane matters as sewer maintenance and zoning regulations.

His political education proved to be valuable. In early 1973, when Senator George McGovern's campaign organization was still a political force in Madison, Soglin leaped into the mayoral race as an independent. The campaign, which took an ugly turn when Dyke appealed to Madison's "decent people" to keep him in office, was bitter. Soglin's more statesmanlike approach gave him 52% of the vote.

In Stocking Feet. Mayor Soglin's style contrasts sharply with that of the clean-cut, well-dressed and almost militarily inaccessible Dyke. Soglin, who has a habit of arguing far into the night, often shows up bleary-eyed at his office. Cartoons, antiwar slogans and newspaper clippings dot the walls around his desk; a plaque that reads HIZZONER DA MARE is on the door. Soglin often pads around his office in his stocking feet, presides over city-council meetings with a half-hidden smile that betrays his amusement at the proceedings.

Despite his casual approach, Soglin has accomplished much in his first year in office. As alderman, Soglin supported a proposal to turn the city's State Street into a pedestrian mall. Last week construction began on the $15 million project, which had been vetoed by his predecessor, who feared it would turn the street into a hippie haven.

Soglin, as alderman, helped push through a bill enabling the city to take over Madison's failing private bus line and has since got $2.135 million in federal grants for buying new equipment. As a result of improvements made during his administration, ridership on the bus line is up 17% in the last year. The mayor has also tightened housing inspection procedures, started a fund to provide loans for home rehabilitation, and opened city government to more people. Of the 370 people Soglin has named to city committees, 47.7% have been women and, in a city where only 2% of the population is black, 12.4% of his appointees have been members of minority groups.

Still, Soglin has had his problems. Many policemen are upset over his support of David Couper, 31, an iconoclastic police chief whose enforcement of a merit system for promotion has made him enemies on the force. Members of Madison's business establishment feel that many of Soglin's committee appointees lack the expertise needed to deal with municipal problems. "These are a lot of people who have been in the stands watching but who haven't had a chance to play the game," says Robert Brennan, a former University of Wisconsin track coach and head of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, who has been working to bridge the gap between Soglin and the businessmen.

Nor has Soglin escaped criticism from his friends on the left. Some, pointing to the modest, $26,000 house he and his wife recently bought and to his $24,000 salary, suspect that he has gone bourgeois. Others feel that he has at least retreated from the radicalism of his student days. "There are council members who are submitting much more progressive legislation than Paul is," says Alderman Susan Kay Phillips, 29, a member of the radical Wisconsin Alliance. Even the university's Daily Cardinal, which endorsed his mayoral bid, has become critical. Soglin, it charged, has provided "mere efficiency, not change."

Soglin does not agree that he has changed in office; he dates his newly realistic attitude from the start of his mayoral campaign. "When I decided to run, I decided to run to win," he says. "I dropped the luxury of being able to pontificate about desirable societal goals. There are worthwhile things that can be done that are better than chasing after windmills."

No one has yet compared Soglin to Don Quixote. Most, in fact, recognize that Soglin is a shrewd politician with a good shot at re-election when his two-year term expires next April. He has disarmed many of the city's conservatives and picked up a new constituency among the moderates. He feels that he has held onto the support of all but the most disillusioned radicals. Soglin would like another term in which to carry out some of his ideas on housing and land-use planning. Beyond that, he says he has higher ambitions. If he wins a second term as mayor of Wisconsin's capital city, he might be in a position to realize them.

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