- So, you know, it was like, yeah, I'm from Milwaukee,
beer and socialism.
- [Narrator] Milwaukee may be synonymous with beer,
but for many people, its socialist past
is little more than a quirky piece of 1990s pop culture.
- So, do you come to Milwaukee often?
- I think one of the most interesting aspects of Milwaukee
is the fact that it's the only major American city
to have ever elected three socialist mayors.
- Does this guy know how to party or what?
- [Narrator] Alice Cooper is right.
And he points to a little known chapter
in American history that has increasing relevance today.
- Socialist mayors were the rock stars of the age.
They were the ones that did things,
they were the protesters, the radical people
who changed the world as we knew it.
- It wasn't anything I was afraid of,
but I don't think people understand it.
- You know, the pure socialism is the government's ownership
of the means of production.
That was not what socialism was about here.
- Even though there may have been some discomfort
with the rhetoric of socialism,
there was a feeling that Milwaukee worked.
- The public had trust in government.
- [Narrator] Unlike its beer, the city's socialism
isn't world-famous, but it should be.
Because Milwaukee offers a case study
of how socialism played out in an American setting.
- [Announcer] Major funding
for America's Socialist Experiment was provided by
Brico Fund,
Madeleine and David Lubar,
Marianne and Sheldon Lubar,
Marquette University Law School,
and by Greater Milwaukee Foundation
and by Richard and Barbara Weiss Fund.
Additional funding by.
(upbeat violin music)
For a full list of funders, visit aptonline.org.
(gentle cello music)
- [Narrator] For nearly half a century
one of the largest cities in America was run by socialists.
They ended corruption, fought for better conditions
for working people and cleaned up the environment.
But you've probably never heard of them.
Because it was policy, not publicity that drove them.
- I mean, these were not charismatic, flashy ideologues.
- There was a kind of sense that these were our people.
- [Narrator] As interest in socialism increases,
one heartland city has a surprising story to tell.
Electing three socialist mayors
and the first socialist member of the US Congress.
- What happened in Milwaukee
was the biggest political story.
- They were the vanguard of of experimenting
with things that government had never thought to do before.
- [Narrator] This didn't happen
in some small liberal enclave,
this was a fiscally conservative city
that at the time, ranked among the nation's largest.
The story of these 20th Century Midwestern socialists
offers insights into why this brand
of American socialism succeeded for a time and why it ended.
- Socialism gets such a dirty rap,
but I think it's just the rhetoric without understanding.
- Back then socialism hadn't quite been stigmatized
the way it was later on.
- And it was considered just sort of normal, if you will,
that yeah, we've been this socialist city
and they did good things.
- So this was a city that was built,
really under socialist mayors.
And this was a period of incredible prosperity.
This was really when Milwaukee became
the machine shop of the world.
- They became the avant garde experimenters.
The proponents of what people thought
were outrageous ideas, and made it work.
- [Narrator] It's the story
of America's Socialist Experiment.
(inspiring music)
(somber music)
Sewage is a problem.
It stinks.
Worse, it carries disease.
And as people are packed closer and closer together,
it becomes impossible to avoid.
This was a huge problem at the turn of the 20th Century.
As poor European immigrants
pressed into American cities like Milwaukee.
- Was very, very crowded.
The population density in Milwaukee
matched Manhattan.
So it was a very dense and crowded place.
- [Narrator] As the population swelled,
the sewage became unbearable.
This is a time when you have
horses and mules in the streets.
So they were disease carriers,
all that manure in the streets.
People died from bad water or from bad food.
Or from filth.
The city did not do a good job
of protecting people at the most basic levels.
- So it really was an open sewer literally.
And all they did was convey
human, industrial and animal waste
to the nearest river.
That all it was for.
- [Narrator] Anyone who cared about this problem
would certainly have the support of the people.
The socialists had a solution.
(cheerful piano music)
Part of that solution is still visible today here.
Massive amounts of sewage come into this plant
where it's filtered, fermented
and then bagged into fertilizer.
(bag tearing open)
So, in effect, the city sells its sewage to homeowners
who spread it on their manicured lawns.
The proceeds are then used
to maintain and enhance the sewage system.
In the 1920s only one city was working
to spread this ingenious idea.
A city run by a highly respected socialist mayor.
The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- One of the main legacies from the socialists was
the tradition of clean government here.
You almost can't find a city that is more different
than say the political culture of Chicago than Milwaukee.
(relaxing cello music)
- [Narrator] 90 miles to the South in Chicago,
municipal government officials had a different solution
to the sewage problem.
They built a canal to flush it
into the Des Plaines River.
Chicago's waste became the problem
of the unfortunate people downstream
who didn't have the political clout to do much about it.
- There's no question that Milwaukee
was a different place to live and work than Chicago
just 90 miles away, and it's always sort of amazed me
that you could have two cities close to each other,
same culture, but to be so different.
- [Narrator] Unlike Chicago, Milwaukee had socialist leaders
who were focused on empowering working people
with no political connections.
And an important step was to give citizens basic sanitation.
Streets without open sewers.
Milwaukee's leaders came to be called sewer socialists.
The term was originally meant as an insult.
Hurled by East Coast socialists with more lofty goals.
- The Eastern socialists called the Milwaukee socialists
sewer socialists, but the Milwaukee socialists loved that.
Because they just laughed at the Eastern visionary people
and said, you couldn't get elected dog catcher.
- It was thrown at the Milwaukee socialists
that they weren't sufficiently revolutionary.
That they were too interested in the sort of day to day,
the sewers, things like that.
And they took it up as a term of pride.
- [Narrator] The Milwaukee socialists
were more than just talk.
They won elections and implemented policies.
Their nearly 50 year experiment
offered a unique glimpse
into socialism's potential and pitfalls
in an American context.
(upbeat piano music)
Voters go to the polls for two reasons,
to vote for something or to vote against something.
In 1910, a lot of people wanted to vote against
the regime of David Rose.
After 12 years as Mayor, Milwaukeeans had enough.
Rose didn't just tolerate vice,
he seemed to encourage it.
- His nickname was All The Time Rosey
and he not just tolerated,
but came close to encouraging
all-night saloons, gambling dens, prostitution
and literally in the shadow of City Hall.
- [Narrator] Rose packed his government
with shady characters,
leading to nearly 300 indictments
against city officials during his term.
- Milwaukee was pretty much a political cesspool.
It was sometimes said
it was the most corrupt city in the country.
- So the point is that we had malfeasance
in high office, and that created
a real momentum for reform.
- [Narrator] The promise to clean up
the corruption in Milwaukee resonated with voters,
leading to a landslide win for socialist
Emil Seidel in 1910.
And Seidel delivered on the promise.
Brothels were shut down.
Corrupt city workers were fired.
And the police department was completely overhauled.
Officers received vastly improved training.
Later, the US attorney general named Milwaukee
as having the best police force in the United States.
- So it's an interesting thing here
that the socialists rose in 1910,
not merely as a party proposing economic alternatives,
but also I think much more so
as a party proposing clean government.
- [Narrator] It wasn't long before Milwaukee
earned the nickname, The Crime Free City.
- On the front page of the New York Times
day after day there were news reports,
and not negative or overly positive.
They were just this thing of,
something amazing has happened out in America,
out in the middle of the country.
- [Narrator] For many voters, the socialist government
elected in 1910 had done its job
by rooting out corruption.
But the socialists had a much bigger agenda.
(bouncy piano music)
(typewriter clicking)
- [Narrator] Just about any problem can be solved
with honest, efficient government.
That's what Milwaukee's first socialist mayor thought.
At a time when Vladimir Lenin longed for revolution,
the newly elected American socialists
were more worried about inventory management.
By bringing modern accounting
and inventory practices to city government,
the new mayor, Emil Seidel,
hoped to save money and lives.
- Sometimes socialists are considered
these tax and spend radicals.
No, these Milwaukee socialists,
they were good governors.
And they introduced things like unit cost accounting,
the first inventories,
line item budgeting.
- [Narrator] By the early 1910s,
American socialism was rising fast.
And Milwaukee was ground zero.
After Emil Seidel won City Hall,
he worked to quell fears he was a revolutionary.
Like the other Milwaukee socialists,
Seidel's goal wasn't a quest for raw power.
Instead, his focus was using
the existing tools of government
to improve the daily lives of working people.
- The Milwaukee socialists existed in a time
where they believed it was quite possible
to perfect a city, a state, a nation, the world.
This was a very, very radical vision.
- [Narrator] The arts, recreation and education
were just as important to the socialists
as healthcare and worker's pay.
As evidence, Seidel's top assistant
wasn't a political operative,
rather he was a poet, Carl Sandburg,
who would later win three Pulitzer Prizes
for his writing.
- But he becomes Emil Seidel's personal secretary.
So kind of his left-hand man is how I described it.
- [Narrator] Emil Seidel's win was deeply embarrassing
for both Democrats and Republicans.
And so they joined forces
crafting an unprecedented backroom deal
to oust the Socialist mayor.
A single candidate would be endorsed
by both Democrats and Republicans.
The tactic worked.
Seidel lost, but America's socialist experiment
was far from over.
(whistle blowing)
The massive factories of the American heartland
created jobs and injuries.
Workers in places like Pittsburgh,
St. Louis and Chicago had little recourse
when hurt on the job.
- You had a lot of ethnic people working in these factories
in very challenging situations and environment.
They'd get injured and then they'd have job loss
and couldn't support their families.
- If you were injured on the job,
you were out of luck.
If you died on the job,
that's why there were orphanages back in those years.
- [Narrator] In 1911, Milwaukee's newly elected socialist
city attorney enters the story.
Authoring the nations first workman's compensation law,
which was then implemented in Wisconsin.
The city attorney's name was Daniel Hoan.
- He came to public office with the notion
that the government has a role, perhaps,
in helping people when times are tough.
That wasn't know before.
It was really a radical idea in America,
that the role of government should somehow intervene
in the lives of citizens when things are tough,
whether it's healthcare or unemployment.
The Supreme Court would always knock those things down.
It was just survival of the fittest.
- [Narrator] Factory owners hoped the Supreme Court
would, once again, rule against a governmental role
in worker safety.
- The issue at the time was,
well if you're injured on the job,
you know, you got your hand cut off,
who's fault is it?
And there was an old common law notion
of the fellow servant rule
that basically said, it's your fault.
You shouldn't have put your hands in the machine
if you will.
And it led, of course, to
the almost instant impoverishment of a family.
- [Narrator] The US Supreme Court changed all that
when it ruled in favor of the Wisconsin law.
And workmen's compensation became standard across the US.
The workman's compensation law
elevated Daniel Hoan's reputation as a socialist.
Leading to his election as mayor of Milwaukee in 1916.
Hoan continued to advocate for worker's rights
as his socialist predecessor had.
Pressing for an eight hour work day
and a higher minimum wage.
At the time, Hoan's measures were decried by many
as radical, even un-American.
Today they are commonplace.
- So when we talk about workman's compensation
or a eight hour work day
or Social Security or even Medicare,
those were ideas that were put forth by the socialists.
- [Narrator] A strict definition of socialism
requires government ownership of factories.
But in Milwaukee, that was not the endgame.
Here, socialists felt they could accomplish their goals
working with big business.
- You had the civic socialism,
which was good, efficient government, creation of community,
but then you also had a very vibrant capitalist sector here.
- [Narrator] By working with capitalists,
the socialists in Milwaukee continued
to advance their worldview.
A view that extended far beyond the workplace.
In the early 1900s this public lakefront didn't exist.
The ultra-wealthy owned much of the land
along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
The poorer classes were shut out.
Once elected, the socialists saw a solution.
They ramped up dredging and filling efforts
to build a new lakefront.
Creating acres of beaches and parks
for the working classes to enjoy.
- Socialists said, we don't want to see
rich people building their houses right down there.
We want to have an open lakefront.
- My grandfather took me to the lakefront
when I'm only 10 years old and says,
"This lakefront belongs to the people."
- [Narrator] This massive infrastructure project
can today accommodate hundreds of thousands
on a warm summer day.
- Most of Milwaukee's lakefront is in the public domain.
Other places in the country it's sort of high-end housing
or high-volume expressways, in Milwaukee it's park land.
- [Narrator] The lakefront project was just one step
in a larger socialist plan
to address a new concept
in the lives of working people, leisure.
With the move toward an eight hour work day
and two day weekend, workers would have more time to relax.
And the socialists were determined to provide
wholesome activities to fill that time.
Socialists working in both the city of Milwaukee
and Milwaukee County, developed one of the largest
park systems in the nation.
- I think the reason why we have a lot of parks,
the reason why we had social centers in all of those,
I think reflected that socialist view of community.
- So the whole idea was to have these parks
as lungs of the city and a respite
from the chaos and grime of industrial Milwaukee.
Milwaukee County has 15,000 acres of public green space.
That is five times per capita more than Chicago has.
- [Narrator] Today, Americans take for granted
that their city's parks department also included
organized recreation.
(players yelling)
But the idea of a robust recreation department
can be traced back to this woman.
(bouncing piano music)
Dorothy Enderis became the nation's first
municipal director of recreation in 1920.
Under a socialist government,
she spearheaded an endless list of activities
to meet the needs of nearly every citizen.
- She had a great line, often repeated,
"During our work days we make a living,
"in our leisure we make a life."
- [Narrator] In addition to competitive sports
there were singing clubs, drama productions,
lectures and dancing.
More practical activities included English classes
and work skills for the unemployed.
- Every school during the Summer that had a playground,
you had people working on the playground
with recreation for kids.
That's what I did.
I was the director of a playground.
I didn't realize that that was the result
of a certain political economic philosophy
that was driving the decisions
that were being made for the city.
I didn't realize that until much, much later on.
- [Narrator] Dorothy Enderis's drive
for organized recreation grew out of a larger socialist idea
that government should serve the whole person
providing a platform for a range of cultural activities.
- They like that sort of a communal place
where they could be.
Where in fact they saw themselves as part of a community.
And I think that's what this specific kind
of German socialism meant.
- [Narrator] Opportunities to share music, food,
and beer were baked into the socialist view of a good life.
Today Milwaukee is home
to the world's largest music festival.
An idea that grew out of the socialist view
that government should play a role
even in the leisure side of life.
- The City of Festivals tradition, in some sense,
goes back into the sort of same notion
that ordinary people should be able to have fun.
(laughing) And drink.
- The socialist movement in Milwaukee
wasn't so much about ideology,
it was about playgrounds and music and art and fun
and a good life and a chance for happiness for all of us.
- [Narrator] Because Milwaukee's socialists
believed government should play a role
in providing recreation, they supported public financing
for a new baseball stadium.
Even though Milwaukee didn't have a Major League team.
After County Stadium was built,
the Boston Braves were lured to Milwaukee.
- [Announcer] The Governor of Wisconsin,
the Honorable Walter J. Kohler throws out the first ball.
- [Narrator] Eventually winning the 1957 World Series.
Mayor Frank Zeidler called the Braves arrival
a means of letting people know we exist.
City and county officials worked with business leaders
who had led the push for a new stadium.
A bold bet on the future.
- Because it showed what leadership can do.
And because they did it,
a number of things happened.
Number one, they probly saved the Green Bay Packers.
- [Announcer] Don scampers for a score
on a 55 yard maneuver.
- [Narrator] That's because in addition to baseball,
Milwaukee County Stadium hosted several
Green Bay Packers football games each year.
At the time the team was in dire financial straits
playing in a small outdated stadium in Green Bay.
There was talk the Packers might leave.
Even move to Milwaukee.
County Stadium gave the Packers time and motivation
to build a new home, Lambeau Field.
- [Announcer] Billy Howton has it in the far corner
and the Packers have the lead.
(cheerful string music)
- [Narrator] Today, home builders can make a nice profit
from big, upscale homes.
But smaller homes are not nearly as lucrative.
So there is little incentive to build housing
for people of lesser means.
And this isn't a new problem.
(somber music)
In 1920, Milwaukee was the
second most densely populated city
in America after New York.
Waves of new immigrants here were pressed
into decrepit tenement housing.
Socialist leaders saw a solution,
single family homes, each with its own small plot of land.
A more healthy environment for workers' families.
But builders weren't interested.
So Milwaukee's socialist government stepped in.
Creating the nation's first municipal public housing project
in 1921 called Garden Homes.
When construction started on 105 houses,
there were 700 applicants.
The dream of an idyllic community of low-cost homes
fueled tremendous optimism.
- This cooperative that would own these houses in common
and you wouldn't pay rent, you'd pay money
into this cooperative association.
So it was kind of the socialist model
made tangible on the small scale,
the small residential scale.
- [Narrator] But because the families
would not own their home until after a 20 year period,
many were leery of making improvements.
- And the people that lived there said,
I think we'll opt out of the coop
and we want these on our own.
We want to own these privately.
- [Narrator] Cost overruns were also a problem.
This template of an idea was not repeated.
- And when you isolate poor people
a couple of things happen.
One is, poor people have a lot of problems
driven by the fact they don't have money.
And secondly, when you concentrate them,
you pretty much eliminate political support
for what they want.
- [Narrator] Despite the challenges
of this public housing project,
socialists were undaunted in their quest
to bring a more healthy living environment
to Milwaukee's workers.
A later public housing project called Hillside
faced opposition because most of the residents
were African American.
- I don't remember very many white people in Hillside.
People wanted to live in the projects
because it was new, it was like great living
as far as I was concerned.
- [Narrator] Socialist mayor Frank Zeidler
ignored the criticism ensuring he was photographed
with new residence of the city's public housing projects.
Building sewers was just one step
in the socialist quest for improving the health
of the city's residents.
- People are burning coal for everything.
The women would not put wash on their line on Monday
because if the wind blew from the South,
it would come out gray or black.
So these large families living in close quarters
just sweating in the late Summers.
- [Narrator] The socialists built natatoria,
but recreation was only a secondary function.
The main purpose of these facilities
was to give people an opportunity to bathe.
Because in the early 1900s, most working people
did not have running water in their homes.
- Places where you could go swim,
and this was a big thing in Milwaukee
where people would go and they would swim naked.
I don't know when that stopped,
but this was a Milwaukee thing, believe it or not.
You imagine these old German factory workers going out
and they would go to the natatoria,
but this was kind of that socialist sort or thing.
- [Narrator] The socialist's aggressive
vaccination program in the 1920s led to a doubling
of life expectancy in the city by the early 1930s.
- So you have these appalling rates of child mortality.
During those years about 60% of the funerals
were for a child.
So this was hard living in Milwaukee.
And not just Milwaukee, this is kind of the state of affairs
in urban America.
- [Narrator] The campaign to reduce infant mortality
quickly brought about the lowest rates in the country.
And the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic
had a much smaller impact on Milwaukee than other cities
thanks to a powerful health department that effectively
shut down public gathering places.
Milwaukee eventually won so many
national public health awards
it was exempted from the competition
so that other American cities would have a chance.
- Milwaukee becomes a paragon of civic virtue.
And we won award after award
as the safest, healthiest and cleanest big city in America.
- [Narrator] The successful innovations
of the Milwaukee socialists
did not go unnoticed across the nation.
What came to be called the Milwaukee experiment
was closely watched by friends and foes.
But attempts to replicate this brand of socialism elsewhere
were not successful.
Largely because Milwaukee's back story
brought together a unique set of factors.
- What happened in Milwaukee is partially because
it was a heavily immigrant population
from Central Europe, mostly Germans initially,
that they brought with them political traditions
that were bubbling up in Europe at the time,
and socialism was one of them.
- [Narrator] In the decades following
the American Revolution, the countryside of Europe
became increasingly unsettled.
Commoners longed for American styled freedoms,
but the aristocracy resisted.
This all came to a head in 1848 when a series of protests
were crushed in the German territories.
The intellectuals behind the protest movement
escaped to America.
Because they were mostly German,
they came by ship to the place with the largest number
of German immigrants, Wisconsin.
Unlike the previous wave of German farmers,
the 48ers as they were known,
were writers, artists, teachers and lawyers.
- These were idealists,
but they were also politicians.
And they loved politics.
And they believed that they could win elected office,
and in fact, they did.
- [Narrator] Over time, the 48ers
in the growing city of Milwaukee gained influence.
Fueling their popularity was their concern
for the problems of the lower classes.
Poor working conditions, rampant disease,
squalid housing, and an utterly corrupt city government.
The issues they championed
finally reached a critical mass in 1910
with the election of Emil Seidel
as Milwaukee's first socialist mayor.
But the real power behind the movement was not Seidel.
It was Victor Berger.
Victor Berger was a founding member
of the Socialist Party in America
and the very first socialist elected to congress.
As the de facto leader of the Milwaukee socialists,
Berger spent much of his career
fighting the more radical wing
of the National Socialist Party.
Some of whom advocated violent change.
Berger always saw socialism coming incrementally
through the existing political process.
- He was not only a very pragmatic politician,
but he was a masterful tactician.
He could be prickly.
He could be egotistical,
but he was certainly,
he was kind of the Moses
that led Milwaukee socialism into the promised land.
- [Narrator] Early on, Berger and the Milwaukee socialists
came to understand that a government takeover
of big business was not going to happen.
So they made a key pivot.
Refocusing on using government to help people
within a capitalist system.
- They were smart to abandon the theory of socialism
that there should be government ownership
of private industry.
They got that right.
They just said, it ain't workin' so let's back off.
- [Narrator] In retrospect, some of Victor Berger's policies
seem remarkably tame.
He advocated for a government program of old-age pensions.
Considered outlandish at the time, but eventually passed
under a different name, Social Security.
Not all of Berger's ideas were so readily adopted.
For example, he advocated abolishing the US Senate.
The beginning of Berger's downfall was World War I.
It was not a good time to be of German heritage in America.
Once America entered the war,
Germans were considered the enemy.
And German Americans were viewed with suspicion.
Especially since most still spoke in their native tongue.
- World War I was this great divisive moment
in American politics.
- [Narrator] Declassified FBI documents
show that US government agents
surreptitiously attended church services in Wisconsin
looking for any pro German messages in the sermons
and threatening to jail the offending pastors.
But spies weren't needed to determine
if Victor Berger was opposed to the war.
He put up posters all over Milwaukee saying,
"War is hell caused by capitalism.
"Socialists demand peace."
By 1918, Berger's anti-war stance
led to charges he had violated the new Espionage Act.
The judge in Berger's case
was Kennesaw Mountain Landis,
who would later become the commissioner of baseball.
- He had been a federal judge in Georgia,
was one of the great autocratic personalities of all time.
Got away with it for awhile.
He was an interesting guy.
- [Narrator] Landis sentenced Berger to 20 years in prison.
Stating afterwards that the law did not permit him
to have Berger lined up against a wall and shot.
Berger's crime, running an anti-war newspaper.
- Victor Berger is arrested, tried and convicted,
the Espionage Act, of using his paper,
The Milwaukee Leader, to espouse anti-war views.
Milwaukee elected him anyway.
He went back to Congress.
Congress wouldn't seat him.
- [Narrator] A new elect was held
and Berger, now in prison, won again.
In fact, voters returned Berger
to the US House of Representatives
in three consecutive elections.
The US Supreme Court eventually heard the case
and overturned his conviction.
The socialists had learned their lesson.
And the second socialist mayor of Milwaukee,
Daniel Hoan, would not be so confrontational.
(crowd jeering)
1886.
(bomb exploding)
A bomb goes off in Chicago's Haymarket Square
killing a policeman.
Albert Parsons, a famous socialist, is implicated.
He escapes to rural Wisconsin and hides out in a barn.
The following morning a young boy named Daniel Hoan
goes out to the barn alone
and sees a man hiding in the corner.
- So Parsons ends up on their front doorstep.
And of course, Illinois puts out
a reward for $10,000 for Parsons.
They want him back and they want to hang him.
- [Narrator] Parsons has come to the Hoan farm
because Daniel Hoan's father was sympathetic
to the socialist cause.
The family hides Parsons for a time,
but eventually he returns to Chicago.
- Parsons gave himself up
and stood in solidarity with his fellow defendants
and was hanged.
He might have applied for a commuted sentence,
but chose not to because it would have been
an admission of guilt and he thought he was innocent.
- [Narrator] The episode had a huge impact on Daniel Hoan,
cementing his quest for justice
and his support for socialist ideals.
(typwriter clicking)
After Hoan wrote the nation's first
workman's compensation law,
he was elected mayor of Milwaukee in 1916.
He would server for the next 24 years.
The longest socialist administration in US history.
Time magazine put him on the cover.
- Milwaukee, again and again,
was rated as one of the most financially sound
cities in the country.
So here you had socialists running the city
that kept topping the lists as being best run.
- [Narrator] Daniel Hoan had no interest
in touting his celebrity.
He preferred to talk about results,
often citing how his administration
significantly lowered the cost of garbage collection.
- It is quintessentially Milwaukee
to say, "I'm gonna run to lower the price
"of collecting garbage."
That is almost the essence
of what Milwaukee socialism would be about.
Not that we are going to transform Milwaukee
into a worker's paradise,
but we're gonna make it cheaper to collect your garbage.
- [Narrator] Hoan liked to brag
that smallpox vaccinations,
which were $3 from a private doctor,
cost the city only seven cents to administer.
He was convinced that the city could provide
a wide range of services cheaper than any private company.
Hoan was particularly irked
by the private streetcar company,
which he thought was gouging the citizens of his city.
- Public transit was, in the days before automobiles,
it was a public necessity.
And you have this New York company,
The North American company,
they're the ones who are making the profits.
And Dan Hoan, like all socialists,
believed the profits should stay here
and that people who supported that system should own it.
- [Narrator] Dan Hoan never had the opportunity
to take over the transit system.
But he did venture into the grocery business
when during World War I,
profiteers drove up the cost of food.
Hoan authorized the city to buy boxcars of canned goods,
fish and produce to be sold to the public at deep discounts.
Hoan didn't overspend on his ambitious projects.
He considered fiscal responsibility to be a centerpiece
of effective socialism.
During his tenure the city did not run budget deficits.
(upbeat music)
On occasion, Hoan's more idealistic side became visible.
When the King and Queen of Belgium
planned a visit to Milwaukee, Hoan blocked the trip.
His sole reason, monarchs represent
everything socialists despise.
Hoan could not bring himself to welcome any aristocrat.
- So a royal visit to Milwaukee
was considered quite something.
Except by Dan Hoan, who when he was invited
to come and greet the King, sent back a message
that was essentially, I don't greet kings.
- [Narrator] His official statement read,
"I stand for the man who works.
"To hell with kings."
- So Dan Hoan writes the Belgian ambassador to say,
"I mean no disrespect to the king,
"but as far as I'm concerned, to hell with kings,
"I'm for the man who works."
Whoa, front page of the New York Times,
there's a crazy man in Milwaukee.
- [Narrator] A much more serious test came
when the Ku Klux Klan tried to establish
a beach head in Milwaukee in the 1920s.
While Democrats and Republicans did little,
Hoan harassed the Klan relentlessly,
eventually driving them out of town.
- And he made it clear,
they weren't welcome in Milwaukee.
They can get out of town fast.
And then he spoke positively
about these communities that they targeted.
- [Narrator] Efficient frugal government
doesn't make headlines.
And over time, Daniel Hoan
began to seem stodgy, even boring.
He was vulnerable to a more exciting competitor.
And that's exactly what he got in 1940
when Carl Zeidler, who was not a socialist, ran for mayor.
- Carl Zeidler was the first of the modern campaigners.
A blonde, baritone and someone who would walk into a rally
with a girl on each arm and sing,
"God Bless America."
- [Narrator] In his campaign to unseat Hoan,
Carl Zeidler didn't talk about his political philosophy.
Instead, he put on a well-orchestrated show.
His events included a five piece band,
a giant American flag and glamorous women
handing out literature.
Zeidler's team even invented the balloon drop,
which is now a staple of political rallies.
- He was the singing mayor of Milwaukee
and he was a very charismatic figure.
- Uncle Carl was tall and blonde and athletic
and had a terrific singing voice
and extremely gregarious.
- He was drop dead gorgeous.
He was young and he could sing beautifully.
He could sing, "God Bless America"
and he would run around the city
singing to all these groups.
Dan Hoan never took him seriously.
♪God bless America ♪
♪ My home sweet home ♪
- [Narrator] Carl Zeidler defeated Dan Hoan
and became mayor in 1940.
But shortly after, Zeidler volunteered
to serve in the war effort and was lost at sea.
A few years after Carl Zeidler died,
his younger brother Frank decided he wanted to be mayor,
but Frank was a socialist.
And it wasn't easy to get elected as a socialist in 1948.
Even in Milwaukee.
With America now in the cold war,
many saw socialists as the equivalent of communists.
And communists were America's greatest perceived threat.
This widely published photo
turned the tide in favor of Frank Zeidler
showing his gentler, unassuming family side.
- It was an image of a Milwaukee family
that people could empathize with.
It was not a scary socialist.
And it was really difficult
for anybody to think that was a very threatening man
or a very threatening family when they saw that.
It was very ordinary.
Just a very comfortable person,
which my father was.
- There would nothing that looked totalitarian
about Frank Zeidler.
He rode the bus.
- He was so not a politician,
but he was probly one of the best ones I'd ever known.
- [Narrator] Part of the reason for Frank Zeidler's win
has been credited to the popularity of his war hero brother.
But Frank never shied away from his socialist views.
- My father was a very good politician.
And he knew how to run a campaign.
He believed that people coming together, working together,
would produce much better outcomes than everybody
just individually striving for their own selfish interests.
- [Narrator] The issues socialists championed
in the 1940s and 50s
were far different from their predecessors.
For starters, there were these, freeways.
Frank Zeidler originally loved freeways
calling them citizen highways.
As the latest in a line of efficiency minded socialists,
Zeidler saw freeways as a way to reduce congestion
and a faster, better way to get workers from place to place.
But then Milwaukee actually built its first freeway
and everything changed.
- Those neighborhoods were gorgeous.
Beautiful parks, beautiful homes,
and then all of a sudden the freeway starts in.
Houses started dropping.
- Zeidler's attitudes towards freeways
changed very quickly when he saw what happened
with stadium north, which was the first freeway
built in Milwaukee.
And the net result was it diminished property values,
ruined Washington Park, which had been
the busiest park in the city.
You know, cost the city tons of property value.
It was just insane.
- The expressways became highways to take wealth
out of the community, rather than to sustain the community.
- [Narrator] Zeidler's focus on efficiency
led to his greatest quest in office,
annexing suburbs into the city of Milwaukee.
Zeidler was outspoken, in his view,
that suburbs were sucking
badly needed resources from the city,
but not paying a fair share of taxes.
- He really felt that this was one community.
And to have many different little local governments
competing for resources was not the best way
to serve the people of this community.
- They would consider suburbs
kind of incorporated selfishness.
So Frank would say that, we'll work with them,
but don't acknowledge their right to exist, basically.
- So many of those business interest people
lived in the suburbs and they were protecting
their lower tax rate,
and so they were opposed to many of his policies
that would have disrupted that.
- [Narrator] Zeidler was unrelenting
in gobbling up neighboring communities.
Often using Milwaukee's access to Lake Michigan water
as hostage in the negotiation.
It worked.
Milwaukee doubled in size during his term.
The larger footprint led to economies of scale,
which helped Zeidler continue the socialist tradition
of balanced budgets.
He was able to pay for his socialist agenda.
- In the middle of Zeidler's first term,
US Senator Joe McCarthy began a campaign
to root out communists in government.
The nation's leading anti-communist
and leading socialist hailed from the same state,
but they didn't attack each other.
Zeidler believed McCarthy's combative behavior
was influenced by the senator's drinking.
- My father said he thought he was in over his head.
And he was in over his head partly due to his,
basically alcoholism.
And so even when there was a person
doing some pretty evil things,
my father tried to look for the humanity.
- [Narrator] Earlier in his career,
Joe McCarthy was a New Deal Democrat
who played poker with his left leaning buddies.
Now the Wisconsin senator was at the center
of the nation's anti-communist fervor.
McCarthy's red scare quickly gained traction nationally.
But in Milwaukee, the story played out differently.
At the height of McCarthyism, in 1952,
the citizens of Milwaukee re-elected
their socialist mayor, Frank Zeidler
to a second term in office.
- I think it was like the old reliable slippers
you had in the closet.
It wasn't coming to take away your stuff,
it wasn't going to nationalize your business,
it wasn't going to tell you where you had to live,
but it was going to provide those needed public services.
So it never had that visceral reaction
that I think some people had.
- [Narrator] Frank Zeidler was a strong advocate
of civil rights a decade ahead
of many other Northern mayors.
During his tenure,
the city's African American population tripled
and Zeidler embraced the new Milwaukeeans.
It was a sharp turn from the position
of socialist leader Victor Berger,
who 50 years earlier was outspoken in his claim
that African Americans were inferior to whites.
Zeidler repudiated that racism
living in a modest home
in an increasingly black neighborhood.
- I can see him in my head
and I see his hat and the coat and everything,
but he was just a very humble person.
I think the whole family was like that.
Just wanting to be helpful, wanting to be a part of,
wanting to educate.
- [Narrator] Zeidler's advocacy of civil rights
made him a target.
Especially in the 1956 campaign.
- The real estate industry was redlining districts,
keeping African Americans out of certain neighborhoods.
My father fought that.
He did not think that was right.
- [Narrator] Critics falsely claimed
that Zeidler had put up billboards in the American South
encouraging African Americans
to move to Milwaukee for free housing.
- That '56 campaign was an ugly campaign.
And there were efforts to divide the community
along issues of race.
- [Narrator] The escalated rhetoric
led to death threats against Zeidler
for his pro African American stance.
The stress took a toll on Zeidler's health.
He considered pulling out of the election.
But he was so incensed by the racism,
he stayed in and won.
- He was very fatigued.
He was very tired.
He would be so fatigued that
he was hospitalized once for it.
And I think it was definitely hard on him
to be judged unfairly.
So people can disagree with you,
but to say things that were basically
ignorant or untrue or unfair, it's hard to combat.
- [Narrator] The ugliness of the campaign
made national news.
Time Magazine called it, "The shame of Milwaukee."
Frank Zeidler served four more years
and then chose to retire at the age of 48
citing mental and physical strain of the office.
When he left office in 1960,
America's socialist experiment all but ended.
(somber piano music)
By the time Frank Zeidler left office,
the Socialist Party in Milwaukee
had long since lost its steam.
But many of its ideas, once considered radical,
were now embedded in mainstream American life.
Even socialist standard bearers like Daniel Hoan
had joined the Democratic Party.
- So the Democrats, under Roosevelt,
they co-opted the socialist platform,
socialist rhetoric, and the socialist base.
- Once the reforms begin to be successful,
the Republican and Democratic Parties pick them up.
So that the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal
incorporated, say, Unemployment Insurance,
which was passed in Wisconsin some years earlier.
- What they stood for had been accomplished
with the New Deal.
The Democrats literally absorbed so much
of what the socialists stood for and put it into law.
- When I would ask him,
"Why are you staying with this party?"
He would talk about the importance of third party movements.
And the importance to him was that they put out ideas
and platforms which then became picked up
by the major parties.
- And people like Roosevelt
owed so much of a debt of gratitude,
he would never say it publicly, obviously,
but they really needed that experimentation
to decide what they were gonna do in Washington.
- It seemed as if Roosevelt had succeeded
in moving the Democratic Party far enough left
that there wasn't a space for the socialists.
- [Narrator] The socialists had another problem.
Good government doesn't make good headlines.
And after a few decades,
the socialist's clean up of corruption
was a distant memory for voters.
- I think people got tired of the socialists.
I think after awhile they were boring.
- Milwaukee was ready for a modern type mayor.
As the generations moved into my generation,
I think the need for socialism was gone.
- [Narrator] In addition, the word socialism
was now being equated with Soviet-style communism.
At the 1956 National Socialist Party convention,
Frank Zeidler, a strong anti-communist
and a church-going Lutheran,
warned that McCarthyism and the red scare had taken a toll.
- I think people got scared.
All you have to do is tell somebody, that's the boogie man
and that's who they go for.
- Socialism and communism began to be seen
as foreign ideologies.
Again, the Milwaukee socialists
never had great love for the Communist Party of the US,
but that certainly tarred them badly.
- There was a blurring of the margins
where socialist, communist, you know,
throw 'em all in the same pot,
put 'em aside, don't need any of that.
- [Narrator] In years past,
Milwaukee's socialism had been custom built
for the waves of Germans immigrating to the city.
But now the newcomers were largely African American.
And party leaders struggled to connect
to this new population.
- It wasn't that the new migrants
were having trouble getting jobs.
They were having trouble getting good housing
and then having good schools for their kids.
But because the socialists didn't frame it
in terms of the race issue and the racism
that was embedded in the older white ethnic community,
essentially you get a silence.
- Like any political party,
I think they struggled with race and with gender.
And this was a party where white men
tended to be in the leadership.
- They did not succeed in translating
their deeply held philosophy of equality and egalitarianism
to the larger population.
- My father, at the end of his administration,
commissioned a report on what was called the inner core
to address the needs of the people and the families
and the employment situation
in the inner city that would alleviate some of this tension
and help people help themselves to a better life.
He was very disappointed that that report was shelved.
- For those of us who have resources,
clearly the world is better.
But there's still a significant number of people
who still don't have the resources that they need
to live a decent life in our city.
- [Narrator] Milwaukee's socialists
may have had unfinished business,
but they accomplished many of their goals.
They were efficient problem solving innovators.
- It was a certain scientific approach to government
that I think people wouldn't necessarily
associate with socialists, they would associate with
more of an entrepreneurial spirit now.
- So it was being just as enterprising as a capitalist,
but directing that energy to the common good,
to the public good.
- The whole nation embraced the fact that government
can be part of solving people's problems in life
and it's not unconstitutional,
it's what government actually should do.
- [Narrator] Milwaukee's socialists improved
the quality of life for city residents.
- I think that they were seeing into the future,
because we have things and amenities and attractions
that people don't have in other cities and towns.
One of the largest public park systems.
- When you invest in mass transit,
when you invest in education,
when you invest in parks and those kinds of things
you create a quality of life.
And I do think that that's essentially become
what a lot of successful urban areas have done.
They don't call it socialist,
but I think that a lot of it is that ethos.
- What we're talking about is continually
looking to improve the human condition
and the condition of individuals.
- [Narrator] During their tenure,
Milwaukee's socialists brought
honesty and integrity to city government.
- Milwaukee have had clean government
and I think that was the legacy of socialism.
- I think there's inspiration in the Milwaukee socialist
clean honest government.
Not a hint of corruption
form Frank or Dan Hoan or Emil Seidel.
That's what really distinguishes them.
- They governed very responsibly
and balanced their budgets and got awards
for doing a better job than most other cities.
- A sense that government, despite periodic failures,
is still all of us.
I think that is absolutely a legacy of Milwaukee socialism.
- [Narrator] In 1936, Mayor Daniel Hoan
published a book called,
"City Government: The Record of the Milwaukee Experiment."
It got the attention of one prominent reader in Washington
who wrote a letter to Hoan Praising the book.
"You have done a fine job and one of which I am proud,"
the letter said.
"It makes no difference if you call yourself
"Republican, Socialist, Democrat,
"you have contributed greatly to the theory
"and practice of local government."
The letter was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
(inspirational cello music)
Are there lessons to be learned
from America's socialist experiment?
Or was what happened in Milwaukee simply an outlier?
While Milwaukee's socialist leaders
had always been deeply committed
to the ideals of their cause,
the appeal to voters was not the socialist party itself.
Milwaukeeans were more impressed
by the socialist's squeaky clean reputation
for honesty and efficiency.
And the focus on practical issues
that mattered to working people
like better pay and improved living conditions.
And of course, sewers.
No one really thinks much about sewers, toilets
and clean water until they're not available.
But Milwaukee's socialists did.
(inspirational music)
(playful piano music)
- There is one place in America
where if you come and you walk the streets
and you talk to some older folks
and you look at the histories,
you can say socialism or a form of socialism
existed in the United States.
Democratic socialism, maybe social democracy,
however you want to describe it,
but it existed in the United States
and it generally got high marks.
- [Announcer] Major funding for
America's Socialist Experiment was provided by
(cheerful string music)
Brico Fund,
Madeleine and David Lubar,
Marianne and Sheldon Lubar,
Marquette University Law School
and by Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
And by Richard and Barbara Weiss Fund.
Additional funding by.
(cheerful string music)
For a full list of funders, visit aptonline.org.