All the Rage
Forty years ago this month, Madison was burningIn May 1970, Madison was a much smaller city but growing fast.
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As for the general mood of Madisonians, it was not a happy month. And it wasn’t just the riots, a continuation of ongoing campus and downtown disorders. Racial incidents in the schools led the Equal Opportunities Commission to issue a report on the “deep divisiveness†that had emerged.
The local economy suffered, especially on the east side, as workers from seven construction and trade unions endured their second month on strike. At the Gisholt factory, sagging sales led to the layoff of 150. A nationwide truckers’ strike left the Sears, Roebuck and Co. at the East Madison Shopping Center short of paint and supplies.
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The fire department was roiled, as a state hearing into the suspension of union president Charles Merkel turned into a union challenge to the competence of fire chief Ralph McGraw.
Relations between the liberal council and the conservative mayor William Dyke were frayed. Dyke denounced the council for its “gross waste of time†talking about Vietnam; the council killed Dyke’s resolution supporting U.S. Savings Bonds, because the bonds raised money for the war; rejected all the citizens he named to the Airport Commission; and refused to confirm an aldermanic appointment to the Board of Estimates.
And the worst was yet to come.
