Nelson's inspiration

Gaylord Nelson had a lifelong relationship with Madison's Capital Times. His parents, Polk County Progressives, subscribed when he was growing up. When he was in law school at the University of Wisconsin, one of the friends he made was Miles McMillin, later to be the editor of the Captital Times, and they remained close friends for four decades.

In Nelson's early days in politics, as a State Senate candidate in 1948, McMillin, then a Cap Times editorial writer, wrote many of Nelson's press releases, which got prominent play in the paper. On one occasion, the newspaper followed up with a critical editorial disagreeing with Nelson about a release he had issued, because legendary Cap Times Publisher William Evjue thought Nelson was wrong.

Nelson complained to McMillin. How could McMillin write an editorial criticizing him when McMillin had written the press release in the first place, Nelson asked.

"Well," McMillin explained, "the Capital Times attacked what you said. I didn't say it."

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In any event, here is today's Capital Times editorial, of which McMillin would have approved:

Nelson's Inspiration

Gaylord Nelson was the living link between the Wisconsin progressive movement of the first years of the 20th century and the progressive movement of today.

Through his 89 years, he maintained a faith in the promise of radical reform that he had learned as a youth in Clear Lake, Wis., where his father had been the local campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, the two La Follette sons and a host of progressives.

In one of his last written statements, published in The Capital Times barely two weeks before his death on Sunday, Nelson celebrated the 150th anniversary of Fighting Bob's birth with a warm recollection of how the La Follette tradition inspired his own commitment to public service.

"I never saw Fighting Bob, but one of my early memories is, at age 10, going with my dad to Amery to hear Young Bob give a whistle-stop speech from the back of a railroad car. Dad put me on his shoulders so I could see. I was quite impressed," wrote Nelson. "On the way home, my father asked me whether I thought I might like to go into politics someday. 'I would,' I told him, 'but I'm afraid by then that Bob La Follette may not have left any problems for me to solve.' "

Gaylord Nelson's father recalled the conversation when the younger Nelson was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1958. The elder Nelson asked, "Well, do you think Bob La Follette left enough problems for you to solve?"

Years later, Nelson allowed as how the La Follettes had left enough problems and added, "I did what I could to solve some of them."

To a greater extent than any Wisconsin political figure of the past half century, Nelson set out to address the most difficult challenges of the age.

Elected governor in the midst of a deep recession, Nelson restructured state tax policy so that Wisconsin could continue to be a progressive state: leading the nation in setting high education standards, providing quality social services and maintaining the infrastructure that allowed small farmers and business owners to prosper. But Nelson was just getting started.

It was as a Wisconsin senator, from 1963 to 1981, that he placed an indelible stamp on Wisconsin, the nation and the world. Much is made of the fact that Nelson was the founder of Earth Day and the most aggressive defender of the environment that Congress has seen. Surely, that will be his greatest legacy.

But it is important to remember that Nelson was, as well, the Senate's chief champion of pure food and drug protections. He was a fierce defender of civil rights and civil liberties who played a pivotal role in preventing Richard Nixon from packing the Supreme Court with Southern segregationists. And he was a courageous foe of the Vietnam War and U.S. military adventuring abroad.

Nothing sums up Nelson's commitment to the progressive ideal better than the fact that, when he left the Senate as the chamber's most popular member, he did not choose to become a corporate lobbyist. Instead, he went to work as a full-time environmentalist, aligning himself with the Wilderness Society and criticizing Democrats and Republicans who slipped in their commitment to protect the planet.

As such, Nelson carried the baton of Wisconsin progressivism - with its core value of putting principle above politics - into the 21st century.

He joked that "in the La Follette tradition, I also left some problems for my successors to solve." And that is surely true. But with his unwavering faith in the ability of people to set the politicians straight - which was so beautifully illustrated by the Earth Day initiative - he provided us with the model for tackling those problems.

We honor Gaylord Nelson's memory best by using that model to carry on with the progressive tradition that he so admired - and so truly embodied.