Frederica Freyberg:

For the past century, the nation has been getting a steady stream of left-leaning news from a magazine called the Progressive founded 100 years ago. The April issue of this monthly magazine celebrates that milestone. It's known for passivism and strong opposition to the military interventions in World War I and the US-led invasion of Iraq. Based here in Madison, the Progressive also devotes coverage to civil rights, civil liberties and environmentalism. Here in our studio to discuss the anniversary and the magazine’s sometimes storied past is the current Progressive editor, Matthew Rothschild. Thanks very much for being here.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Thanks for having me on.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

When the magazine started out, it was called the La Follette Weekly, for its founder, Senator Robert La Follete. What was its original aim?

 

Matthew Rothschild:

The aim was not only to serve as an organ of the La Follette political ambition, but to stand for the values of progressivism. First and foremost for "Fighting" Bob La Follette was the struggle against corporate power. He said it was the struggle of the day and it will depend whether we end up being a democracy or not. Also in the first 11 years it was a suffragist magazine. It was very exciting to read the courageous stands by his wife, Belle Case La Follette, the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin law school here. She brought him along, I imagine. Here in 1912 here he is running for president as the only candidate who is unequivocally in support of suffrage. He says essentially there that those who are not for it today will regret it soon enough. In any event, they can't stop it from happening and he was prophetic there. Women's suffrage came about eight years later.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

Let's talk about some of the other issues that you have specified as key through Progressive's history and how the magazine helped shape that dialogue. Our next cover that you wanted us to talk about and we want to hear about is this one. Tell me the import of this.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Well, this is in December of 1962, in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the emancipation proclamation. The editor himself back then, he assigned incredible people to write for this issue. So in that issue you see Murray Kempton, Adlai Stevenson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. And probably the best thing the Progressive ever published was an article by James Baldwin. In this issue, a letter called "A Letter to My Nephew," where he's writing a letter to his namesake saying America wants you to perish. And it's just a really intense little piece of writing.  

 

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, we all learned about the H-bomb article in journalism school which resulted in the landmark first amendment case and a win for the Progressive magazine. But why did that article tell the secret of building an H-bomb and what did the landmark case mean for the first amendment?                              

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Well, it told the secret because there really wasn't a secret. The person who did the story was able to find out how an H-bomb works just through public sources and doing some interviewing. He made the point that any major industrial country that wants to build an H-bomb will know how to do it. That's not the secret. Furthermore, he wanted to abolish nuclear weapons as we all do at the Progressive. He said, look it, by stamping top secret on everything, we're not going to make anybody any safer. We need to get rid of nuclear weapons. This became a landmark case and we published the piece word for word.         

 

Frederica Freyberg:

They have also put up the cover from November 2002, which is Bush as Napoleon. Talk about this.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Well, this is when Bush was plotting to go to war against Iraq. We made the point in an editorial that he had more power than Napoleon, more power than Alexander the Great and no one was standing in his way. We talked about the blank check that congress was writing to George W. Bush so he could wake up any night or any morning after a bad night's sleep and say I want to go attack Iraq, Iraq's still an enemy and going to the UN doesn't do anything. That's exactly what he did. Any Democrat who voted for it knew full well what they were voting for. They were voting for war.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

They've put up another cover.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

This is "The Burning Truth in the South," by Martin Luther King, Jr., where he talks about the very exciting nonviolent civil disobedience that was happening in the south by young African-Americans who were engaging in civil disobedience. He was saying at that point this is going to be a movement that is going to change the face of America and it did.  

 

Frederica Freyberg:

Where will the Progressive be in 2109, 100 years from now?

 

Matthew Rothschild:

I think we're still going to be publishing in print. We'll have an online presence as we do now or there will be a different way to communicate to people. But I think people are always going to want something physical in their hands because there is something tactile and pleasing about it. But there's also something aesthetically pleasing about having a book in your hand. Magazines are going to be more like books. They're going to take a higher altitude look at the news and give us more meditative reflections on what's going on rather than what did Barack Obama say yesterday, whoever the president is, he or she, whatever they're saying at the press conference.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

And the Progressive 100 year issue is on newsstands now.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Yes. People can get it at the Progressive magazine.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

Thanks for joining us.

 

Matthew Rothschild:

Thanks so much.

 

Frederica Freyberg:

We wish you and the Progressive well in the next century. They have also published a book for its 100th anniversary called Democracy in Print, the Best of the Progressive. 

 

Frederica Freyberg:

Also this week, former congressman Mark Neumann plans to seek the Republican nomination for governor in 2010. He told the Wisconsin State Journal he intends to get into the race before October. His last political foray was in 1998 when he lost a close race to unseat Senator Russ Feingold. Republican Milwaukee county executive Scott Walker could announce his candidacy as early as Tuesday. Democratic governor Jim Doyle is expected to seek a third term. Now here's more evidence of tough economic times. About 500 people applied for jobs this week at a new restaurant in Wausau. Great Dane Pub and Brewing needs just 120 workers, with 80 of those being full-time. And the statewide unemployment rate now stands at 9.4 percent in March. That's the highest rate in 26 years and is equal to 290,000 people without a job.