The Rivals

Not since the Madison (Wis.) Democrat died in 1920 had the state capital boasted a morning newspaper of its own. But for 30 years, two papers had battled it out in the afternoon field. Last week Madison (pop. 67,500) learned, with mixed feelings, that it would get a morning paper and lose an afternoon one. The 110-year-old Wisconsin State Journal (circ. 36,000) was moving to the morning field,* leaving the Capital Times (circ. 41,000) to carry on loudly and lustily alone.

The Journal and the Times, which have had a single advertising department since 1934, had also decided to consolidate their management and production; both will print in the expanded Journal plant. The Times will drop its Sunday paper. But the editorial departments will remain separate and competitive. Rising costs and falling profits had dictated the monopolistic step to divide up the market.

Explained William Theodore ("Wild Bill") Evjue, editor of the Times and president of the new combined publishing company: "The plan . . . will give complete editorial independence to each news--paper, while providing the financial stability . . . necessary [to] a free and vigorous press."

No Sportsman. To most Wisconsin readers, free and vigorous Bill Evjue (pronounced Ev-you), 66, was the best guarantee that Madison's newspapers will stay that way. Born in Wisconsin of Norwegian stock and educated at the University of Wisconsin, Evjue became managing editor of the Journal at 29. In 1917, when the paper attacked the late great Senator Robert M. LaFollette for his pacifism, Evjue quit to found the Times. (He later edited LaFollette's Progressive on the side.) The Times has been expressing Evjue's strident personality ever since. From the start, Evjue faced a financial struggle that made him a penny-pinching editor. His circulation is now the state's largest, outside of Milwaukee, but even so, the Times netted only $45,925 in 1947. (The Journal's earnings: $38,279.) Evjue decides which stories to play, and personally covers important legislative hearings. His signed editorials, dictated in a hoarse hog-call, frequently run on Page One; the overflow of his opinions fills a column ("Hello, Wisconsin"). A teetotaler, Evjue is a tireless foe of liquor and gamblers. A deer lover, he won't let his copy desk use "sportsman" in hunting stories (in the Times, a hunter is a hunter).

No Quarter. Politicians and lobbyists are Evjue's prime targets. The Times keeps a detective's eye on all officials in the state, and regularly prints box scores of legislative votes. Evjue harried Republican Governor Julius Heil out of office in 1942 by publishing a daily record of his absenteeism ("He's In," "He's Out"). Wisconsin has even coined the word "ev-juing" to describe the whip-smarting way he lays into an errant governor, legislator or dogcatcher.

Last year Evjue intentionally violated a Wisconsin statute by printing the name of a rape victim in a murder case, because he considered the law ridiculous and unconstitutional. So far, the courts have backed him up. Taxpayer Evjue also frequently starts suits to stop state appropriations that Editor Evjue has attacked as wasteful. Wild Bill conscientiously frontpages every remark about himself in the legislature (even ill-tempered ones), and has been known to support a candidate who denounced him. A onetime Republican state legislator, Evjue now calls himself an "independent."

By contrast, Publisher Don Anderson, 48, and his Wisconsin State Journal staff seem conservative and colorless. They have done none too well in their recent fights with the Times; in the last election, six out of eight Evjue-backed candidates swept into office over the Journal slate. Last week, to prove that consolidation would not end their rivalry, the Journal and Times were wrangling again--this time about a name for the new elephant in the Vilas Park Zoo.

* Now served by the Chicago Tribune, the Milwaukee Sentinel.

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