Henry Maier | |
|---|---|
 Maier, circa 1958 | |
| 42nd Mayor of Milwaukee | |
| In office April 18, 1960 – April 18, 1988 | |
| Preceded by | Frank Zeidler |
| Succeeded by | John Norquist |
| 24th President of theUnited States Conference of Mayors | |
| In office 1971–1972 | |
| Preceded by | James Tate |
| Succeeded by | Louie Welch |
| 39th President of theNational League of Cities | |
| In office 1965 | |
| Preceded by | John F. Collins |
| Succeeded by | Jerome Cavanagh |
| Member of theWisconsin Senate from the9th district | |
| In office January 1, 1951 – April 18, 1960 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Emmet Tehan |
| Succeeded by | Norman Sussman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Henry Walter David Nelke (1918-02-07)February 7, 1918 Dayton, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | July 17, 1994(1994-07-17) (aged 76) Delafield, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Education | University of Wisconsin, Madison (BA) University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (MA) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Navy |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Henry Walter Maier (February 7, 1918 – July 17, 1994) was anAmericanpolitician and the longest-servingmayor ofMilwaukee,Wisconsin, holding office from 1960 to 1988. ADemocrat, Maier was a powerful and controversial figure, presiding over an era of economic and political turbulence for the city of Milwaukee.
Maier was born Henry Walter David Nelke inDayton, Ohio. After his father died, he moved with his mother toSpringfield, Ohio to live with his maternal grandparents. He graduated fromSpringfield High School in 1936. When his mother moved to Milwaukee and married contractor Charles Maier, Nelke accompanied her.[1] He changed his name to Henry Walter Maier in 1938.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree[2] from theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison in 1940. That same year, he became involved in politics by supporting the1940 presidential candidacy ofRepublican nomineeWendell Wilkie.[1]
Maier served in theUnited States Navy duringWorld War II. He earned a master's degree fromUniversity of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.[2] He worked briefly as an agent in the insurance industry,[1][2] and taughtworkers' compensation and general liability insurance at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.[2]
In the late 1940s Maier politically affiliated himself with theDemocratic Party, and again became politically involved. In1948, he unsuccessfully ran formayor of Milwaukee, finishing sixth in the election,[1] being in the lower half of finishers in a crowded mayoral field that year.[3]
Maier was elected to theWisconsin State Senate in 1950 as a Democrat. While in the state senate, he was made his party'sfloor leader.[1]
In1956, he unsuccessfully ran forUnited States Senate.[1]
In1960, Maier was elected Milwaukee's mayor, defeating CongressmanHenry Reuss in a race to succeed the retiringFrank Zeidler[3] (who had been the last of Milwaukee'sSocialist mayors).
Maier remained in office for 28 years, being succeeded byJohn Norquist after retiring in 1988. He was the longest-serving mayor in Milwaukee history.
Maier was regarded to be a "technocrat", praised for his re-organization of city departments to improvegovernment efficiency. He was also noted for his success at attracting state and federal funding to the city. Criticism has been given to his handling of racial issues.[1] A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago ranked Maier as the fourteenth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.[4]
In its obituary for Maier, theChicago Tribune reflected, "Maier began his mayoral reign during a period of urban transition and turbulence. Milwaukee was spared neither."[5]
In 1987, local journalist Bruce Murphy characterized Maier as, "one of the first American politicians to call for a reordering of national priorities to confront urban problems."[6]
Across his seven successful mayoral elections, Maier averaged 70% of the vote. None of his re-elections saw his incumbency face a serious threat.[3]Maier won re-election to a second term in1964.
In1968, Maier was re-elected to his third term by the largest margin in the city's history.[1] He received 86% of the vote in 1968 and led in every ward of the city.[7]
Maier was further re-elected in1972,1976,1980, and1984. His 1984 re-election to a seventh consecutive term allowed him to surpass the record for longest Milwaukee mayoral tenure previously held byDaniel Hoan. By then, the 66-year-old Maier was also the "dean" (longest tenured) of incumbent big city mayors in the United States.[8] The longest-tenure incumbent mayor of any of the top 20 most populace United States cities, he had been in office eleven years longer than the next-longest tenured (Baltimore mayorWilliam Donald Schaefer).[9]
Maier's opposition to demands ofCivil Rights Movement organizers caused constant friction with his administration and Milwaukee's non-white residents.[10] Many of the civil rights protests in Milwaukee were headed by Rev.James Groppi, a Milwaukee-basedRoman Catholic priest. Maier and Groppi were lastingly at-odds, with Maiers 1990s autobiography exclaiming that he would have been sooner to forgive SenatorJoseph McCarthy for hisRed Scare hunts for communists than he would been willing to forgive Rev. Groppi for his actions.[5]
During his second term, the city saw the1967 Milwaukee riot, a response by the African-American community to a host of issues including housing discrimination andpolice brutality.[11][12] In response to the riot, Maier declared a state of emergency, enforced a curfew, and asked-in theNational Guard. While many residents offered plaudits for his handling of the riots (considering him to have acted decisively), many civil rights activists criticized his response and overall handling of racial matters.[1] Maier accused Rev. Groppi of inciting the 1967 riots, though Groppi refuted this.[5] In a 2017Milwaukee Magazine article, Matthew Prigge reflected on Maier,
His response to the civil disturbance of 1967 was heavy-handed and failed to fully recognize the plight of black Milwaukeeans. Indeed, his tin ear on racial issues would become the most glaringly negative aspect of his legacy – one he would try to dispute many times. He resisted passing an open housing ordinance, but did so in part because he wantedpublic housing projects to be located in thesuburbs, not just in the "poor man’s land, Polish land" of the city….He was [throughout his mayoralty] the champion of Milwaukee's mostly Polish and German middle class. While similar groups had fled other major cities in droves through the 1960s and 70s, Maier had fought to keep them in Milwaukee. The city saw a far less drastic population decline during his tenure than in mostrust belt metropolises. But Milwaukee would also emerge from this period as one of the nation's most segregated cities.[3]
Maier stood in opposition to the prospect of citywide legislation against housing racial housing discrimination. While he laid out a "39 Points" proposal to address racial inequity, it was broadly criticized as impractical. Maier insisted that state and federal solutions needed to be the source of racial problems, and that municipal reform could not resolve them.[1]
Maier re-organized city government departments in order to improve efficiency. Particularly notable was the merging of separate planning, housing, and redevelopment departments into a single Department of City Development. In 1966, Maier published a book titledChallenge to the Cities, which laid out his views on steps that urban leaders could take to improve their cities through practical budgeting and prioritization.[1]
A major advocate of increased federal and state funding for cities, Maier used some of the federal funding he was able to secure to establish newpublic housing for elderly residents.[5]
Maier called for the state of Wisconsin to reshape education funding so that state taxes would fund schools, rather than local property taxes.[13] This change did not materialize.
Across his mayoralty, Maier promoted efforts to revitalize the city's downtown, to bring increased tourism to the city, and to establish festival events in the city. Considered a "bombstic" showman, Maier often participated in festivals, even performing songs.[1]
Maier is credited as the "Father ofSummerfest", with the event being the culmination of his intense promotion of the idea of creating a major festival on the city's lakefront. The event was first hosted in 1968. For the event's second iteration, he wrote lyrics to theSummerfest Polka composition.[1] The mayor envisioned the festival as a global event that could use culture to heal the city's racial division. While it fell short of that lofty goal, the event has continued to be annually held and is perhaps the most visible legacy of his mayoralty.[3]
Maier's hands-on promotion of downtown development included theShops of Grand Avenue Mall. However, this mall never lived up to initial expectations, and quickly declined after its opening.[3]
In 1965, Maier served as president of theNational League of Cities.[1] In 1971 and 1972, Maier served as president of theUnited States Conference of Mayors.[14]
Circa 1970, Maier became the chief organizer of the newly-founded Wisconsin Alliance of Cities.[13]
In 2017, Prigge observed,
Maier took a modern approach to running the city, seeing the threat of suburbanization and the need for Milwaukee to remain a clean and well-managed place to live. But his "modern view" failed to change with the times.[3]
A March 1970 article inThe Christian Science Monitor opined that, "despite dissatisfaction among someliberals, the Mayor himself is considered one of the major liberal urban politicians in the United States."[7]
Maier faced a number of heavy criticisms for his personality and conduct, particularly during the later years of his mayoralty. In 2001, local journalist Mary Van de Kamp Nohl described Maier as having become "isolated and self-absorbed" by the end of his mayoralty. In a 1985 article, local journalist Charlie Sykes likened him to the character of Captain Queeg inThe Caine Mutiny, dubbing him "Mayor Queeg", remarking, "Such pathology…Such paranoiac bitterness…His power has long been essentially negative in nature."[6] In a 1986 article, Sykes criticized Maier for his refusal to be held accountable for problems in the city,
While most chief executives of city governments acknowledge at least some responsibility for basic urban problems, Maier has simply declared that as far as he is concerned, they are … not the responsibility of city government.…By defining his office out of existence, Maier has not only made himself uniquely qualified to fill it, but nigh on indispensable.[6]
In 2017, Prigge recalled that Maier,
Battled with…members of the press, governors, the common council, and nearly anyone with a platform who had unkind words for the mayor. Near the end of his term, he had become so isolated that one assemblyman called him "theHoward Hughes of City Hall."[3]
Maier's fighting with other politicians included long-lasting animosity with GovernorTony Earl.[5]
Maier long feuded with news media, which he distained and accused of having "kept the pot boiling".[1]
Maier was particularly quarrelsome with theMilwaukee Journal.[1] He accused the Milwaukee Journal of having a suburban-oriented view on municipal matters and being unfairly biased against him.[3] In 1974, his office took issue withTime magazine ranking the Milwaukee Journal as one of the nation's top ten newspapers, positing that the magazine's praise of the newspaper was due to undue criticism of him.[7] Weeks before leaving office, he personally purchased a half-page advertisement in theMilwaukee Sentinel in which he published an open-letter outlining his grievances with theMilwaukee Journal.[3]
Maier's combative attitude towards the press led Mikhail Taratuta (aSoviet Union-baseddisc jockey) to quip after meeting Maeir on a January 1987 visit to Milwaukee and hearing Maier complain of the local press, "he prefers our system [in the Soviet Union]." In September 1987, local journalist Buce Murphy wrote that, "if Maier felt he'd lost control of a reporter, he would harass him mercilessly."[6]
Believing himself to be too old (70-years-old) to seek another term in1988, Maeir retired.[15][16] At time of his retirement, he was the longest tenured major city mayor in U.S. history.[3][17]
In 1993, Maier published anautobiographical political memoir:The Mayor Who Made Milwaukee Famous. The title was an allusion to the advertising slogan of a Milwaukee brewery, and the book included an author's note that Maier had objected to the title and that it was used at the insistence of his publisher.[5]
In his later years, Maier resided inDelafield, Wisconsin.[5] Maier died ofpneumonia at age 76 at his home in Delafield.Henry Maier Festival Park, whereSummerfest is held, was named in his honor.[18]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromWisconsin (Class 3) 1956 | Succeeded by |
| Wisconsin Senate | ||
| Preceded by | Member of theWisconsin Senatefrom the9th district January 1, 1951 – April 1960 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Mayor of Milwaukee 1960–1988 | Succeeded by |
