Wisconsin's common folk, with an air of affectionate proprietorship, called him "the old man." They liked to think of the big, rumpled man in the governor's chair, puffing his pipe, nibbling cheese, his voice rumbling, his massive head wagging like an amiable St. Bernard's. Some might disagree with his basically conservative Republicanism. But everyone agreed that Governor Walter Samuel Goodland was honest to the point of truculence. He was also, at 84, the oldest state governor in the nation's history.
As a newspaper editor, his masthead motto had been: "Independent in all things, neutral in none." When he became acting...
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