The Legacy Of Milwaukee's Socialist Mayors

Entertainment

November 1, 2026
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206 words

November 1, 2026 / 9:58 AM EST / CBS News

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Public servants going into government to clean things up? Sounds cliché! But at the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that's job number one (and number two).

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As our guide Bill Graffin explains, this 101-year-old pioneering feat of engineering treats as much as 400 million gallons of wastewater each day.

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So, before the treatment center was built, how was water in Milwaukee treated? "It wasn't," Graffin replied.

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Kevin Shafer, executive director of Milwaukee's sewer system, explained: "All the sewage in the region went right to the rivers, which then went to Lake Michigan. And then we took our drinking water out of Lake Michigan."

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He said private industry could have built the sewage treatment system, "but that initial capital investment was huge. So, it really took a public tax base to pay for it."

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And that's just what happened in 1925 under the leadership of Milwaukee's Socialist mayor.

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In fact, Milwaukee was once the capital of American Socialism, and was the only major American city to elect three Socialist mayors. They collectively presided for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1910.

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So why, in Milwaukee of all places, did…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/