Welcome to the University of Wisconsin and the pages of The Badger Herald, America's largest independent student newspaper. As summer draws to a close, undoubtedly you're excited for a challenging semester at UW and all the things that come with it.
You'll experience the fifth quarter at Camp Randall, freezing treks up Bascom Hill and yearly traditions that never seem to end. You'll follow in the footsteps of countless alumni, maintaining and building on what has made Madison intoxicating, oftentimes quite literally, to generations of students and faculty since 1848.
But something's different about this year. This year, you've been chosen as one of a select few classes to play a very serious part in the future of one of our most sacred traditions: Halloween.
For the past four years, the annual Halloween celebration on State Street has ended with police intervention. Officers clad in riot gear have marched through the heart of Madison, dispensing tear gas in an effort to shut down post-bartime commotion.
The cause has remained an ambiguous combination of elements that somehow consistently come together at the celebration's close. Was it a group of out-of-state, underage, crack-addict reprobates looking to cause trouble? Were the police too quick on the draw? Either way, the result was the same year after year.
So, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (chess-LEV-itch) has taken measures to stir things up.
He's proposed a plan to fence off State Street and charge admission to the apparently city-sponsored, freshly "re-branded" event. And he's actually serious.
The proposal calls for adding even more police and private security to an already over-patrolled event, while simultaneously encouraging a vast crowd of drunken revelers into an unmonitored and potentially unpredictable area. Some hypothesize the masses will flow onto nearby Langdon Street, the evening ending almost inevitably in mass mayhem and smoldering wreckage, while others suggest things will dissolve quietly as crowds split up among surrounding neighborhoods and side streets.
But perhaps the most important factor in the outcome of Halloween isn't the plan at all.
When it comes down to it, no amount of planning or orange construction fencing can keep any group of people asking for a riot from starting one. The City of Madison can't prevent a group of hammered young people hell-bent on seeing pepper spray from getting it.
The past couple of years, and last year in particular, everyone on State Street Saturday night knew exactly what was coming. Hell, the party cost 600 large because everyone knew it. And, lo and behold, the crowd got gassed and people woke up Sunday morning with decidedly worse hangovers than usual.
So, perhaps what exactly happens to this Madison tradition is up to you. Maybe the solution is simply coming into the night with the right attitude and telling those miscreant friends of yours who will flood in from Midwest University to keep the cop taunts to a minimum.
Whatever the case, Halloween is one Madison tradition that's up for grabs this year. And now it's yours to hold on to.
Again, welcome to the University of Wisconsin. Keep an eye on The Badger Herald this year; we're excited to have you.
Taylor Hughes
Editor in Chief