As stated before, working on community relations in Milwaukee and limiting the term of the police chief was a distraction for some of us at ABATE, but on the motorcycle home front, it was business as usual.
We were constantly monitoring the MORP funds for the off-road parks project. WBBA president Richard Smith received a letter from new governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus after Smith met with him in April, 1979, to discuss the governor’s 1979-81 biennial budget. Dreyfus suggested transferring the MORP funds due to the lack of development of a viable program. Smith, and DOT representative Bill Buglass, convinced Dreyfus to amend the budget bill with legislation, leaving the funds in place while the bikers, working with DNR or DOT, establish facilities to move forward with the off-road parks. Dreyfus warned that if the program did not become active, he would again move to redirect the funds already accumulated. Why wasn’t this program being embraced by the various counties in the state?
The media played a role in this, among other things going on at the time, to sway public opinion about MORP and bikers. The media influenced the public into seeing us as the stereotypical bikers portrayed in Hollywood.
We were also certain that NHTSA and others in government wanted us legislated off the roads completely. Way back in 1974, President Nixon signed the national 55 mph speed limit into law. This supposed fuel saving law was to be temporary, expiring in June, 1975. Of course, once passed into law, the DOT urged Congress to make the law permanent. In January, 1975, President Ford signed the 55 mph speed limit into law in passive consent. Afterward, there were a slew of regulations aimed at both cars and motorcycles, all in the name of safety. For cars it was seatbelts, shoulder harnesses, interlocks and 5 mph bumpers. Motorcyclists dealt with helmet laws, headlights-on, proposed Day-Glo vests, mandatory boots and leathers and more. Both groups also dealt with mandatory no-fault insurance, mandatory inspections, restrictive licensing, pollution controls and a host of other proposals. It seems there has been a concentrated effort over the years to break up the love relation people had with their vehicles. Why? The answer was a move toward subsidized government-controlled public transportation. Mass transit had a better chance of succeeding if cars and motorcycles became too expensive or troublesome to operate. Consider today’s push to eliminate vintage vehicles, the increased production of Ethanol fuels which harm older vehicles, and expansion of Amtrak and other rail proposals. At the time, we didn’t know about electric powered or autonomous vehicles.
There was also an effort to further portray motorcyclists as criminals. In Wisconsin, some disturbances at the Mole Lake music festival, which involved bikers, were blown out of proportion. ABATE was aware of these things and complained that the media was nit-picking details. In June, 1980, ABATE was contacted by the MDA in hopes of promoting a ride to Road America at Elkhart Lake. Pan and Rat were invited to dinner by an MDA rep to plan the ride, which would have participants pay a registration fee that would be donated completely to
MDA. Great plan for a worthy cause. ABATE Director Mark “Leggs” Birschbach and the Board of Directors gave the ok to the plan. Enter the media. Bikers couldn’t be portrayed as doing good after the media had painted a completely different picture. A barrage of barbed metaphors describing those on two or three wheels ensued, with most of the damage coming from the Sheboygan press, joined by the Milwaukee Sentinel. The Sentinel spear-headed an attack of self-indulgent, back-patting benevolence under the guise of representing the welfare of the general public. Referencing the Mole Lake incident, and an earlier mid-1960s chaotic race scene in Cedarburg, the papers were able to convince the public and businesses that everyone from Hells Angels to New York Mafioso were coming to Road America. We had expectations of 20,000 or more riders to participate in this fund raising endeavor. As it turned out, only a few thousand showed up, and of that number, only a small group actually paid registration and rode up from Milwaukee. We felt sorry for MDA, which was joined by Harley-Davidson, to promote the ride.
The Sheboygan Sheriff’s Department formed a special Tac-Squad to monitor us and protect everybody else. Who knows how much tax money was spent to train them in riot control for this event. At the starting point in Milwaukee, our small group was followed by several unmarked vans with darkened windows, and our photographs and license plate numbers were recorded. The event itself was great and we enjoyed watching the races throughout the day. It was so peaceful that many of the Sheriff deputies came back after they went off-duty, hanging out with us in plain clothes and drinking beer. Regardless of the peaceful atmosphere, the media had done its job of subverting another attempt by bikers to do good. Amid all of ABATE’s protests after the fact, both MDA and Harley-Davidson remained silent. Their reluctance to support ABATE and speak out, both during and after the event, led many of us to abandon any charitable endeavors for a long time, especially cynical of MDA for cowering to the press.
Another problem ABATE here and across the country was dealing with at the time was Resolution 220, authored by U.S. Representative Robert Walker (R-Pa). He was calling for a federal strike force to battle “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” According to Walker, 95% of all drug traffic was transported by outlaw motorcycle gangs. He further stated that 100% of all meth is made by, and transported by, outlaw motorcyclists. Can you believe that? Apparently, some of the learned scholars in Congress did. Walker also complained that he was being bombarded by the motorcycle press, as he expected he would be. What he didn’t expect was an editorial by Editor-In Chief of Forbes Magazine, Malcolm Forbes. Forbes called the resolution insidious in his May 26 column. Then, in a colorful sarcasm, he said, “And all along we’ve been thinking inflation was a major problem; that the U.S.S.R.’s takeover of Afghanistan and threat that the Mideast oil on which the Free World yet depends was a very grave concern. And all the time, the real threat is ‘outlaw motorcycle gangs,’ the definition of which apparently is to be left to any and all local, state or national officials.”
Yeah, that was funny stuff from Forbes, but the push to move against motorcycle clubs and label them as criminals wasn’t funny; it was real.
In Madison, Attorney General Bronson LaFollette urged the adoption of a new law to combat the evils of organized crime and racketeering in Wisconsin. More on that and how they attempted to sweep it in under the cover of obscurity in the next submission of our history.
Meanwhile, let’s end on a happy note. New in Wisconsin, a publication for bikers, by bikers, hit the scene. Tired of the media’s one-sided view of bikers, and not especially fond of the cliché style of many publications, a new hard-hitting newspaper was born out of the patriotic mind of Frank Seebantz, aka “Frog.” A member of the motorcycle club community for years, and staunch ABATE member, Frog promised a “no holds barred” and “pull no punches” publication that dared to go where others feared to tread. Printed bi-monthly during the summer by a few dedicated people, and distributed free, it soon became the most read biker rag in Wisconsin. It was called the Midwest Biker, with the subheading, The Motorcycle Enthusiast’s Newspaper. The small staff assembled at The First Impression in Green Bay to layout the design, paste-up the graphics by hand, the old fashioned way, position the articles and ads, and burn the plates. All material was gleaned from news around the country, and original pieces were written by a couple of regular biker dudes on staff (Frog and Pan). Distribution was mostly a one-man operation, with ABATE leader Leggs delivering the paper statewide. It was a labor of love, and for a short time, Midwest Biker served as the ABATE newsletter. Unfortunately, it came out during the terrible financial crisis that was hitting most of the motorcycle businesses and securing paid ads was growing more difficult each month. Unable to continue without sponsoring ads, the newspaper ended after a short run, but by all standards, it was the epitome of what a motorcycle magazine/newspaper was supposed to be.
