of law books, picking up the contracts of a Chicago firm after it suffered a fire, and making the paper for a time the largest publisher of law books in the country. The paper's presses were also used for much of the state government's printing. After Atwood's passing, the State Journal Printing Co. was formed as a stock company, with Horace A. “Hod" Taylor taking over the paper. Although he had managed newspapers in La Crosse and Hudson, WI and Stillwater, Minnesota he was not a journalist, but instead used the paper to further his strong political ambitions. Taylor ran for governor as a stalwart Republican in 1888, losing the nomination to William D. Hoard. He ran for governor again in 1894, but lost the nomination to William H. Upham. He later held a consularship in Marseilles, France, as well as an appointment as U.S. Railroad Commissioner. Becoming a progressive paper During the 1890s the paper's circulation began to catch up to its main rival, the Madison Democrat, due largely to the 1894 arrival of Yale-educated Amos Parker Wilder (father of playwright Thornton Wilder). Earning $30 a week as editor-in-chief, he later purchased a major interest in the paper. Wilder began to transform the State Journal into a more civic-minded newspaper, focusing on local problems but falling short of embarking on crusades. Originally a supporter of Governor Robert M. La Follette Sr. in 1900 and 1902, Wilder converted the paper's editorials to an anti-La Follette position for the price of $1,800, paid by a committee of seven Republican stalwarts fighting against La Follette's ultimately successful re-election in 1904. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Wilder U.S. consul to Hong Kong. In Wilder's absence he put his business manager August Roden in charge, a typesetter who had come up through the ranks as reporter and later associate editor. Roden adopted the aggressive brand of muckraking journalism common to periodicals at the start of the 20th century. His greatest triumph began in 1907 with his crusade against the high rates and poor quality of Madison Gas & Electric's service. Following an almost daily barrage of damaging stories about the private utility, the State Journal hired an attorney to lodge a formal complaint with the state commission in charge of regulating gas and electric companies. In 1910 the paper succeeded in getting the state to force a reduction in MG&E's rates by nearly