The students were subdued with minimal force. The shabby old ROTC building, which was built to be carted to the South Pacific as a temporary World War II field hospital, burned itself out by 10:30 p.m. Commanders corrected their wind bearings and cleared out the mob with tear gas. The boldest protesters kept on hara.s.sing them, which didn"t take that much courage: after the disasters of the sixties urban riots, it had widely been reported that National Guard commanders only let their men carry rifles loaded with blanks. Before midnight, the adjutant called staff headquarters: "The situation at Kent is under control." Every riot had a moment like that: anxious authorities announcing the all-clear, the calm before the storm.
Sunday morning the rolling campus hills had the feel of a carnival. Children climbed around the tanks and helicopters; coeds struck up innocent flirtations with guardsmen; a private joked with a freshman, "Hang around, buddy. There"s a rumor that the state is going to cut our pay from $25 a day to $12.80. If they try that, Governor Rhodes will be calling you characters out to subdue us." The two kids struck up such a friendship that the student went off and bought him some oranges. The soldier said he couldn"t accept them. "Didn"t you hear what the girls did to us at Berkeley? Injected the d.a.m.ned fruit with acid, and you had guys all over the place going off on trips."
Governor Rhodes flew into town at 9 a.m. on a helicopter-there to look tough because the Republican primary was on Tuesday. He was running for Senate. His opponent, Robert Taft III, was running as a New Politics liberal calling for "irreversible" withdrawal from Vietnam. And Taft was ahead in the polls.
The governor met in Fire House No. 1 with the mayor, the National Guard commander, the federal district attorney, the district prosecutor, and the commander of the State Highway Patrol. Rhodes banned university officials from the meeting. He didn"t want any liberal administrators whimpering please. please.
Gruff, dough-faced Rhodes laid out the goal: keep the university open without any further demonstrations so as not to hand a victory to the "dissident element."
Someone knocked on the door: "The press is outside."
The governor invited them in. Then, he put on a show. Perhaps he recalled what a similar situation had done for the political career of Spiro Agnew in 1968.
"We have seen here in the City of Kent, especially, probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups and their allies in the state of Ohio. They make definite definite plans of burning! destroying! and throwing! rocks! at police! and at the National Guard! and the Highway! Patrol!" plans of burning! destroying! and throwing! rocks! at police! and at the National Guard! and the Highway! Patrol!"
He ground his fist into the table at each exclamation point.
"This is when we"re going to use every part of the law enforcement agency of Ohio to drive them out of Kent. We are going to eradicate eradicate the problem." the problem."
Pound.
"We"re not going to treat the symptoms. And these people just move from one campus to the other and terrorize terrorize the community. the community.
"They"re worse than the brownshirts and the Communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. They"re the worst type of people that we harbor in America. And I want to say this: they"re not going to take over a campus."
Radio stations broadcast and rebroadcast the tape. The goodwill drained from campus. A soft-spoken girl told an interviewer, "If the president thinks I"m a b.u.m and the governor thinks I"m a n.a.z.i, what does it matter how I act?" Rumors circulated amid mustering town vigilantes about which buildings were set to go up next. A National Guard colonel added his two cents: "We have men that are well trained. But they"re not trained to receive bricks. They won"t take it. The next phase that we have encountered elsewhere is where they start sniping. They can expect us to return fire."
Some guardsmen started removing their name patches because kids were looking up their numbers in the Akron phone book and hara.s.sing their wives: "Hey, you beautiful chick, who are you f.u.c.king now that your pig husband is here on the Kent campus?"
Night fell. Students gathered at the Victory Bell, though rallies were supposed to have been banned: "One, two, three, four! We don"t want your f.u.c.king war!"
"f.u.c.k you you! Ag-new!"
A jeep, a bullhorn: "You are breaking the law. You must disperse. If you continue to demonstrate, you will be arrested."
"f.u.c.k you, pig!"
Shortly before 8 p.m. a guardsman found two bottles of gasoline and a wick in the bushes by university police headquarters. Fifteen minutes after that, five gallons of gasoline were found on the roof of the administration building. After nine, radicals marched to the president"s house, surging past the dormitories: "Join us! Join us!" They were turned back by tear gas, and two hundred detached themselves to take Main Street. They were met by an armored personnel carrier. When it rumbled onto a side street, they cheered a tactical victory. They sat in the middle of a busy intersection. Helicopters flashed antiriot lights over rooftops, searching out snipers. At the street corner the cops handed over a car"s PA system to a student who seemed responsible. He turned out not to be so responsible. He claimed the police had told him they wouldn"t be arrested and that the National Guard was leaving campus. At eleven, the hour of a hastily called curfew, police started making arrests. The man with the microphone was delighted: "They"ve lied to us. We"ve been betrayed!" He had heightened the contradictions. Newly radicalized students rained down a barrage of rocks. Two students were gored by bayonets.
An Akron reporter asked a guardsman what would happen tomorrow. He replied, "There will not be any demonstrations on campus. Those are our orders."
Tomorrow: Monday. A school day.
President Nixon received an urgent open letter from thirty-seven college presidents warning of a new wave of campus demonstrations unless his efforts to end the war became credible. Nixon refused to meet with them.
On the Kent State campus there were bomb threats at fifteen-to-thirty-minute intervals. Eleven a.m. cla.s.ses were cut short; the commotion outside was too great. The university radio station and intercoms announced, "All outdoor demonstrations and gatherings are banned by order of the governor. The National Guard has the power of arrest." But when a cla.s.s session let out on a major university campus, it looked all the world like a "gathering." Only a fraction of students had heard the radio and intercom announcements anyway. University administrators could have told law enforcement that. But the governor had banned university administrators-quislings-from the operation"s planning.
Fifteen minutes to noon. Students made their way toward whatever it was they did on an ordinary Monday. A general saw what looked to him like a mob. Three minutes later, someone rang the Victory Bell and started rousing rabble for a noon rally. A minute after that, a campus police officer shouted the riot act into a bullhorn. He was standing by the ROTC rubble; now the military"s staging area, its ashes a constant reminder of what these students were capable of. Hardly anyone could hear the announcement.
A jeep made its way across the common: another hail of rocks.
At 11:55 guardsmen were ordered to load and lock their weapons and prepare to disperse gas. Two columns of troops moved out in a V, one directly east, another northeasterly. The eastbound company had to summit a steep hill south of Taylor Hall, a major campus building-the kind of slope, on college campuses, useful for wintertime sledding on cafeteria trays. As they trudged, they dispensed tear gas from their M79 canister guns. The boldest demonstrators picked up the hot metal cans and threw them back. Under suffocating gas masks, their visibility limited, the guardsmen pressed forward, determined to push the students into retreat. The militants hustled beside Taylor Hall for cover. The soldiers were unaware that they had only about a hundred yards to go before they would run into a fence. The fence curled around to keep them from moving east or north; a gymnasium kept them from moving south. They were trapped, with nothing to do but turn around-a retreat under fire, the most dangerous of military maneuvers. Sixty or seventy soldiers, trapped. What was it President Nixon had said about the "pitiful, helpless giant," faced with "the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy"?
Lots of roofs: from which one would the sniping begin?
They were afraid they were out of tear gas. Radicals who thought their adversaries only armed with blanks shrieked insults, threw rocks, waved strange flags. "Pigs off campus! Pigs off campus! Pigs off campus!" "Pigs off campus! Pigs off campus! Pigs off campus!" The guardsmen couldn"t tell, but felt like they must have been surrounded. The guardsmen couldn"t tell, but felt like they must have been surrounded.
They looped around for their humiliating return journey.
Then, at 12:24 p.m., several guardsmen stopped, turned almost completely around, dropped to one knee, and took aim at a cl.u.s.ter of students far away in a parking lot beyond the fence.
Sixty-seven shots in thirteen seconds.
Thirteen students down, mostly bystanders.
One was paralyzed. Four were killed: Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Jeff Miller, and Sandra Lee Scheuer, ages nineteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty. The a.s.sociated Press"s dispatch went out. The Dow dropped 3 percent in two hours-the most dramatic dip since John F. Kennedy"s a.s.sa.s.sination.
Two Students, Two Guardsmen Dead, the local paper reported. Those two students had it coming, much of Kent decided. the local paper reported. Those two students had it coming, much of Kent decided.
A respected lawyer told an Akron paper, "Frankly, if I"d been faced with the same situation and had a submachine gun...there probably would have been 140 of them dead." People expressed disappointment that the rabblerousing professors-the gurus-had escaped: "The only mistake they made was not to shoot all the students and then start in on the faculty."
When it was established that none of the four victims were guardsmen, citizens greeted each other by flashing four fingers in the air ("The score is four / And next time more"). The Kent paper printed pages of letters for weeks, a community purgation: "Hurray! I shout for G.o.d and Country, recourse to justice under law, fifes, drums, marshal music, parades, ice cream cones-America-support it or leave it." "Why do they allow these so-called educated punks, who apparently know only how to spell four-lettered words, to run loose on our campuses tearing down and destroying that which good men spent years building up?...Signed by one who was taught that "to educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."" "I extend appreciation and whole-hearted support of the Guard of every state for their fine efforts in protecting citizens like me and our property." "When is the long-suffering silent majority going to rise up?"
It was the advance guard of a national mood. A Gallup poll found 58 percent blamed the Kent students for their own deaths. Only 11 percent blamed the National Guard.
A rumor spread in Kent that Jeff Miller, whose head was blown off, was such a dirty hippie that they had to keep the ambulance door open on the way to the hospital for the smell. Another rumor was that five hundred Black Panthers were on their way from elsewhere in Ohio to lead a real real riot; and that Allison Krause was "the campus wh.o.r.e" and found with hand grenades on her. riot; and that Allison Krause was "the campus wh.o.r.e" and found with hand grenades on her.
Many recalled the State of Ohio"s original intention for the land upon which Kent State was built: a lunatic asylum. President White was flooded with letters saying it was his fault for letting Jerry Rubin speak on campus. Students started talking about the "Easy Rider syndrome," after the Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda movie about hippies murdered by vigilantes. Townspeople picketed memorial services. "The Kent State Four!" they chanted. "Should have studied more!" syndrome," after the Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda movie about hippies murdered by vigilantes. Townspeople picketed memorial services. "The Kent State Four!" they chanted. "Should have studied more!"
"Anyone who appears on the streets of a city like Kent with long hair, dirty clothes, or barefooted deserves to be shot," a Kent resident told a researcher.
"Have I your permission to quote that?"
"You sure do. It would have been better if the Guard had shot the whole lot of them that morning."
"But you had three sons there."
"If they didn"t do what the Guards told them, they should have been mowed down."
A letter to Life Life later that summer read, "It was a valuable object lesson to homegrown advocates of anarchy and revolution, regardless of age." later that summer read, "It was a valuable object lesson to homegrown advocates of anarchy and revolution, regardless of age."
Time had called the Silent Majority "not so much shrill as perplexed," possessed of "a civics-book sense of decency." Pity poor had called the Silent Majority "not so much shrill as perplexed," possessed of "a civics-book sense of decency." Pity poor Time, Time, whose America was but a memory. whose America was but a memory.
If much of nonstudent America decided the students had it coming, much of student America decided they might be next. At one school, students put up five grave markers: one for each Kent State corpse, one for the next student to fall.
Jane Fonda, the actress, had separated from her husband and was taking a Wanderjahr Wanderjahr around the United States. She had been agonizing about the war in Vietnam since 1967. Now she started speaking up. Prominent on her itinerary were college dorms and cafeterias and the new GI coffeehouses popping up near military bases, where she would informally rap. On Monday, May 4, when she showed up at the University of New Mexico, students convinced her to give her first formal speech. She was a bit baffled why so many students crowded the hall to hear her. Then she learned what had happened. The word around the United States. She had been agonizing about the war in Vietnam since 1967. Now she started speaking up. Prominent on her itinerary were college dorms and cafeterias and the new GI coffeehouses popping up near military bases, where she would informally rap. On Monday, May 4, when she showed up at the University of New Mexico, students convinced her to give her first formal speech. She was a bit baffled why so many students crowded the hall to hear her. Then she learned what had happened. The word Strike Strike was chalked on the blackboard behind her. She urged the students to defy the administration by keeping their protests peaceful and to support the growing GI antiwar movement. She shared with them what she had learned from GIs: that this was not the first incursion by American troops over the Cambodian border. The students who marched to the president"s house named their group They Shoot Students, Don"t They? after Fonda"s recent movie. was chalked on the blackboard behind her. She urged the students to defy the administration by keeping their protests peaceful and to support the growing GI antiwar movement. She shared with them what she had learned from GIs: that this was not the first incursion by American troops over the Cambodian border. The students who marched to the president"s house named their group They Shoot Students, Don"t They? after Fonda"s recent movie.
Within the week, in front of the burbling fountain on Revelle Plaza at UCSan Diego, George Winnie Jr., twenty-three, held up a cardboard sign reading IN G.o.d"S NAME, END THIS WAR, IN G.o.d"S NAME, END THIS WAR, struck a match, and went up in a burst of flame. That didn"t make the struck a match, and went up in a burst of flame. That didn"t make the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or or Chicago Tribune; Chicago Tribune; a nationwide student tsunami had broken, too much drama to keep track of it all. By that time guardsmen were posted on 21 campuses in sixteen states, 488 universities and colleges were closed (three-quarters of the schools in Nevada, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Maryland), the entire public high school system in New York City was shut by order of the board of education, and Boston University informed Ted Kennedy not to show up to give the commencement speech because, in honor of the slain students, there wouldn"t be any commencement. a nationwide student tsunami had broken, too much drama to keep track of it all. By that time guardsmen were posted on 21 campuses in sixteen states, 488 universities and colleges were closed (three-quarters of the schools in Nevada, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Maryland), the entire public high school system in New York City was shut by order of the board of education, and Boston University informed Ted Kennedy not to show up to give the commencement speech because, in honor of the slain students, there wouldn"t be any commencement.
To take three representative campuses, one of the New York City schools that struck was Finch College, Tricia Nixon"s alma mater. So did Whittier College. And at Duke Law, President Nixon"s portrait was removed from the wall of the moot courtroom.
"The splintered left on the campuses has been suddenly reunited," the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal concluded, quoting an electrician who worked at Case Western Reserve: "They figure they might just as well die here for something they believe in as to die in Vietnam." Case was one of the schools where students burned down an ROTC building. So were Kentucky, the University of Cincinnati, Ohio State, Ohio University, Miami of Ohio, Tulane, Washington University in St. Louis (their second) and St. Louis University. At Colorado State they torched Old Main, the original campus structure, erected in 1878. In farm-belt Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois, a center of military research, martial law was declared. At Syracuse nearly every window was smashed; UCLA students forced the entire Los Angeles police force onto tactical alert, and Governor Reagan subsequently shut down all twenty-seven state university campuses. Austin students were tearga.s.sed after charging the state capitol. They followed with the biggest march in Texas history (they chanted, "More pay for police!" to keep the cops at bay). At Macalester College in St. Paul, students barricaded the office of a new political science professor and demanded his resignation. But the professor, Hubert Humphrey, was away in Israel. concluded, quoting an electrician who worked at Case Western Reserve: "They figure they might just as well die here for something they believe in as to die in Vietnam." Case was one of the schools where students burned down an ROTC building. So were Kentucky, the University of Cincinnati, Ohio State, Ohio University, Miami of Ohio, Tulane, Washington University in St. Louis (their second) and St. Louis University. At Colorado State they torched Old Main, the original campus structure, erected in 1878. In farm-belt Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois, a center of military research, martial law was declared. At Syracuse nearly every window was smashed; UCLA students forced the entire Los Angeles police force onto tactical alert, and Governor Reagan subsequently shut down all twenty-seven state university campuses. Austin students were tearga.s.sed after charging the state capitol. They followed with the biggest march in Texas history (they chanted, "More pay for police!" to keep the cops at bay). At Macalester College in St. Paul, students barricaded the office of a new political science professor and demanded his resignation. But the professor, Hubert Humphrey, was away in Israel.
A National Strike Information Center at Brandeis claimed to be coordinating things, and that the strikes were united around three demands: immediate withdrawal from Southeast Asia, an immediate end to defense research and ROTC, and, like point nine of the Black Panthers" program, release of "all political prisoners." But most of the center"s work was fielding CB radio reports from the field, just trying to keeping up with developments.
A report from Madison, Wisconsin, noon, May 5: "Wide-scale rioting, burning, trashing, tear gas everywhere."
The next day: "One hundred arrested, school shut, National Guard, fires in street every night, fifty or sixty hurt, tear gas, "open warfare.""
A new tactic developed, blocking traffic: on highways, at expressway onramps, at busy intersections, even on U.S. 1 outside Washington, D.C. A National Economic Boycott Committee decided to boycott Coca-Cola and Philip Morris for "their dependency on the youth market for a large part of their sales." Quinnipiac College in Connecticut did them one better, urging "colleges and universities across the country to join with them in a boycott of ALL consumer goods (except necessary foods) the week of May 2531." Five thousand students at Northwestern did them them one better by voting unanimously to secede from the United States. NYU students demanded $100,000 in protection money not to smash an Atomic Energy Commission supercomputer so they could bail out a jailed Black Panther. The National Republican Governors" Conference was canceled. one better by voting unanimously to secede from the United States. NYU students demanded $100,000 in protection money not to smash an Atomic Energy Commission supercomputer so they could bail out a jailed Black Panther. The National Republican Governors" Conference was canceled.
But once more ma.s.s protest brought forth a paradox: the real real radicalness was the extent to which demonstrations were mundane and mainstream. On only one out of twenty campuses was there any violence; at Grinnell students accidentally broke a window and collected $14.30 to pay for it. Faculty partic.i.p.ated en ma.s.se; university presidents made accommodations for students to preserve their grades. At Oberlin, university facilities were turned over to antiwar activity for the rest of the year. Princeton announced it would shut down for several weeks before the fall elections so students could volunteer for the political candidates of their choice. In New Jersey, even a draft board went on strike. radicalness was the extent to which demonstrations were mundane and mainstream. On only one out of twenty campuses was there any violence; at Grinnell students accidentally broke a window and collected $14.30 to pay for it. Faculty partic.i.p.ated en ma.s.se; university presidents made accommodations for students to preserve their grades. At Oberlin, university facilities were turned over to antiwar activity for the rest of the year. Princeton announced it would shut down for several weeks before the fall elections so students could volunteer for the political candidates of their choice. In New Jersey, even a draft board went on strike.
That only redoubled some people"s rage. Emory"s president wired President Nixon, "On behalf of these deeply concerned students, I beg that you consider the prompt withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Vietnam and Cambodia." The regents thereafter received a letter from one Wade Murrah, Rt. 2, Blairsville, Georgia, cc"ed to Governor Maddox: "I am sorry to see Emory apparently joining this anarchistic parade of university destroyers."
Other university bureaucrats learned what it was like to give an inch and be taken for a mile. The administration at the University of Denver called an all-university a.s.sembly and signed off on the strike vote. Students promptly a.s.sembled a rambling, anarchic outdoor commune on campus, "Woodstock West." Vigilantes phoned in threats to administrators: "If you don"t do anything to clean out that nest of radicals, then we will-with shotguns." The chancellor decided that such martyrdom was just what the students desired-so he preemptively called in the National Guard to raze Woodstock West and said some students deserved the electric chair, borrowing President Nixon"s language about Cambodia: campuses "are being used as protected sanctuaries" by people "who would like to see the free world destroyed."
At the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, seventy-three cadets signed a pet.i.tion pledging not to partic.i.p.ate in the Armed Forces Day parade; the pet.i.tion"s drafters found themselves bound and gagged by a mob of hooded cadets. At the University of Washington, a band of vigilantes calling themselves HELP (Help Eliminate Lawless Protest) ran around clubbing strikers. In Buffalo, police broke up a rally with bird shot. At Hobart College in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, American Legion members organized a disruption of commencement. The police weren"t much help; they were in on the organizing. (Julie Nixon"s graduation from Smith was peaceful; the president arranged the previous fall to be out of the country rather than attend.) At his May 8 press conference the president was asked if he agreed with those who argued America was heading for a revolution. A staffer for the federal commission set up to study the turbulence wrote a memo: "Several small schools in New York City are not going to open this year because their backers are no longer interested in backing education." He reported that the last six college presidents he"d spoken to had received death threats (three had taken bodyguards). Al Capp added a new line to his speeches: "The real Kent State martyrs were the kids in uniforms.... The president showed angelic restraint when he called the students "b.u.ms."" The rock musician Neil Young saw the pieta-like picture of a young girl leaning in anguish over the body of Jeff Miller. He hastily composed a song: Tin soldiers and Nixon"s coming.We"re finally on our own.This summer I hear the drumming.Four dead in Ohio.
The song was banned from Ohio playlists at the urging of Governor Rhodes. That helped send it shooting up the hit parade: one more scene in the new American civil war.
The battleground was often Betsy Ross"s flag, as counterdemonstrators put their bodies on the line to keep it from being lowered to half-staff. In Silver Spring, Maryland, at the high school Allison Krause had attended, left-wing students commandeered the PA system and demanded the flag be lowered. An argument broke out: "People talking about this chick who was killed at Kent. Two GIs from this school have been killed in Vietnam. Why didn"t we lower the flag for them?" The school had two flagpoles, so the princ.i.p.al devised a compromise: one flag was raised all the way, the other halfway. Compromise didn"t work. Right-wing students pulled down the flag memorializing Allison and burned it in a trash can. At Northwestern, students carried a flag upside down, the symbol for distress. "A hefty man in work clothes," according to Time, Time, tried to grab it, saying, "That"s my flag! I fought for it! You have no right to it!" The kids started arguing. "There are millions of people like me," the man responded. "We"re fed up with your movement. You"re forcing us into it. We"ll have to kill you. All I can see is a lot of kids blowing a chance I never had." tried to grab it, saying, "That"s my flag! I fought for it! You have no right to it!" The kids started arguing. "There are millions of people like me," the man responded. "We"re fed up with your movement. You"re forcing us into it. We"ll have to kill you. All I can see is a lot of kids blowing a chance I never had."
In Albuquerque-where Jane Fonda found herself on a blacklist that kept her from getting a hotel room-students approached the standard outside the University of New Mexico"s Union Hall. National Guardsmen approached with bayonets fixed as students fussed with the flag. The soldiers advanced, impaling seven, one in a cast and on crutches. A newsman came to his aid. The guardsmen stabbed him, too.
That flag: during the Vietnam Moratorium, New York"s Mayor Lindsay ordered it flown at half-staff as a memorial to the war dead. An enraged city council member from Queens tramped up to the City Hall roof and pulled the banner back up himself. "Meanwhile," the Washington Post Washington Post reported on October 16, 1969, "officials of the Patrolmen"s Benevolent and Uniformed Firefighters a.s.sociation claimed almost total success in their campaign to keep firehouse and precinct station flags at full staff." reported on October 16, 1969, "officials of the Patrolmen"s Benevolent and Uniformed Firefighters a.s.sociation claimed almost total success in their campaign to keep firehouse and precinct station flags at full staff."
After Kent State, Lindsay ordered city flags lowered again. At noon on Friday, May 8, in a cold Manhattan drizzle, students from across the city gathered at George Washington"s statue in front of Federal Hall on Wall Street, where representatives of the thirteen colonies first met to pet.i.tion King George. "You brought down one president," a fifty-six-year-old lawyer told them with delight, "and you"ll bring down another!" The mood was joyous.
Suddenly, from all directions, two hundred construction workers marched in to the cadences of "All the way! USA!" and "We"re number one!" and "Love it or leave it!" In their identical brown overalls, carrying American flags of the sort that topped off construction sites, they looked like some sort of storm trooper battalion.
They started arguing with the police: Why weren"t flags flying in front of Federal Hall like at all the Wall Street banks? Had the hippies stolen them? (The flags, actually, per federal regulations, were not flying due to inclement weather.) The police report: They argued that this was a government owned building, that it was owned by all the people, and that they had a right to an equal portion of the steps to express their view in support of the American flag and the foreign policy of the United States; that everyone had an equal right to freely express their views. They argued that this was a government owned building, that it was owned by all the people, and that they had a right to an equal portion of the steps to express their view in support of the American flag and the foreign policy of the United States; that everyone had an equal right to freely express their views.
Some students tried to shout the workers down. Others, nervous, tried to melt into the lunchtime crowd.
The construction workers, reinforced by the rear by some thousand vocal supporters from the Wall Street area, suddenly burst through the easterly terminus of the police line.
Demonstrators observed that the police were not particularly enthusiastic about stopping them.
Once atop the steps, the construction workers implanted a number of American flags on the pillars and on the statue of George Washington.
An insurance underwriter, in admiration: "Wow, it was just like John Wayne taking Iwo Jima."
The unusual lunch hour crowd which had, by now, inundated the area completely from building line to building line, loudly applauded the construction workers and their singing of the National Anthem; many onlookers joined in, openly displaying much fervor.
At this juncture a neatly groomed conservatively dressed middle aged man suddenly took a position in the pedestal in front of the statue of George Washington where he thumbed his nose at the construction worker group, shouted obscenities, and ultimately committed an act of desecration upon one of the American flags implanted there by them. He was variously reported as blowing his nose in the flag, tearing the flag with his teeth, and eating the flag.
The riot began. Workers singled out for beating boys with the longest hair. The weapons of choice were their orange and yellow hard hats.
A construction worker recalled, "The whole group started singing "G.o.d Bless America" and it d.a.m.n near put a lump in your throat.... I could never say I was sorry I was there. You just had a very proud feeling. If I live to be one hundred, I don"t think I"ll ever live to see anything quite like that again."
A student recalled, "When I was on the ground, I rolled myself into a ball just as four or five pairs of construction boots started kicking me."
The proletarians marched on City Hall, now joined by hundreds more workers from the city"s biggest construction site, the twin-towered "World Trade Center." They were joined, in solidarity, by the capitalists; the New York Stock Exchange ended up having its lowest-volume day in months.
"Lindsay"s a Red! Lindsay"s a Red!"
"Lindsay must go!"
"Raise our flag! Raise our flag!"
A mail carrier scrambled onto the roof to hoist Old Glory. A mayoral aide followed and relowered it. Construction workers furiously rushed City Hall, crying, "Get Lindsay!"-almost breaching the building. A deputy mayor raised the flag back up to appease the mob. Workers launched another chorus of "The Star-Spangled Banner"; good patriots, the cops removed their hats and stood at attention instead of attending to the gleeful ongoing beatings.
A munic.i.p.al secretary: "I saw one construction worker arm himself with a pair of iron clippers and head toward a student already being pummeled by three workers.... He yelled at me, "Let go of my jacket, b.i.t.c.h"; and then he said, "If you want to be treated like an equal, we"ll treat you like one." Three of them began to punch me in the body. My gla.s.ses were broken. I had trouble breathing, and I thought my ribs were cracked.""
The Wall Street Journal: Wall Street Journal: ""These hippies are getting what they deserve," said John Halloran, one of the construction workers, while the melee was still going on. As he talked a coworker standing with him yelled, "d.a.m.n straight," and punched a young man in a business suit who said he disagreed." ""These hippies are getting what they deserve," said John Halloran, one of the construction workers, while the melee was still going on. As he talked a coworker standing with him yelled, "d.a.m.n straight," and punched a young man in a business suit who said he disagreed."
The mob moved on to nearby Pace University, setting fire to a banner reading VIETNAM, LAOS, CAMBODIA, KENT. VIETNAM, LAOS, CAMBODIA, KENT. The gla.s.s doors to the building were chained shut from the inside against attack. Hard hats crashed through them and chased down unkempt students, joined by conservative students angry at strikers interfering with their education. Some longhairs were beaten with lead pipes wrapped in American flags. Trinity Church became a makeshift field hospital (the mob ripped down the Red Cross banner). The The gla.s.s doors to the building were chained shut from the inside against attack. Hard hats crashed through them and chased down unkempt students, joined by conservative students angry at strikers interfering with their education. Some longhairs were beaten with lead pipes wrapped in American flags. Trinity Church became a makeshift field hospital (the mob ripped down the Red Cross banner). The New York Times New York Times ran a picture the next day of a construction worker and a man in a tie charging down a cobblestone street to beat someone with an American flag. Pete Hamill, who had only the previous year offered his solidarity to "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Cla.s.s," now withdrew his endors.e.m.e.nt in horror: "The police collaborated with the construction workers in the same way that Southern sheriffs used to collaborate with the rednecks when the rednecks were beating up freedom riders." ran a picture the next day of a construction worker and a man in a tie charging down a cobblestone street to beat someone with an American flag. Pete Hamill, who had only the previous year offered his solidarity to "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Cla.s.s," now withdrew his endors.e.m.e.nt in horror: "The police collaborated with the construction workers in the same way that Southern sheriffs used to collaborate with the rednecks when the rednecks were beating up freedom riders."
Police made only six arrests. Perhaps they agreed with the construction worker who told the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, "I"m doing this because my brother got wounded in Vietnam, and I think this will help our boys over there by pulling this country together." "I"m doing this because my brother got wounded in Vietnam, and I think this will help our boys over there by pulling this country together."
The action shifted to Washington, D.C., for a weekend outbreak of civics. A bipartisan group of senators had mapped out a three-phase strategy to use the congressional power of the purse to end the Vietnam War. John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.) and Frank Church (D-Idaho) would introduce an amendment banning funds for ground forces in Cambodia or Laos. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution would be put up for a revote. And George McGovern (D-S.Dak.) and Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) would introduce a new amendment to the military procurement authorization bill to provide that without a congressional declaration of war all American troops must withdraw from Vietnam by June 30, 1971. Sixteen senators and eighteen House members founded a Congressional Committee to End the War with McGovern as chair. And from hundreds of colleges and universities across the land, students congregated to lobby more congressmen to the cause. Haverford College moved lock, stock, and barrel to D.C.: 575 of 640 students, 40 of 70 faculty, 10 of 12 administrators. Birch Bayh addressed the a.s.sembled student-citizen army on Capitol Hill: "We can make this system responsible from within instead of trying to destroy it from without." He got a standing ovation. George McGovern, the former college professor, announced, "Let us get twenty million signatures and let us call or write every congressman and senator, and we will pa.s.s this amendment."
A federal court waived a fifteen-day prior-notice requirement and allowed a Sat.u.r.day rally at the Ellipse. One of Ehrlichman"s young aides, Bud Krogh, showed off the prized bas.e.m.e.nt command post the White House had set up to John Dean, a young Justice Department staffer they were thinking about hiring. The bunker had shelves and shelves of supplies, beds, a presidential desk flanked by flags, a conference room with three TV monitors, direct phone lines to the police chief, mayor, National Guard, FBI, and Pentagon. In the bas.e.m.e.nts of government buildings around the federal city, five thousand soldiers waited at the ready. After all, organizers from the New National Mobilizing Committee to End the War claimed twenty thousand of the one hundred thousand expected to show up would be willing to commit civil disobedience.
Either as fears or boasts, the predictions of disorder proved unfounded. "All we are saying is give peace a chance": "All we are saying is give peace a chance": the press could hear the refrain wafting from outside the White House gates as the president, visibly weary and nervous, stepped to the podium for a televised press conference the evening before the rally. Flyers were everywhere: "NIXON WOULD LIKE the press could hear the refrain wafting from outside the White House gates as the president, visibly weary and nervous, stepped to the podium for a televised press conference the evening before the rally. Flyers were everywhere: "NIXON WOULD LIKE YOU YOU TO USE VIOLENCE IN THIS DEMONSTRATION TO DISCREDIT THE STUDENT PEACE MOVEMENT. DO THE HARD THING... TO USE VIOLENCE IN THIS DEMONSTRATION TO DISCREDIT THE STUDENT PEACE MOVEMENT. DO THE HARD THING...AVOID VIOLENCE." Jane Fonda, in a T-shirt and braless, welcomed the crowd: "Greetings, fellow b.u.ms!" She gestured to the men in uniform patrolling the perimeter: "Those men may well have seen combat in Vietnam. They know better than any of us what this war is like. Don"t a.s.sume they are against us for opposing war." A booming cheer went up. A GI flashed a conspicuous peace sign. A ma.s.sed contingent marched into sight behind a banner reading FEDERAL b.u.mS AGAINST THE WAR. FEDERAL b.u.mS AGAINST THE WAR. The crowd went wild. Thousands bathed in the Reflecting Pool. A black man strapped himself to a giant crucifix. Shirley MacLaine, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Spock, David Dellinger delivered soaring perorations. The crowd went wild. Thousands bathed in the Reflecting Pool. A black man strapped himself to a giant crucifix. Shirley MacLaine, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Spock, David Dellinger delivered soaring perorations. Time Time reported with pleasure how some government officials, even John Mitch.e.l.l, circulated through the crowd, inviting students back to their offices for raps. The father of one of the slain Kent State students, a Pittsburgh steelworker, announced, "My child was not a b.u.m." reported with pleasure how some government officials, even John Mitch.e.l.l, circulated through the crowd, inviting students back to their offices for raps. The father of one of the slain Kent State students, a Pittsburgh steelworker, announced, "My child was not a b.u.m."
Senator Muskie, the Democratic presidential front-runner, modified his position. He had earlier proposed a timid nonbinding antiwar "sense of the Senate" resolution. Now, he announced himself as McGovern-Hatfield"s nineteenth cosponsor. The congressional antiwar committee scheduled a half-hour broadcast on NBC for May 13 in support of the amendment; to raise money for airtime, students circulated a pet.i.tion on campuses and asked signers to contribute fifty cents each. They collected $30,000 in two days.
Even Nixon backtracked a little. His initial undiplomatic two-sentence response to the Kent State shootings read by Ron Ziegler began, "This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy." Now he met for an hour with Kent State students. And in the middle of the night the morning before the rally, he embarked on the strangest perambulations in the history of the presidency. "After a nearly sleepless night in an empty and barricaded White House, President Nixon emerged early yesterday morning to talk to student demonstrators about "the war thing" and other topics," according to the Washington Post. Washington Post. ""Sure, you came here to demonstrate and shout your slogans on the Ellipse. That is all right. Just keep it peaceful," Mr. Nixon told the students on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as dawn was breaking over the city." ""Sure, you came here to demonstrate and shout your slogans on the Ellipse. That is all right. Just keep it peaceful," Mr. Nixon told the students on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as dawn was breaking over the city."
Then this visitation from another planet took his valet, Manolo Sanchez, for a tour of the Capitol.
"I hope it was because he was tired," a Syracuse student reported. "But most of what he was saying was absurd. Here we had come from a university that"s completely uptight, on strike, and when he told him where we were from, he talked about the football team. And when someone said he was from California, he talked about surfing."
Nixon was becoming a dis...o...b..bulated president, politically on the run. His interior secretary, Walter Hickel, posted a letter to the president that leaked to the Washington Star: Washington Star: "Youth in its protest must be heard." Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were young people in their day, Hickel argued; their "protests fell on deaf ears and finally led to war." (The president"s response was to bulldoze the White House tennis court, beloved of Hickel.) Paul Harvey, the sentimental radio announcer "Youth in its protest must be heard." Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were young people in their day, Hickel argued; their "protests fell on deaf ears and finally led to war." (The president"s response was to bulldoze the White House tennis court, beloved of Hickel.) Paul Harvey, the sentimental radio announcer Esquire Esquire had called in a recent profile the "voice of the Silent Majority," said, "America"s six percent section of the planet"s mothers cannot bear enough boy babies to police Asia-and the nation can"t bleed to death trying." had called in a recent profile the "voice of the Silent Majority," said, "America"s six percent section of the planet"s mothers cannot bear enough boy babies to police Asia-and the nation can"t bleed to death trying."
Nixon had tried to talk to the student demonstrators. He concluded he preferred the hard hats. "Thinks now the college demonstrators have overplayed their hands," Haldeman wrote in his diary, "evidence is the blue collar group rising against them, and P can mobilize them."
New York construction workers now took every lunch hour for boisterous patriotic demonstrations. So did hard hats in San Diego, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. Some of the rallies were not entirely spontaneous: "Obviously more of these will be occurring throughout the nation," White House staffer Stephen Bull wrote in a memo to Chuck Colson, "perhaps partially as a result of your clandestine activity." Peter Brennan, the combative head of the Building Trades Council of Greater New York, accused of organizing the "hard hat riot," defiantly denied it-then showed what he could could do as an organizer: one hundred thousand marchers on May 20, complete with a cement mixer draped with a do as an organizer: one hundred thousand marchers on May 20, complete with a cement mixer draped with a LINDSAY FOR MAYOR OF HANOI LINDSAY FOR MAYOR OF HANOI banner. Signs read banner. Signs read G.o.d BLESS THE ESTABLISHMENT G.o.d BLESS THE ESTABLISHMENT and and WE SUPPORT NIXON AND AGNEW. WE SUPPORT NIXON AND AGNEW. Time Time called it "a kind of workers" Woodstock." called it "a kind of workers" Woodstock."
"Thank G.o.d for the hard hats!" Nixon cried. He had been so delighted by the liberal Pete Hamill"s expose of the political alienation of the white working cla.s.s in New York New York magazine in 1969 that he ordered a Labor Department study on the question. a.s.sistant Secretary Jerome S. Rosow had just delivered his report "The Problem of the Blue Collar Worker." It described a population "on a treadmill, chasing the illusion of higher living standards," fighting via the only apparent weapon at their disposal: "continued pressure for high wages." Their only champions "seem to be the union leaders spearheading the demand." But to reduce the problem to economics, Rosow suggested, was to miss more than half the story. The more profound distress was cultural-a problem of recognition. Negroes at least had a clamoring lobby-Daniel Moynihan"s "hysterics, paranoids and boodlers"-making noise on their behalf. Blue-collar whites "feel like "forgotten people"-those for whom the government and society have limited, if any direct concern and little visible action." magazine in 1969 that he ordered a Labor Department study on the question. a.s.sistant Secretary Jerome S. Rosow had just delivered his report "The Problem of the Blue Collar Worker." It described a population "on a treadmill, chasing the illusion of higher living standards," fighting via the only apparent weapon at their disposal: "continued pressure for high wages." Their only champions "seem to be the union leaders spearheading the demand." But to reduce the problem to economics, Rosow suggested, was to miss more than half the story. The more profound distress was cultural-a problem of recognition. Negroes at least had a clamoring lobby-Daniel Moynihan"s "hysterics, paranoids and boodlers"-making noise on their behalf. Blue-collar whites "feel like "forgotten people"-those for whom the government and society have limited, if any direct concern and little visible action."
Here was the germ of a revolution in the Republican"s message. Unless they took workers" votes from the Democrats-as Ronald Reagan had in California in 1966-Nixon would never be able to achieve the New Majority he dreamed of. But to do so with ongoing economic concessions-previously the only way politicians imagined working-cla.s.s voters might be wooed-offended a more foundational Republican const.i.tuency: business. And contributed to the inflation that was driving the stock market into the low 600s.
But to extend to blue-collar workers the hand of cultural cultural recognition-that was a different ball game altogether. It"s not that right-leaning politicians hadn"t tried it before-Nixon had done something like it in the Checkers Speech, when he styled the people accusing him of corruption as hopeless sn.o.bs, and himself as an ordinary striver just trying to make an honest living. But the hard-hat ascendency set into motion a qualitative shift: the first concerted effort to turn the white working cla.s.s, via its aesthetic disgusts, against a Democratic Party now joining itself objectively, with their Cooper-Church and McGovern-Hatfield amendments, to the agenda of the smelly longhairs who burned down buildings. recognition-that was a different ball game altogether. It"s not that right-leaning politicians hadn"t tried it before-Nixon had done something like it in the Checkers Speech, when he styled the people accusing him of corruption as hopeless sn.o.bs, and himself as an ordinary striver just trying to make an honest living. But the hard-hat ascendency set into motion a qualitative shift: the first concerted effort to turn the white working cla.s.s, via its aesthetic disgusts, against a Democratic Party now joining itself objectively, with their Cooper-Church and McGovern-Hatfield amendments, to the agenda of the smelly longhairs who burned down buildings.
The Democratic Party: enemy of the working man. It was the political version of that New York Times New York Times photograph of the stockbroker and the pie fitter joined in solidarity in the act of clobbering a hippie-their common weapon the American flag. That white men in ties and white men in hard hats were radically opposed to one another was a foundational left-wing idea. But as a Republican state senator from Orange County observed, "Every time they burn another building, Republican registration goes up." photograph of the stockbroker and the pie fitter joined in solidarity in the act of clobbering a hippie-their common weapon the American flag. That white men in ties and white men in hard hats were radically opposed to one another was a foundational left-wing idea. But as a Republican state senator from Orange County observed, "Every time they burn another building, Republican registration goes up."