Oh The Humanity!—A Ball of Fire and the End of a Dream

Thanks to newsreels, dozens of photographers, and the chilling live radio coverage, for the first time Americans and people from around the world were witnesses to a great disaster.  The impact was profound.

On May 6, 1937 a dream died with a bang, along with 37 souls.  Up until then, the future of trans-oceanic and other mega-long distant air service looked like it belonged to lighter than air craft.  Airplanes, it was thought, were too limited by fuel needs and lift capacity to economically serve this need.  They were alright for military use, that had been proven, and had a place supplementing good rail service in shorter distance travel, but the great dirigibles held the promise of connecting the world with fast, reliable passenger service and a lift capacity that could also eventually become a major freight hauler.

All of that changed when the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg ignited and crashed in a fiery inferno as it attempted to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. The event was captured in all of its dramatic horror by newsreel cameras and described in a live remote broadcast by WLS Radio of Chicago. 

Dirigibles were a refinement on the concept of a powered balloon developed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin beginning in 1899.  Unlike their predecessors, Zeppelin’s creation featured a light but rigid cigar shaped envelope inside of which lighter than air gas was contained in a series of tanks or bladders.  The envelope provided additional space inside which could be used for freight or passengers.  The ships were powered by two or more gasoline or diesel engines and a cab extending below the envelope served as a pilot station.  

German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin invented and developed the dirigible--a semi-rigid lighter than aircraft capable of long distance flight and significant lift for military, passenger, or freight service.

Zeppelin built several models of increasing size and lift potential over the years.  In the World War I they were pressed into military service and famously bombed London.  

The British, French, Italians, and the U.S. all scrambled to enter the field with lighter than air craft themselves.  But crashes and failures dodged all attempts. The British R34 became the first dirigible to cross the Atlantic in 1919, but it crashed in a storm two years later.  A larger sister ship R38 exploded in 1921 when its frame snapped, unable to stand the strain causing a spark which ignited explosive hydrogen gas used for lift.  

The U.S. hardly fared better.  It ship, the U.S. Navy’s ZR1 Shenandoah was built in 1923 and used non-combustible helium for safety.  Despite this advantage Shenandoah broke up in a thunderstorm over Ohio in 1925 killing 19 of 43 crewmen.  

The Navy, which remained committed to lighter than air ships, commissioned the Zeppelin company to build it a ship as part of war reparations from defeated Germany.  The commission kept the company alive while Germany was forbidden by treaty from building airships for its own use.  Delivered to the Navy in 1924 it was also designed for use with helium.  Designated ZR3 Los Angeles it became the most successful large dirigible yet with a capacity for 30 passengers in addition to crew.  It made more than 250 flights including trips to Puerto Rico and Panama.  

The Navy's  Macon  was an aircraft carrier which could launch and retrieve Sparrow Hawk scout biplanes from the exterior platforms on either side of the ship.  The idea was to be able to cover wide areas giving the Navy long distance eyes in search of any enemy fleet, in anti-submarine operations, or for search and rescue.  She and her sister the Akron represented the pinnacle of military development of the dirigibles.

Impressed, the Navy arranged for the Zeppelin company to license the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company to build ships of German design.  The results were the Akron and the Macon both of which could serve as aircraft carriers capable of launching and retrieving 5 light scout planes.  Delivered in 1931 both ships went into service.  But the Akron but was lost in a storm over the Atlantic in 1933 and the Macon crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1935. The Navy then abandoned building new rigid airships, although it continued to fly the Los Angeles. 

Meanwhile the British re-entered the race with two new mammoth airships, the largest ever built.  The R-101, the largest ship ever to fly with a passenger capacity of over 100, crashed and burned near Beauvais, France, on October 4, 1930 killing 48 of 54 aboard.  The slightly smaller R-100 made a successful round trip to Montreal, Canada, but was withdrawn from service and ultimately scrapped after the R-101 disaster. 

Despite the dismal safety record, the fact remained that no dirigible ever manufactured by the Zeppelin company in Germany had ever crashed.  They seemed immune from the stresses of extreme weather that had doomed most other ships. 

Following the success of its Los Angeles for the U.S. Navy, the Zeppelin company began construction of a new airship for German civilian use.  The Graf Zeppelin completed in 1928 was meant to be a prototype and a demonstration for a new generation of air ships meant for passenger packet and airmail service.  It was a huge success.  It made a trans Atlantic flight to Lakehurst in October and was welcomed with great ballyhoo including a New York ticker-tape parade for the crew and a reception at the White House.  The next year she completed a round the world trip that officially began and ended in Lakehurst after she had crossed the Atlantic again.  After that there were triumphant tours of Europe and trips to South America.  Crossing from Germany to Lakehurst became almost routine, if not yet regularly scheduled. 

The company planned for a larger airship to inaugurate regular scheduled service.  Plans for that ship, designated LZ-129 had to be reconsidered after the R-101 disaster.  The ship was made heavier and stronger, but also intended for the safer helium being successfully used by the U.S. Navy.  As the ship was being re-designed the Nazis came to power in Germany.  Despite the resistance of old Count Zeppelin company operating chief Dr. Hugo Eckener impressed the Graf Zeppelin and future air ships into a new state owned air line.  From then on German airships would be ablaze with the Nazi swastika on their tail fins and the air ships would become propaganda tools for the Third Reich. 

Last triumphant moments for the sleek symbol of Nazi pride--the Hindenburg soars over New York City on May 6, 1937.

The new ship was dubbed the Hindenburg by Eckener in honor of the former German President Paul von Hindenburg, much to the annoyance of Nazi authorities who had hoped the ship would be named for Hitler.  She was tested in March of 1937.  But due to the rise of German militarism, the Zeppelin company was unable to obtain helium from the United States, the only nation with a capacity to produce it in large quantities.  Helium was restricted as a strategic material.  Eckener was forced to fly the new ship with dangerous hydrogen under pressure from the government. 

After a series of trial flights and an extensive propaganda tour of Germany the Hindenburg made its first trans Atlantic flight to Rio de Janerio, Brazil.  The ship was then put into the long dreamed of regularly scheduled service.  In 1936 she made ten trips to Lakehurst and seven to Rio.  

The Hindenburg left Frankfurt for Lakehurst on May 3, 1937 on its first scheduled round trip between Europe and the United States that season.  She arrived over New Jersey three days later but attempts to land were delayed until a line of thunderstorms passed Lakehurst.  The press was out in force to cover the still unique event. 

When the weather cleared, the Hindenburg made a routine descent. Just after she had dropped bow lines to be taken up by Navy personnel on the ground, the ship was rocked by an explosion.  Fire erupted about a third of the way from the ship’s stern.  She dropped to the ground in 37 seconds and was completely engulfed in flames in moments.  WLS announcer Herbert Morrison famously sobbed “Oh the Humanity!” as he attempted to describe the horrible scene.  

His clothing burned off Walter Banholzer is led away for medical assistance by a Navy ground crewman and a Zepplin company steward, both as shocked, stunned, and traumatized as the survivors of the crash.

Amazingly, of the 36 passengers and 61 crew on board, only 13 passengers and 22 crew and one ground crew member died.  Others were severely injured including those with horrible burns.  Whatever the toll, it was enough to end lighter than air travel.  German invincibility in the air was disproven and the image of the burning ship was seared into the public imagination.  The Graf Zeppelin was withdrawn from service and work on its replacement, Graf Zeppelin II was scrapped. 

Although many theories abound as to the cause of the explosion ranging from spontaneous combustion to sabotage, no cause has ever been proven.  Ultimately, any airship using explosive hydrogen and at the mercy of any stray spark was probably doomed.  We will never know if the safe operation of the ship with helium might have led to continued development of lighter than air fleets. 

The compressed laboratory of war time soon produced technological innovations that made trans oceanic service by fixed wing air craft not only possible but routine. 

Today, despite some efforts to revive them as freight handlers, lighter than air ships are mostly to blimps, much smaller gas filled bags used for advertising and as camera platforms for sporting events.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Flor de Toloache—Murfin Home Confinement Music Festival 2020

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Flor de Toloache.

Nothing could be more gay and cheerful than celebrating Cinco de Mayo with mariachi flair especially when performed by Flor de Toloache who defy stereotypical macho expectations

A every hearty partier will tell you Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. it has become kind of second St. Patrick’s Day decked out in sombreros and serapes instead of emerald green, toasted to with Coronas with lime and shots of tequila instead of Guinness and Jamison’s, and laid out with two-for-one taco deals instead of corn beef and cabbage plates.  It is celebrated without apparent irony even by those who cheer Trump and who send semi-literate screeds to the newspapers railing against those damned lazy, criminal immigrants.

Alas for both those revel in a rare moment of cultural appreciation for their people and country and clueless appropriators of Pancho Villa stereotypes the annual fiesta has been reined in by an entirely different Corona.  Maybe some of us can scour the house for some tequila or a bottle or two of good Mexican beer rustle up some hamburger tacos made with an envelope of seasoning and some stale corn taco shells.  The music will help.

Flor de Toloache.

New York based Flor de Toloache rose from playing in the subway for tips to entertaining before packed arenas and adoring fans, TV appearances in both the United States and Mexico and a Latin Grammy nomination.

Rev. Dan Larsen Presente!

Rev. Dan Larsen at the pulpit of the old Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock for the dedication of the new UU sources windows in the social room.

We received word late Sunday that the Rev. Dan Larsen, Minister Emeritus of the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry, Illinois passed away in hospice care at the Florence Nursing Home in Marengo.  There was something very fitting about a man who loved preaching as much as Dan making his exit on the Sabbath.

He had serious, long term health issues including chronic heart failure and  life-long battle with depression but like many nursing homes, there was a Coronavirus outbreak in his.  There is no word on if the viral infection may have caused or contributed to his death.  But I know one thing—if he had been healthier he would have been organizing the residents and staff to take action and demand ample personal protection, disinfection, social distancing, and support from the inept and chaotic Federal authorities who seem content with writing off the old and weak in support of profit.  That was the kind of guy he was.

Back in January 2013 I posted about Dan Larsen referencing an even earlier nomination of him as an exemplar of Courageous Love for the UUA’s then new Standing on the Side of Love campaign.  Here it is again with some edits and updates.  Dan Larsen Presente!

I had lunch today at Angelo’s on the Square in Woodstock.  Locals all know the joint, the classic Greek-American family style restaurant where folks gather for a reasonably priced meal and a chance to chat leisurely without being rushed.  Business and social chatter at the tables was the order of the day as the carillon in the Opera House tower rang the noon hour.

I was joining my old minister, mentor, and collaborator on twenty years’ worth of social justice projects and causes, Dan Larsen.  The occasion was social, of course, two old cronies catching up.  But there was also some business at hand, some fences that needed mending, and some boundaries established.

We had butted heads pretty seriously lately at meetings of the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation [Tree of Life] in McHenry which I now chair.  It not that we disagreed about issues so much as differences of leadership styles and over process fueled by our mutual passion.  Dan was having a hard time adjusting to no longer being in charge and as I grow older I find I am becoming a crankier old coot with less patience than I should have.

Anyway, we talked it out like grownups, each made agreements to do better, and we found our way ahead.  There’s lots of work for the Committee and the Congregation ahead.  We parted warmly, eager to resume a long and fruitful collaboration.

When I got back to my basement office [Oaktree Capital], I took a moment or two to search out potential topics for this daily blog post.  In the process  I discovered that it was exactly two years ago today, January 25, 2011, when The  Standing on the Side of Love  campaign asked for stories of Courageous Love  to fill a map on their web page with inspirations in advance of Valentine’s Day.  I was delighted to share the story of the Rev. Dan Larsen who has been standing on the side of love for a very long time and posted a version on this blog.  This is pretty much what I sent them. 

Rev. Dan Larsen helping to lead McHenry County's first immigrant justice march from Woodstock Square to the County Government complex with Magier Rivera  and Carlos Acosta.

The Rev. Dan Larsen is the usual suspect.  Recently retired from a 19-year ministry at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock, Illinois and named minister emeritus, Rev. Larsen was the one person the local media knew that they could count on when issues around social justice and discrimination of any kind arose.  They knew that one way or another Rev. Larsen and his church would be involved.

Dan Larsen has been Standing on the Side of Love for a long time.  In conservative, overwhelmingly white McHenry County, located in the far northwestern corner of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, he stood for love and justice when few others dared to.

Almost immediately upon assuming the Woodstock pulpit he reached out to the Latino community creating the first county-wide Hispanic Concerns Task Force and battling housing discrimination and other hurdles faced by that community.  As numbers of Latinos in the county swelled, so did an ugly racist backlash and in recent years a virulent anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by groups like the Illinois Minutemen.  Rev. Larsen helped organize and lead the county’s first big immigration reform march and organized protests to Minutemen meetings.  At church, he developed special outreach and service programs for the community, including a weekly group for Latino women that combined help with learning English with support in finding employment and, when necessary, assistance.

When a faction of the Ku Klux Klan targeted McHenry County in 1997 with a rally at the County Government Center, Dan Larsen helped organize an interfaith alternative event on historic Woodstock Square.  That event eventually became the Diversity Day Festival which ran annually through 2010, intentionally bringing together people of different racial, ethnic, religious, language, physical and mental challenges, gender, and sexual orientation.  The Festival, held in late September or early October, helped local Muslims introduce themselves as a human community in the dark days after the 9/11 attacks.  It was also the first public forum in the county in which Gays and Lesbians felt comfortable in participating.

Rev. Dan Larsen leading a silent march from the Congregational Unitarian Church to the Woodstock Square Civil War Monument in 2012.  Larsen always made the Memorial Day services about all the war dead--veterans, non-combatants, collateral damage, and even enemies united in death.

Starting with work educating the public about the real truth about the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the early 1990’s when local media and authorities were spreading both panic and blame on the Gay community, Larsen has been an advocate for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgender community.  He offered the church building as the only safe haven in McHenry County for Gay and Gay ally groups to meet.  A support group became McHenry County Pride, the first openly gay organization in the county, which continues to meet at the church.  The church also housed a pioneering counseling program for Gay teens, who were often the objects of bullying and violence in their high schools, and is the home for the county chapter of PFLAG.  Larsen helped the Congregation become certified as a Welcoming Congregation and becoming a comfortable home for Gays and Lesbians.  He pioneered in performing religious union ceremonies in the county and forthrightly advocated marriage equality.  When a proposal to bring the rowing events of the Gay Games to nearby Crystal Lake, Larsen publicly spoke out at meetings packed by screaming protesters of the Park District’s decision to allow the use of the Lake.  All of these activities have frequently drawn public and private threats of violence against Larsen and the Church.

Rev. Larsen asked “How Do We Support Our Troops?”  He argued that, for him, the best way to support the troops is to end the war so they “don’t have to be killed and don’t have to kill.” 

This just skims the surface of a remarkable dedication to justice.  It fails to mention his outstanding work in the peace movement and in advocacy for health care reform, among other issues.

Just after announcing his retirement, Larsen was diagnosed with advanced throat cancer.  After several months of intense treatment, he is on the road to recovery with a good prognosis.  And he is back in the saddle working with many of the same groups he reached out to as an active minister.  He was recently elected president of Principled Minds, a local non-profit that partners with other organizations to develop documentary and educational programs designed to fight racism, discrimination, and school bullying.

During the Tree of Life Congregations campaign for marriage equality, Minister Emeritus Dan Larsen (center in tan coat) participated in a road-side vigil in McHenry.

Since I finished the paragraphs above, Dan has had some hard times.  Is beloved wife and supporter Pat succumbed to a long battle with breast cancer.  He was naturally overcome with grief and has had serious problems with depression.  Despite surviving the throat cancer, Dan developed several other health problems himself.  He has lost a lot of weight and sometimes looks, well, frail.  Even his loyal companion, the Boxer Snoop Dog had his own brush with cancer and nearly died last fall.

Meanwhile Dan had to adapt to a new relationship with his old congregation, which among other things physically moved away to a new building in McHenry.  That meant backing away from involvement at the church to facilitate a transition to new leadership and to let our new minister, the Rev. Sean Parker-Dennison, settle in without having to look over his shoulder.  But that distancing came just as he needed the support of his old friends and community the most.

Dan Larsen in a Tree of Life directory photo.

Dan eased back into things by re-joining the Social Justice Committee just about the same time I was elected Chair.  The ability to work on issues he cares deeply about gave him purpose.  I watched him improve physically the more he became engaged.

So I we were able smooth over our difficulties, and work together for a while.  Meanwhile Dan served as pastor to a couple of small non-UU congregations.  When those petered out he continued to seek new assignments or pulpit supply opportunities while he was in and out of hospitals multiple times for heart failure.  Unfortunately his mental health also deteriorated.  He felt angry and marginalized by his old Congregation and picked fights with some of his closest friends.  Bitterness and resentment stalked his final years and he did not go gentle into that goodnight.  One bright spot was the loving support he found with a woman in a Marengo church.

Over the last year or so I saw Dan on the few occasions when he came to Sunday morning services at Tree of Life, and had a last conversation with him on a Metra platform early last fall.  I sent a final card after learning he had entered hospice last Wednesday.  I don’t know if he ever read it.  I hope he did.  I wanted to tell him one more time how much I loved him.

It Could Have Been Me—Murfin Home Confinement Music Festival 2020

It Could Have Been Me by Holly Near.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shooting.  You probably noticed.  It has been all over social media, especially posts from geezers like me old enough to remember it and to have participated in the aftermath.  I don’t know exactly how this fits into our Home Confinement Music Festival except it should not go unnoticed and the fact that perhaps the deep divisions the shooting had on society then are mirrored by those over the Coronavirus lockdown and response today.

The sleeve to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's single Ohio.

Kent state inspired a remarkable number of songs and musical commemorations.  The best known of course is Ohio written by Neil Young for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.  It is ubiquitous and you have probably seen at least some postings of it.  Other songs included English singer/songwriter Harvey Andrews Hey Sandy for victim Sandra Scheuer, Steve Millers’ Jackson-Kent Blues from the Steve Miller Band album Number 5, The Beach Boys’ Student Demonstration Time on Surf's Up with new lyrics by Mike Love for Leiber & Stoller’s Riot in Cell Block Number Nine, Bruce Springsteen’s Where Was Jesus in Ohio, actress and singer Ruth Warrick’s 41,000 Plus 4—The Ballad of the Kent State, Dave Brubeck’s cantata Truth Is Fallen, and Barbara Dane’s The Kent State Massacre written by Jack Warshaw on her 1973 album I Hate the Capitalist System.

But today we are sharing the very personal It Could Have Been Me written and performed by Holly Near.  Near was never a rock or pop sensation and although a gifted and prolific singer/songwriter never really fit into to the folk music niche.  But she cultivated a devoted following for her feminist, LGBTQ, and social protest music that has endured for decades.  Among her beloved songs is Singing For Our Lives  which is included in the hymnal of the Unitarian Universalist Association Singing the Living Tradition, under the title We Are A Gentle, Angry People.

Holly Near in the mid 1970's.

Near recorded It Could Have Been Me in 1973 at a live performance for her 1975 A Live Album.  In our YouTube clip Near’s spoken introduction is nearly inaudible but hang  in there, her beautiful clear voice soon comes in.  The song was done a cappella as were many of her stage performances.

The Not So Golden Anniversary of Kent State and Murfin Memoirs of the Days Following

Ohio National Guardmen take aim on retreating student demonstrators on the Kent State campus.  Note the officer with the pistol who may have given an order or signal to tire.

Fifty years ago today on May 4, 1970 Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on student anti-war demonstrators on the very middle American campus of Kent State University.  Four students were killed by the gunfire—Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer.  Only Miller was an active participant in the protests that day, Krause and Scheuer were sympathetic bystanders, and Schroeder was a totally non-involved ROTC student killed at a distance while walking from a class.  Nine other students were injured.  No Guardsman was seriously injured.  

The Guardsmen were said to have fired spontaneously in fear of being attacked by the demonstrators.  But film evidence shows the demonstrators were retreating and more than a 100 yards down a slope from the troops.  There is also now considerable evidence that an officer with a pistol ordered or signaled a command to fire.

John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of 15 year-old Florida runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller. 

Full accounts of the shootings, the days of unrest prior to the fatal afternoon, the aftermath, and the investigations can be found in several online sources including author William A. Gordon’s website in support of his book Four Dead In Ohio: Was There a Conspiracy at Kent State?; the Kent May 4 Center, an off-campus resource; Kent State’s own May 4, 50th Commemoration site; and the handy and generally reliable Wikipedia entry.

There are also official Ohio State and FBI investigations that must be taken with tablespoon-fulls of salt.  Among the scores of books I still recommend the very readable Kent State: What Happened and Why by novelist James A. Michener which was rushed to publication in 1971.  Without the considerable evidence later uncovered, Michener concluded that the shooting was a “tragic accident.”  But the book is excellent in putting a human face on the participants and victims and especially in disclosing the raw generational divide in the aftermath that had one survivor being told by his parents that he should have been shot.  Some of those family rifts, not only at Kent State but around the country between demonstrators and their silent majority parents have still not healed and there were grandparents who never met their grandchildren and now aging adult children who were never welcome at their parents’ funerals.

The paperback edition of James A. Michener's early book on the tragedy.

The Kent State killings and the murders of Black Jackson State University in Mississippi were an outgrowth of a May 4th national Student Strike against the war.  In the wake of the Kent State massacre that strike blossomed into hundreds of demonstrations all over the United States including university occupations, pitched street battles, and mass demonstrations that continued for more than a week.  

A poster for the May 4th student strike against the invasion of Cambodia and on-going War in Vietnam.

Despite the spasm of rage and militancy, student anti-war activism subsided considerably over the next two or three years.  Leadership of a mass anti-war movement shifted to the respectable middle class and efforts like the Vietnam Moratorium.  Ohio Governor James Rhodes and President Richard Nixon were both convinced that the shootings successfully broke the back of student radical activism.  More recently Donald Trump hinted that similar “very rough treatment” would solve the problems of Black Lives Matter and Native American anti-pipeline protesters.

The Official Kent State University commemoration logo.

There would have been elaborate commemorations today at Kent State, which now takes pains to honor the victims, but those fell victim to the Coronavirus pandemic lock down.  Instead several events including a virtual candle light vigil, a noon Eastern Daylight Time ceremony, and exhibits and panel discussions will stream at and be made available on YouTube.

For many of my generation Kent State and its aftermath were central life altering events in our lives.  What follows is an account of my own small part in those events, as best as my poor memory can reconstruct things 50 years later.

My Own Private Kent State 

I must have been at my brother Tim’s (later known as Peter) apartment on Sheridan Road near the Morse Ave. Beach when we got the news of the shooting.  Oddly, unlike other Great Events, I can’t fix in my mind the moment I heard the news. 

Rather than hopping on the L to get to my own school, Columbia College, a small communications college located on a few floors of a commercial building at Grand Ave. and the Inner Drive north of the Loop, my brother convinced me to go with him and his friends to his campus, Kendall College in Evanston.  Kendall was then a small, private two year college mostly drawing students from the northern suburbs.  Neither the school nor my brother was particularly politically active.  Tim was the center of acid dropping spirituality and the self-appointed guru to a circle of acolytes, many of them fellow students at Kendall.  He said he left the Revolution to me. When we arrived on campus, students were in full possession of the buildings and the administration was nowhere to be found, although some faculty was on hand mingling with the students.  There was no police presence; it was as though the administration had simply abandoned the school to the students. 

Students rallied on the Northwestern campus.  The night of May 4 they erupted onto Sheridan Road and erected barricades that stayed in place for days.  Some students from near-by Kendall College went over to join them.

Some folks had gone over to join Northwestern students at barricades erected on Sheridan Road.  Others milled about trying to figure out what to do.  One student was working a Ham Radio and gathering information from actions at campuses across the country.  We soon realized that this could become an asset.  

Phone connections were somehow made with students from campuses across the Chicago area and we fed them news gleaned from the Ham operator.  Not all of that information was reliable, some turned out to be wild rumor, but enough was good so that it became apparent that we were part of a spontaneous nationwide student uprising that was growing by the hour.  

Besides participating in the phone network, I started posting the news on large sheets of paper, updated regularly throughout the night to keep students informed.  I called them the Joe Hill Memorial Wall Posters and had about a dozen of them lining hallways by the time the night was over.  

There were also informal discussions all night.  I was considered a real live activist because of my connections with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and my input was probably given more credence than I deserved.  By morning I had agreed to return to campus later and set up some educational programs, which I did do, although Kendall never became a hot bed of radicalism.

In the morning, running on adrenalin, I headed down to Columbia.  Columbia was a commuter school specializing in communications and the arts—broadcasting, photography, theater, dance, and writing.  With no one living on our non-existent campus, I was not sure what I would find.  There were no classes but it wasn’t exactly a strike either because the administration was totally supportive of the student cause and offered the facilities of the school free to the movement.  

I headed down to the print shop in the basement, where I worked as one of two printers.  We ginned up our little A.B. Dick 360 and Multilith 1250 offset presses and were soon turning out hundreds, even thousands of flyers, posters, handbills, and other material advertising actions across the city and region.  

This banner hanging from an occupied campus building somewhere in America summarized the mood of outrage and defiance that swept campuses.

I have no recollection of how, but I was selected as one of two representatives from Columbia to a city wide student strike committee.  I believe it was Wednesday when a couple of hundred folks met at the Riviera Theater in Uptown to plan coordinated actions.  

The meeting was a perfect example of sometimes chaotic participatory democracy, but a consensus was arrived at to have a unified, city wide march and demonstration downtown on Saturday.  I was named to the demonstration organizing committee with students from University of Illinois Circle Campus, University of Chicago, and Roosevelt, among other schools.  Many of the others members were in SDS.  Others were Trotskyites, who made something of a specialty of organizing big demonstrations.  There was a sprinkling of Anarchists as well.  But the ideological wars that wracked campuses were suspended—mostly—in the face of the common emergency.  Another meeting the following day was held at Circle Campus.

Again, I have no memory of how, but I was selected to try and negotiate with Chicago Police in what most felt was the vain hope of avoid an attack by authorities the day of the March.  Given the background of the Police Riots against demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic Convention, at protest marches connected to the trial of the Chicago 7, and the virtual street warfare around the Days of Rage in October ’69 there was little reason to hope for a better outcome.

Late Thursday afternoon I was escorted through an eerily quiet Police Headquarters to the office of Deputy Superintendent James Riordan.  I believe I may have been taken through a route intended to keep rank and file police from seeing that the brass was meeting “the enemy.”  Riordan was cordial.  We shook hands.  We both clearly understood the potential volatility of the situation.  I told him that organizers intended an entirely peaceful march and pointed to some earlier mass marches that had gone off without a hitch.  I also pointed out that there had been no significant acts of violence on any of the Chicago area campuses even at Northwestern with its barricades or the building occupations at other schools.  I said that we would have marshals to keep our demonstrators in line and moving and to discourage break away marches.  Although others were trying to obtain a parade permit, I said that we intended to exercise our free speech rights and march with or without one.  

 Riordan said he understood and said that the police did not want to provoke a confrontation and would be as “restrained as possible.”  I told him that we expected police would line the rout of march, but that putting those officers in full riot gear or having them stand with batons conspicuously exposed might be provocative under the circumstances.  Riordan made no explicit promises but indicated that if we kept our people in line there would be a kind of truce.  I got the distinct impression that higher-ups had already decided to try to avoid more bad national press.

A peaceful Kent State student strike march much like the one in Chicago.

All during this period, although I was known to be a Wobbly, I was not acting in any way as a representative of the union.  I did inform the Chicago Branch of developments and the branch decided to participate in the march.  That Saturday rather than joining other “leaders”—and I use that term in the loosest possible manner—in the front of the march or joining with Columbia or Kendall college contingents, I marched as a rank-and-file member of the IWW behind our black and red banner.  Although riot equipped police were on hand, they were kept largely out of sight.  Officers lining the route wore standard blouses and soft caps.  Their batons were kept under their coats.  The march and rally went off without a serious hitch or any violence, which is more than can be said of marches in other cities.

Later, I reported on the events in the pages of the Industrial Worker.