Students: A Dignified Protest

Neatly arrayed in graveyard rows, the 435 thin white crosses ranged down the sloping mall in front of Bascom Hall, the University of Wisconsin's main administration building. All through the rainy afternoon a cortege of mock mourners shuffled past. As they marched slowly up the hill, past a sign reading BASCOM MEMORIAL CEMETERY, CLASS OF 1968, the solemn students chanted: "Pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you; pray for the dead."

The low-key protest was planned by a senior history major from Washington, D.C., who hoped that the instant cemetery would symbolize the fact that today's "students really are faced with death." Some 60 students worked for two days to assemble the crosses, then planted them hurriedly, fearful that they might be accused of damaging the lawn. But university authorities, impressed by one of the most dignified—and wholly nonviolent—anti-Viet Nam demonstrations of the academic year, left the crosses untouched all day long. They were removed the next morning by campus maintenance men.