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Nation: DALEY CITY UNDER SIEGE
(2 of 3)
Vomit on Joy. Inside, several hundred security men were assigned to mingle with delegates and spectators while others stood vigil on catwalks overseeing the entire arena. There was even talk of putting men in subterranean service areas. Employees of the amphitheatre, the neighboring Stock Yard Inn and major hotels were all checked for security. Police from coast to coast were asked to inform the FBI as lead ing protesters left for Chicago.
Following its tough line all the way, the city prohibited the Coalition for an Open Convention, the relatively tame stop-Humphrey group, from holding a rally at Soldier Field. It also refused to give the yippies permission to camp in Lincoln Park, and told demonstrators that they could march nowhere near the amphitheatre itself. Appeals of the bans were rejected by Federal District Judge William LynchMayor Daley's former law partner.
All that did not deter demonstrators.
Led by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam, the protesters planned a march of 100,000 or more on the amphitheatre. A special 20-page convention issue of Rat, a New York underground newspaper, prescribed the minimal do-it-yourself demonstrator's kit: Vaseline for the skin to protect against Chemical Mace, two pieces of canvas for sleeping in the parks, and at least $200 in bail money.
One contingent was trained in Lincoln Park to control crowds, administer first aid and break through police lines. Using a technique perfected by Japanese students, they locked arms and snake-danced around baseball dia monds, chanting ''Wash-air (a Japanese expression urging enthusiasm). They also practiced karate. "To remain passive in the face of escalating police brutality is foolish and degrading," said David Baker, a Committee leader from Detroit, who was leading the practice. "The advice used to be that you should give police a flower and say 'Hello, brother.' But it didn't stop the brutality, and people continued to get hurt."
Allied in their opposition to the war, the demonstrators are still divided on goals and methods. Tom Hayden, who traveled to North Viet Nam last year to obtain the release of three U.S. prisoners and who is now a chief organizer of the mobilization committee, said that "we are coming to Chicago to vomit on the politics of joy, to expose the secret decisions, upset the nightclub orgies, and face the Democratic Party with its illegitimacy and criminality." Members of Students for a Democratic Society, on the other hand, are only reluctantly joining the demonstrations. Their purpose in coming to Chicago is to convert young McCarthyites to radicalism when, as they believe is inevitable, Hubert Humphrey is nominated.
This Little Piggy. The yippies want merely to mock the system. During a five day "Festival of Life," they plan to nominate a pig named Pigasus for President. The Chicago police department did not see much humor in the idea. The cops threw seven yippies and their candidate into a paddy wagon when they appeared in Civic Center Plaza. Pigasus was carted, squealing all the way, to the Humane Society.
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