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University Daily Kansan
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Friday, April 18, 1975
KU violence, protest all in the past
By JOHN BROOKS Contributing Writer
By JOHN BROOKS
More than a century has passed since Quantrill and his raiders virtually destroyed the community in 1863. The war was just another many events of the American Civil War.
In the spring of 1970, Lawrence was burning once again. This time in the wake of a wave of violence, protest and arson that was sweeping the country.
Student unrest at the University wasn't unusual. It has surfaced many times since the late 1970s, and magnitude of student protest increased tremendously at KU during the 80s. By the end of the decade it had moved from passive dissent to active resistance of established students.
THE STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY (SDS) and other radical organizations were actively involved in the government's controversial political issues on campus.
Student interest in political issues in-
unconcerned and apathetic. It wasn't until
unconcerned and apathetic. It wasn't until
the summer jacket of student
the summer jacket of student
By April 1970 emotion and heated blood were once again flowing through the veins of concerned students at the University. A student strike was organized for April 8 to protest a decision by the Board of Regents to postpone the promotions of two faculty members who had been involved in student protests and to protest the Vietnam War.
STUDENTS WERE ASKED to boycott class and pickets were stationed at buildings to talk students out of going to class. That same night Abbie Hoffman, one of the Chicago Seven who had been convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot, spoke almost 8,000 students, faculty and townpeople at Allen Field House.
At the rally, Hoffman said the role of the university was to serve as the training ground for revolutionaries and a college degree was useless.
Many people who attended the rally were disappointed with Hoffman and left the
Barricades, debris and nail-studded boards were placed on streets and alleys, and piano wire was stretched head-tight in some houses in the 1200 block of Louisiana.
By April, 1970, emotion and heated blood were once again flowing . . .
Curfew violators in this area threw bottles, bricks and rocks at police and also participated in firebombing and sniping to burass police and firemen.
More than 60 people were arrested for curfew violations; three were arrested for possessing incendiary devices, and two were arrested on arson charges.
William M. Balfour, vice chancellor for student affairs, said it was very difficult to determine at that time whether the National Guard hadn't been there.
E. Laurence Chalmer Jr. had recently been installed as the University's eleventh chancellor. It was during his administration that he set its greatest problem with student dissent.
Antiwar literature was passed out, petitions to end the war in Vietnam were circulated and close to 3,000 people participated in a peace march on Jayhawk Blvd. Students were asked to boycott classes and faculty members were urged not to teach. It was a day of silent vigils, rallies and speeches.
The atmosphere was right for a new round of demonstrations, protests and violence when students returned to the University in the fall of 1968.
creased on both the student and national government levels. Many students wanted change, revaluation and new direction. Others seriously questioned the role of the teacher in an educational institution. Some resorted to guerilla warfare, bombing and burning.
The only major demonstration during the fall semester was the Oct. 15 Vietnam war moratorium. More than 3,000 students, faculty members and townpeople participated in the essentially nonviolent demonstration.
THERE WAS ANOTHER moratorium on Nov. 15 when more than 250,000 people marched on Washington, D.C. Approximately one hundred KU students attended the protest. A few were arrested. However, student support on the KU campus had ebbed and only a few hundred participated in the scheduled events.
The campus remained relatively calm and complacent for the rest of the semester. It was an unruly place, and students
meeting before he had finished speaking. Likewise Hoffman was disappointed with the students' participation in the day's event and called it a "marshmallow strike."
Pleas for non-violence during the strike went unheeded. Molotov cocktails were thrown on campus and the old Haworth building, which was being raided at the time to make room for Wescole Hall, was firebombed. A bomb exploded at the offices of some of the businesses in the building, and there were many reports of bomb threats.
On April 15, the Gambles Store at 930 Massachusetts was gutted by a fire caused by arson. The damage was estimated at 2,000 homes later the Kansas Union was in flames.
The Union fire was reported at 10:38 Monday night and quickly spread through the top two floors of the six-story Union. The entire Lawrence fire department fought the blaze, which at times leaped 30 to 40 feet above the roof of the building.
THE FIREFIGHTERS RECEIVED help from nearly 200 students who entered the building at their own risk and waded in water. About about $30,000 of art supplies and furnishings.
State fire inspectors officially ruled the Union fire the result of arson. The blaze virtually destroyed the top two floors of the central section of the Union.
Late in April, then President Richard M. Nixon announced that U.S. troops had invaded Cambodia and that the bombing of North Vietnam would be resumed.
For the three nights following the burning of the Union, Lawrence was placed under a dusk-to-dawn curfew by then Kansas Governor Robert Docking.
This added more fuel to the fires of student protest throughout the country. On May 4, 1970, four students were killed and 11 wounded when National Guard bombed on a group of spectators and antiwar protestors at Kent State University in Ohio.
Tension was running high at KU and a student strike was being planned to close the University. The annual ROTC review decided for fear of violent demonstrations.
During the three-day curfew numerous incidents occurred in the area northeast of Benton Harbor.
On Friday, May 8, an all-student conversation was held at the stadium. The event drew nearly 10,000 people.
BEFORE AN AUDIENCE of 12-15,000 students, Chancellor Chalmers presented his solution for easing the tension and volatile situation on campus.
He proposed the Rhode Island Plan which contained a number of grade options that the students could choose as alternatives to regular University policy.
These were: credit-no credit for course work completed; continue as normal and take finals; receive a letter grade on work completed so far; or take an incomplete and complete the work taken and the student body overwhelmingly approved the Chancellor's resolution.
Balfour said that Chalmers received a great deal of criticism for this decision. But," he said, "I honestly believe that it could resolve the turmoil here."
"I've had kept on our regular schedule, I'm sure we would have had occupation of buildings and all sorts of things that in the past we've been much worse for the University."
BALFOUR SAID THAT during the year the administration had reacted with some repression to the demands of the students, but that the administration also had sent the students' request for participation and investment in University government was valid.
"It wasn't all that difficult for us to accept that there needed to be some changes."
Calder Pickett, professor of journalism.
said that during that time he believed the great majority of students were being dictated by a small core of people. He said that many people just wanted to identify with those things happening during their times. It was perfectly understandable.
"I think that history will bear this out," he said. "There was a lot of laddiness in the student protest movement. A lot of students didn't feel deeply about it."
Pickett said that the dislusioning thing about the movement was that so much of the revolutionary fervor died as soon as the draft ended.
The students cancelled classes, Pickett said, and then a great many of them played
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