KUCA plans peaceful ROTC demonstration
The "KU Committee for Alternatives" (KUCA) has called for a University wide strike Friday to protest the recent United States involvement in Cambodia and the death of four Kent State students.
In place of classes the committee is urging students to attend open classes discussing topics such as American militarism. Cambodia and Vietnam.
At 1:30 p.m. Friday a mass rally is scheduled to take place in front of Strong Hall followed by a "Festival of Life" at 2:30 on the slopes in back of the Campanile.
A position paper put out by the committee stated, "We are greatly alarmed at the rise of militarism in America. We have seen our President, after consulting with the military and ignoring the lawful representatives of the people of this country, escalate an already illegal war by invading Cambodia.
"We are shocked at the deaths of four Kent State students, who were protesting this war, by a branch of the same military establishment which is suppressing dissent both at home and abroad."
Monday they presented a letter to Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr., urging him to stop University sanction of the ROTC review scheduled for Friday and to call off classes. Wednesday the group is asking the Chancellor to respond in a public statement.
Dan Jahn, Westbury, New York sophomore, and representative of KUCA, said they are planning a peaceful demonstration and said, "Even if the Chancellor does not call off the ROTC review, no interference is planned."
The paper said, "We feel this University's overt complicity with the military establishment is evidenced by its sanction of an ROTC review whose sole purpose is the glorification of the military."
"It is important that every KU student be aware of the facts behind these issues," the paper continued, "the recent happenings constitute a serious enough threat to the democratic traditions of this nation to call for a general strike of this University on Friday as a protest of these actions."
80th Year, No.128 The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas Tuesday, May 5, 1970
Chancellor doubts effects of KUCA
In an interview Monday afternoon, Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. said he doubted if the scheduled events of the KU Committee for Alternatives (KUCA) would affect students any more than any other campus event.
"I doubt that it would be different than any other activity, such as astronaut Lovell appearing on campus or the Vietnam moratorium march in October," Chalmers said.
The KUCA asked in a letter sent Monday to the Chancellor and all faculty members that classes Friday be called off to discuss issues of the Indochina War. They also asked that the annual ROTC review not be held on University grounds.
According to the letter sent to the faculty, the KUCA believes the presence of the ROTC review implies condemnation of the expansion of the Vietnam war into Cambodia, called for by President Nixon.
"I think our usual policy pertaining to this type of
activity has worked well in the past," Chalmers said, "and I see no reason to vary it for this."
Chalmers said that students are free to go to the activities planned for this week, since there is no compulsory class attendance. He said that as long as they are willing to make up any work which they missed, that it was up to the students.
Dan Jahn, Westbury, N.Y., sophomore, and one of the organizers of the KUCA, said that several activities are planned for this week.
"We plan to hold discussions in the residence halls, fraternities, scholarship halls and sororites," Jahn said. "There will also be skits on campus this week, a 'festival of life,' guerrilla' theater and a festival of life."
A march on campus was scheduled for 11:30 this morning, according to Jahn, as a memorial to the students who have died in the war.
NOTICE
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. and Morris Kay, president of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, have announced that all students at the University of Kansas are invited to attend the Chamber's annual meeting and program, 8 p.m. tonight in Hoch auditorium.
Featured speaker will be Dan De Luce, Associated Press assistant general manager. DeLuce recently returned from an 18 day visit to North Vietnam.
There will be no charge for students.
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UDK News Roundup
By United Press International
Ecology agency proposed
WASHINGTON—A bill to establish a separate federal agency to coordinate knowledge of pollution problems and their effect on the environment was introduced in the House Monday by five Missouri representatives from the greater St. Louis area.
ROTC building burns
ST. LOUIS—About 100 young persons helped three youths set fire to the ROTC building on Washington University's campus Monday night and drove off firemen with rocks and bottles. They watched the building burn while chanting, "Kent State, Kent State."
The incident began with a report that students would rally at Washington University's ROTC building and march to St. Louis University, where other students were holding an all-night camp-out in protest of the deaths of four students at Kent State University.
Church exemption upheld
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 1 Monday that states are entitled to grant tax exemptions to churches for property used exclusively for religious purposes.
The decision rejecting a challenge of a New York State law was written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Justice William O.Douglas was the lone dissenter.
Third offensive begins
SAIGON—The U.S. Command today announced the beginning of a third Allied offensive into Cambodia in President Nixon's drive to rob the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese of their sanctuary springboards for attacks into Vietnam.
Four students killed in anti-war clash
KENT, Ohio (UPI)—Four students were shot to death on the Kent State University campus Monday when National Guardsmen, claiming they were attacked by a sniper fired on a group of young persons demonstrating against extension of the Indochina War.
At least 11 other students were wounded in the brief volley of gunfire which cracked along the tree-lined campus shortly before noon.
The head of Ohio's National Guard and students differed in their versions of how the shooting began.
In Columbus, S.T. del Corso, the state adjutant general, said that "a sniper opened fire against the Guardsmen from a nearby rooftop."
Brig. Gen. Robert Canterbury, the commander of guard troops on the campus, said no warning was given to the students that the troops would shoot.
Student eyewitnesses said they heard no gunfire until some of the Guardsmen began shooting. They said the Guardsmen at the time were retreating under a shower of rocks thrown by the demonstrators.
"All of a sudden," said one male student, "some of them turned around, faced the crowd of students and started firing."
The dead students were identified as coeds Allison Krause of Pittsburgh, and Sandy Scheuer of Youngstown, Ohio, and two male students, Jeffrey Glenn Miller of Plainview, N.Y., and William Schneider. No address was given for Schneider.
A blonde coed, who said she had a clear view of the shooting, said "at least half of the soldiers fired into the air or into the ground, but some of them simply aimed right at the students."
"It sounded like the finale at the Fourth of July fireworks display," she said.
Dozens of students interviewed separately agreed that the volley from the Guardsmen was the first sound of gunfire they heard on the campus.
Told of the shootings in Washington, President Nixon said the tragedy should convince educators and students that when "dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy."
It was the bloodiest confrontation
that has yet taken place in the three-year-old student crusade against the Vietnam War, a crusade that had waned into virtual silence until Nixon gave it new impetus last week by announcing his invasion of the Cambodian territory where North Vietnam troops have long found sanctuary.
After the dead and injured had been removed to Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna, authorities closed the university for at least a week, and sent the 20,000 students home.
Incoming telephone calls from frantic parents swamped the small town's telephone system and for hours it was not possible to place a long distance call into or out of Kent.
The main highways leading out of the little college town were jammed bumper to bumper with automobiles leached with students.
Trouble started at Kent State Friday night, when an estimated 500 students swept through the business district
National Guardsmen with bayonets on their M1 rifles guarded the university administration building at key intersections on campus.
smashing windows. Gov. James A. Rhodes sent out the National Guard the following night when a ROTC building was set afire.
Canterbury, at a campus news conference in reply to sharp questioning said no official order was given to open fire.
"The situation did not allow it." Canterbury said. "The emotional atmosphere was such that anything could have happened. It was over in two to three seconds." He said a Guardsmar "always has the option to fire if his life is in danger."
"A crowd of about 600 students had surrounded a unit of about one-hundred guardsmen on three sides and were throwing rocks at the troops," he said. "Some of the rocks were the size of baseballs. The troops had run out of tear gas."
Gov. Rhodes, who had ordered the National Guardsmen on to the campus Saturday after students began looting stores and breaking windows in the downtown area, said "a complete investigation" would be made into the shootings.