Free people, free pot, free
music, free theatre; a whole new culture will manifest itself to the world, rising
from the ashes of America. Rock groups will be performing in the parks;
newspapers will be printed in the streets; Democrats and dope fiends will chase
each other through hotel corridors. Longboats filled with Vikings will land on
the shores of Lake Michigan, and discover America! Chicago will become a river
of wild onions!
YOUTH
INTERNATIONAL PARTY
CHICAGO,
AUGUST 25-30, 1968
Yippee!
Thomas felt a jolt
as he looked down at the Yippie leaflet, and assumed the train had made a
lurch. “A magical time will be had by all,” proclaimed a hand-lettered message
on the outside of the envelope it had arrived in. When he had received the
leaflet back in March there was still magic in the air. Eugene McCarthy, the
peace candidate for president, had nearly defeated Lyndon B. Johnson in the New
Hampshire primary. For a few weeks, it looked as though peace, love, and
understanding would triumph that year.
Of course, for the
men and women in Vietnam there was no magic. The year had begun with the
surprise attack of the Tet Offensive, where North Vietnamese and National
Liberation Front (Viet Cong) troops had broken a cease-fire and made advances
throughout South Vietnam, even taking the provincial capital of Hue. In Saigon
they breached the perimeter of the United States Embassy. The offensive had
ultimately been beaten back by United States and South Vietnamese forces after
some hard and bloody fighting, but it wasn't supposed to have happened in the
first place. The only positive thing about the Tet Offensive was that it made
more and more Americans wonder whether this war was worth the blood and
treasure.
CBS news anchor
Walter Cronkite had come back from a reporting tour of Vietnam and
editorialized on February 27 that the war was essentially a stalemate, and
called for a negotiations with the enemy, “not as victors, but as an honorable
people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they
could.” It appeared that America was ready for a dose of sanity.
But as he sat on
the train to Chicago, staring at the leaflet, he knew the magic had ended all
too soon. First, Robert Kennedy had entered the presidential race and divided
the antiwar Democrats. When President Johnson withdrew from the race at the end
of March, there was little celebration. Still, the dream of peace did not turn
to nightmare until April 4, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, and
cities, including parts of Chicago, went up in flames.
It was Robert
Kennedy, the man some McCarthy organizers had called cowardly, who showed courage
and compassion the night King died. Thomas had been in Indianapolis the night
of April 4, when Kennedy announced to a largely black audience that King had
been assassinated. In his mind Thomas could still hear Kennedy quoting
Aeschylus: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon
the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through
the awful grace of God." There were tears streaming down his face, and
down the faces of everyone in the McCarthy headquarters as they watched Kennedy
on a battered old television. He asked his audience to say a prayer for Martin
Luther King’s family and for the nation, and exhorted them to “dedicate
ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of
man and make gentle the life of this world.”
There were no riots in
Indianapolis that night. Thomas realized then that Kennedy was perhaps the only
candidate who could unify the nation. He could connect not only with black
Americans, but with working-class whites. Thomas couldn’t imagine McCarthy at
the West Side Democratic Club in South Bend, drinking beer and eating Polish
sausage on Dyngus Day, the Monday after Easter. But Kennedy was there. Although
he knew Kennedy was the best hope for America, he had committed himself to the
McCarthy campaign, and felt honor-bound to stay with it.
The King assassination delayed
Hubert Humphrey's entry into the presidential race. On April 27, in a gilded
ballroom in Washington, D.C., Humphrey, apparently oblivious to the past
months, declared the “politics of happiness, the politics of purpose, and the
politics of joy.” While he had entered the presidential race too late to enter
any primary, he could count on a goodly number of delegates from the caucus
states, and quite a few from states with nonbinding primaries. Humphrey had a
solid record on civil rights, but he was in lockstep with Johnson on the war.
It was almost two
months to the day after King's murder that Robert Kennedy met the same fate.
Thomas had gone to bed June 4 knowing McCarthy would lose the winner-take-all
California primary and woke up to learn Robert Kennedy had been murdered by a
man identified as Sirhan Sirhan. After the shock and sadness of Kennedy's
death, he assumed Kennedy's delegates would support McCarthy, the original
peace candidate. But McCarthy, still bitter about the Kennedy candidacy, had
withdrawn into himself, rebuffing the efforts of his own campaign to cooperate
with former Kennedy supporters. After weeks of frustration, the Kennedy
organization persuaded South Dakota Senator George McGovern to declare his
candidacy in order to prevent the Kennedy delegates from going over to
Humphrey. The effort was probably in vain, as Humphrey claimed to have almost
all the delegates from the non-primary states.
Thomas wouldn't be
at the convention, but at the “Festival of Life” in Lincoln Park, which the
leaflet promoted. It was looking to be a continuation of the nightmare. What
had been planned as a counter-celebration to the convention, with live music
and entertainment, seemed to be turning into a week-long standoff with the
cops. The Festival was a joint effort by the National Mobilization Committee to
End the War in Viet Nam, or the Mobe, and the Yippies, formally known as the
Youth International Party.
The Mobe was a
coalition of antiwar groups, headed by longtime activist David Dellinger, a man
committed to nonviolence. Some of the groups were not so peaceful. The Students
for a Democratic Society had begun as a coalition of liberals and radicals.
There weren’t too many liberals left in the organization, and the radicals were
divided over tactics. Too many of them now advocated violence. Tom Hayden, who
had been one of the founders of SDS, and Rennie Davis were the most influential
youth leaders in the Mobe. Davis appeared to be in the nonviolent camp, while
Hayden said he believed there was a time for violence, but not in Chicago.
If the Mobe was the
serious side of the antiwar movement, the Yippies were anything but. They were
against the war, but they looked at the absurdity of American society and
challenged it with an absurdity of their own. The name Yippie came first, that
shout of exuberance that became the high-pitched “Yippie yodel.” But Anita
Hoffman, Abbie’s wife, knew the news media would want a more formal name. She
suggested Youth International Party. The Yippies were into guerrilla theater, a
kind of creative anarchy. For instance, Abbie Hoffman and about a dozen others
went to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, and tossed hundreds of
dollar bills onto the floor. Trading stopped as brokers, clerks, and stock
chased after the bills.
And then there was
the march on the Pentagon, where perhaps fifty thousand marchers surrounded the
Defense Department headquarters. While the Mobe was responsible for most of the
organizing, the Yippies got the media’s attention when they said they were
going to levitate the building with psychic powers. But the Festival of Life,
to compete with the Democratic Convention, which they called the Festival of
Death, was to be their pièce de résistance.
It was to be a
combination protest rally and music festival, with big-name bands and singers.
Most had canceled because of the threat of violence, though Detroit-based band
MC5 and folksinger Phil Ochs were still coming.
Beginning in March,
the Yippies and the Mobe tried to get a permit for the festival, along with
permission for people to sleep in the Lincoln Park. While the festival was
allowed to take place, the city was adamant that no one would be allowed to
sleep in the park. Lincoln Park would
close every night at eleven.
The Chicago branch
of the Yippies urged people not to come, fearing a bloodbath at the hands of
the police. But the New York Yippies, led by Hoffman and Rubin, were going ahead
with the festival.
Thomas had boarded
Penn Central's Train 27, the nameless successor to the New York Central's Twentieth
Century Limited, at the 1900-vintage Elkhart depot. He had always loved
trains, and while No. 27 was not the grand express its predecessors were, it
still seemed a magical way to travel, from the conductor's “All Aboard” to the
arrival in La Salle Street Station. The timetable showed No. 27 was scheduled
to depart at 9:27 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, but because Elkhart County stayed
on standard time, it would depart at 8:27 if it was on time. That day it was
about half an hour late.
The train, led by
three big E7 diesel locomotives, rounded the curve east of Main Street, slowing
for the stop. Thomas was glad to see the engines in gray-and-white New York
Central livery, rather than solid black Penn Central paint. It eased out of the
depot a few minutes before nine. Wearing slacks, a blazer, and a tie, and with
his Indianapolis Times press badge pinned to his jacket, he could have passed
for a young businessman, if it hadn't been for his over-the-collar hair and
long sideburns.
“Tom,” the
conductor had said, “You look good even with your long hair. Going to cover the
convention?”
“Just the Yippies'
Festival at Lincoln Park.”
“Well, be careful.
There are some pretty strange birds up there.”
He said he would.
They rolled through the yards and the towns of Osceola and Mishawaka before
making a stop at South Bend's Art Deco Union Station.
He had been up late
and then had trouble getting to sleep, anticipating convention week, so as the
train departed South Bend, he loosened his tie, reclined his seat, and dropped
off to sleep. The conductor was calling, “Englewood, 63rd Street” when he
awoke. Englewood was a station once shared by the New York Central Railway,
Pennsylvania Railroad, Rock Island Lines, and the Nickel Plate Road. At one
time you could transfer from the Pennsy's Broadway Limited to the Rock
Island's Golden State Limited without having to change stations. There
were classic pictures of the Century and Broadway pausing at
Englewood for the final lap into Chicago. Of all the great limiteds that once
stopped here, only the Broadway still ran. It had probably gone through
already.
He was on the South
Side of Chicago, and it was time to get ready to detrain. He took down his
suitcase, backpack, and portable typewriter and placed them on the empty seat
next to his. The bleak Chicago landscape, softened by the green of summer,
passed by his window. On the right were the seemingly endless rows of high-rise
housing projects, while the Dan Ryan Expressway on the left formed a barrier
between the projects, whose residents were almost exclusively black, and the
neighborhoods to the west—some black, some white, and one Chinese. Farther to
the west, beyond his sight, was the International Amphitheatre, where the
Democratic National Convention would take place. It was supposed to have been
at McCormick Place on the lakefront, but a 1967 fire there brought it to the
Amphitheatre, near the Chicago Stockyards. It wasn't really an amphitheater,
because it had walls and a roof. It was just called that, for reasons he didn't
know.
On the left, across
the Dan Ryan, flags were flying at Comiskey Park, where the White Sox were set
to play the Minnesota Twins. The Sox, Mayor Daley's team, weren't having a good
season.
The housing
projects, one after another, passed by until the train entered the coach yards.
The old green Rock Island commuter coaches and a few shiny new double-deck cars
were in from the suburbs, waiting for the afternoon rush back to Blue Island
and Joliet. No. 27 pulled into La Salle Street Station only ten minutes late,
at ten-forty.
Thomas walked down
the platform between No. 27 and the Rock Island's Peoria Rocket, with
the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad observation car, “The Reveler,” bringing up the
rear. At least one train in this station had some class, he thought. When Cary
Grant and Eva Marie Saint had gotten off the Century in North by
Northwest, they walked down a red carpet. He was treading on bare concrete.
The carpet had been retired last December, after the final Century limped
into the station several hours late.
With the cab strike
going on, he decided to walk to the Hilton, carrying his suitcase and
typewriter down Van Buren to Michigan. While La Salle Street Station was in the
heart of Chicago's financial district, Van Buren, under the Loop elevated
tracks, was lined with cheap restaurants, pawnshops, and currency exchanges. A
couple of panhandlers accosted him crossing Dearborn. The Pacific Garden
Mission was just down the street. He kept walking, as putting down his cases
would just be inviting theft. He felt bad about not giving them anything, but
then, he had virtually nothing to give. Fortunately, they didn't follow, but
turned to a new mark behind him. At State Street, Van Buren became a bit more
respectable—even more so at Wabash when he was out from under the Loop. A block
later, at Michigan, the expanse of Grant Park was straight ahead. After turning
right and crossing the six lanes of Congress Boulevard, he was in the land of
swank hotels. First was the Pick-Congress, with limousines and taxis in the
driveway and liveried doormen summoning the bellhops. The Sheraton-Blackstone,
with its baroque façade, was next. And on the other side of Balbo, towering
above the others, was his home for the next week, the Conrad Hilton. He had
stayed in Chicago hotels before, but none this grand. But someone at the Times
had warned him that in spite of all its elegance, most of the rooms in the Hilton
were pretty ordinary.
The Times had
booked him a room on the fifteenth floor--the same floor as the Eugene McCarthy
campaign. Thomas had gotten to know many of the McCarthy staffers when he had
volunteered with campaign in April and May. One of he got to know a bit too
well.
Because he was
wearing a jacket and tie and carried a letter from the Times confirming his
reservation, he had no problem checking in. The bellman took his luggage up the
elevator with him, and Thomas tipped him after he deposited his suitcase on the
stand.
As he had been
warned, the room was pretty basic—a double bed, a desk and chair, and a
bathroom. It had a television set and an AM-FM clock radio, and prints of
classical scenes hung on the walls, but there was nothing that spoke of luxury.
Along with a taxi
strike and bus strike, there was a phone strike that week, so calling could
take time. When he picked up the receiver, there was a smiling Mayor Daley, and
“WELCOME TO THE 1968 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION. Richard J. Daley, MAYOR,
CITY OF CHICAGO” under the cradle. Daley's only modesty was that he didn’t put
his own name in caps. With the help of the Hilton's switchboard operator, he
got through to the Times' Chicago bureau. The editor there told him to get up
to City Hall.
The Yippies had
nominated a pig, which they had named Pigasus, for President. They had
announced they would nominate him and then eat him, because they said the pigs
were eating the people down at the Amphitheatre. It was probably just Yippie
theater, but it aroused the ire of some animal lovers. The whole incident was
over by the time he arrived, with the police confiscating Pigasus after a
comical game of greased pig. He (or she—the story was that Pigasus was actually
a gilt, or young female pig) was now in the custody of the Anti-Cruelty Society
and Abbie Hoffman was in police custody. Thomas had a quick lunch at the
Wimpy's on Monroe—hamburgers, British style, with sautéed onions. To be really
British, he should have eaten his burger with a knife and fork, but that was
going too far for a guy from Indiana.
He went back to the
hotel, typed up the story, and walked it over to the Times' bureau in the Daily
News Building, just north of Union Station, on the west side of the river. From
there he walked back across the river to Wells and Quincy, where he caught a
Ravenswood L train.
It may be the El in
New York, but in the Windy City an elevated train is just the single capital L.
He got off at Sedgwick and walked the rest of the way up to Lincoln Park. Things
were quiet. There were a lot of Yippies and flower children, but no real
activity. With time to kill, he wandered up to the zoo, where families and
Yippies mingled without any animosity that he could see. It was getting towards
dinnertime, so he walked over to the main Lincoln Park restaurant, and got a
surprise. There in the courtyard of the restaurant was a Viking boat replica,
which must have inspired the author of that Yippie leaflet. A sign beside it
said had been built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and sailed from
Bergen, Norway to Chicago via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, and the Great
Lakes. It had been on display outside the main park restaurant since 1922, and
obviously needed some restoration work. Whoever had written that Yippee leaflet
had a sense of the city's history. And the Algonquian word Che-cau-gou meant
“wild onions,” which once grew along the river. After a rather overpriced meal,
Thomas headed back to the Hilton.
Things were
supposed to be happening on Saturday, so he decided to turn in early. He
dreamed of a beautiful young woman, with deep brown eyes and jet-black hair.
“You must be the Angel of Philadelphia,” he told her. She was so lovely and
enchanting he felt cheated when a blast of sirens and car horns down on Michigan
brought the dream to an abrupt end.
The clock at his
bedside said 1:20—too early to stay awake. He retrieved his notebook and wrote
down the dream before going back to sleep.
It was after nine
o'clock when he woke from another dream. The same young woman was there, but
she looked frightened, as though she were seeing a phantasm. “Phantasm” wasn't
a word he regularly used, but it came into his head. “Helena would use such a
word,” he muttered into the pillow. But he didn't have time to ponder over it—he
had overslept, though it was unlikely he had missed anything. He got through to
the Times' Chicago office and let them know he was heading for the festival.
Approaching the
elevator he saw the long, soft-brown hair that could only belong to Melinda Cameron.
He thought about turning back around the corner before she saw him and waiting
for the next elevator, but decided he’d have to see her sometime. She was a
staffer for the McCarthy campaign. One night, after he had spent a week driving
her around northern Indiana, she invited him up to her hotel room. It was the
first time for him, and like a lot of first-times, things were awkward. The
next night she found someone else to join her.
As soon as she saw
him her arms were around his neck.
“Are you back with
us?” she asked.
“As a reporter,” he
said, separating from her as he showed her his press badge.
“You should at
least check in with your friends,” she said. “And you might tell me your room
number. I’d like to give you another chance. You said I was the most beautiful
woman in Indiana.”
“I’ll pass, this
time, Melinda. I’ve got to go up to Lincoln Park to cover the Festival of
Life.”
“At least put this
on for me, for old times’ sake. She unpinned a McCarthy button from her blouse.
“Remember how you said the button was the color of my eyes.”
Those sky-blue eyes
were enticing, but he wasn't tempted. He let her pin the button on, though.
After a quick breakfast at the coffee shop, he left the Hilton. Outside, a
women’s peace march was going on. One of the women saw his McCarthy button and
flashed him the “V” sign for peace, which he returned. She had dark hair and
brown eyes, but wore a wedding ring. She wasn't his dream woman, but her eyes
reminded him of her and he thought of the fear he had seen in them. Perhaps he
should have skipped breakfast and headed immediately for the park. He didn't
understand why, but he knew she was there.
He walked the few blocks to State and Van Buren and rode the Ravenswood L north to the Sedgwick station. Traffic was heavy on North Avenue as he walked east through Old Town, the center of Chicago's counterculture. At La Salle he turned left, walked another block to Eugenie, crossed Stockton and the parking lot, and entered Lincoln Park.
What he found there
did not look like a revolution in the making. The Yippies’ “Festival of Life”
seemed to consist of several hundred people at the south end of the park. Many
were just walking around, checking out the other people. There were a few
couples making out, and Thomas could occasionally smell the acrid odor of
marijuana smoke. A lot of the men had long hair and beards, while the women
sported even longer hair and wore jeans or cutoffs. But there were also men in
suits and women in dresses. Knots of people were listening to speakers, who
were denouncing the war, Richard J. Daley, and Hubert Humphrey.
He got to an open
area where people were doing self-defense training. It didn’t look promising.
In the chaos of a riot, most people are not going to remember tactics they had
just learned a couple of days ago. Others were practicing washoi, a sort of
Japanese snake dance. They were six abreast, with the six in front holding onto
a long stick to keep them together. Behind them there were about a dozen rows
of people, holding onto the waists of the people in front. They marched in a
snakelike pattern, chanting “wa-shoi, wa-shoi.” Some protest organizers
believed it could be used to escape a police attack. Thomas couldn't see how it
could possibly work, even with more than one afternoon's training.
As he walked along
the path at the south end of the park, someone handed him a leaflet that
purported to be a festival schedule. He had read it before in The Seed, the
Chicago underground newspaper he subscribed to, but it wouldn't hurt to look it
over again, so he found a bench and reread it:
August 20-24 (AM): Training in snake
dancing, karate, non-violent self-defense. Information Booth in Park.
August 24 (PM): Yippie Mayor R.
Daley presents fireworks on Lake Michigan.
August 25 (AM): Welcoming the
Democratic delegates--downtown hotels (to be announced).
August 25 (PM): MUSIC
FESTIVAL--Lincoln Park.
August 26 (AM): Workshop in drug
problems, underground communication, self-defense, draft resistance, communes,
etc. (Potential workshop leaders should call The Seed, 837 No. LaSalle Street,
555-9282.) Scenario sessions to plan small group activities.
August 26 (PM): Beach Party on The
Lake across from Lincoln Park: Folksinging, barbecues, swimming, lovemaking.
August 27 (Dawn): Poetry, mantras,
religious ceremony.
August 27 (AM): Workshops and
scenario sessions. Film sessions and mixed media--Coliseum, 1513 S. Wabash.
August 27 (PM): Benefit
concert--Coliseum. Rally and nomination of Pigasus and LBJ birthday--Lincoln
Park.
August 28 (Dawn): Poetry and folk
singing.
August 28 (AM): Yippie Olympics,
Miss Yippie Contest, Catch the Candidate, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Pin the
Rubber on the Pope, and other normal, healthy games.
August 28 (PM): Plans to be
announced at a later date. 4 PM--Mobilization Rally scheduled for
Grant Park.
March to the Convention.
August 29-30: Events scheduled
depend on Wednesday night. Return to Park for sleeping.
Yet
everywhere there were signs--new signs--reading “PARK CLOSES 11 PM.”
But as he got up again and walked
along the pathway, a magical feeling came over him, in spite of all the
defenses he had put up as a journalist.
His thoughts returned to Helena. He
realized had dreamed of her before. There was always reassurance in those
mahogany-brown eyes. The one girl he thought he had loved had rejected him. She
was now offering another chance at love—at least the physical kind. He didn't
think he could handle the pressure of another night with Melinda. But could he
afford to wait for this dark-eyed dream woman? Perhaps dreams were just dreams.
As he came out of
his reverie he noticed a couple walking toward him. She looked like a Yippie,
with her long, unkempt black hair, faded green denim skirt, and tattered
peasant blouse. He was holding onto her hand, almost dragging her, while she
seemed confused and frightened. He had brown hair, was dressed all in gray, and
wore round, wire-rimmed glasses. As they passed he looked into her eyes and did
a double-take. Even though they seemed to be unfocused, as if she were on some
kind of drug, they were the same mahogany-brown eyes he had seen in the dream!
A hand grasped him
roughly by the shoulder.
“You makin' eyes at
my woman?” the man demanded.
Before Thomas had
time to reply, she said, “I am not your woman. I just met you this morning. Let
him go, or you will regret it.”
He pushed Thomas to
the ground, faced her, and grabbed her by the arms. “I just sent you trippin',
baby. We're goin' back to my place and I can really turn you on. No woman can
resist what I've got.”
Thomas began to get
up, He wasn't good at fighting, but he couldn't just let him walk off with her.
There was real fear in those eyes.
