You don't need to be a weatherman to know
which way the wind blows.—Subterranean Homesick Blues, by Bob DylanAssuming that it was blowing their way, a faction of the sundered
Students for a Democratic Society known as “The Weatherman” took to
Chicago's streets last week in a desperate attempt to re-ignite the
violence that marked the Democratic National Convention, One lure was
the trial of eight radicals accused of conspiring to incite the 1968
upheaval. But the youngsters had a selection of excuses for agitation:
the second anniversary of Che Guevara's death, their avowed goal of
“bringing the war home,” the desire to upstage more moderate modes of
protest,They hoped to galvanize public opinion by goading Chicago's tough cops
into more of the publicity-catching repression meted out last year.
Despite the provocations, the police for the most part kept their
temper. Nor did many allies enlist in the cause.Get Hoffman. Some 400 Weathermen and hangers-on gathered in Lincoln Park
at evening, eager for a confrontation. Fueling a bonfire with park
benches, they listened to obscenity-laced speeches until their own
“riot squad” of 100 helmeted members arrived. Many of them carried
clubs. Then, as a bearded speaker urged them to “get Judge Hoffman,”
they broke from the park and raced into the streets.When police, who were on the scene but unobtrusive at first, refused to
play, the Weathermen vented their frustration in a senseless rampage.
They stopped cars and beat the bewildered passengers, smashed windows
and glass doors, and urinated on everything in sight. Some charged
head-on into squads of policemen. The cops retaliated with nightsticks,
tear gas and, in a few instances, guns. Police arrested 60 that night.
Later they obtained warrants and, in a predawn raid on the Covenant
United Methodist Church of neighboring Evanston, picked up 43 of the
nearly 200 S.D.S. members staying there. Three demonstrators were
wounded by gunshots, one of them seriously. Twenty-one policemen were
hurt.Guard Mobilized. After failing in their first attempt to set off
widespread violence, the radicals tried again the next day. Seventy
helmeted Weather-women, many equipped with clubs, attempted to march on
an armed-forces induction center. But the Amazons fared no better than
their men. A line of police withstood their charge, arrested twelve,
and dispersed the rest.While the Weathermen's demonstrations caused Governor Richard Ogilvie to
mobilize 2,600 National Guardsmen, neither the demonstrators nor the
efforts of less militant S.D.S. groups succeeded in disrupting the
trial. Members of Revolutionary Youth Movement II, one of the more
moderate of the S.D.S. factions, found themselves outnumbered when they
attempted to “take over” Cook County Criminal Court Building. They had
to content themselves with predictable speeches to a generally
indifferent audience before heeding police instructions to move on.
Even the elements seemed to be against the Weathermen. A downpour
washed out another attempt to hold a rally in Lincoln Park, scattering
demonstrators and inspiring the Chicago Sun-Times to report: “The
revolution was called on account of rain.”
