paper, the first issue during his chairmanship, Volume III, number 1. (The new SDS incumbents decided to change the name of the paper from New Left News to Up Against the Wall. The dateline read "April 22, 1968-The year of the heroic guerilla" and one full page inside the eight-page sheet was given over to a double portrait of Ernesto Guevara above the signature, "Che." Underneath the portraits was the sentence, "The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution.") Rudd's response was titled "Reply to Uncle Grayson." It read in part: Dear Grayson, Your charge of nihilism is indeed ominous ... Though it is not true, your charge does represent something: you call it the generation gap. I see it as a real conflict between those who run things now-you Grayson Kirk-and those who feel oppressed by, and disgusted with, the society you rule--we, the young people. You might want to know what is wrong with this society since, after all, you live in a very tight, self-created drcam world. 'vVe can point to the war in Vietnam as an example of the unimaginable wars of aggression you are prepared to fight to maintain control over your empire. (Now you've been beaten by the Vietnamese, so you call for a tactical retreat.) . . . ''''e can point to this university, your university, which trains us to be lawyers and engineers, and managers for your IBM, your Socony Mobil, your IDA, your Con Edison (or else to be scholars and teachers in more universities like this one). Vie can point, in short, to our own meaningless studies, om identity crises, and our revulsion with being cogs in your corporate machines as a product of a reaction to a basically sick society. Your cry of nihilism represents your inability to understand our positive values ... 'Ve do have a vision of the way things could be: how the tremendous resources of our economy could bc used to eliminate want, how people in other countries could be free from your domination, how a university could produce knowledge for progress, and not waste consumption and destruction (IDA), how men could be free to keep what they produce, to enjoy peaceful lives, to create. These are positive values-but since they mean the destruction of your order, you call them "nihilism." In the movement we me . be~!nning to call this vision "socJahsm. . .. You are quite right in feeling that the situation is "potentially dangerous." For if we win, we will take control of your world, your corporations, your university and attempt to mold a world in which we and other people can live 14
"If we win, we will take control of ,),our world, ,),our corporations, ,),our universit')', and attempt to mold a world in which we and other people can live as human beings." MARK RUDD
as human beings.... We will have to destroy at times, even violently, in order to end your power and your system-but that is a far cry from nihilism.... There is only one thing left to say. It may sound nihilistic to you, since it is the opening shot in a war of liberation. I'll use thc words of Leroi Jones, whom I'm sure you don't like a whole lot: "Up against the wall, motherfuckcr, this is a stickup." Yours for freedom, tllark In another article in Up Agqinst the Wall, by student Bob Feldman, "The King Memorial-Why We Disrupted," the author said, "In pursuit of Justice the revolutionary is compelled to act at all appropriate times." One other piece, "McKennedy or Sabotage?", by College sophomore John Jacobs (who withdrew from Columbia in early 'larch) blasted both Eugene M.cCarthy and Robert Kennedy as Presidential candidates, and contended: There is only one way to save America and that is by revolutionary upheaval. Our tasks can then be specified. ''''hen America's rulers fight wars like Vietnam, our task is disruption, obstruction, and sabotage. ''''hen the army invades the ghetto, our task is counter-terror, directed against the symbols of oppression, the state and the capitalists, and against their repressive apparatus, according to the revolutionary principle of Three for One. For ourselves our task is to mobilize our generation ...
The day after Up Against the Wall was distributed, Associate Dean Alexander Platt finally received a visit from Rudd and the four other SDS leaders (one had dropped out of school) who had been charged with actively participating in the Low Library indoor demonstration on March 27. When they arrived on M.onday, April 22, Dean Platt asked them if they wanted to admit guilt or plead innocence, and if they would explain their side of the Low Library affair. They refused to answer, so the dean of students, because they had not denied their role, placed them on disciplinary probation for the rest of the semester (five weeks), with the warning that one more disruption of University life would cause him to ask for their suspension or dismissal from the College. The SDS students, who regarded the rule against indoor demonstrations as a politically motivated rule to "stifle dissent" and hamper their confrontations on the campus, left Hamilton Hall in a huff. A few days earlier, Rudd and SDS had already announced that they intended to seek another "confrontation" in Low Library, the University's chief administrative building. The move angered a great number of Columbia students, who had begun to grow weary of SDS's incessant demands, slashing accusations, and disruptions; and a group called the Students for a Free Campus was re-activated. It was an ad hoc group that had formed the previous October to promote open recruiting and the continuance of free speech at the University. On Monday morning, April 22, the Students for a Free Campus distributed a mimeographed sheet throughout the campus. It read: Tired? Tired of an organization that claims to represent you and doesn't? Tired of a two-standard university that gives virtual immunity to SDS agitators while you are subject to immediate suspension if you toss a paper airplane out a window? Tired of an environment where you cannot listen to a guest speaker and be sure he won't be physically harassed by SDS? Of an environment where your sacred privacy of worship is allowed to degenerate into political showmanship? Must one group be allowed to dictate this university's future? On Tuesday, April 23, SDS plans another disruption against IDA. The most distasteful aspect of this demonstration is that SDS plans to embarrass our deans through physical coercion, COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY