from Song 3 In the midst of plenty, as close to
~wlk
be~re.
In the fewe of sweetness, p~ss.
In the time of goodness, go side, go smashing, beat them, go as (e~s nee~1- as you can tear. In the lcmd of plenty, hewe nothing to do with it. Take the way of the lowest, including your legs, go cont1-ary, go sing. CHARLES OLSO "Me~ximus
onlookers parted as if a decision had been made, and the SDS members in front of Rudd turned about-face and began walking toward Low Library. Rudd and the other SDS leaders had to jump off the Sundial and race around the perimeter of the crowd in order to take a place at the front of their SDS constituency. The group of 200 radicals looked as if they were headed for a fight with the 200 members of the Free Campus group, who were still circling on the flat areas above Alma Mater. Said one of the 1,000 observers, "It's like showdown time in a corny grade B 'Western movie." The 40 or so professors who had been observing the scene rushed to a position in front of the Students for a Free Campus, where they might prevent fisticuffs between the two forces. Since Low Library had been officially closed for the day by President Kirk to prevent a brawl inside its halls, 18
Poems"
where a priceless collection of Oriental art and sculpture is displayed, Rudd and the other SDS leaders veered to the right as they approached the student defenders of Low and headed for thf. southeast entrance of Low on the ground floor, the only open entrance. It was guarded by several members of the campus security police. Rudd stoppeJ his group, then climbed up on a window ledge and asked, "O.K. What do we do now?" This time the participatory democracy session was even more brief and confused than the one on the Sundial 15 minutes earlier. Someone suggested that the group go down to the gym site on Morningside Drive and 113th Street. That caught the fancy of about half of the SDS gang, who walked off in that direction, Rudd among them. The othcr half went back to the Sundial. At the gym site, nearly 100 students stormed the cyclone fence surrounding
the building site, while eight New York City policemen tried to keep them from ripping up the wire fence. The students rushed like buffalo; the police pushed off and pulled away. The students succeeded in tearing down several sections of fence. As they did so, the police arrested Fred vVilson '70, who was particularly aggressive. Numerous of the radical students then kicked antI punched a few of the police, especially one who had been knocked to the ground while trying to hold on to Wilson. Three policemen had to be taken to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. No students were hurt. After 10 minutes of battle, the SDS combatants decided to quit the gym site. There was a third quick democratic discussion at Morningside Drive and 116th Street, led by Rudd and senior Ted Gold, at which the group decided to go back to the Sundial for the purpose of regrouping and "taking some real action this time," as one student leftist put it. As the splinter group of activists were walking back to the Sundial, Ted Kaptchuk, the former SDS chairman, said to the crowd of perhaps 300 persons on College Walk, who had been listening to more speeches, "Let's all go down to the gym site. Stay away from the cops though. Be carefuL" About 75 students surrounding Kaptchuk started to go, but they took no more than 30 steps when they saw Rudd and the others mtuming to the Sundial. There ,"vas some muted laughter among the onlookers. "This thing's getting to be a farce," said one student. Said another, wearing a "Stop the \Var ~Iadness" button, ''I've lost faith in the SDS." Then a black student named Cicero Wilson took the podium. Wilson, though only a sophomore, was such an effective advocate of black power that he had won election as president of Columbia's Student Afro-American Society. The bull-necked Wilson, a formcr captain of his high school football team and president of its honor society, and the graduate voted "most likely to succeed" by his class, appeared to be both pleased and disgusted with the thrashing about of the SDS whites. After expressing an appreciation for SDS' concern for black problems, he said, "but we black students are no longer going to stand for this kind of COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY