vVhile the College teachers were meeting, Spectator was distributed on campus. It too was somewhat critical of the student rebels on that Wednesday. In an editorial: "While our basic objection is to the blundering and intransigence of the University, we also deplore certain tactics of the demonstrators: the grave restrictions placed on the personal liberties of Dean Coleman; the violent actions that marked the demonstrations at the gymnasium construction site; and, most of all, the fact that effective leadership and control of the protest has to a great degree passed from Columbia students into the hands of people who are not members of the University community but are outside agitators whose interests qnd goals may bear little relationship to the ends desired by the demonstrators." And the inRuential New York Times the next morning editorialized: "The destructive minority of students at Columbia University, along with their not so friendly allies among community militants, have offered a degrading spectacle of hoodlum tactics-the exaltation of irresponsibility over reason. Whatever causes these students claim to be supporting have been defiled by their vandalism." Thus, the initial response to the Columbia rebellion among the overwhelming number of faculty, students, alumni (telegrams had started pouring in to Dr. Kirk), and the interested American public was highly critical of the SDSled students and their SAS allies. After its meeting the College faculty dispersed, neglecting to arrange for the immediate distribution of its resolutions. Said one annoyed professor, "The student rebels are all tactics and no principles. We're all principles and no tactics." Not until 9:35 that night did WKCR broadcast the contents of the faculty statement. A few minutes earlier on ''''KCR, Juan Gonzalez '68, :l Strike Steering Committee member, had said, "We heard that the Faculty turned down our demand for amnesty by a narrow vote." (In fact, scarcely a single member of the faculty had even en~ertained the idea of amnesty.) Such were the consequences of the faculty and administration slowness about communications. Late on Wednesday afternoon the SDS leaders held a strategy session. Here they were: self-imprisoned in the 30
President's office, estranged from their black allies, disliked by most other students for halting classes and education, chastised by the faculty for their thuggery and serious disregard for law, civil liberties, and non-violent procedures ("Imagine SDS's howls if the John Birch Society seized the SDS headquarters in Chicago and riRed their Bles!" said one young College instructor), and criticized by most ofche outside world. In the face of aU this, ~Iark Rudd suggested that SDS call in reinforcements and take over other campus buildings-to cripple the entire university. But the majority prefen'ed to sit tight and wait for student support to grow. Rudd argued that the rebels' power base was too small. (E.1rlier, he had told the 25 students in the President's office that they ought to leave because the group was too small to be effective, but was voted down then too.) He rushed out of the session and announced his resignation from th8 Strike's leadership. He was soon urged to reconsider and did. The rebel leaders in both buildings decided to hold meetings that night. The black students of Hamilton Hall chose a rally at College Walk and Amsterdam Avenue at 6: 30, while the SDS chiefs opted for a big information-dis路 cussion session later in an effort to change student opinion. The SDS Riel' read: W'hat's happening at Columbia? 'vVhy have black students and comunity people barricaded themselves in Hamilton Hall? Why have white students barricaded themselves in Low Library? What's going to happen?? What should happen??!! Earl Hall. Tonight. 8:00 P.M. Information. Discussion. Help plan student support action!!! Boycott?? Strike?? Meanwhile, faculty members had begun trying to talk to the rebels in their strongholds. Professor Immanuel '''Tallerstein '51, an authority on African sociology and politics, climbed over the eight-foot high barrier in Hamilton's doorway in an attempt to discover what the exact demands of the blacks were. And several professors, most notably Dr. Orest Ranum, a young scholar in European history who was reared in a milieu of Christian radicalism and idealism, visited the students inside Low. By late afternoon, more of the radi-
cals had climbed back into Low through the windows. It was raining rather hard so most of them arrived quite soggy. The mood inside the President's office was a combination of gay mockery, quiet moral doggedness, aed political scheming. This combination reRected the constituency of those 25 students who chose to remain in Low rather than jump out the windows. Honghly one-third were unpolitical adventurers, the kind marvelously self-revealed in the two articles in the ~Iay 27 and June 10 issues of the New York Magazine by College Sophomore James Kunen. Another third were resolute aesthetes with keen moral sensibilities such as Les Gottesman, editor of Columbia's Literary Review, and several of his fellow poets and editors. The last third were the political knowledgeables and activists. Among the politicos there was variety too. There was Juan Gonzalez, a lean, good looking, very likeable College senior born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, who rose to scholarly excellence and editorship of his Brooklyn high school newspaper, even though his father died of cancer when Juan was 16, and then to heights of compassion for the poor (and of hatred for all official authority) in the University's Citizenship Program. vVhat Gonzalez lacked in political sophistication, he made up for in dedication and unbending effort. There was John Jacobs, "J.J.," a bearded, sandy-haired junior with a resemblance to Che Guervara, who had dropped out of the College a few months earlier. His readiness to use the most audacious means, to attempt the most reckless deeds, to suggest the wildest tactics in order to overturn things, caused some of the other rebels to regard him as being slightly mad. And there was Anthony Papert, who had graduated from the College the previous June. The son of a lawyer and fur broker, he grew up in the prosperous liberal, predominantly Jewish suburb of Great Neck, Long Island. He started college at Princeton, where he took Chinese history and literature, but transferred to Columbia because he said he found Princeton conformist, dull, and reactionary. After a Ring as a pre-medical student, Papert became a serious, revolutionary tactician affiliating with the ~Iaoist Progressive Labor Party. He had been found guilty and chastised for COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY