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Campus "Unrest" demonstrations and consequences, 1970-1971

1970-05-24 Akron Beacon Journal Article: Kent State: The Search For Understanding Page 3

Sunday, May 24, 1970 Akron Beacon Journal A 19 
SPECIAL KENT STATE SECTION

Arrows show Jeffrey Miller (Left) and Mary Vecchio Among Demonstrators Agitating The Guard. 

There Were 3 Days Of Violent Agitation

Continued from Page A-18

THE STUDENTS want an end to the Indochinese war

THEY WRECK property to express outrage and attract remedial attention. 

AND AT Kent State, at least, where the SDS was banned a year ago, they seemed to move as an unled mob. 

Against this background, the efforts of many in Kent to pin the rap for the whole business on four young men seems wholly understandable and human. The alternative is so much harder: Realizing that hundreds of students at Kent State are now worked up enough to demonstrate in the face of tear gas and throw rocks at Guardsmen with rifles. 
To Portage Count Prosecutor Ronald J. Kale, the immediate solution on Sunday seemed simple and clear: Close the whole university until things quieted down. In hindsight it is hard to question his judgment: Obviously four more people would be alive today if that had been done. 
Rhodes refused, said Kane, the governor telling the prosecutor that closing the school "would be playing into the hands of the SDS and the Weathermen." Rhodes named no names.
So Kane waited until Monday afternoon, until after the shooting, before he went to Common Please Judge Albert H. 

"I think I'll become an outside agitator"

Caris and got an injunction closing the school. Again, university officials were not consulted beforehand. 
On the campus, reaction to Rhodes' outburst of tough talk ranged from shock to ridicule. 
"Rhodes was hilarious to students, " said Bernard Jerman, a radical English professor. 
"Everyone knew it was political, " said Lloyd Agte, a teaching fellow in English. Rhodes was currently running for the U.S. Senate, an election he lost by about 4,000 votes the day after the shooting. 
Cynical amusement was the reaction of many. Said Marvin Holsey, a black sociology instructor: "Man they're always talking about those "outside agitators;" I think I'll become an outside agitator myself and see the world. Those cats are everywhere - Rome, Paris, Toronto, Washington ..."

But downtown, the mood was different. A worried, fearful temper overlay Kent,. John Solem was caught in the middle. 
Solem is 65, a mild man with two jeweler's loupes secured onto the right wing of his eyeglasses. He runs Solem's Jewelers and tried to get along with everybody. 
When Ervine Hoefler came over from the Music Mart next door on Saturday and told Solem he has been threatened by a Peacenik, Solem put two signs in his window, one saying "Peace, " and the other, "Get Out of Vietnam"
Hoefler, a shrewd man, took his peace sign down early Sunday when the coast looked clear. Solem made the mistake of leaving his up until the townspeople started coming home from church and saw them. 
His phone started ringing off the wall with critics, including one who identified himself only as "a concerned citizen" So Solem made a special downtown Sunday to remove the offending signs. 
Now he doesn't know quite what to do since he lives among the townspeople and makes most of his living by selling jewelry to students, "Sometimes" he said bleakly, "it seems you have to kiss everyone's prat to stay in business."

Despite the shootings, Kent businessmen generally supported the National Guard. Lawyer Guy M. Showalter was among the most vehement: 
"We feel that the Guard did exactly what they were sent in to do. To keep law and order. Frankly, if I'd been faced with the same situation and had a submachine gun there would not have been 14 shot, there probably would have been 1140 of them dead and that's what they need."
President White returning from Iowa, ,met Gov. Rhodes briefly at the airport Sunday as Rhodes departed White said Rhodes told him "You're being besieged by - I've forgotten the word he used, floaters maybe  - from every campus in the state. Whatever you do, try to keep the campus open"
Then Rhodes flew away, not to return or offer further advice.
Rhodes had perhaps picked up on the repeated statements from university officials and city officials that many suspicious strangers were hanging around. 
Robert E. Matson, for example, who is Kent State's vice president for student affairs , said, "I am convinced that the demonstrations were a result of individuals who came here with destruction of property in mind." Asked why he believed that, Matson mentioned a newspaper column which said SDS has picked Kent State as a "target"
There is no doubt that there were many strangers in town for the action. Even Ellen Mann, 18, of Munroe Falls, a Kent State University high school senior who sympathises with the students said: 
"There were so many freaks that I've never seen before. When you go around  a college that has a very small amount of hippie types, you get to know all of them by sight at least. Whereas some of the kids I saw on campus that day (the day of the shooting) I'd never seen before in my life."

Sunday night the action began again, at Prentice Gate the corner of the campus where E. Main st. leads off toward downtown. 
About 200 students sat down in the street there, backed by about 500 others on the campus behind them. They had several demands they wanted to make, notably the withdrawal of the National Guard, a lifting of the curfew and amnesty for students who had been arrested. 
The students sang "Give Peace a Chance," while a military helicopter with a searchlight circled overhead. They said they wanted to talk with president White and-or Mayor Satrom. Later many were to claim that they had been promised this. 
What happened, said Sgt. Myers of the Kent police, was that "around 11 or a few minutes after, a (National Guard) colonel came up and advised the people that the town was under curfew and they were in violation of it. He has his men move out and clear them away."
Myers said he has notified the mayor of the students request and that the mayor was on his way to scene when the crowd was dispersed "It was the Guard's decision to move," said Myers
Asked why he did not go down to Prentice Gate, President Whit said "I didn't know about that, " Apparently word was not relayed to him. 

White's principal trouble shooter in such matters, Vice President Matson, said he turned down a request to go down to Prentice Gate for two reasons: "They (the sit downers) were in violation of the curfew and any negotiations would have been under duress."
Maj. Arthur E. Wallach, commander of all Guard force Sunday night, said neither he nor any of his men "negotiated" with the demonstrators or promised to contact White . 
"The only thing the men told them was to get back off the street and go back to the dormitories." Wallach said. 
Knight Newspapers was unable to locate and interview the student who did most of the talking for the demonstrators.
But after the Guard had cleared the scene with tear gas, a move that was met with rocks from the demonstrators apparently many students were left feeling that they had been double crosses. "A lot o kids felt then 'You can't trust the pigs," said Lloyd Agte. 
The first two student injuries occurred on this Sunday night - Helen Opaskar, 21, of Cleveland, and Joell Richardson, 19, of Sterling N.Y. both pricked by Guardsmen's bayonets. 

Monday May 4
After three days of violent aggravation, all the elements were now ready for fatal violence on Monday:
Students angry about war outside the campus and soldiers upon it.
Weary Guardsmen under orders from Rhodes to disperse even peaceful gatherings. 
A university administration whose control over its campus had passed to other hands. 
A townful of worried angry businessmen who wanted peace restored quickly. 
A collection of public officials responding to the public's mood with strident talk. 
One should hesitate before singling out any villain at Kent State. One sees a hurtling train of excesses, but it's hard to see the engineer. 
The seeds of Kent State are in every college community were millitance has replaced reason, where hate has replaced sympathy, where suspicion has eaten away trust. The Kent State killings could have happened almost anywhere. 
Death could come to almost anyone in such circumstances too. Should these four young people have died?

Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, of Youngstown, was a junior majoring in speech therapy. She lived in a two story green house a block and a half from the campus where her room was always neat, her bed always made. 
She drank hardly at all, an occasional wine or maybe a 

A closeup of Mary Vecchio. Gen. Robert Canterbury (left), Capt. Ron Snyder and KSU professor Glenn Franks discuss the crisis after the shooting left 4 dead. 

couple of beers. She had smoked marijuana a couple of times, but never really wanted to get stoned because she didn't want to become dependent on anything. 
On Friday night, when the kids were breaking windows on Water st., she was at the Moon-Glo roller rink. On Saturday night when the ROTC building burned, she was studying for an exam. On Sunday night when students sat down in the street, she was in her living room. 
On Monday, she had just left a speech therapy patient, a boy with a lisp that she was trying to help. She was walking across the parking lot trying to get away from the turmoil when a bullet hit her in the neck and cut her windpipe in two. 

Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20 , of Plainview, N.Y., a psychology major, transferred to Kent State in January from Michigan State. he didn't study much and he cut classes a lot. 
He liked to swim in the pool in front of the house where he lived with five other young men. He liked to listen to the 

"She tried to walk away from trouble "

Grateful Dead, a rock music group, and three weeks before his death he borrowed a set of drums and began trying to learn to play. 
Friday night he stayed home. Saturday night he went over to see the ROTC fire after it started. Sunday night he sat down with the crowd at Prentice Gate. 
Monday he was watching when a bullet hit him in the mouth. He had thrown no rocks. 

Allison Krause, a freshman from Pittsburg, was 19 years old the day Nixon made his Cambodia speech. She was a tall, pretty brunette who wore neither makeup nor a brassiere, and seldom wore a dress, preferring blue jean bell bottoms like those of her boy friend Barry Levine. 
Last Oct. 15 Moratorium day, she collected money for the anti-war movement and helped carry a banner in a street parade. Last Nov. 15, she went to Washington with her boyfriend for the mammoth moratorium march there. 
She played her part in the system too: Serving on the disciplinary Board of Metcalf Dormitory and on the policy board of the Honors college. On Sunday she walked up to a National Guardman, put a blossom in his gun barrel and told him "Flowers are better than bullets" 
Monday she was far out of rock throwing distance when a bullet hit her in her shoulder and stopped in her chest.

William Knox Schroeder, 19, of Lorain, a sophomore majoring psychology, transferred to Kent State last fall from the Colorado School of MInes. He studied a lot and had an excellent grade average. He had no special girlfriend and belonged to no organizations, radical or otherwise. 
A stranger might have thought he looked radical. At the moment of his death he was wearing orange corduroy pants, brown cowboy boots and a blue denim jacket. 
It seems unlikely he was throwing any rocks. He was attending Kent State on a ROTC scholarship that paid his full tuition and fees plus $50 a month. 
 He was shot in the chest. Just the night before he had phoned his parents to tell them he was not one of the protesters/

Asked what might have prevented these deaths, figures on the scene put forth a variety of thoughts. 
President White, who would have preferred that the Ohio Highway Patrol had been called instead of the National Guard, thinks that maybe new crowd control measures are needed - "Perhaps water cannon like they use in West Berlin, or some special unit like the Paris riot police."
Schwartzmiller of the campus believes that "the back of this could have been broken" if the Guard had arrested everyone at the Sunday night sit down "That was the hard core," he said. 
Frank Friscina, the student body president, believes that "the mistake - I don't know who made it - was the decision to prevent assemblies, even student assemblies. Had the Guard been guarding buildings instead of chasing crowds, we wouldn't have had the shootings."
The order to break up even peaceful assemblies was given by Rhodes. But he isn't talking about it now. He went into seclusion after the shootings and hasn't seen any newsmen since. 
The leadership of the Ohio National Guard, notably Adjutant General Sylvester T. Del Corso, has made an extensive effort to find evidence of a sniper. 
Probably there is no magic remedy, no easy solution that will wipe out campus demonstrations soon. In the words of Vice President Matson, a conservative man deeply opposed to all radicalism:
"The potential for trouble exists as long as the Indochinese war goes on."

STUDENT HURLS TEAR GAS MISSILE

Saving...

Sunday, May 24, 1970 Akron Beacon Journal A 19 SPECIAL KENT STATE SECTION Arrows show Jeffrey Miller (Left) and Mary Vecchio Among Demonstrators Agitating The Guard. There Were 3 Days Of Violent Agitation Continued from Page A-18 THE STUDENTS want an end to the Indochinese war THEY WRECK property to express outrage and attract remedial attention. AND AT Kent State, at least, where the SDS was banned a year ago, they seemed to move as an unled mob. Against this background, the efforts of many in Kent to pin the rap for the whole business on four young men seems wholly understandable and human. The alternative is so much harder: Realizing that hundreds of students at Kent State are now worked up enough to demonstrate in the face of tear gas and throw rocks at Guardsmen with rifles. To Portage Count Prosecutor Ronald J. Kale, the immediate solution on Sunday seemed simple and clear: Close the whole university until things quieted down. In hindsight it is hard to question his judgment: Obviously four more people would be alive today if that had been done. Rhodes refused, said Kane, the governor telling the prosecutor that closing the school "would be playing into the hands of the SDS and the Weathermen." Rhodes named no names. So Kane waited until Monday afternoon, until after the shooting, before he went to Common Please Judge Albert H. "I think I'll become an outside agitator" Caris and got an injunction closing the school. Again, university officials were not consulted beforehand. On the campus, reaction to Rhodes' outburst of tough talk ranged from shock to ridicule. "Rhodes was hilarious to students, " said Bernard Jerman, a radical English professor. "Everyone knew it was political, " said Lloyd Agte, a teaching fellow in English. Rhodes was currently running for the U.S. Senate, an election he lost by about 4,000 votes the day after the shooting. Cynical amusement was the reaction of many. Said Marvin Holsey, a black sociology instructor: "Man they're always talking about those "outside agitators;" I think I'll become an outside agitator myself and see the world. Those cats are everywhere - Rome, Paris, Toronto, Washington ..." But downtown, the mood was different. A worried, fearful temper overlay Kent,. John Solem was caught in the middle. Solem is 65, a mild man with two jeweler's loupes secured onto the right wing of his eyeglasses. He runs Solem's Jewelers and tried to get along with everybody. When Ervine Hoefler came over from the Music Mart next door on Saturday and told Solem he has been threatened by a Peacenik, Solem put two signs in his window, one saying "Peace, " and the other, "Get Out of Vietnam" Hoefler, a shrewd man, took his peace sign down early Sunday when the coast looked clear. Solem made the mistake of leaving his up until the townspeople started coming home from church and saw them. His phone started ringing off the wall with critics, including one who identified himself only as "a concerned citizen" So Solem made a special downtown Sunday to remove the offending signs. Now he doesn't know quite what to do since he lives among the townspeople and makes most of his living by selling jewelry to students, "Sometimes" he said bleakly, "it seems you have to kiss everyone's prat to stay in business." Despite the shootings, Kent businessmen generally supported the National Guard. Lawyer Guy M. Showalter was among the most vehement: "We feel that the Guard did exactly what they were sent in to do. To keep law and order. Frankly, if I'd been faced with the same situation and had a submachine gun there would not have been 14 shot, there probably would have been 1140 of them dead and that's what they need." President White returning from Iowa, ,met Gov. Rhodes briefly at the airport Sunday as Rhodes departed White said Rhodes told him "You're being besieged by - I've forgotten the word he used, floaters maybe - from every campus in the state. Whatever you do, try to keep the campus open" Then Rhodes flew away, not to return or offer further advice. Rhodes had perhaps picked up on the repeated statements from university officials and city officials that many suspicious strangers were hanging around. Robert E. Matson, for example, who is Kent State's vice president for student affairs , said, "I am convinced that the demonstrations were a result of individuals who came here with destruction of property in mind." Asked why he believed that, Matson mentioned a newspaper column which said SDS has picked Kent State as a "target" There is no doubt that there were many strangers in town for the action. Even Ellen Mann, 18, of Munroe Falls, a Kent State University high school senior who sympathises with the students said: "There were so many freaks that I've never seen before. When you go around a college that has a very small amount of hippie types, you get to know all of them by sight at least. Whereas some of the kids I saw on campus that day (the day of the shooting) I'd never seen before in my life." Sunday night the action began again, at Prentice Gate the corner of the campus where E. Main st. leads off toward downtown. About 200 students sat down in the street there, backed by about 500 others on the campus behind them. They had several demands they wanted to make, notably the withdrawal of the National Guard, a lifting of the curfew and amnesty for students who had been arrested. The students sang "Give Peace a Chance," while a military helicopter with a searchlight circled overhead. They said they wanted to talk with president White and-or Mayor Satrom. Later many were to claim that they had been promised this. What happened, said Sgt. Myers of the Kent police, was that "around 11 or a few minutes after, a (National Guard) colonel came up and advised the people that the town was under curfew and they were in violation of it. He has his men move out and clear them away." Myers said he has notified the mayor of the students request and that the mayor was on his way to scene when the crowd was dispersed "It was the Guard's decision to move," said Myers Asked why he did not go down to Prentice Gate, President Whit said "I didn't know about that, " Apparently word was not relayed to him. White's principal trouble shooter in such matters, Vice President Matson, said he turned down a request to go down to Prentice Gate for two reasons: "They (the sit downers) were in violation of the curfew and any negotiations would have been under duress." Maj. Arthur E. Wallach, commander of all Guard force Sunday night, said neither he nor any of his men "negotiated" with the demonstrators or promised to contact White . "The only thing the men told them was to get back off the street and go back to the dormitories." Wallach said. Knight Newspapers was unable to locate and interview the student who did most of the talking for the demonstrators. But after the Guard had cleared the scene with tear gas, a move that was met with rocks from the demonstrators apparently many students were left feeling that they had been double crosses. "A lot o kids felt then 'You can't trust the pigs," said Lloyd Agte. The first two student injuries occurred on this Sunday night - Helen Opaskar, 21, of Cleveland, and Joell Richardson, 19, of Sterling N.Y. both pricked by Guardsmen's bayonets. Monday May 4 After three days of violent aggravation, all the elements were now ready for fatal violence on Monday: Students angry about war outside the campus and soldiers upon it. Weary Guardsmen under orders from Rhodes to disperse even peaceful gatherings. A university administration whose control over its campus had passed to other hands. A townful of worried angry businessmen who wanted peace restored quickly. A collection of public officials responding to the public's mood with strident talk. One should hesitate before singling out any villain at Kent State. One sees a hurtling train of excesses, but it's hard to see the engineer. The seeds of Kent State are in every college community were millitance has replaced reason, where hate has replaced sympathy, where suspicion has eaten away trust. The Kent State killings could have happened almost anywhere. Death could come to almost anyone in such circumstances too. Should these four young people have died? Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, of Youngstown, was a junior majoring in speech therapy. She lived in a two story green house a block and a half from the campus where her room was always neat, her bed always made. She drank hardly at all, an occasional wine or maybe a A closeup of Mary Vecchio. Gen. Robert Canterbury (left), Capt. Ron Snyder and KSU professor Glenn Franks discuss the crisis after the shooting left 4 dead. couple of beers. She had smoked marijuana a couple of times, but never really wanted to get stoned because she didn't want to become dependent on anything. On Friday night, when the kids were breaking windows on Water st., she was at the Moon-Glo roller rink. On Saturday night when the ROTC building burned, she was studying for an exam. On Sunday night when students sat down in the street, she was in her living room. On Monday, she had just left a speech therapy patient, a boy with a lisp that she was trying to help. She was walking across the parking lot trying to get away from the turmoil when a bullet hit her in the neck and cut her windpipe in two. Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20 , of Plainview, N.Y., a psychology major, transferred to Kent State in January from Michigan State. he didn't study much and he cut classes a lot. He liked to swim in the pool in front of the house where he lived with five other young men. He liked to listen to the "She tried to walk away from trouble " Grateful Dead, a rock music group, and three weeks before his death he borrowed a set of drums and began trying to learn to play. Friday night he stayed home. Saturday night he went over to see the ROTC fire after it started. Sunday night he sat down with the crowd at Prentice Gate. Monday he was watching when a bullet hit him in the mouth. He had thrown no rocks. Allison Krause, a freshman from Pittsburg, was 19 years old the day Nixon made his Cambodia speech. She was a tall, pretty brunette who wore neither makeup nor a brassiere, and seldom wore a dress, preferring blue jean bell bottoms like those of her boy friend Barry Levine. Last Oct. 15 Moratorium day, she collected money for the anti-war movement and helped carry a banner in a street parade. Last Nov. 15, she went to Washington with her boyfriend for the mammoth moratorium march there. She played her part in the system too: Serving on the disciplinary Board of Metcalf Dormitory and on the policy board of the Honors college. On Sunday she walked up to a National Guardman, put a blossom in his gun barrel and told him "Flowers are better than bullets" Monday she was far out of rock throwing distance when a bullet hit her in her shoulder and stopped in her chest. William Knox Schroeder, 19, of Lorain, a sophomore majoring psychology, transferred to Kent State last fall from the Colorado School of MInes. He studied a lot and had an excellent grade average. He had no special girlfriend and belonged to no organizations, radical or otherwise. A stranger might have thought he looked radical. At the moment of his death he was wearing orange corduroy pants, brown cowboy boots and a blue denim jacket. It seems unlikely he was throwing any rocks. He was attending Kent State on a ROTC scholarship that paid his full tuition and fees plus $50 a month. He was shot in the chest. Just the night before he had phoned his parents to tell them he was not one of the protesters/ Asked what might have prevented these deaths, figures on the scene put forth a variety of thoughts. President White, who would have preferred that the Ohio Highway Patrol had been called instead of the National Guard, thinks that maybe new crowd control measures are needed - "Perhaps water cannon like they use in West Berlin, or some special unit like the Paris riot police." Schwartzmiller of the campus believes that "the back of this could have been broken" if the Guard had arrested everyone at the Sunday night sit down "That was the hard core," he said. Frank Friscina, the student body president, believes that "the mistake - I don't know who made it - was the decision to prevent assemblies, even student assemblies. Had the Guard been guarding buildings instead of chasing crowds, we wouldn't have had the shootings." The order to break up even peaceful assemblies was given by Rhodes. But he isn't talking about it now. He went into seclusion after the shootings and hasn't seen any newsmen since. The leadership of the Ohio National Guard, notably Adjutant General Sylvester T. Del Corso, has made an extensive effort to find evidence of a sniper. Probably there is no magic remedy, no easy solution that will wipe out campus demonstrations soon. In the words of Vice President Matson, a conservative man deeply opposed to all radicalism: "The potential for trouble exists as long as the Indochinese war goes on." STUDENT HURLS TEAR GAS MISSILE