War Protest Keeps New England College Campuses In Ferment
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
War protest kept New England college campuses in ferment today and at Amherst,
Mass., college demonstrators planned a "massive withdrawal" of funds
from local banks in a drive to "stop war dollars."
Dr. Gerald Gruman, associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts
in Amherst, said while church bells toll 200 members of the university strike
steering committee will lead students to the business district shortly before
noon.
He said the presidents of the town's three banks- First National Bank of Amherst,
Amherst Savings Bank and Hampshire National Bank- had been advised of the plans
and had promised to cooperate.
"We don't have to wait for November to elect a Congress to end the war,"
the committee said in a statement.
"To end war we can show that students have economic power to stop war
dollars. Help us show this power to change the present war-recession economy
into a peace and prosperity economy for all Americans."
Dr. Gruman said the Amherst College strike committee approved of the plan and
would join the UMass protesters. This committee said it urged "others throughout
the country to join with us in attempting to alter contemporary American society."
"We figure for every dollar withdrawn about $5 will be removed from war
resources," Dr. Gruman said.
Elsewhere, students broadened their activities against the Southeast Asia war
but managed to avoid violence.
Close to 300 demonstrators were arrested Monday at Worcester, Mass., after
a sit-in blocked off approaches to a Selective Service.
And in Cambridge, Mass., where pickets ringed the administration building at
Harvard University, Ernest R. May, dean of the college moved to invoke college
discipline against the offenders.
No violence attended the Worcester arrests. On the contrary, demonstrators
sang folk songs while waiting to be loaded aboard buses to be taken to the Worcester
County jail.
Police said the demonstrators surged into the building and blocked off Selective
Service offices. They were warned they were trespassing and were subject to
arrest. When they did not move, officers began clearing the corridor.
Police said 287 persons, one of them a juvenile, were booked on charges of
trespass. After booking at the jail, they were transferred to a special double
session District Court for arraignment. There the cases were continued for later
hearings.
Most of those arrested were students from Worcester area colleges, including
Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic, Assumption, Clark and Worcester State.
At Waterville, Maine, Dr. Donald R. McNeil, chancellor of the University of
Maine system, told the Waterville Rotary Club that current crisis calls for
cool heads and understanding.
"We are going to preserve the university," he said, "but we
have to do it with a great deal of flexibility... There are principles we will
not sacrifice, but we can't be too rigid."
Some areas reported an abatement of antiwar activity Monday. Students at Southeastern
Massachusetts University in Dartmouth and Bristol Community College at Fall
River ended week-long strikes.
Attendance at both schools was reported near normal Monday.
But at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, faculty and student
groups voted for a week's suspension of classes in October to give students
time to work in political campaigns.
Voting at a special meeting, the Brown faculty also decided to establish a
committee to study the sources of research financing at the University and the
"moral implications" of the school's research programs. |