The day protesters fought Chicago police
CHICAGO – About 3,000 anti-war demonstrators fought a bloody, open battle with an equal contingent of police and Illinois National Guardsmen on Wednesday night in an assault on the downtown headquarters of the Democratic National Convention.
There were mass arrests and 300 injuries as police clubbed at the demonstrators, who have massed in Chicago by the thousands to protest administration war policies.
Rocks and bottles were thrown, car windows broken, trash cans overturned and set afire, and heads were beaten in a five-block stretch along fashionable South Michigan Avenue, main street of Chicago’s showcase front yard.
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was in his 25th-floor suite of the Conrad Hilton, which fronts on Michigan Avenue, awaiting an appearance before the convention at the International Amphitheatre, five miles south. A Humphrey aide said tear gas could be smelled in his room as police battled demonstrators in the hotel ground floor lobby.
Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, candidate for the presidential nomination, also was in the hotel. His wife, ready to leave for the amphitheater, was detained by the Secret Service for security reasons.
The whereabouts of Sen. George S. McGovern, another candidate, was unknown.
Later Wednesday night, 2 miles north of the downtown area, 30 youths were taken into custody in Lincoln Park after they threw rocks at passing police cars. Police fired two or three shots into the air, and the youths stopped the rock fusillade.
Deputy Superintendent James M. Rochford told the anti-war leaders that the group could stay in Grant Park as long as they wanted if they remained peaceful.
The youths – some bearded and sandaled, others clean-cut – have been in Chicago since last weekend to demonstrate their displeasure over Johnson administration policies concerning the Vietnam War.
They chose Wednesday – the day the presidential candidate was to be selected – for their major movement. More than 100,000 anti-war demonstrators had been promised by the administration opponents. About 10,000 showed up.
The rush on the Hilton came after guardsmen, using tear gas, foiled an antiwar march on the amphitheater, where a dovish Vietnam plank was rejected by delegates.
The demonstrators broke through police and military lines in Grant Park across from the Hilton, and stormed the hotel, where they were beaten back and went rampaging through the streets.
Police met any rush head-on, clubbed the demonstrators and threw them in vans headed for the central detention lockup.
Central Police Headquarters said it could give no estimate of those arrested. The staff was too busy, a spokesman said.
Several spectators were also seen beaten as police moved into a crowd and dispersed them. The spectators joined the demonstrators jeering police.
Many of the injured suffered, hand, arm and head fractures. One policeman was bitten on the neck.
One young man entering the Hilton, which was closed to all persons except those having their room keys with them, said, “Wait till they bust up a delegate.”
About 1,200 guardsmen reinforced police, some of them driving in wire-covered jeeps. Almost all had their bayonets unsheathed.
As the police wielded clubs, clearing the area in front of the Hilton, guardsmen moved in fast and set up skirmish lines. The demonstrators scattered and ran, with police chasing.
Hotels flanking the Hilton closed their doors. All traffic along and near Michigan Avenue in the battle area was stopped.
The mass of demonstrators broke into smaller groups and continued to fight police, who repeatedly called for help.
At Michigan and Jackson streets, north of the Hilton, 150 police armed with shotguns stopped all traffic and forcibly cleared the area. One hundred of them, not wearing gas masks, were stricken by their own tear gas and went down to their knees, choking.