60,000 War Protestors Rally on Common

Sixty thousand demonstrators demanding immediate withdrawal of U. S. troops from Vietnam rallied on Boston Common yesterday afternoon in the second-largest anti-war demonstration in New England history.

The demonstration-sponsored by a coalition of anti-war groups including the Moratorium Committee and the Student Mobilization Committee-was generally pepaceful, with police reporting no incidents of arrest or property damage.

Shrewd Action

"The President has gone unchecked in his authoritarian practice of foreign war policy," said state represenfative H. James Shea (D.-Newton), author of the recent bill challenging the constitutionality of the war. "The war will end when we take shrewd, aggressive action against it on all jevels of government."

But Doug Miranda, a member of the Biack Panther Party, said "If you want peace, you got to fight for it. You should talk about Vietnam in the context of getting the pigs out of the black community. You have to pick up guns and begin to deal with that shit," he said.

Others who appeared at the rally included Chicago Conspiracy defendants John Froines and Abbie Hoffman, women's liberationist Florence Lanscomb, Vietnamese graduate student Ngo Vinh Long '68, and the Boston cast of Hair.

A briof outbreak of violence occurred in the middle of the rally when a group of SDS members charged the speaker's platform and demanded that one of their group be allowed to address the rally.

The SDS group surged across a picket fence and scuffled with demonstration marshalls before their speaker reached the platform. One marshall was treated for broken teeth but was reported in satisfactory condition.

The rally in Boston was preceded by an earlier gathering of 1500 demonstrators on the Cambridge Common. Edgar Bottome, professor of government at Boston University, told the demonstrators that "the only way to end the war and American imperialism is to bring about drastic change in the imperial homeland or witness the destruction of the imperial homeland."

The demonstrators then marched out of the Common toward Boston as their ranks swelled along Mass. Ave. At Commonwealth Ave, they were joined by demonstrators from Northeastern and B. U. and they entered Boston Common as a group of 10,000.

"The logic of the Constitution is as valid today as it was in 1789," said Shea. "When you ask a family to send their sons to war, you ask the people through their elected representatives to participate in the awesome judgment."

"The message we give to the white youth of America is not off the pigs' anymore, but kill the pigs'," Mirandacountered. "If you continue to refuse to move in the interest of black people, it will be you that face extinetion, not people of color. We are going to make you fight whether you want to or not."

"We women of America are going to fight this war," said Mrs. Lanscomb. "We are not only doing it to save our men; we are doing it to save America."

As Mrs. Lanscomb spoke, the SDS group began their surge past the marshalls. "Hey, cut that shit out," Abbie Hoffman said. Turning to the marshalls, he said "Finish off those freaks."

As the SDS speaker finished, the demonstrators chanted, "We want Abbie;". and Hoffman rose to speak. Pointing to the Hancock Building across the Common, he said, "Fuckin' John Hancock was a revolutionary. He wasn't no goddamn insurance salesman."

"Here we are in Boston, the cradle of revolution," added Hoffman. "How many of you are going to rock the cradle? How many of you will cradle a rock?"

"The Vietnamese are going to fight until the end, and after them, their children," said Long, "Ending the war is your problem, not ours."

As the rally dispersed, the Bobby Seale Contingent made its way down Beacon St. and passed a group of mailmen, "We support you," shouted one demonstrator to the group. "Do you support us"

"What the hell does it matter?" answered one of the mailmen. "We see one of these marches every other day."