SDS March on Shannon Hall Fails

A 45-minute SDS march to take over Shannon Hall, headquarters of ROTC, ended peacefully last night when 350 students opposing the takeover blocked 200 SDSers at the Southern tip of Divinity Ave.

Some students on both sides gathered bricks and rocks, but their colleagues yelled at them. Before SDS decided to call a talk-in about the meaning of the strike-at the park area between Mem Hall and Lowell Lecture Hall-last minute SDS proposals to take over University Hall and storm President Pusey's house were shouted down. University police simultaneously locked the Yard gates.

The 350 students, many of them freshmen, had decided to block SDS nonviolently. An SDS speaker who wanted to walk through the student barricade shouted through a loudspeaker, "There are more of them than there are of us, But that doesn't mean they're right." Other protestors disagreed and said. "If we fight the students, the movement is dead."

While 350 students chanted "Go home" as they barricaded the street between William James and the Busch-Reisinger Museum, another 200 opposing the takeover stood guard at Shannon Hall.

Another 150 students opposing the takeover were scattered along Divinity Ave. on the path to the ROTC building, with nine University policemen as roving patrols.

The SDS march against Shannon Hall last night resulted from a two and one-half hour meeting which see-sawed between immediate militant action against the ROTC building and action a few days later.

The meeting began at 8 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall and was attended by at least 10 students who had dissuaded SDS from trashing Shannon Hall on Monday night. At 9:35 p.m. a straw vote was taken to see how many people would storm the ROTC building. and a hand count revealed 76 students willing to take militant action.

Drummers Up

Debate continued for another hour and after many rephrasings of the motion and revotes, Michael Macy 70 and Ellen Messing '72 decided to lead thosewilling to the militant action through the Yard and House area to gain additional supporters.

When the SDS march through the Yard and House area began at 10:30 p.m. three freshmen-Stephen Stark. Robert Booth, and Nicholas Uncovic-ran through all the freshman dorms urging students to block physically a Shannon Hall takeover.

SDSers marched through the Yard, down to Eliot House, in front of Dunster House, up Quincy Street, and up Plympton Street. When they reached the corner of Plympton Street and Mass. Ave rumors of a Shannon Hall student barricade reached them.

They decided to keep shouting about taking over Shannon Hall, but to really try for the Center for International Affairs. "Get to the CFIA before they do. Keep chanting about ROTC." But students blocked them there as well.