Posted on 12/27/2005 7:17:02 AM PST by Chi-townChief
The first phalanx of police attacked the marchers at 8 p.m. from the corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Street, just north of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, swinging their clubs.
The young demonstrators ran in all directions -- into the park, across Balbo, up and down Michigan. Some escaped. Some were caught and beaten.
From the window of his campaign head-quarters on the 23rd floor of the hotel, Sen. Eugene McCarthy watched, horrified.
"It's incredible," he said. "Like a Brueghel."
Classic McCarthy. Detached even in his compassion. And what other American politician, then or ever, would think of scenes from a 16th Century Flemish painter while watching a street riot?
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By Wednesday, Aug. 28, the madness rendered the official proceedings at the Amphitheatre in the Southwest Side Stockyards area almost irrelevant. The real action was four miles away in and around Grant Park, where the law-breaking revolutionaries who came to town met the law-breaking counter-revolutionaries who lived there -- the Chicago police force.
These counter-revolutionaries were as dedicated to tradition and respectability as the young demonstrators were hostile to it. With the strong support of Mayor Richard J. Daley (who, as his troopers perhaps did not know, opposed the war as much as did Gene McCarthy) they emulated their antagonists in one important respect: lack of restraint.
Incensed by the language, the appearance, the behavior of the demonstrators, and sometimes deliberately provoked by them, Chicago's police matched them in their abandonment of social (and professional) standards. Many removed their badges so they could not be identified. They clubbed demonstrators, reporters, onlookers. It was, in the verdict of an official investigation, "a police riot."
ctc-tempo@tribune.com
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
That was a major turning point for the Democratic Party to become the lying, corrupt scum as we now know them.
How often do you get a chance to hit hippies, communists, and reporters with clubs?
The only thing Mayor Daley did right.
Yeah, Mayor Daley was so smart in ordering the assault on the protestors that he cost his party and Hubert Humphrey the election. All the anti-war Democrats sat out the election.
What really cost the Hump was George Wallace getting the southern democrat votes.
Not often you get to watch young Democrats being beaten in the streets by old Democrats in a Democrat city.
At a Democrat Convention, no less. Its delicious.
Haven't you all noticed that he and Bobbie Kennedy were safely out of the way from while their supporters got the living crap kicked out of them?
Kennedy was safely buried by then.
I would say that the 1968 convention is where the leftists finally got into places of prominence for the first time. By 1972 look at their nominee.
Wallace didn't do nearly as much damage to Humphrey as Mayor Daley and the "backroom Democrats" that selected a candidate without participating in the primaries at all. All the McCarthy supporters and most of the Kennedy supporters were in the campaign until the Chicago Police rioted on the protesters. There has been a bit of revisionist history told, if you think the protesters were the bad guys. But Chicago became a turning point that steered the Democrats to the far, far left. Just look at the party since then.
One think Senator McCarthy did was bring a fresh approach to an old system. Until thousands of kids got their heads bashed in by the Chicago Police. I was sickened at what I observed.
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