Athenian Riot

In Athens, Ga. (pop. 18,192) there are two cinema houses, both under the same management. The Strand charges 25-c- admission. The Palace, more popular, scales its price from 25-c- to 40-c-, depending on the day of the week. To University of Georgia's 2,700 students that jack-up in the Palace price on busy nights is a major grievance. Around dinner tables one evening last fortnight passed word to meet at the theatre. After dinner groups of students, more boisterous than usual, began to gather outside the Palace and across the street at Costa's ice cream parlor. The Palace management, knowing the genesis of a riot when it saw one, quickly called police.

Suddenly the little groups coalesced into one big one, which rushed the theatre. First fists flew. Then blackjacks. Policemen's nightsticks thudded in the dark. Growing momentarily, the crowd surged down the street to the Strand. Crash! Down came the advertising displays. Back & forth between the Strand and the Palace shuttled the mob. Someone had a crate of eggs. Others bombarded the police with hard cinders, soft, squashy fruit. Badgered policemen drew their pistols, spattered the pavement with bullets. Perhaps students, too, had pistols. One bullet ricocheted into the leg of Edward Nabors, 36, as he skirted the mob on his way home from the library. A blackjack sent another youth to the hospital for three days. Two and a half hours later when bruised students trooped back to their rooms, bedraggled police to their station, Athens oldsters agreed that the peaceable students had never done anything like that before.

Even Georgia's good-natured President Steadman Vincent Sanford, though he was bound to disapprove the riot, felt that there was right on the students' side. Next day, with his approval, a mass meeting in the chapel solemnly voted a boycott on both theatres. Day after that, a delegation of students met with President Sanford, appointed a committee to dicker with the theatre. In the evening an orderly army of 700 marched down to the Palace, refused an offer of a free show from the jittery management, marched back.

Last week, with the prestige of the University administration behind it, the student committee formally presented its demands. Although the boycott was only 60% effective, Athenians expected the Palace to announce a fixed 25-c- rate.

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