The Wrong Place

The handful of youngsters who actively oppose the nation's draft seem intent on making a public display of their protest. So far, the public has been remarkably forbearing of their demonstrations, but last week the Vietniks picked the wrong place to stage a protest: South Boston. There, the predominantly Irish inhabitants not only retain a good bit of the rough and tumble of their immigrant ancestors but take most unkindly to unpatriotic displays. Trouble was in the air as eleven Viet Nam demonstrators reached the steps of the South Boston courthouse, where two of them calmly burned their draft cards and two others put the torch to their draft-reclassification notices.

Though the burnings had been announced in advance, no uniformed police were present. But a crowd of 150 high school students were on hand for the show -- and they did not like what they saw. "Kill them! Shoot them! Commie!" cried the gang. They surged forward, knocking some of the demonstrators to the ground and slugging and kicking them until the cops finally arrived to rescue them. Said a veteran police captain: "Anyone foolish enough to commit such an unpatriotic gesture in South Boston can only expect what these people got." Later, in court to face charges stemming from an earlier sit-in at the Boston Army Base, the protesters were found guilty of loitering. Nine of them began serving jail sentences rather than pay $20 fines; the other two plan appeals.

When it comes to outright draft dodging, as opposed to demonstrations, the authorities have little patience. In Hartford, Conn., Bookseller David Mitchell, 23, who had refused to report for induction and declared the U.S. "morally bankrupt and criminally liable" in Viet Nam, was given the maximum prison sentence of five years for draft evasion. In a New York City crackdown, 38 men, including several fathers and their draft-age sons, were indicted for participating in one of the biggest draft-dodging schemes ever. They had allegedly bought stolen Defense Department documents for as much as $5,000 each, falsified them to satisfy draft boards that the youths belonged to reserve units and thus were ineligible for induction.

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