Sniffing the Devil's Presence

Despite the spectacular displays of student rebellion at U.S. campuses this year, the annual convention of Students for a Democratic Society last week assessed its present situation with far more gloom than triumph. "We sniff the air," said one S.D.S. officer, Carl Oglesby, "and there is a trace of the devil's presence that wasn't there last year." Many of the 900 vociferous delegates at Michigan State University seemed to be convinced that the U.S. is in a "prerevolutionary" stage in which the forces of conservatism will use violence to stamp out change. They treated reporters covering the convention as mortal enemies. Like many other radicals, the delegates displayed something of a martyr complex, expressing fear that S.D.S. was in imminent danger of being squelched by "the system."

Much of the convention debate centered on proposals to ready S.D.S. for resistance to any such reaction by pulling the highly diffuse, anarchic organization together under at least regional direction. "If this group does not get together in the next two years," warned National Education Secretary Bob Pardun, "we'll be wiped out." Yet the debates dramatized the difficulty of agreement within S.D.S. on anything but broad goals. Exercising "participatory democracy" to the fullest, delegates spent hours belaboring technical points. After ten hours of discussion, all three resolutions aimed at restructuring the organization were voted down.

That still left each of the 250 S.D.S. chapters free to do its own thing--including a little selfcriticism. One delegate strode down the aisle with a wastebasket on his head while a companion cried: "I nominate this trash can for national secretary." Workshops at the convention suggested a variety of possibilities, ranging from a concentration on "self-defense and internal security" to "organizing G.I.s" and "forming chapters at backward conservative campuses." If there was one common new goal it was a drive to expand S.D.S. influence in the nation's high schools. The Madison, Wis., chapter will try to do so this summer by publishing a state-wide underground newspaper aimed at teenagers, sending a "radical rock-'n'-roll band" to tour youth-recreation spots. It even hopes to "radicalize" a surf club in Sheboygan and send its recruiters across the state line into Dubuque, Iowa, home of the original Little Old Lady.

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