Open Letter From Elissa Matross & Harvey Wasserman To Mayor Brandon Johnson: Don’t Be A Dick Daley

A Plea For A Non-Violent Chicago Convention This Time

Dear Mayor Johnson:

We are passionately asking that you not do during the upcoming Chicago Democratic Convention what then-Mayor Richard J. Daley did in 1968: plant the seeds of chaos and pave the way for a Republican President.

It’s widely expected there will be many thousands of marchers at this year’s DNC, protesting the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. It is essential the city do everything in its power to accommodate them and help keep the marches peaceful… as it did NOT do in 1968.  

During the ’68 protests, we were among the thousands there to march peacefully against the war in Vietnam. While standing at the corner of Michigan and Balbo, we were clubbed by police. To our immediate north, fellow demonstrators were pushed through a large plate glass window and into a restaurant. Infamously, angry police then poured inside and beat them and many astonished patrons who were trying to eat dinner.

It was a horrendous scene that was totally avoidable. It helped put Richard Nixon in the White House and prolong the Vietnam War for seven awful years.  

The terrible irony is that Mayor Daley was a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party and a serious skeptic— if not an outright opponent— of the war in Vietnam. And the “riots” that helped put Richard Nixon in the White House were entirely avoidable.

People like us came to Chicago with many agendas. Number One was to help persuade the Democrats that peace in Vietnam was essential and needed to come soon. There may have been some who came with violence and disruption on their mind. We were not among them, nor were any of the folks with whom we were associated.  

We came to make a peaceful demand that then-President Lyndon Johnson at least negotiate a cease-fire. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated. LBJ had announced he was not a candidate. So it was clear that despite the challenge from Eugene McCarthy, the nominee would be Hubert Humphrey.

We were lukewarm toward Humphrey, but absolutely terrified by Richard Nixon. We hoped to help move the Democrats to find a solution for the war before the November election.

But Mayor Daley made our peaceful presence impossible. For reasons we will never understand, he refused our Constitutional right to permits for peaceful marches. He also refused to allow us to camp in Grant and Lincoln Parks. The latter may not have been a Constitutional right, but certainly would’ve gone a long way to avoiding the chaos that ensued.

Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krasner, among others, viewed negotiations with the city in part as forms of guerrilla theater. There was absurd “Yippie” talk of putting LSD in the city’s water supply, which would’ve had no effect on any living creature, not even the fish. But from the leadership, at least, which also included Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis and Dave Dellinger, there were no threats of violence. Dave was very well-known as a life-long pacifist. Despite their penchant for the theatre of the absurd, none of them had a history of physical assault or even property destruction.  

The basic mainstream request was for permits to march through the city’s streets at least once per day. There was no legitimate reason to turn down those requests, which should have been viewed as protected free speech and a reasonable demand for a “redress of grievances.” However outrageous the Yippies’ antics might have seemed, there was never a threat of violence against people or property. Anything but.

Thus Mayor Daley had every Constitutional imperative to grant those permits to march. And in August, 1968, Chicago, every political calculation should have told him to just let us march and camp... and then begone. It was a catastrophic mistake to do otherwise, one that changed history very much for the worse.  

Later official commissions termed the ensuing violence “police riots.”  But what, really, were the police supposed to do besides somehow try to make us magically disappear, which just wasn’t going to happen. Instead, we were denied our Constitutional right to the permits that could have easily funneled us around the city while we made our points.

We were denied access to the parks that could have easily accommodated us for our gatherings during the four nights we were in town. The fiscal costs of sanely accommodating were instead multiplied by trying to make 15,000 young people, angered by an unjust war, just somehow go away.  

What was Dick Daley thinking? He was a smart guy and a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and maybe even a bit of a peacenik. Did he just let Abbie, Jerry and Paul get his goat? Did he just once contemplate what would result from this macho lack of circumspection and foresight?

Now, Mayor Johnson, it's 56 years later. An incumbent Democrat has announced he will not run again. His successor has been named. A monumental election looms. The US is again involved in wars— this time in the Middle East and Ukraine— that have angered deep pockets of the American population. Most likely, thousands will want to march on this year’s Democratic National Convention.  

We won’t be there this time. We doubt that anyone leading these marches will treat permit negotiations as guerrilla theater. Or threaten to put LSD in the water supply. But we respectfully request that you avoid the mistakes made by Mayor Daley in 1968.  

However annoying it might seem: please grant this new generation of demonstrators the right to march peacefully through the city’s streets.  To rally in Grant and Lincoln Parks. And to camp there if necessary for the four nights in question.

There's no reason for another nightmare of needless rioting, whoever may be responsible.

The events of Chicago 1968 had a catastrophic impact. This month, there’s every reason to avoid repeating history.  

Please do.

signed Elissa Matross  & Harvey Wasserman,

former Senior Editors, University of Michigan Daily