Nickelodeon a charming peaceful part of Chicago, one week before the 1968 Democratic National Convention in that city.
Mayor Richard Daley is a distinguished and welcome guest at groundbreaking ceremonies for a new school.
...legal allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Richard Daley is a man who loves his city and its people.
There's no gap between the young and the old in Brighton Park.
There's no gap between the young and the old in Bridgeport.
Because all of us were helped, none of us can walk through life alone.
We had to have someone to help us.
The older people extend their hand and help the young people in their efforts to move ahead in our society.
Why did you want the convention to come here so much? This is the Chicago people should see.
They never see it.
Why did you want the convention to come here so badly? Because we have a great city.
Will it be a good convention, Mr.
Mayor? The best of our health.
Watch short! Watch short! Watch short! In a Chicago park, a week before the convention, well -organized young dissidents practice maneuvers to be used against police lines.
They expect trouble in their attempt to dramatize their protest against what they term increasingly repressive government machinery.
We don't expect to make self -defense experts in people in a week, but we'd like to perhaps give them some techniques that might serve them something and get them thinking about defending themselves or protecting themselves against possible violence.
We are not going out to fight the cops.
I mean, we basically hope that this is going to be a nonviolent situation in this park.
However, if the violence comes, we will soak it up.
Chicago, always an exciting city, is this week the most exciting city in the nation.
Here history is being made, for the decisions reached at the Democratic National Convention will influence the course of national and world events.
It is only fitting that during this dynamic democratic processes there is present in our city a cross -section, a representation of the voices of America.
Liberal, moderate, conservative and radical, young and old, hawk and dove, hippie and square, people of every color, creed and national origin, from every state and territory in the Union.
We cannot condemn those who are impatient with society's failure to bridge the gap between the material and social progress.
But we cannot resign ourselves to the proposition that civil protest must lead to death and devastation.
The hippie contingent is in Chicago to do their thing, under the leadership of Abby Hoffman.
I think if people stay in the park, you know, and play the role of the good niggers, they'll be okay, they'll be treated with respect by the police.
In fact, they'll be held up as models of the ideal protestors.
Those people that, those hippies that march on the amphitheater or go downtown or sit in restaurants or demand their rights, they'll be risking their lives, that's right.
These cops here are tough.
They'd kill you with a smile, shoot to kill daily, you know.
And it's difficult.
I mean, some people want to go this way, some people want to go this way and they say that those people are interfering with their thing, but somehow it works out.
I mean, everybody is allowed to do their thing.
If some people storm the amphitheater, they storm the amphitheater.
Some people want to swim naked in the lake, they swim naked in the lake.
Other people want to smoke dope.
Other people want to go and tell the cops what we're doing, that's good.
The cops want to come down and beat our heads, that's it.
I mean, it's all conceived as a total theater, with everyone becoming an actor.
The Democrats, Mr.
Humphrey, whatever his name is, the other candidates, I don't even know their names.
The Poor People's Wagons arrived to join the protest, a small part of the enlarging mass.
There are moderate liberals, professional agitators, anti -war groups, revolutionaries, flower people, both draft resistors, militants, and many who find a personal involvement far beyond their original intention.
The Conrad Hilton Hotel is the hub of delegate activity in Chicago.
There are two leading contenders for the nomination, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Eugene McCarthy.
Many young people, new to politics, are angered by the belief that Humphrey's choice is a foregone conclusion, while their man, McCarthy, doesn't stand a chance.
Another group in Chicago is the National Guard.
They are equipped with full field gear, including rifles, flamethrowers, and bazookas, to help keep the peace.
The Guard has a clearly defined role in civil disturbances, to provide assistance to local authorities.
They are a restraining force, not an aggressive one.
Their training stresses their commitment to a holding action, rather than arrest and confinement.
The protesters are peaceful in the days immediately prior to the convention, but their literature warns that a storming of the convention hall is not out of the question.
They are told to bring pot, fake delegates' cards, smoke bombs, and crud to throw.
One paper says, if the Central Committee gives us Humphrey anyway, then we can leave the country, we can drift into quietism and tend our private gardens, or we can disrupt, disrupt, disrupt.
Both sides of the fence are populated by the young, but the young people in Chicago who must enforce the law are not there by choice.
Their task has been made even more difficult by the dialogue of the street, which confronts them at every turn.
I said no, I said no for you, I said no for me.
And I came here from New York to try to tell you.
And I just came here to go over and talk and say, you know, I didn't want to do a thing.
Not right now.
I don't want to get my gun now, my gun's at home.
The one member of the older generation the young people want to listen to is Senator Eugene McCarthy.
I'm happy to be here to address the government and the people in exile.
I really made only one real promise.
I want you to know that I offered an airline stewardess a place of Betty Pernis.
And consumer protection, that was the only serious promise.
The other one was that if I were elected, instead of riots and protests, we'd have dancing in the streets.
Violence erupts many times during the week of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago 1968.
Peaceful, purposeful protest becomes angry, confused riot.
The confrontations are dramatized for millions of Americans on television.
They are prominently featured in news media around the world.
The violence is shocking and difficult to explain.
Is this a police riot or is it the enforcement of law and order? When those whose duty it is to enforce the law clash with a violently dissenting group, the question is difficult to answer.
I was working out on the street trying to help people.
Supposedly we're neutral.
We're representing a student health organization, the Medical Committee for Human Rights.
Supposedly we're neutral and we help anybody, police, demonstrators, innocent bystanders.
And what happened? Police charged the crowd.
I didn't think I'd get hit because, like I'm a medic, I mean, like they said, medic, I'll give you a medic.
And then they beat me.
The group in front of the guard that were being held back by the guard threw easy off oven cleaner into the face of the whole front rank of the National Guard.
Burning them.
They are presently trying to get it out using the water from their canteens.
Delegates to the convention witness the violence in the city and many sympathize with the young protesters.
Mayor Daley becomes a symbol to them of the uncomprehending old guard of the party.
The lines are clearly drawn as evidenced by Delegate Daley's reaction to the nominating speech for candidate George McGovern.
Senator Ribicoff had the floor.
As I look at the confusion in this hall and watch on television the turmoil and violence that is competing with this great convention for the attention of the American people, there is something else in my heart tonight and not the speech that I am prepared to give.
With George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn't have to have Gestapo statactics in the streets of Chicago.
With George McGovern, we wouldn't have a National Guard.
How hard it is to accept the truth.
It is a great honor to nominate for the Presidency of the United States, George McGovern.
Mayor Daley, however, is not without support.
His summation of the events in Chicago is widely accepted.
In the heat of emotion and riot, some policemen may have overacted.
But to judge the entire police department by the alleged action of a few would be just as unfair as to judge our entire younger generation by the action of this mob.
I would like to say here and now that this administration, our administration, and the people of Chicago have never and will condone brutality at any time.
But they will never permit a lawless, violent group of terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national convention, and take over the streets of Chicago.
Two fundamental American rights clashed in Chicago.
The right to dissent, guaranteed by the Constitution.
The right of a community to protect its citizens and property.
When these rights conflicted, the violence of the confrontation startled the nation and shocked the world.
The younger generation, while deploring the violence of the establishment, still used that same violence against it.
The older generation, alienated by the protests of the young, reacted and overreacted in their determination to suppress that protest.
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