This is part of a new feature installment, showcasing the history of both the Bi-College News and the Bi-College community via old publications.
Title: ‘The Senator Has Seen Groups Before’: Four Haverford Students Arrested After Sit-In in Scott’s Office
By: Peter Goldberger ‘71
Published: Friday, April 30, 1971 in The Bryn Mawr-Haverford College News (Vol. 3, No. 25)
Four Haverford students were among 11 people arrested Tuesday after a 24-hours sit-in and fast at the Washington office of Sen. Hugh Scott (R-PA.).
Three of those arrested are currently participating in the Germantown community organization project of the Educational Involvement Program (EIP).
A Bryn Mawr student and two other EIP participants took part in the action, but left before the arrests were made.
Irv Ackelsberg, Josh Turner, and George Czar of Haverford and Eva Gladstein, an EIP participant from the Univ. of Michigan and therefore a special student at Haverford, were charged with two criminal misdemeanors, unlawful entry and disruption of office procedure. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of a $500 fine and six months imprisonment.
Laurie Effinger of Bryn Mawr, Ellen Einiger, an EIP participant from Beaver, and Sally Myers, EIP from Dickinson, were also among the 15 demonstrators who entered Scott’s office when it opened Monday morning to seek support for the Peoples’ Peace Treaty, the Vietnam Disengagement Act, and the May 5 moratorium.
According to a leaflet distributed by the students: “We plan to maintain a presence in this office to bear witness to our deeply felt conviction that the killing in Southeast Asia must end now. We will maintain this presence until we are convinced that you plan to take positive steps to end the war.”
The seven students had planned to conduct the vigil as part of a nationwide program of nonviolent direct action against the war in Vietnam, which will culminate in a general “moratorium on business as usual” May 5. During their sit-in they were joined by eight other persons, seven of whom submitted to arrest Tuesday.
The group had written Scott’s office the week before requesting a meeting, but when they arrived they were informed by his secretary that the minority leader was in Kansas on a speaking engagement and would probably not return until Tuesday.
They spent the day in the office, discussing their leaflet and the Peoples’ Peace Treaty with Scott’s staff and visiting constituents. According to Ackelsberg, the group was consistently non-disruptive, not even attempting to force conversation on those unwilling to listen. He said the group was told several times that they were welcome to stay in the office.
At 4 p.m. a reporter who had been with them and another group sitting-in at Scott’s Capitol office informed the group that the Senator was now in Washington.
But when the group asked Administrative Assistant Martin Hamburger if they could see Scott, the aid replied: “The senator has seen groups before.” The students interpreted this remark to mean that Scott felt that he had already heard the anti-war position and no longer saw the necessity of dialogue.
At 5 p.m., however, Hamburger returned to say he might be able to rearrange a 10- or 15-minute session for the group if they would then agree to leave the office. The protestors replied that their leaving was contingent upon Scott;s statement of intent to work against the war, not simply upon a meeting, and on those terms Hamburger said a meeting could not be arranged.
After this discussion, the senator’s staff began to tell the press that the demonstrators had refused an offer to meet with Scott.
Just after 5 p.m., Hamburger told the vigilers that the office was “closed,” and that they could stay the night, so long as they did not return to the office if they left at any time.
They stayed the night, accompanied in shifts by three members of Scott’s staff.
At 9 a.m. Hamburger returned to say the office would be “closed” all day. At that time Myers and Effinger, two of the students who had planned to avoid arrest, left the office.
Five minutes later, three Capitol police entered to inform the three remaining vigilers that they would soon be arrested on the relatively serious charge of unlawful entry. At this point, Einiger and a non-student demonstrator also left the office to avoid arrest.
An elderly Capitol police sergeant then entered the room and pleaded emotionally with the protestors to leave peaceably. He asked them to be “decent” and promised the police would be “decent.” At the end of his plea, he began to cry, and ended by making the sign of the Cross and blessing the 11 remaining vigilers “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” He then shook hands with each of the men in the room and kissed each of the women.
The Arrest
At this time, a large group of police could be heard in the outer hall, apparently trying to enter the office through the one door that remained locked from the outside. After some debate, the protesters agreed to unlock the door for the police, who then entered and arrested them one at a time, informing them of their rights and of the charges.
Some of those arrested were frisked and photographed in the corridor outside of Scott’s office, but when a crowd of tourists began to gather, they were all moved by paddy-wagon around the corner to the Capitol police headquarters in the New Senate Office Building where they were processed.
The demonstrators were then transferred to District of Columbia jails, where they were again processed and then left in cells until 1 p.m. when arraignments were to begin.
It was in the D.C. jail that they met their lawyer, a People’s Lobby volunteer who mentioned that he had passed his bar exam the day before.
Additional Charge
Arraignment finally came at 5 p.m. when they found that the additional charge of “disruption of office procedure” had been added to that of unlawful entry.
Although two non-students were asked to post $100 cash bond each in lieu of $1000 bail, all the students were released in the custody of several “respectable” Washingtonians.
Their release was contingent on the agreement to stay away from the Capitol area, and to leave Washington within 5 hours.
A public defender handled the arraignment for the students, as their volunteer lawyer had mysteriously disappeared about an hour before they were called.
All four students pleaded not guilty and requested a joint jury trial, which is scheduled for June 1 at 8:45 a.m. in room 15 of the Superior Court Building at Fifth and E Sts.
Scott’s office remained closed to the public all day Tuesday.
