--from the New York Times, May 21, 1970
On May 20, 1970, between 60,000 and 150,000 construction workers and others paraded through downtown New York to show support for President Nixon's Vietnam war policies. The parade was organized by the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York (led by Peter Brennan) in part to counteract the widespread media images of rampaging construction workers from May 8 with images of peaceful political protest. A blizzard of tickertape drifted down on the marchers from the windows of Wall Street offices.
This article is not news coverage of the march but rather "a random sampling of some marchers and their views." This is a valuable historical source for uncovering what the "hardhats" themselves thought and who they were. It is important to keep in mind, though, that the reporter and editors selected the marchers and views they found most newsworthy or representative.
Robert Geary, 50, an office worker for the Colonial Hardware Corporation: I'm very proud to be an American, and I know my boy that was killed in Vietnam would be here today if he was alive, marching with us....I know he died for the right cause, because in his letters he wrote to me he knew what he was fighting for: to keep America free and to avoid any taking over by Communists--atheistic Communists, by the way.
I think most of them [college dissenters] are influenced by a few vile people...I'll tell you one person who smudged the name of my son and that was Mayor Lindsay. When he stands up and says men who refuse to serve in the armed forces are heroic, then I presume by the same category that my son that was killed in Vietnam is a coward, the way he thinks.
Eighty per cent of the people are behind America and the flag...I believe that what we're fighting for is worth it, yes, but nobody likes war.
Of the flag: It's me. It's part of me. I fought for it myself two or three years in the Second World War...It's the greatest country in the world. All they [dissenters] have to do is move out.
Mrs. Allison Greaker, 411 100th Street, Brooklyn, marching with her children, Richard Nixon Greaker, 1, and Allison, 2:
We're part of the silent majority that's finally speaking--and in answer to the creeps and the bums that have been hollering and marching against the President.
I think he's doing everything he can to bring about an honorable peace. I think my kids are going to live better with Nixon in the White House.
To stop Communist aggression [the war] has been worth it, yes...If they had listened to Gen. Douglas MacArthur from the very beginning and gone into Manchuria, we wouldn't have had the problems we have. We would have put the Communists down back in 1952. I have a lot of faith in the college kids...I think they're being heard enough, and we're answering right now today....They've tried to take over education, the Communists have, and I think this is where [the students are] getting their viewpoints from.
Source 3: Staff, collection of views expressed by construction workers marching in a Hard Hat rally in New York City, “For the Flag and for Country, They March” (excerpts), New York Times, May 21, 1970.
From The New York Times, May 21, 1970 © 1970 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited. http://chnm.gmu.edu/hardhats/forflag.html.
Supporting Question 4- Why did the Vietnam War protesters consider themselves patriotic?
- Source A: Paul Potter, speech in opposition to the Vietnam War, “Naming the System” (excerpt), April 17, 1965 NOTE: Paul Potter, president of the Students for a Democratic Society, spoke in front of 25,000 people who had participated in a march on Washington, DC, on April 17, 1965m to urge an end to the war in Vietnam.
There is no simple plan, no scheme or gimmick that can be proposed here. There is no simple way to attack something that is deeply rooted in the society. If the people of this country are to end the war in Vietnam, and to change the institutions which create it, then the people of this country must create a massive social movement-and if that can be built around the issue of Vietnam then that is what we must do.
By a social movement I mean more than petitions or letters of protest, or tacit support of dissident Congressmen; I mean people who are willing to change their lives, who are willing to challenge the system, to take the problem of change seriously. By a social movement I mean an effort that is powerful enough to make the country understand that our problems are not in Vietnam, or China or Brazil or outer space or at the bottom of the ocean, but are here in the United States. What we must do is begin to build a democratic and humane society in which Vietnams are unthinkable, in which human life and initiative are precious. The reason there are twenty thousand people here today and not a hundred or none at all is because five years ago in the South students began to build a social movement to change the system. The reason there are poor people, Negro and white, housewives, faculty members, and many others here in Washington is because that movement has grown and spread and changed and reached out as an expression of the broad concerns of people throughout the society. The reason the war and the system it represents will be stopped, if it is stopped before it destroys all of us, will be because the movement has become strong enough to exact change in the society. Twenty thousand people, the people here, if they were serious, if they were willing to break out of their isolation and to accept the consequences of a decision to end the war and commit themselves to building a movement wherever they are and in whatever way they effectively can, would be, I’m convinced, enough.
To build a movement rather than a protest or some series of protests, to break out of our insulations and accept the consequences of our decisions, in effect to change our lives, means that we can open ourselves to the reactions of a society that believes that it is moral and just, that we open ourselves to libeling and persecution, that we dare to be really seen as wrong in a society that doesn’t tolerate fundamental challenges.
Used with permission.
- Source B: Martin Luther King Jr., speech in opposition to the Vietnam War, "A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967
NOTE: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University website contains a transcript and audio recording of Dr. King’s New York speech in opposition to the Vietnam War: http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/.
New York State Social Studies Framework Key Idea & Practices 8.9 DOMESTIC POLITICS AND REFORM: The civil rights movement and the Great Society were attempts by people and the government to address major social, legal, economic, and environmental problems. Subsequent economic recession called for a new economic program.
Gathering, Using, and Interpreting Evidence Economics and Economic Systems Civic Participation
In addition to the Key Idea listed earlier, this inquiry highlights the following Conceptual Understanding:
(8.9c) The Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson strengthened efforts aimed at reducing poverty and providing health care for the elderly, but the Vietnam War drained resources and divided society.