Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

UNDERGRADUATE REPORT
• To one who had seen news films of the
furious Berkeley campus demonstrations
of '64, it looked like a re-run. Only this
time the setting was Cornell and the characters
were life-size.
Here, at one o'clock, on the Straight
steps, where swarms of noisy students
usually converge for an equally hectic Ivy
Room lunch, those same students, some
1,300 strong, were listening to a man in a
fur hat, talking through an amplified megaphone.
"My name is Richard Thaler, District
Attorney of Tompkins County."
There were some boos and catcalls, but
the man with the bullhorn went on to say
that he was only doing his duty.
"I ask you not to sell the magazine. If
you do go ahead and sell, I must warn
you that you are subject to arrest."
But admonition did not stop action.
While Thaler '53, LLB '56, spoke, an
Ithaca detective was already informing
students selling The Trojan Horse that
they were under arrest and would they
please stand in the corner until the man in
the fur hat had finished talking, so they
could all go downtown in his car.
But the city detective was being presumptuous.
He hadn't counted on the
mass of students blocking his way as he
attempted to lead five of the many students
selling the magazine to his car. He
hadn't expected the throngs to stand
around the vehicle, halting its movement.
Nor had he imagined the students would
block one of the doors to Day Hall, effectively
eliminating the District Attorney's
refuge from the angry crowd. That
mob was not about to give up "the prisoners,"
as one zealot termed the five tabbed
for arrest.
Thaler had not attracted the crowd, but
his presence did incite it. The students
were massed to protest the previous day's
confiscation of some 130 copies of The
Trojan Horse, a campus literary magazine,
by the Safety Division on orders
from Division supervisor, James Herson,
Horse: Beginning or End?
BY SETH S. GOLDSCHLAGER '68
who deemed one article in the magazine
"obscene." When students threatened to
defy the order, Thaler was on his way to
the campus, set to stop its sale.
The young District Attorney knew at
that time that his "invasion" of the campus,
as the Sun termed it in an Extra
Saturday edition, was opposed by the university
administration. Both President
Perkins and Chairman Arthur Dean Ί9,
LLB '23, called him from a trustees'
meeting in New York urging him not to
intervene. His student reception committee
was even more hostile.
The New York Times the next day
called it a "riot" and had 1,000 students
"storming" the police. But there was no
riot, in the commonly accepted sense of
the word. No ambulances filled with the
injured careened around corners to Sage
Hospital, as some parents imagined. No
police other than Thaler and his arresting
detective clashed with students. There was
pushing and shoving for about five minutes,
but Thaler wisely decided to get out
gracefully - or as gracefully as he could
after a near-riot.
From Crowd to Court:
Law on Student Side
Thaler decided to "make a deal" with
the crowd. If the throng would allow him
to return to his office downtown, he
would not arrest the five students. Instead,
he would obtain a temporary injunction
against the magazine's distribution
which could be challenged in the
courts. In addition, he would allow anyone
who wished to be identified with the
"obscene" magazine's sale to sign a list
making that person liable to prosecution
under New York State law.
The students agreed to this hasty proposal,
and soon the D.A. was back in his
office, minus his police car, kept as symbolic
bounty by the crowd which had deflated
its tires and ripped off its aerial.
Thaler bet that only a few students
would sign the list of Horse sellers. But,
after a Saturday afternoon rally, at which
the campus was told of Thaler's success
in obtaining an injunction, 178 students
signed the notarized list of those "guilty"
of selling the magazine. In addition, thousands
of signatures were obtained on two
other petitions. One declared the magazine
was not obscene; the other condemned
Thaler's intervention on campus.
Next it was the Court's turn. Although
State Supreme Court Justice Harold E.
Simpson '21 did feel the magazine "contained
much that is vile and evil," and that
the article in question was "garbage and
trash," The Horse, taken as a whole, did
not cater to the prurient interest in sex.
And, in view of this standard set by the
Supreme Court, the temporary injunction,
said the judge, should be "vacated and dissolved."
The immediate aftermath of the controversy
was the resignation of Herson,
who said he questioned his effectiveness
on the job in the wake of his personal
decision to confiscate The Horse. Herson,
it should be noted, acted out of fear that
the university might be liable to prosecution;
he first noticed the magazine was
being sold by university employees at
Noyes Lodge.
Student leaders regretted Herson's resignation
in comments made to the press.
However, they did view the original confiscation
action as censorship of free expression
at the university, where such
freedom must be paramount. Herson
acted quickly, without going through the
proper student government and faculty
committees charged with the responsibility
of controlling sales of student publications.
The action prompted outcries from faculty
and students who saw the danger of
arbitrary administrative fiat jeopardizing
the atmosphere of a truly free university.
Faculty protest took the form of direct
appeal to the administration. A mem-
24 Cornell Alumni News