On 8/28/68, I was a few days away from starting 5th grade at my Catholic parish school in Chicago’s SW ‘burbs. My mother took me downtown that day to see events surrounding the Democratic National Convention. We ate breakfast in the lobby coffee shop of the Conrad Hilton Hotel. We saw HHH, in a crush of humanity and with the TV cameras following him, make his way through the lobby of that hotel. We went by Humphrey HQ, where spirits were high. I recall seeing bumper stickers there saying: “Nixon + Spiro=0.” We went by Gene McCarthy’s HQ, where spirits were NOT so high.
We also saw the demonstrators in Grant Park on the opposite side of Michigan Ave. We could hear them chanting: “Dump the Hump!” My mother and I were both neatly dressed. She recalls a Chicago cop remarking to her that I was properly dressed. There was a vast cultural chasm between the demonstrators (who were NOT neatly dressed) and the cops.
As most people know, the cops went after the protesters that evening. As per Wikipedia:
"The Battle of Michigan Avenue", described by Neil Steinberg of The Chicago Sun-Times as "a 17-minute melee in front of the Conrad Hilton", was broadcast on television, along with footage from the floor of the convention.[11] The police violence extended to protesters, bystanders, reporters and photographers, while tear gas reached Hubert Humphrey in his hotel suite.[1] Police pushed protesters through plate-glass windows, then pursued them inside and beat them as they sprawled on the broken glass.[11] 100 protesters and 119 police officers were treated for injuries, and 600 protesters were arrested.[11] Television cameras recorded the police brutality while demonstrators chanted "The whole world is watching",[1] and Humphrey won the presidential nomination that night.[3]:3
On the convention floor, several delegates made statements against Mayor Daley and the CPD, like Senator Abraham Ribicoff who denounced the use of "Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago" in his speech nominating George McGovern.[citation needed] The hard line taken by the City was also seen on the convention floor itself.[25] In 1968, Terry Southern described the convention hall as "exactly like approaching a military installation; barbed-wire, checkpoints, the whole bit".[27] Inside the convention, journalists such as Mike Wallace[28] and Dan Rather were roughed up by security; both these events were broadcast live on television.[1]
Protesters were pushed through plate glass windows that evening in the same hotel lobby where my mother and I had breakfast that morning. The 3 TV networks showed live footage of cops with billy clubs charging into lines of demonstrators. Millions of Americans watched in shock.
What did NOT happen that night is as noteworthy as what did happen. Protesters didn’t march on the convention hall, much less breach security, take over control of the hall, vandalize its contents, and disrupt proceedings. The demonstrators had violence inflicted upon them. They didn’t inflict violence upon others.
There were no questions then about the loyalties of the cops. Had cell phones existed then, there would not have been selfies of cops and demonstrators communing with each other. Full force was inflicted on the protesters in a way that was not considered today. Only 53 arrests were made today, a small fraction of the arrests in 1968.
There is one partial historic analogy. As per a Wikipedia entry amended today notes:
On August 24, 1814, after defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross set fire to multiple government and military buildings, including the White House (then called the Presidential Mansion), the Capitol building, as well as other facilities of the U.S. government.[3] The attack was in part a retaliation for the recent American destruction of Port Dover in Upper Canada. The Burning of Washington marks the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power has captured and occupied the capital of the United States, and the only time the Capitol building was overrun until 2021.
Attempts to analogize today’s tragic events to the equally tragic events of 8/28/68, however, fall flat. Domestic terrorists taking control of our seat of government on national TV in order to disrupt the certification of a presidential election is nothing like basically peaceful demonstrators getting beaten on national TV when said demonstrators were not attempting to disrupt a presidential nomination. The only people who ever did anything like what was done today were red-coated soldiers from a hostile foreign power. The people who did so today should be subject to the full force of the law.