American Notes: From Rhetoric to Arson

"By whatever means necessary" is the dictum of revolution. A growing number of radicals have come to believe that the necessity is fire and bomb blast. In some quarters the impression has spread that violence, as Rap Brown once said, is indeed "as American as cherry pie."

At Stanford, at the University of Kansas, at Penn State, at the University of California's Santa Barbara campus, some student radicals have abandoned rhetoric for arson. In East Lansing, Mich., last week, three banks near Michigan State University were damaged by explosions. Thus far, most of the incendiary passion has been directed...

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