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Several laminations below the surface, beneath the overall tone of re straint, was a distinct firmness, even an oblique suggestion that if the universities could not control radical violence, then the Government would. Somewhat confusingly, the threat was contained in a denial that Government has any interest in campus intervention. "It is time," said Nixon, "for the responsible university and college administrators, faculty and student leaders to stand up and be counted." Whereupon nearly all of the audience stood up and cheered. "Because we must remember only they can save higher education in America," he went on. "If we turn only to Government to save it, then Government will move in and run the colleges and universities."
Crowd Orchestration. Even if it had been planned, no Brechtian genius could have staged the audience participation better. Before Nixon was 60 seconds into his speech, the platoon of hecklers began to shout: "Tell us about Kent State!" "Right on!" "Make more bombs!" The vast majority of the audience began a counterpoint of loud and sustained applause. Nixon, hearing the radicals, hurried his speech, with half-stops in his monotone. But his lines about "the willingness to listen to somebody without trying to shout him down" summoned up thunderous ovations.
Afterward, some K-State students expressed resentment at the role they had felt obliged to play. Said Rowan Conrad, a graduate student: "This was a pep rally. We've been used. He came here and staged us." Donna Diehl, a junior from Salina, Kans., almost apologized: "I disapproved of the hecklers. They were dumb and weren't accomplishing anything. I found myself clapping just to show them that I didn't approve." Obviously, however, much of the cheering was an uncomplicated endorsement of the President and his message.
Conventional Politics. Nixon justly regarded the speech as a political triumph and afterward waded into the student crowd for several minutes of ebullient handshaking. He later said that he regretted not being able to visit other, more militant campuses. Turning quickly to more conventional politics, he flew to Chicago to lend his prestige to Senator Ralph Smith's campaign against Adlai Stevenson III. While there, the President took the opportunity to meet with eight leaders of Chicago's large and politically powerful Polish community and at one point to press the flesh with a group of hardhat construction workers in the Loop.
There he participated in a warm ceremony welcoming 140 men and women of 37 nationalities who were about to become American citizens. Pat Nixon gave each new citizen an American-flag pin like the one the President wears in his lapel. Then all—including Candidate Smith—adjourned to a buffet table adorned with a large spun-sugar elephant.