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Draft-card burning

Draft-card burning was a symbol of protest performed by thousands of young men in the United States and Australia in the 1960s and early 1970s. The first draft-card burners were American men participating in the opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The first well-publicized protest was in December 1963, with a 22-year-old conscientious objector, Gene Keyes, setting fire to his card on Christmas Day in Champaign, Illinois.[1] In May 1964, a larger demonstration, with about 50 people in Union Square, New York, was organized by the War Resisters League chaired by David McReynolds.[2][3]

Young men burn their draft cards in New York City on April 15, 1967, at Sheep Meadow, Central Park.

By May 1965, it was happening with greater frequency around the US. To limit this kind of protest,[4] in August 1965, the United States Congress enacted a law to broaden draft card violations to punish anyone who "knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates" his draft card.[5] Subsequently, 46 men were indicted[6] for burning their draft cards at various rallies, and four major court cases were heard. One of them, United States v. O'Brien, was argued before the Supreme Court. The act of draft-card burning was defended as a symbolic form of free speech, a constitutional right guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court decided against the draft-card burners; it determined that the federal law was justified and unrelated to the freedom of speech.

In Australia, following the 1966 troop increases directed by Prime Minister Harold Holt, conscription notices were burned at mass demonstrations against Australian involvement in Vietnam. In June 1968, the government reacted by strengthening penalties for infractions of the Menzies government 1964 National Service Act, including the burning of registration cards. War protest ceased in 1972 when Australia's new Labor government withdrew troops from Vietnam and abolished conscription.

From 1965 to 1973, very few men in the US were convicted of burning their draft cards. Some 25,000 others went unpunished.[6] Before 1965, the act of burning a draft card was already prohibited by US statute—the registrant was required to carry the card at all times, and any destruction of it was thus against the law. Also, it was entirely possible for a young man to destroy his draft card and still answer his country's call to service by appearing at an induction center and serving in the military,[7] and it was possible for a registrant to faithfully keep his card on his person but fail to appear when called. The draft card was not an essential part of the government's ability to draft men into the military. Thus draft-card burning was an act of war resistance more than it was draft resistance.[5][8]

The image of draft-card burning was powerful and influential in American politics and culture.[7] It appeared in magazines, newspapers, and television, signaling a political divide between those who backed the US government and its military goals and those against US involvement in Vietnam.[9] Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968 on a platform based partly on putting an end to the draft, to undercut protesters making use of the symbolic act. As president, Nixon ended the draft in 1973, rendering the symbolic act of draft-card burning unnecessary.

Background edit

United States edit

 
A Vietnam-era draft card worn out from years in a wallet

From 1948, under the Selective Service Act, all American men aged 18 through 25 were required to register with a local draft board. In case of war, the able-bodied ones among them could be drafted to serve in the military. The law required the men to always carry their draft cards with them. These were small cards bearing the registrant's identifying information, the date and place of registration, and a unique Selective Service number.

In an amendment sponsored by Congressmen L. Mendel Rivers and William G. Bray, on August 31, 1965, the law was augmented with four words to include penalties for any person who "knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates" the card under 50 U.S.C. § 462(b)(3).[10] Strom Thurmond moved the bill through the Senate, calling draft-card burning "contumacious conduct" which "represents a potential threat to the exercise of the power to raise and support armies."[7] At the time, many observers (including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit) believed that Congress had intentionally targeted anti-war draft-card burners.[11]

Australia edit

Following the 1964 National Service Act, legislated in response to the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, 20-year-old Australian men were subject to military service based on a birthday lottery. In April 1965, Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies sent a battalion of Army regulars to Vietnam, beginning an overseas involvement that lasted for seven years and provoked deeply divisive debate back home.[12] In early 1966, Menzies retired, and Harold Holt became Prime Minister. In March 1966, Holt announced troop increases, bringing the total commitment to 4,500 men in Vietnam, a tripling of effort.[13] Significantly, conscripts could now be sent into combat.[14] Protests broke out, including a draft-card burning demonstration outside of Holt's home.[15] In late June 1966 with President Lyndon B. Johnson listening, Holt spoke in Washington, D.C. in support of American policy. In his speech, he closed by saying that Australia was a "staunch friend" of America, willing to go "all the way with LBJ".[16] This statement was widely criticized in Australia.[13] Marxist writer and draft-card burner Andy Blunden said in July that, "by following America into Vietnam, Holt's Australia is playing the role of Mussolini's Italy."[15] In December the government bolstered the Vietnam presence with 1,700 more troops.[13]

John Gorton took the Prime Minister position in January 1968. In June 1968, the government doubled the penalty for burning registration cards.[17] In 1971, the government committed to a gradual but total withdrawal from Vietnam—following both Australian opinion and America's new policy.[18] In 1972, all troops including the advisory team were ordered home from Vietnam. Draft resisters in jail were freed.[19] The final birthday lottery was held September 22, 1972.[17]

US court cases edit

Early cases edit

 
Antiwar protesters in January 1965

On October 15, 1965, David J. Miller burned his draft card at a rally near the Armed Forces Induction Center on Whitehall Street in Manhattan. He spoke briefly to the crowd from atop a sound truck and then tried but failed to burn his card with matches—the wind kept blowing them out. The crowd offered a lighter, and it worked. Miller was arrested by the FBI three days later in Manchester, New Hampshire, while setting up peace literature on a table.[5] The 24-year-old pacifist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement, became the first man convicted under the 1965 amendment.[20] In April 1966 with his wife and breast-feeding baby in attendance, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.[20][21] The case was argued in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in June. Miller's attorney held that "symbolic speech is protected by the First Amendment; burning a draft card is a most dramatic form of communication, and there is a constitutional right to make one's speech as effective as possible."[22] The court did not agree. The case was decided later that year in October: Miller's conviction was confirmed, and his sentence upheld.[23] Loudon Wainwright Jr. wrote in Life magazine that Miller, "without really knowing it, might be embarking on a lifelong career of protest."[24] Miller remained free on bail until June 1968 at which time he served 22 months in federal prison.[5]

At an anti-war rally at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City, Iowa, on October 20, 1965, 20-year-old Stephen Lynn Smith, a student at the University of Iowa, spoke to the crowd and burned his draft card. He said, "I do not feel that five years of my life are too much to give to say that this law is wrong."[7] He had previously alerted newspaper reporters and two television stations, and they were present to record his act. Smith said he was against the involvement of the US in Vietnam and that he was against the system of conscription. In November 1966 he was found guilty and placed on probation for three years.[25]

In June–July 1967, United States v. Edelman was argued and decided in the US Second Circuit. Tom Cornell, Marc Paul Edelman, and Roy Lisker had burned their draft cards at a public rally organized by the Committee for Non-Violent Action in Union Square, New York City, on November 6, 1965. A fourth man older than 36 also burned his card at the rally but was not indicted. Edelman, Cornell, and Lisker were convicted and sentenced to six months.[26]

United States v. O'Brien edit

On the morning of March 31, 1966, David Paul O'Brien and three companions burned their draft cards on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse in front of a crowd that included several FBI agents. After the four men came under attack from some of the crowd, an FBI agent ushered O'Brien inside the courthouse and advised him of his rights. O'Brien made a confession and produced the charred remains of the certificate. He was then indicted for violating § 462(b)(3) and put on trial in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.[10]

O'Brien argued that the four words ("knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates") added to the draft card law were unconstitutional and an abridgment of the freedom of speech. He argued that the amendment served no valid purpose because the Selective Service Act already required draft registrants to carry their card on their persons at all times; thus, any form of destruction was already a violation.[10] He explained that he burned the draft card publicly as a form of symbolic speech to persuade others to oppose the war "so that other people would reevaluate their positions with Selective Service, with the armed forces, and reevaluate their place in the culture of today, to hopefully consider my position."[10] On January 24, 1968, the Supreme Court determined that the 1965 amendment was constitutional as enacted and as applied and that it did not distinguish between public or private destruction or mutilation of the draft card.[27] They determined that nothing was necessarily expressive in burning a draft card. Chief Justice Earl Warren said, "we cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech' whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea."[22] O'Brien's previous sentence of six years was upheld.[28]

The Supreme Court's conclusion was criticized by legal observers such as Dean Alfange Jr. for its "astonishingly cavalier" treatment.[29] Many saw in O'Brien's act a clear communicative element with the "intent to convey a particularized message", an intent to which the court did not give much weight.[30] Instead, the court weighed as more significant the government's interest "in assuring the continued availability of issued Selective Service certificates."[30]

In 1975, legal scholar John Hart Ely found fault with O'Brien. He pointed out that the draft-card-burning question was not decided in relation to the similar one surrounding the act of flag burning, an issue the court had avoided for years.[31] Ely's analysis was aided by that of Thomas Scanlon in 1972, in A Theory of Freedom of Expression, which interpreted the freedom of speech broadly, including such public and political acts as self-immolation.[32] In 1990 O'Brien was analyzed again by critics following the case United States v. Eichman which determined that flag burning was a form of free speech and some made comparisons to the earlier 1984 case Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence which determined that sleeping at a protest rally location in a downtown park was valid as a symbolic expression intended to bring attention to the plight of people experiencing homelessness. These expansive interpretations of the freedom of speech appeared large enough to include draft-card burning. The position in O'Brien was that the individual's right to freedom of speech did not limit the government in prohibiting harmful conduct.[30] However, the harmful conduct of burning a draft card did not have the normal test applied: it was not determined to be a case of "clear and present danger".[4]

In 1996, future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that the O'Brien court did not appear to be concerned whether the law as enacted or enforced "matched, or even resembled", the asserted government interest of stopping draft resistance protests.[33] Kagan noted that the law prohibiting the destruction of the draft card "interfered" with only one point of view: that of the anti-war protester. She suggested a successful challenge to O'Brien might come from focusing on such skewed constraints.[33]

Rallies edit

On Armed Forces Day in the United States (Saturday, May 16, 1964), in New York, 12 students at a rally burned their draft cards.[34]

At the University of California, Berkeley, on May 5, 1965, amid a protest march of several hundred people carrying a black coffin to the Berkeley draft board, 40 men burned their draft cards.[27] One of them told reporters the act was symbolic—he said "we can get new cards if we apply for them."[7] On May 22, 1965, the Berkeley draft board was revisited, with 19 men burning their cards. President Lyndon B. Johnson was hanged in effigy.[27]

In August 1965, Life carried a photograph of a man demonstrating in front of the Armed Forces Induction Center on Whitehall Street in Manhattan, July 30, 1965. Like David J. Miller a few months later, he was a member of the Catholic Worker Movement. He was not arrested.[7]

Antiwar activist Abbie Hoffman burned his draft card privately in the spring of 1967. Hoffman's card classified him as 4F—unfit for service—because of bronchial asthma. His act was purely symbolic; he would never be drafted. However, Hoffman supported those registrants who were burning their cards.[35]

 
Green Beret Gary Rader offers his draft card to be burnt.

On April 15, 1967, at Sheep Meadow, Central Park, New York City, some 60 young men, including a few students from Cornell University, came together to burn their draft cards in a Maxwell House coffee can.[36] Surrounded by their friends who linked arms to protect them, the men began burning their cards. Others rushed in to join them, holding their burning cards up. Watching this were police, FBI men, newsreel camera operators, reporters, photographers and passers-by. Uniformed Green Beret Army reservist Gary Rader walked to the center and burned his draft card.[37] The 23-year-old was arrested by FBI agents several days later at his home in Evanston, Illinois.[38] Time magazine estimated 75 total cards;[38] participant Martin Jezer wrote that there were about 158 cards burnt in all.[39] Future Youth International Party leader Hoffman was in attendance.[35]

The reports of this large protest were discussed by the leaders of the Spring Mobilization Conference, a march of 150,000 people led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Benjamin Spock starting from Sheep Meadow.[36] The May conference developed into the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, known as The Mobe. In January 1968, Spock was indicted on charges of encouraging draft evasion, with the Boston 5.[40] He was convicted on July 10, 1968.[41] The charges were overturned on appeal in July 1969.[27]

In May 1967 in response to the Sheep Meadow demonstration, 56-year-old anarchist intellectual Paul Goodman published a piece in The New York Review of Books sympathetic to both public and private draft-card burning.[42] The editors printed a salvo of responses. One from Ann D. Gordon, a doctoral student of American history, said that private, individual acts of card burning were useless in stopping the war.[43] Jezer wrote a letter thanking Goodman for his support and, as an eyewitness, corrected him on certain details. Jezer said the FBI arrested only Rader; FBI agents merely visited other participants.[39] Goodman's article exhorted his readers to massive direct action in draft resistance; in response, folk singer Robert Claiborne wrote to the Review to say that Goodman's plan would "check the growth of the peace movement and markedly reduce prospects for ending the war."[44] Claiborne asserted that the "great majority" of Americans were "squares" over 30 and not in favor of war protest even though they were likely interested in "ending the slaughter of their sons and other people's sons."[44]

October 16, 1967, was a day of widespread war protest organized by The Mobe in 30 cities across the US, with some 1,400 draft cards burned.[45] At the Unitarian Arlington Street Church in Boston, draft registrants were allowed to turn in their draft cards to be sent as a package to Selective Service as an act of civil disobedience against the war. Those offering their draft cards split into two groups: a group of 214 turned in their cards, and 67 chose to burn their cards. These 67 used an old candle from prominent Unitarian preacher William Ellery Channing to supply the flame. One woman, Nan Stone, burned a draft card belonging to Steve Paillet—the 1965 law allowed anyone to be punished for draft-card burning, even someone who was not registered for the draft. Stone later typed up the information from the 214 turned-in cards to serve as a database of war resisters. She found that the average and median age of the men was 22 and that three out of four came from Harvard, Yale, or Boston University.[46]

At San Francisco's Federal Building on December 4, 1967, some 500 protesters witnessed 88 draft cards collected and burned.[27]

About 1,000 draft cards were turned in on April 3, 1968, in nationwide protests organized by The Mobe. In Boston, 15,000 protesters watched 235 men turn in their draft cards. War protesters were increasingly choosing the more profound act of turning in their draft cards, which gave the government the name and address of the protesters. Burning the draft card destroyed the evidence, and by this time, was seen as less courageous.[45]

Reactions edit

Within the anti-war movement edit

Even some supporters of the anti-war movement, such as William Sloane Coffin, expressed concern that the tactic was "unnecessarily hostile."[47]

High media exposure edit

Many in America were unhappy with the draft-card burners or the frequent depiction of them in the media. Joseph Scerra, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, spoke against what he saw as too much news coverage: "All of our young people are not burning up their draft cards. All of our young people are not tearing up the flag. All of our youth are not supporting North Vietnam and carrying Viet Cong flags."[48] In October 1967 at a rally in support of the government, a news photograph was snapped of a man kissing his draft card, his girlfriend smiling at his side.[48] In Playboy's November 1967 issue, Playboy Playmate Kaya Christian wrote that her "turn-offs" were "hypocrites" and "draft card burners".[49]

Leftist Ramparts magazine showed four draft cards being burned on the December 1967 cover. The Saturday Evening Post, a conservative publication, put an image of a draft-card burning on its January 27, 1968 cover. In 1967 off-Broadway and 1968 on Broadway and in London's West End, the musical Hair featured a climactic scene in Act I of a group of men in a hippie "tribe" burning their draft cards while the main character Claude struggles with the decision to join them.[50] Later, when the musical was staged in Yugoslavia, the draft-card burning scene was removed, as the local protesting youth viewed their army positively as a vehicle to fight off a possible invasion by the Soviet Union.[51]

Framing the movement edit

President Johnson spoke strongly against the draft-card protesters, saying in October 1967 that he wanted the "antidraft movement" investigated for Communist influences.[7] Reporting on his reaction, The New York Times presented the protests as being against the draft rather than the war.[7] Many commentators focused on draft resistance as an explanation rather than the more challenging war resistance: the protesters' main concern.[7]

Political impact edit

In 1968, when Richard Nixon was running for President, he promised to make the military into a purely volunteer force. In this, he was following others who had suggested such a strategy, including Donald Rumsfeld of the Republican Wednesday Group the year before.[7] At the beginning of his second term as President, Nixon stopped the draft after February 1973. The last man to be drafted entered the US Army on June 30, 1973.[52]

References edit

  1. ^ "U. of I. Professor's Son Defies Draft, Burns Card", Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1963, p1A-6
  2. ^ Flynn, George Q. (1993). The Draft, 1940–1973. Modern War Studies. University Press of Kansas. p. 175. ISBN 0-7006-0586-X.
  3. ^ "War Protesters", in Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices Roger Chapman, ed. (M.E. Sharpe, 2010), p. 596.
  4. ^ a b Foerster, Herbert N. (1997). Free expression and censorship in America: an encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 65–66. ISBN 0-313-29231-0.
  5. ^ a b c d Miller, David (Spring 2001). "Reclaiming Our History: Memoirs of a Draft-Card Burner". Reclaiming Quarterly (82). Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  6. ^ a b Gershon, 1991, p. 173. "Of the more than twenty-five thousand men who destroyed their draft cards, most of them publicly, only forty-six were indicted..."
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Bailey, Beth L. (2009). America's Army: making the all-volunteer force. Harvard University Press. pp. 18–21. ISBN 978-0-674-03536-2.
  8. ^ Haiman, Franklyn Saul (2007). "Speech Acts" and the First Amendment. SIU Press. pp. 70–72, 174–182. ISBN 978-0-8093-1882-7.
  9. ^ Amey, L. J.; Rasmussen, R. Kent, eds. (1997). "Draft-card burning – Draft resistance". Censorship. Vol. 1: Abelard, Peter–Front, The. Salem Press. pp. 224–226. ISBN 0-89356-445-1.
  10. ^ a b c d The facts of O'Brien's protest, arrest, and trial are summarized in the Supreme Court's opinion, United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 369–70 (1968).
  11. ^ On the intent behind the amendment, the Court of Appeals wrote, "We would be closing our eyes in the light of the prior law if we did not see on the face of the amendment that it was precisely directed at public as distinguished from private destruction. In other words, a special offense was committed by persons such as the defendant who made a spectacle of their disobedience." O'Brien v. United States, 376 F.2d 538, 541 (1st Cir. 1967).
  12. ^ Edwards, P. G. (1997). A nation at war: Australian politics, society and diplomacy during the Vietnam War 1965–1975. The Official history of Australia's involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts 1948–1975. Vol. 6. Allen & Unwin. p. 1. ISBN 1-86448-282-6.
  13. ^ a b c . Your story, our story. National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  14. ^ . Modern History. Charles Sturt University. Archived from the original on March 5, 2011. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  15. ^ a b . The Guardian. Melbourne. July 14, 1966. Archived from the original on July 23, 2011. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  16. ^ Warhaft, Sally (2004). Well May We Say: The Speeches That Made Australia. Black. p. 124. ISBN 1-86395-277-2.
  17. ^ a b Langford, Sue. "The national service scheme, 1964–72". Encyclopedia: Appendix. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  18. ^ . Your story, our story. National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  19. ^ . Your story, our story. National Archives of Australia. Archived from the original on November 9, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  20. ^ a b Perlstein, Rick (2008). Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Simon and Schuster. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-7432-4302-5.
  21. ^ (PDF). News Notes. Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. 19 (3). May–June 1967. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 20, 2011. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
  22. ^ a b Blanchard, Margaret A. (1992). Revolutionary sparks: freedom of expression in modern America. Oxford University Press U.S. p. 304. ISBN 0-19-505436-9.
  23. ^ . Public Resource. Archived from the original on July 27, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  24. ^ Wainwright, Loudon Jr (March 4, 1966). "The View From Here". Life. Vol. 60, no. 9. ISSN 0024-3019.
  25. ^ "368 F.2d 529 – Stephen Lynn Smith v. United States". Public Resource. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  26. ^ "384 F. 2d 115 – United States v. Edelman". Open Jurist. October 15, 1967. p. 115. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  27. ^ a b c d e "Anti-War Political Activism". Pacifica Radio. UC Berkeley. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
  28. ^ Schultz, David Andrew (2009). Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution. Facts on File library of American history. Vol. 1. Infobase Publishing. pp. 207–208. ISBN 978-0-8160-6763-3.
  29. ^ Alfange, Dean Jr (1968). "Free Speech and Symbolic Conduct: The Draft-Card Burning Case". The Supreme Court Review. The University of Chicago Press. 1968: 1–52. doi:10.1086/scr.1968.3108767. JSTOR 3108767. S2CID 147658565.
  30. ^ a b c Werhan, Keith (2004). Freedom of speech: a reference guide to the United States Constitution. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 125–127. ISBN 0-313-31997-9.
  31. ^ Ely, John Hart (May 1975). "Flag Desecration: A Case Study in the Roles of Categorization and Balancing in First Amendment Analysis". Harvard Law Review. 88 (7): 1482–1508. doi:10.2307/1340121. JSTOR 1340121.
  32. ^ Ely, John Hart (1980). Democracy and distrust: a theory of judicial review. Harvard University Press. p. 231. ISBN 0-674-19637-6.
  33. ^ a b Kagan, Elena (Spring 1996). "Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine" (PDF). University of Chicago Law Review. 63 (2): 413–517. doi:10.2307/1600235. JSTOR 1600235.
  34. ^ Melvin Small, Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America's Hearts and Minds(Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) p13 (Quote: "On May 16, 1964, on Armed Forces Day, twelve men took one step beyond advertisements by burning their draft cards in public in New York City.")
  35. ^ a b Raskin, Jonah (1998). For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman. University of California Press. p. 111. ISBN 0-520-21379-3.
  36. ^ a b Maier, Thomas (2003). Dr. Spock. Basic Books. pp. 278–279. ISBN 0-465-04315-1.
  37. ^ Rader, Gary (May 1967). "Draft Resistance". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  38. ^ a b . Time. April 28, 1967. Archived from the original on December 15, 2008. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  39. ^ a b Jezer, Martin (May 1967). "In Response To: We Won't Go". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  40. ^ Fred P. Graham (January 6, 1968). "Spock and Coffin Indicted For Activity Against Draft". The New York Times.
  41. ^ "Anti-War Activists Sentenced to Prison". Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. July 10, 2005.
  42. ^ Goodman, Paul (May 18, 1967). "We Won't Go". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  43. ^ Gordon, Ann D. (May 1967). "We Won't Go". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
  44. ^ a b Claiborne, Robert (June 29, 1967). "We Won't Go: Robert Claiborne, reply to Paul Goodman". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  45. ^ a b Elmer, Jerry (2005). Felon for peace: the memoir of a Vietnam-era draft resister. Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 61–62. ISBN 0-8265-1495-2.
  46. ^ Foley, Michael S. (2003). Confronting the war machine: draft resistance during the Vietnam War. UNC Press. pp. 119–122. ISBN 0-8078-5436-0.
  47. ^ "Interview with William Sloane Coffin, 1982.", August 30, 1982. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
  48. ^ a b Foley, 2003, p. 118
  49. ^ . The Girls: Playmate Directory. Playboy. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
  50. ^ John Bush Jones (2004). Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre. UPNE. p. 250. ISBN 9780874519044.
  51. ^ Tom Prideaux (April 17, 1970). "Parting Shots: Hair is sprouting all over the world". Life. Vol. 68, no. 14. p. 83. ISSN 0024-3019.
  52. ^ "Induction Statistics". Selective Service. Retrieved March 13, 2011.

External links edit

  • Associated Press photograph of a December 4, 1967, protest in San Francisco, involving 88 draft cards burned

draft, card, burning, symbol, protest, performed, thousands, young, united, states, australia, 1960s, early, 1970s, first, draft, card, burners, were, american, participating, opposition, united, states, involvement, vietnam, first, well, publicized, protest, . Draft card burning was a symbol of protest performed by thousands of young men in the United States and Australia in the 1960s and early 1970s The first draft card burners were American men participating in the opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War The first well publicized protest was in December 1963 with a 22 year old conscientious objector Gene Keyes setting fire to his card on Christmas Day in Champaign Illinois 1 In May 1964 a larger demonstration with about 50 people in Union Square New York was organized by the War Resisters League chaired by David McReynolds 2 3 Young men burn their draft cards in New York City on April 15 1967 at Sheep Meadow Central Park By May 1965 it was happening with greater frequency around the US To limit this kind of protest 4 in August 1965 the United States Congress enacted a law to broaden draft card violations to punish anyone who knowingly destroys knowingly mutilates his draft card 5 Subsequently 46 men were indicted 6 for burning their draft cards at various rallies and four major court cases were heard One of them United States v O Brien was argued before the Supreme Court The act of draft card burning was defended as a symbolic form of free speech a constitutional right guaranteed by the First Amendment The Supreme Court decided against the draft card burners it determined that the federal law was justified and unrelated to the freedom of speech In Australia following the 1966 troop increases directed by Prime Minister Harold Holt conscription notices were burned at mass demonstrations against Australian involvement in Vietnam In June 1968 the government reacted by strengthening penalties for infractions of the Menzies government 1964 National Service Act including the burning of registration cards War protest ceased in 1972 when Australia s new Labor government withdrew troops from Vietnam and abolished conscription From 1965 to 1973 very few men in the US were convicted of burning their draft cards Some 25 000 others went unpunished 6 Before 1965 the act of burning a draft card was already prohibited by US statute the registrant was required to carry the card at all times and any destruction of it was thus against the law Also it was entirely possible for a young man to destroy his draft card and still answer his country s call to service by appearing at an induction center and serving in the military 7 and it was possible for a registrant to faithfully keep his card on his person but fail to appear when called The draft card was not an essential part of the government s ability to draft men into the military Thus draft card burning was an act of war resistance more than it was draft resistance 5 8 The image of draft card burning was powerful and influential in American politics and culture 7 It appeared in magazines newspapers and television signaling a political divide between those who backed the US government and its military goals and those against US involvement in Vietnam 9 Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968 on a platform based partly on putting an end to the draft to undercut protesters making use of the symbolic act As president Nixon ended the draft in 1973 rendering the symbolic act of draft card burning unnecessary Contents 1 Background 1 1 United States 1 2 Australia 2 US court cases 2 1 Early cases 2 2 United States v O Brien 3 Rallies 4 Reactions 4 1 Within the anti war movement 4 2 High media exposure 4 3 Framing the movement 4 4 Political impact 5 References 6 External linksBackground editUnited States edit nbsp A Vietnam era draft card worn out from years in a walletFrom 1948 under the Selective Service Act all American men aged 18 through 25 were required to register with a local draft board In case of war the able bodied ones among them could be drafted to serve in the military The law required the men to always carry their draft cards with them These were small cards bearing the registrant s identifying information the date and place of registration and a unique Selective Service number In an amendment sponsored by Congressmen L Mendel Rivers and William G Bray on August 31 1965 the law was augmented with four words to include penalties for any person who knowingly destroys knowingly mutilates the card under 50 U S C 462 b 3 10 Strom Thurmond moved the bill through the Senate calling draft card burning contumacious conduct which represents a potential threat to the exercise of the power to raise and support armies 7 At the time many observers including the U S Court of Appeals for the First Circuit believed that Congress had intentionally targeted anti war draft card burners 11 Australia edit Following the 1964 National Service Act legislated in response to the Indonesia Malaysia confrontation 20 year old Australian men were subject to military service based on a birthday lottery In April 1965 Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies sent a battalion of Army regulars to Vietnam beginning an overseas involvement that lasted for seven years and provoked deeply divisive debate back home 12 In early 1966 Menzies retired and Harold Holt became Prime Minister In March 1966 Holt announced troop increases bringing the total commitment to 4 500 men in Vietnam a tripling of effort 13 Significantly conscripts could now be sent into combat 14 Protests broke out including a draft card burning demonstration outside of Holt s home 15 In late June 1966 with President Lyndon B Johnson listening Holt spoke in Washington D C in support of American policy In his speech he closed by saying that Australia was a staunch friend of America willing to go all the way with LBJ 16 This statement was widely criticized in Australia 13 Marxist writer and draft card burner Andy Blunden said in July that by following America into Vietnam Holt s Australia is playing the role of Mussolini s Italy 15 In December the government bolstered the Vietnam presence with 1 700 more troops 13 John Gorton took the Prime Minister position in January 1968 In June 1968 the government doubled the penalty for burning registration cards 17 In 1971 the government committed to a gradual but total withdrawal from Vietnam following both Australian opinion and America s new policy 18 In 1972 all troops including the advisory team were ordered home from Vietnam Draft resisters in jail were freed 19 The final birthday lottery was held September 22 1972 17 US court cases editEarly cases edit nbsp Antiwar protesters in January 1965On October 15 1965 David J Miller burned his draft card at a rally near the Armed Forces Induction Center on Whitehall Street in Manhattan He spoke briefly to the crowd from atop a sound truck and then tried but failed to burn his card with matches the wind kept blowing them out The crowd offered a lighter and it worked Miller was arrested by the FBI three days later in Manchester New Hampshire while setting up peace literature on a table 5 The 24 year old pacifist member of the Catholic Worker Movement became the first man convicted under the 1965 amendment 20 In April 1966 with his wife and breast feeding baby in attendance he was sentenced to 30 months in prison 20 21 The case was argued in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in June Miller s attorney held that symbolic speech is protected by the First Amendment burning a draft card is a most dramatic form of communication and there is a constitutional right to make one s speech as effective as possible 22 The court did not agree The case was decided later that year in October Miller s conviction was confirmed and his sentence upheld 23 Loudon Wainwright Jr wrote in Life magazine that Miller without really knowing it might be embarking on a lifelong career of protest 24 Miller remained free on bail until June 1968 at which time he served 22 months in federal prison 5 At an anti war rally at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City Iowa on October 20 1965 20 year old Stephen Lynn Smith a student at the University of Iowa spoke to the crowd and burned his draft card He said I do not feel that five years of my life are too much to give to say that this law is wrong 7 He had previously alerted newspaper reporters and two television stations and they were present to record his act Smith said he was against the involvement of the US in Vietnam and that he was against the system of conscription In November 1966 he was found guilty and placed on probation for three years 25 In June July 1967 United States v Edelman was argued and decided in the US Second Circuit Tom Cornell Marc Paul Edelman and Roy Lisker had burned their draft cards at a public rally organized by the Committee for Non Violent Action in Union Square New York City on November 6 1965 A fourth man older than 36 also burned his card at the rally but was not indicted Edelman Cornell and Lisker were convicted and sentenced to six months 26 United States v O Brien edit Main article United States v O Brien On the morning of March 31 1966 David Paul O Brien and three companions burned their draft cards on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse in front of a crowd that included several FBI agents After the four men came under attack from some of the crowd an FBI agent ushered O Brien inside the courthouse and advised him of his rights O Brien made a confession and produced the charred remains of the certificate He was then indicted for violating 462 b 3 and put on trial in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts 10 O Brien argued that the four words knowingly destroys knowingly mutilates added to the draft card law were unconstitutional and an abridgment of the freedom of speech He argued that the amendment served no valid purpose because the Selective Service Act already required draft registrants to carry their card on their persons at all times thus any form of destruction was already a violation 10 He explained that he burned the draft card publicly as a form of symbolic speech to persuade others to oppose the war so that other people would reevaluate their positions with Selective Service with the armed forces and reevaluate their place in the culture of today to hopefully consider my position 10 On January 24 1968 the Supreme Court determined that the 1965 amendment was constitutional as enacted and as applied and that it did not distinguish between public or private destruction or mutilation of the draft card 27 They determined that nothing was necessarily expressive in burning a draft card Chief Justice Earl Warren said we cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled speech whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea 22 O Brien s previous sentence of six years was upheld 28 The Supreme Court s conclusion was criticized by legal observers such as Dean Alfange Jr for its astonishingly cavalier treatment 29 Many saw in O Brien s act a clear communicative element with the intent to convey a particularized message an intent to which the court did not give much weight 30 Instead the court weighed as more significant the government s interest in assuring the continued availability of issued Selective Service certificates 30 In 1975 legal scholar John Hart Ely found fault with O Brien He pointed out that the draft card burning question was not decided in relation to the similar one surrounding the act of flag burning an issue the court had avoided for years 31 Ely s analysis was aided by that of Thomas Scanlon in 1972 in A Theory of Freedom of Expression which interpreted the freedom of speech broadly including such public and political acts as self immolation 32 In 1990 O Brien was analyzed again by critics following the case United States v Eichman which determined that flag burning was a form of free speech and some made comparisons to the earlier 1984 case Clark v Community for Creative Non Violence which determined that sleeping at a protest rally location in a downtown park was valid as a symbolic expression intended to bring attention to the plight of people experiencing homelessness These expansive interpretations of the freedom of speech appeared large enough to include draft card burning The position in O Brien was that the individual s right to freedom of speech did not limit the government in prohibiting harmful conduct 30 However the harmful conduct of burning a draft card did not have the normal test applied it was not determined to be a case of clear and present danger 4 In 1996 future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that the O Brien court did not appear to be concerned whether the law as enacted or enforced matched or even resembled the asserted government interest of stopping draft resistance protests 33 Kagan noted that the law prohibiting the destruction of the draft card interfered with only one point of view that of the anti war protester She suggested a successful challenge to O Brien might come from focusing on such skewed constraints 33 Rallies editOn Armed Forces Day in the United States Saturday May 16 1964 in New York 12 students at a rally burned their draft cards 34 At the University of California Berkeley on May 5 1965 amid a protest march of several hundred people carrying a black coffin to the Berkeley draft board 40 men burned their draft cards 27 One of them told reporters the act was symbolic he said we can get new cards if we apply for them 7 On May 22 1965 the Berkeley draft board was revisited with 19 men burning their cards President Lyndon B Johnson was hanged in effigy 27 In August 1965 Life carried a photograph of a man demonstrating in front of the Armed Forces Induction Center on Whitehall Street in Manhattan July 30 1965 Like David J Miller a few months later he was a member of the Catholic Worker Movement He was not arrested 7 Antiwar activist Abbie Hoffman burned his draft card privately in the spring of 1967 Hoffman s card classified him as 4F unfit for service because of bronchial asthma His act was purely symbolic he would never be drafted However Hoffman supported those registrants who were burning their cards 35 nbsp Green Beret Gary Rader offers his draft card to be burnt On April 15 1967 at Sheep Meadow Central Park New York City some 60 young men including a few students from Cornell University came together to burn their draft cards in a Maxwell House coffee can 36 Surrounded by their friends who linked arms to protect them the men began burning their cards Others rushed in to join them holding their burning cards up Watching this were police FBI men newsreel camera operators reporters photographers and passers by Uniformed Green Beret Army reservist Gary Rader walked to the center and burned his draft card 37 The 23 year old was arrested by FBI agents several days later at his home in Evanston Illinois 38 Time magazine estimated 75 total cards 38 participant Martin Jezer wrote that there were about 158 cards burnt in all 39 Future Youth International Party leader Hoffman was in attendance 35 The reports of this large protest were discussed by the leaders of the Spring Mobilization Conference a march of 150 000 people led by Rev Martin Luther King Jr and Dr Benjamin Spock starting from Sheep Meadow 36 The May conference developed into the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam known as The Mobe In January 1968 Spock was indicted on charges of encouraging draft evasion with the Boston 5 40 He was convicted on July 10 1968 41 The charges were overturned on appeal in July 1969 27 In May 1967 in response to the Sheep Meadow demonstration 56 year old anarchist intellectual Paul Goodman published a piece in The New York Review of Books sympathetic to both public and private draft card burning 42 The editors printed a salvo of responses One from Ann D Gordon a doctoral student of American history said that private individual acts of card burning were useless in stopping the war 43 Jezer wrote a letter thanking Goodman for his support and as an eyewitness corrected him on certain details Jezer said the FBI arrested only Rader FBI agents merely visited other participants 39 Goodman s article exhorted his readers to massive direct action in draft resistance in response folk singer Robert Claiborne wrote to the Review to say that Goodman s plan would check the growth of the peace movement and markedly reduce prospects for ending the war 44 Claiborne asserted that the great majority of Americans were squares over 30 and not in favor of war protest even though they were likely interested in ending the slaughter of their sons and other people s sons 44 October 16 1967 was a day of widespread war protest organized by The Mobe in 30 cities across the US with some 1 400 draft cards burned 45 At the Unitarian Arlington Street Church in Boston draft registrants were allowed to turn in their draft cards to be sent as a package to Selective Service as an act of civil disobedience against the war Those offering their draft cards split into two groups a group of 214 turned in their cards and 67 chose to burn their cards These 67 used an old candle from prominent Unitarian preacher William Ellery Channing to supply the flame One woman Nan Stone burned a draft card belonging to Steve Paillet the 1965 law allowed anyone to be punished for draft card burning even someone who was not registered for the draft Stone later typed up the information from the 214 turned in cards to serve as a database of war resisters She found that the average and median age of the men was 22 and that three out of four came from Harvard Yale or Boston University 46 At San Francisco s Federal Building on December 4 1967 some 500 protesters witnessed 88 draft cards collected and burned 27 About 1 000 draft cards were turned in on April 3 1968 in nationwide protests organized by The Mobe In Boston 15 000 protesters watched 235 men turn in their draft cards War protesters were increasingly choosing the more profound act of turning in their draft cards which gave the government the name and address of the protesters Burning the draft card destroyed the evidence and by this time was seen as less courageous 45 Reactions editWithin the anti war movement edit Even some supporters of the anti war movement such as William Sloane Coffin expressed concern that the tactic was unnecessarily hostile 47 High media exposure edit Many in America were unhappy with the draft card burners or the frequent depiction of them in the media Joseph Scerra national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars spoke against what he saw as too much news coverage All of our young people are not burning up their draft cards All of our young people are not tearing up the flag All of our youth are not supporting North Vietnam and carrying Viet Cong flags 48 In October 1967 at a rally in support of the government a news photograph was snapped of a man kissing his draft card his girlfriend smiling at his side 48 In Playboy s November 1967 issue Playboy Playmate Kaya Christian wrote that her turn offs were hypocrites and draft card burners 49 Leftist Ramparts magazine showed four draft cards being burned on the December 1967 cover The Saturday Evening Post a conservative publication put an image of a draft card burning on its January 27 1968 cover In 1967 off Broadway and 1968 on Broadway and in London s West End the musical Hair featured a climactic scene in Act I of a group of men in a hippie tribe burning their draft cards while the main character Claude struggles with the decision to join them 50 Later when the musical was staged in Yugoslavia the draft card burning scene was removed as the local protesting youth viewed their army positively as a vehicle to fight off a possible invasion by the Soviet Union 51 Framing the movement edit President Johnson spoke strongly against the draft card protesters saying in October 1967 that he wanted the antidraft movement investigated for Communist influences 7 Reporting on his reaction The New York Times presented the protests as being against the draft rather than the war 7 Many commentators focused on draft resistance as an explanation rather than the more challenging war resistance the protesters main concern 7 Political impact edit In 1968 when Richard Nixon was running for President he promised to make the military into a purely volunteer force In this he was following others who had suggested such a strategy including Donald Rumsfeld of the Republican Wednesday Group the year before 7 At the beginning of his second term as President Nixon stopped the draft after February 1973 The last man to be drafted entered the US Army on June 30 1973 52 References edit U of I Professor s Son Defies Draft Burns Card Chicago Tribune December 27 1963 p1A 6 Flynn George Q 1993 The Draft 1940 1973 Modern War Studies University Press of Kansas p 175 ISBN 0 7006 0586 X War Protesters in Culture Wars An Encyclopedia of Issues Viewpoints and Voices Roger Chapman ed M E Sharpe 2010 p 596 a b Foerster Herbert N 1997 Free expression and censorship in America an encyclopedia Greenwood Publishing Group pp 65 66 ISBN 0 313 29231 0 a b c d Miller David Spring 2001 Reclaiming Our History Memoirs of a Draft Card Burner Reclaiming Quarterly 82 Retrieved March 12 2011 a b Gershon 1991 p 173 Of the more than twenty five thousand men who destroyed their draft cards most of them publicly only forty six were indicted a b c d e f g h i j Bailey Beth L 2009 America s Army making the all volunteer force Harvard University Press pp 18 21 ISBN 978 0 674 03536 2 Haiman Franklyn Saul 2007 Speech Acts and the First Amendment SIU Press pp 70 72 174 182 ISBN 978 0 8093 1882 7 Amey L J Rasmussen R Kent eds 1997 Draft card burning Draft resistance Censorship Vol 1 Abelard Peter Front The Salem Press pp 224 226 ISBN 0 89356 445 1 a b c d The facts of O Brien s protest arrest and trial are summarized in the Supreme Court s opinion United States v O Brien 391 U S 367 369 70 1968 On the intent behind the amendment the Court of Appeals wrote We would be closing our eyes in the light of the prior law if we did not see on the face of the amendment that it was precisely directed at public as distinguished from private destruction In other words a special offense was committed by persons such as the defendant who made a spectacle of their disobedience O Brien v United States 376 F 2d 538 541 1st Cir 1967 Edwards P G 1997 A nation at war Australian politics society and diplomacy during the Vietnam War 1965 1975 The Official history of Australia s involvement in Southeast Asian conflicts 1948 1975 Vol 6 Allen amp Unwin p 1 ISBN 1 86448 282 6 a b c Events and issues that made the news in 1966 Your story our story National Archives of Australia Archived from the original on November 9 2014 Retrieved March 20 2011 Indochina 1954 1979 Australian Involvement Modern History Charles Sturt University Archived from the original on March 5 2011 Retrieved March 20 2011 a b Draft card man at Town Hall The Guardian Melbourne July 14 1966 Archived from the original on July 23 2011 Retrieved March 20 2011 Warhaft Sally 2004 Well May We Say The Speeches That Made Australia Black p 124 ISBN 1 86395 277 2 a b Langford Sue The national service scheme 1964 72 Encyclopedia Appendix Australian War Memorial Retrieved March 20 2011 Events and issues that made the news in 1971 Your story our story National Archives of Australia Archived from the original on November 9 2014 Retrieved March 20 2011 Events and issues that made the news in 1972 Your story our story National Archives of Australia Archived from the original on November 9 2014 Retrieved March 20 2011 a b Perlstein Rick 2008 Nixonland The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America Simon and Schuster p 180 ISBN 978 0 7432 4302 5 The Court Reporter PDF News Notes Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors 19 3 May June 1967 Archived from the original PDF on July 20 2011 Retrieved March 15 2011 a b Blanchard Margaret A 1992 Revolutionary sparks freedom of expression in modern America Oxford University Press U S p 304 ISBN 0 19 505436 9 367 F 2d 72 United States v Miller Public Resource Archived from the original on July 27 2011 Retrieved March 12 2011 Wainwright Loudon Jr March 4 1966 The View From Here Life Vol 60 no 9 ISSN 0024 3019 368 F 2d 529 Stephen Lynn Smith v United States Public Resource Retrieved March 12 2011 384 F 2d 115 United States v Edelman Open Jurist October 15 1967 p 115 Retrieved March 12 2011 a b c d e Anti War Political Activism Pacifica Radio UC Berkeley Retrieved March 13 2011 Schultz David Andrew 2009 Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution Facts on File library of American history Vol 1 Infobase Publishing pp 207 208 ISBN 978 0 8160 6763 3 Alfange Dean Jr 1968 Free Speech and Symbolic Conduct The Draft Card Burning Case The Supreme Court Review The University of Chicago Press 1968 1 52 doi 10 1086 scr 1968 3108767 JSTOR 3108767 S2CID 147658565 a b c Werhan Keith 2004 Freedom of speech a reference guide to the United States Constitution Greenwood Publishing Group pp 125 127 ISBN 0 313 31997 9 Ely John Hart May 1975 Flag Desecration A Case Study in the Roles of Categorization and Balancing in First Amendment Analysis Harvard Law Review 88 7 1482 1508 doi 10 2307 1340121 JSTOR 1340121 Ely John Hart 1980 Democracy and distrust a theory of judicial review Harvard University Press p 231 ISBN 0 674 19637 6 a b Kagan Elena Spring 1996 Private Speech Public Purpose The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine PDF University of Chicago Law Review 63 2 413 517 doi 10 2307 1600235 JSTOR 1600235 Melvin Small Antiwarriors The Vietnam War and the Battle for America s Hearts and Minds Rowman amp Littlefield 2002 p13 Quote On May 16 1964 on Armed Forces Day twelve men took one step beyond advertisements by burning their draft cards in public in New York City a b Raskin Jonah 1998 For the Hell of It The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman University of California Press p 111 ISBN 0 520 21379 3 a b Maier Thomas 2003 Dr Spock Basic Books pp 278 279 ISBN 0 465 04315 1 Rader Gary May 1967 Draft Resistance The New York Review of Books Retrieved March 12 2011 a b Protest Burning Issue Time April 28 1967 Archived from the original on December 15 2008 Retrieved March 12 2011 a b Jezer Martin May 1967 In Response To We Won t Go The New York Review of Books Retrieved March 12 2011 Fred P Graham January 6 1968 Spock and Coffin Indicted For Activity Against Draft The New York Times Anti War Activists Sentenced to Prison Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities July 10 2005 Goodman Paul May 18 1967 We Won t Go The New York Review of Books Retrieved March 12 2011 Gordon Ann D May 1967 We Won t Go The New York Review of Books Retrieved March 8 2011 a b Claiborne Robert June 29 1967 We Won t Go Robert Claiborne reply to Paul Goodman The New York Review of Books Retrieved March 12 2011 a b Elmer Jerry 2005 Felon for peace the memoir of a Vietnam era draft resister Vanderbilt University Press pp 61 62 ISBN 0 8265 1495 2 Foley Michael S 2003 Confronting the war machine draft resistance during the Vietnam War UNC Press pp 119 122 ISBN 0 8078 5436 0 Interview with William Sloane Coffin 1982 August 30 1982 WGBH Media Library amp Archives Retrieved November 9 2010 a b Foley 2003 p 118 Kaya Christian The Girls Playmate Directory Playboy Archived from the original on June 7 2011 Retrieved March 14 2011 John Bush Jones 2004 Our Musicals Ourselves A Social History of the American Musical Theatre UPNE p 250 ISBN 9780874519044 Tom Prideaux April 17 1970 Parting Shots Hair is sprouting all over the world Life Vol 68 no 14 p 83 ISSN 0024 3019 Induction Statistics Selective Service Retrieved March 13 2011 External links editAssociated Press photograph of a December 4 1967 protest in San Francisco involving 88 draft cards burned Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Draft card burning amp oldid 1180301408, 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