Tribune-Times-Mirror vs. The U.S. Counter-Culture Historically

(The following article appeared in the April 13, 1994 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newsweekly, Downtown).

Not surprisingly, during the 1960s the white Corporate Straight Males who controlled Tribune-Times-Mirror were not great fans of the U.S. counter-culture. In an April 1968 editorial, for instance, the Chicago Tribune’s editors stated the following:

“Students terrorize faculties and university presidents and assert that they should govern the administration and dictate the curriculum. We are knee-deep in hippies, marijuana, LSD and other hallucinogenics. We do not need any of these…”

And when counter-cultural people from Downtown Manhattan went out to Chicago to peacefully protest the Democratic National Convention and attempt to hold a musical “Festival of Life” in Chicago’s city parks in August 1968, the editors of the Chicago Tribune also stated the following:

“We have no sympathy with the rowdy demonstrations conducted by the hippies, yippies and other young punks who have gathered in Chicago by the thousands…We do have sympathy for the Chicago police…For enforcing law and order, Mayor Daley and his police deserve congratulations rather than criticisms…”

Chicago Democratic Party machine boss Richard Daley I, incidentally, was supported in four of his six mayoral campaigns during his lifetime by the Chicago Tribune.

(Downtown 4/13/94)

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