The Motorcycle Gangs

Losers and Outsiders . . . . . . Hunter s. Thompson

S u n Frnrlc,lrco
Last
Labor Day
weekend news-
papers dl over Cahfornia gave
front-page reports of a heinous
gangrapein
the moonllt sand
dunes near the town of Scaside on
the Monterey Penmsula. Two girls,
aged 13 and 15. were allegedly
takenfromtheirdates by a gang
of filthy. frenzied. boozed-up motor-
cycle hoodlumscalled “Hell’s An-
gels.” and dragged off to be “re-
peatedly assaulted ”

A deputysheriff,summoned by
one of theerstwhllc dates, said he
“arrivfd 3 1 thebruch and saw a wonderwhatnewsprint j s for. It When you get in an argumrnt with
hue:c b o ~ l h r csurrounded b y cychsts SO uses a clues,tion as to who 1 e;l.oup 01 OUL13W molorcycllsls.
of bothsexes Thrn the two sob- a l e the r e d hell’sangcls. you can generally count yollr
bing,near-hystericalgnls 51 agger- chances of emerging unmalmcd bp
ed out OF the darkness. begging for EversinceWorldWar 11, the number of heavy-handedallies
help. One was completely nude and Californiabeen
has
strangely you can muster in the time i t takes
the
other
had
on only a torn plagued by wild men on motor- to smash a beer bottle In this
sweater.” cycles. They usually
travel in league, sportsmanship is
for old
Some 300 Hell’s Angels were groups of ten to thirty,booming liberals and young fools. “I smash-
gathered in the Seaside-Monterey alongthehighways and stopping edhisface,”one of themsaid to
area at the time, having convened, hereandthere to getdrunkand me of a man he’d never seen until
theysaid,forthepurpose of rais-
raisehell. I n 1947, hundreds of the swinging started. “He got wise.
ing
fundsamong themselves to themranamokinthe town of He called m e a punk. He must have
sendthe body of aformermem- Hollister, a n hour’s fast drive south been stupid .”
ber, kllled in anaccident, back to of SanFrancisco,and got enough The most notorious of these out-
hlsmother in NorthCarolinaOne pressnotices t.0 inspire a film call- law groups isthe Hell’s Angels,
of the Angels. 111p enough to falsely ed T h e Wild One, starringMarlon supposedly headquartered in Sa11
identify himself as “Frenchy of Sa11 Brando.Thefilmhad a massive Bernardlna. Just east of Los An-
Bernardmo,” told a local reportcr el‘rect on thousands of youngCali- gelcls, 2nd with branches all over
who came out to meet the cyclists. fornia motorcycle buffs;inmany thestate. As a result of the inla-
“Wc chose Monterey because ways,itwastheirversion
we of The mous“Labor Day gang rape,” thc
gettreated good here. mostother S u n Also Rzses. AttorneyGeneral of California has
places we get thrown out of town .’ The California climate is perfect recentlyissued a n offlclalreport
But Frenchy spoke too soon The formotorcycles, as well as surf-
on the Hell’s Angels. Accordmgto
Angels weren’t onthepenlnsula boards,swimming pools andcon- the report, they are easily identified :
twenty-fourhoursbeforefour of
vertlbles Most of cyclists the are The Of the
them were in Jail for rape, and the harmless weekend types, members termed “colors,” conszsts of an em-
rest of the troop was being escorted brozdered patch of a wtnged skull
Of the American
to the county line by a large pol~ce wearzng amotorcyclehelmet Just
contmgent. Several werequoted, clation. and no more dangerous below the w m g of the emblem are
than skiers orskindivers.But a the letters “ M C overthis 2s a band
’1

somewhat derisively, as
saying :
few belong to what the others call b e a ~ t n g the w o r d s “Hell’sAngels,”
“That rape charge against our guys “outlawclubs,” andthesearethe Below the emblem zs another patch
is phony and i t won’t stick.” oneswho-especially on weekends bearlng the local chapter name,
It turned out to be true, but that and holidays-are likely to turn up zuhzch zs uszlally an abbrevzatlon
wasanotherstoryand certainly almost anywhere in the state, look- f o r the ctt.Y Or 1ocQlW These Patches
no headliner. Thedlfference be-
ingforact~on. Despiteeverything are On the Oar‘ Of a usuall‘l
tweenthe Hell’s Angels in the sleeueless denimjacket In add[-
the psychiatrists and
Freudian tlo?z, members haz,e been
papers andthe Hell’s Angels for
real is enough to make a m a n casuists havetosayaboutthem, wearing zmnotls t y p e s o fL u f t w a f f e
they are tough, mean and poten- znszgnla and Teproductzons o f Ger-
t l a l l ~ as dangerous as packs of man iron crosses * M a nayf f e c t
Hunter S. Thompson is a fTee-lance wild boar.Whenpushcomes to beards and their hazr is usually long
writer, now lzving in SanFranczsco
and completing a novel, Rum Diary. shove,anyleatherfetishes or in- and unkempt. Some wear a stngle
H z s most valuable source f o r this story adequacy feelings that m a y be in-
w a s a formermember of the Hell‘s volved are entirely heside the
point, for decorative and shock
effect The Hell’sAngelts are apolitical
Angels,now a p o l r e reporter o n one as anyone who has ever and no more racist than other ig-
of the major Salt F~anctscodallies. with theseboyswill sadly testify. norant young thugs
522 The NATION
I
 I
earring ill a piercedear Zobe. F7-e-
quently they have been observed to
wear metal belts made of a l e x g t h
o f pollshed motorcycledrive c h a m
w l i i c hc a nb eu n h o o k e d and used
ns a flexible bludgeon: . . . Probably
the most universal e o ~ n n t o ndenom-
m a f o r LTZ identifzcatzon of Hell‘s
Angels LS thew generally ftltlty con-
drtLon. Iwuestigatmg officers con-
sistentlyreportthesepeople,both
club ntentbem and their fentale as-
sociates,seem b a d l y i n 7teed o f a
bath. Fingerpriwts, are a very effec-
tzve means of Ldentzfzcatzon because
a h g h percentage of Hell‘s Angels
h a v e crinzznal records.
I n addztzon to t k e p a t c h e s o n the,
back Q f Hell‘s Angelsjackets,the
“072e Percente1.s” wear a patch read-
ing “1 %-er.” Anotherbadge worm
by so172e m e m b e r s b e a m tlre n u m b e r
“13 ” I t i s reported to represent the
131h letterof the alphabet, “M,”
wILicIa 117 t u m s t a n d s f o r m a r i j u a n a
and indzcates the wearer, thereof is
a u s e r o f the drug.
The Attorney General’s report
was colorful, interesting, heavily’
biased and- consistently alarming-
justthe sorft of thing, in fact,to
make a, clanging good articlefor
a nationalnewsmagazine.Which
it did;bothbarrels. Newsweek led
withaleft hook titled“The Wild
(Ones,” Time crossed with a right,
inevitably titled “The Wilder Ones.”
The Hell’s Angels, cursing the im-
plications of thisnewattack, re-
treatedtothebar of the DePau
Hatel near the San Francisco water-
,front and planneda weekend beach
party. I shmowed themthe articles.
Hell’s Angels do not normally read
thenewsmagazines. “I’dgo nuts
‘if I readthat stuffall the time,”
said one. “It’s all bullshit.”
Nezuszueek was relatively circum-
spect. It offeredlocal color, f1ash.y
quotes and “evidence” carefullyat-
tributed to the officialreport but
unaccountablysaidthereport ac-
cused the Hell’s Angels of. homo-
sexuality,whereas thereportsaid
just the opposite. Time leaped into
(the fray with a flurry of blood,
‘booze and semen-flecked wordage
thatamounted, in the end,to a nile m a i j u a n a arrests over 1963,
classic of superchargedhokum : land a recent back-page story i n the
“Drug-induced stupors , , , noact
is $00 degrading . . . swap girls,
drugs, and motorcycles withequal
abandon . . . stealing forays . .,. then
ride off again t’o seek some new
nadir in sordid behavior. . . .”
Where does allthisleave
the Hell’s AngFls and the thousands
of shuddering Californians (accoxd-
M a y 17, 1965
ing to T i m e ) who are worried sick
about them? Are these outlaws real-
ly going to be busted,routedalid
cooled, as the news magazines im-
plied? Are California highways any
safer as a result of this published
uproar? Can hlonest merchants once
again walk thestreets in, peace?
Theanswer is thatnothinghas
changed except that a few people
calling themselves Hell’s Angels
have a new sense’ of identity and
importance.
After two weeks of intensive
dealing with the Hell’s Angels phe-
nomenon, both in print and in per-
son,’ I’m convinced (the, net result
of the generalhowl and publicity
has been to obscure and avoid, the
realissues by invoking a’ savage
conspiracy of bogymen and conning
the public into’thinking all will be
“business as usual” once ‘this fear-
some snake is scotched, as it surely
will beby hard and ready minions
of the
Establishment.
,
Meanwhile, according to Attpmey
General Tkiomas Cj Lynch‘s own fig-
ures, California’s true crime picture
makesthe Hell’s Angels Jook like
a gang of pettyjack rollers. The
pohce count 463 ,Hell’s Angels:
205 around Los Angeles and 233 in
theSan Francisco-Oakland area. 1
don’t know about L.A. but the real
figures €or the Bay Area are thirty
or so in Oaldand and exactly eleven
-with one facing expulsion-in
San Francisco. This disparity makes
it hard to accept othe? police statis-
tics. The dubious package also
shows convictions on 1,023 mis-
demeanorcounts and 151 felonies
“primarily vehicle theft,, burglary
andassault.Thisis €or all years
and all alleged members.
‘California’s overall figures for
1963 list 1,116 hbmicides, ,12,448
aggcavated assaults, 6,257 sex of-
Penses, ’ and24,532 burglaries. In
1962, thestatelisted4,121traffic
deaths,upfrom 3,839 in 1961.
Drug arrest figures for 1964 show-
ed a 101 per cent increase in juve-
Sal2 Frnnctsco Examiner said, “The
venerealdisease rateamong[the
city’s] teen-agersfrom 15-19 has
more than doubled in the past four
years.” Even allowing forthean-
nual population /jump, juvenile ar-
rests in all categories are rising’by
10 per cent or more each year:
Against this background, would
it make axiy difference to the safety
and peace of mind of the average
Californian if every motorcycle out-
law inthestate(all 901, accord-
ing to thepohce)were garroted
withintwenty-fourhours? This is
not to say that a grouplike the
Hell’s Angels has no meaning. The
generally bizarre flavor of their of-
fenses and their insistence on iden-
,tifying themselves make good copy,
but usually oveswhelm - in print,
,at least-the unnervingtruththat
theyrepresent, in colorful micro-
cosm, whatis quietly and anony-
mously growing all around us every
day of the week.
’ “We’re Wa’stards to the world and
they’re bastardsto us,” one ofIthe
Oaltland Angels told a Newsweek
xporter:“When you walk into a
place where people can see you, you
want to look as repulsive and repug-
nant as -possible. W,e are complete
social outcasts - outsidersagainst
society.”
A l o t of ’this is a pose, but any-
one who believes that’s all it is has
been on thin ice since the death o f ,
Jay Gatsby. Thevastmajority of
motorcycle outlaws axe uneducated,
unskilled m e n between 20 and 30,
and mosthave ,no credentials ex-
cept a police record. So at the root
of theirsadstdnceis a lot more
than a wistful yearning for accept-
ance’ in a world, they never made;
their real’ motivation is an instinc-
tive certainty as ‘to what the score
reallyis. TQey areout of theball
game and they know it-and that
is theirmeaning;forunlikemost
losers in today’s society, the Hell’s
Angels liot ohly know but ‘spite-
fully, proclaimexactlywherethey
stand. ’
I went to ,one o€ their meet-
ings recently, and half-way through
the night I though’t of Joe Hill on
his way to face a Utah firing squad
and saying his final words: “Don’t ’
mourn, ‘organize.” It is safe to say
that 110 Hell’s Angel has ever heard
of Joe Hill or would know a Wob- ’
bly from a Bushmaster,’ but never-
thelesstheyare somehow related.
The I.W.W. had sericous plansfor
running the world, while the ‘HelI’s
Angels mean only to ’ defy the
world’s machinery.But instead of
losing quietly, one by one, they
have banded together with a mind-
less kind of loyalty and moved out.
side the framework, for good or ill.
There is ‘nothingparticularly ro-
mantic or admirable about it; that’s
523
 scnseless destruction, orgies, brawls,
pelversionsand a stlangeparade
of “innocent victims” that, even on
paper and in careful police lan-
guage, was enough to taxthecre-
dulity of the dullest police reporter.
Any bundle of mformatlon off po-
lice blotters 1s boundtoreflect a
speclal vlewpolnt. and parts of the
AttorneyGeneral’sreport areactu-
ally humorous, if only €or the lnn-
guage.Here 1s an excerpt.
Ox Nouenlber 4 , 1962. a Sun.
Franczscoleszdent d r I C T J L ~ through
Rodeo, posslbly urxler the znflu-
e w e of alcohol, struck a motor-
cycle belongmg to a Hell‘s An-
gel parkedoutszde a bar. A group
of Angels pursued t h e vehicle,
pulled t h e drluel f r o m t h e car
a n d attempted io d e m o l t s h t h e
7atlwr eapenstue z ~ t ~ l r ~ c lTeh e bur-
tender clalrned he had seer2 n o t l r r n y ,
but a cocktall walt,rs.s I t ) t h e b a r
f u ~ r ~ t s h e c~ld e n t r f ~ a t r oton the offL-
cersconcernmg some o ft h o s e re-
just the way it is, strength in unity. rumbles,thisnew,state-sanctioned sponszble f o r theassaultThenext
Theydon’t mindtelhng you that s8tratiflcationmadethe Hell’s An- d a y zt was reported to offzcers that
running fast and loud on their cus- gelsvery blg. They were, after all, a m e m b e r of t h e Hell‘s Angels gang
tomizedHarley 74s gives them a NumberOne. Like John Dillinger. had threatened the hfe of thzs wazt-
power and a purpose thatnothing Attorney
General
Lynch, then Tess as well as another woman
waztress A malewatness who defz-
else seems to offer. new in his job, moved quickly to nltely zdentzfzed fzve partzczpants zn
Beyond that, their
position as mount an investigation of sorts. He theassaultincludtngthepresadent
self-proclaimedoutlaws
eliclts a sentquestionnairestomorethan of the Vallelo Hell‘s Angels and the
certain
popular
appeal,
however 100 sheriffs,districtattorneysand Vallelo “Road Rats” advzsed offtcers
reluctant.Thatis especially true police chiefs,askingformforma- that because of hzs f e a r o f retalza-
in the West and even in California tlon on the Hell’s Angels and those tton by club members he -roould re-
wheretheoutlawtradltlon 1s st111 “other dlsreputables He also asked
”
f u s e to testzfy to t h ef a c t s Ize h a d
honored The unartlculated link be- forsuggestions as to howthelaw preuzously f u t n l s h e d
tween t h e Hell’s Angcls and the mil- mlghtdealwlththem Thatis a representativeitem
hons of loscrs and outsiderswho Six months went by before all the in thesection of thereporttitled
don’t wear any colors IS the key to replles were condensed into the flf- “HoodlumActivities.” Flrst, i t oc-
theirnotolletyandtheambivalent teen-pagereport
that made new curredin a small town-Rodeo is
reactions they inspire Thereare outrageheadlineswhenitwasre- onSanPablo Bay Justnorth of
severalother keys. having to do leased to the press. (The Hell’s An- Oakland - wherethe Angels had
with
polltlclans,
pollcemen and gels alsso got a copy,one of them stopped at a bar withoutcausing
Journalists,butforthis we have stole mine ) As a historicaldocu- any trouble until some offense was
to go back to Monterey andthe ment,itread like a plotsynopsis comm~tted againstthem. In this
Labor Day “gang rape.” of Mickey Spillane’sworst dreams. case, a driverwhomeventhe po-
But in thematter of solu~tlons I t lice a d m ~ t was “possibly” drunk
Politicians,likeeditors and wasvague,reminiscent in
some hitone of their motorcycles The
cops, are very keen on outrage ways of MadameNhu’sproposals same kind of acclden’t happens
stories,andstateSenatorFred S fordealingwiththe Vietcong The every dayall overthe nation,but
Farr of MontereyCounty is no ex- statewas goingtocentralize m- when i t involves outlaw
motor-
ception He is a leadlng light of the formation on these thugs,
urge cyclists i t 1s something else again.
Carmel-Pebble Beachset
and no more
vigorous prosecut~on, put Instead of settlingthethingwith
friend of hoodlums anywhere, espe- themall undersurvedlancewben- a n exchange of insurance informa-
cially gangraplstswhoInvadehis everpossible, etc. tion or, at the very worst, an argu-
constituency. Senator Farr demand- A careful reader got the impres- mentwith a few blows,the IIell’s
edanimmediateinvestigation of sion that even if the Hell’s Angels Angels beat the driver and “at-
the Hell’s Angels and others of had acted out this script-elghteen tempted todemolish the vehicle.”
their ilk - Commancheros.Stray crimeswere specified and dozens I askedone of them if the police
Satans, IronHorsemen,Rattlers (a of others ~mphed-verv little would exaggerated this
aspect,
and he
Negro club), and Booze Fighters- or could be doneaboutit, and said no, they had done the natural
whoselack of statuscauscdthem thatindeed Mr. Lynchwaswell thingsmashedheadl~ghts, kicked
all to be lumped toqether as “other aware he’d been put, for pohti- in doors.brokenwindows and torn
dlsreputables.” In the cuL-ofi’ xvorld cal reasons, on a pretty weak scent. various components off the engine.
of big bikes,long runs and classy Therewasplenty of mad action, Of all theirhabltsand predllec-
534 The NATION
 tionsthat society findsalarming, sistently obvious as their group loy- borderlinecases,
wherein victims
this departure from the time-honor- alty. This is an admirablequahty, of physical attacks seemed innocent,
edconcept of “an eye for an eye” but it is also ’ one of the things that according to police andpressre-
is the one that most frightens peo- gets’ them in trouble. a fellow An- ports, butlaterrefused to testify
ple. The Hell’sAngels trynot to gel I is always sight when dealing for fear of ‘i.etaliation.” The report
do anythmghalfway, and anyone with outsiders. And thls sort of rea- asserts very’ strongly that Hell’s
who deals i n extremes 1s bound to soningmakes a group of “offead- Angels aredifficult . to ”prosecute
causetrouble,whether hemeans ed’ Hell‘sAngels nearly impossible and convict becausethey make a
to or not. This, along with a belle€ to deal with. habit of threatening and intimidat-
in total retaliation for any offense Here is another incident from the mg witnesses. That is probably true
or insult, is what makes the Hell’s Attorney Gelleral‘s report: to a certainextent,but in many
Angels unmanageable for the pollce O n September 19, 1964, a large cases,vlctims have refused to testify
and morbidly fascinating to the gl’ozLp of Hell‘s Angels and “Satan’s because they were engaged in some
generalpublic;,Theirclaimthat Slaves” converged O I L a bar in South legally dubious activity at the time
they “don’t start trouble” is proba- Gate (Los Angeles County), parkzng of theattack.
,bly true more often than not,, but tlzezrmotorcyclesand cars, z n the In two of themost widely pub-
their, idea of “provocation” is dan- street 212 suclz a fnslzzox as t o block licized incidents the prosecution
gerously broad, andtheir biggest one-half of theroadwayTheytold
offzcers t h a t t h e e m e m b e r s of t h e would havefaredbetter if their
problem is that nobody else seems club had-recently beeiz asked to stay
I

witnesses and vlchms Itad been in-

to understand it. Even
dealing out of t h e baT a n dt h a tt h e y had timidated Into silence. One of these
with ,them personally, on the friend- cometotear a t down Uron thew was the Monterey “gang rape,” and
‘liest terms, you can sense then approach the bar owner locked the the other a “rape” in Clovis, near
hair-trigger readiness to retaliate. dools a n d tul-ned off t h e lzghts and Fresno i n theCentral Valley. In
no
entrance was m a d eb, utth e the latter, a 36-year-old widow and
Thisis a ,publicthing,and group clzd demolzsh a c e m e n t block mother of five children claimed
f e n c e 071,arrzval of the
not at all true among themselves In , nzenzbers police, she’d beenyankedout of a bm
of t h e G1ub.zuere lyang o n
a meeting, their‘
conversation is the sdewallz and L?Z the street. They where she was having a quiet beer
totally frank and open. They speak were asked to leave the city, wizzcJa with anotherwoman,thencarried
to and aboutoneanotherwith an t h e y dzd reluctanfly. As ;hey left, to an abandoned shack ‘behind ~e
honesty‘thatmore civilized people sevelal were heard t o say t h a t t h e y barand rapedrepeatedly f o r two
couldn’t bear. At the m’eeting 1 at- would be back andtear down t h e and a half hours by fifteen or twen-
tended (and before they realized bar. ty Hell’sAngels and finally robbed
I was, a ,journalist) one Angel was Hereagainistheethic of total, of $150. ,That’s how thestory ap-
, being publicly evaluated, some retaliation. If you’re “asked to stay peared in the San Francisco news-
memberswanted himout of the out” of a bar, you don’t just punch papersthenext, day, andit was
club andotherswanted to keep the owner-you come backwith kept allve for a few more days .by
himin. I t soundedlikea group- your army and destroy the ‘whole the woman’s claimsthatshe was
therapy * clinic in progress - not edifice. Similarincldents - along getting phone calls threatening her
‘exactlywhat I expected ‘to find wlth a number of vague rape com- life if shetestifiedagainst her as-
when just before midnight I walked plaints-make up thebulk of the sailants.
into the bar of the De Pau in one report.Eighteenincldents m four Then, four days after the crime,
i of the bleakest ‘neighborhoods, in years, andnone,excepttherape the victim was arrested on charges
Sa11 Francisco, near Hunters P&t. charges are more serious than cases of “sexual perversion.” The true
By the time I parted company with of assault on dtizens who, for their story emerged, said the Clovis chief
them-at 6.30 thenextmorning own reasons, had”become involved of police, whenthewomanwas
after an all-night drinking .bout m wlth the Hell’s Angels prior to the “confronted by witnesses. Our in-
my apartment - I had been im- violence. I could find nocases of vestigation shows she was not
pressed by alot of things, but no unwarrantedattacks on wholly in- raped.”said’thechief. “She 1 par-
one thmg about them was as con- nocent victlms.8 Thereare a few tlapated in lewd acts in h e tavern
with at least three Hell’s Angels ’
before the owners ordered them
out She encouragedtheiradvances
in the tavern, then led them to an
abandonedhouse in therear. ...
She was not robbed but, according
to a woman who accompanied her,
had left herhouse early i n the even-
ing with $5 to go bar-hopplng.”.That
incldent did notappear in the At-
torney, General’s report.
But it was impossible not to mea-
tion the Monterey “gang rape,” be-
cause it was thereason for the
whole subject to beoome official.
Page one of thereport - which
Time’s editors apparently skipped-
says thatthe Monterey case was
May 17, 1965 c
525
dropped bccnusc ‘‘ , . further m- thc7l w n l k e d off 7uith some of the missed. Its article lcnncd heavily
vestlgalionraisedquestions as to guys t o t h e dunes T h e spade went onthehairiestandleastfactual
whether forcible rape had been zllrth n f e w guys and thenshe sections of thereport.andignored
commlttcdor 1f theidentlflcatlons wanted to y u ~ 1 , but the p r e y w n t therestItsaid, for Instance,that
one Z L U S reallyhot t o trot, the f z r s t the Hell’s Angels initiation rite
made by vlctims were
valid ”
four or f l u e g u g s she was really
Charges were
dismissed on Sep- “demands‘thatanynewmember
draggzngInto h e r arms, but a f t e r
tember 25. wlth the concurrence of that she cooled o f f , too. BY t h i s bring a woman or girl [called a
a grand p r y . The deputyDistrict tzme, though, one of t h e w boll ‘sheep’l who 1s wllllngto submit
Attorney said ‘‘a doctor examined f t l e n d y had got scared and gone for to sexual Intercourse
with
each I

thegirls andfound no evidence” the cops-andthat’sall rt w a s member of theclub.”Thatisun-

to support the
charges. “Besides true,although,as one Angel ex-
But not quite all. After that there planed, “Now and then you get a
that, onegirlrefused totestify,” were Senator Farr and Tom Lynch woman
heexplained,“andtheotherwas who likes to cover the
and a hundred cops and dozens of crowd, and hell, I’m no prude. Peo-
given a lie-detectortest and found newspaperstoriesandarticles 111
to be wholly unreliable.” pledon’t llke to thinkwomen go
the national news magazmes-and forthatstuff,but a lot of them
This, in effect, waswhat
the eventhisarticle,which is a direct do ”
Hell’s Angels had beensaying all result of the Monterey “gang rape
along. Here 1s their version of what
”
Weweretalkingacrossa pool
When the
much-quoted report tableabouttherash of publlclty
happened,as told by severalwho was released, the
localpress - and how i t had affected the Angel’s
were there : prlmanly the San Francisco Chron- activities I wastryingtoexplain
O n e g l r l 7uas zuhzte a n d pregnant, d e , which had earlier done a long to himthat thebulk of thepress
theother PLUS colored, a n d the11 andfalrly objectiveseries onthe i n t h ~ s countryhas such a vested
,
were w t 1 L f l u e colored studs They Ilell’s Angels-made a point of say- interestinthe
hung around our bar-Nxlz’s Place status quo that i t
o n Del Mo~tteAvenue-for about
ing the Monterey chargesagainst can’t afford to
do muchhonest
three hours Saturday nzght, drznk- the Hell’s Angels had been dropped probing at theroots, for fear of
i n g and talkzng wzth our rzders, for
lack of evidence. Newsweek what they might find
then. t h e y c a m e out to thebeach wascareful not to mention Mon- “Oh, I don’tknow,”he said “Of
wlth us-themandthewfzveboy terey at all,but The New York course I don’tllke to readallthis
friends
Everybody was
standzng ‘Tzmes referred to it as “the alleged bullshltbecause it bringsthe heat (
around t h e fire, drinkzng wme, and gang rape” which, however, left no down on us, butsince we got fa-
some of the guys weretalkznq to doubt in a reader’s mind that some- mous we’ve had more nch fags
them-hustltng ’ e m , naturally-and thingsavagehadoccurred.
soon somebody asked the two chzcks and sex-hungry women come look-
i f theywanted fo beturnedon- It remained for Time, though, to ing for us than we ever had before.
you know, did they want to smoke flatly ignore the fact that the Mon- Hell,these days we havemoreac-
some pot? They s a d yeah, ant1 t h e n terey rapechargeshadbeendis- tion than we can handle ”

Five Seats in Congress

‘The Mississippi Challenge’ . . . . G e o r g e Slaff
The voting-rightsbillwhichPresi- it will useit, a muchmoreeffec- in theHouse of Representatives. It
dentJohnsonsent to Congress as tive waytoguaranteethe vote to is based on the allegation that the
a result of the nation’s anger, and Negroes intheSouththanthis or Congressmenwerenominated and
hisown, over thecallous vlolence anyother piece of legislation that elected in a primaryandgeneral
of Alabama state troopers at Selma Congresscouldpass. That is the election from which Negroes “were
and the murder of the Rev. James “MississippiChallenge.” If it suc- regularly and systematically ex-
Reeb IS a historicstepforward- ceeds-and whatPresidentJohn- cluded by Intimidation, harassment,
but
long
overdue and
far from son
and
his
Administratipn do economic repmal, property damage,
enough.(See“The Right To Vote: about it may well determine wheth- terrorization, violence and illegal
Small Fruit of a Bold Promise” by er ornotit wlll succeed-it wlll and
unconstitutional
registratlon
William W. VanAlstyne, The Na- stand as a leswn foreverto the procedures.”
tion, April 19.) Southern states that as l w g as they Whatarechances of theChal-
Thatit is longoverdue is cer- preventNegroes fromvotingthey lenge’s success? Good, if thena-
tainly no reason not to welcome it. areindanger of losing their rep- tional indlgnation aroused by Selma
That i t is far from enough is cer- resentation in Congress. and its aftermath does not cool off
talnly reason t.0 point out that the The “Mississippi Challenge” is or
becomeapathetically
satisfied
Administration has at hand, if only thecontest-filed on thefirstday with a nominal voting-rightsbill.
of Congress this year on behalf of Good, if the Challenge is deter-
George Sluff zs a lazvyer practzczng zn
Los Angelesandone of those w h o the
Mississippi
Freedom Demo- mmed on thebasis of conditions
volunteered f o r t h e M~sszsszppt Chal- cratic Party-to theright of the as they exist in Mississippi, as docu-
lenge. five Mississippi Congressmen*
to sit mented by some 15,000 pages of
526 The NATION