IN THE late evenings of the second week of October, peaceful insurgents stalked Boston's colleges posting four-page white pamphlets entitled "RESIST OCTOBER 16." On the second page of the pamphlet, a photostat of a ripped draft card framed a quote from Camus.

"The Resistance begins on October 16," the third page began. "No matter what their government threatens, members of the Resistance will work together, confronting the government as a community, working to make their community grow, bringing to a halt the system of war."

It reminded one of those 95 theses Martin Luther nailed on the church door in Wittenberg. On October 16, 280 New Englanders broke with an old faith and returned their draft cards to the U.S. Attorney General's office. After four months, more than 1400 young men have become lowercase protestants.

The October 16 rallies around the country made the Times' front page and notified those concerned that the anti-war movement was changing directions. Ask any serious radical today, and he'll tell you that the draft should be the main focus of any serious anti-war activity. Students for a Democratic Society gave up the idea of mass marches after they started them in 1965, but in the two years since they have found no popular alternative. For non-student radicals, organizing over the price of potatoes in ghetto communities was satisfying, but it did not provide the same vivid insight into the "crumbling society" as the Vietnam War did.

The Golden Crowbar

Then, in the winter of 1966-67, students discovered their golden crowbar in the fight to prevent the use of college rankings for student deferments. A surprising number of students rallied around that flag.

The campaign was followed by the "We Won't Go" advertisements, signed by almost 200 Harvard students. Students who had been unmoved by the questionable morality of the Vietnam War were stung into activism by the personal threat of the draft. SDS had found a popular alternative. In December, 1967, three Harvard SDS members initiated a twice-a-week counselling service, which has processed 15 students per week.

Outside the university, protest was also turning to the draft. The largest and most expensive anti-war effort of 1967, Vietnam Summer, began with a hard-won cynicism about the worth of marches and demonstrations. The local chapters were to concentrate on door-to-door canvassing. But without expert organizers this effort was hopeless, and across the nation the most effective Vietnam Summer chapters developed anti-draft techniques.

The American Left learned first that it was not enough just to sing and carry signs for Peace. It learned second that it was also not enough to sit down and organize against war. The Left has had to admit that material self-interest must precede material sacrifice.

The best way to convert a poor white or a Harvard student into a political activist is to show him that the anti-war movement offers valid alternatives to a tour in Vietnam. This is what draft resistance is all about.

"If Enough People..."

The Resistance is the most romantic part of the anti-draft movement. It is based on a single moral act--turning in your registration card--and a simple political philosophy, "If enough people do it, we have to win." With its adult support group (Coffin and Spock are among the leaders), the Resistance aims its straightforward acts of courage toward a moral confrontation with the United States Government. The plan was that thousands of resisters would be arrested for not carrying their draft cards. The hope was that the arrests would create national indignation.

The Government, however, did not agree to suffer this embarrassment. Few of the resisters have been arrested; most of them will be re-classified 1-A. Except for the trial of the "Boston Five," any moral confrontations the Resistance creates will occur within the resisters themselves. The situation exposes the central weakness of the Resistance as a political force: individuals do not control the consequences of their acts.

"They went in on a moral basis without thinking what political effects their actions would have," says Mark Dyen '70, SDS co-chairman at Harvard. Dyen and most other experienced organizers consider the Resistance, which is primarily campus-based, an admirable effort, but "politically amateurish."

They maintain that the draft finds its most effective use in community organizing. "It can be used as a tool to reach those people who hear about the war only by reading their newspapers," says Vernon Grizzard, who organizes against the draft in Cambridge.