Alexander Zavelle has been named the merchants' spokesman, and he is a concerned and thoughtful liberal. He says, "I think we can clean up the Square without arresting people or beating them up." Zavelle and Sheldon Cohen, owner of the Out-of-Town News Agency, will work with City Councillor Barbara Ackerman to try to arrange laiason between the business community and the street community. They have plans for a Halfway House, where kids who can no longer panhandle or sleep in the Square could go and learn a trade, or partake in some other rehabilitative acivity. Cohen believes that such a halfway house, which would be arranged by the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps Harvard University, could be ready in a month.

Repression?

"I know kids will call this repression, says Zavelle, "they call everything against them repression. There has to be a middle ground. "I think the merchants feel that things have gone too far one way. They just want the balance re-adjusted. I hope that the leaders of the young community will come forward and work with us."

Most of the businessmen understand that there is a differentiation between the trashers and the street freaks, but think that both are more or less a bad thing, both very seamy defiances of the status quo.

Zavelle feets, as some others do, that "the problems in Cambridge will besolved when the problems in Washington are solved, by complete disengagement from Southeas Asia."

Employees in the businesses tell a slightly different story than their bosses. One counter man says it's OK that J. August was hit, because J. August can afford it. His store can't.

A cashier at the Coop says, "I think it's cool that we're getting together. Pigs use force on us, and we have to use force back. You've got to show who's boss." Another says, "I guess deep down I feel that the Coop should be smashed. Working conditions here are pretty bad."

And then there's Krackerjacks, which rode through last Saturday night's storm with its tremendous corrugated metal barricade coyly standing between rock throwers and windows. Soon everything may look that way. Because, as Krookerjacks owner Pete says, "You have to sell a lot of goddamn blue jeans to pay for $2,400.00 worth of glass."