"Men have unrealized potential forself-cultivation, self-direction,self-understanding and creativity," SDS memberTom Hayden wrote in the Port Huron statement. "Itis this potential that we regard as crucial and towhich we appeal."

For Hayden, now a state senator fromCalifornia, and for the others, self-determinationwas prized commodity. Students at some America'smost privileged institutions of higher learningwere complaining in growing numbers that theirUniversities were insentive to their concerns andinterested only in creating another generation ofwealthy alumni.

"The University," Todd Gitlin '63 said in aninterview for Kirkpatrick Sale's book SDS,"begins to feel like a cage."

Harvard was doing little to alleviate thisfeeling. Many administrators worked under thedoctrine of in loco parentis, attempting tofunctions as parents and regulate every aspect ofstudents' lives.

Early '60s

In the beginning of the decade, theadministrators' traditional outlook kept studentsfrom publicy protesting university policies.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote in 1961 thatstudents saw conformity as the key to conventionalsuccess: "[S]tatistics on national contests forscholarships and for admissions to especiallydesirable institutions have increased thewidespread sense that to succeed today it isnecessary to conform and to complete in terms ofnational norm."

SDS wanted to change that. In the grandiloquentphrases of hard-core idealists, the SDSersproclaimed their humanism at the Port Huronconference, writing that individualism "imprintsone's individual qualities in relatons to othermen, and to all human activity."

Early SDS projects emphasized members'commitment to social change and groupdecision-making. Volunteers moved to low-incomeareas of northern cities such as Chicago, wherethey attempted to organize unemployed neighborhoodresident and live according to the principles ofparticipatory democracy.

The project, known as Economic Research andAction Project (ERAP), caused substantial changein a few cases. In Chester, Penn., for example, aSwarthmore ERAP group successfully pressured thelocal government and school board for a variety ofreforms.

Many of these students had spent the summerlearning about activism and facing tear gas inMaryland under the Student Non-violentCoordinating Coalition (SNCC). The coalition, theother major activist group during the decade,sponsored protests against segreation and drivesfor voting in the South. SNCC had the tightdiscipline and organization that SDS'sparticipatory democracy often undermined.

During the activists' 10 days of protest in thestreets of Chester, 57 students were arrested.These arrests represented the first large-scalestudent strike by any white, Northern campusgroup.

The Money Problem

SDS has 610 paid members and 19 officialchapters, and the 17-member Harvard-Radcliffebranch was one of the largest.

The group did not, however, have a coherentnational agenda, between the grand goalsarticulated in the Port Huron Statement and thefrustrating reality of grass-roots organizing forERAP projects lay gap that was a source ofconstant debate.