300 Descend on Manchester To Protest Draft Registration

MANCHESTER, N.H.--More than 300 opponents of draft registration trudged through the slushy streets of downtown Manchester Saturday, stopping to chant slogans and wave placards in front of the campaign headquarters of major presidential candidates.

"One, two, three, four, we won't fight in Jimmy's war," the crowd shouted as it stood in front of the Elm St. headquarters of the president's re-election effort.

More than 60 Harvard students traveled by bus to Manchester for the march, staged to "bring pressure to bear" on candidates who support draft registration.

The crowd broke into applause and cheers as a police escort led them past the headquarters of Democratic candidate Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) and California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., both announced opponents of registration.

But outside the offices of former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who has also recorded his opposition to draft registration, the protesters shouted, "ERA yes, draft no."

Smile for the Camera

Later the protesters stood and chanted in the glare of t.v. lights outside the entrace to Saturday's Nashua Republican debate, protesting both the draft and nuclear power.

Only Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) stopped to talk with the demonstrators. "They're pretty noisy," he said with a smile, before repeating his support of nuclear power.

After the 45-minute mid-afternoon march, the shivering crowd stood in the snow of a Manchester park and listened to a series of speakers decry registration and urge resistance.

"Draft registration is almost meaningless in itself--it's just to get one's foot in the door," George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology Emeritus, told the crowd.

"Suppose it comes... don't register," Wald said. "There's safety in numbers," he added.

Feel It All Over

Jamie Raskin '83, who organized the two busloads of Harvard students who made the trip, told the crowd to take an active part in determining United States foreign policy. "We've got to feel this movement inside us," Raskin said.

Former anti-war activist Tom Hayden said the current anti-registration movement is farther advanced than its counterpart of the 1960s. "Then we didn't get this level of consciousness until tens of thousands of troops had been committed. You have a chance to be the generation that stopped the war before it ever begins."