Milwaukee Fourteen

• Don Cotton, 24, co-chairman of SDS at St. Louis (Mo.) University[5]
• Michael Cullen, 26, director of Casa Maria House of Hospitality in Milwaukee[6]
• Robert Cunnane, 36, Catholic priest, co-director of the Packard Manse Ecumenical Center, Stoughton, MA[7]
• James Forest, 27, co-chairman of the Catholic Peace Fellowship[8]
• Jerry Gardner, 24, graduate student Marquette University, Milwaukee[9]
• Bob Graf, 25, editor of The Catholic Radical and graduate student in sociology at Marquette University[10]
• James Harney, 28, Catholic priest, curate of a parish church in No. Weymouth, MA[11]
• Jon Higgenbotham, 27, minister of the Church of Scientology and a draft counselor in St. Cloud, MN[12]
• Alfred Janicke, Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis[13]
• Doug Marvy, 27, a resistance organizer in Minneapolis and a Navy veteran[14]
• Anthony Mullaney, 39, Benedictine priest, holds a Ph.D in psychology and has taught at St. Anselm College, N.H., and at Boston University[15]
• Fred Ojile, 23, draft counselor and church program organizer for the Twin Cities Draft Information Center[16]
• Basil O’ Leary, 48, Catholic brother, head of the Economics department at St. Mary’s College in Winona, MN[17]
• Larry Rosebaugh, 33, Catholic priest on the staff of Casa Maria House of Hospitality in Milwaukee[18]

As a response to the violence of the war in Vietnam and its links to the injustices of conscription and poverty in the United States, the Milwaukee action was preceded by several similar protests. In February 1966 Barry Bondhus destroyed draft files in Elk River, Minnesota by pouring human excrement over them.[19] In October 1967 four men poured blood on draft records at the Baltimore City Custom House.[20] Then, on 17 May 1968 nine protestors burned draft records in Catonsville, MD.[21]

The Milwaukee group was inspired by the action in Catonsville[22] and "timed their action to draw attention to the upcoming trial of the Catonsville Nine."[23] Jim Forest and Daniel Berrigan traveled to Milwaukee where they met with Michael Cullen and others at Casa Maria, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality. According to Forest, "On our second night at Casa Maria, Dan and I found ourselves drinking beer in a crowded kitchen in which several of those present, Michael among them, made clear they were eager to follow the Catonsville example."[24]

In August 1968 a retreat was held at a Catholic monastery in New Jersey to consider who of those present might participate in another draft board action—and when it would take place. Forest describes it:

The gathering was shaped liked a retreat, with Mass each morning and a period of Bible study later in the day. In addition there were sessions at which we got to know each other, discuss our motives and backgrounds, and to make decisions about who would take part in the action, who would form a support team, and which of several cities being considered should be chosen.[25]

Forest explained the decision to act in Milwaukee,

There were several cities that were being considered (New York City, where I lived, wasn’t one of them) and two or three people appointed to see what the possibilities might be. When we met to hear the reports, it was clear that Milwaukee was the best site; more people from our group came from Milwaukee than any place else and there were nine draft boards side by side on the same floor of the same office building, with a convenient little park ideal for burning the draft records right across the street.[26]

The group agreed to come together in Milwaukee on September 22.[27]

The night before the event, the Milwaukee 14 gathered together and determined their roles for the burglary portion of the action. The afternoon of the event, the men walked side by side ["in pairs from a variety of starting points"][28] to the building that housed the nine different draft boards, with burlap bags to collect the 1-A draft files.[29]

Shortly before 6:00 on Tuesday evening, 24 September 1968, the group entered the second floor offices where the draft boards were located in Milwaukee's Brumder Building. They encountered a cleaning woman from whom they took office keys. Later, at the trial she would describe their manner towards her as "very respectful."[30] Files classified as 1-A and "other files that were in a drawer marked ‘Delinquent’ — people who were in trouble with the Selective Service System"[31]— were gathered and carried out of the building and across W. Wells Street to a grassy area (now known as Postman's Square) and piled at the foot of a flagpole dedicated to dead WWI soldiers. A car drove up from which canisters of napalm were taken; they were poured over the pile of burlap bags and set on fire.[32]

The group understood the importance of public attention to and awareness of their action. Through the Milwaukee Organizing Committee, an anti-war and anti-draft group,[33] they had contacted the local media and, safeguarding the details of the action, led them by an indirect route to the site.[34]

The deed done, the Fourteen gathered together in a supportive embrace and waited to be arrested, singing the Lord's Prayer and reading scripture as fire trucks wailed in the distance. As the records continued to burn, a few pedestrians stopped to observe. Others did a quick double take and kept on walking. Michael Kirkhorn, a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal, began asking people walking by for their response. An older man, hearing the prayers and seeing the clerical collars of the priests as they gathered around the burning draft records, muttered, "I bet they never read any scripture." One young man exclaimed hopefully, "Maybe they got mine."

By 6:04 p.m., firemen had extinguished the fire with some draft records still blowing in the wind. Cullen gave a short speech as the firemen raked the embers: "We love all of you who are putting out the fire. We have done this because we love America. We believe America has done wrong in Vietnam." By this point, the police had arrived and began gently pushing the Fourteen toward the patrol wagons. The protesters offered no resistance, nor did the police officers use much force or even seem to be in a hurry as they made their arrests. By 6:15, all the Fourteen were in the patrol wagons heading for the Milwaukee County Safety Building. By the time the police had hauled the group away, around one hundred Milwaukee bystanders bore witness to the action.[35]

In a statement released to the press, the Fourteen explained their reason for targeting the draft boards.

Our action concentrates on the Selective Service System because its relation to murder is immediate. Men are drafted — or "volunteer" for fear of being drafted — as killers for the state. Their victims litter the planet. In Vietnam alone, where nearly 30,000 Americans have died, no one can count the Vietnamese dead, crippled, the mentally maimed. Today we destroy Selective Service System files because men need to be reminded that property is not sacred. Property belongs to the human scene only if man does. If anything tangible is sacred, it is the gift of life and flesh, flesh which is daily burned, made homeless, butchered ...[36]