European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 9, 1967, Darmstadt, Hesse Summer started As a Ball at san Francisco s Golden Gate Park but reality quickly caught up with Flower children. Apie land a beatle George Harrison was visitor. By Robert strand up staff writer the love generation is having it troubles. Like murder. Super Spade is dead with a Bullet in his head another drug peddle is dead of Stab wounds and fear is spreading among the Flower children. The original gentle souls of the Haight Ashbury hippie Haven of san Francisco Are accustomed to the taunts of tourists raids by police food Short Ages crowded housing and disputes with City officials. Now the summer of love has been marred by racial incidents guns Mur Der and maybe gangsters in hippie land where crimes of violence had been notably rare. As a result Many of the Veteran Flower children have moved out Al though new hippies arrive by the Day in old Multi coloured vans and buses. The hippie scene is rapidly becom ing a thing of the past said a news letter of a local group called the communications co. A these Long haired dope fiends will be scattered across the continent like tidally Magazine seeds it said. Everywhere is hippie land you can expect a Little under ground to form and the next time we get together we May turn out to be but plenty of other hippie Are much More optimistic about their immediate future in the Haight Ashbury District. At the weekly gathering of a dozen happening House leaders in All saints episcopal Church nobody w a s bothered by the fact that few of last week s group had returned. In hippie land people come and go. The meeting pushed ahead with plans for a Street fair Complete with blasting electronic Rock bands to show off such crafts As Bead work silk screens leather and Silve Smithing. Happening House with the help of some professors and conventional Don ars is in the process of leasing a 17 room residence As a Center for the focusing of hippie this Enterprise would join an Abund Ance of other loosely organized activities such As a housing Agency a medical Center a Job Coop a theatrical group a half dozen newspapers and the people known As diggers who serve free meal and operate free clothing the summer of love expected to attract perhaps 100,000, has not happened. Many less came and most left quickly. The newcomers mostly vacationing students did not know August in the Haight Ashbury was a lid of Cool , they did t know hippie communities can House Only so Many people. The District s facade a half mile of Haight had turned from a Street of love into an angry traffic Jam with ugly emotions. Sidewalks were clogged by tourist with cameras smart Alec teeny hoppers youths on the prowl for free sex pick pockets toughs and. Worst of All in the eyes of the hippies people with whisky bottles. And faces of too Many of the new hippies were not Happy. The expression.?were of the lost the mentally sick the frightened the confused and the pathetic. We re getting a lot of Strong Arm robberies now said police officer Manns Duggan who has patrolled the Street since the hippies earlier More peaceful times. The trouble is not All of them Are reported. The hippies Are the growing violence was dramatized by recent murders of two of the Flower children s drug paddlers John Kent Carter 25, and William Thomas 26, also known As apparently was stabbed 12 times and relieved of $3,000 in an argument Over a Burn cheat. Thomas apparently while negotiating a $35,000 Purchase disappeared and was found half Way Down a Cliff shot neatly in the head. Other nervous salesmen it was Learned had formed the brotherhood and had armed themselves with pistols for self Protection. Several incidents had occurred in which paddlers had been threatened with , love in Drew 6,000 hippies in California but with them came tourists people with whisky Bottei and up crime. Al this led hippies to speculate that the mafia was moving in on the Slaight Ashbury s Lush business in Ltd Metherine and marijuana. The presence of organized crime was promptly denied by the police department. At the same time supplies of Ltd and marijuana got Short and hippies wondered if somebody was attempting to drive up prices the nation s lowest at $5 for an Ltd cube and $10 for announce of marijuana. While the hippies had dropped out of conventional society they found them selves confronted with some of the same problems such As racial Vio Lence. The Haight Ashbury is racially mixed and for Many hippies its bedroom Community is the heavily negro Fillmore District because of Low Flower children almost exclusively from the White Middle class staged weekend entertainments in negro Parks and opened a Black Man s free store in the Fillmore where donated articles were Given away to negroes. But the hatred which has struck communities across the nation also has led to gang beatings of hippies and an As Sault on White diggers in their attacks of another kind came from police in almost nightly raids staged by agents wearing beards and beads on the Flower children s apart ments sometimes netting 30 in a visit. For these reasons and others some of the Early most Beautiful of the Flower children Are moving to new communes in Scenic Rural areas of California Arizona and new Mexico or Back to school. Some Are disenchanted with the cur rent atmosphere and others Are just the 1-and-thou Coffee House they say the real test of our future will come now in september when school i open. Then Well see if our summer visitors spread the word this is a Dray and Well see How Many Are
