The Catonsville Nine's invasion and burning of the Catonsville draft board files: an interview with Jean S. Walsh given on March 30, 1973.

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Collection: Friends of Catonsville Library Date: 1973-03-30 Date of Digitization: 2004-03-31 Source: Catonsville Library Original Dimensions: 28 x 22 cm Creator: Walsh, Jean S.

Description:
A transcript of a recorded interview with Jean S. Walsh, the editor of Catonsville's local newspaper, the Catonsville Times. She was present at the scene after the burning of draft records in Catonsville on May 17, 1968.

Transcription:

FRIENDS OF THE CATONSVILLE AREA LIBRARY                     
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM                Interviewee:  Mrs. Howard Walsh
                                                      Interviewer:  Charlotte French  
                                                      Date:  March 30, 1973 
                                                      Transcriber:  Anne Eichelman
                                                      Cassette Number I    
                                                                                                                

Interviewer:  Jean Walsh, as editor of the Catonsville Times, was present at the
                scene after the burning of the draft records in Catonsville on
May 17, 1968.  Since that episode, the Catonsville Nine has become well known in 
court, books, and on the stage.  Jean, how did you know of the burning? Who told 
you?

Interviewee:  Well, the burning was started and nearly finished before I was
                 notified about it, even though my Catonsville Times office is about 
two blocks from the building where the burning took place.  The building which was 
then being used by Draft Board 33 was in the Knights of Columbus Building on the 
second floor, and that building, still today, is at the corner of Frederick Road 
and Beaumont Avenue.  The northeast corner of that intersection.  I had gone home 
for lunch and it was a little after one o'clock.  I knew nothing about the im-
pending episode, and while I was eating lunch I got a call from one of the 
advertising people in my office, who happened to be on the street and heard it 
on her car radio, that the draft board files in the Catonsville Draft Board 
Office had been taken from the office and burned by a group who were protesting 
our entrance into the war in Viet Nam.  So I quickly left my home and went to 
the draft board which is only two blocks from my home.  I found there a fire truck 
on the parking lot, the firemen still standing by after having doused the flames 
caused by the igniting of the draft board files in large wire baskets which had 
been used for trash baskets, and had been taken from the second floor by nine 
members of a group who felt that they should expose the United States participa-
tion in the war and immorality as they saw it, by committing this act.  So when 
I arrived and parked the car, I rushed into the building and was met by a number 
of people in the first floor hallway and waiting on the stair.  They were mostly 
news people from the Baltimore papers and the Baltimore TV stations.  They had 
been notified about it long before it happened and so they actually were there 
when the episode began.  It probably began at quarter or ten minutes of one on 
that day.  The newspapers and TV stations had been notified by the protesters 
who anticipated moving out to Catonsville and committing the act.  They were asked 
by the nine Catholic clergymen and laymen who were going to commit the act that 
they not notify the police and they complied with that request.  (The media did.)