ABSTRACT
Most journalists reviewing the "hippie scene" with any sympathy at all seem to agree with Newsweek that "the hippies do seem natural prey for publicity-hungry politicians—if not overzealous police", and that they have been subjected to varieties of cruelty that ought to be intolerable. Harrassment arrests and calculated degradation have been two of the most effective devices for introducing uncertainty to the day-to-day lives of the hippies. The persecution of hippies in the United States involves, regardless of the original intentions of the agencies concerned, an assault on a way of life, an assault no less concentrated for its immaturity and occasional ambivalence. Social, cultural and political resources have been mobilized to bring a group of individuals into line and to prevent others from refusing to toe the line. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, following a virulent attack on hippies by the mayor, Newsweek reported that vigilantes attacked hippie neighborhoods in force.
