Mario Savio | "bodies upon the gears" | Dec 2, 1964
"bodies upon the gears"
Mario Savio
excerpt from address at Sproul Hall
University of California at Berkeley
December 2, 1964
Excerpt:
We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received from a well-meaning liberal was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his Board of Directors?' That's the answer?
Well I ask you to consider: if this is a firm and if the Board of Regents are the Board of Directors and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be, have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!
... There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!
Well I ask you to consider: if this is a firm and if the Board of Regents are the Board of Directors and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be, have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!
... There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all!
full text and audio: Sproul Hall, December 2, 1964
Note:
The
Berkeley Free Speech Movement developed on the campus of the University
of California at Berkeley in 1964 when the Board of Regents banned
student activism on and off of campus subsequent to press reports of
student participation in off-campus political protests and activities.
- kjl