But we keep being surprised, it seems…
The discussion that followed was somber, even frightening. The first thing on everyone’s mind was the penalties involved. The Selective Service Act of 1948 called for up to five years in prison for simply not having a draft card in your possession. Induction refusal carried a five-year maximum as well. “Conspiracy to obstruct or violate” carried five years for each count. Pursuing that line of action meant increasing the stakes geometrically. It would also, Denniss offered, be the first step in creating a new “white SNCCC,” a “net to pull through the campuses of the country and collect the people you really wanted to work with.” Although the action might conceivably reach a size where prosecution of everyone was impossible, the organizers would have to proceed under the assumption of eventually receiving a prison sentence. Upping the ante seemed appropriate to both our mood and the circumstances, but no one was yet ready to commit himself to those consequences, and the meeting with Mendy Samstein at Dennis’s led to nothing concrete…
(Harris, 1982:146)
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