The Republican National Convention is in the books after last week’s nomination of ex-President Donald Trump as the party’s standard-bearer in November. It will be the Democrats’ turn in Chicago next month in what could be one of the more amazing political events, with President Joe Biden’s weekend announcement he will no longer seek re-election.
Chicago has hosted more political conventions than any other U.S. city, beginning with Abraham Lincoln’s nomination by the nascent Republican Party in 1860. The Aug. 19-22 shindig scheduled at the United Center will be number 26.
The most recent was held for nominating Democratic President Bill Clinton for a second term at the United Center from Aug. 26-30 in 1996. Most, though, recall the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention, from Aug. 26-29, at the International Amphitheatre, which was razed in 1999.
Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, thousands of protesters, political theater presented by Youth International Party (Yippies) members and the ensuing “police riot” (determined by the blue-ribbon commission which later issued the “Walker Report” spelling out police misdeeds) remains the Chicago convention everyone remembers, if you were around at that time in the last century.
Involved in the midst of all the protests and political mockery was Pigasus, a 145-pound pig that Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin nominated for president during a riotous gathering on Aug. 23, 1968, a few days before the convention’s opening, near the Picasso statute in what is now Daley Plaza. Seven arrests were made, and the swine was taken into “protective custody.”
While those arrested that day were charged with disorderly conduct and later tried, the fate of the spotted pig, which reportedly was born on a Libertyville-area farm, has been a mystery to those still fascinated with the ’68 convention. Indeed, one account back in the day in the Chicago Tribune, headlined “Yippie pig retires from election race,” said Pigasus ended up back in Lake County.
It wasn’t the first time anti-Vietnam War interests turned to Lake County in the run-up to the Democratic convention. Some 200 members of MOBE (the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam) and others in the “new left” held a “secret” conclave at the old YMCA Camp Ravenswood outside Lake Villa in late March 1968.
According to one account in the New York Times from the era, the two-day planning session in “the secluded campground” included such anti-war luminaries as Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan and Tom Hayden, along with “Beat” poet Allen Ginsburg and LSD practitioner Timothy Leary.
But Pigasus, who also was known as “Pigasus the Immortal” and “Pigasus J. Pig” by members of the counterculture Yippies, was the lasting legacy of Lake County’s contribution to the convention protests.
The swine’s name was picked as a wordplay on Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. Or was it a nod to Pegasus, the flying pig used by John Steinbeck throughout his life as a symbol of his writings? Those Yippies may have been radical for 1968, but they had the classics and literature on their minds.
“If we can’t have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast,” was one of the slogans the protesters used for the satiric happenings, which were gleefully filmed by news crews. In the pork-barreled political pig put-on, the Yippies also said they wanted the swine to be given Secret Service protection and foreign policy briefings.
Pigasus reportedly was purchased from an unnamed Libertyville area farmer by activist and folk-singer Phil Ochs. Ochs, who died in 1976 from suicide at age 35, testified to that in 1969 during the federal court Chicago 7 trial, which stemmed from the convention protests.
According to the trial transcript, under questioning from famed defense attorney William Kunstler, Ochs testified he selected the pig and paid $20 for him after stopping at several Libertyville-area farms inquiring about the availability of a suitable swine.
“Would you state what, if anything, happened to the pig?” Kunstler asked Ochs. “The pig was arrested with seven people,” the folksinger replied. “We were arrested announcing the pig’s candidacy for president.
“I believe the original charge mentioned was something about an old Chicago law about bringing livestock into the city, or disturbing the peace, or disorderly conduct, and when it came time for the trial, I believe the charge was disorderly conduct,” Ochs testified.
Turned out Pigasus was put in a squadrol and taken to the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, according to a Sept. 30, 1968 account in the Chicago Tribune. The story also detailed that Pigasus was among three pigs involved in convention disruptions.
The two others included a sow, Mrs. Pigasus, while a piglet was taken into custody during the week of the convention near the Amphitheatre on the city’s South Side. All three swine ended up back in Lake County, at a farm near Grayslake, according to the Tribune story, which quoted a J.J. Shaffer, who was head of the Anti-Cruelty Society back then.
“Not only is Pigasus on a farm, but he has been joined by his wife, Mrs. Pigasus,” said Shaffer, who added the piglet joined them at the county farm. What happened to the trio after that is unknown.
Did Pigasus and his two companions live out their days in relative sloppy comfort in a rural Grayslake sty, resting on their political laurels? Or were they turned into bacon, back ribs or chops?
Hopefully, anyone who knows what happened to the first and only pig to be nominated for president will come forward to fill in the meat of Lake County’s contribution to U.S. political history before the Democratic National Convention convenes next month.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
Twitter: @sellenews