Arthur is proud to present scans of essential documents produced by and about the San Francisco Diggers, who were in many ways the epicentral actors in the Haight-Ashbury during the epic, wildly imaginative period from late ’66 through ’67. The Diggers’ ideas and activities are essential counter-cultural history, sure, but they are also especially relevant to the current era, for reasons that should be obvious to the gentle Arthur reader.

Most of the documents that we are presenting here are broadsides originally published on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, who used the name “Communication Company,” or more commonly, “Com/Co.”

What we have here are scans of copies of a set of 8 pages (maybe four double-sided? we don’t know) that were distributed en masse (500 copies) along the Haight on telephone poles, walls, in windows, and so on, on January 28, 1967. Chester wrote these pages, and apparently sent copies to a friend or family member with handwritten text explaining some of the terms, and it’s those papers that we’re showing here. Pages 1-3 were posted yesterday. Pages 4-6 are posted today. The last two pages will post tomorrow.

One more thing: we’re presenting history here. Some of these documents have extreme content and advocate extreme things—especially this one. What you choose to do with extreme ideas — like, er, dosing people, without their knowledge — is your own business. But I will say that it’s hard for us at Arthur to see how any lasting good could come from dosing folks with LSD. Then again, in certain circumstances…

Click on the images below to see them at full size…