Gov. James Rhodes has been accused of escalating the tensions on May 4. He was in the middle of a campaign to run for the U.S. Senate and wanted to appear capable of controlling any disturbances across all Ohio campuses, his critics say. "The added factor in May of 1970 is that there was an election going on, and the governor was running to be nominated to Senate," Calkins says. "So he wanted to give a good impression of toughness." Summer soldiers: The National Guardsmen at Kent State were not much older than the students they were ordered to silence. (Kent State Archives) Lewis puts a heavy amount of the blame for May 4 on Rhodes' decision to activate the Ohio National Guard. "I think he did it to further his political career," Lewis says. Most people will tell you that May 4 happened because students were protesting the Vietnam War. But Jerry Lewis sees it differently. As a witness to the demonstrations and shootings, he maintains that the real source of protest was the presence of the National Guard. "The chanters were saying, 'Pigs off campus,' 'Green pigs, green pigs," Lewis says. "It wasn't '1-2-3-4, we don't want your fucking war,' or 'Ho Chi Minh is going to win,' or anything like that. It was clearly anti-Guard. And the guardsmen knew that. They said there was great hostility." But Kent State was not the only campus dealing with student demonstrations. Calkins says that what occurred here could have happened anywhere. "I think that Kent State was almost an accident," Calkins says. "In the sense that it could have happened at Iowa where there were some battles on campus. Even at Ohio State University. A lot of different places it might have happened. But it just happened at Kent State -- partly because of the political situation, partly because of the fears of the administration at that time." An event with the magnitude of May 4 doesn't just happen spontaneously, though. Calkins says there was no singular event that led to May 4 but a series of many. The conclusion was a national wake-up call.