The Digger Papers

[Free and Realist editions]

August 1968

In the summer of 1968, the Diggers produced their final collective publication and gave it away as a gift to the world. Emmett Grogan made a deal with Paul Krassner to print 40,000 copies for the Diggers' Free edition, in exchange for using the inside pages and back cover for Issue No. 81 of The Realist. Thus there were two editions of The Digger Papers. To this day, both are in rare supply, although the Free edition is highly sought after by collectors.

The Digger Papers combined new articles with some of the best pieces that had appeared on the street over the previous two years. The centerpiece of the collection, The Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City was the summation of the Digger/Free City philosophy, while the classic Digger manifesto, Trip Without A Ticket made its reappearance here.

Below are reprinted all of the pages from The Digger Papers, as well as the frontispiece that appeared only in the Realist edition. If any readers of this archive would care to provide information about this publication, I would like to add anything pertinent to these pages. Please contact me by email or otherwise.

In the panels to the left are thumbnail images of each page in the 24-page pamphlet. Note that the first thumbnail shows the cover that was used for the Realist edition. The second thumbnail shows the cover to the Free edition. All other pages were identical.

Memo to the Reader (Realist Edition Front Cover)

A Curse on the Men in Washington, Pentagon (Page 2)

Trip Without A Ticket (Page 3)

Dialectics of Liberation (Page 4)

Final City, Tap City: Crack at the Bottom of It (Page 8)

The Birth of Digger Batman (Page 10)

All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace (Page 11)

Rushes (Page 12)

Digger Mandala (Page 13)

Take a Cop to Dinner (Page 14)

Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City (Page 15)

Address List (Page 17)