On this day in 1968, four men were sentenced to federal prison for counseling young men to refuse military service. Dubbed the Boston Five, the defendants included famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock and Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin. They had participated in a series of protests at which young men turned in or burned their draft cards to demonstrate their unwillingness to serve in the Vietnam War. Boston's long history of opposing authority when it came into conflict with conscience and its large student population made the city fertile ground for the draft resistance movement. Although the movement in Boston had considerable strength, anti-war activists in general, and draft resisters in particular, faced hostility from people who believed that to defy the government was unpatriotic.