Marching For Inanity

There must be a reason I went to Washington. Something must have happened there. It didn't end the war. It probably didn't even affect the war. There are only two things it did to me-it changed the way I look at cops, at least Washington cops, and it changed the way I look at polities and political action. It was an experience; it was action, however futile.

It seems strange, looking back on it, that the Washington cops should seem different to me from other cops. The night before the Saturday march I was gassed seven times in Dupont Circle, and I had two more encounters with the green stuff later Saturday afternoon. I had been gassed in Chicago; there I hated the cops with every ounce of passion I could muster. I still do.

But the Washington cops were different. They were well trained and well disciplined. They were edgy too, but they were always able to differentiate between a kid who threw rocks and one who didn't no matter what the two of them looked like. In short, they were human beings.

Another thing about the cops, which must be true of everyone who was in Washington. They were awed. They had a sense that even though they had the guns. the gas, and the government, they didn't have all the power. In the face of so many people the cops knew that they simply couldn't wield their mechanical powers with the arrogance that characterized the Chicago pigs.

Much of the credit for the attitude of the Washington cops lies with Mayor Walter Washington, who must have sympathized with the purpose of the march and must have withstood a terrible struggle for power with Nixon men like Richard Klcindeinst.

The march was a failure in the sense that it didn't stop the war. Nixon and his cronies expected at least 200,000 marchers before the November 3 speech. The size of the crowd was no surprise and will not affect the course of the war.

The march, however, was more than just an effort to stop the war. It was the first political convention of the subculture. As such, it was an astounding success. It gave one a sense of solidarity and a feeling of belonging; and a sense of overriding futility.

The weekend began with a sense of futility. You could ignore it if you took pleasure in the gas station attendant in New Haven who was wearing a peace button or the toll collector who flashed the "V" sign as you went by.

But the stark hopelessness could not be ignored as you walked past the White House with your tiny candle and yelled out a dead man's name. You couldn't see the mansion because those with the hands on the buttons had switched on lights which blinded your vision as you passed. You couldn't even see the line of candles going up Pennsylvania Avenue. They were too weak.

The next night was the night for revolution. It was pretty impressive charging up Massachusetts Avenue with 2,000 people behind Vict Cong flags. It was pretty depressing when those same 2,000 people were sent fleeing back down the street with artificial tears in their eyes. After the first charge the feeling of danger was gone. You went back for more gas, teared for five or ten minutes and then went back for more. It was insane.

The cops, however, weren't. Squad cars patrolled the whole area. As soon as a group of more than 50 people gathered at any street corner the cops gathered to meet them. First three or four motorcycles would arrive. Then the tear gas would be hurled. Then the cycles would sweep down the sidewalk. The object was to scatter the crowd and disperse them. If the kids had stayed together and marched either toward the White House, seven blocks away, or into the nearby ghetto Washington might have gone up in smoke.

The cops were well trained; they were also lucky. The wind was blowing strong and in the right direction for effective use of the gas. The kids couldn't stay together. There were only thirteen arrests. The radicals who had hoped for an explosion and Attorney General Mitchell, who was also looking for confrontation, could only find a few broken store windows on Connecticut Avenue to point to with pride. The police made both the militants and Mitchell look stupid.

The next day the feeling of futility and senselessness was again present. But it died quickly as we marched up the avenue and sat around the monument. There were so many people of all ages, sizes, shapes and colors. One sign read "You have finally brought us together, Dick." At the monument the speeches were dull, the air was icy, and the songs fell flat. We built fires with the AFL-CIO banners. No fools, those workers, they brought wooden sticks with their placards. A little of what made Woodstock a legend made life bearable at the monument.

Then it happened again. With remarkable ease the police routed 10,000 in front of the Justice Department. Marshals shouldn't have tried to stop the militants. The marshals' job was finished at 3. They had proved that we could all march together. The Justice Department action only served to split the marchers into opposed factions, an eternal bane of left wing crusades.

They almost blew it at the Justice Department-the Mobe, not the militants. The militants had made certain promises and kept them. The Mobe should not have asked more. In the face of the overriding futility of any kind of protest in this country today it is important that everyone act, it is not important how they act.

Maybe that's why we went to Washington, all of us. When you come right down to it, it is much more important to act than to achieve. An achievement is just an excuse to act; the act itself is what keeps you alive. We acted in Washington. Those who stayed home might as well be dead.