The marchers came from fifty-one states, and many interest groups and constituencies. There were thousands upon thousands of the unemployed, thousands of veterans, of mortgage defaulters, of the elderly, the disabled; single mothers with their children . . . and of course the agitators, who’d come to foment trouble—preferably violence.
People arrived in cars, trucks, and old buses. They growled up on motorcycles. Most arrived unkempt, after a day or two or three of riding, and taking turns driving and sleeping. Of those few who might have arrived nicely-dressed—who’d driven late model cars, and slept in motels en route—most parked outside the beltway and rode the tube in. It wasn’t politic to drive up in a late-model SUV or Audi.
Their timing was no accident: The mid-April weather had determined the when, while the Web and the broadcast media had wittingly and unwittingly choreographed their arrivals.
The government, of course, had known they were coming, and when the vanguards entered the city, the chemical toilets, trash containers, hoses and hydrants had already been set up. As had units of marines and infantry well briefed and drilled on crowd management.
Surprisingly, at the start there were no serious disorders. Among the marchers, responsible leaders appeared or arose, notably among the military veterans. Early efforts by agitators to mount strike forces were squelched before the troops needed to do anything.
Television teams, of course, were everywhere. Demonstrators with loud-hailers orated and ranted, rousing their listeners to chant with them: “Bring out Big Mama!” The tens of thousands of voices carried well in the bright spring day.
Senators, congressmen, chiefs of bureaus, assistant cabinet secretaries arrived from various government buildings, accompanied by sound trucks, or by aides carrying loud-hailers. They invited questions, explained their positions, spoke sympathetically, and in general tried to distract the marchers from actually marching.
Thousands did march, of course, chanting, waving placards and American flags, but not in the single great mass the organizers had in mind. This was not a youth movement with a common passion, focused on a common theme, and there were few onlookers to impress. Instead there were several separate marches; labor’s was the largest, and veterans’ next.
In early afternoon on the second day, clouds began moving in, and some time later, distant thunder rumbled. The crowd grew restless. About 3 p.m. the temperature plummeted, and the breeze picked up. Minutes later the storm hit, large hard drops of icy rain that quickly became a deluge, accompanied by the first strokes of nearby lightning, and great bangs of thunder.
The crowd broke for cover. They crammed into tents, crowded the Lincoln Memorial, packed the Sylvan Theater, and pushed dripping past entry guards into the museums along Madison and Jefferson Drives. In the first mad rush, some had fallen and been trampled. Almost all were soaked. The troops hadn’t been drilled for a rainstorm, but their officers had the good sense to let the crowd run.
In twenty minutes the downpour was over, replaced by lighter rain, steady and cold. When the troops tried to steer people back to their bivouacs, some resisted. In the confusion, some agitators avoided the troops, moving by groups into side streets, carrying with them other able-bodied people. They began smashing windows, stabbing tires. Cars were overturned and set on fire. A gas tank exploded in a fireball. Sirens ululated through the streets, and some who realized now what they were getting into, headed back for the bivouacs. Someone produced Molotov cocktails, which were thrown at police cars and through shop windows.
The rioting, however, did not become widespread. The violence was localized, involving perhaps two hundred vandals, but it triggered something else. Local gangs moved in to loot, and set their own fires.
When the troops had gotten most of the marchers corralled on the vast lawns again, the camps were a shambles. Tents had been knocked down by people trying to crowd into them, out of the rain. In the confusion, agitators had slashed and stabbed the waterhoses, producing geysers, cutting pressure, and adding to the storm floods that formed ponds on the lawns, and flowed into tents. Chemical toilets had been sabotaged, some by pocket bombs. Their contents leaked and stank.