WASHINGTON – Every day that I cover the daily White House news briefings, I have the privilege of walking through Lafayette Square.
This is a national memorial to the Marquis de Lafayette and Generals Rochambeau, von Steuben and Kosciusko, who came from overseas to help us win our war of independence and existence as a nation.
In the center of this park, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, is a statue of one of the most unforgettable of our generals and presidents, Andrew Jackson.
Throughout most of the year, gardeners from the National Park Service cultivate extensive beds of flowers which are gorgeous adornments to this most significant national site.
For 21 years, however, Lafayette Square on the side closest to the White House, has had four small, homemade billboards of unusual ugliness.
"BAN ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS, OR HAVE A NICE DOOMSDAY," proclaims one of these signs, while another advises: "LIVE BY THE BOMB, DIE BY THE BOMB."
Still another sign notifies: "WANTED: WISDOM AND HONESTY."
For all of us who support the legal right to walk non-violent picket lines, this might be tolerable – if these sign proponents were carrying these signs, as they must do if they are across Pennsylvania Avenue on the sidewalk in front of the White House.
But these repulsive and hardly enlightening signs in Lafayette Square for 21 years are not carried. They stay in place – mutilating the beauty of this memorial square – because they are maintained 24-hours per day by squatters, not demonstrators.
And now, there are more squatters! A group entitled Code Pink Women For Peace has begun squatting between the anti-nuke squat site and President Jackson's statue.
I also saw yet another addition – this one a banner spread over a rock-like structure next to the doomsday sign. This banner read, "AMERICANS FOR A FREE PALESTINE."
So, when on earth will the National Park Service and U.S. Capital Park Police require that all these squatters pick up their signs and begin marching – or else get out of Lafayette Square, and stay out?
After nine telephone calls and continued transfers, I finally reached one informative person, Sgt. Scott Fear, spokesman for the U.S. Park Police. Sgt. Fear noted some of the most incredible regulations I have ever heard:
- A demonstration of under 25 people needs no permit to demonstrate.
- The anti-nuke people have won a number of court cases in contending that they are exercising their First Amendment rights.
- The police have also won cases – including their right to arrest any of these people who light fires, or confiscate all their signs if they ever leave them alone.
- If the sign people are discovered to be sleeping on actual bedding, they can be arrested for camping without a license. So they sleep on non-bedding.
This is an utterly ridiculous situation that Congress should surely legislate to clear Lafayette Square of all squatters.