Pickets Picketed

The cop in front of the White House was in a gloomy mood. All day long, all night long, pickets of the American Peace Mobilization--always at least a dozen of them--paraded up & down before the White House. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the relentless pickets kept at it.

Their leader, her hair awry, nails in deep mourning, knobby legs without stockings, splayed feet in battered old white moccasins, carried a U.S. flag. Others carried signs bearing anti-convoy sentiments; excerpts from Presidential speeches promising no foreign wars. A big Negro, third in line, better dressed than anybody else, carried a sign "Jim Crow is NOT Democracy." He liked to lecture. "This here's no democracy," he would say pontifically, "when a fellow like me, just because he's black, can't get a job in the factories getting rich off of defense contracts." Behind the pickets the White House grounds stretched, green and rich, to the gleaming white mansion. The cop on the corner groaned at the task of protecting "them sorry sons a'bitches." (They needed protection. Recently a Marine jumped on a picket and beat him up with his belt.) A carload of Indiana tourists stopped to stare. The cop made them move on. Said he bitterly: "That there fellow had his kids with him. This is probably their first --and last--trip to Washington. They want a good look at the White House.

What do they get?" His moral was plain.

Either the pickets had to be driven away, or the plain people of Indiana.

And he had to tell the tourists to keep moving.

Across the street, in an old red sandstone building, the American Peace Mobilization had its office. Some crusaders sat around a table holding a water cooler, sandwiches, a coffee pot and a row of empty milk bottles. Other crusaders played cards while waiting their turn on the picket line. On the wall was a picture of President Roosevelt, smiling as he signed the Lend-Lease Bill. Underneath was printed: "What's the joke?"

Dr. Walter Scott Neff, executive secretary of American Peace Mobilization, greeted visiting reporters royally. "We are here." he declaimed, "and here we'll stay until we've won out." One reporter walked back to the picket line with a nice-looking girl carrying a banner: "No A.E.F. for the U.S." The reporter said: "Why don't you get wise to yourself? Why waste time with these jiggs and mockies? You're smart." The pretty picket stamped her foot, tears in her eyes. "You've got a lot of room to talk," she said. "You work for a God-damned warmonger."

Last week a rough, tough little man with hair like a dirty cotton boll showed up at the picket line, began to march in the opposite direction. His sign read: "We Americans Protest Communists Picketing the White House." He was Abe Tikotsky, an electrical worker, once of Springfield, Ill., with a lugubrious voice and sore feet. He said: "These dopes ain't got no sense. . . ."A clean-cut youth from South Dakota, now working in the War Department, stopped by and said: "That's a wonderful thing you're doing, fella." "Fine," said Abe. "would you mind standing in for me a minute?" "Not at all," said the clean-cut youth, and took the sign. Abe crossed the street to Lafayette Square, took off his shoes, and went to sleep on a park bench.

At week's end, Abe Tikotsky had six recruits in his picket line, marching in the opposite direction from the pickets of the American Peace Mobilization.

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