And Leave the Marching to Us

Mad at the President? Incensed at the Congress? Against--or for--U.S. policy in Viet Nam? For the citizen too distant, busy or shy to join a Capital picket line, the answer is a new organization known as Proxy Pickets.

Started by three 19-year-olds at Washington's George Washington University, Proxy Pickets will furnish the bodies, signs, and spirited dialogue for almost any cause--for a fee. A relatively modest $17* will put five pickets in front of the White House for an hour, $79 will set 25 marching, and $154 will bring out a crowd of no fewer than 50 --with "larger demonstrations and additional services" available on request. "A two-hour demonstration can be quite effective," gushes the flier, but "a longer one could be truly impressive."

Though the founders of the rent-a-mob organization admit to being somewhat hawkish on the war themselves, they will gladly stage antiwar protests--if at all possible, with picketers who agree with the cause. It is far from being a put-on of the whole protest movement or a mockery of free speech. Jay Silberman, the political science major from St. Louis who first thought up the idea, insists: "I think it's expanding freedom of speech. There are people who have views they want to express who can't come to Washington." So let someone else do the marching.

*Still high, as these things go. An all-purpose troublemaker--who will let go with either bombs or epithets--can be had for $5 to $7 a day in the Middle East.

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