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WASHINGTON — There was a time when we with com plaints for the White House could deliver them through the front door. It used to be that presidents would set aside time each day to receive ordinary citizens and listen personally to the grumps, groans and pro tests of the nation. No more. Today the president is separated from complainants by the force of arms. There is a fence around the White House that is patrolled by police with weapons. The only way people with petitions can get into the Qval Office any more is by in vitations that are almost never issued. And yet changing times have not seo the protests at the big building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Especially not during the summer. When the weather is good people still gather at the Executive Taeten, on this side of the gates, to carry on the American tradition of discontent. Meet Ed Saffron. He carries the tradition on and on and on. Saffron is the dean of White House petitioners, the old pro of protesters. He has been com plaining outside the Executive Mansion for 14 years and five months. Some people think he's wacky. At best he is thoroughly ignored. But he may keep on grousing here until the day he dies “I know that what I do may seem odd,” he says, sitting in the sun on the northwest side of the White House. “‘And maybe nobody pays any real attention. But none of that matters. What matters is that I have something to say, and I'm exer cising my right to say it in any way I want.” Actually, Saffron has had several things to say during his long tenure on the White House sidewalk. And he started saying them in 1969 as a result of a labor dispute. He had been an employee at a Rhode Island Naval Air Station then, and the dispute arose when he was fired. Saffron said he was let go un fairly. He says he used to ques tion management procedures, and squawk about sundry abuses, “and they just didn’t like me.” So, he goes on, he was canned for political reasons, “What happened was that I got hurt on the job, and they used it as a pretext to dump me.”’ Saffron appealed and _ lost. And he was blocked at all legal intersections. Thus frustrated, and unforgiving, he brought the lament to the White House. “I walked up one day and told the Park Police I was going to start marching. I told them I wouldn't stop until I got satisfaction.” As it happened, Saffron did not get satisfaction. Not primarily, anyway. He march ed many winters in and many summers out, only to give up to reality. The argument with his one-time employer was even tually by the statute of limitations, and he decided not to pursue it further. He did not abandon his place on the White House sidewalk, however. He had gotten used to parading as a picket, and he simply adopted an alternative protest. One day he discarded the literature that condemned the Naval Air Station and began instead to distribute material condemning nuclear arms. ‘It's a much bigger issue anyway,” Saffron says now. “Did you know that there are enough atomic bombs in the world to —_ the firepower of 6,000 World War IIs? Sooner or later that power will be unleashed, and everybody will crash; the ants and the etelta are going to inherit the earth ” Saffron has printed the over view of his arms argument on a large poster. That is the way of most protests at the White House. Some complainants also hand out leaflets and mimeographed papers; a few hold lively debates with tourists and others who are attracted by curiosity. Police say some of the pro testers have genuine grievances to discuss. And a few are heartbreaking. One woman, an immigrant, recent ly marched for a few days to call attention to a famil tragedy; the communists will not let her husband and children join her in America. Then there are the less sym thetic. Some demonstrators we used the White House walk to solicit money for per sonal use, and one hopeless chap, Norman Mayer, left the sidewalk last December and threatened to blow up the near by Washington Monument; he was shot to death. Whatever their aims, the pro testers come and go like the seasons. Except Ed Saffron. Now 65 we old, silver-haired, intense but proper, he continues to march a couple of hours a day, most days of the week. “I don't get tired of it,”’ he says. “I’m out here rain or shine. I’m doing something important.”’ He’s also doing something that irritates many people. He says he gets catcalls and some threats at the walk. “I had a guy once who said I shouldn’t complaining, so he was go ing to get a gun and shoot me. I never understood it. But I always remember it when peo ple say that I’m crazy.” BANK GIVES TUV Steelworkers Union Local 1190. UNEMPLOYED. Miners On hand for the check present. Mechanics Savings Trusttion of $211.83 to Local 1190 were recently held a sidewalk sale at SEATED — Jay Shelton, assis the mall and donated the pro tant manager of MM’s mall ceeds to the unemployment office; and Butch Wyckoff, co committee of the United chairman of the unemployment committee; BACK — — Karen Schnabel, manager of the mall drive-in office for MM; Denise Dibello; and Sissy Hu mienny, chairman of the unemployment committee, (Herald-Star Photo)
Newspaper Details
Herald Star
Steubenville, Ohio, US
Sun, Jul 31, 1983
Page 24
Full Page
Clipped by
Alex H.
