Capitol Vigil For Clinton

Hundreds of Americans opposed to the impeachment of President Clinton left home Thursday for Washington, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson planned a massive prayer vigil outside the U.S. Capitol.

"I'm doing this for medical reasons: if I'd just stayed home watching the impeachment debate on television, I'd have blown my stack," 72-year-old Addie Becker, a retired advertising executive, said before boarding a chartered bus in Philadelphia.

About 100 buses from the Philadelphia area alone were headed for the District of Columbia for an 11th hour appeal to Congress not to choose impeachment for only the second time in the 211-year history of the U.S. Constitution.

Buses also were due to leave New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, and other cities. The vigil is sponsored by a loose coalition of labor unions, black clergy, civic and women's rights organizations and other groups traditionally loyal to the Democratic Party.

"Wake up! Our democracy is absolutely being threatened," exhorted Henry Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, which represents 17,000 people in the Philadelphia area.

"Our duly elected officials are refusing to respond to the mandate and will of the people," he said.

Demonstrators - some bearing placards with messages such as "Prez, The Constitution Is Supposed To Protect You, Too!" - shrugged off assertions by some Republicans that Wednesday's air strike was timed to disrupt the impeachment proceedings.

"If Clinton had waited to strike Iraq because of the impeachment debate, it would have been just as bad as launching an attack to delay it," said Karen Haskell, a 31-year-old graduate student. "He had to make the decision irrespective of the impeachment hearings. Iraq had their chance."

Called by Jackson's Chicago-based Rainbow Push Coalition, the vigil was meant to put a human face on the statistical majority of Americans shown to oppose impeachment in public opinion polls.

"We have to express our opinions as citizens," said Judy Wicks, a cafe owner who helped organize buses for the vigil. "What's going on in Congress is an abuse of our Constitution, because what they're talking about doing is unconstitutional."

New Jersey teacher Robert Darton took his high school class to the vigil as a living lesson in political affairs. "They'll witness people voicing their opinions. Then they'll have to wait to see whether or not they affect our Congress," he said.

After sporadc protests around the country in the run-up to what was to be the start of the impeachment debate in the U.S. House of Representatives, people did not seem fazed by news that the debate and vote would now take place after the vigil.

"I believe they won't vote for impeachment," said Sylvia Chandler, voicing optimism that public opinion would sway lawmakers in the end.

But some demonstrators had a much gloomier view of what they saw as anti-Clinton motives in Congress.

"This is a more dangerous time than the McCarthy era," Kay Ewing, a Democrat from Warrington, Pa., said at a sunset demonstration held Wednesday in Bucks County, near Pennsylvania's border with New Jersey.

"I think America better wake up before this gets to the Senate."