Congress Goes Home Again

By Frank Trippett

If the U.S. Congress can be said to have a birthday, it must be July 16, 1787, when a Great Compromise brought the bicameral legislature into being. Two hundred years later, 25 Senators and 181 Representatives rolled north from Washington on a special 14-car train to a red-white-and-blue- buntinged Philadelphia in honor of the occasion. The original event at the Constitutional Convention was the resolution of a big state-little state fight that, presto, gave states equal standing in the Senate and strength reflecting population in the House. The anniversary proved a high point of Philadelphia's occasionally turbulent Bicentennial festivities.

Although the celebrators' attention was officially on the past, circumstances kept wrenching it back to the implacable present. Louisiana Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, resplendent in red, presided over solemn ceremonies in stately Independence Hall, while not far away some 100 supporters of the National Organization for Women demonstrated for an Equal Rights Amendment, chanting, "Hey! Hey! What do you say! Ratify the ERA!" While speakers redundantly eulogized the Constitution, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, alluding to disclosures of the Iran-contra abuses, cautioned against "habits of power that are inherently undemocratic and unconstitutional."

In spite of tensions, the agenda of costumed pageantry, fife-and-drum music, jet overflights and solemn oratory came off with scarcely a hitch, thanks in part to security arrangements so heavy that when the congressional special rolled into Philadelphia's 30th Street station, eight or so diners found themselves imprisoned for 15 minutes in a nearby McDonald's after police blocked all the restaurant's exits.

When 600 demonstrators rallied a block from Independence Hall for a lesbian and gay bill of rights, police on foot and horseback assiduously enforced a federal judge's ruling that demonstrators could be heard but not seen: their constitutional rights did not include marching within sight of the main celebration. Hundreds of National Park Service rangers, Philadelphia police and U.S. Capitol police set up barricades and used metal detectors to check all visitors.

The ceremonies were split between Independence Hall and Congress Hall, where the first federal lawmakers met. If any theme emerged from the speechifying, it was that the capacity to produce such conciliatory agreements as the Great Compromise may be the genius of the American system. House Speaker Jim Wright praised the "art of honorable compromise," adding a mild rebuke to the likes of Oliver North for ignoring congressional strictures: "Laws hammered out upon the blacksmith's forge of compromise have commanded observance from even those who disagreed with the wisdom of the laws. And that is what real patriotism comes to."

The dignitaries could hardly overlook the ironies and injustices embedded in the Constitution. Philadelphia Congressman William H. Gray, who is black, recalled that one direct legacy of the Great Compromise was the provision demanded by sparsely populated Southern states that each slave be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation. "But because the framers knew the inevitability of justice . . ." said Gray, "this nation has made such progress."

Later the visitors from Washington gathered for dinner in a special pavilion constructed by We the People 200 Inc., the organization that has produced Philadelphia's yearlong celebration of the Constitution's Bicentennial. The dinner was delayed for half an hour while police investigated a suspicious-looking box discovered on the pavilion roof. The box contained only tools left behind by a construction worker. At that discovery, police gave a sigh of relief.

Indeed, Philadelphia as a whole and We the People 200 in particular were relieved when the congressional celebration had come and gone without any major incident. Ever since the Bicentennial year arrived, Philadelphia's efforts to celebrate -- and exploit -- the occasion have been marked by bickering within the organization, unrealized expectations, canceled corporate funding and laggard public support.

For a parade slated for Sept. 17, sponsors have purchased only six of 30 floats the promoters hope to sell. In May, only about half of the expected 13 Governors bothered to show up for the celebration commemorating the convening of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. We the People 200 itself proved so squabblesome that a complete change of management was required. But last week something finally went right. Summed up one Philadelphian, Stephanie Viola: "I got goose bumps all over. That's what you call a real patriotic day."

With reporting by Margaret Kirk/Philadelphia