When the Easter egg roll in Washington was chaos

The White House Easter Egg Bread is back on us, with its light fanfare and healthy traditions. There will be rabbit costumes, concerts and senior officials reading picture books. And most importantly, there will be many children, with crowds of up to 30,000 people. According to Smithsonian, this is the largest annual event of the White House.

While modern tradition is closely associated with the presidency, the Easter egg roll in Washington, DC, has actually started at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, under the white and shiny shell of the Capitol Dome. But this activity was once so scandalous and so uncontrollable that an angry Congress proscribed it on their territory. On Monday, if lawmakers are watching the National Mall with the desire of the president's annual worry-free photo shoot, they have to blame only their own predecessors.

History continues below

Egg rolling was born in the United Kingdom hundreds of years ago, where, as was the tradition of Easter, children took hard boiled eggs and decorated at the top of an English hill and were arguing about who would drive the furthest without cracking. In doing so, the grass of the United States Government dates back to the 1870s, when the extensions of the north and south wings of the Capitol were almost completed and the western lawn was used only for the construction of scenes. The marble terrace of the building did not exist yet and Congress had just sought the advice of a young landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, to beautify the area. It was a large-scale project, and Senator Justin Morrill, chairman of the Commission on Public Buildings and Lands, urged him to "not let it go bad."

It was on this stage that hundreds and thousands of kids were coming down every year in a wrecking demolition derby from the egg throws. While the White House modern egg cake is a closely organized event, the early tradition was a much more informal affair. There was no permit, tickets or security per se. Newspapers wrote about hordes of unattended children converging spontaneously on Capitol Hill, "racing, rocking and rolling, whatever their limbs and dress, or what the nurses or masters said or thought. The sport was exciting, though the re-ascension and the roll and roll incidents became so exciting that the comrade's shouts of laughter and cheerful cries made a happy chorus that swelled along the line. "

The 1876 celebration drew an unusually turbulent crowd, with a journalist for the Republican National describing the Capitol places as "cluttered with boys and girls, many older leaders gathered to witness the jokes and capers of the boys and girls who rolled the eggs from the top of the hill to the lawn, below. " that year "had the effect of wetting the grass a bit", but could not prevent the break-up of the tiny feet running over the sodden lawns.

The next day, legislators arrived at the Capitol on a scene resembling an abandoned carnival. Small pieces of shells covered everything. Spoiled eggs attracted birds and opportunistic insects. But the worst was the grass: thousands of tiny footprints had torn the muddy lawn more effectively than a tractor.

Morrill was furious and started drafting a bill the same day.

"I suppose the great pleasure of seeing ten thousand children here on Easter Monday prevented the police from doing their homework," Morrill lamented in the Senate. "Even though it's a great pleasure to see these kids having fun here on Easter Monday, it's considered important that we protect the place."

Some of Morrill's colleagues spoke out in favor of the children, noting that "they usually belong to a class of citizens who have few opportunities to have fun." Indeed, the annual event was celebrated by newspapers as "the festival of the poor". to be open to all races and classes. The president was however adamant about dismissing children from the backyard of Congress. Urging that his bill be passed, Morrill insisted: "I know that the Russian government during the winter season provides citizens with places to slip. but I do not think it's appropriate that here, in the spring of this year, and at such a high cost in money and in public areas, we should let these terraces be completely destroyed by the process that has was the last witness on Monday. "

Morrill had his votes the following week, and President Ulysses Grant enacted the law on grass protection for the next sentence as soon as possible.

"That it be adopted by the United States Senate and House of Representatives meeting in Congress, it will now be up to the Capitol Police to prevent any part of the grounds and terraces from Capitol to be used as playgrounds or otherwise, to the extent necessary to protect public property, turf and grass from any destruction or injury. "

Frederick Law Olmsted had just the solution for what he saw as a "broken, confused and unsatisfactory" appearance of the Capitol era grounds. A huge wrap-around marble terrace built above the muddy embankment would eliminate visual pollution and serve as a visual pedestal for the building's shiny new dome. This magnificent platform and staircase would host the inaugural activities of the president and serve as a backdrop to millions of modern photographs.

The eggs in 1877 were prevented by heavy rains. The Turf Protection Act has therefore not been tested by district children in its first year. However, the following year, a few days before Easter, President Rutherford B. Hayes would have met a young boy while he was strolling. "Tell, say!" The child would have asked, "Are you going to let us roll eggs in your yard?" Informed of the tradition, the former Ohio governor replied, "I do not know. that I see on this subject. "But when crowds of children appeared at the doors of the White House, having been turned away from the Capitol by police Monday morning of Easter, the president had already" educated with good mood the responsible reasons for not objecting, "according to New York Post night.

The same newspaper reported that the following year, another boy asked Hayes if the children could make his garden their playground on Easter Monday, for which he had no objections. And in 1880, the Post night wrote: "the little people seem to have taken the clemency of the executive for granted because no spokesman has approached the president." Even though 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue may not have as well suited as the hill with the custom of rolling eggs, children feel more comfortable there, and successive presidents have perpetuated the Easter tradition of welcoming the children of the capital on the South Lawn since – and will probably do so as long as the law, which is now 142 years old, is still in effect.