Land of a million elephants.

• Author: Ervin, Mike
• Position: Wheelchair protest shuts down Republic National Committee building

Because of car trouble, I got separated from the pack last summer in Washington, D.C. But I heard the chant: Nursing Homes Have Got to Go. And that led me to the long line of people in wheelchairs marching up a street near the Capitol.

I jumped into one of the gaps near the front. I wasn't even sure where I was going. I just followed the fine up the ramp of a no-nonsense, square brick building where a lone black man on wobbly legs stood sentry at the door. As he stood his ground in front of the lead wheelchair, telling us we couldn't come in, all the others - including me - just went around and in.

I soon found myself wedged up against an oaken wall, packed in by the dozens of people in wheelchairs around me. I still didn't know where I was, until I noticed the display cabinets mounted on the wall beside me. They were full of campaign buttons: Nixon's the One. American Indians for Nixon. My favorite was Pretty Girls for Nixon.

Must be the headquarters of the Republican National Committee.

Behind me was an oaken cabinet. On display behind the glass were all different shapes and sizes of souvenir elephants: glass-blown elephants, onyx elephants, wicker elephants, pewter elephants. The elephant counter had been abandoned. When the woman who worked it saw all the wheelchairs pouring in, she fled in terror.

Our chant became: Republican Schmublican, Health Care Now. We had the whole lobby jammed, with still more folks in wheelchairs on the sidewalk outside. Dour guards, with arms akimbo, protected the locked door that led to the inner sanctum. They parted long enough to let a squeaky-clean lad in a white shirt and a tie step forward to ask us who our chairperson was.

"We're all chair people," someone shouted, and got a big laugh.

We told the fresh-faced youth we were here to see the chairman of the Republican Party. A system of in-home attendant services for people with disabilities was included in the Clinton health-care plan. We were occupying both party headquarters until we got a guarantee that this would remain a part of whatever passed.

The young man gave us the usual line about how the chairman was unavailable and unreachable by phone but if we all went outside he'd find someone to listen to our concerns.

That got another big laugh. He retreated.

A bust of Eisenhower sat on a pedestal that looked like papiermache painted gold. And there was a large, ultrarealistic, oil portrait of Eisenhower on the wall. The Republican National Committee...