Huge Crowds Gather for Obama's Swearing In

On the eve of his inauguration as the 44th president, Barack Obama visited Monday with children at a Washington school in observance of the National Day of Service Project. (Landov)

JANUARY 20, 2009
By LAURA MECKLER and JONATHAN WEISMAN
The Wall Street Journal

The 44th U.S. President Is Expected to Call on Americans to Embrace a New Culture of Responsibility

WASHINGTON -- The National Mall swelled into a vast scene of expectation Tuesday as excited crowds clogged mass transit lines and security checkpoints to witness the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama.

Energized by the historic moment, hundreds of thousands of people turned this city's orderly grid of streets into a festive party scene. Ready to endure below-freezing temperatures, they streamed up from subway stations and thronged past parked buses, emergency vehicles and street vendors, bound for Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall for the inauguration.

The crowd could reach two million people, one of the largest gatherings in Washington's history. Millions more will be watching across the U.S. and around the world, with outdoor video screens planned for public squares.

Early Tuesday, Mr. Obama and his family attended a private service at St. John's Episcopal Church, a tradition for those about to become president. The family of Vice President-elect Joe Biden also attended. The Obamas waved to bystanders, then entered the church to applause from about 200 people. The choir and congregation began singing the hymn, "O God Our Help in Ages Past.''

Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., of Los Angeles, drew murmurs and chuckles when he blessed the Obamas and asked that "they may finish these two terms in office" stronger than they are now.

The Obamas and Joe and Jill Biden went for coffee at the White House with President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney and their wives. Then they plan to travel the short distance to the Capitol for Mr. Obama's history-making moment.

Just beyond the White House fence, huge crowds braved freezing temperatures and jostled for positions to see -- with the naked eye or on Jumbotron screens -- Mr. Obama take the oath of office at noon with his hand on the Bible that once belonged to the last president to hail from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.

The 44th president will stand opposite the Lincoln Memorial, two miles away, where 45 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. called upon the nation to judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Mr. Obama spent Monday celebrating Dr. King's birthday as a day of service, while street vendors sold memorabilia juxtaposing the images of the two black leaders.

Little official business is expected Tuesday in Washington. The real work of the new president will begin Wednesday, Mr. Obama's first full day in office. Aides said one of the new president's first actions will be summoning his national security team to begin preparing for a 16-month withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, one of the main promises of his two-year-long campaign for the presidency.

That's just one of the new policies symbolizing the change to come as Washington shifts from eight years of Republican rule under George W. Bush. Within days, Mr. Obama also is expected to issue executive orders to begin closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one of the most controversial symbols of the Bush administration's war on terror; reversing Mr. Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and restoring funding for family-planning programs overseas.

On the economic front, Mr. Obama's administration is likely to soon issue new regulations forcing recipients of Wall Street bailout funds to be more transparent with the money, an aide said. The most-ailing financial institutions won't be forced to lend immediately, but healthier banks will be under pressure to move money from their vaults into the economy. "Transparency is going to make a big difference," the aide said.

The inauguration caps a weekend of events and pageantry, and officials predict as many as two million people will seek a spot on the National Mall. The inauguration will join Washington's biggest events, ranking with Dr. King's 1963 March on Washington, Lyndon Johnson's 1965 inauguration, and protests against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.

Stuck in Traffic

By 4 a.m., lines of riders had already formed in suburban parking lots for the Metro transit system, which opened early and put on extra trains for the expected rush. Many parking lots filled up and had to be closed.

Warming tents and other facilities on the Mall were late opening because traffic and crowds delayed staffers from reaching them. Ticket holders approaching the Inaugural site on Capitol Hill awaited security sweeps in a line estimated at thousands.

"If you are black in America right now, that's all the inspiration you need -- a black president!" said David Reed, 39 years old, an African-American from Lexington, Ky., who was selling the comics Monday.

Britt Loudd of Charlotte, N.C., said that as a precinct organizer she made more than 2,200 calls for the campaign. Her three children, who joined her in Washington, also volunteered. "There was no choice," said Mrs. Loudd. "We had to be here."

Visitors made their way through a maze of crowd-control barriers and past dozens of sellers hawking wrist bands, T-shirts and a Spider-Man comic featuring Mr. Obama on the cover.

At the Capitol, a plexiglass shield extended about two feet up from the balustrade around the speaker's platform. Near the lectern, were seats reserved for Muhammad Ali, Elie Wiesel and Martin Luther King III.

Other groups of seats were saved for past presidents, vice presidents and their spouses -- the Clintons, the Gores, the Bushes and the Quayles. Each seat was furnished with a dark blue fleece blanket.

At the swearing-in ceremony, seated behind Mr. Obama, will be his chosen cabinet, including Hillary Clinton, expected to be confirmed as secretary of state later Tuesday. Also behind him will be his defeated election opponent, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath of office to Mr. Obama following the swearing in of his vice president, Joe Biden, by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

President Bush will be there, too, departing immediately after the ceremony on a Marine chopper en route to Texas, where he will begin the next chapter of his life as an ex-president.

Before Mr. Obama speaks, the evangelical Rev. Rick Warren will deliver the invocation, a choice that infuriated gay-rights activists but signaled the new president's interest in reaching out to Americans who are not part of his political base.

The swearing-in will be followed by a luncheon at the Capitol and a parade featuring high-school marching bands, drill teams and floats. The evening will conclude with 10 official inaugural balls and countless unofficial parties.

Pitching In

Mr. Obama on Monday spoke the message he will deliver at his swearing-in: The time has come for a new culture of public service, as well as a new national unity after years of bitter partisan political division.

"Given the crisis that we're in and the hardships that so many people are going through, we can't allow any idle hands," Mr. Obama said, taking a break from painting a dormitory at Sasha Bruce House, a shelter for homeless teens. "Everybody's got to be involved. Everybody's going to have to pitch in, and I think the American people are ready for that."

Throughout his campaign, Mr. Obama stressed that a nation that should have been rallied to service after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, instead drifted to complacency and consumerism. One of his first political promises was a $3.5 billion-a-year service plan to expand the AmeriCorps program established by President Bill Clinton by 250,000 slots, double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011, expand the Foreign Service, and create an Energy Corps to conduct renewable-energy and environmental-cleanup projects.

During appearances on Monday, Mr. Obama returned to the themes of unity and self-reliance.

"I am making a commitment to you as the next president, that we are going to make government work," he told volunteers at Coolidge High. "But I can't do it by myself. Michelle can't do it by herself. Government can only do so much....If we're waiting for someone else to do something, it never gets done."

—T.W. Farnam contributed to this article.