White House Egg Roll limited to military families
From Christine Brennan
CNN Washington Bureau
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The annual White House Easter Egg Roll is set for Monday, April 21.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which last year attracted 40,000 visitors to the South Lawn on Easter Monday, will be scaled down this year to include only active duty military and reservists' families.
The White House "regrets" that the event is smaller this year, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. The change was necessary for security reasons, he said.
The April 21 event is expected to draw about 12,000 people.
Fleischer said the Easter Egg Roll "will recognize and honor the active duty and reserve military service members and their families." Tickets will be distributed through the Department of Defense
There is a precedent for changing the venue, Fleischer said. During World War II, the Easter Egg Roll was held at the National Zoo. According to the White House Web site, a White House renovation following the war kept the rollers away for several years, even bringing them back to the Capitol, before President Eisenhower returned it to the White House in 1953.
The first White House Easter Egg Roll was in 1878. According to the White House, the event originally was held on the Capitol grounds, but the children proved to be enough of a nuisance that Congress passed the Turf Protection Law in 1876 to prevent future events such as the Egg Roll.
The event was rained out in 1877, but the public was informed in 1878 by a newspaper notice that children would not be allowed to roll eggs on the Capitol grounds.
There are two accounts as to what happened next, according to the White House Web site. Either the displaced rollers showed up at the gates of the White House and demanded to hold the event there, or President Rutherford B. Hayes invited them to the White House out of sympathy for their plight.
