Mayors Demand Vast Urban Aid : Protest: Thousands of marchers gather near the White House and warn that rioting in Los Angeles shows cities are on a razor’s edge. They call for federal funding.

WASHINGTON —  Led by mayors of many of the nation’s biggest cities, tens of thousands of protesters descended upon the capital Saturday to demand billions of federal dollars to avert a repeat of the Los Angeles riots in other troubled urban areas.

“The flames that rose in Los Angeles have died,” New York Mayor David N. Dinkins told the crowd, “but dust from the city’s ashes remains on each of us. We all know that there, but for the grace of God, goes our city.”

Sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the march and demonstration on the grounds of the Washington Monument featured an array of speakers representing the mayors, black organizations, labor unions and the Democratic Party.

Almost all demanded that the Bush Administration cut its spending on defense and foreign aid and start reinvesting in the cities. Otherwise, speakers warned, the burning and looting of Los Angeles are sure to burst forth elsewhere.

The crowd cheered as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) shouted, “Listen up, Mr. Bush, we got something we want to tell you . . . . I want some foreign aid for Washington, D.C. I want some foreign aid for Watts. I want some foreign aid for Chicago. I want some foreign aid up in the Bronx. It’s time to reinvest in America.

“My city went up in flames. . . . There still is a lot of anger there. You can send a message to the people of my city. Let them know you understand their anger and rage.”

The “Save Our Cities, Save Our Children” march and rally had been planned months before the Los Angeles rioting, but the verdict in the Rodney G. King beating trial and its aftermath became the main theme of the day as many demonstrators chanted, “No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace.” Others chanted, “All fired up, can’t take it no more.”

The crowd even sang King’s plea for an end to the looting and bloodshed in Los Angeles, words that have now been set to music.

Estimates of the crowd size varied. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke told the crowd they numbered 200,000, but U.S. Park Police estimated that 35,000 people attended and Washington police estimated 150,000 were there. Organizers said the march was supported by 150 mayors and 220 national and local organizations.

Despite the angry rhetoric, there was no mood of fury. Many families sat on the grass picnicking. Some of the digs at President Bush evoked a good deal of laughter.

Although the rally was staged across the Ellipse from the White House, Bush was not there to see it. He was in Dallas, where he told the graduating class of Southern Methodist University: “I’m a little tired of the pessimism in this country . . . . I’m making the case that America’s best days lie before us.”

Asked about the demonstration, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters in Texas: “I don’t know anything about it. We have marches every weekend.”

The protesters marched from the Capitol down Constitution Avenue to the Washington Monument and were led by prominent Democrats, including Dinkins, New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, two-time presidential candidate the Rev. Jesse Jackson and present presidential contender Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.

The leaders were casually dressed--Cuomo, for example, in shirt-sleeves and Dinkins in a white guayabera shirt and red baseball cap.

Mayors from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco were absent from the event, although organizers said mayors from several smaller California cities attended.

Most marchers, a little more than half of them black, were from East Coast cities, such as New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Many wore T-shirts, jeans or slacks and crumpled baseball caps. Most carried hand-lettered signs, often with anti-Bush slogans.

Among a group of protesters demanding subsidies for housing, one held up a sign reading, “Bush lives rent free.” Another sign read simply, “Shame on America.”

The parade of speakers sounded common urban themes. Endorsing a demand by the Conference of Mayors for $15 billion in federal aid to the cities, Cuomo said: “You can bring this nation together right now to save our cities or stand and watch this nation explode from Los Angeles to New York. Mr. President, so far you have done nothing but wring your hands.”

In comparatively low-key comments, Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.), who once served as a Peace Corps official and a civil rights adviser to President John F. Kennedy, told the crowd that he had recently toured South Los Angeles just as he had once toured Watts after the riots of 1965.

“Then as now,” he said, “the refrain from the ‘60s song ‘When Will We Ever Learn?’ went through my head. It’s a national problem.”

In a statement, the organizers blamed many of the cities’ problems on “the dramatic shift of funds from domestic programs to the military.” Spending for the military increased by $579 billion during the 1980s, the statement said, while federal funds to cities and states were cut by $78 billion.

Covering many subjects in a few minutes, Jackson drew loud cheers as he ridiculed politicians for blaming the nation’s problems on the welfare system and on competition from Japan.

“Don’t talk about welfare,” he said. “Welfare didn’t close plants down. Welfare didn’t wipe out housing. Welfare is the exhaust pipe. Let’s look at the engine.”

And he told the crowd not to blame Japan for the country’s problems. “Why is Japan strong? Japan pays teachers what we pay doctors and lawyers.”

Jackson called for a national day of protest on June 19 to demonstrate against police brutality and corporations that fail to invest in America and generate jobs.

NAACP Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks took aim at Republican politicians who sing “ ‘We Shall Overcome,’ and then forget about us when the election is over.

“Republicans, you stop coming to our church when you need us for your votes.”

Brown was not given an opportunity to speak, disappointing supporters and staff members of the former California governor.

It was an overcast, relatively cool day for Washington in May. Hawkers did a brisk sale in T-shirts that sported such maxims as “The hardest job in America is the black man” and in garish buttons with such slogans as “Fund our cities. Tax the rich.”

Various fringe organizations like the Communist Party, Trotskyites and Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. followers took advantage of the crowds to set up booths to promote their agendas.

Times staff writer Alan C. Miller contributed to this story.