Inaugural Offers Faithful a Chance to Make a Stand : Ceremony: Only 37,000 seats will be available for Clinton’s Jan. 20 oath-taking. Another 213,000 ticket-holders can expect a day of tired feet.

Most of the record quarter-million people who attend the Jan. 20 presidential inaugural will have to stand as they watch Bill Clinton take the oath of office, officials said Tuesday.

Although 250,000 tickets have been authorized for the inauguration ceremonies--compared to 150,000 for President Bush’s oath-taking four years ago--only 37,000 seats will be available. The other 213,000 ticket holders will be entitled only to standing room that could be far from the action in an area stretching from the Capitol for three or four blocks down the Mall.

“Bring your binoculars,” said a spokesman for the Joint Congressional Committee on the Inaugural, who gave assurances that there would be a direct line of sight to the events taking place as much as a quarter-mile away.

Additional spectators--without tickets--are expected to gather behind the throng.

Even members of Congress will not get all the tickets they want, the spokesman added. Each senator will get 28 seats and 365 standing-room admissions. Their House counterparts will get 21 seats and 177 places for standees for the main event at noon on Jan. 20.

A random check of congressional offices indicated that Americans will be coming from all parts of the nation, from big cities and small towns, to join in the celebration of the nation’s 42nd chief executive.

“I think they want to be part of history,” said Joyce Kravitz, press secretary for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Souvenir invitations to the event will be sent out this week, with invitations to the 10 inaugural balls to be mailed early next week. Within the next few days, an inaugural spokeswoman said, an 800-number will be set up to provide information on how the public may obtain free tickets to other events and buy seats for the inaugural parade that will follow the swearing-in.

“Our phones haven’t stopped ringing,” the spokeswoman said.

Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) discovered that nursing home residents in Denton, Ky., wanted to come to the Capitol for the inaugural. An aide in the office of Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said that at least 800 people from the lightly populated Pine Tree state plan to travel to Washington for inaugural festivities.

As Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday, final arrangements for their swearing-in ceremony were announced.

The Rev. Billy Graham, who has taken part in inaugurals in 1969 and 1989, was selected to give the invocation and benediction. Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne will sing an “American Medley” and the national anthem and a choir from Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., will perform an original composition by Marvin V. Curtis, music professor at Virginia Union University, entitled “City on the Hill.”

Following tradition dating back to the inauguration of John Adams in 1797, Clinton will be sworn in by the chief justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist, while Gore will take the oath from retired Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Maya Angelou, a poet and writer, will recite her inaugural poem following Clinton’s traditional address to the nation and the world.

The U.S. Marine Band again will play during the ceremony and provide music for an hour before the ceremony begins.

A total of 900 volunteers have agreed to help the inaugural committee handle the flood of requests for information about the five-day “American Reunion” set for Jan. 17 to 21 to observe the transfer of power from George Bush to the man called William Jefferson Clinton on the official inaugural program.

People calling with questions about tickets are excited about coming to Washington for the change of command, officials said, even though they have not participated in political campaigns themselves.

“It is fitting that this will be the most accessible inauguration in history,” said Ford.