January 20, 1961, 60 years ago: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Bostonian who had served the previous 8 years in the U.S. Senate, and the 6 years before that in the U.S. House of Representatives, is inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
(This had been the traditional site for the Inauguration since 1817. Since 1981, it has been done on the West Front of the Capitol.)
On November 8, 1960, as the Democratic Party's nominee for the office, he had narrowly defeated the Republican Party's nominee, the man who was then the Vice President, Richard Nixon, seeking to succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 1st President who had been restricted to 2 terms by the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
At 43, JFK (so often referred to by his initials) was the youngest man ever elected to the office. Theodore Roosevelt had been the youngest President to serve, just short of turning 43 when he was sworn into the office in 1901 following the assassination of William McKinley. However, when he won a term of his own, he was older than JFK was at his Inauguration.
Kennedy was sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Earl Warren. The new Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texan who had been the Senate's Majority Leader, was sworn in by the Speaker of the House, John McCormack, like Kennedy a Bostonian. Outgoing President Eisenhower, outgoing Vice President Nixon, and former President Harry Truman were in attendance. (The other former President then still living, Herbert Hoover, 86 years old, was not.)
Earlier, Cardinal Richard Cushing, Archbishop of Kennedy's hometown of Boston, delivered the Invocation. (Kennedy was the 1st Roman Catholic to become President.) Marian Anderson, a black opera singer who famously sang at the Lincoln Memorial in a nationally broadcast concert on Easter 1939, following her denial of the chance to sing at Washington's Constitution Hall, sang the National Anthem. Robert Frost, like Kennedy a New Englander, read a poem for the occasion.
Kennedy had won by evoking a previous President known for his initials and his activism, FDR: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had made the argument that the Eisenhower-Nixon Administration had stood still on the great issues of the time: Civil rights, health care, labor, and various issues relating to foreign policy. (At the time, the rights of women and LGBT people, the legal status of abortion, and the protection of the environment were almost totally ignored.) And his victory was a narrow one.
So he knew he needed an Inaugural Address which, like FDR's in 1933, would be both hopeful and unifying. Gerald Ford, then a Congressman from Michigan, was in attendance, and would eventually become President himself, with an Inaugural Address that, even more, needed to be hopeful and unifying. In an interview years after he left the White House, Ford said it was bitterly cold in Washington that day, following a big snowfall the night before, and the Capitol grounds had barely been cleared of snow. Ford remembered people sharing his hope that the address would be brief.
They got their wish: The delivery of the 1,366 words took 14 minutes. Kennedy began magnanimously: "We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change."
But the change from the 70-year-old, bald and terribly-old-looking Eisenhower to the 43-year-old, dark-haired, full of vigor -- or "vigah," in his accent -- Kennedy, whose wife Jacqueline was only 31 and whose children were then ages 3 years and 2 months, could not have been more stark.
And he pointed out the generational difference, that leadership of the country was passing from the commanders of World War II to its fighters: "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."
He knew that his experience and his maturity had been questioned. So his next line was very determined -- but, in hindsight, perhaps a bit much: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more."
In fact, the Address was almost completely devoted to America's relations with other nations, rather than to domestic affairs:
To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share: We pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do, for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free: We pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom, and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery: We pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
To our sister republics south of our border: We offer a special pledge, to convert our good words into good deed, in a new alliance for progress, to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.
To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace: We renew our pledge of support, to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary: We offer not a pledge, but a request, that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
It was ambitious, but it was also idealistic. But Kennedy was also a realist, saying, "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."
Kennedy had been a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during World War II, ready to serve in spite of his physical infirmities, and forced by circumstance to save his men following a Japanese attack: When asked during his 1st campaign for Congress, in 1946, "How did you become a war hero," he told the truth, and never forgot it: "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."
Due to personal experience, he never forgot that war makes men do risky things, perhaps even terrible things, to assure the survival of their country. He thus wanted to make war as unnecessary as possible, especially now that both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons. Every bit as much as the generations that fought for the patriot causes in the War of the American Revolution and the American Civil War, he knew that his generation, the one that fought World War II, had been forced to step in at a grave moment.
And he knew that moment was not over, because a new generation was coming up, and would have to face difficult times and home and abroad. So he spoke to that generation as well:
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it!
I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
Those words should have lived forever. They lived all of 5 seconds, because of what he said next, to being his closing:
And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world: Ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.
With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Along with the 2 Inaugural Addresses of Abraham Lincoln, and the 1st of FDR, JFK is regarded as having produced -- with notable help from speechwriters Theodore C. Sorenson and Richard Goodwin -- one of the greatest Inaugural Address of any President.
Kennedy's time as President was, as Theodore Roosevelt would have put it, a "crowded hour." But in spite of all he did, and tried to do, he is remembered today mainly for two things: The way his Presidency began, with a legendary campaign and an epic Inaugural Address; and the way his Presidency ended, with an assassin's bullets in broad daylight.
Three days before his Presidency began, and Eisenhower's ended, Eisenhower issued a Farewell Address, and it is the best-remembered speech of his Presidency, particularly the line that the leading American General of the 20th Century delivered about the combination of the U.S. Department of Defense and corporations:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
As the 1960s would prove, "Ike" was right. And he knew that he had been a part of it.
However, there were no scores on January 17, 1961: Baseball and football were out of season, and no games were scheduled for the NBA or the NHL for the day.
*
January 20, 1961 was a Friday. It was the off-season for baseball. The NFL season had ended 3 weeks before, with the NFL and AFL Championship Games (won by the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Oilers, respectively). There were no NHL games scheduled for the day.
And only 1 NBA game was: The Detroit Pistons beat the New York Knicks, 132-128 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Richie Guerin scored 35 points for the Knickerbockers, but it wasn't enough, as Bailey Howell scored 29, and Gene Shue, who would coach the Washington Bullets to the 1978 NBA Championship, added 26.
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