March 4, 1925: The Inauguration of Calvin Coolidge

March 4, 1925, 100 years ago: Calvin Coolidge, who became the 30th President of the United States upon the death of Warren Harding in 1923, and won a full term of his own in 1924, is sworn in as President. Charles G. Dawes, a former U.S. Ambassador to Britain, is sworn in as Vice President.

A 52-year-old native of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, and Governor of Massachusetts when he was elected Vice President in 1920, he is sworn in on the West Front of the Capitol Building, by the Chief Justice, himself a former President, William Howard Taft.

This was the 1st time that a former President swore in an incoming President. In spite of this, Taft goofed on the Oath of Office: Instead of asking Coolidge to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," it came out, "protect, preserve and defend." Four years later, for Herbert Hoover, Taft goofed again, making it "preserve, and maintain, and defend…"

His reputation as "Silent Cal" led to a story that two women at a White House party made a bet, and one walked up to Coolidge and said, "I made a bet with my friend that I could get you to say at least three words to me," and Coolidge said, "You lose." Belying this reputation, this speech was, and remains, the 6th-longest Inaugural Address of any President. His Inaugural Address is the 1st to be broadcast on radio. Unfortunately, no sound recording of the Address survives.

The Address is not especially memorable. He closes by saying, "America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and force. No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. The legions which she sends forth are armed, not with the sword, but with the cross. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God."

The theme of his 1924 election campaign was "Keep Cool with Coolidge"; alternately, "Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge." The scandals of the late President Harding were forgotten: Coolidge was a model of propriety. And the country enjoyed "Coolidge Prosperity," and enjoyed an isolationist foreign policy: There were no international entanglements during his time in office.

On vacation in the Summer of 1927, he told the press, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928." Maybe he saw the writing on the wall, that an economic crash was coming. Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce under Harding and Coolidge, was elected, and was left holding the bag for the Crash of 1929. Coolidge escaped blame for the Great Depression.

He died on January 5, 1933, 2 months before his 2nd full term, had he sought it and won it, would have ended. He remains the modern model for a boring President: When told he had died, theater critic Dorothy Parker said, "How can you tell?"

March 4, 1825: The Inauguration of John Quincy Adams

March 4, 1825, 200 years ago: John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, is Inaugurated as the 6th President of the United States, in the House of Representatives Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building.

John C. Calhoun, the outgoing U.S. Secretary of War, is sworn in as Vice President.

Certainly, Adams was qualified for the office. He had been a U.S Senator from Massachusetts; U.S. Minister to the Netherlands, Prussia (Germany), Russia and Britain; and Secretary of State under the previous President, James Monroe.

But he becomes President under controversial circumstances, having not won the popular vote or the initial Electoral Vote, and having been elected by the U.S. House of Representatives thanks to a competitor, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, throwing Adams his support, in what appears to have been a quid pro quo, as Adams appointed Clay to be Secretary of State -- at the time, tantamount to being named heir presumptive as President -- allowing him to win over the man who led in both the popular and the Electoral Vote, General Andrew Jackson.

Sworn in by Chief Justice John Marshall, he is the only President to swear the Oath of Office with his hand on a book other than a Bible, using a book of laws. And, as the 1st President who could not be counted among the "Founding Fathers," he changed the fashion of the ceremony: Instead of long hair tied in a queue, he had his hair cut short; and instead of the traditional knee breeches, he wore long trousers.

As Thomas Jefferson had, following the previous most contentious election, he tried a conciliatory tone in his Inaugural Address, saying, "The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative opinions or in different views of administrative policy are in their nature transitory." He noted his status as the 1st minority-vote President by saying, "I am deeply conscious of the prospect that I shall stand more and oftener in need of your indulgence."

His Presidency was a failure. The Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with him, and what had become the National Republican Party discovered that the natural contentious personality common to the Adams men was rather strong in him. He got very little done, and when his rematch with Andrew Jackson came in 1828, he was soundly defeated.

In 1830, he became the 1st former President to be elected to the House of Representatives. He served a District outside Boston, becoming the House's leading advocate for the abolition of slavery, until his death in 1848.

March 1, 1945: FDR's Last Speech

March 1, 1945, 80 years ago: President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses a Joint Session of Congress, at the Capitol Building in Washington.

Just 18 days earlier, he had concluded the Yalta Conference, meeting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, in the Crimea, on Stalin's home turf. They discussed how to finish the European and Pacific phases of World War II, and what to do with the defeated nations afterward, and how to rebuild the postwar world.

Due to having contracted polio in 1921, whenever FDR had to give a public speech, would be "walked" up to the podium by holding onto a cane with one hand and an aide's arm with the other. His braces would be adjusted so that he could stand, and he would then deliver his speech.

But now, early in his 4th term, he was 63 years old, tired, and sick: His blood pressure was much too high, and he had heart disease. As I said, it had been 18 days since Yalta had wrapped up. Had he been healthy, then, given the transportation modes then available, he could have needed only about half that to get home and prepare his remarks for Congress.

And it wasn't just rest he needed: He wasn't going to be able to stand to make the speech. For the 1st time, he addressed Congress from his wheelchair. Also for the 1st time during his Presidency, in an address broadcast coast-to-coast over the nation's radio networks, he made a public reference to his disability. 

He began as follows: "I hope that you will pardon me for this unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation of what I want to say. But I know that you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me not to have to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs; and also because of the fact that I have just completed a fourteen-thousand-mile trip." The members of Congress applauded.

He added, "First of all, I want to say, it is good to be home." More applause. He went on: "It has been a long journey. I hope you will also agree that it has been, so far, a fruitful one. Speaking in all frankness, the question of whether it is entirely fruitful or not lies to a great extent in your hands. For unless you here in the halls of the American Congress, with the support of the American people, concur in the general conclusions reached at Yalta, and give them your active support, the meeting will not have produced lasting results."

In other words, unless Congress properly funded the Department of War to end the job of the war, and the Department of State to start the job of the peace, then the war effort, which had already killed about 300,000 Americans, would have amounted to nothing.

Roosevelt went on to explain the progress of our fighting men. U.S. troops had already crossed into German territory. Six days later, they would cross the Rhine River at the Ludendorff Bridge. He spoke of why Yalta was chosen as the site, because it was once a Black Sea resort, and of what the Nazis had done to devastate it. So he spoke of how the Nazis had to pay for what they'd done, but that the German people shouldn't have to suffer any further.

And he spoke of building a new international organization to replace the failed League of Nations, the United Nations, with a Charter that would be based on the Constitution of the United States.

He also said, "On the way back from the Crimea, I made arrangements to meet personally King Farouk of Egypt; Halle Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia; and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Our conversations had to do with matters of common interest. They will be of great mutual advantage because they gave me, and a good many of us, an opportunity of meeting and talking face to face, and of exchanging views in personal conversation instead of formal correspondence."

He said, "Twenty-five years ago, American fighting men looked to the statesmen of the world to finish the work of peace for which they fought and suffered. We failed them then. We cannot fail them again, and expect the world again to survive."

Ever since the Yalta Conference, conservatives have claimed that FDR "betrayed" Eastern Europe by leaving it to Stalin there. But the war was not over. Germany was still fighting, even if the end, there, was in sight. Japan was still fighting, with no end in sight. The Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were yet to come. FDR needed the Soviet Union in that fight.

The Red Army was already in control of most of Poland by the time they met at Yalta. In other words, Poland and Eastern Europe were not Roosevelt's to "sell." Stalin already had already "bought" them, his "currency" being the lives of millions of Soviet soldiers.

FDR also knew that the United Nations would be stronger after the war if the Soviets were in it. He agreed to some concessions at Yalta, for the same reason he cut his social programs short, telling a reporter, "Dr. New Deal had to give way to Dr. Win the War."

FDR never made another public speech. This address, and his Inaugural Address on January 20, would be his only public appearances in the U.S. during his 4th term. He left Washington, and returned to his home in Hyde Park, New York. But he didn't think he was getting the rest he needed there. So, on March 30, he left for his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he had previously gone in his vain attempt to regain the use of his legs. He died there on April 12. Not only was the war not finished, but Adolf Hitler was still alive and in charge -- albeit of a quickly crumbling Third Reich.

After FDR's death, it was 18 days before Hitler killed himself, rather than be taken by Soviet troops; 26 days before Germany surrendered, V-E Day; and 134 days before Japan surrendered, V-J Day.

Between the lasting legacy of the New Deal, and the way he set things up for the postwar world, perhaps FDR's greatest achievement was building a world that didn't need him anymore.

March 26, 1964: Martin Luther King & Malcolm X Meet

March 26, 1964, 60 years ago: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, the opposing poles of the Civil Rights Movement, meet face-to-face for the first time. It will turn out to be the only time.

They both had the goal of making life better for black Americans. They disagreed as to the means. Martin preferred nonviolent resistance. Malcolm wanted a tougher stance. He called Martin "a 20th Century Uncle Tom." Martin said of Malcolm's ideas, "Fiery, demagogic oratory in the Black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief."

Nevertheless, in July 1963, Malcolm invited Martin to join a rally in Harlem. He called for a period of racial unity to fight white oppression, writing, "If capitalistic Kennedy and communistic Khrushchev can find something in common on which to form a United Front despite their tremendous ideological differences, it is a disgrace for Negro leaders not to be able to submerge our 'minor' differences in order to seek a common solution to a common problem posed by a Common Enemy." But Martin never responded to the invitation, and didn't show up.

On one occasion, Malcolm called Martin a "chump," and called other civil rights leaders "stooges of the white establishment." He called the August 28, 1963 March On Washington, ending at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King's finest moment, "the farce on Washington," and "a demonstration run by whites in front of a statue of a President who has been dead for a hundred years, and who didn't like us when he was alive."

On March 26, 1964, both men were on Capitol Hill in Washington, watching a U.S. Senate hearing regarding legislation aimed at ending segregation in public places and racial discrimination in employment. The bill had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy following intense lobbying by King and others, and, following JFK's assassination, was being shepherded through Congress by President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite harsh opposition by many Southern elected officials.

As Martin was wrapping up a press conference, he was approached by Malcolm, and the two shook hands and exchanged greetings. As cameras clicked away, Malcolm expressed his desire to become more active, saying, "I'm throwing myself into the heart of the civil rights struggle." Then, just as quickly as it began, the brief meeting between the two legends was over.

The Kennedy civil rights bill passed Congress, and Johnson signed it into law as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2. Johnson invited King to the signing ceremony, and gave him one of the signing pens. He did not invite Malcolm X, and it's unlikely that Malcolm would have accepted, anyway. There is no record of him ever having visited the White House.

By that point, Malcolm had returned from an extensive visit to North Africa and the Middle East, including a pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Having seen Muslims of every race and color, from all over the world, the trip fundamentally shifted his thinking on the issue of race in America. While not entirely denouncing his earlier positions, he adopted a more conciliatory approach, writing, "I was no less angry than I had been, but, at the same time, the true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision."

Malcolm X was assassinated in New York on February 21, 1965. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Each man was 39 years old at the time of his death. In the years to come, their widows, and then their children, would build strong friendships that uplifted the cause of civil rights.