December 2, 1913: Woodrow Wilson Delivers the State of the Union -- Live

December 2, 1913: President Woodrow Wilson delivers his State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. He gives written copies to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Champ Clark of Missouri; and to his Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall, in his role as President of the Senate.

The speech itself was unremarkable. He stated, "The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will." Nor was the speech unusual for length: It was just over 3,500 words, and took 28 minutes to read. It recent years, the Address is usually twice that long, or longer; but, at the time, a major Presidential speech lasting under half an hour was no big deal.

The timing might seem odd to modern eyes: Prior to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in 1933, with its fixed date of January 3, Congress tended to take the Summer off, and then reconvene in early December. So, until then, Presidents would send their "Annual Message to Congress" to Congress in early December. Since then, it's usually done in late January or early February, at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, and usually on a Tuesday, though sometimes on a Wednesday.

A new President, in his 1st few weeks on the job, will usually give an address before a joint session of Congress, but this 1st one is not generally called "The State of the Union Address." A few outgoing Presidents have given such addresses, but none has since Gerald Ford in 1977.

What was unusual about the message was that it was delivered in person at all. That hadn't happened in 113 years.

In the Constitution, Article II, Section 3, Clause 1, spells out this particular duty of the President: "He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

But the Constitution doesn't say how it shall be done. On the TV show The West Wing, series creator and main writer Aaron Sorkin had his fictional President's White House Director of Communications, Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff), say, "The President could simply buy Congress a subscription to The Wall Street Journal, and fulfill the Constitutional obligations."

George Washington delivered the 1st regular annual message before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1790, at Federal Hall in New York, then the provisional U.S. capital. He did so every year thereafter, as did John Adams.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of delivering the address in person, regarding it as too monarchical, similar to the British monarch's "Speech from the Throne" before Parliament. That was his official reason. In reality, he never felt good about public speaking: He made only 2 public speeches as President, his Inaugural Addresses. Like some other Presidents -- George H.W. Bush comes to mind -- he was much more at ease speaking to small groups than to large audiences.

Jefferson has often been regarded as the best writer among Presidents, and sent his Annual Message by mail. Every President followed him -- even Theodore Roosevelt, who loved public speaking as much as any President ever has, though he was also a renowned writer -- until Wilson. Every President since has delivered it live, except for Herbert Hoover. (Richard Nixon delivered one in writing in 1973, and Jimmy Carter in 1981, but each had otherwise done it live.)

The part that usually bugs me about the ceremony is that the House's Sergeant at Arms introduces the President, and he takes his own sweet time in shaking hands and taking on the way to the rostrum, and then soaks in the standing ovation (from his own Party, at least), and then the Speaker of the House starts the process all over again by saying, "I have the high honor and distinct privilege of presenting to you the President of the United States." And then there's another ovation. And people wonder why the speech lasts so long: It's not always the fault of the President or his writers.

In the days of the written message, the best-remembered one is from 1823, when James Monroe delivered the Monroe Doctrine, defining American foreign policy in ways that still matter today. Notable moments in the spoken version have included:

* 1941: Franklin D. Roosevelt discussing what he called the Four Freedoms.

* 1944: FDR proposing what he called the Second Bill of Rights.

* 1964: Lyndon Johnson introducing what he called the War On Poverty.

* 1975: Gerald Ford actually telling the American people the truth, saying, "The State of the Union is not good." Two years later, leaving office, he was able to say, with some truth, "The State of the Union is good."

* 1984: Ronald Reagan delivered the Address on February 6, his 73rd birthday, and Congress sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

* 1994: Bill Clinton saying, "The State of our Union is strong," but also telling Congress that if they sent him legislation on health care reform that didn't cover every American citizen, he would veto it and force them to start over. He even held up a pen as a prop. The threat failed.

* 1998: Clinton delivering the Address mere days after the exposure of his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, acting as though nothing out of the unusual was happening, and winning back some of the American people.

* 1999: Clinton delivering the Address while his Impeachment trial, connected with the affair, was ongoing in the Senate, again acting like it was just another SOTU.

* 2002: George W. Bush calling Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of evil." It wasn't true.

* 2020: Donald Trump delivering it having already been impeached by the Democratic-controlled House, and acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Since 1966, the opposing party has delivered a televised response. Usually, it's either a leader of that party in either house of Congress, or someone that party would like to set up as a potential opponent for the incumbent's re-election. The latter has never, ever worked: Although Ford, George H.W. Bush and Clinton did it and later became President, none did so in the term in which they delivered the response; and the only responder to ever even be nominated in the year in question has been Bob Dole in 1996, and he lost to Clinton solidly.

*

December 2, 1913 was a Tuesday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball season was over, football was in midweek, professional basketball barely existed, and the seasons of the National Hockey Association and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association started a few days later.

September 20, 2009: Obama: Five Sunday Morning Talk Shows In One Day

September 20, 2009: President Barack Obama makes history by appearing on 5 Sunday news/talk shows on the same day: CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNN's State of the Union with John King, NBC/MSNBC's Meet The Press with Tim Russert, and Spanish network Univision's Al Punto con Jorge Ramos (On Point).

Wherever they were that day, John McCain, and the man whose record for most Meet the Press appearances he beat, Bob Dole, were probably wondering why they never tried it. Well, they wouldn't have been asked to try it, since they didn't get elected President.

Herbert Hoover appeared on Meet the Press as a former President in 1955. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, 2 years before the show premiered. Neither Harry Truman nor Dwight D. Eisenhower ever appeared on the show, either. John F. Kennedy appeared 8 times, the 1st in 1951, while he was still in the U.S. House of Representatives; and the last in 1960, shortly before that year's election. Lyndon Johnson only appeared once, the day before the 1960 Democratic Convention began.

Richard Nixon appeared 7 times. Gerald Ford was a regular as House Minority Leader, and on November 9, 1975, he became the 1st incumbent President to be interviewed on the show. Jimmy Carter appeared 11 times, including once as President. Ronald Reagan appeared 7 times, all before becoming President. George H.W. Bush made 5 appearances, including 3 as President. George W. Bush appeared 3 times, including 1 as President. Bill Clinton has appeared 5 times, including once as President, on the show's 50th Anniversary broadcast in 1997.

Barack Obama has appeared on the show 12 times. His 2009 appearance was followed by another while in office, in 2014. Donald Trump has appeared on the show, and, due to his long career as Senator, Vice President and President, Joe Biden holds the record among people who have served as President: 50 times.

*

September 20, 2009 was, as stated, a Sunday. These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys, 33-31 at Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. This was the Cowboys' 1st regular-season game in their new stadium, later to be renamed AT&T Stadium.

* The New York Jets beat the New England Patriots, 16-9 at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.

* The New Orleans Saints beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 48-22 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Redskins beat the St. Louis Rams, 9-7 at FedEx Field in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers, 28-20 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

* The Arizona Cardinals beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 31-17 at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium (now EverBank Field).

* The Houston Texans beat the Tennessee Titans, 34-31 at LP Field (now Nissan Stadium) in Nashville. So the new Houston team beat the former Houston team, as the Titans had been the Oilers.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 33-20 at Ralph Wilson Stadium (formerly Rich Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Detroit Lions, 27-13 at Ford Field in Detroit.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-14 at the new Soldier Field in Chicago.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Green Bay Packers, 31-24 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 13-10 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Denver Broncos beat the Cleveland Browns, 27-6 at Invesco Field at Mile High (now Empower Field at Mile High) in Denver.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the San Diego Chargers, 31-26 at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium).

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 23-10 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the next night, on ESPN Monday Night Football, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Miami Dolphins, 27-23 at Land Shark Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.

And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Seattle Mariners, 7-1 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle. Ian Snell outpitched Joba Chamberlain. Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and 4 RBIs. Derek Jeter went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets beat the Washington Nationals, 6-2 at Citi Field. John Maine was the winning pitcher.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-3 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-2 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-1 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Kevin Correia pitched 7 innings of 6-hit shutout ball, and 3 relievers completed the 8-hit shutout.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 8-1 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-1 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Houston Astros, 6-0 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee. Yovani Gallardo pitched 5 innings of 3-hit shutout ball, and 3 relievers completed a 5-hit shutout.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Jake Fox hit a home run in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 10-5 at Rangers Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-1 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 6-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-4 at the Oakland Coliseum.

April 30, 1948: The Film “State of the Union” Premieres

April 30, 1948: The film State of the Union premieres, directed by Frank Capra. Spencer Tracy plays a business lord who runs for President with absolutely no previous political experience. He cheats on his wife, and his wife knows it. The media is in his back pocket. He makes speeches that unnecessarily alienate people.

But the similarities to Donald Trump end there. He is repentant. He knows he is not meant to be president. He is not a bigot. And his hair is normal.

Ironically, Tracy's real-life mistress, Katharine Hepburn, plays the wronged wife. The mistress is played by Angela Lansbury, and she will try again to unduly influence a Presidential election, in 1962, in The Manchurian Candidate.

Despite seeming to favor underdog figures in his films, Capra was a lifelong conservative Republican who supported GOP candidates from Calvin Coolidge to Ronald Reagan. Despite directing populist films often associated with New Deal, liberal ideals, Capra personally despised Franklin D. Roosevelt, opposed government intervention, and admired certain right-wing figures.

Tracy, Hepburn and Lansbury were Democrats. Adolphe Menjou, who played a Republican strategist, was a staunch Republican in real life as well. Also appearing in the film were Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz; and a now-grown Carl Switzer, the former Alfalfa of Our Gang, as a bellboy.

*

April 30, 1948 was a Friday. MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and hockey coach Pierre Pagé were born. This was also the day the 1st Land Rover was produced. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Stephen "Bud" Souchock wasn't a Yankee for long, but, on this day, the 1st baseman hit 2 home runs. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4. Ted Williams went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Braves, 7-2 at the Polo Grounds. Johnny Sain went the distance for the win, while Giant starter Ray Poat didn't get out of the 3rd inning.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 11-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Erv Palica went the distance for the win, while Phils starter Emil "Dutch" Leonard didn't get out of the 2nd inning. Johnny "Spider" Jorgenson went 3-for-6 with an RBI. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-5 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 3-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 13-7 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. It was just another day at the office for Stan Musial: Stan the Man went 5-for-6 with a home run and 4 RBIs.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 10-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ralph Kiner went 3-for-5 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* And the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up a part of a doubleheader on August 11. The Indians won the opener, 7-5. Bob Lemon was the winning pitcher, helping his own cause by going 2-for-4, with Satchel Paige getting the save. The Browns won the nightcap, 12-4.

Over the 2 games, for the Tribe, shortstop and manager Lou Boudreau went 4-for-9 with 2 RBIs, Dale Mitchell went 6-for-10, Joe Gordon went 3-for-7 with a home run and 2 RBIs, Larry Doby went 2-for-8 with 2 walks and 3 RBIs, Jim Hegan went 3-for-6 with a walk.

For the Browns, Hank Arft went 5-for-9 with a walk and 6 RBIs, Dick Kokos went 5-for-8 with a walk and 3 RBIs, and Al Zarilla went 3-for-8 with a walk and an RBI.

January 29, 2002: George W. Bush Speaks of "An Axis of Evil"

Bush, flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney (left)

and the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert of Illinois

January 29, 2002: George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, delivers the State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress.

His speech was largely written by David Frum, a Toronto native who had volunteered for candidates of Canada's socialist New Democratic Party, but converted to conservatism after reading The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1973 account of the Soviet Union's prison system. He got degrees from Yale, then a law degree from Harvard, and worked for conservative publications: The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and The Weekly Standard. The last of these got the attention of the incoming Bush Administration, which hired Frum as a speechwriter.

The night of the speech, it had been a little more than 4 months after the 9/11 attacks, and a few months since the Administration announced that the man who ordered them, Osama bin Laden, was "surrounded" in the mountains of Afghanistan. And then... nothing. No mention of killing him. No mention of an arrest of him. No mention of progress on catching him. Nothing.

Oh yeah: The economy was in recession. The financial hit the country took as a result of the attack didn't help, but the cause was Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

Bush began the speech by saying:

Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, fellow citizens: As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger. 

Not the dumbest thing Bush had ever said, but not smart. Not a flat-out lie, because deciding how strong the nation is at a given time is a matter of opinion, but an opinion that the facts simply did not support.

Bush welcomed special guests, including the restored President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai; and Shannon Spann, widow of CIA officer Michael Spann, who had been killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan.

The speech lasted 48 minutes. Not once in it did Bush mention Osama bin Laden by name, or mention bin Laden's terrorist group, al-Qaeda. He did mention Iraq, Iran, and North Korea:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th.  But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

In both of these cases, Bush was telling the truth. However, neither nation then represented what the early 20th Century Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes would have called "a clear and present danger" to America.

But Bush brought a 3rd nation into the mix:

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

That last line was correct: America did need to keep its eyes on North Korea, Iran and Iraq. However, as we later found out, Bush was lying: Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, nor were they about to develop them anytime soon. Their dictator, President Saddam Hussein, had used poison gas on his own people, but it was all used up.

Having let bin Laden slip away, Bush wanted to change the subject before people realized that. So he tried to refocus America's attention to those 3 countries, and in particular to Iraq, to set up the war he was going to launch.

We eventually found out the truth: On January 27, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney convened a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, next-door to the White House, to discuss how a war with Iraq could be waged. Why? Not to stop their possession, or development, of WMDs, but to take its oil. Cheney had been an executive with energy company Halliburton, and he was still trying to make money for it, and saw a golden opportunity.

But first, he had to get into the White House. And he knew that his own candidacy wouldn't have a chance, despite having been Secretary of Defense under Bush's father, and House Minority Whip before that, and White House Chief of Staff even earlier, under President Gerald Ford. So he put together a group of business lords and evangelical leaders who bankrolled Bush, one thing led to another, and there they were. Now, as "the power behind the throne" -- or to use the Wizard of Oz analogy, "the man behind the curtain" -- he had the power, but not the responsibility.

In hindsight, the real axis of evil was on that podium: Bush, flanked by Cheney and the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who would later be imprisoned for child molestation.

Frum left the White House shortly thereafter that speech, joining the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, supporting the Iraq War. He was fired in 2010, because he criticized the intensity of the AEI's opposition to Obamacare. He began to turn away from the right wing, writing for The Atlantic, and supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. (UPDATE: In 2024, disgusted with the return to the Presidency of Donald Trump, he officially left the Republican Party.)

In 2002, George W. Bush said Iran, Iraq and North Korea were "an axis of evil." It was a lie.

Weeks later, he said of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, "I looked in his eyes, and got a sense of his soul. He's a good man."

Many years later, Donald Trump praised Putin and North Korea's leader. (UPDATE: In 2026, Trump launched a war against Iran. Gulf War II was a disaster, now, here was Gulf War III.)

*

January 29, 2002 was a Tuesday, as the State of the Union Address usually is. (Sometimes, it's a Wednesday.) Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl. There were 11 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 78-71 at Madison Square Garden.

 * The Detroit Pistons beat the Washington Wizards, 89-86 at the MCI Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington. Michael Jordan scored 32.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 127-93 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta. Kobe Bryant scored 32 points.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 114-81 at the Gund Arena (now the Rocket Arena) in Cleveland.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Boston Celtics, 109-90 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Los Angeles Clippers  beat the Dallas Mavericks, 117-100 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Golden State Warriors, 100-96 in overtime at at The Summit in Houston. It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church. Steve Francis had 33 points.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 78-73 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Miami Heat beat the Denver Nuggets, 100-94 in overtime at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver. Eddie Jones scored 37 for the Heat.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Chicago Bulls, 91-90 at the America West Arena in Phoenix.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat their arch-rivals, the Seattle SuperSonics, 92-86 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the New York Islanders, 3-1 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Center) in Philadelphia. Marty Murray scored the winning goal with 3:13 left in overtime.

* The Buffalo Sabres and the Carolina Hurricanes played to a tie, 2-2 at the Raleigh Sports and Entertainment Center (now the Lenovo Center) in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-3 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

January 11, 1944: FDR's "Second Bill of Rights"

January 11, 1944: President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers the State of the Union address – unusually for the 20th Century, with a filmed radio broadcast from the Oval Office of the White House, with the text delivered to Congress as mandated by the Constitution.

He uses it to propose what he calls a “Second Bill of Rights,” showing that “Dr. New Deal” hasn’t completely been put in neutral by “Dr. Win the War.”

Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:

* Employment, as in the right to work. (Definitely not to be confused with union-busting "right-to-work laws."

* An adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation.

* Farmers' rights to a fair income.

* Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies.

* Decent housing.
* Adequate medical care.

* Social security. (Which FDR had already given to people age 65 and up in 1935.)

* Education.

These rights have come to be known as economic rights. Although not to be enshrined within the constitution, the hope of advocating the policy was that it would be "encoded and guaranteed by federal law." Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee American security, and that the United States' place in the world depended upon how far the rights had been carried into practice.

Roosevelt pursued a legislative agenda to enact his second bill of rights by lending Executive Branch personnel to key Senate committees. This tactic, effectively a blending of powers, produced mixed results and generated a backlash from Congress which resulted in passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This Act provided funding for Congress to establish its own staffing for committees.

The “rights” were rather vague, allowing for Congress to work out the proper legislation to make them a reality. In the 80 years since, some progress on these rights has been made, but we are still a long way from the country that FDR envisioned. Then again, he made only the slightest of reference to race, and no reference to improving race relations, and, in that regard, this country is far better off than in his time.

*

January 11, 1944 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There was 1 game in the NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

January 8, 1964: President Lyndon Johnson's "War On Poverty" Speech

January 8, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson delivers his 1st State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress. Behind him, in the seat normally occupied by the Vice President of the United States, an office made vacant by his rise to the Presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John McCormack of Massachusetts. In the other seat, normally occupied by the Speaker, was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Carl Hayden of Arizona.

It is the boldest State of the Union since, at least, Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" address, 23 years earlier:

We have, in 1964, a unique opportunity and obligation: To prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our purpose and our competence.

If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the Administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly. But if we succeed, if we can achieve these goals by forging in this country a greater sense of union, then, and only then, can we take full satisfaction in the State of the Union.

Here in the Congress you can demonstrate effective legislative leadership by discharging the public business with clarity and dispatch, voting each important proposal up, or voting it down, but at least bringing it to a fair and a final vote.

Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right.

In his memory today, I especially ask all members of my own political faith, in this election year, to put your country ahead of your party, and to always debate principles, never debate personalities...

America cannot afford to stand still. Our population is growing. Our economy is more complex. Our people's needs are expanding...

Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope -- some because of their poverty, and some because of theft color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.

It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest Nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it. One thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can return $40,000 or more in his lifetime.

This speech, and his speech later in the year outlining what he called "The Great Society," was written by Richard Goodwin, one of the few holdovers from the Kennedy loyalists that LBJ trusted. Goodwin would work with the various agencies established by the War On Poverty, as LBJ's Great Society was designed to not only surpass JFK's New Frontier, but to provide the same kind of impact in the 1960s that FDR's New Deal did in the 1930s.

Following this speech, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity. As its 1st Director, LBJ appointed JFK's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver. Two later directors when on to serve as Secretary of Defense in Republican Administrations: Donald Rumsfeld and Frank Carlucci.

Also passed over the next 2 years would be Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor, Head Start for pre-kindergarten kids, and programs that would be like domestic versions of JFK's Peace Corps: The Job Corps and VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America).

But no matter what LBJ did to reduce poverty, it wouldn't go away completely. Subsequent Presidents Richard Nixon (Republican), Gerald Ford (also Republican) and Jimmy Carter (Democratic but not the same kind of Democrat as Johnson) tried the kind of approach that Bill Clinton (Democratic) would later call "Mend it, but don't end it."

But, running for President in 1980, archconservative Republican Ronald Reagan said in his speeches, "We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won." He said he would cut back on social spending. Unfortunately, one promise that he kept was the abolition of the OEO.

But he couldn't abolish all of the War On Poverty programs, especially Medicaid, because they were too popular. Just as FDR's New Deal had cut poverty in America by 1/3rd in its 1st 30 years, 1933 to 1963, so too did LBJ's Great Society cut poverty in America by another 1/3rd in its 1st 30 years, 1964 to 1994.

Things have a weird way of working out: After the end of his 1st marriage, Richard Goodwin married Doris Kearns, who had first worked for a challenge to Johnson within the Democratic Primaries, then, with his having been impressed by her writing ability, he hired her to work for him. She later wrote the first full biography of him after his death, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.

*

January 8, 1964 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football season had just ended. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, 136-118 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West scored 39 points.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 126-110 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* And the Baltimore Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-99 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

January 8, 1918: Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

January 8, 1918: President Woodrow Wilson delivers his State of the Union Address. Nine months earlier, he had asked Congress for a Declaration of War on Imperial Germany. Now, in another Joint Session of Congress, he offers a plan for peace after the war.

He declared fourteen points, which he regarded as the only possible basis of an enduring peace:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. In other words, the nations of the world should not negotiate treaties in secret.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. This one was done in reaction to German attacks on Allied ships, including the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. This, sort-of, predicted the European Common Market, which led to the European Union.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Romania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. This "access to the sea" became "The Polish Corridor," with the former German port city of Danzig, which became the Polish port city of Gdańsk, which eventually became the flashpoint of Poland's struggle to free itself from Soviet control.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. This became the League of Nations.

As a major public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the war. After the speech, House worked to secure the acceptance of the Fourteen Points by Allied leaders. The report was made as negotiation points, and the Fourteen Points were later accepted by France and Italy on November 1, 1918.

But there were doubts about the Fourteen Points. Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, who would lead France's part in the peace negotiations, said, "The good Lord had only ten!" meaning the Ten Commandments, and humanity had managed to make a mess of those.

*

January 8, 1918 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. This was the 1st season of the NHL, but no games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

January 6, 1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms"

Time cover showing FDR as Man of the Year for 1941

January 6, 1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2 weeks short of being sworn in for a record 3rd term, delivers a State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress.

It was a bad time for the world. Nazi Germany had taken over Europe, and, with the Soviet Union having signs a Non-Aggression Pact with them, Britain was alone in opposing them. Japan, the Nazis' partner in the Axis, had swarmed all over the Far East, and Britain seemed alone against them, too. Fascism was on the march, and freedom was in retreat.

FDR told Congress:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech, and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

And still, there were many Americans who weren't ready to go to war to protect those values around the world. It would take an attack on America itself, by the Axis, for Americans to believe that their own "Four Freedoms" were at risk from the Axis.

In the Winter of 1943, The Saturday Evening Post published, in consecutive issues, paintings depicting the Four Freedoms, by their leading artist, Norman Rockwell.

• 

  Freedom of Speech (Saturday, February 20, 1943)

 
• 

  Freedom of Worship (Saturday, February 27, 1943)

 
• 

  Freedom from Want (Saturday, March 6, 1943)

 
• 

  Freedom from Fear (Saturday, March 13, 1943)

*

January 6, 1941 was a Monday. Baseball and football were in their off-seasons. The NBA wouldn't be founded for another 5 years. And the NHL had no games scheduled for this day. So there were no scores on this historic day.