Headline

Jefferson's Speech 140 Years Ago Held Up As Model To F.D.R.

Sub-Headline
F.D.R. "More Effect Than Cause"
Publication Date
Wednesday, January 17, 1945
Historical Event
FDR Delivers His Fourth Inaugural Address
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Tags
Gannett full page downloadable
Article Type
News Article
Newspaper
Freeport Journal-Standard
Location
Freeport , Illinois
Page Section and Number
4
Author/Byline
Marquis Childs
Article Text
Washington, Jan 17.—Lights have burned late in the executive offices of the white house in these first weeks of the new year, as the president and his staff of assistants have worked on the reports and messages which traditionally are sent to each new session of congress.

This time, following the budget message and the annual report on the state of the union, there is also an inaugural address to prepare. It will be the fourth time that Franklin Delano Roosevelt has taken the oath of the highest office in the land-an unprecedented phenomenon that will inevitably. loom large in our history.

Actually, of course, it is no more than confirmation of profound changes which have occurred. During Roosevelt's 12 years in office, the character of the federal government has been altered. It is difficult to see how any future president can go back to the relatively simple governmental structure that existed up to 1930.

F. D. R. "More Effect Than Cause"
Partisans will argue, from now until kingdom come, as to whether this revolution was the result of a conscious, deliberate course pursued by Franklin Roosevelt, or whether he merely helped to guide the nation along a path that had become inevitable in the light of changes in our economy which occurred long before the blustery day in March of 1933 when F. D. R. was first inaugurated. I believe that in the long perspective, Roosevelt will be seen to be more effect than cause.

His bitterest haters have regarded him as a sort of god of the machine deliberately forcing the country into radical and untried ways. History ultimately, it seems to me, will show that, more often than not, circumstances dictated the road he took.

The president has said that this fourth inaugural address will be shorter than any of the other three. It will be part of a private ceremony to be held with wartime brevity and simplicity on the south portico of white house.

But as the president's ghost writers are undoubtedly discovering, it is harder to write a short speech—that is, an effective short speech—than it is to write a long speech. Pascal once said, "I have made this letter rather long only because I have not had time to make it shorter."

Those who are working on the first draft of what the president eventually will reshape in his own language could do worse, for a guide, than go back to an Inaugural address delivered 140 years ago. At his second inaugural, Thomas Jefferson spoke with brevity. In many ways, that brief speech could serve as a model.

Jefferson, too, had had his battles with the press and, in the address he delivered on March 4, 1905, he sharply rebuked the newspapers for their "abuses," but Roosevelt needs no inspiration in his vendetta with the press. It is in another respect that the plain speech of a century and a half ago seems to me to commend itself to the fourth-term president.

Jefferson's Speech
In a memorable conclusion, Jefferson shows the humility that is a mark of true greatness:

"I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow citizens have again called me, and shall proceed spirit of those principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which would seduce me knowingly from the path of justice; but the weakness of human nature, and the limits of my own understanding, will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgences I have heretofore experienced—the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years.

"I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native lands and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence, and our riper years with His wisdom and power; to whose goodness I ask you to join me in supplications, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship and approbation of all nations."

Those are the words of a man who thought of himself as truly a public servant.
History Unfolded Contributor
Alison R.
Location of Research
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Learn More about this Historical Event: FDR Delivers His Fourth Inaugural Address

Bibliography

Breitman, Richard, and Allan J. Lichtman. FDR and the Jews. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Newton, Verne W., ed. FDR and the Holocaust. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Rosen, Robert N. Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006.

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