Inauguration: Innaugural Speeches

Post staff writer David Von Drehle discussed his story, Inaugural Addresses for the Ages, on the history of presidential inauguration speeches.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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David Von Drehle: Hi, and welcome to our chat. Snow here in Washington should bring out lots of articles about snowy inaugurations past ... of the bitter cold of JFK's inauguration ... of the elderly Robert Frost blinded by the glare of the sun on the snow ... of a year when it was so cold they moved Reagan's inauguration indoors ...

Let's take a few questions.

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Anonymous: Can we really judge those speeches that will last? I guess what I am saying is, did people know that the Gettysburg Address would have a lasting impact when they heard or read it? What about Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech? Can people immediately grasp what is historic and what is ephemeral?

David Von Drehle: This is a swell lead-off.
As Gary Wills explains so brilliantly in "Lincoln at Gettysburg," the style in the mid 19th Century was to give desperately, endlessly long funeral orations, and the greatest orator of the age, Edward Everett, gave just such a speech at Gettysburg. Lincoln, by contrast, had hardly started when he sat down. The great photographer Matthew Brady was on the scene and missed a picture of Lincoln speaking because it all happened so quickly.
And yet Everett, who knew from gerat speeches, reportedly said to Lincoln something to the effect that Lincoln's speech would last for ages while Everett's own would not be remembered.
So HE knew.
Personally, I think most people know a good speech when they hear it. But sometimes subsequent events drive home the wisdom of a speech. This later vindication preserves them for history.

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Arlington, Va.: What are the longest and shortest Inaugural speeches? Were either one of them remembered?

David Von Drehle: The shortest was George Washington's Second. Not even 100 words.

The longest was William Henry Harrison's notorious 90-minute drone. Harrison is famous for spending so much time talking that he got sick and died a few weeks later.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: As a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, I am always proud of the one President who attended our university, William Henry Harrison. Harrison went to our medical school and used his knowledge of medicine to deliver the longest inaugural address ever in the rain without wearing a coat, whereupon he caught cold and died about a month later. Is there anything more you can add to this wonderous example of the use of an education from my alma mater?

David Von Drehle: Ah! So THAT's where he learned it.

My article started with a strange decision in 1993 to read every Inaugural Address ever given. I think maybe that made me the first person since the death of Harrison to relive the experience of his speech. He apparently had a PhD in Using Many Words to Say Very Little.

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Anonymous: What do you consider to be the greatest inaugural speech moment?

David Von Drehle: There is no question about this: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. If an American has ever written a more perfect speech I haven't seen it. If you're in Washington take the time to visit the Lincoln Memorial and read this masterpiece in its rightful form--chiseled into marble, word by word.

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Arlington, Va.: It seems like most of the great lines people remember come around speeches where the nation was transfixed on a great problem or sense a great political shift. In other words, do people add weight to a speech in times of struggle?

David Von Drehle: William Safire talks, in his excellent collection of great American speeches, about the importance of "occasion" to a speech. If you think about it, you know this is true in your own life. An eloquent toast at your best friend's wedding, or a frank and moving eulogy at your father's funeral,is more powerful than even the best dinner table conversation. It has an important occasion, a sense of moment, behind it.

So much more true when the occasion sweeps up the whole nation. When the U.S. is deep in a Depression, and the world's intelligentsia has lost faith in liberal democracy, well--what a great occasion for a speech that says, "The only thing we have to faer is fear itself."

When hundreds of thousands of oppressed citizens have marched to Washignton to demand voting rights, what a moment to stand at the Lincoln Memorial and declare, "I have a dream today!"

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Dumfries, Va.: Do you agree with those who say that Lincoln's second inaugural speech was the greatest speech ever delivered by a U.S. president?

David Von Drehle: As I've said, I do agree with this. On most subjects I am more than willing to admit that I might be wrong, but I believe this as surely as I believe 2 and 2 is 4.

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New York, N.Y.: Your article mentions that the style of speeches has changed with the advent of television and the use of soundbites… but presumably an Inaugural address will be carried live on a good number of channels, much like the State of the Union. Surely the speechwriters are aware that it will be carried in its entirety.

David Von Drehle: What a wise observation.
Hmmm.
I guess what I'd say is that even though the Inaugural Address is heard in its entirety, nowadays it is written by people who are trained in the production of television soundbites. And they are writing for an audience accustomed to televised soundbites.
So we get shorter sentences and there is less trust in the ability of the audience to follow a rising and sustained argument.
It's hard to imagine a president today delivering a sentence like this--my favorite from Licoln's No. 2:

"Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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In your life...: What do you think is the most memorable line or greatest speech (inaugural of course) given in your lifetime?

David Von Drehle: I missed Kennedy's speech by about two weeks, arriving on the scene in early February 1961.

So I would have to say Reagan's first inaugural address, in 1981, was the most improtant and successful of my lifetime. It was a clear and well-spoken, very memorable declaration of the political philosophy that has come to dominate American politics in so many ways.

The most memorable line of it: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."

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Washington, D.C.: According to today's WSJ (A12), Washington's speech was 135 words, and the longest speech was not Harrison but Monroe in 1821, who "went on for what must have been an hour".

David Von Drehle: Well, I am not going to go count the words in two very long and bad speeches.

When I fastened on the number 90 in my mind for Washington, I was thinking of time. His second unaugural address took about 90 seconds to deliver.

Harrison's speech took, I now see, nearly two hours to deliver.

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Washington, D.C.: How early have speechwriters been incorporated in Presidential staffs?

David Von Drehle: People have suggested material for presidential speeches from the earliest days. But the first fulltime seechwriter I can find worked for Warren G. Harding, who was elecetd president in 1920. I hope Harding did not pay a lot because the speechwriter doesn't apear to have been any good.

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New Jersey: What sort of speech do you expect from Bush? Do we know who is crafting it this year?

David Von Drehle: All of President Bush's most important speeches are written by a gifted man named Michael Gerson. I think, purely on the craft level, Gerson is one o the best speechwriters in White House history. He has done an amazing job of finding vocabulary, rhythms, rhetoric for President Bush that both sounds authentic and encompasses big ideas. This is not easy to do--if you look at some of the speeches the great Peggy Noonan wrote for the elder President Bush you can see that matching the rhetoric to the man is a tricky matter.

I'm told President Bush will speak for about 16-18 minutes--fewer than 2,000 words--in broad philosophical terms on the theme of Liberty. He will try to draw a continuous line from economic liberty at home to the tranforming power of liberty abroad. He may argue that the epublican party is now the home of what used to be known as Wilsonian idealism.

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Arlington, Va.: 17 minutes is the most recent length I have heard for Bush's speech tomorrow. How does this compare?

David Von Drehle: If he goes 17 minutes that will be pretty compact fr an inaugural address. Given that the weatherman is calling for a high below freezing tomorrow, he will make a lot of people happy on The Mall if he keeps it short.

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Anonymous: Do we put too much importance on these speeches? I do get the feeling that the media (and American in general) seem to weigh these things much more than deeds when we stack up modern presidents.

David Von Drehle: I disagree.
A president's greatest power--as Theordore Roosevelt reminded us with his reference to the bully pulpit--is the power to shape public opinion and focus public attention. And he does this by talking. We have never had a truly great president who was not good at the power of persuasion. In George Washington's case, he worked much of his power silently, through his actions. But most have been smart users of the spoken, printed and (in modern times) broadcast word.

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Washington, D.C.: How controversial can we expect Bush's speech to be? In general, does the level of controversy surrounding a president's inaugural speech depend on whether it is his first or second term?

David Von Drehle: Historically, president tend to use the Inaugural Address as a tool to inspire, possibly unify and consolidate public opinion. It is not really a good forum for controversy.

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Alexandria, Va.: You have read every address ever given?!; Which were the worst? And did you perceive any difference reading a speech vs. listening to the same speech? Do you think some presidents lifted B grade material to the top through gifted oratory?

David Von Drehle: I made a list once of the best and worst--and it was a lot easier to narrow down the list of good ones than the list of bad ones. This is not, alas, a format that has produced many great speeches.

The best, in my humble opinion:

1) Abraham Lincoln's Second, March 4, 1865
Perhaps the best speech ever given by an American. Comparing it with the others is like comparing Rembrandt to paint-by-numbers.
2) Franklin D. Roosevelt's First, March 4, 1933
A rousing beacon in a time of despair. History's clearest message to Congress: Lead, follow or suspend the Constitution.
3) Theodore Roosevelt, March 4, 1905
A worthy reveille to The American Century, brief and inspiring.
4) Ronald Reagan's First, Jan. 20, 1981
Pointed and powerful, this was the strongest statement of a political philosophy since Jefferson's first inaugural address.
5) Harry S. Truman, Jan. 20, 1949
A succinct definition of the U.S. position at the dawn of the Cold War, in wonderfully lucid Trumanese.
6)Abraham Lincoln's First, March 4, 1861
Bold, morally crass, a plea to save the Union from war. Ends with the best sustained metaphor in two centuries of inaugural speeches.
7) James A. Garfield, March 4, 1881
The first glimmer, in such speeches, of a modern vision of national government.
8) Thomas Jefferson's First, March 4, 1801
A long, detailed look at his great mind, dissecting the Constitution the way he once dissected King George III.
9) William Howard Taft, March 4, 1909
Too long and dry, but rich, especially in its frank discussion of racial issues.
10 John F. Kennedy, Jan. 20, 1961
Vague but ringingly powerful. The messenger as message.

And, momentarily, the worst ...

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David Von Drehle:
10) James Buchanan, March 4, 1857
In times of gravest national peril, a craven, simpering speech.
9)Thomas Jefferson's Second, March 4, 1805
Whiny and defensive, patronizing and vain, unworthy of a giant.
8) William Henry Harrison, March 4, 1841
Loooong, windy, rambling and ultimately empty. Like a know-it-all uncle who won't shut up.
7) George Bush, Jan. 20, 1989
Metaphors stretched 'till they screamed, cliches jammed like Beltway traffic. Like a pina colada, the first time was sweet, but makes you woozy if repeated.
6)Ulysses S. Grant's First, March 4, 1869
A pinched, small-minded speech at a large and needy historical moment.
5)Martin Van Buren, March 4, 1837
Entirely retrospective, it was a farewell on his first day in office.
4)John Quincy Adams, March 4, 1825
Overwrought and essentially vacuous.
3)Lyndon B. Johnson, Jan. 20, 1965
A string of scarcely connected paragraphs that gave little sense of the domestic and foreign initiatives to come.
2)Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921
So many words to say so little.
1) Franklin Pierce, March 4, 1853
Hard to say whether it was naive or stupid.

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Washington, D.C.: David, this relates to your article in the Magazine section on Sunday. As a person who grew up in Colorado, and Strasburg, Colo. right down the road from Byers!, I truly enjoyed your insights into the complexities of people not bubbling away inside the beltway or in large cities. It was a fine and enjoyable piece, and I have shared it with a number of family and friends. Superb, subtle. Hope to meet you in person someday to share stories about the Eastern Colorado perspective as transplanted to DC.

washingtonpost.com: The Red Sea (Post, Jan. 16)

David Von Drehle: Hey, thanks!

But that was YESTERDAY's chat.

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Virginia: This is not tied directly to speeches, but historically, how does all the hoopla surrounding recent inaugurations compare to years earlier?

David Von Drehle: The losing side always thinks there is way too much, and the winning side always thinks it's just right.

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David Von Drehle: That's what we have time for--thanks for the questions, and thanks for reading!

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