Question: Can we get a comparison of presidential inauguration costs for the last 6 to 10 presidents?
From: Bob S. of Albuquerqui, New Mexico
Date: January 21, 2005
Gleaves answers: Many visitors to http://www.allpresidents.org/ have been asking this question or some variation of it. There are two primary costs of inaugurations. One is the cost of the swearing-in ceremony, which is paid for by taxpayers; the funds are appropriated by Congress; in 2001, George W. Bush's swearing-in ceremony cost $1 million. Second is the cost of the balls, the candlelight dinners, the parties, the concerts -- all the festivities that surround the swearing-in ceremony, which are paid for by private donations.
If there is criticism of how much a modern inaugural costs, it is usually directed at this latter cost, the parties and festivities, even though the burden is not borne by taxpayers. Going backward in time, from the most recent to the most distant inaugurals, here are the private-sector costs of the festivities surrounding some inaugurations:
George W. Bush's 2nd inaugural will cost in the neighborhood of $40 million. That's what the Presidential Inaugural Committee is trying to raise through private donations and ticket sales to the nine balls and three candlelight dinners.
George W. Bush's 1st inaugural in 2001 also cost nearly $40 million.
Bill Clinton's 2nd inaugural in 1997 was comparatively lean by the inaugural standards of the times, $23.6 million.
Bill Clinton's 1st inaugural in 1993 cost approximately $33 million.
George H. W. Bush's inaugural in 1989 cost approximately $30 million.
Ronald Reagan's 2nd inaugural in 1985 cost in the neighborhood of the 1981 inaugural, around $20 million.
Ronald Reagan's 1st inaugural in 1981 cost $19.4 million, significantly more than his predecessors. One reason is that inflation had been sky-high between Carter's and Reagan's inaugurations. A second reason is that several balls were added to the festivities. A third is that the swearing-in ceremony was moved to the west front of the Capitol. Because of topography, that aspect of the building is much more dramatic than the east front; it was also symbolic of Ronald Reagan's western roots.
Jimmy Carter's inaugural in 1977 cost $3.5 million. Elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal, he deliberately downplayed anything that appeared to aggrandize the presidency.
Richard Nixon's 2nd inaugural in 1973 cost $4 million. Bob Hope, a Nixon supporter, joked that the three-day extravaganza commemorated "the time when Richard I becomes Richard II."
Lyndon Johnson's inaugural in 1965 cost $1.5 million.
Woodrow Wilson's inaugural was relatively lean since on his orders there would be no ball. He disliked dances. Congress appropriated $30,000 for the event.
James Madison's inaugural ceremony in 1809 cost more than previous inaugurals in part because it was the first to include a ball. Dolley Madison, the federalist era's social maven, had also served as hostess for President Jefferson.
Showing posts with label 40. Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 40. Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Friday, January 21, 2005
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Inaugurations in American history
Question: Which inaugurations have been the most memorable?
From: Brenda T. of Colorado Springs
Date: January 19, 2005
Gleaves answers: The president is the one individual upon whom all the American people can cast their cares. So the formal installation of a president is a major event, the American equivalent of a coronation.
The most significant inauguration in U.S. history was arguably the first. Aware of the importance that this national ritual would take on, George Washington established several precedents during his first inauguration. The swearing-in took place outside. The oath was taken upon an open Bible. Washington added the words "so help me God" to the constitutionally prescribed oath of office. Immediately after the oath, he bent over to kiss the Bible.[1] An inaugural address was given to the Congress assembled inside Federal Hall, the building in New York City that served as the Capitol in those days. The contents of that first inaugural address served as a model for subsequent addresses. Also festivities accompanied the inauguration, including a church service, a parade, and fireworks.[2]
Although inaugurations are like coronations, it's no guarantee that inaugural addresses will be great or even good orations. There have been 55 inaugural addresses, but only a half dozen or so are truly memorable. Many people wonder why this is. Robert Dallek explains that these orations reflect the broadest consensus in American culture. In trying to reach out to as many citizens as possible, presidents do not attempt to be innovative but massage the tried-and-true themes of freedom, unity, American exceptionalism, and the goodness of the American people.
SEVEN MEMORABLE INAUGURAL ADDRESSES
George Washington's first Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789, put the new nation in world historical context: "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
Thomas Jefferson's first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801. After a bitter election that resulted in the first transfer of power from one party to another, he tried to unify the young nation, exclaiming, "We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans."
Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865, during the closing days of the Civil War, called for "malice toward none," and "charity for all."
Franklin Roosevelt's first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, proclaimed, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Franklin Roosevelt's third Inaugural Address, on March 4, 1941, was a paean to the idea and reality of American democracy when Europe and Asia were being ripped asunder by the Axis juggernaut.
John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, challenged fellow citizens: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Ronald Reagan's first Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981, pressed a new idea to reverse the growth of big government: "In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem."
OTHER FACTS AND HIGHLIGHTS
The longest inaugural address was William Henry Harrison's in 1841. He delivered the 1 hour 45 minute oration without wearing a hat or coat in a howling snow storm, came down with pneumonia, and died one month later. His was the shortest tenure in the White House.
The shortest inaugural address was George Washington's second, in 1793. Yet he had the most important administration in American history. So the longest inaugural address was followed by the shortest administration in U.S. history, and the shortest inaugural address occurred at the midpoint of the most important administration in U.S. history.
Most meaningful ad libbed line and gesture: George Washington added the words "so help me God" to the oath of office (the original text of which is prescribed by the U.S. Constitution), then bent forward to kiss the Bible. How did these words and this gesture come about? Supposedly the chief justice of New York's Supreme Court admonished Washington and others that an oath that was not sworn on the Bible would lack legitimacy. As no Bible could be found in Federal Hall, where the swearing in was to be held, one was borrowed from a Masonic lodge a few blocks away.
First president inaugurated in Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson, on March 4, 1801. George Washington had been inaugurated in New York City (1789) and in Philadelphia (1793), and John Adams had been inaugurated in Philadelphia (1797).
First president to eschew his successor's inauguration: John Adams, on March 4, 1801. The campaign of 1800 between the sitting president, Adams, and his vice president, Jefferson, had left deep wounds. Adams was in no mood to celebrate and left town.
Tradition of attending a religious service on the way to the Inauguration: began with Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. George W. Bush is attending St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House.
Striking moment from today's perspective: when Dwight D. Eisenhower asked listeners to bow their heads: "...[W]ould you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own?" Some reference to God, or asking for God's blessings on the United States, has been a part of all 55 inaugural addresses. But Ike's gesture was a first.
Funniest line in a first inaugural address: Presidential historian Paul Boller has read every inaugural address (for which, he says, he deserves a medal), and he claims that there is not a single funny line in the official texts. However, our eighth president, Martin Van Buren inadvertantly made the audience laugh when he said, "Unlike all who have preceded me, the [American] Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event...." Van Buren meant that he revered the American Revolution, but to the audience it sounded as if he revered his own birth.
Most surprising moment at an inaugural ceremony: on January 20, 1953, when Texas-born Dwight Eisenhower, in the reviewing stand, was lassoed by a cowboy who rode up to him on a horse.
Rowdiest inaugural celebration: at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, the crowd grew so rambunctious that the police had to be called in.
Dumbest thing a president did at his inauguration: in March of 1841, William Henry Harrison gave his Inaugural Address -- the longest in presidential history, nearly two hours in length -- in a snow storm without wearing a hat or overcoat. He came down with a bad cold that developed into a major respiratory infection (probably pneumonia), and was dead within the month. (Of course, many other presidents have acted similarly in extremely cold temperatures during their inauguration. The night before John Kennedy was sworn in, a cold front hammered the East Coast, leaving snow and frigid temperatures in its wake. Watch the film clip: JFK removed his overcoat before standing up to receive the oath of office and deliver his address.)
Warmest inauguration: Ronald Reagan's first, on January 20th, 1981, when the temperature at the swearing in was 55 degrees.
Coldest inauguration: Ronald Reagan's second, on January 20th, 1985, when the temperature at noon was 7 degrees. The events were moved inside the Capitol. By the way, Congress had to pass a last-minute resolution to give permission to use the Rotunda for the event.
Best book about inaugurations: Presidential historian Paul F. Boller Jr. of Texas Christian University has written the best historical overview titled Presidential Inaugurations.
As a rule, second inaugural addresses are not as long as first ones. As in so much else, George Washington set the example, with an extremely brief second inaugural address that would endure as the shortest in American history. Abraham Lincoln explained why brevity was called for the second time around: "At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented." And then Lincoln went on to deliver arguably the most memorable Inaugural Address in U.S. history, contemplating an inscrutable God's just punishment on the North and South because of the existence of slavery.
_______________________
[1]Paul F. Boller Jr., Presidential Inaugurations: From Washington's Election to George W. Bush's Gala (San Diego: Harcourt, 2001), p. 13.
[2]From the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/inaugural-exhibit.html.
From: Brenda T. of Colorado Springs
Date: January 19, 2005
Gleaves answers: The president is the one individual upon whom all the American people can cast their cares. So the formal installation of a president is a major event, the American equivalent of a coronation.
The most significant inauguration in U.S. history was arguably the first. Aware of the importance that this national ritual would take on, George Washington established several precedents during his first inauguration. The swearing-in took place outside. The oath was taken upon an open Bible. Washington added the words "so help me God" to the constitutionally prescribed oath of office. Immediately after the oath, he bent over to kiss the Bible.[1] An inaugural address was given to the Congress assembled inside Federal Hall, the building in New York City that served as the Capitol in those days. The contents of that first inaugural address served as a model for subsequent addresses. Also festivities accompanied the inauguration, including a church service, a parade, and fireworks.[2]
Although inaugurations are like coronations, it's no guarantee that inaugural addresses will be great or even good orations. There have been 55 inaugural addresses, but only a half dozen or so are truly memorable. Many people wonder why this is. Robert Dallek explains that these orations reflect the broadest consensus in American culture. In trying to reach out to as many citizens as possible, presidents do not attempt to be innovative but massage the tried-and-true themes of freedom, unity, American exceptionalism, and the goodness of the American people.
SEVEN MEMORABLE INAUGURAL ADDRESSES
George Washington's first Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789, put the new nation in world historical context: "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
Thomas Jefferson's first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801. After a bitter election that resulted in the first transfer of power from one party to another, he tried to unify the young nation, exclaiming, "We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans."
Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865, during the closing days of the Civil War, called for "malice toward none," and "charity for all."
Franklin Roosevelt's first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, proclaimed, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Franklin Roosevelt's third Inaugural Address, on March 4, 1941, was a paean to the idea and reality of American democracy when Europe and Asia were being ripped asunder by the Axis juggernaut.
John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, challenged fellow citizens: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Ronald Reagan's first Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981, pressed a new idea to reverse the growth of big government: "In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem."
OTHER FACTS AND HIGHLIGHTS
The longest inaugural address was William Henry Harrison's in 1841. He delivered the 1 hour 45 minute oration without wearing a hat or coat in a howling snow storm, came down with pneumonia, and died one month later. His was the shortest tenure in the White House.
The shortest inaugural address was George Washington's second, in 1793. Yet he had the most important administration in American history. So the longest inaugural address was followed by the shortest administration in U.S. history, and the shortest inaugural address occurred at the midpoint of the most important administration in U.S. history.
Most meaningful ad libbed line and gesture: George Washington added the words "so help me God" to the oath of office (the original text of which is prescribed by the U.S. Constitution), then bent forward to kiss the Bible. How did these words and this gesture come about? Supposedly the chief justice of New York's Supreme Court admonished Washington and others that an oath that was not sworn on the Bible would lack legitimacy. As no Bible could be found in Federal Hall, where the swearing in was to be held, one was borrowed from a Masonic lodge a few blocks away.
First president inaugurated in Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson, on March 4, 1801. George Washington had been inaugurated in New York City (1789) and in Philadelphia (1793), and John Adams had been inaugurated in Philadelphia (1797).
First president to eschew his successor's inauguration: John Adams, on March 4, 1801. The campaign of 1800 between the sitting president, Adams, and his vice president, Jefferson, had left deep wounds. Adams was in no mood to celebrate and left town.
Tradition of attending a religious service on the way to the Inauguration: began with Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. George W. Bush is attending St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House.
Striking moment from today's perspective: when Dwight D. Eisenhower asked listeners to bow their heads: "...[W]ould you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own?" Some reference to God, or asking for God's blessings on the United States, has been a part of all 55 inaugural addresses. But Ike's gesture was a first.
Funniest line in a first inaugural address: Presidential historian Paul Boller has read every inaugural address (for which, he says, he deserves a medal), and he claims that there is not a single funny line in the official texts. However, our eighth president, Martin Van Buren inadvertantly made the audience laugh when he said, "Unlike all who have preceded me, the [American] Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event...." Van Buren meant that he revered the American Revolution, but to the audience it sounded as if he revered his own birth.
Most surprising moment at an inaugural ceremony: on January 20, 1953, when Texas-born Dwight Eisenhower, in the reviewing stand, was lassoed by a cowboy who rode up to him on a horse.
Rowdiest inaugural celebration: at Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, the crowd grew so rambunctious that the police had to be called in.
Dumbest thing a president did at his inauguration: in March of 1841, William Henry Harrison gave his Inaugural Address -- the longest in presidential history, nearly two hours in length -- in a snow storm without wearing a hat or overcoat. He came down with a bad cold that developed into a major respiratory infection (probably pneumonia), and was dead within the month. (Of course, many other presidents have acted similarly in extremely cold temperatures during their inauguration. The night before John Kennedy was sworn in, a cold front hammered the East Coast, leaving snow and frigid temperatures in its wake. Watch the film clip: JFK removed his overcoat before standing up to receive the oath of office and deliver his address.)
Warmest inauguration: Ronald Reagan's first, on January 20th, 1981, when the temperature at the swearing in was 55 degrees.
Coldest inauguration: Ronald Reagan's second, on January 20th, 1985, when the temperature at noon was 7 degrees. The events were moved inside the Capitol. By the way, Congress had to pass a last-minute resolution to give permission to use the Rotunda for the event.
Best book about inaugurations: Presidential historian Paul F. Boller Jr. of Texas Christian University has written the best historical overview titled Presidential Inaugurations.
As a rule, second inaugural addresses are not as long as first ones. As in so much else, George Washington set the example, with an extremely brief second inaugural address that would endure as the shortest in American history. Abraham Lincoln explained why brevity was called for the second time around: "At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented." And then Lincoln went on to deliver arguably the most memorable Inaugural Address in U.S. history, contemplating an inscrutable God's just punishment on the North and South because of the existence of slavery.
_______________________
[1]Paul F. Boller Jr., Presidential Inaugurations: From Washington's Election to George W. Bush's Gala (San Diego: Harcourt, 2001), p. 13.
[2]From the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/inaugural-exhibit.html.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Person of the Year
Question: President George W. Bush was just selected by Time magazine as the Person of the Year in 2003. How often have presidents been awarded this distinction?
From: Diane N. of Charleston, SC
Date: December 31, 2004
Gleaves answers: Time magazine began naming a Man or Person of the Year 77 years ago, in 1927. In 19 of those years, the sitting president or president-elect was dubbed. Another way of looking at it: Of the 14 presidents since 1927, 11 were selected Person of the Year when they were either the sitting president or president-elect. An interesting assemblage of chief executives they make: one was assassinated; one had a physical disability; one felt totally unprepared for the job; one was impeached; one would be driven from the White House in disgrace. (Remember, the Person of the Year is not always a saint. Time's list, after all, includes Hitler, Stalin, and the Ayatolluh Khomeini.)
These are the 11 U.S. presidents whom Time has named Person of the Year.
1932 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1934 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1941 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1945 -- Harry S. Truman
1948 -- Harry S. Truman
1959 -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 -- John F. Kennedy
1964 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1967 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1971 -- Richard M. Nixon
1972 -- Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger
1976 -- Jimmy Carter
1980 -- Ronald Reagan
1983 -- Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov
1990 -- George H. W. Bush
1992 -- Bill Clinton
1998 -- Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
2000 -- George W. Bush
2004 -- George W. Bush
As the above list shows, one president earned the distinction of being named Man of the Year three times: Franklin D. Roosevelt, in fact, holds the all-time record.
Six presidents have been named Person of the Year a total of two times. (But note this caveat: while Dwight Eisenhower received the distinction twice, the first time was in 1944, when he was supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, eight years before he was elected president.)
Four presidents have been named Person of the Year once.
Timing is important. Of the 11 presidents who achieved Person-of-the-Year status, 8 did so in their first year in office.
The only president named Man of the Year two years in a row was Richard Nixon, in 1971 and 1972; he shared the second time around with his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger. The only administration that received the nomination three years in a row was FDR's, from 1932-1934; in 1933 the administrator of the National Recovery Administration, Hugh Johnson, got the nod.
All four presidents with a Texas connection -- Eisenhower, LBJ, and the two Bushes -- have been named Person of the Year.
Since 1927 three presidents never made it onto Time magazine's cover as Man of the Year: Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Gerald R. Ford.
Yet ten additional individuals who were never themselves president were named Man of the Year because of their close association to the White House:
1929 -- Owen Young was a famous financier associated with the Hoover administration.
1933 -- Hugh Johnson was head of FDR's National Recovery Administration.
1943 -- General George Marshall oversaw the commander in chief's war effort.
1944 -- General Dwight D. Eisenhower took the offensive against Hitler's Third Reich.
1946 -- Secretary of State James F. Byrnes served under Truman.
1947 -- Secretary of State George C. Marshall also served under Truman.
1954 -- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles served under Eisenhower.
1965 -- General William Westmoreland served under Lyndon Johnson.
1972 -- Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon's national security advisor.
1973 -- Judge John Sirica presided over the Watergate scandal proceedings.
1998 -- Kenneth Starr led the investigations against Bill Clinton.
Adding these names to the presidents, you see that our chief executives or individuals closely associated with them made Time's list on 30 occasions during the past 77 years.
For the complete list of Time magazine's Man or Person of the Year from 1927-2003, see
http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/archive/stories/index.html
From: Diane N. of Charleston, SC
Date: December 31, 2004
Gleaves answers: Time magazine began naming a Man or Person of the Year 77 years ago, in 1927. In 19 of those years, the sitting president or president-elect was dubbed. Another way of looking at it: Of the 14 presidents since 1927, 11 were selected Person of the Year when they were either the sitting president or president-elect. An interesting assemblage of chief executives they make: one was assassinated; one had a physical disability; one felt totally unprepared for the job; one was impeached; one would be driven from the White House in disgrace. (Remember, the Person of the Year is not always a saint. Time's list, after all, includes Hitler, Stalin, and the Ayatolluh Khomeini.)
These are the 11 U.S. presidents whom Time has named Person of the Year.
1932 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1934 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1941 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1945 -- Harry S. Truman
1948 -- Harry S. Truman
1959 -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961 -- John F. Kennedy
1964 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1967 -- Lyndon B. Johnson
1971 -- Richard M. Nixon
1972 -- Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger
1976 -- Jimmy Carter
1980 -- Ronald Reagan
1983 -- Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov
1990 -- George H. W. Bush
1992 -- Bill Clinton
1998 -- Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
2000 -- George W. Bush
2004 -- George W. Bush
As the above list shows, one president earned the distinction of being named Man of the Year three times: Franklin D. Roosevelt, in fact, holds the all-time record.
Six presidents have been named Person of the Year a total of two times. (But note this caveat: while Dwight Eisenhower received the distinction twice, the first time was in 1944, when he was supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, eight years before he was elected president.)
Four presidents have been named Person of the Year once.
Timing is important. Of the 11 presidents who achieved Person-of-the-Year status, 8 did so in their first year in office.
The only president named Man of the Year two years in a row was Richard Nixon, in 1971 and 1972; he shared the second time around with his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger. The only administration that received the nomination three years in a row was FDR's, from 1932-1934; in 1933 the administrator of the National Recovery Administration, Hugh Johnson, got the nod.
All four presidents with a Texas connection -- Eisenhower, LBJ, and the two Bushes -- have been named Person of the Year.
Since 1927 three presidents never made it onto Time magazine's cover as Man of the Year: Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Gerald R. Ford.
Yet ten additional individuals who were never themselves president were named Man of the Year because of their close association to the White House:
1929 -- Owen Young was a famous financier associated with the Hoover administration.
1933 -- Hugh Johnson was head of FDR's National Recovery Administration.
1943 -- General George Marshall oversaw the commander in chief's war effort.
1944 -- General Dwight D. Eisenhower took the offensive against Hitler's Third Reich.
1946 -- Secretary of State James F. Byrnes served under Truman.
1947 -- Secretary of State George C. Marshall also served under Truman.
1954 -- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles served under Eisenhower.
1965 -- General William Westmoreland served under Lyndon Johnson.
1972 -- Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon's national security advisor.
1973 -- Judge John Sirica presided over the Watergate scandal proceedings.
1998 -- Kenneth Starr led the investigations against Bill Clinton.
Adding these names to the presidents, you see that our chief executives or individuals closely associated with them made Time's list on 30 occasions during the past 77 years.
For the complete list of Time magazine's Man or Person of the Year from 1927-2003, see
http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/archive/stories/index.html
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Christmas at the White House
Question: How have the holidays been celebrated by our presidents?
From: Hauenstein Center staff and friends, Grand Rapids, MI
Date: December 18, 2004
Gleaves answers: To our visitors, holiday greetings from the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies! Around Grand Valley I have run into several people who have asked if there would be something on the website talking about how our presidents have traditionally celebrated the holidays.
It surprises many Americans to learn that Christmas was not celebrated by every community in the early years of the United States. Some descendents of the New England Puritans, for example, avoided placing special emphasis on the Yuletide season. But in states like Virginia, Christmas enjoyed more popularity. At Mount Vernon on Christmas morning, the festivities organized by George and Martha Washington began at daybreak with a fox hunt. A hearty midday feast followed in a celebration that included Christmas pie, music, dancing, and visits with friends and relatives that sometimes continued for a week.
One of the most unusual Christmas celebrations was hosted by James Buchanan, our nation’s lone bachelor president. In 1857 he threw a party for 30 American Indians representing the Ponca, Pawnee, and Pottawatomie tribes. An eyewitness account reported that while the Pottawatomie arrived in “citizen’s dress,” the Pawnee and Ponca “were in their grandest attire, and more than profuse of paint and feathers.”
Half a century later, Theodore Roosevelt almost forbade bringing a Christmas tree into the White House. A staunch conservationist, TR didn’t believe in cutting down conifers for decoration. Two of his boys, Theodore Jr. and Kermit, got into a bit of trouble when their father caught them dragging two small trees into their rooms. After the incident, Roosevelt spoke with Gifford Pinchot, the famous forester, who persuaded TR that selectively cutting down trees helped forests thrive. That was enough for TR, and the first family kept the trees Theodore Jr. and Kermit had dragged in, and every year thereafter brought a Christmas tree into the White House.
In 1923 First Lady Grace Coolidge accepted the gift of a large Christmas tree given by the District of Columbia Public Schools, and it became the first cut tree ever displayed on the grounds outside the White House. The balsam fir was decorated and displayed on the South Lawn. To dazzle citizens with new technology, President and Mrs. Coolidge were able to light the tree by merely pushing a button – a feat that we take for granted today but that caused wonderment then!
The idea of having themes for official White House Christmas trees was championed by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961. A tree decorated with ornaments reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite stood in the Blue Room. Some of the ornaments were reused on the next year’s tree and included brightly wrapped packages, candy canes, gingerbread cookies, and straw ornaments crafted by disabled persons and older citizens from all over the United States.
With the growth of the environmental movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s, President Richard Nixon took an environmentally friendly step. In 1972 he planted a Colorado blue spruce on the Ellipse south of the White House. By 1978 the spruce was large enough and sturdy enough to be designated the National Christmas Tree. It is lit up every year in early December and tended by the National Park Service.
Back in the residence, topping the official White House Christmas tree has become another holiday tradition, and that feat has been accomplished by former First Lady Barbara Bush a record twelve times. She had the honor from 1981 to 1992, during President Reagan’s and her husband’s combined three terms.
Increasingly, American presidents have been sensitive to the fact that the holiday season is not just celebrated by Christians, but by believers of other faiths and people from other traditions. For instance, several presidents – among them Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton – have participated in Hanukkah celebrations. In 1998 President Clinton joined Israel’s President Weizman in Jerusalem to light the first candle of Hanukkah. And this year a 100-year old menorah, borrowed from the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York, was lit in the White House residence for the first time. President and Mrs. George W. Bush celebrated the holiday with staff members and their families by lighting the second candle on December 10th.
As Americans, we have much to celebrate this holiday season among our family, friends, and colleagues, and we at the Hauenstein Center wish you a happy holiday and productive 2005.
From: Hauenstein Center staff and friends, Grand Rapids, MI
Date: December 18, 2004
Gleaves answers: To our visitors, holiday greetings from the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies! Around Grand Valley I have run into several people who have asked if there would be something on the website talking about how our presidents have traditionally celebrated the holidays.
It surprises many Americans to learn that Christmas was not celebrated by every community in the early years of the United States. Some descendents of the New England Puritans, for example, avoided placing special emphasis on the Yuletide season. But in states like Virginia, Christmas enjoyed more popularity. At Mount Vernon on Christmas morning, the festivities organized by George and Martha Washington began at daybreak with a fox hunt. A hearty midday feast followed in a celebration that included Christmas pie, music, dancing, and visits with friends and relatives that sometimes continued for a week.
One of the most unusual Christmas celebrations was hosted by James Buchanan, our nation’s lone bachelor president. In 1857 he threw a party for 30 American Indians representing the Ponca, Pawnee, and Pottawatomie tribes. An eyewitness account reported that while the Pottawatomie arrived in “citizen’s dress,” the Pawnee and Ponca “were in their grandest attire, and more than profuse of paint and feathers.”
Half a century later, Theodore Roosevelt almost forbade bringing a Christmas tree into the White House. A staunch conservationist, TR didn’t believe in cutting down conifers for decoration. Two of his boys, Theodore Jr. and Kermit, got into a bit of trouble when their father caught them dragging two small trees into their rooms. After the incident, Roosevelt spoke with Gifford Pinchot, the famous forester, who persuaded TR that selectively cutting down trees helped forests thrive. That was enough for TR, and the first family kept the trees Theodore Jr. and Kermit had dragged in, and every year thereafter brought a Christmas tree into the White House.
In 1923 First Lady Grace Coolidge accepted the gift of a large Christmas tree given by the District of Columbia Public Schools, and it became the first cut tree ever displayed on the grounds outside the White House. The balsam fir was decorated and displayed on the South Lawn. To dazzle citizens with new technology, President and Mrs. Coolidge were able to light the tree by merely pushing a button – a feat that we take for granted today but that caused wonderment then!
The idea of having themes for official White House Christmas trees was championed by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961. A tree decorated with ornaments reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite stood in the Blue Room. Some of the ornaments were reused on the next year’s tree and included brightly wrapped packages, candy canes, gingerbread cookies, and straw ornaments crafted by disabled persons and older citizens from all over the United States.
With the growth of the environmental movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s, President Richard Nixon took an environmentally friendly step. In 1972 he planted a Colorado blue spruce on the Ellipse south of the White House. By 1978 the spruce was large enough and sturdy enough to be designated the National Christmas Tree. It is lit up every year in early December and tended by the National Park Service.
Back in the residence, topping the official White House Christmas tree has become another holiday tradition, and that feat has been accomplished by former First Lady Barbara Bush a record twelve times. She had the honor from 1981 to 1992, during President Reagan’s and her husband’s combined three terms.
Increasingly, American presidents have been sensitive to the fact that the holiday season is not just celebrated by Christians, but by believers of other faiths and people from other traditions. For instance, several presidents – among them Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton – have participated in Hanukkah celebrations. In 1998 President Clinton joined Israel’s President Weizman in Jerusalem to light the first candle of Hanukkah. And this year a 100-year old menorah, borrowed from the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York, was lit in the White House residence for the first time. President and Mrs. George W. Bush celebrated the holiday with staff members and their families by lighting the second candle on December 10th.
As Americans, we have much to celebrate this holiday season among our family, friends, and colleagues, and we at the Hauenstein Center wish you a happy holiday and productive 2005.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Assassinations
Question: Today is the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas. How many other presidents have been assassinated in U.S. history?
From: Bill B. of Ft. Worth, Texas
Date: November 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: ASSASSINATIONS
In U.S. history, four presidents have been assassinated, each by a gunman:
1. The first American president to be assassinated was Abraham Lincoln, who was shot five weeks into his second term by John Wilkes Booth, in Washington, DC, in a Good Friday performance of a play at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865; he died within hours. As part of the same conspiracy, Secretary of State William Seward was attacked the same evening; he survived the assassination attempt by an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth who was known as Lewis Powell or Lewis Paine.
2. James A. Garfield was shot just months into his term of office by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, in Washington, DC; he died September 19, 1881, making his administration the second shortest in American history.
3. William McKinley was shot a few months into his second term, in Buffalo, New York, by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901; clinging to life barely a week, he passed away on September 14, 1901.
4. John F. Kennedy was shot three years into his presidency by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Because of number of people believe that Oswald was part of a conspiracy, it has become the most investigated murder mystery in human history.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
In addition to the four presidents who have been assassinated, there have been assassination attempts against five presidents:
- Andrew Jackson was an assassin's target in 1835.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt was the intended victim in Miami on February 15, 1932, when he was president elect; the mayor of Chicago, Anton J. Cermak, was between FDR and the gunman Giuseppe Zangara; he paid with his life three weeks later.
- Harry S. Truman escaped injury on November 1, 1950, in Washington, DC, when Puerto Rican nationalists tried to shoot their way into Blair House, where the president was staying as the White House was undergoing renovation. One of the White House Police, Officer Leslie Coffelt, died in the line of duty.
- Gerald R. Ford was targeted for assassination twice in September of 1975 by women in California. The first attempt against his life occurred on September 5, 1975, in Sacramento, when Lynette Alice (Squeaky) Fromme aimed but did not fire a .45-caliber pistol at the president. The second attempt occurred in San Francisco, just a little over two weeks later, on September 22, 1975, when Sara Jane Moore fired one shot from a .38-caliber pistol that was deflected.
- Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded by John W. Hinckley, Jr., on March 30, 1981, as he emerged from a speaking engagement; three other people were also seriously wounded.
There was a serious assassination attempt against one former president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was shot in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, while attempting to make a comeback for president. When he was shot, TR was on his way to deliver a speech and famously fulfilled his duty before going to the hospital.
In sum, 10 U.S. presidents were the target of assassins:
- four were shot to death;
- five survived assassination attempts (in Ford's case, twice in one month);
- and one ex-president survived an assassination attempt.
Two other politicians with presidential aspirations were assassinated: Louisiana Senator Huey Long (1935) and New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1968). Plus there was an assassination attempt against Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace, who was left paralyzed from the waist down (1972).
SECRET SERVICE
The U.S. Secret Service is charged with guarding the president. What is not widely know is that the Secret Service was organized in the U.S. Treasury Department in 1865, and remained there until 2003. At the founding their primary mission was to suppress counterfeit currency; during the first decades of its existence, the official responsibility of Secret Service agents did not include protecting U.S. presidents. They began an informal relationship with the White House only in 1894, during Grover Cleveland's second administration; they were with neither Presidents Garfield nor McKinley when they were shot.
It was McKinley's assassination by a terrorist in 1901 that spurred Congress to action, and the relationship between the White House and Secret Service evolved significantly during the next two decades. Already in 1901 Capitol Hill informally asked the Secret Service to provide protection for the president. The next year, with Theodore Roosevelt in the White House, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protecting the president; two agents were assigned full time to the White House detail. Also about this time, the Secret Service began protecting the president-elect. Before leaving office, TR transferred eight Secret Service agents to the Department of Justice. They formed the nucleus of what is now the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Further changes occurred during Woodrow Wilson's time in office. In 1913, his first year in the White House, Congress authorized permanent protection of the president and president-elect. Four years later the next logical step was made. Congress authorized permanent protection of the president's immediate family. Moreover, anybody who made "threats" against the president committed a federal crime.
The White House Police Force was established in 1922, at Warren Harding's request. Only in 1930, during the Hoover administration, was the White House Police Force brought under the supervision of the U.S. Secret Service.
1951 was an important year for the Secret Service. Because of the attempt on President Truman's life, Congress enacted legislation that permanently authorized Secret Service protection of the president, his immediate family, the president-elect, and the vice president, if he requests it.
In 1962, during the Kennedy administration, Congress passed a law that expanded the charge of the Secret Service to protect the vice president.
One final note: "Congress passed legislation in 1994 stating that presidents elected to office after January 1, 1997, will receive Secret Service protection for 10 years after leaving office. Individuals elected to office prior to January 1, 1997, will continue to receive lifetime protection."[1]
On March 1, 2003, The U.S. Secret Service moved from Treasury to the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security, where it is today.
____________
[1] For the history of the U.S. Secret Service, see the official Website at the U.S. Department of the Treasury at http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/history.shtml.
From: Bill B. of Ft. Worth, Texas
Date: November 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: ASSASSINATIONS
In U.S. history, four presidents have been assassinated, each by a gunman:
1. The first American president to be assassinated was Abraham Lincoln, who was shot five weeks into his second term by John Wilkes Booth, in Washington, DC, in a Good Friday performance of a play at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865; he died within hours. As part of the same conspiracy, Secretary of State William Seward was attacked the same evening; he survived the assassination attempt by an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth who was known as Lewis Powell or Lewis Paine.
2. James A. Garfield was shot just months into his term of office by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, in Washington, DC; he died September 19, 1881, making his administration the second shortest in American history.
3. William McKinley was shot a few months into his second term, in Buffalo, New York, by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901; clinging to life barely a week, he passed away on September 14, 1901.
4. John F. Kennedy was shot three years into his presidency by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Because of number of people believe that Oswald was part of a conspiracy, it has become the most investigated murder mystery in human history.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
In addition to the four presidents who have been assassinated, there have been assassination attempts against five presidents:
- Andrew Jackson was an assassin's target in 1835.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt was the intended victim in Miami on February 15, 1932, when he was president elect; the mayor of Chicago, Anton J. Cermak, was between FDR and the gunman Giuseppe Zangara; he paid with his life three weeks later.
- Harry S. Truman escaped injury on November 1, 1950, in Washington, DC, when Puerto Rican nationalists tried to shoot their way into Blair House, where the president was staying as the White House was undergoing renovation. One of the White House Police, Officer Leslie Coffelt, died in the line of duty.
- Gerald R. Ford was targeted for assassination twice in September of 1975 by women in California. The first attempt against his life occurred on September 5, 1975, in Sacramento, when Lynette Alice (Squeaky) Fromme aimed but did not fire a .45-caliber pistol at the president. The second attempt occurred in San Francisco, just a little over two weeks later, on September 22, 1975, when Sara Jane Moore fired one shot from a .38-caliber pistol that was deflected.
- Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded by John W. Hinckley, Jr., on March 30, 1981, as he emerged from a speaking engagement; three other people were also seriously wounded.
There was a serious assassination attempt against one former president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was shot in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, while attempting to make a comeback for president. When he was shot, TR was on his way to deliver a speech and famously fulfilled his duty before going to the hospital.
In sum, 10 U.S. presidents were the target of assassins:
- four were shot to death;
- five survived assassination attempts (in Ford's case, twice in one month);
- and one ex-president survived an assassination attempt.
Two other politicians with presidential aspirations were assassinated: Louisiana Senator Huey Long (1935) and New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1968). Plus there was an assassination attempt against Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace, who was left paralyzed from the waist down (1972).
SECRET SERVICE
The U.S. Secret Service is charged with guarding the president. What is not widely know is that the Secret Service was organized in the U.S. Treasury Department in 1865, and remained there until 2003. At the founding their primary mission was to suppress counterfeit currency; during the first decades of its existence, the official responsibility of Secret Service agents did not include protecting U.S. presidents. They began an informal relationship with the White House only in 1894, during Grover Cleveland's second administration; they were with neither Presidents Garfield nor McKinley when they were shot.
It was McKinley's assassination by a terrorist in 1901 that spurred Congress to action, and the relationship between the White House and Secret Service evolved significantly during the next two decades. Already in 1901 Capitol Hill informally asked the Secret Service to provide protection for the president. The next year, with Theodore Roosevelt in the White House, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protecting the president; two agents were assigned full time to the White House detail. Also about this time, the Secret Service began protecting the president-elect. Before leaving office, TR transferred eight Secret Service agents to the Department of Justice. They formed the nucleus of what is now the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Further changes occurred during Woodrow Wilson's time in office. In 1913, his first year in the White House, Congress authorized permanent protection of the president and president-elect. Four years later the next logical step was made. Congress authorized permanent protection of the president's immediate family. Moreover, anybody who made "threats" against the president committed a federal crime.
The White House Police Force was established in 1922, at Warren Harding's request. Only in 1930, during the Hoover administration, was the White House Police Force brought under the supervision of the U.S. Secret Service.
1951 was an important year for the Secret Service. Because of the attempt on President Truman's life, Congress enacted legislation that permanently authorized Secret Service protection of the president, his immediate family, the president-elect, and the vice president, if he requests it.
In 1962, during the Kennedy administration, Congress passed a law that expanded the charge of the Secret Service to protect the vice president.
One final note: "Congress passed legislation in 1994 stating that presidents elected to office after January 1, 1997, will receive Secret Service protection for 10 years after leaving office. Individuals elected to office prior to January 1, 1997, will continue to receive lifetime protection."[1]
On March 1, 2003, The U.S. Secret Service moved from Treasury to the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security, where it is today.
____________
[1] For the history of the U.S. Secret Service, see the official Website at the U.S. Department of the Treasury at http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/history.shtml.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Presidents and Supreme Court nominees
Question: There has been a lot of discussion lately about President Bush's opportunity to appoint three or more Supreme Court justices over the next four years. What is the current composition of the Court? Do most presidents have the opportunity to nominate Supreme Court justices? Who has nominated the most?
From: Pat T. of Orange County, CA
Date: November 13, 2004
Gleaves answers: Abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research, school prayer -- there are enough contentious issues to keep any court in the headlines. The U.S. Supreme Court will certainly have its hands full during its next term. But will it be the court as it is currently composed?
One of the most important duties of the president, as set out in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, is to nominate judges to the federal bench. Congress sets the number of justices that will serve at any given time, and currently it is nine: eight associate justices plus the chief justice.
Many justices served for an extremely long time. Hugo Black was on the bench for 34 years and one month; Stephen Field, for 34 years and six months; William O. Douglas, for 36 years and six months.[1] Yet, given the ages of several justices on the current Supreme Court, and given Chief Justice William Rehnquist's fight with cancer, it is possible that President George W. Bush will have the opportunity to nominate two or more justices during his second term. Below are (1) the current composition of the highest court in the land, (2) the nominating president, and (3) the date the judicial oath was taken [2]:
Chief jusice:
William Rehnquist was nominated by President Richard Nixon and took the judicial oath on January 7, 1972.
He was elevated from associate justice to chief justice by President Reagan on September 26, 1986.
The associate justices, who by custom are seated in seniority on the Bench, are:
John Paul Stevens, nominated by President Gerald R. Ford, took the judicial oath on December 19, 1975.
Sandra Day O'Connor (President Ronald Reagan) -- September 25, 1981.
Antonin Scalia (Reagan) -- September 26, 1986.
Anthony M. Kennedy (Reagan) -- February 18, 1988.
David Souter (President George H. W. Bush) -- October 9, 1990.
Clarence Thomas (Bush) -- October 23, 1991.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (President Bill Clinton) -- August 10, 1993.
Stephen Breyer (Clinton) -- August 3, 1994.
Note that Republican presidents have nominated seven of the nine members serving on the current Supreme Court.
Since the founding of our nation, there have been 16 chief justices. Only 14 of our 42 presidents have had the opportunity to nominate or elevate a chief justice. George Washington got to pick three; John Adams got to choose one. Since then, Republican presidents have nominated eight; Democratic presidents have nominated four.
William Howard Taft is unusual among the chief justices. After serving as president himself (1909-1913), Taft was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held through the 1920s.
Since 1789 there have been 97 associate justices, including those who currently serve. History has not evenly distributed their death or retirement from the bench. Just one-fifth of our presidents have nominated more than half of our associate justices. George Washington holds the record for nominating justices who would sit on the Supreme Court -- ten in all. Franklin D. Roosevelt comes in a strong second with eight justices. Jackson, Lincoln, Taft, and Eisenhower each got five of their justices on the bench. Next come Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Grover Cleveland, with four apiece.
It is useful to recall that, although the Constitution vests the president with the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court, he does so with the advice and consent of the Senate. Not all presidential nominees have been rubber stamped by the Senate. Robert Bork was nominated by President Reagan in the fall of 1987, only to be rejected by the Senate after particularly nasty confirmation hearings. So ugly was the confirmation process that a new verb entered the language: "to bork" (reminiscent of "to burke"), which means to assail a judicial nominee under heavy questioning that is politically motivated until the nominee voluntarily withdraws his name from consideration or is rejected by a vote on the floor of the Senate.
_______________________________________
[1]For historical information about the chief justices and associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, see the official site at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/traditions.pdf.
[2]See http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/members.pdf.
From: Pat T. of Orange County, CA
Date: November 13, 2004
Gleaves answers: Abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research, school prayer -- there are enough contentious issues to keep any court in the headlines. The U.S. Supreme Court will certainly have its hands full during its next term. But will it be the court as it is currently composed?
One of the most important duties of the president, as set out in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, is to nominate judges to the federal bench. Congress sets the number of justices that will serve at any given time, and currently it is nine: eight associate justices plus the chief justice.
Many justices served for an extremely long time. Hugo Black was on the bench for 34 years and one month; Stephen Field, for 34 years and six months; William O. Douglas, for 36 years and six months.[1] Yet, given the ages of several justices on the current Supreme Court, and given Chief Justice William Rehnquist's fight with cancer, it is possible that President George W. Bush will have the opportunity to nominate two or more justices during his second term. Below are (1) the current composition of the highest court in the land, (2) the nominating president, and (3) the date the judicial oath was taken [2]:
Chief jusice:
William Rehnquist was nominated by President Richard Nixon and took the judicial oath on January 7, 1972.
He was elevated from associate justice to chief justice by President Reagan on September 26, 1986.
The associate justices, who by custom are seated in seniority on the Bench, are:
John Paul Stevens, nominated by President Gerald R. Ford, took the judicial oath on December 19, 1975.
Sandra Day O'Connor (President Ronald Reagan) -- September 25, 1981.
Antonin Scalia (Reagan) -- September 26, 1986.
Anthony M. Kennedy (Reagan) -- February 18, 1988.
David Souter (President George H. W. Bush) -- October 9, 1990.
Clarence Thomas (Bush) -- October 23, 1991.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (President Bill Clinton) -- August 10, 1993.
Stephen Breyer (Clinton) -- August 3, 1994.
Note that Republican presidents have nominated seven of the nine members serving on the current Supreme Court.
Since the founding of our nation, there have been 16 chief justices. Only 14 of our 42 presidents have had the opportunity to nominate or elevate a chief justice. George Washington got to pick three; John Adams got to choose one. Since then, Republican presidents have nominated eight; Democratic presidents have nominated four.
William Howard Taft is unusual among the chief justices. After serving as president himself (1909-1913), Taft was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held through the 1920s.
Since 1789 there have been 97 associate justices, including those who currently serve. History has not evenly distributed their death or retirement from the bench. Just one-fifth of our presidents have nominated more than half of our associate justices. George Washington holds the record for nominating justices who would sit on the Supreme Court -- ten in all. Franklin D. Roosevelt comes in a strong second with eight justices. Jackson, Lincoln, Taft, and Eisenhower each got five of their justices on the bench. Next come Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Grover Cleveland, with four apiece.
It is useful to recall that, although the Constitution vests the president with the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court, he does so with the advice and consent of the Senate. Not all presidential nominees have been rubber stamped by the Senate. Robert Bork was nominated by President Reagan in the fall of 1987, only to be rejected by the Senate after particularly nasty confirmation hearings. So ugly was the confirmation process that a new verb entered the language: "to bork" (reminiscent of "to burke"), which means to assail a judicial nominee under heavy questioning that is politically motivated until the nominee voluntarily withdraws his name from consideration or is rejected by a vote on the floor of the Senate.
_______________________________________
[1]For historical information about the chief justices and associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, see the official site at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/traditions.pdf.
[2]See http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/members.pdf.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Presidents as high priests
Question: As a follow up to my last question about all the presidents' roles, would you please elaborate on the president as America's "high priest" (your term)?
From: Walter A., of Portland, ME
Date: November 12, 2004 [revised November 23, 2004]
Gleaves answers: In my last answer I said that Americans expect presidents to govern, to be sure. But they also want leaders who can inspire, console, comfort, and even lead the nation in prayer when the situation warrants -- in other words, to be their high priest. Think about it: no other individual in America can summon the entire nation to prayer when there is a D-Day Invasion, a Challenger tragedy, or a September 11th.
Nor do we look to our presidents to serve as high priests only in crises. Going all the way back to the founding, we have followed our leaders when they have called for days of "fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer." Presidents have lent solemnity to the national mood when laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And they direct our thoughts when leading us in benediction at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
There is no question that religion has been historically linked with the presidency. The question is: What are the policy implications of this relationship?
Secular-Friendly Interpretation of the Presidency
To say that presidents have served as Americans' high priest is to confirm the historical record, and to broach one of the thorniest debates in the United States today. On the one side are historians, sociologists, and political scientists with secular leanings. The most extreme secularists would share Ernest Hemingway's sentiment, "To Hell with a church that becomes a state; to Hell with a state that becomes a church."
For these, Jefferson's famous letter to the Baptists, calling for the separation of church and state, has become tantamount to a Constitutional provision (which is somewhat curious, considering that Jefferson was neither a delegate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 nor the author of the First Amendment).
One of the deans of American history, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, has weighed in on Hemingway's side of the debate. Recently the former aide to John F. Kennedy roundly attacked attempts to merge God's House with the White House by going back to our nation's origins. In the interest of balance, it is worth quoting Schlesinger at length:
"The founding fathers did not mention God in the Constitution, and the faithful often regarded our early presidents as insufficiently pious.
"George Washington was a nominal Anglican who rarely stayed for Communion. John Adams was a Unitarian, which Trinitarians abhored as heresy. Thomas Jefferson, denounced as an atheist, was actually a deist who detested organized religion and who produced an expurgated version of the New Testament with the miracles eliminated. Jefferson and James Madison, a nominal Episcopalian, were the architects of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. John Quincy Adams was another Massachusetts Unitarian. Andrew Jackson, pressed by clergy members to proclaim a national day of fasting to seek God's help in combating a cholera epidemic, replied that he could not do as they wished 'without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the general government.'
"In the 19th century, all presidents routinely invoked God and solicited his blessing. But religion did not have a major presence in their lives. Abraham Lincoln was the great exception. Nor did our early presidents use religion as an agency for mobilizing voters. 'I would rather be defeated,' said James A. Garfield, 'than make capital out of my religion.'
"Nor was there any great popular demand that politicians be men of faith. In 1876, James G. Blaine, an aspirant to the Republican presidential nomination, selected Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a famed orator but a notorious scoffer at religion, to deliver the nominating speech: The pious knew and feared Ingersoll as 'The Great Agnostic.'
"There were presidents of ardent faith in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson had no doubt that the Almighty designated the United States -- and himself -- for the redemption and salvation of humankind. Jimmy Carter ... was 'born again.' Ronald Reagan, though not a regular churchgoer, had a rapt evangelical following. But neither Wilson nor Carter nor Reagan applied religious tests to secular issues, nor did they exploit their religion for their political benefit."[1]
John F. Kennedy is perhaps unique among the presidents. On the way to becoming the nation's first Roman Catholic president, he explicitly distanced himself from the Vatican and church teaching. His September 1960 speech to Baptists gathered in Houston was a landmark in campaign history.
Religious-Friendly Interpretation of the Presidency
Most presidents have not been like Kennedy. Most have unapologetically deployed their faith to tap into the strong spiritual beliefs of citizens. Many of our early presidents, for example, could call for official days of fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer without being criticized. Some other specific examples:
Jefferson, stung by accusations of being an atheist in the bruising campaign of 1800, proved to be more accomodating to Christianity than is generally realized. He acknowledged the beneficence of Providence in his Second Inaugural Address and funded Catholic missions to the Indians with federal dollars.
During our nation's agony, Lincoln, a man of deep faith, openly wondered in his Second Inaugural Address about divine retribution for the nation tolerating the sin of slavery and appealed to "the better angels of our nature."
Garfield was the nation's first preacher-president.
On June 6, 1944 -- D-Day -- Franklin D. Roosevelt asked that Americans stop what they were doing to pray for the success of the Allied reconquest of Nazi-occupied Europe.
Ike at his Inauguration read aloud a prayer that he himself had composed; was baptized in the White House; and hired an individual to be his liaison to the faith community.
Carter appealed directly to the "born again" for political advantage.
Reagan, who was rarely seen going to Sunday servives, nevertheless courted evangelical Protestants (known as the Moral Majority) and wrote a pro-life article for Human Life Review. He also detailed William Casey to work with the Vatican to end the Cold War.
Many was the Sunday that Bill Clinton would use going to church, with Bible in hand, as a photo-op. But those who know Clinton well say that his faith is no superficial gesture, that it is genuine and deep.
On the campaign trail in 2000, President George W. Bush famously said that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. And Democratic candidate Al Gore said he supported faith-based initiatives to help solve social problems.
There is no question that many of our presidents have been men of faith. Nor is there any question that they have served as a kind of high priest in our national life. But debate rages over the extent to which the presidents' personal religious convictions should inform public policy.
AMERICA AS A RELIGIOUS NATION
To acknowledge that our presidents from time to time play the role of high priest presupposes that the United States is a religious nation with citizens who are open to such a high priest. In fact, the U.S. is unusual in this regard. Of the twenty most developed nations in the world, the U.S. is by far the most religious. Surveys show that a large majority of Americans believe in God and in Satan and say that religion is important to them; more than half our population believes that the U.S. benefits from divine protection and has a negative view of atheists; almost half attend a worship service weekly. The extent of American religiosity contrasts sharply with that of other peoples. Only 20 percent of Germans, 12 percent of Japanese, and 11 percent of French say that religion is highly important to them.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, "religious expression in the United States seems to have grown, not diminished, with socio-economic development. According to Roger Finke, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, in 1890, 45 percent of Americans were members of a church. By 2000, that figure was 62 percent."[2]
It is fascinating to inquire why America is the most religious of the top twenty nations on the United Nations' Human Development Index. Our country hardly fits the long-espoused sociological model that held that modernization and religion do not mix; that said the more wealth a nation generated and distributed, the less religious it would be. A fascinating piece in the New York Times explains: "Old-school sociology holds that as nations become more prosperous, healthy, and educated, demand for the support that religion provides declines. People do not suddenly lose faith as they grow rich, these sociologists argue. Rather, they gradually go less to church -- reducing their children's exposure to religion. Meanwhile, secular institutions take over functions, like education, formerly controlled by the church. Religious attendence, they argue, wanes from one generation to the next. In economic terms, demand for religion drops as its perceived benefits diminish compared with the cost of participating."[3]
Certainly the old sociological model seems to account for the lukewarm state of religion in thoroughly modernized European nations, as well as in Canada and Japan. But it does not explain why the wealthiest and most modern nation of all, the United States, has remained an enclave of religiosity.
The way to understand American exceptionalism may lie in thinking by means of an analogy. The analogy that suggests itself is supply-side economics, long associated with America's fortieth president, Ronald Reagan (which is apt, considering the extent to which the Gipper reached out to evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, and pro-Israeli Jews). Here is what the same New York Times piece observes: "over the past 10 years or so a growing group of mostly American sociologists has deployed a novel theory to explain the United States' apparently anomalous behavior: supply-side economics. Americans, they say, are fervently religious because there are so many churches competing for their devotion."[4]
More specifically, "demand for religion has little to do with economic development. Instead, what creates change is the supply of religious services. That is, Americans are more churchgoing and pious than Germans or Canadians because the United States has the most open religious market, with dozens of religious denominations competing vigorously to offer their flavor of salvation, becoming extremely responsive to the needs of their parishes. 'There's a lack of regulation restricting churches, so in this freer market there is a larger supply,' said Mr. Finke."[5]
What's more, "The suppliers of religion then try to stoke demand. 'The potential demand for religion has to be activated,' said Rodney Stark, a sociologist at Baylor University. 'The more members of the clergy that are out there working to expand their congregations the more people will go to church.'"[6]
Further, "Mr. Finke notes that this free-market theory fits well with the explosion of religion across Latin America, where the weakening of the longstanding Catholic monopoly has led to all sorts of evangelical Christian churches and to an overall increase of religious expression. The supply-siders say their model even explains secular Europe. Europeans, they argue, are fundamentally just as religious as Americans, with similar metaphysical concerns, but they suffer from an uncompetitive market -- lazy, quasi-monopolistic churches that have been protected by competition by the state. 'Wherever you've got a state church, you have empty churches,' Mr. Stark said."[7]
Historian Garry Wills makes the trenchant observation that the American tradition of separating church and state "protected religion from anticlericalism." This fact, combined with our pluralism, would help religion flourish in the U.S.[8]
All these factors help explain why Americans do not shy away from seeing their president occasionally play the role of high priest. But this statement must be qualified. If the president is to play the role of a "pope" in America's civil religion, he must be respectful of America's tradition of religious pluralism. He must not be perceived as a proselyte or apologist for his particular denomination. He must take care to avoid using symbols and words that are peculiar to his denomination.
___________________________________
[1]Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Los Angeles Times.
[2]Roger Finke quoted in Eduardo Porter, "Give Them Some of That Free-Market Religion," New York Times, November 21, 2004, p. 14 in Week in Review.
[3]Porter, "Give."
From: Walter A., of Portland, ME
Date: November 12, 2004 [revised November 23, 2004]
Gleaves answers: In my last answer I said that Americans expect presidents to govern, to be sure. But they also want leaders who can inspire, console, comfort, and even lead the nation in prayer when the situation warrants -- in other words, to be their high priest. Think about it: no other individual in America can summon the entire nation to prayer when there is a D-Day Invasion, a Challenger tragedy, or a September 11th.
Nor do we look to our presidents to serve as high priests only in crises. Going all the way back to the founding, we have followed our leaders when they have called for days of "fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer." Presidents have lent solemnity to the national mood when laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And they direct our thoughts when leading us in benediction at the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
There is no question that religion has been historically linked with the presidency. The question is: What are the policy implications of this relationship?
Secular-Friendly Interpretation of the Presidency
To say that presidents have served as Americans' high priest is to confirm the historical record, and to broach one of the thorniest debates in the United States today. On the one side are historians, sociologists, and political scientists with secular leanings. The most extreme secularists would share Ernest Hemingway's sentiment, "To Hell with a church that becomes a state; to Hell with a state that becomes a church."
For these, Jefferson's famous letter to the Baptists, calling for the separation of church and state, has become tantamount to a Constitutional provision (which is somewhat curious, considering that Jefferson was neither a delegate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 nor the author of the First Amendment).
One of the deans of American history, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, has weighed in on Hemingway's side of the debate. Recently the former aide to John F. Kennedy roundly attacked attempts to merge God's House with the White House by going back to our nation's origins. In the interest of balance, it is worth quoting Schlesinger at length:
"The founding fathers did not mention God in the Constitution, and the faithful often regarded our early presidents as insufficiently pious.
"George Washington was a nominal Anglican who rarely stayed for Communion. John Adams was a Unitarian, which Trinitarians abhored as heresy. Thomas Jefferson, denounced as an atheist, was actually a deist who detested organized religion and who produced an expurgated version of the New Testament with the miracles eliminated. Jefferson and James Madison, a nominal Episcopalian, were the architects of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. John Quincy Adams was another Massachusetts Unitarian. Andrew Jackson, pressed by clergy members to proclaim a national day of fasting to seek God's help in combating a cholera epidemic, replied that he could not do as they wished 'without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the general government.'
"In the 19th century, all presidents routinely invoked God and solicited his blessing. But religion did not have a major presence in their lives. Abraham Lincoln was the great exception. Nor did our early presidents use religion as an agency for mobilizing voters. 'I would rather be defeated,' said James A. Garfield, 'than make capital out of my religion.'
"Nor was there any great popular demand that politicians be men of faith. In 1876, James G. Blaine, an aspirant to the Republican presidential nomination, selected Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a famed orator but a notorious scoffer at religion, to deliver the nominating speech: The pious knew and feared Ingersoll as 'The Great Agnostic.'
"There were presidents of ardent faith in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson had no doubt that the Almighty designated the United States -- and himself -- for the redemption and salvation of humankind. Jimmy Carter ... was 'born again.' Ronald Reagan, though not a regular churchgoer, had a rapt evangelical following. But neither Wilson nor Carter nor Reagan applied religious tests to secular issues, nor did they exploit their religion for their political benefit."[1]
John F. Kennedy is perhaps unique among the presidents. On the way to becoming the nation's first Roman Catholic president, he explicitly distanced himself from the Vatican and church teaching. His September 1960 speech to Baptists gathered in Houston was a landmark in campaign history.
Religious-Friendly Interpretation of the Presidency
Most presidents have not been like Kennedy. Most have unapologetically deployed their faith to tap into the strong spiritual beliefs of citizens. Many of our early presidents, for example, could call for official days of fasting, thanksgiving, and prayer without being criticized. Some other specific examples:
Jefferson, stung by accusations of being an atheist in the bruising campaign of 1800, proved to be more accomodating to Christianity than is generally realized. He acknowledged the beneficence of Providence in his Second Inaugural Address and funded Catholic missions to the Indians with federal dollars.
During our nation's agony, Lincoln, a man of deep faith, openly wondered in his Second Inaugural Address about divine retribution for the nation tolerating the sin of slavery and appealed to "the better angels of our nature."
Garfield was the nation's first preacher-president.
On June 6, 1944 -- D-Day -- Franklin D. Roosevelt asked that Americans stop what they were doing to pray for the success of the Allied reconquest of Nazi-occupied Europe.
Ike at his Inauguration read aloud a prayer that he himself had composed; was baptized in the White House; and hired an individual to be his liaison to the faith community.
Carter appealed directly to the "born again" for political advantage.
Reagan, who was rarely seen going to Sunday servives, nevertheless courted evangelical Protestants (known as the Moral Majority) and wrote a pro-life article for Human Life Review. He also detailed William Casey to work with the Vatican to end the Cold War.
Many was the Sunday that Bill Clinton would use going to church, with Bible in hand, as a photo-op. But those who know Clinton well say that his faith is no superficial gesture, that it is genuine and deep.
On the campaign trail in 2000, President George W. Bush famously said that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. And Democratic candidate Al Gore said he supported faith-based initiatives to help solve social problems.
There is no question that many of our presidents have been men of faith. Nor is there any question that they have served as a kind of high priest in our national life. But debate rages over the extent to which the presidents' personal religious convictions should inform public policy.
AMERICA AS A RELIGIOUS NATION
To acknowledge that our presidents from time to time play the role of high priest presupposes that the United States is a religious nation with citizens who are open to such a high priest. In fact, the U.S. is unusual in this regard. Of the twenty most developed nations in the world, the U.S. is by far the most religious. Surveys show that a large majority of Americans believe in God and in Satan and say that religion is important to them; more than half our population believes that the U.S. benefits from divine protection and has a negative view of atheists; almost half attend a worship service weekly. The extent of American religiosity contrasts sharply with that of other peoples. Only 20 percent of Germans, 12 percent of Japanese, and 11 percent of French say that religion is highly important to them.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, "religious expression in the United States seems to have grown, not diminished, with socio-economic development. According to Roger Finke, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, in 1890, 45 percent of Americans were members of a church. By 2000, that figure was 62 percent."[2]
It is fascinating to inquire why America is the most religious of the top twenty nations on the United Nations' Human Development Index. Our country hardly fits the long-espoused sociological model that held that modernization and religion do not mix; that said the more wealth a nation generated and distributed, the less religious it would be. A fascinating piece in the New York Times explains: "Old-school sociology holds that as nations become more prosperous, healthy, and educated, demand for the support that religion provides declines. People do not suddenly lose faith as they grow rich, these sociologists argue. Rather, they gradually go less to church -- reducing their children's exposure to religion. Meanwhile, secular institutions take over functions, like education, formerly controlled by the church. Religious attendence, they argue, wanes from one generation to the next. In economic terms, demand for religion drops as its perceived benefits diminish compared with the cost of participating."[3]
Certainly the old sociological model seems to account for the lukewarm state of religion in thoroughly modernized European nations, as well as in Canada and Japan. But it does not explain why the wealthiest and most modern nation of all, the United States, has remained an enclave of religiosity.
The way to understand American exceptionalism may lie in thinking by means of an analogy. The analogy that suggests itself is supply-side economics, long associated with America's fortieth president, Ronald Reagan (which is apt, considering the extent to which the Gipper reached out to evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, and pro-Israeli Jews). Here is what the same New York Times piece observes: "over the past 10 years or so a growing group of mostly American sociologists has deployed a novel theory to explain the United States' apparently anomalous behavior: supply-side economics. Americans, they say, are fervently religious because there are so many churches competing for their devotion."[4]
More specifically, "demand for religion has little to do with economic development. Instead, what creates change is the supply of religious services. That is, Americans are more churchgoing and pious than Germans or Canadians because the United States has the most open religious market, with dozens of religious denominations competing vigorously to offer their flavor of salvation, becoming extremely responsive to the needs of their parishes. 'There's a lack of regulation restricting churches, so in this freer market there is a larger supply,' said Mr. Finke."[5]
What's more, "The suppliers of religion then try to stoke demand. 'The potential demand for religion has to be activated,' said Rodney Stark, a sociologist at Baylor University. 'The more members of the clergy that are out there working to expand their congregations the more people will go to church.'"[6]
Further, "Mr. Finke notes that this free-market theory fits well with the explosion of religion across Latin America, where the weakening of the longstanding Catholic monopoly has led to all sorts of evangelical Christian churches and to an overall increase of religious expression. The supply-siders say their model even explains secular Europe. Europeans, they argue, are fundamentally just as religious as Americans, with similar metaphysical concerns, but they suffer from an uncompetitive market -- lazy, quasi-monopolistic churches that have been protected by competition by the state. 'Wherever you've got a state church, you have empty churches,' Mr. Stark said."[7]
Historian Garry Wills makes the trenchant observation that the American tradition of separating church and state "protected religion from anticlericalism." This fact, combined with our pluralism, would help religion flourish in the U.S.[8]
All these factors help explain why Americans do not shy away from seeing their president occasionally play the role of high priest. But this statement must be qualified. If the president is to play the role of a "pope" in America's civil religion, he must be respectful of America's tradition of religious pluralism. He must not be perceived as a proselyte or apologist for his particular denomination. He must take care to avoid using symbols and words that are peculiar to his denomination.
___________________________________
[1]Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Los Angeles Times.
[2]Roger Finke quoted in Eduardo Porter, "Give Them Some of That Free-Market Religion," New York Times, November 21, 2004, p. 14 in Week in Review.
[3]Porter, "Give."
[4]Porter, "Give."
[5]Finke quoted in Porter, "Give."
[6]Rodney Stark quoted in Porter, "Give."
[7]Stark quoted in Porter, "Give."
[8]Garry Wills quoted in Porter, "Give."
Monday, November 08, 2004
All the presidents' roles
Question: What are the different roles that a modern president has?
From: Walter A. of Portland, ME
Date: November 8, 2004
Gleaves answers: "My God, this is a hell of a job!" exclaimed President Warren G. Harding, who died during his first term, perhaps in part due to the mounting stress of his work. Harry S. Truman described the job using a vivid comparison: "Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed."[1]
"The American presidency," observes the splendid Smithsonian exhibit on the subject, "has the brutal power to line a face with age, and to do so more swiftly than ever in an age of instant communication and nuclear arsenals. It is a position for which no training can be adequate, no preparation complete, no counsel sufficient -- an office that outstrips anyone's capacity to negotiate the ever-widening circle of its responsibilities."[2]
No doubt about it, the president has the toughest job in the world. Citizens expect their man in the White House to be a miracle worker; to do everything from ginning up jobs to winning wars to congratulating people on making it to a hundred years old. True, the presidency has changed with the times and with the men who have served in the office, but throughout U.S. history the office has been "a glorious burden."[3]
From: Walter A. of Portland, ME
Date: November 8, 2004
Gleaves answers: "My God, this is a hell of a job!" exclaimed President Warren G. Harding, who died during his first term, perhaps in part due to the mounting stress of his work. Harry S. Truman described the job using a vivid comparison: "Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed."[1]
"The American presidency," observes the splendid Smithsonian exhibit on the subject, "has the brutal power to line a face with age, and to do so more swiftly than ever in an age of instant communication and nuclear arsenals. It is a position for which no training can be adequate, no preparation complete, no counsel sufficient -- an office that outstrips anyone's capacity to negotiate the ever-widening circle of its responsibilities."[2]
No doubt about it, the president has the toughest job in the world. Citizens expect their man in the White House to be a miracle worker; to do everything from ginning up jobs to winning wars to congratulating people on making it to a hundred years old. True, the presidency has changed with the times and with the men who have served in the office, but throughout U.S. history the office has been "a glorious burden."[3]
CONSTITUTIONALLY STIPULATED DUTIES
Nowadays we speak of an "imperial presidency," and it is true that the office looks and feels a lot like an elected monarchy. Already at the dawn of the new republic, John Adams tried to convince George Washington that he should act like a king. Adams suggested that the indispensable man should wear robes instead of plain clothes and be addressed as "Your Excellency" instead of "Mr. President." Washington demurred; his one monarchical tendency was that he loved big cars. His canary-colored coach, pulled by six white horses and attended by a bevy of black slaves, must have made quite an impression in New York City, site of the nation's first capital.
Despite some monarchical vestiges that persisted at the creation of the presidency, the U.S. Constitutional is really rather modest about what a president is charged to do. Article II specifies only a half-dozen duties for the chief executive must perform:
(1) As a citizen like the rest of us who himself must live under the law, "he shall take [an] Oath or Affirmation" to uphold the Constitution.
(2) As our chief executive, "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and "shall commission all the Officers of the United States."
(2) As our chief executive, "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and "shall commission all the Officers of the United States."
(3) As the head of the nation's armed forces, he "shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."
(4) As head of state, "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties...."
(5) He shall nominate, with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, "Judges of the Supreme Court." Additionally, "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls ... and all other Officers of the United States." On a related note, "he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers."
(6) As a kind of legislator in chief, "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."[4]
(5) He shall nominate, with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, "Judges of the Supreme Court." Additionally, "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls ... and all other Officers of the United States." On a related note, "he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers."
(6) As a kind of legislator in chief, "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."[4]
Look at the verbs that express the chief executive's power. A president can ... take, take care, commission, be, have, make, nominate, appoint, receive, give, recommend, and judge. Not a cipher of an office, to be sure, but executive action is bounded by constitutional, legal, bureaucratic, and political restraints, as well as by custom, media influence, and popular opinion. You would hardly know from the foregoing that the president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world.
THE GROWTH OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER
It is in the framework of restraints and responsibilities that we can begin to understand the "glorious burden" of the presidency. By looking at a president's roles in greater depth, we will see how the office has evolved since George Washington was sworn in some 215 years ago. Following are some of the roles the modern president is expected to fill:
Chief Executive. At the top of the president's job description is making sure the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed. No small task, given how busy Congress is. That's why the president has a staff of 3,400 people who not only work in the Old Executive Mansion and West Wing, but also out in the bureaucracies.
One of the most important tasks of any president is to nominate outstanding jurists to the federal bench and Supreme Court. That may be the most important legacy presidents leave the nation. If they are in power long enough to shape the judiciary, they can also contribute significantly to the culture of the nation.
Chief Diplomat. In his Farewell Address, George Washington advised future presidents to maintain good relations with other nations. A state of peace would allow the United States to grow and prosper and build up the armed forces necessary to defend herself. We were the world's first large republic -- an experiment in ordered liberty -- and maintaining good relations with other nations would require exceptional diplomatic skills.
One of the greatest diplomatic coups in human history was the Louisiana Purchase. Never in human history had a large republic doubled its territory by diplomacy rather than by war. That in itself was a magnificent legacy bequeathed by Thomas Jefferson.
Since Jefferson's time, the president of the U.S. has acquired disproportionate burdens in the global arena. In the first place, we are the world's lone hyperpower, capable of projecting more power and influencing more people than any other nation in history. Second, we have the world's greatest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, capable of destroying more people than any other nation in history. Third, in contrast to most ancient and modern empires, we do not think it enough merely to exert our will abroad in the national interest -- we put a premium on using power morally. This has made some of our presidents not just chief diplomats, but chief crusaders or chief missionaries.
The Smithsonian exhibit on the presidency puts it this way: "To the outside world, the United States president is both a national spokesman and a world leader. As a representative of a nation of immigrants with cultural and economic ties around the globe, the president is not only expected to defend the country's national security and economic interests but also to promote democratic principles and human rights around the world."[5]
Commander in Chief. The Preamble to the Constitution observes that one purpose of government is to "provide for the common defence." The framers of the Constitution believed that civilian control of the military is a cornerstone to liberty in times of war and peace. General George Washington demonstrated this commitment at Newburgh, New York, when he had to bring to heel insubordinate officers who wanted to march on Congress.
The nation was still in its youth when a series of crises forced our first four presidents to act in the role of commander in chief. Washington had to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. John Adams had to wage the Quasi War against the French in the Caribbean. Thomas Jefferson had to go after the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean. And James Madison had to finish the War for Independence from Great Britain by waging the War of 1812 (America's first congressionally declared war). Our first presidents sported swords on ceremonial occasions; now they go to rallies with the "football," the briefcase that contains nuclear codes and other information needed in a military crisis.
No other duty has caused our presidents more anguish than being commander in chief in time of war. Every president has said the most wrenching decisions he faced, by far, involved sending men into battle knowing that somebody's son, brother, or father wouldn't make it home. A stark photograph of Lyndon Johnson captures the agony of being a wartime commander in chief. LBJ is slumped over in a chair in the Cabinet Room, his head down; a reel-to-reel tape recorder is in front of him. The photo captured LBJ listening to a recording by his son-in-law, Charles Robb, who was a captain in the U.S. Marines serving in Vietnam. "When I left for Vietnam," Captain Robb explained, "the president gave me a small battery-operated tape recorder ... so that I could send Lynda occasional recordings. I think [those tapes] gave him some of the texture of the war at company levels."[6] And that photograph gives Americans some of the texture of being a wartime commander in chief.
There is often an idealism to which presidents appeal to justify American war-making. While Jefferson, a passivist, spoke of expanding the Empire of Liberty, it was Abraham Lincoln who truly infused war with transcendent aims. To Lincoln it was not enough to preserve the Union; by 1863 he also meant to emancipate all black slaves on American soil. To Woodrow Wilson it was not enough to go to war to defend United States interests against German aggression; we had to "make the world safe for democracy." To Ronald Reagan it was not enough to maintain detente with the Soviet Union; communism was an evil system destined for the dustbin of history; we had to help liberate the people in its shackles. To George W. Bush it is not enough to defend the U.S. against jihadists; we have to establish democratic governance in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Imagine if the president were Ghengis Khan, a law unto himself. His ability to make war would be infintely easier than a U.S. president's ability, hemmed in as he is by constitutional, institutional, legal, and democratic restraints. Indeed, the commander in chief cannot appropriate the funds to wage war; for that he must work with Congress. The commander in chief cannot be indifferent to the law when he wages war; he has federal courts with which to contend and ultimately the threat of impeachment and removal from office. The commander in chief cannot have a tin ear when it comes to public opinion in times of war; as the people exercise their sovereignty every four years, he must respect the public and the media who help shape their opinion, assuming he or his party wants to stay in power. (See the Ask Gleaves column, "Wartime presidents," for historical trends regarding wartime presidents running for re-election.)
The following story illustrates the limits on a president's power, even during wartime. Since 9/11, President George W. Bush has been leading the fight against Al Qaeda. He wanted terrorist detainees at Guantanamo to be tried as war criminals. But shortly after Bush's re-election, a "federal judge ruled ... that President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions in establishing military commissions to try detainees at the United States naval base here [at Guantanomo Bay] as war criminals."
It was a blow to the president, who is trying to win a war. A spokesman at the U.S. Department of Justice explained the administration's position: "The process struck down by the district court today [November 8, 2004] was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process, and the department will make every effort to have this process restored through appeal.... By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war."[7] (See the Ask Gleaves column, "Bush Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary," for pre-emptive wars in U.S. history.)
Manager of the Economy. Among the reasons the founders called delegates to Philadelphia in May of 1787 were that a number of economic problems had arisen under the very imperfect Articles of Confederation."[8] The framers knew that a leadership position had to be created that gave more power to execute the laws of the land. There were enormous economic consequences to that decision back in 1787.
The Preamble to the Constitution observes that one purpose of government is to "promote the general welfare." What that means in a free-market system is that the president does not create jobs; rather, he fosters the conditions in which jobs are created. Despite limitations on presidential power, citizens have high expectations of what the CEO of America can do in the economic arena. He must endeavor to keep the country prosperous and make sure markets are functioning well by pursuing a responsible fiscal policy, negotiating treaties that are fair to American workers, resolving disruptive strikes, and appointing judges whose jurisprudence is sound and predictable and not unsettling to markets.
"Even though they have very limited power to control the economy, woe to the president who governs during an economic downturn and is perceived as not doing enough."[9] Herbert Hoover will forever be remembered in an unfavorable light because of Hoovervilles, the shantytowns built on the outskirts of cities in the early years of the Great Depression. (See the Ask Gleaves columns on the presidency and jobs.)
Party Leader. This is an example of a modern-day presidential role that is nowhere prescribed in the Constitution. In fact, George Washington in his Farewell Address urged fellow citizens not to succumb to faction or party. As a fallback position, if parties developed, he wanted presidents to remain above the fray -- to no avail. No sooner had George Washington retired than presidents became the leaders of their parties. And that fact has made them much more effective executives.
Some might quip that the development of political parties has led to the opposite of domestic tranquility -- one of the purposes of government in the Preamble of the Constitution -- but in historical perspective, our parties have served America well. As I've said in another Ask Gleaves column, parties "are the way Americans have long organized and channeled political disputes. They certainly beat the alternatives seen elsewhere around the globe -- little things like tribal wars, putsches, revolutions, assassinations, and mobs at the barricades. We should be grateful that our politics are so relatively genteel."
The men who have been ambitious for their parties have also, on occasion, been ambitious and effective presidents. As the Smithsonian puts it, "Several presidents rose to the office by building political parties or reshaping those that already existed. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican party in the 1790s to counter the Federalist party of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Andrew Jackson created the new Democratic party in the 1820s and won the presidency in 1828 by consolidating the remnants of the Democratic-Republican party and attracting newly enfranchised voters. Others such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan reshaped their party structures, establishing new coalitions and bringing in new supporters."[10]
Ceremonial Head of State. At his Inauguration, the president takes an oath before fellow citizens and before the divine that he will uphold the laws of the land. This is appropriate, considering that the Preamble states that a purpose of government is to "secure the blessings of liberty." The operative word is "blessings." Americans expect presidents to govern, to be sure. But they also want them to inspire, console, comfort, and even lead the nation in prayer when the situation warrants -- in other words, to be their high priest. Think about it: no other individual in America can effectively call the entire nation to prayer when there is a D-Day Invasion, a Challenger tragedy, or a September 11th. And not just in crises -- the president also leads Americans when laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Moreover, through the years many of our presidents have called for days of "fasting and prayer." We have even had a preacher become president: James A. Garfield.
These symbolic events provide occasions when a president can connect with the American people. They are a vital source of presidential power.[11]
CONCLUSION
From the above, we see that there is a correspondence between the six presidential roles set out in Article II of the Constitution, and the six general purposes of government set out in the Preamble:
(1) The president is to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed; this is necessary to "insure domestic tranquility."
(2) The president is to nominate judges; this is necessary to "establish justice."
(3) The president is to serve as commander in chief and make treaties; this is necessary to "provide for the common defence."
(4) and (5) The president is to give Congress information about the state of the Union and recommend measures to improve it; this is necessary to "promote the general welfare" and "to form a more perfect union."
(6) The president is to take an oath at his Inauguration; this is necessary to confirm that ours is a system of laws over men, which in turn is necessary to "secure the blessings of liberty."
_______________________________________
[1]Harding quoted in Lonnie G. Bunch, Spencer R. Crew, Mark G. Hirsch, adn Harry R. Rubenstein, The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden, Introduction by Richard Norton Smith (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), pp. 67, 70.
[2]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. xii. The Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum teamed up to host the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit, "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden," on October 2, 2003.
[3]Bunch, et al., American Presidency.
[4]For a good overview of Article II, see Linda R. Monk, The Words We Live By (New York: Hyperion, 2003), pp. 62-88.
[5]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 76.
[6]Photograph and caption in Robert Dallek, "Lyndon B. Johnson," in To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents, ed. James M. McPherson (New York: DK, 2001), pp. 264-65.
[7]Neil A. Lewis, "U.S. Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantanamo," New York Times, November 9, 2004, p. A1.
[8]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 83.
[9]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 83.
[10]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 85.
[11]Bunch, et al., American Presidency, p. 81.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Election 2004 in perspective -- part I
Question: What lessons can be learned from the 2004 presidential election?
From: The editorial desk of The Detroit News (Detroit, MI)*
Date: November 7, 2004
Gleaves answers: The dust of Election 2004 is starting to settle. The Democrats are everywhere seeing red, which is giving them the blues. At this point it is helpful to take a step back from the fray and try to put the election in historical perspective. When it comes to the presidency:
1. Republicans who run as conservatives (not moderates) win. Conservatives have prevailed in four of the last seven elections. Two-term President George W. Bush calls himself a "compassionate conservative." But an earlier two-term president, Ronald Reagan, was arguably the most conservative president in the 20th century, and he won both the 1980 and 1984 elections in landslides.
Back in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower ran as a staunch conservative during his first campaign, winning by a large margin even while vowing to abolish Social Security. Richard Nixon, who early in his first term reached out to the "silent majority" of Americans in Red states, positioned himself as a conservative, and went on to be re-elected in a landslide in 1972.
Moderate Republicans typically don't do as well. Consider the ill-fated campaigns of Gerald R. Ford in 1976, George H. W. Bush in 1992,[1] and Bob Dole in 1996. Indeed, only once in the last half century -- in 1964, when Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson -- has a self-consciously conservative Republican been rejected at the polls.
2. Democrats who run as liberals (not centrists) lose. The political landscape is filled with the detritus of left-of-center candidates -- George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry -- every one of them defeated at the polls.
In response to Ronald Reagan's stunning electoral success, Democrats formed the Democratic Leadership Council to champion more moderate candidates who could talk like -- well, Republicans. DLC Democrats wanted to cut taxes, reform welfare, and shrink significant sectors of the federal government. Not coincidentally, Bill Clinton, who hitched his ideological wagon to the DLC star, was the Democrats' only two-term president after Franklin Roosevelt.
California Senator Dianne Feinstein commented on the election from a Democratic perspective: "When you look at a presidential election where we lost in every age group except one, I think it's time to do some reassessment. I have noticed," she continued, "that all the gravitas [of our party] has slid to the left. All one has to do is look at the map to know that you can't win a presidential election that way. If we keep going on this way, we'll be a minority party."[2]
3. Religion, morals, and values matter. Hardly any pundits anticipated the shock fact of Election 2004: 22 percent of Americans cited moral values as the primary reason they voted the way they did; not the sluggish economy or the war in Iraq, but moral values; and 80 percent of these voters cast their ballot for Bush. Whoever occupies the office, the president has become a kind of high priest in American life; the people want the person in the Oval Office to reflect their mores.
What went wrong for the Democratic nominee was apparent. On the hustings, Kerry was clearly less comfortable talking about his faith than was Bush. Kerry also had a Senate record that included votes for partial-birth abortions. Because he supported civil unions and was supported by Hollywood liberals, he was damaged goods to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, who came out in droves to support Bush, the candidate with whom they could more closely identify.
As reported by Chris Matthews on MSNBC, about a week prior to the election John Kerry received a phone call from former President Bill Clinton, who advised the Democratic candidate to come out firmly against gay marriage. Kerry declined to take the advice and paid the price.
The backlash against liberals was particularly obvious in the 11 states that offered voters the chance to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage; in all 11 the conservative position prevailed by large margins (indeed, by a 6 to 1 margin in Mississippi and by a 3 to 1 margin in Arkansas and Kentucky). The landslides even occurred in states where Bush lost the popular vote; in Michigan, voters approved constitutional amendments that upheld the traditional definition of marriage and restricted gambling. For some time now, the great cultural and political divide in this nation has been not between Protestants and Catholics -- as in decades past -- but between those who go to worship services at least once a week, and those who hardly go at all.
4. The "mainstream media" continue to get it wrong. Whether it's the anchor desk at CBS or the reporting desk at the New York Times, an unabashed bias is apparent, and Americans in the heartland reject it. It was widely observed, for example, that CNN's Judy Woodruff was visibly distressed Tuesday when Florida went to Bush. Does she know -- does she care -- how silly she looked to folks out in the Red states?
A wise commentator observed that, in Election 2004, it was not the media who were teaching Americans, but Americans who were teaching the media.
5. A final lesson: If many in the media got this election wrong, who got it right? The organization that called it right this time -- as it has in 12 of the last 13 presidential elections -- was the WRC, yes, the same WRC that publishes the Weekly Reader that surveys school kids every election year.
As reported two weeks ago, our youngest citizens predicted that Bush would beat Kerry in a landslide. More to the point, they wanted Bush to beat Kerry in a landslide.
Of course, these kids are America's future.
_________________________________
*A shorter version of this op-ed appeared in the Detroit News on Sunday, November 7, 2004.
[1]George H. W. Bush had a conservative background, gleaned from many of his early political races. When he ran for president in 1988, he also could appeal to conservatives because of his eight years of service as vice president in the Reagan administration. But Bush was abandoned by conservatives over two issues: (1) his decision to raise taxes after the famous "Read my lips -- no new taxes" pledge made at the GOP convention in New Orleans; and his nomination of David Souter to the United States Supreme Court, who proved to be more socially liberal than Main Street as well as the mainstream judiciary.
[2]Dianne Feinstein quoted in Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse, "For Democrats in Senate, Leader of a Different Stripe: Red State Survivor for Party with the Blues," New York Times, November 14, 2004, p. A22.
From: The editorial desk of The Detroit News (Detroit, MI)*
Date: November 7, 2004
Gleaves answers: The dust of Election 2004 is starting to settle. The Democrats are everywhere seeing red, which is giving them the blues. At this point it is helpful to take a step back from the fray and try to put the election in historical perspective. When it comes to the presidency:
1. Republicans who run as conservatives (not moderates) win. Conservatives have prevailed in four of the last seven elections. Two-term President George W. Bush calls himself a "compassionate conservative." But an earlier two-term president, Ronald Reagan, was arguably the most conservative president in the 20th century, and he won both the 1980 and 1984 elections in landslides.
Back in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower ran as a staunch conservative during his first campaign, winning by a large margin even while vowing to abolish Social Security. Richard Nixon, who early in his first term reached out to the "silent majority" of Americans in Red states, positioned himself as a conservative, and went on to be re-elected in a landslide in 1972.
Moderate Republicans typically don't do as well. Consider the ill-fated campaigns of Gerald R. Ford in 1976, George H. W. Bush in 1992,[1] and Bob Dole in 1996. Indeed, only once in the last half century -- in 1964, when Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson -- has a self-consciously conservative Republican been rejected at the polls.
2. Democrats who run as liberals (not centrists) lose. The political landscape is filled with the detritus of left-of-center candidates -- George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry -- every one of them defeated at the polls.
In response to Ronald Reagan's stunning electoral success, Democrats formed the Democratic Leadership Council to champion more moderate candidates who could talk like -- well, Republicans. DLC Democrats wanted to cut taxes, reform welfare, and shrink significant sectors of the federal government. Not coincidentally, Bill Clinton, who hitched his ideological wagon to the DLC star, was the Democrats' only two-term president after Franklin Roosevelt.
California Senator Dianne Feinstein commented on the election from a Democratic perspective: "When you look at a presidential election where we lost in every age group except one, I think it's time to do some reassessment. I have noticed," she continued, "that all the gravitas [of our party] has slid to the left. All one has to do is look at the map to know that you can't win a presidential election that way. If we keep going on this way, we'll be a minority party."[2]
3. Religion, morals, and values matter. Hardly any pundits anticipated the shock fact of Election 2004: 22 percent of Americans cited moral values as the primary reason they voted the way they did; not the sluggish economy or the war in Iraq, but moral values; and 80 percent of these voters cast their ballot for Bush. Whoever occupies the office, the president has become a kind of high priest in American life; the people want the person in the Oval Office to reflect their mores.
What went wrong for the Democratic nominee was apparent. On the hustings, Kerry was clearly less comfortable talking about his faith than was Bush. Kerry also had a Senate record that included votes for partial-birth abortions. Because he supported civil unions and was supported by Hollywood liberals, he was damaged goods to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, who came out in droves to support Bush, the candidate with whom they could more closely identify.
As reported by Chris Matthews on MSNBC, about a week prior to the election John Kerry received a phone call from former President Bill Clinton, who advised the Democratic candidate to come out firmly against gay marriage. Kerry declined to take the advice and paid the price.
The backlash against liberals was particularly obvious in the 11 states that offered voters the chance to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage; in all 11 the conservative position prevailed by large margins (indeed, by a 6 to 1 margin in Mississippi and by a 3 to 1 margin in Arkansas and Kentucky). The landslides even occurred in states where Bush lost the popular vote; in Michigan, voters approved constitutional amendments that upheld the traditional definition of marriage and restricted gambling. For some time now, the great cultural and political divide in this nation has been not between Protestants and Catholics -- as in decades past -- but between those who go to worship services at least once a week, and those who hardly go at all.
4. The "mainstream media" continue to get it wrong. Whether it's the anchor desk at CBS or the reporting desk at the New York Times, an unabashed bias is apparent, and Americans in the heartland reject it. It was widely observed, for example, that CNN's Judy Woodruff was visibly distressed Tuesday when Florida went to Bush. Does she know -- does she care -- how silly she looked to folks out in the Red states?
A wise commentator observed that, in Election 2004, it was not the media who were teaching Americans, but Americans who were teaching the media.
5. A final lesson: If many in the media got this election wrong, who got it right? The organization that called it right this time -- as it has in 12 of the last 13 presidential elections -- was the WRC, yes, the same WRC that publishes the Weekly Reader that surveys school kids every election year.
As reported two weeks ago, our youngest citizens predicted that Bush would beat Kerry in a landslide. More to the point, they wanted Bush to beat Kerry in a landslide.
Of course, these kids are America's future.
_________________________________
*A shorter version of this op-ed appeared in the Detroit News on Sunday, November 7, 2004.
[1]George H. W. Bush had a conservative background, gleaned from many of his early political races. When he ran for president in 1988, he also could appeal to conservatives because of his eight years of service as vice president in the Reagan administration. But Bush was abandoned by conservatives over two issues: (1) his decision to raise taxes after the famous "Read my lips -- no new taxes" pledge made at the GOP convention in New Orleans; and his nomination of David Souter to the United States Supreme Court, who proved to be more socially liberal than Main Street as well as the mainstream judiciary.
[2]Dianne Feinstein quoted in Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse, "For Democrats in Senate, Leader of a Different Stripe: Red State Survivor for Party with the Blues," New York Times, November 14, 2004, p. A22.
Friday, October 22, 2004
How presidents salute
Question: What is the protocol presidents should follow when they salute?
From: WUOM listener (Ann Arbor, MI)
Date: October 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: Since presidents are the commander in chief, they are at the top of the chain of command and therefore do not have to initiate a salute. They are only expected to return a salute initiated by someone down the chain of command.
There are rules for saluting that every president learns. You should never have something in your mouth or in your saluting hand when you salute.
You should salute the flag when it is 6 paces away and approaching, and hold the salute for 6 paces after it passes.
Ronald Reagan described saluting as the crisp cocking of the arm, followed by dropping the salute smartly to your side in one motion, but without slapping your leg. To make sure it was smart, Reagan advised that you should end the salute as if you were throwing something very unpleasant out of your hand!
From: WUOM listener (Ann Arbor, MI)
Date: October 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: Since presidents are the commander in chief, they are at the top of the chain of command and therefore do not have to initiate a salute. They are only expected to return a salute initiated by someone down the chain of command.
There are rules for saluting that every president learns. You should never have something in your mouth or in your saluting hand when you salute.
You should salute the flag when it is 6 paces away and approaching, and hold the salute for 6 paces after it passes.
Ronald Reagan described saluting as the crisp cocking of the arm, followed by dropping the salute smartly to your side in one motion, but without slapping your leg. To make sure it was smart, Reagan advised that you should end the salute as if you were throwing something very unpleasant out of your hand!
Presidential succession
Question: What is the chain of succession should a president die in office? How far down the chain has it gone?
From: WUOM listener (Ann Arbor, MI)
Date: October 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: Succession has never gone further than from a president to a vice president (in all, on nine occasions, when eight incumbents died in office and one incumbent resigned). Prior to 1947, if a president died, become severely disabled, or resigned, succession would have proceeded in this order:
- vice president;
- secretary of state;
- secretary of war (later defense); and
- other cabinet secretaries in the order in which their departments were created.
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 slightly modified the successors and is operative to this day. The act added two individuals fairly high up in the order of succession:
- president;
- vice president;
- speaker of the House (added because elected -- thus in theory more accountable to citizens);
- president pro tem of the Senate (added for the same reason);
- secretary of state;
- other Cabinet secretaries in the order in which their departments were established, so treasury secretary; defense secretary; and so on down to the homeland security secretary, since he heads up the last department that was created.
To understand the order of succession is to know why one Cabinet secretary is not present at the President's annual State of the Union address. If a catastrophe took out Capitol Hill, the surviving secretary could assume the presidency.
Americans who recall the Reagan presidency might remember one incident that caused equal parts confusion and consternation. When Ronald Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, Secretary of State Al Haig, meaning well, said he was "in control." Vice President George H. W. Bush was not in Washington, DC, at the time, but Secretary Haig seems to have forgotten that the speaker of the House and president pro tem of the Senate were in town and, more to the point, ahead of Haig in line of succession because of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Perhaps Secretary Haig reacted to the stressful situation by automatically reverting to what he had learned in grammar school, when the old order of succession was taught.
There are two surprising historical footnotes to this notion of presidential succession.
Hauenstein Center associate George Nash masterfully tells one of them. The Election of 1916 was closely fought between incumbent Woodrow Wilson and challenger Charles Evans Hughes; the electorate was tense because it was widely believed that the U.S. would be forced into World War I. Woodrow Wilson worried, too, which prompted him to come up with an arresting idea. In those days, prior to ratification of Amendment XXV, four months elapsed between Election Day and Inauguration Day. To Wilson, that was too long a period when the nation was poised on the edge of war. This is the plan Wilson hatched. If he had lost his bid for re-election, he would have his secretary of state, Robert Lansing, resign. With the Senate's cooperation, he would then nominate his Republican opponent, president-elect Charles Evans Hughes, to be the new secretary of state. Then -- here is the interesting twist -- he (Wilson) and Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall would resign, thus paving the way for Hughes to assume the presidency much sooner than the following March. The entire plan depended on the cooperation of the Senate, but was never implemented since Wilson defeated Hughes and was returned to the White House.
For the second footnote, fast forward to 1973-1974, to the tumult surrounding President Richard Nixon once the Watergate break-in came to light. James Cannon tells of a succession plot to end all plots in his biography of President Ford, Time and Chance. In October of 1973, Nixon's first vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign in disgrace. The Republican Nixon would be nominating a replacement who would have to be confirmed on Capitol Hill. But Congress was led by Democrats. New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug hatched a scheme to thwart Nixon and -- worse -- the plain intent of the Constitution. She and several other Democrats floated the idea that the Senate obstruct Nixon's VP nominee. In other words, they would insure that there would be no vice president. Then, when the president resigned because of public pressure from Watergate, succession would pass to the other party, to the Democratic speaker of the House, Carl Albert (since there would be no VP). When Congresswoman Abzug presented the scheme to Speaker Albert, he refused to go along with the extra-constitutional scheme. Some historians have argued that this is the closest to a coup d'etat the U.S. has ever come.
And most people think presidential succession is a boring topic!
From: WUOM listener (Ann Arbor, MI)
Date: October 22, 2004
Gleaves answers: Succession has never gone further than from a president to a vice president (in all, on nine occasions, when eight incumbents died in office and one incumbent resigned). Prior to 1947, if a president died, become severely disabled, or resigned, succession would have proceeded in this order:
- vice president;
- secretary of state;
- secretary of war (later defense); and
- other cabinet secretaries in the order in which their departments were created.
The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 slightly modified the successors and is operative to this day. The act added two individuals fairly high up in the order of succession:
- president;
- vice president;
- speaker of the House (added because elected -- thus in theory more accountable to citizens);
- president pro tem of the Senate (added for the same reason);
- secretary of state;
- other Cabinet secretaries in the order in which their departments were established, so treasury secretary; defense secretary; and so on down to the homeland security secretary, since he heads up the last department that was created.
To understand the order of succession is to know why one Cabinet secretary is not present at the President's annual State of the Union address. If a catastrophe took out Capitol Hill, the surviving secretary could assume the presidency.
Americans who recall the Reagan presidency might remember one incident that caused equal parts confusion and consternation. When Ronald Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, Secretary of State Al Haig, meaning well, said he was "in control." Vice President George H. W. Bush was not in Washington, DC, at the time, but Secretary Haig seems to have forgotten that the speaker of the House and president pro tem of the Senate were in town and, more to the point, ahead of Haig in line of succession because of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Perhaps Secretary Haig reacted to the stressful situation by automatically reverting to what he had learned in grammar school, when the old order of succession was taught.
There are two surprising historical footnotes to this notion of presidential succession.
Hauenstein Center associate George Nash masterfully tells one of them. The Election of 1916 was closely fought between incumbent Woodrow Wilson and challenger Charles Evans Hughes; the electorate was tense because it was widely believed that the U.S. would be forced into World War I. Woodrow Wilson worried, too, which prompted him to come up with an arresting idea. In those days, prior to ratification of Amendment XXV, four months elapsed between Election Day and Inauguration Day. To Wilson, that was too long a period when the nation was poised on the edge of war. This is the plan Wilson hatched. If he had lost his bid for re-election, he would have his secretary of state, Robert Lansing, resign. With the Senate's cooperation, he would then nominate his Republican opponent, president-elect Charles Evans Hughes, to be the new secretary of state. Then -- here is the interesting twist -- he (Wilson) and Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall would resign, thus paving the way for Hughes to assume the presidency much sooner than the following March. The entire plan depended on the cooperation of the Senate, but was never implemented since Wilson defeated Hughes and was returned to the White House.
For the second footnote, fast forward to 1973-1974, to the tumult surrounding President Richard Nixon once the Watergate break-in came to light. James Cannon tells of a succession plot to end all plots in his biography of President Ford, Time and Chance. In October of 1973, Nixon's first vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign in disgrace. The Republican Nixon would be nominating a replacement who would have to be confirmed on Capitol Hill. But Congress was led by Democrats. New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug hatched a scheme to thwart Nixon and -- worse -- the plain intent of the Constitution. She and several other Democrats floated the idea that the Senate obstruct Nixon's VP nominee. In other words, they would insure that there would be no vice president. Then, when the president resigned because of public pressure from Watergate, succession would pass to the other party, to the Democratic speaker of the House, Carl Albert (since there would be no VP). When Congresswoman Abzug presented the scheme to Speaker Albert, he refused to go along with the extra-constitutional scheme. Some historians have argued that this is the closest to a coup d'etat the U.S. has ever come.
And most people think presidential succession is a boring topic!
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Reaganomics
Question: What is Reaganomics, and did it outlive the Reagan administration?
From: Bob S. of Minneapolis, MN
Date: October 9, 2004
Gleaves answers: Reaganomics -- the economic program named after President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) -- has been one of the most controversial programs in American politics, much mentioned but little understood since first bolting onto the scene in the early 1980s. Reagan's long-time friend and advisor Edwin Meese III observed that Reaganomics "was the most consistently attacked and most ardently defended of all the president's initiatives."[1] Another Reagan domestic and economic policy advisor, Martin Anderson, tried to explain one source of popular misunderstanding: "There is a great deal at stake in the writing of the history of the Reagan presidency. For the past 25 years most of the men and women on the political Right ... have focused their energies on creating new policies, forging political coalitions, electing presidents, and fomenting peaceful worldwide revolution. They have been successful far beyond their wildest fantasies. But while many of us have been basking in warm contentment and self-satisfaction, those who were beaten have been busily writing our history."[2]
DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS
Reaganomics was the name given to the economic program of our 40th president, who championed fiscal restraint and smaller government, tax cuts for individuals and less red tape for businesses. Reaganomics is based on "supply-side economics," a counter-intuitive set of policies that aims to increase revenues by decreasing taxes. Here is how it supposedly works: Significant tax cuts can lead to greater economic activity, since people have more money to spend and invest, which in turn can lead to greater tax revenues for the government.
To middle class Americans, Reaganomics was sold primarily as a tax cut that would let families keep more of their money, impose limits on big government, and increase consumer spending, savings, and investment. It was an idea that had broad appeal to many moderate and fiscally conservative voters when it was introduced in the early 1980s. To die-hard supporters, Reaganomics was more than an economic program. It was an idea inspired by nothing less than the American founding. In an era of creeping statism, it was a moral crusade to limit government power and restore individual freedom.
To critics, by contrast, Reaganomics was not based on sound economic policy at all, premised as it was on the "trickle down" theory of how wealth spreads. Critics liked to point out that it led to high budget deficits and provided the political cover to cut taxes for the rich -- invariably "on the backs of the poor." It is telling that George H. W. Bush, when he was competing with Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1980, referred to Reagan's economic plan as "voodoo economics." By whatever name, according to critics, Reaganomics was shorthand for bogus economic policies and the greed of the 1980s.
However viewed, Reaganomics was the centerpiece of the 40th president's domestic policy, forcefully articulated by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 campaign and persistently pursued during his first years in office. As the economists who formulated it explained, Reaganomics meant:
- slowing the rate of growth in federal spending (as opposed to shrinking the size of government),
- trimming personal income tax rates,
- reducing the regulatory burden on business, and
- cooperating with the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy to encourage a stable currency and robust financial markets.[3]
Meese notes that "The economic program was the first matter the administration tackled, and it dominated discussion of domestic policy for years."[4]
ROOTS OF REAGANOMICS
There are many sources of Reaganomics, most of them drawn from the experiences of Ronald Reagan himself. In the first place, at Eureka College he had majored in economics.
Second, as his movie career took off, Reagan became increasingly dismayed by the taxes he paid to Sacramento and especially to Washington.
Third, Reagan had to stay atop economic policy throughout his eight years as California's governor. As Meese points out, "When Reagan ran for president, one of his most obvious and impressive credentials was that he had been chief executive of the largest state in the Union. It would be hard to imagine a better training ground for the managerial job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With over 20 million people [in the late 1960s], California was larger than 90 percent of the countries on earth; had it been a separate nation, its gross national product would have been the seventh largest in the world."[5]
A few years later, when he ran for president, Reagan assembled an estimable team of advisors, some 460 policy experts who advised the candidate on everything from atom bombs to welfare reform; 74 of these experts were detailed to 6 economic task forces focusing on the federal budget, tax policy, spending control, regulatory reform, inflation, and international monetary policy. Some of the advisors are now familiar names: Alan Greenspan, Milton Freedman, William Simon, Jack Kemp, and George Schultz, who was chairman of the campaign's Economic Policy Coordinating Committee. These advisors formed the brain trust that gave Reaganomics its shape.
The economic malaise that arose on President Carter’s watch was the ostensible bogeyman that Reaganomics set out to slay. But Reagan also set his sights on a more formidable foe -- a three-headed hydra that was part Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, part Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and part Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. From the 1930s to the 1960s, these three Democrats pushed the size and scope of the federal government beyond anything the Founders intended, according to Reagan. The California governor set out on a quest to slow down the advance of Leviathan, realizing that it would probably only be a rear-guard action.
Reagan, it should be said, was also trying to distance himself from a previous Republican president, also from California. Richard Nixon (1969-1974) turned out to be as progressive on the domestic front as Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) had been. For example, Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed the Family Assistance Program to guarantee a minimum income for the poor, unveiled the start of national health insurance, and imposed wage and price controls to battle inflation. Nixon's was government on offense. As presidential historian Robert Dallek observes, "Everyone mistakenly assumed Nixon would scale back the Great Society, but he actually took up many traditional liberal causes."[6] Reagan believed that the Republican party needed to be the nation's conservative party, rather than a pale shadow of the nation's other party, the home of progressive Democrats.
OPPORTUNITY
Reagan's entry onto the national political stage occurred when he spoke on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign; from that point forward he was seen as a spokesman for the conservative (as opposed to Eastern Establishment) wing of the GOP. Reagan himself made a modest run for president in 1968, and launched a much more serious effort in 1976, when he challenged the Republican incumbent, Gerald R. Ford, and won a number of primaries. Both times he was turned back -- the time for his ideas was not ripe.
But the economic stresses that beset the United States during the 1970s made the public receptive to a change. After Jimmy Carter had been in the White House for four years (1977-1981), the economy "was in the midst of its worst crisis since the Great Depression. In January 1981 the unemployment rate stood at 7.4 percent, on its way up to 10 percent. Persistent double-digit inflation had pushed interest rates to an unbelievable 21 percent. Real pre-tax income of the average American family had been dropping since 1976, and -- thanks to bracket creep -- after tax income was falling even faster. The supply of oil and other raw materials seemed precarious. The outgoing president warned of a bleak economic future."[7]
It was these stresses -- and Carter's inability to manage them effectively -- that gave Reagan the opportunity to mount a serious challenge during the 1980 campaign. The movie star beat the incumbent Democrat in a landslide.
Reagan wasted no time trying to enact his economic program, the centerpiece of which was a 25 percent tax cut over three years. As I've written in another Ask Gleaves answer, although Reagan had campaigned lower taxes and leaner government, in 1981 he had to deal with a Democratic majority in the House. (In the '81 election Republicans gained control of the Senate.) True, an incoming president traditionally enjoys a honeymoon period of a hundred days or so, but in his first couple of months in office, Reagan was encountering stiff resistance among House Democrats. After Reagan proposed his Economic Recovery Plan, Speaker Tip O'Neill said, "We're not going to let them [the Republicans] tear asunder programs we've built over the years."[8]
The mood changed dramatically after John Hinckley fired his way into history. The would-be assassin shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, barely two months after the 40th president's inauguration. The president's grace and courage during the ordeal raised the esteem in which the American people held him. In such an atmosphere it was difficult for congressional Democrats to criticize the recovering president. Edmund Morris wrote of this critical period in Reagan's presidency:
"By April 24, [Reagan] was well enough to walk to the West Wing and chair a full Cabinet meeting. And four days later, live on prime time, he made the most dramatic presidential appearance in Congress since Franklin Roosevelt's return from Yalta.
"The millions watching saw a large and splendid man, literally death-defying, appear at the threshold of the House as the doorkeeper roared the traditional 'The President of the United States!' All members rose as required, but their respect on this occasion verged on reverence -- and also signaled a near-helpless capitulation to the message they knew he was bringing.
"'I walked in to an unbelievable ovation that went on for several minutes,' he wrote afterward. His speech -- a call for one hundred percent support for his Program for Economic Recovery -- was interrupted by fourteen bursts of applause and three standing ovations. 'In the 3rd of these suddenly about 40 Democrats stood and applauded. Maybe we are going to make it. It took a lot of courage for them to do that, and it sent a tingle down my spine.'
"Not forty but sixty-three Democrats subsequently joined the solid Republican minority, sending Reagan's budget to the Senate with a vote of 253-176. If not quite the total support he had dreamed of, it was a huge victory, and the first official register of his legislative power. As Speaker Tip O'Neill philosophically reminded reporters, Congress was ultimately responsible to the American people, 'and the will of the people is to go along with the President.'"[9]
All through the spring and summer of 1981, Reagan lobbied Congress to cut welfare, the food stamp program, school meals, and Medicare and Medicaid. Congress went along with most of the president's plan, passing the Economic Recovery Tax Act on July 29, 1981. Reagan signed the legislation the next month at his ranch in California, outside the house on the now-famous tax-cut table. The legislation cut taxes by $750 billion over five years, making it the largest tax cut in American history.
ECONOMIC IMPACT OF REAGANOMICS
Defenders of Reaganomics like to talk about how the bleak '70s gave way to the sunny '80s. "From 1982 to 1990 the United States experienced 96 straight months of economic growth, the longest peacetime expansion in its history [at that point]. Almost 20 million brand-new jobs, most of them high-paying jobs, were created. Inflation fell dramatically to low levels and stayed there as the American dollar once again became sound. Interest rates also fell dramatically and stayed down. The stock market soared, nearly tripling in value. Government revenues -- at the federal, state, and local levels -- nearly doubled, making possible the largest increase in social welfare spending in history. And, almost incidentally, we financed an enormous buildup in America's military power, checkmating the evil intentions of the old Soviet Empire, and ultimately causing the disintegration of Communism throughout the world."[10]
IMPACT ON THE NATION'S CLIMATE OF OPINION
Economists continue to debate the degree to which Reaganomics delivered economic recovery and prosperity. Whatever its contribution to the nation's economic recovery, there is no question of its impact on public discourse and policy. No sooner did Reagan leave office in 1989 than many of the nation's governors -- Republican and Democratic -- picked up the gauntlet and adopted the lower taxes/smaller government mantra.
Indeed, Reaganomics informed the economic thinking of the fiscally conservative New Democrats, of whom Bill Clinton was a leader. During Clinton's eight years as president, he never seriously entertained taking the nation back to the marginal tax rates of the Carter administration. In one of his State of the Union addresses, he disarmingly proclaimed, "The era of big government is over." It was because of Reaganomics.
Most recently, in the second presidential debate of the 2004 campaign, John Kerry was pressured into saying, in no uncertain terms, "I will not raise taxes" on the middle class. It was because of Reaganomics.
There is no question that economic and social debate at the state and federal level are different because of the credibility Reaganomics gained in the 1980s. "In retrospect, the initial Reagan economic program was the most ambitious attempt to change the direction of federal economic policy of any administration since the New Deal.... In the end, for various reasons, there was no 'Reagan Revolution' -- but considerable evolution occurred in economic policy during the Reagan presidency."[11]
___________________________
[1]Edwin Meese III, With Reagan: The Inside Story (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1992), p. 148.
[2]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.
[3]Willaim Niskanen, William Poole, and Murray Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions in Economic Policy: The First Economic Reports of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, ed. James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), p. 280.
[4]Meese, With Reagan, p. 148.
[5]Meese, With Reagan, p. 27.
[9]Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (New York: Modern Library, 1999), pp. 438-39.
[10]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.
[11]Niskanen, Poole, and Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions, p. 289.
From: Bob S. of Minneapolis, MN
Date: October 9, 2004
Gleaves answers: Reaganomics -- the economic program named after President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) -- has been one of the most controversial programs in American politics, much mentioned but little understood since first bolting onto the scene in the early 1980s. Reagan's long-time friend and advisor Edwin Meese III observed that Reaganomics "was the most consistently attacked and most ardently defended of all the president's initiatives."[1] Another Reagan domestic and economic policy advisor, Martin Anderson, tried to explain one source of popular misunderstanding: "There is a great deal at stake in the writing of the history of the Reagan presidency. For the past 25 years most of the men and women on the political Right ... have focused their energies on creating new policies, forging political coalitions, electing presidents, and fomenting peaceful worldwide revolution. They have been successful far beyond their wildest fantasies. But while many of us have been basking in warm contentment and self-satisfaction, those who were beaten have been busily writing our history."[2]
DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS
Reaganomics was the name given to the economic program of our 40th president, who championed fiscal restraint and smaller government, tax cuts for individuals and less red tape for businesses. Reaganomics is based on "supply-side economics," a counter-intuitive set of policies that aims to increase revenues by decreasing taxes. Here is how it supposedly works: Significant tax cuts can lead to greater economic activity, since people have more money to spend and invest, which in turn can lead to greater tax revenues for the government.
To middle class Americans, Reaganomics was sold primarily as a tax cut that would let families keep more of their money, impose limits on big government, and increase consumer spending, savings, and investment. It was an idea that had broad appeal to many moderate and fiscally conservative voters when it was introduced in the early 1980s. To die-hard supporters, Reaganomics was more than an economic program. It was an idea inspired by nothing less than the American founding. In an era of creeping statism, it was a moral crusade to limit government power and restore individual freedom.
To critics, by contrast, Reaganomics was not based on sound economic policy at all, premised as it was on the "trickle down" theory of how wealth spreads. Critics liked to point out that it led to high budget deficits and provided the political cover to cut taxes for the rich -- invariably "on the backs of the poor." It is telling that George H. W. Bush, when he was competing with Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1980, referred to Reagan's economic plan as "voodoo economics." By whatever name, according to critics, Reaganomics was shorthand for bogus economic policies and the greed of the 1980s.
However viewed, Reaganomics was the centerpiece of the 40th president's domestic policy, forcefully articulated by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 campaign and persistently pursued during his first years in office. As the economists who formulated it explained, Reaganomics meant:
- slowing the rate of growth in federal spending (as opposed to shrinking the size of government),
- trimming personal income tax rates,
- reducing the regulatory burden on business, and
- cooperating with the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy to encourage a stable currency and robust financial markets.[3]
Meese notes that "The economic program was the first matter the administration tackled, and it dominated discussion of domestic policy for years."[4]
ROOTS OF REAGANOMICS
There are many sources of Reaganomics, most of them drawn from the experiences of Ronald Reagan himself. In the first place, at Eureka College he had majored in economics.
Second, as his movie career took off, Reagan became increasingly dismayed by the taxes he paid to Sacramento and especially to Washington.
Third, Reagan had to stay atop economic policy throughout his eight years as California's governor. As Meese points out, "When Reagan ran for president, one of his most obvious and impressive credentials was that he had been chief executive of the largest state in the Union. It would be hard to imagine a better training ground for the managerial job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With over 20 million people [in the late 1960s], California was larger than 90 percent of the countries on earth; had it been a separate nation, its gross national product would have been the seventh largest in the world."[5]
A few years later, when he ran for president, Reagan assembled an estimable team of advisors, some 460 policy experts who advised the candidate on everything from atom bombs to welfare reform; 74 of these experts were detailed to 6 economic task forces focusing on the federal budget, tax policy, spending control, regulatory reform, inflation, and international monetary policy. Some of the advisors are now familiar names: Alan Greenspan, Milton Freedman, William Simon, Jack Kemp, and George Schultz, who was chairman of the campaign's Economic Policy Coordinating Committee. These advisors formed the brain trust that gave Reaganomics its shape.
The economic malaise that arose on President Carter’s watch was the ostensible bogeyman that Reaganomics set out to slay. But Reagan also set his sights on a more formidable foe -- a three-headed hydra that was part Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, part Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and part Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. From the 1930s to the 1960s, these three Democrats pushed the size and scope of the federal government beyond anything the Founders intended, according to Reagan. The California governor set out on a quest to slow down the advance of Leviathan, realizing that it would probably only be a rear-guard action.
Reagan, it should be said, was also trying to distance himself from a previous Republican president, also from California. Richard Nixon (1969-1974) turned out to be as progressive on the domestic front as Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) had been. For example, Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed the Family Assistance Program to guarantee a minimum income for the poor, unveiled the start of national health insurance, and imposed wage and price controls to battle inflation. Nixon's was government on offense. As presidential historian Robert Dallek observes, "Everyone mistakenly assumed Nixon would scale back the Great Society, but he actually took up many traditional liberal causes."[6] Reagan believed that the Republican party needed to be the nation's conservative party, rather than a pale shadow of the nation's other party, the home of progressive Democrats.
OPPORTUNITY
Reagan's entry onto the national political stage occurred when he spoke on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign; from that point forward he was seen as a spokesman for the conservative (as opposed to Eastern Establishment) wing of the GOP. Reagan himself made a modest run for president in 1968, and launched a much more serious effort in 1976, when he challenged the Republican incumbent, Gerald R. Ford, and won a number of primaries. Both times he was turned back -- the time for his ideas was not ripe.
But the economic stresses that beset the United States during the 1970s made the public receptive to a change. After Jimmy Carter had been in the White House for four years (1977-1981), the economy "was in the midst of its worst crisis since the Great Depression. In January 1981 the unemployment rate stood at 7.4 percent, on its way up to 10 percent. Persistent double-digit inflation had pushed interest rates to an unbelievable 21 percent. Real pre-tax income of the average American family had been dropping since 1976, and -- thanks to bracket creep -- after tax income was falling even faster. The supply of oil and other raw materials seemed precarious. The outgoing president warned of a bleak economic future."[7]
It was these stresses -- and Carter's inability to manage them effectively -- that gave Reagan the opportunity to mount a serious challenge during the 1980 campaign. The movie star beat the incumbent Democrat in a landslide.
Reagan wasted no time trying to enact his economic program, the centerpiece of which was a 25 percent tax cut over three years. As I've written in another Ask Gleaves answer, although Reagan had campaigned lower taxes and leaner government, in 1981 he had to deal with a Democratic majority in the House. (In the '81 election Republicans gained control of the Senate.) True, an incoming president traditionally enjoys a honeymoon period of a hundred days or so, but in his first couple of months in office, Reagan was encountering stiff resistance among House Democrats. After Reagan proposed his Economic Recovery Plan, Speaker Tip O'Neill said, "We're not going to let them [the Republicans] tear asunder programs we've built over the years."[8]
The mood changed dramatically after John Hinckley fired his way into history. The would-be assassin shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, barely two months after the 40th president's inauguration. The president's grace and courage during the ordeal raised the esteem in which the American people held him. In such an atmosphere it was difficult for congressional Democrats to criticize the recovering president. Edmund Morris wrote of this critical period in Reagan's presidency:
"By April 24, [Reagan] was well enough to walk to the West Wing and chair a full Cabinet meeting. And four days later, live on prime time, he made the most dramatic presidential appearance in Congress since Franklin Roosevelt's return from Yalta.
"The millions watching saw a large and splendid man, literally death-defying, appear at the threshold of the House as the doorkeeper roared the traditional 'The President of the United States!' All members rose as required, but their respect on this occasion verged on reverence -- and also signaled a near-helpless capitulation to the message they knew he was bringing.
"'I walked in to an unbelievable ovation that went on for several minutes,' he wrote afterward. His speech -- a call for one hundred percent support for his Program for Economic Recovery -- was interrupted by fourteen bursts of applause and three standing ovations. 'In the 3rd of these suddenly about 40 Democrats stood and applauded. Maybe we are going to make it. It took a lot of courage for them to do that, and it sent a tingle down my spine.'
"Not forty but sixty-three Democrats subsequently joined the solid Republican minority, sending Reagan's budget to the Senate with a vote of 253-176. If not quite the total support he had dreamed of, it was a huge victory, and the first official register of his legislative power. As Speaker Tip O'Neill philosophically reminded reporters, Congress was ultimately responsible to the American people, 'and the will of the people is to go along with the President.'"[9]
All through the spring and summer of 1981, Reagan lobbied Congress to cut welfare, the food stamp program, school meals, and Medicare and Medicaid. Congress went along with most of the president's plan, passing the Economic Recovery Tax Act on July 29, 1981. Reagan signed the legislation the next month at his ranch in California, outside the house on the now-famous tax-cut table. The legislation cut taxes by $750 billion over five years, making it the largest tax cut in American history.
ECONOMIC IMPACT OF REAGANOMICS
Defenders of Reaganomics like to talk about how the bleak '70s gave way to the sunny '80s. "From 1982 to 1990 the United States experienced 96 straight months of economic growth, the longest peacetime expansion in its history [at that point]. Almost 20 million brand-new jobs, most of them high-paying jobs, were created. Inflation fell dramatically to low levels and stayed there as the American dollar once again became sound. Interest rates also fell dramatically and stayed down. The stock market soared, nearly tripling in value. Government revenues -- at the federal, state, and local levels -- nearly doubled, making possible the largest increase in social welfare spending in history. And, almost incidentally, we financed an enormous buildup in America's military power, checkmating the evil intentions of the old Soviet Empire, and ultimately causing the disintegration of Communism throughout the world."[10]
IMPACT ON THE NATION'S CLIMATE OF OPINION
Economists continue to debate the degree to which Reaganomics delivered economic recovery and prosperity. Whatever its contribution to the nation's economic recovery, there is no question of its impact on public discourse and policy. No sooner did Reagan leave office in 1989 than many of the nation's governors -- Republican and Democratic -- picked up the gauntlet and adopted the lower taxes/smaller government mantra.
Indeed, Reaganomics informed the economic thinking of the fiscally conservative New Democrats, of whom Bill Clinton was a leader. During Clinton's eight years as president, he never seriously entertained taking the nation back to the marginal tax rates of the Carter administration. In one of his State of the Union addresses, he disarmingly proclaimed, "The era of big government is over." It was because of Reaganomics.
Most recently, in the second presidential debate of the 2004 campaign, John Kerry was pressured into saying, in no uncertain terms, "I will not raise taxes" on the middle class. It was because of Reaganomics.
There is no question that economic and social debate at the state and federal level are different because of the credibility Reaganomics gained in the 1980s. "In retrospect, the initial Reagan economic program was the most ambitious attempt to change the direction of federal economic policy of any administration since the New Deal.... In the end, for various reasons, there was no 'Reagan Revolution' -- but considerable evolution occurred in economic policy during the Reagan presidency."[11]
___________________________
[1]Edwin Meese III, With Reagan: The Inside Story (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1992), p. 148.
[2]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.
[3]Willaim Niskanen, William Poole, and Murray Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions in Economic Policy: The First Economic Reports of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, ed. James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), p. 280.
[4]Meese, With Reagan, p. 148.
[5]Meese, With Reagan, p. 27.
[6]Robert Dallek, To Lead a Nation: The Presidency in the Twentieth Century (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), p. 75.
[7]Ed Rubenstein, Introduction to "The Real Reagan Record," National Review, August 31, 1992.
[8]Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), p. 203.[9]Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (New York: Modern Library, 1999), pp. 438-39.
[10]Martin Anderson, "When the Losers Write the History," National Review, August 31, 1992.
[11]Niskanen, Poole, and Weidenbaum, Introduction to the Reagan Economic Reports, in Two Revolutions, p. 289.
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