November 19, 2013
JFK HONORED CENTENNIAL OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) President John F. Kennedy paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in a statement issued by the White House 50 years ago today, November 19, 1963.
President Kennedy said:
"From the past man obtains the insights, wisdom and hope to face with confidence the uncertainties of the future. On this solemn occasion let us rededicate ourselves to the perpetuation of those ideals of which Lincoln spoke so luminously. As Americans, we can do no less."
In the morning, JFK was presented with a 55 pound turkey by the president of the Poultry Board. The turkey, named "Tom," was afforded a presidential pardon. President Kennedy said, "It would be...a terrible shame to interrupt a great line like Tom's. We'll just keep him."
In the afternoon, JFK spoke to the officers of State Education Associations and of the National Education Association in the Rose Garden.
He said...
"It is my strong belief that when this Congress does go home...it will have done more in the field of education than any Congress in the last 100 years...since the Morrill Act which established land grant colleges.
We believe a free society must be well educated. (As) Jefferson said, 'If we expect a nation to be ignorant and free, we expect what never was and never will be.'
Thurston Clarke writes that Press Secretary Pierre Salinger dropped by the Oval Office to "say goodbye before leaving for Honolulu."
The President, "looked up from a stack of papers, removed his (reading) glasses, and said with an air of fatigue, 'I wish I weren't going to Texas.'"
SOURCES
"JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President," by Thurston Clarke, The Penguin Press, New York, 2013.
"Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1963," United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1964.
LINCOLN DEDICATES NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (JFK+50) President Abraham Lincoln spoke 150 years ago today, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery here in Gettysburg.
The President followed the illustrious national orator Edward Everett who spoke for two hours.
By contrast, Mr. Lincoln spoke for about three minutes.
Despite the disparity of the length of the two addresses, it is the President's words which we both remember and honor 150 years later.
Eyewitness Sarah Cooke, who was standing near the podium, said there was no applause immediately after Mr. Lincoln finished speaking.
Photographers, expecting to have ample time to set up their cameras, were unable to get a shot of the President in the process of giving his address.
The following day, Edward Everett sent a letter to Lincoln which included these words:
"I should be glad if I came near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."
Today, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is regarded as the greatest presidential speech in U.S. history.
"Four score and 7 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting & proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Gettysburg Address Memorial
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
JFK HONORED CENTENNIAL OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) President John F. Kennedy paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in a statement issued by the White House 50 years ago today, November 19, 1963.
President Kennedy said:
"From the past man obtains the insights, wisdom and hope to face with confidence the uncertainties of the future. On this solemn occasion let us rededicate ourselves to the perpetuation of those ideals of which Lincoln spoke so luminously. As Americans, we can do no less."
In the morning, JFK was presented with a 55 pound turkey by the president of the Poultry Board. The turkey, named "Tom," was afforded a presidential pardon. President Kennedy said, "It would be...a terrible shame to interrupt a great line like Tom's. We'll just keep him."
In the afternoon, JFK spoke to the officers of State Education Associations and of the National Education Association in the Rose Garden.
He said...
"It is my strong belief that when this Congress does go home...it will have done more in the field of education than any Congress in the last 100 years...since the Morrill Act which established land grant colleges.
We believe a free society must be well educated. (As) Jefferson said, 'If we expect a nation to be ignorant and free, we expect what never was and never will be.'
Thurston Clarke writes that Press Secretary Pierre Salinger dropped by the Oval Office to "say goodbye before leaving for Honolulu."
The President, "looked up from a stack of papers, removed his (reading) glasses, and said with an air of fatigue, 'I wish I weren't going to Texas.'"
SOURCES
"JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President," by Thurston Clarke, The Penguin Press, New York, 2013.
"Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 1963," United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1964.
LINCOLN DEDICATES NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (JFK+50) President Abraham Lincoln spoke 150 years ago today, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery here in Gettysburg.
The President followed the illustrious national orator Edward Everett who spoke for two hours.
By contrast, Mr. Lincoln spoke for about three minutes.
Despite the disparity of the length of the two addresses, it is the President's words which we both remember and honor 150 years later.
Eyewitness Sarah Cooke, who was standing near the podium, said there was no applause immediately after Mr. Lincoln finished speaking.
Photographers, expecting to have ample time to set up their cameras, were unable to get a shot of the President in the process of giving his address.
The following day, Edward Everett sent a letter to Lincoln which included these words:
"I should be glad if I came near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."
Today, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is regarded as the greatest presidential speech in U.S. history.
"Four score and 7 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting & proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Gettysburg Address Memorial
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
