As for the man of the hour himself, he stood beside his wife, Ella, and resisted the cold with a placid grin. After months of meticulous planning and working with outgoing President Bush on the transition, the President-elect freed himself to focus on crafting a lean, breezy, and powerful inaugural address. He believed that in this field, at least, he had been successful, and he kissed his wife’s cheek as the Chief Justice waved him forward and the marine band played him in. Freund, an aging Harvard man with a deep voice, bellowed the oath out to the impossibly tall (6’5”) Udall as he raised his right hand and swore it.
“I Morris King Udall do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.”
The crowd offered a thunderous round of applause, and Udall waited for a moment for them to settle down before he began to speak.
“My fellow Americans, I want to begin by thanking my predecessor for the good work he has done for this land, and for the help he has provided me in preparing to assume this office.
In this ceremony, we celebrate the majesty of American rebirth. It may be the brunt of winter here in Washington, but through our reaffirmation to the peaceful transition of power, we summon forth a spring which thaws even the coldest of hearts, and lets freedom ring from every hilltop and every valley, in this, the world’s oldest and most vibrant democracy. I declare today that we need a change in this country. I can see from the signs, buttons, and banners that many of you are carrying that you agree with me. But we seek change not to challenge, but to boldly reiterate our belief in our nation’s founding principles, and our belief that every single American possesses the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In short, we seek progress, change we can all believe in. In this regard, we are inheritors of a long and proud American tradition.
In order for us to bring about the national renewal we seek, we must be bold. We must restore our country’s confidence in the present, and invest in its future - both economic and environmental. As Franklin Roosevelt once said, ‘The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.’ We gather today amidst the greatest economic crisis this country has faced since the Great Depression. Just as in the days of FDR and the New Deal, our government, the only institution that is, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out, “of the people, by the people, and for the people” must be part of the solution. We possess today the means of continuing the great work carried out by President Kennedy, whose New Frontier programs vastly reduced the number of Americans living below the poverty line. America has never been a country defined by impossibilities. We look to the stars and insist that one day we will visit them. We encounter disease, famine, and war, and demand that they be resolved for the betterment of all men. Today, we assert that America, in its third century since declaring its independence, will be a land of great accomplishments, great thinkers, peace, prosperity, and noble defenders of human rights around the world.”
...
“I would like to conclude today by sharing something my wife Ella and I read on the side of a camper while on vacation near our home in Arizona: ‘America ain’t perfect. But we’re not done yet!’ Together, we will labor to build a more perfect Union, with your help, I believe we cannot fail. Thank you all, God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.”
There was reason before to move this timeline, but now we all have a bigger incentive to move here.
