May 30th Presidential Addresses:
Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR
On MAY 30, 1917, in an address before the Grand Army of the Republic at Arlington Cemetery, President Woodrow Wilson stated:
“There are times when words seem empty and only actions seem great. Such a time has come, and in the providence of God, America will once more have an opportunity to show the world that she was born to serve mankind.”
On MAY 30, 1919, in a Memorial Day Address delivered among the graves of American soldiers in Suresnes Cemetery, near Paris, France, President Woodrow Wilson stated:
“It is delightful to learn from those who saw these men fight, and saw them waiting in the trenches for the summons for the fight, that they had a touch of the high spirit of religion….We all believe, I hope, that the spirits of these men are not buried with their bones. Their spirits live!”
On MAY 30, 1922, dedicating the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., President Warren G. Harding stated:
“In every moment of peril…there is the image of Lincoln to rivet our hopes and to renew our faith….He treasured the inheritance handed down by the founding fathers, the Ark of the Covenant wrought through their heroic sacrifices….Lincoln came almost as humbly as The Child of Bethlehem. His parents were unlettered, his home was devoid of every element of culture and refinement. He was no infant prodigy, no luxury facilitated or privilege hastened his development, but he had a God-given intellect, a love for work, a willingness to labor and a purpose to succeed.”
On MAY 30, 1923, in his Memorial Day Address at Arlington National Cemetery, President Warren G. Harding stated:
“I believe in a God-given duty to give of our influence to establish the ways of peace throughout the world….In all the wars of all time the conscienceless profiteer has put the black blot of greed upon the righteous sacrifice and highly purposed conflict….God grant that no conflict will come again, but if it does it shall be without profit to the noncombatant participants except as they share in the triumphs of the nation.”
On MAY 30, 1925, at the Memorial Day Ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
“The leaders of the Nation have been supported by a deep devotion to the essentials of freedom. At the bottom of the national character has been a strain of religious earnestness and moral determination which has never failed to give color and quality to our institutions.”
On May 30, 1931, in an address at Valley Forge, President Herbert Hoover stated:
“If those few thousand men endured that long winter of privation and suffering, humiliated by the despair of their countrymen, and deprived of support save their own indomitable will, yet held their countrymen to the faith, and by that holding held fast the freedom of America, what right have we to be of little faith?”
On MAY 30, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated at Gettysburg:
“On these hills of Gettysburg two brave armies of Americans once met in contest. Not far from here, in a valley likewise consecrated to American valor, a ragged Continental Army survived a bitter winter to keep alive the expiring hope of a new Nation…
Surely, all this is holy ground.”
William J. Federer is a nationally known speaker, best-selling author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage.
To learn more about the author please visit William Federer
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