“The world and we have passed the midway point of a century of continuing challenge. We sense with all our faculties that force of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history."
Dwight David Eisenhower spoke those words during his Inaugural Address on January 20th 1953. The first half of the twentieth century had already passed. The world had been shaped by the dramatic conflicts of those fifty years including World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, and the opening of the Cold War. Eisenhower too had been shaped by those conflicts having risen from a captain in the army to a five-star general during those historic events. It was that rugged path that had brought him to this important date.
A presidential inauguration is many things. It is an important and symbolic ceremony. It is both a beginning and end as the office of presidency is passed seamlessly between two people. As soon as the oath of office is sworn, the president-elect becomes the president and steps forward to lay the foundation of his presidency with his Inaugural Address.
Inaugural Addresses are criticized and scrutinized. They are one of the most important speeches a president will give during his time in office. President-elect Eisenhower was very aware of this and spent a good amount of time preparing his speech in the weeks leading up to the inauguration. He worked closely with his speech writers Emmet Hughes and C.D. Jackson to craft a speech that would share his vision for his presidency. Historian William Hitchcock described the speech as “a remarkably unmerciful 20-minute speech, keynoted by overtones of conflict, war, ideological division and sacrifice."
At that very moment, America was not only involved in an active war in Korea, but an ever-expanding Cold War with the Soviet Union. There were intense fears that communism would spread across more of Asia and the Middle East as more countries fell under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. Eisenhower keenly felt that fear and saw not only a political but a moral duty in the need to contain the spread of this ideology. While he believed that containing communism must be a priority for his administration, he also knew that forces at home were manipulating these fears for their own personal agendas. He was not about to embrace McCarthyism. He also knew his country was deeply divided about Civil Rights. All these forces were actively at play as he stood to address his nation and the world.
At the last-minute Eisenhower added a quick prayer to the beginning of the speech, which was keeping in tone with the central theme. Writing in his presidential memoirs, Eisenhower explained that he didn’t want his speech to sound like a sermon, but he felt that the country was becoming “too secular." Despite his desire to not sound too much “like a sermon," he consistently returned to the idea that the world is truly engaged in struggle of good against evil. He believed this struggle was coming at a dark moment saying, “science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet." In this age of nuclear weapons, good and evil seemed an even darker divide.
Despite the stark image that Eisenhower presented, the incoming president maintained a true belief in the strength and conviction of the American people. He proudly stated, “We wish our friends the world over to know this above all: we face the threat-not with dread and confusion-but with confidence and conviction." Eisenhower believed that the best way for the country to face the challenges of the present and future was to adhere to key principles, such as common sense, common decency, a love of freedom and equality, an abhorrence of war, and a love of peace. By focusing on these, Eisenhower noted, "we hope to be known to all peoples."
Eisenhower's 1953 Inaugural Address had laid the foundation for his presidency. It outlined the ideals and goals that the American people could expect from him and to which they could hold him accountable. It was from this moment that Eisenhower continued his leadership into the second half of the twentieth century, shaping the world we live in today.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
