Monday, January 14, 1963: George Wallace's inaugural address

Alabama's new governor gives his inauguration speech, fiery in tone and defiant about the authority of the federal government. It includes this memorable line: "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now ... segregation tomorrow ... and segregation forever."

From The Associated Press: "The new governor faces a racial showdown almost certainly within months after taking office. Three Negroes have applied for admission to the all-white University of Alabama."

Photo from Corbis Images.

* Transcript (from Alabama Department of Archives and History Digital Collections): @

* Video (from Alabama Department of Archives and History; last 3 minutes are missing): @
* Short video excerpt (from ABC News): @

* Segment from Radio Diaries: @
* "Shouting Defiance, Wallace Sworn In" (Tuscaloosa News, January 14): @
* "New Alabama Governor Faces Racial Crisis" (Washington, Pa., Observer, January 14): @
* "A speech that lives in infamy" (Charles J. Dean, al.com, 2013): @
* "The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics" (Dan T. Carter, 1995): @ 

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Thursday, December 27, 1962: 'Dictionary of American Regional English'

At the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society, Frederic Cassidy (a professor at the University of Wisconsin) presents the paper "The ADS Dictionary -- How Soon?", giving momentum to what would be a years-long effort to compile the "Dictionary of American Regional English." Cassidy becomes the project's editor.
* From DARE site: @ (home page) and @ (history)

* DARE map: @
* American Dialect Society: @

* Harvard University Press: @

* "Regional Dictionary Finally Hits 'Zydeco' " (New York Times, February 2012): @

* "Words of America" (National Endowment for the Humanities, 2011): @ 

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Undated: 'The whole nine yards'

The exact origin of the phrase (meaning "everything that is pertinent, appropriate or available") remains a mystery, but it shows up in print at least twice in late 1962: first in a short story, and then in a letter to a car magazine.

* From www.visualthesaurus.com: @ and @
* From www.worldwidewords.org: @

* From www.phrases.org.uk: @

* From www.barrypopik.com: @ 

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Tuesday, November 27, 1962: 'I Have a Dream'

Speaking in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech using the "I Have a Dream" construction, nine months before his famous speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (King is also said to have used the phrase even earlier, including in a speech in Albany, Georgia, on November 16, but the Rocky Mount speech is the earliest known recording, thanks to the efforts of W. Jason Miller, whose book is linked below.) News accounts of the speech did not mention "I Have a Dream"; it quoted King as saying: "Old Man Segregation is on his death bed. The only thing now is how costly the South will make his funeral."

-- Photo from www.waymarking.com

* Audio excerpts from speech:  @
* "King Urges 'Nonviolence' " (Associated Press, November 28): @
* Marker description from North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program: @

* "Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric" (W. Jason Miller, 2015): @

* "Making a Way Out of No Way" (Wolfgang Mieder, 2010): @

* "The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation" (Drew D. Hansen, 2005): @

* "A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." (edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard, 2001): @ 

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Undated: Hawks and doves

Writing in the December 8, 1962, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett recount the meetings and decision-making in Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The article helps popularize the political/military labels "hawks" and "doves" with the following passage:

"The hawks favored an air strike to eliminate the Cuban missile bases, either with or without warning. ... The doves opposed the air strike and favored a blockade."

"Hawk" was a shortened version of "war hawk," which dates to at least 1792.

The article also quotes Secretary of State Dean Rusk as saying, "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

* Saturday Evening Post article (PDF): @

* "War Hawks, Uncle Sam, and The White House: Tracing the Use of Three Phrases in Early American Newspapers" (Donald R. Hickey, Wayne State University, via Readex): @

* "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, first published in 1968; search for "doves" and "war hawks"): @

* "Of Hawks, Doves -- and Now, Owls" (Graham Allison, Joseph S. Nye and Albert Carnesale, The New York Times, 1985): @  

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Wednesday, September 12, 1962: 'We choose to go to the moon'

Speaking at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, President Kennedy forcefully reaffirms the United States' commitment to space exploration. The most famous passage:

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon ... we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

Photo from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

* Transcript and video (Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* Newsreel: @

* "50 years ago, Kennedy reached for stars in historic Rice speech" (Douglas Brinkley, Rice University, September 2012): @

* The Rice Thresher (student newspaper, September 19): @

* Speech materials from Kennedy library: @

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Monday, May 28, 1962: 'Black Monday'

The term "Black Monday" is again used to describe a substantial drop in share prices on the U.S. stock exchange. (The first being October 28, 1929.)

From The Associated Press: "The mightiest avalanche of selling in 32 years slugged the stock market into another severe loss today. It was a 'Black Monday' for investors who saw billions of dollars in stock value go down the drain."

* Stories, photos from Life magazine (June 8, 1962): @

* "Back to the Future: Lessons From the Forgotten 'Flash Crash' of 1962" (Wall Street Journal, 2010): @

* "The Present Decline in Perspective" (Report from the Council of Economic Advisers, May 29, 1962): @

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Saturday, May 12, 1962: 'Duty, Honor, Country'

Retired Gen. Douglas MacArthur gives a speech at the U.S. Military Academy as he accepts the Sylvanus Thayer Award for service to his country. The speech to the Corps of Cadets, both sweeping and personal, is a stirring explanation of "why we fight."

Its two most memorable passages, the first from the beginning of the speech:

Duty ... Honor ... Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

MacArthur concludes with:

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.

Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.

Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps.

I bid you farewell.

Portions of the speech would later be engraved on a series of walls at West Point as part of a MacArthur memorial.

Life magazine photo from 1947.

* Transcript of speech (from www.americanrhetoric.com): @

* Listen to the speech: @

* Entry from "Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History" (book by William Safire, 2004): @

* "Douglas MacArthur: Warrior as Wordsmith" (book by Bernard K. Duffy and Ronald H. Carpenter, 1997): @

* Remembrances of the event: @

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Sunday, April 29, 1962: White House state dinner

Forty-nine Nobel Prize winners are guests for a state dinner at the Kennedy White House. The president's remarks include this memorable line: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." (JFK's notes on an early draft of the speech indicate that he added the Jefferson reference.)

The day before, as well as that morning, Linus Pauling -- who won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of molecular structure -- had picketed outside the White House, protesting the resumption of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, Pauling attended the dinner.

This photo (from the JFK Library) shows the president talking to author Pearl Buck, while Mrs. Kennedy talks with poet Robert Frost.

* Full text of Kennedy remarks: @
* Associated Press story: @

* Time magazine article (May 11): @

* Summary and video clip of Linus Pauling: @

* Photo of Pauling protesting (April 28): @

* Note from Pauling on Jackie Kennedy's remark to him: @

* Photos from Corbis Images: @

* Materials from JFK Library: @

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1961: Kennedy photos

This has been nagging at me for a while, so I thought I'd try to set the record straight as best I could.

The Corbis photo above (also see Getty Images photo) is from President Kennedy's first State of the Union speech on January 30, 1961. Notice the flower in the lapel of House Speaker Sam Rayburn, seated in the back right (and which is visible in this footage of the speech), and the diagonal design of Vice President Lyndon Johnson's tie. (Click here for the January 31 edition of The Milwaukee Journal, which used a similar photo in which Rayburn's flower can be seen.)

Now compare that to the Corbis photo above, from Kennedy's speech on May 25, 1961, in which he talked of landing a man on the moon by the turn of the decade. Speaker Rayburn has no flower in his lapel, and Johnson's tie is of a different design. (Click here for footage of the speech, and here for the May 26 edition of the Youngstown Vindicator, where a close-up photo of Kennedy -- and Johnson's tie -- can be seen.) Also note the difference in the positioning of the smaller microphones in front of Kennedy. 

I often see photos from the State of the Union speech used to illustrate the moon speech, typically the photo at left. This includes the JFK Library (click here), NASA (click here) and The New York Times (click here). (After communications with The Associated Press, the news agency changed its caption information.)

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January 1962: 'Are Writers Made or Born?'

"On The Road" author Jack Kerouac pens a piece for the January 1962 edition of Writer's Digest. It ends with the oft-quoted line:

But it ain't whatcha write, it's the way atcha write it.

That's actually a variation of a line earlier in the article: "It ain't whatcha do," Sy Oliver and James Young said, "It's the way atcha do it." Kerouac is referencing the jazz song " 'Tain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)," written by Oliver and Young and recorded by Ella Fitzgerland, among others.

* Text of article (from a posting in the forum section on www.bobdylan.com, of all places; I've emailed the site to find out whether it's the piece in its entirety, as it is the only place I've found it on the Internet): @

* www.kerouac.com (website of The Beat Museum): @

* Short biography of Kerouac (from American Museum of Beat Art): @

* More Kerouac links (from Open Directory Project): @

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1961: The origins of 'Ms.'

From the book "Who Said That First? The Curious Origins of Common Words and Phrases" by Max Cryer:

Sheila Michaels was a member of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and like other feminists was seeking an honorific that didn't disclose her private status. One day a newspaper dropped into her mailbox and she noticed what seemed to be a misprint in the address: Ms. She had never seen it before, but decided that this was what she sought.

There was still difficulty promoting the idea, but in a later radio interview discussing feminism, Michaels suggested that Ms. be adopted, and pronounced Miz as she had heard in her home state of Missouri. A friend of Gloria Steinem's heard the interview, and in 1971 suggested it to Ms. Steinem as the name for a new magazine about to be launched. The first issue of Ms. magazine sold 300,000 copies in one week, and the 'new' honorific started to take hold.

Note: In an email, Ms. Michael says the newspaper arrived in late 1961.

* Article from New York Times Magazine (October 2009): @

* "Missing piece of puzzle in story of 'Ms.' " (from japantimes.co.jp): @

* "Hunting the Elusive First 'Ms.' " (from visualthesaurus.com): @

-- More about Ms. Michaels' work in civil rights

* Entries from Civil Rights Movement Veterans (www.crmvet.org): @ and @

* Televised interview, 2009: @

* Oral history (from the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Oral History & Cultural Heritage): @

* Sheilah Michaels Papers (housed at USM): @

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Thursday, September 28, 1961: Webster's Third

"Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged" or just "Webster's Third," is published by the G. & C. Merriam Company. The edition receives considerable publicity, not all of it positive:

-- The word "ain't" is included (see picture). "A dictionary's embrace of the word 'ain't' will comfort the ignorant, confer approval upon the mediocre, and subtly imply that proper English is the tool only of the snob; but it will not assist men to speak true to other men. It may, however, prepare us for that future which it could help to hasten. In the caves, no doubt, a grunt will do." (Toronto Globe and Mail)

-- "The label 'colloquial,' formerly applied to any word usage outside strict academic usage, has been dropped." (Associated Press)

-- "The new volume also clears up another tricky grammatical problem by asserting that there are some prepositions you can end a sentence with." (United Press International)

-- "The most startling innovation is the sprightly use of quotations from famous people to illustrate shades of meaning. To show how the word 'drain' can mean 'exhaust,' the dictionary borrows Ethel Merman's dictum: 'Two shows a day drain a girl.' 'Puff' in the sense of 'overrate' is defined by Willie Mays: 'Hit too many homers and people start puffing you up.' (Life magazine, September 15)

-- "Its rule of thumb seems to be: anything people say goes into the book. Thus, that most monstrous of all non-words -- irregardless -- is included." (Life magazine, October 27)

-- "We suggest to the Webster's editors that they not throw out the printing plates of the Second Edition. There is likely to be a continuing demand for it ... " (New York Times, October 12)

* Preface of dictionary: @

* Entry from "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage": @

* "Ain't That the Truth / Webster's Third: The Most Controversial Dictionary in the English Language" (Humanities magazine, 2009): @

* "The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics" (book by Herbert C. Morton): @

* Excerpt from "Dictionaries and the Authoritarian Tradition" (book by Walter de Gruyter): @

* Excerpt from "The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to 'South Park' " (book by Jack W. Lynch and John T. Lynch): @

* "Merriam-Webster and Webster's Third": @

* "A Non-Word Deluge" (Life magazine, October 1961): @

* "Logomarchy-Debased Verbal Currency" (editorial in American Bar Association Journal, January 1962): @

* "When a Dictionary Could Outrage" (New York Times, 2011): @

* Dictionary Society of North America: @

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Monday, July 31, 1961: Selectric typewriter

IBM Corp. begins selling its Selectric, introducing a new era in typewriter design and technology. Gone were individual typebars with a letter, number or symbol on each one; in their place was a golf-ball-shaped element that rotated and pivoted. The typeball was also interchangeable, allowing for different fonts. The machine meant faster typing and was an instant success.

* IBM press release marking anniversary: @

* "The Selectric Typewriter" (from www.ibm.com): @

* Operating manual: @

* "IBM Typewriter Milestones": @

* Ads for IBM typewriters: (from www.etypewriters.com): @

* 1961 newsreel (from criticalpast.com): @

* Selectric Typewriter Museum: @

* IBM Selectric Typewriter Resource Page: @

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Thursday, May 25, 1961: A mission to the moon

The speech's official name was "Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs." And while President John F. Kennedy spoke about U.S. goals and challenges at home and abroad, the most memorable passage -- and objective -- was this:

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

* Video (from Miller Center of Public Affairs) : @

* Transcript and audio (from JFK library): @

* Draft of speech, press copy and reading copy (from JFK library): @

* Memo from Kennedy to Vice President Johnson, April 20 (from NASA): @

* Memo from Johnson to Kennedy, April 28 (from NASA): @

* Letter from Dr. Wernher von Braun to Johnson, April 29 (from NASA): @

(Click here for earlier entry on von Braun and Marshall Space Flight Center)

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Tuesday, May 9, 1961: 'Vast wasteland' speech

Newton Minow, newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gives a provocative speech to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Washington, D.C. The speech is titled "Television and the Public Interest." In it, Minow says:

"... When television is good, nothing -- not the magazines or newspapers -- nothing is better.

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, with a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

"You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials -- many screaming, cajoling and offending. And, most of all, boredom."

* Text and audio of speech: @

* Biography (from Museum of Broadcast Communications): @

* 1999 interview (from Archive of American Television): @

* "The Vast Wasteland Revisited" (Federal Communications Law Journal, 2003): @

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Monday, January 30, 1961: State of the Union

President John Kennedy gives his first State of the Union speech. In an assessment more realistic than optimistic, Kennedy says, "I speak today in an hour of national peril and national opportunity. Before my term has ended, we shall have to test anew whether a nation organized and governed such as ours can endure. The outcome is by no means certain. The answers are by no means clear." And later: "Life in 1961 will not be easy. Wishing it, predicting, even asking for it, will not make it so. There will be further setbacks before the tide is turned."

* Footage: @

* Transcript: @

* Copy of speech: @

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Tuesday, January 17, 1961: Eisenhower's farewell address

Three days before leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives a nationally televised speech. Eisenhower uses the occasion to sound a warning about the "military-industrial complex" (a phrase first used here) becoming the driving force behind the United States' domestic and foreign policy. The tone and message are somewhat surprising, coming as they do from the former Army general. "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together," Eisenhower says.

* Video: @
* Transcript and audio: @

* Short summary (from ourdocuments.gov): @

* "The 'Military-Industrial Complex' Speech" (written by Kevin C. Murphy for "The American Century: A History of the United States since the 1890s"): @

* "Military-Industrial Complex, Fifty Years On" (from Council on Foreign Relations): @

* Story about recent discovery of speech materials (New Yorker magazine, December 20, 2010): @

* Links to various materials (from eisenhower.archives.gov): @

* militaryindustrialcomplex.com: @

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Friday, November 25, 1960: Goldwater misquoted

Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, in Los Angeles for a speech to the National Interfraternity Conference, is reported to have said, "Where fraternities are not allowed, communism flourishes." The quote was widely repeated, both at the time ("Fraternities Help Curb Reds, Goldwater Says," reported The New York Times) and ever since.

What Goldwater actually said was "Where fraternities are not allowed, Keynesianism flourishes."

Goldwater was referring specifically to Harvard University, which at the time did not allow traditional Greek fraternities and which he saw as the center of Keynesianism. (Kenyesianism being the economic theory that government intervention was necessary for an economy to fully flourish; Goldwater opposed such managed capitalism and pushed for smaller, less intrusive government.)

He also said in defense of fraternities: "They are probably the greatest bastion we have for our future, the great bastion we have where we can develop leaders to take care of the protection of the Republic and our way of life."

* Summary of Keynesianism: @

* "We Are All Keynesians Now" (Time magazine, December 31, 1965): @

* "They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes & Misleading Attributions": @

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Monday-Friday, October 10-14, 1960: LBJ's whistle-stop tour

Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic candidate for vice president, begins a 5-day, 8-state, 3,500-mile campaign tour by train, starting in Culpeper, Virginia, and ending in New Orleans, Louisiana. He gives some 60 speeches along the way. (The photo at left was taken in Greenville, South Carolina; click to enlarge). The train, which the campaign called the "LBJ Victory Special," is dubbed "The Cornpone Special" by some reporters.

The day before, during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Johnson had shown a barbed sense of humor about his own running mate when talking about the Democrats' efforts to cut federal spending. He deadpans, "And I predict, if I know anything about Senator Kennedy, that he'll continue that policy. All you have to do is go to a drugstore with him and buy a sandwich and see how long he shuffles trying to get the money to pick up the check ... find out, if he handles the government's money like he handles his own, why, we're going to have a pretty good fiscal policy."

* Photos from Greensboro, North Carolina: @

* Johnson atop "The Big Chair" in Thomasville, North Carolina: @ and @ (photo courtesy of Thomasville Times)

* Article by only black reporter on the train: @

* Account from Time magazine: @

* More about presidential campaign trains from "Safire's Political Dictionary": @ and @ (origin of word "whistlestopping")

* "Meet the Press" footage: @

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