When Words Mattered

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”-Kennedy Inaugural Address, Jan.20, 1961

”With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see right, let us strive, on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds…”-Lincoln Second Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1865.

Two of the most famous and important speeches in American history given at a critical turning point. The two presidents use of language to rally the country to see the way forward are the finest examples of the power of writing for the spoken word. That doesn’t mean long and wordy. Quite the opposite. Lincoln’s speech was 701 words and took about six or seven minutes. Kennedy’s was 1,366 words and ran 14 minutes. To put them in context, Washington’s second inaugural address was 135 words. He just acknowledged his re-election. The longest in history was William Henry Harrison’s 8,445 words. The most forgotten president. He died a month after giving that speech.

Lincoln started by saying he wouldn’t speak for long.

“At this second appearing, to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first.”

Lincoln is famous for making history in a few words, the Gettysburg Address was 272. In 1865, the country was coming out the most traumatic time in its history, the Civil War. He summed up why the war was fought.

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”

In two sentences, he lays out the heart of the issue. In that last sentence, four simple words are used to captured the enormity of what happened.

Lincoln talked about how slavery divided the country. But he pointed out how alike the two sides were.

“Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.”

While Lincoln acknowledges the horror of war, “Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray-that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”

He uses the word “speedily” to emphasize the need to move ahead to a better future. And then the ending, like no other by a victor to the defeated and a new birth of freedom.

“With malice toward none: with charity for all: with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations”.

The cadence of the words as he builds to the conclusion lifts the listener higher with hope that we can achieve that new world.

Lincoln let his Secretary of State William Seward review the speech and make suggestions. For Lincoln, shorter was always better. Seward suggested, “We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow countrymen and brethren.”

Lincoln re-wrote, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”

Lincoln’s and the country’s hopes for a bright future of reconciliation died a little over a month later at the hands of a man in crowd that day, John Wilkes Booth.

Almost a hundred years later, John F. Kennedy stood on the Capitol steps at the dawn of the 1960s. Kennedy was only 43 years old, the youngest president ever elected by the narrowest popular vote margin and the first Catholic. Kennedy’s speech was the first broadcast in color. Columnist and Nixon speechwriter William Safire said Kennedy, “Set the standard by which presidential inaugurals have been judge in the modern era.” Kennedy speechwriter and counsel Ted Sorenson helped write the speech. Sorenson said Kennedy wanted to achieve five things with the speech.

-Convey a seriousness of purpose. He would be dealing with world leaders much older than he.

-He prefers not a “hot war” but genuine peace, negotiations and cooperation.

-Win more friends for the US in the west and Third World.

-He wanted the speech short using elevated language to summon the American people to the challenges, sacrifices and discipline that he knew lay ahead.

-He wanted no trace of political partisanship. He wanted to avoid domestic issues as inherently divisive.

On that frigid, bright sunny day, Kennedy started with, “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient hertiage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed…”

That will make the world stand up and pay attention to this new guy. Each phrase is short and coveys a strong idea. He says we are a “new generation” but we’ve paid our dues and are ready to lead the country into a challenging world. Kennedy gets even stronger as he reaches out to the rest of the world.

”Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more.”

It almost has a musical beat as it builds to the ultimate goal “success of liberty” and more. He uses comparison to drive home his beliefs. He addresses the world’s poor.

“To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves…If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

It’s in the interest of us all to attack the world’s problems.

Kennedy warns that we will not be pushed around by anyone including the Soviet Union.

”So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

Before Kennedy wraps up with the “Ask not” challenge, he pushes us to understand what’s at stake.

”Now the trumpet summons us again-not as a call to arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out” ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’ against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.”

A thousand days later, Kennedy was dead. Both he and Lincoln didn’t live to see if their words changed the country and made it a better place. After the Civil War, Reconstruction failed. Decades of discrimination and segregation tore us apart. Real progress for civil rights didn’t really start changing the country until the 1960s. We will never know how the country would have handled Vietnam and the forces of change that rocked the sixties if Kennedy had lived.

Looking back on these words, they still inspire and even thrill us. They show us leaders of intelligence with innate ability to make us sit up and listen. Kennedy was rich and Harvard educated. Lincoln grew up poor with less than a year of formal schooling. Both were avid readers. Kennedy had already won a Pulitzer Prize. The passage of time and their political beliefs did not erode the significance of the words today. In our fractured and troubled times, where communication is sometimes infected with misinformation for political gain, we should listen to those echoes of the past and hear the power of words to express our ideas and hopes.