Washington, D.C., January 20, 1953
The leaden winter sky gave way to the sun’s first weak rays, slowly at first, then growing bolder as they lightened the fallow fields of Maryland’s eastern shore, skimmed over the Chesapeake Bay, and brought the east front of the U.S. Capitol into relief against the expanse of the Mall that lay beyond. Workers had swarmed over the East Portico of the Capitol for a week, constructing and adorning the grand podium for the presidential inauguration that was about to take place.
Despite the freezing temperature, thousands of people had arrived before sunrise to find a spot on the grounds around and under the grandstand, which stood on enormous stiltlike wooden legs facing the marble stage where the ceremony would be held. More than a million people were expected to watch Eleanor Roosevelt take the oath of office and cheer her along the parade route. Washington strained to accommodate the massive onslaught, housing eight thousand people in Pullman cars at Union Station the night before, and turning hotel storage rooms into sleeping space.
Across First Street, in the office of Fred Vinson, chief justice of the Supreme Court, the oldest inaugural Bible, printed in Dutch in 1686, lay in a wooden box ready for transport. Franklin Roosevelt had used this book for all four of his presidential inaugurations.
At twelve noon, the chief justice would stand in his formal robes with the president-elect beside him, her family, dignitaries, and friends surrounding them. As her husband had done before her, Eleanor would place her hand on the page that held I Corinthians 13, its words of love so familiar to her. Then the chief justice would ask her to repeat after him. In the 164 years since George Washington was inaugurated, thirty-three men had spoken the words that Eleanor would say: “I 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.”
Tens of millions of Americans would watch the historic moment on television; millions more would listen to her on radio around the world. And high atop the Capitol’s massive dome, sturdy as the nation that placed her there, the Statue of Freedom in her flowing robes, one hand on a sheathed sword, the other grasping the laurel wreath of victory, would bear witness.