Week Four: President Gerald R. Ford's Swearing-In Ceremony
“Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.”
The summer of 1974 was a time very much like now; America was deeply divided and public confidence in government low. Into that environment stepped Michigan’s own Gerald Ford, the first President to take office without having run for either President or Vice President on a national ticket. Entering office under the most unusual of circumstances, President Ford would later lose to Jimmy Carter and so never got a term he could truly call his own or a real inauguration. Still, in remarks he made following a low-key swearing-in ceremony on August 9, 1974, in the East Room of the White House, President Ford gave Americans what they most needed to hear at that time – reassurance. Is that what Americans will be hoping to hear on January 20, reassurance? The ceremony and speech run a little less than 12 minutes.
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