January 29, 2007

On this date, Father Robert Frederick Drinan, the first Catholic priest to serve as a voting Member in Congress, died. Despite his limited political experience, Drinan entered the 1970 Democratic primary for the Third Congressional District of Massachusetts. When asked to expound on his reasons for jumping into the political fray, Drinan responded, “Why not? Jesuit priests always have been avant-garde. Right?” Drinan’s entry into the race against the 14-term incumbent Philip Philbin provoked criticism from some Catholics who opposed the notion of priests holding political office. Running on an antiwar platform, Drinan orchestrated an effective grassroots campaign to pull off what the New York Times termed as “one of the most notable upsets of the year.” During his 10 years in the House, Drinan used his political position to advocate social justice and world peace. He condemned the Vietnam War and the draft and also spoke out against world hunger and the escalating arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. On July 31, 1973, Drinan introduced the first formal resolution for impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. “Can we be silent about this flagrant violation of the Constitution?” Drinan asked regarding the President’s decision to secretly bomb Cambodia. In 1980, Pope John Paul II issued a directive barring priests from holding public office, effectively ending Drinan’s political career. “I am proud and honored to be a priest and a Jesuit. As a person of faith, I must believe that there is work for me to do which somehow will be more important than the work I am required to leave,” Drinan remarked. After leaving Congress, Drinan, who characterized his role in the House as a “moral architect,” worked as a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

January 30, 1961

On this date during the 87th Congress (1961–1963), President John F. Kennedy delivered his first State of the Union Address before a Joint Session of Congress. The occasion marked only the second time a newly elected President chose to give such a speech—the first was Kennedy’s predecessor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Kennedy delivered his nearly one-hour long address 10 days after his inauguration. Out-going President Eisenhower submitted his last State of the Union Address in writing to Congress on January 12, 1961. The new President began his address by remembering his own three terms in the House (1947–1953), noting that Members of Congress were “among my oldest friends in Washington and the House is my oldest home.” He also vowed to work in tandem with his former colleagues. “I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress,” Kennedy declared to general applause, “nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of these decisions.” Kennedy addressed the domestic economic recession, offering specific policies, including increasing unemployment benefits and offering tax incentives to expanding businesses. He also surveyed the spread of communism to developing nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, calling for increased military strength coupled with expanded economic and educational aid to these countries. Despite his sobering subject matter, Kennedy ended his speech with a few words of optimism. “The hopes of all mankind rest upon us—not simply upon those of us in this Chamber, but upon…the spirit that moves every man and nation who shares our hopes for freedom and the future,” Kennedy intoned. “And in the final analysis, they rest most of all upon the pride and perseverance of our fellow American citizens.”

January 29, 1901

On this date, George White of North Carolina, the lone African-American Member of the 56th Congress (1899–1901), gave his final address on the House Floor. The last of 22 black men who, since 1870, had served reconstructed southern states in Congress, White’s departure from the House the following March began a 28-year absence of African-American representation in Congress. Born a slave in North Carolina in 1852, White practiced law and served as a principal for several public schools before entering politics as a member of the North Carolina house of representatives in 1880. In 1896, White defeated his brother-in-law, Representative Henry Cheatham, to represent North Carolina’s “Black Second,” a majority African-American district in the eastern part of the state. White vigorously defended the diminishing rights of African Americans in the South; he boldly put forth the first anti-lynching bill, seeking to quell surging mob violence against black men. White’s bill was unsuccessful in the face of growing GOP apathy towards racial legislation and the increased power of southern Democrats in Congress. Facing overwhelming odds in the wake of the further disfranchisement of North Carolina blacks, he declined to run for re-election in 1900. White predicted the return of African Americans to Congress in his valedictory speech, which filled more than four pages in the Congressional Record. “The only apology that I have to make for the earnestness with which I have spoken,” he concluded, “is that I am pleading for the life, the liberty, the future happiness, and the manhood suffrage of one-eighth of the entire population of the United States.”