April 30, 1789

On this date, George Washington was sworn in as President of the United States before a Joint Meeting of Congress at Federal Hall in New York City. At one o’clock, Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall, allowing the crowd of spectators to witness the event. After taking the oath, Washington delivered his inaugural address in the Senate Chamber. “On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love,” Washington said. “On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me…could not but overwhelm with despondence one, who…ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.” He declined, “any share in the personal emoluments which may be…included in a permanent provision for the Executive department,” and asked that, “estimates for the station in which I am placed may…be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.” Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania remembered that Washington seemed “agitated and embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket” of the British during the American Revolution. Representative Fisher Ames of Massachusetts, however, recalled, “a very touching scene,” although Washington was “actually shaking, his voice deep…and so low as to call for close attention.” Several days later, Representative James Madison of Virginia moved that “an address to the President ought to be prepared, expressing the congratulations of the House of Representatives…of the patriotic sentiments and of the liberal policy recommended by the speech.” The House unanimously agreed to Madison’s motion.

April 30, 1983

On this date, Congressman Harold Washington of Illinois resigned from the House of Representatives to become mayor of Chicago. Before coming to Congress, Washington sharpened his political skills in the Illinois state legislature where he served for 15 years. His rebellious streak and eventual break with the local Democratic machine earned him the respect of many Chicago voters—especially African Americans who increasingly viewed the machine as a vehicle for stifling independent black politicians. In the 1980 Democratic primary, Washington challenged the machine-backed incumbent Representative Bennett Stewart for the majority-black congressional district in Chicago’s South Side. Washington captured nearly 50 percent of the vote and went on to easily defeat his opponent in the general election for a seat in the 97th Congress (1981–1983). During his short career in the House, Washington demonstrated a strong record on civil rights where he helped to negotiate an extension of sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Shortly after winning a second term in Congress in 1982, Washington announced his candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Content with his position in Congress, Washington nonetheless was convinced to run for mayor after a campaign to register voters added more than 100,000 African-American voters to Chicago’s rolls. During the campaign, the Illinois Representative used a grass-roots approach that emphasized his anti-machine record. Drastically outspent by incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley, the son of the late former mayor, Washington stunned his opponents by emerging victorious in the competitive Democratic primary. “The whole nation was watching and Chicago sent a profound message out of the crucible of our city’s most trying election,” Washington declared after his narrow win in the general election capped his historic achievement as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

May 2, 1922

On this date, a Hearst newspaper truck from New York City delivered a petition to the Capitol bearing more than one million signatures in support of a bonus for World War I veterans. Momentum had been building for several years for the federal government to compensate servicemen for the difference they lost between pay in the military versus their civilian jobs. The document simply read: “We respectfully petition Congress to pass the soldiers’ bonus act without further delay, and also to levy a sales tax to obtain the money to pay the bonus.” A delegation of House and Senate Members, led by Lester D. Volk of New York and Hiram Johnson of California, accepted the petition on the central steps of the East Front. Inside the House Chamber, the reception was markedly cooler. Representative Charles Lineberger of California, who supported the bonus, nevertheless dismissed the petition ceremony as a “pageant” intended to “commercialize or politicize patriotism.” Lineberger claimed newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst orchestrated the event to boost the re-election prospects of Senator Johnson. Hearst had used his newspapers as powerful outlets to oppose U.S. intervention in World War I. Now Lineberger pilloried the Hearst chain, “whose slimy trail of pro-Germanism and traitorous utterances…[carried] on the nefarious work of opposing the war and obstructing the path to victory,” for positioning itself as servicemen’s advocate. Congress passed a bonus in 1922 but President Warren Harding vetoed it. After passing another bonus bill, Congress overrode the veto of President Calvin Coolidge in May 1924 and the measure was enacted. The payment—which provided veterans $1.25 per day for service overseas and $1 per day for domestic service—was deferred by the law until 1945. The issue was reopened in the early 1930s, when cash-strapped veterans suffering the effects of the Great Depression marched on Washington to demand an immediate payment.