have taken the high and solemn oath to which you have
been audience because the people of the United States have chosen me for
this august delegation of power and have by their gracious judgment
named me their leader in affairs.

I know now what the task means. I realize to the full the responsibility
which it involves. I pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence
to do my duty in the true spirit of this great people. I am their
servant and can succeed only as they sustain and guide me by their
confidence and their counsel. The thing I shall count upon, the thing
without which neither counsel nor action will avail, is the unity of
America--an America united in feeling, in purpose and in its vision of
duty, of opportunity and of service.

We are to beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities
of the nation to their own private profit or use them for the building
up of private power.

United alike in the conception of our duty and in the high resolve to
perform it in the face of all men, let us dedicate ourselves to the
great task to which we must now set our hand. For myself I beg your
tolerance, your countenance and your united aid.

The shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled, and
we shall walk with the light all about us if we be but true to
ourselves--to ourselves as we have wished to be known in the counsels of
the world and in the thought of all those who love liberty and justice
and the right exalted.

* * * * *

WARREN G. HARDING, INAUGURAL ADDRESS

FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1921

[Transcriber's note: Senator Harding from Ohio was the first sitting
Senator to be elected President. A former newspaper publisher and
Governor of Ohio, the President-elect rode to the Capitol with President
Wilson in the first automobile to be used in an inauguration. President
Wilson had suffered a stroke in 1919, and his fragile health prevented
his attendance at the ceremony on the East Portico of the Capitol. The
oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Edward White, using the
Bible from George Washington's first inauguration. The address to the
crowd at the Capitol was broadcast on a loudspeaker. A simple parade
followed.]

My Countrymen:

When one surveys the world about him after the great storm, noting the
marks of destruction and yet rejoicing in the ruggedness of the things
which withstood it, if he is an American he breathes the clarified
atmosph