Jenna Bush Quotes

This may be Kennedy’s most famous line. However he was not the first orator to express this idea however. See Khalil Gibran {601423}, Warren G. Harding {622594} and {629021}, St. John Broderick {595734}, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. {603707} for earlier expressions of similar sentiments. Holmes seems to be the first to express the idea while the earliest seems similar phraseology seems to be the British Politician St. John Broderick in 1893 {595734}. Although, these earlier expressions existed, Theodore C. Sorensen, who assisted Kennedy with this speech and wrote the draft, had distilled it from earlier expressions and views of JFK and said that these were Kennedy’s words. At the time, he stated that was unaware of the Gibran, Harding, Broderick and Holmes sentiments. Gibran had not yet even been translated into English. However it is not clear whether Kennedy himself had inadvertently recollected the phrase from any of the other quotations. (The question was never put to him.) The St. John Broderick quotation is a possible source. Kennedy was quite familiar with British political history, and his father and been U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain. Regardless, the quotation was as great for the place and timing—his inaugural—as it was for the phraseology which might have originated elsewhere.

The Society of Cincinnati was formed just after the Revolutionary War by officers of the army, to perpetuate friendships, to aid each other and the widows and orphans of members, and to honor their French allies and comrades:

See John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 inaugural quote {589867} for a more modern articulation targeted at all. The above quotation is from the Anthony R. Ferris translation of 1958. In an interesting play of influences, note the following Andrew Dib Sherfan’s 1975 translation done after the Kennedy inaugural address.

Monroe was Secretary of War at the time and wanted to raise an army to invade Canada. Congress debated the option but the War of 1812 ended and so did the conscription proposal. See Daniel Webster’s opposition to Monroe’s idea.

This sentiment is conceptually remarkably similar to JFK’s famous quotation in his inaugural address {589867}, however there is no evidence that Kennedy or his speechwriter were aware of Harding’s speech.

Theodore Roosevelt had just been nominated as Vice President and the Republicans were almost certain to win the general election. The Chairman was alsays very distressed by Roosevelt. The New York conservative Republicans leaders had pushed him out of the Governorship by getting him nominated as VP as NY business leaders were fearful of TR’s business reform ideas. Hanna worried that if TR ever reached a position of power, he would alienate business from the national Republican party. When McKinley was assassinated, Hanna’s worst fears were realized. See his reaction {585078}