Today is Sunday, Jan. 4, the fourth day of 2009. There are 361 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
Two hundred years ago, on Jan. 4, 1809, Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille raised-dot reading system for the blind, was born in Coupvray, France.
On this date:
In 1821, the first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th state.
In 1904, the Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them U.S. citizens.
In 1948, Burma now called Myanmar became independent of British rule.
In 1951, during the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul.
In 1960, Nobel Prize-winning French author Albert Camus died in an automobile accident at age 46.
In 1965, Poet T.S. Eliot died in London at age 76. President Lyndon B. Johnson outlined the goals of his “Great Society” in his State of the Union Address.
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January 4, 1965: President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces the ‘Great Society’ policy proposals in his State of the Union address.
State of the Union
Congress is being asked to remold vast areas of national life. This is the import of one of the most wide-ranging state of the Union messages ever delivered by a president of the United States. Seldom, if ever, has a president outlined as many-sided and as deep-cutting a course of action as has President Johnson in this single speech.
It is also immediately apparent that the White House conceives of this program as one which the federal government would carry through largest on its own initiative. Nowhere in his address did the President indicate his belief that such a program could or should depend to any great extent on individual or local action. Although he called for national support, he did not call for other that federal initiative.
The assumption of still greater power and influence by the federal government will make many hesitate, who would otherwise be ready to turn their efforts to the solution of problems of unquestioned national concern. Few Americans would deny that it is time to “turn increased attention to the character of American life.” But they are not prepared to concede that such an examination should be left primarily to the federal government.
Similarly the nation would agree that America has reach a point of potential material prosperity where freedom from physical want will permit men better to “fulfill the needs of the spirit.” Indeed, this is a goal which increasing numbers of Americans have felt is long overdue. It is a goal which, if sought with the methods and within the spiritual, moral, and intellecutla framework that has made America great, all men can accept. It is, in fact, a goal toward which all peoples and nations must eventually turn. But it is a goal whose achievement can never be separated from the methods and means chosen to reach it.
Terming it “A National Agenda,” President Johnson called for programs dealing with education, disease, urban life, the preservation of natural beauty, regional rehabilitation, the prevention of crime, full civil rights, the support of artistic and intellectual achievement, and the reduction of waste and inefficiency. He promised that within the next six weeks he would submit special messages to Congress to further the program.
It cannot be denied that thte presidential list includes many of the United States’ most serious problems. They are problems which deserve the attention of an entire nation. Indeed, they are problems which cannot be met without national attention at all levels. But no federal government on its own ever has or ever will be able to cope with problems of such magnitude. The experience of authoritarian states has proved this beyond question. It will be explicitly necessary to make sure that the presidential program results in a heightened effort by the American people as a whole, and at the levels of state and local government, not merely in an increase in federal power or activity. We welcome a truly Great Society. We would deplore a super-welfare state.
President Johnson has recently spoken much of national “consensus” as the most acceptable means of proceeding with the governmental and political tasks of the day. We agree. But we also reacll that following Mr. Johnson’s overwhelming victory in November, it was also the national consensus that it had been a victory for moderation. We doubt if a program calling for such a heavy increase in federal power, influence and expense can be termed “moderate.”
Furthermore, millions of Americans could not but feel concern with President Johnson’s apparent willingness to breach the clear and traditional separations of church and state in the United States through his proposal to extend financial assistance to pupils attending private schools. Here, in fact, was a proposal which might well fall under the Supreme Court’s dictum that it is illegal to seek to accomplish indirectly what cannot be accomplished directly.
Much remains to be disclosed about the cost of many aspects of the Johnson program. This applies particularly to the medical measures mentioned in the state of the Union message and to the general medicare proposals. There is concern in Washington lest the potentially gigantic costs of medicare alone overbalance the entire Social Security program.
Not one of the major problems which Mr. Johnson has outlined is insolvable. But in addition to federal states where these are needed, these problems call for bold, strong, imaginative private and local effort. It is through such effort that American progress can still be made in this manner when the will to do so is galvanized. This President himself appeared to recognize this, in some measure, when he said that the Great Society “will not be the gift of government or the creation of presidents.”
When we turn to the President’s treatment of world affairs, we find few specific details then in domestic proposals. We welcome the assurance that the United States will not break its pledge to South Vietnam, but we should also have welcomed a more concrete discussion of American intentions there, with the United States’ European allies, Washington’s plans for increasing the effectiveness of the Alliance for Progress, and how an exchange of visits and television programs between the United States and the Soviet Union can be effected deserved fuller treatment.
For, tempting as it is to turn from international affairs to the building of the Great Society, the problems of nine-tenths of the world remain largely unsolved, so long as some two billion human beings beyond America’s borders have little hope of their own great society, neither the American people nor the American Government can safely or conscientiously concentrate too long or too closely on their own well-being and happiness.
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In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
In 1987, 16 people were killed when an Amtrak train bound from Washington, D.C. to Boston collided with Conrail locomotives that had crossed into its path from a side track in Chase, Md.
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| 1990 | Charles Stuart, who had claimed a gunman had killed his pregnant wife and wounded him, leaped to his death from a Boston Harbor bridge after he became a suspect. |
| 1990 | Deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in Miami on drug-trafficking charges. |
| 1995 | The 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era; Newt Gingrich was elected speaker of the House. |
| 1999 | Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as governor of Minnesota. |
| 2004 | Afghans approved a new constitution. |
| 2004 | Georgians overwhelmingly elected Mikhail Saakashvili president, two months after he’d led protests that forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down. |
| 2006 | Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and his powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert. |
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In 2007, Nancy Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the House as Democrats took control of Congress.
Ten years ago: Europe’s new currency, the euro, got off to a strong start on its first trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets. Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura took the oath of office as Minnesota’s governor.
Five years ago: In Iowa, seven of the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a feisty, first debate of the election year. Afghans approved a new constitution. Georgians overwhelmingly elected Mikhail Saakashvili president, two months after he’d led protests that forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down. Louisiana State University won college football’s Sugar Bowl, defeating Oklahoma 21-14.
One year ago: The government reported that the nation’s jobless rate hit 5 percent in Dec. 2007, a two-year high, fanning recession fears. Howling winds, pelting rain and heavy snow pummeled California. Britney Spears lost custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline a day after police and paramedics were called to her home.
Today’s Birthdays
Actress Barbara Rush is 82. Football Hall-of-Fame coach Don Shula is 79. Actress Dyan Cannon is 72. Opera singer Grace Bumbry is 72. Author-historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is 66. Country singer Kathy Forester (The Forester Sisters) is 54. Actress Ann Magnuson is 53. Rock musician Bernard Sumner (New Order, Joy Division) is 53. Country singer Patty Loveless is 52. Rock singer Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) is 49. Actor Patrick Cassidy is 47. Actor Dave Foley is 46. Singer-musician Cait O’Riordan is 44. Actress Julia Ormond is 44. Tennis player Guy Forget is 44. Country singer Deana Carter is 43. Rock musician Benjamin Darvill (Crash Test Dummies) is 42. Actor Jeremy Licht is 38. Actress-singer Jill Marie Jones is 34. Christian rock singer Spencer Chamberlain (Underoath) is 26.
Thought for Today
“Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.” — Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court justice (1908-1993).
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Full article: http://cbs3.com/todayinhistory/Today.In.History.2.896864.html
Photo: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20090104.html
Inset (2): http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20090104.html
