Life Magazine Excerpts re Presidential Inauguration

LIFE Vol. 26, No. 5 January 31, 1949 IN THE INAUGURAL PARADE AFTER TAKING THEIR OATHS THE PRESIDENT AND ALBEN BARKLEY ARE ALL DRESSED UP AND GRINNING HAPPILY FOR THE CROWDS TRUMAN IS INAUGURATED The honor of your presence Pennsylvania Avenue looked like a ball park be- big nor so rowdy as had been anticipated; any ceremonies fore a World Series game or like the entrance to a enterprising visitor could still find a hotel room state fair. The bleachers had been hammered into attending Inauquetion of the on the very day of the ceremonies and a group of place. Hawkers sold hot dogs, coffee, spun sugar, women volunteers, who had lined up 22,000 beds President United. souvenir buttons and Kewpie dolls with bright in private homes, was mightily embarrassed by purple feathers. Hordes of watchful policemen, lack of applicants. Yet it was a big and often stir- January leenlieth soldiers and Secret Service men lined the parade ring show. There was a three-hour-long parade route. (Once a Secret Service man picked a sus- (pp. 20, 21), fireworks and a full-dress ball which lindeen picious-looking box from the curbing and a Boy went on until 3 o'clock in the morning (p. 24). Scout yelled, "Hey, that's my lunch!") Airplanes And when the President took his oath of office he roared overhead, so low that they flushed flocks of stepped up to deliver /one of the frankest state- Howard frightened starlings from the Treasury building. ments of U.S. foreign policy ever made in peace- In this atmosphere-as peculiarly American time (pp. 18, 19). A million or more people milled as the political campaign which elected them- through the street in the bright winter sunlight, Harry Truman and Alben Barkley were inau- saw part or all of the ceremonies, glimpsed their INVITATIONS gurated last week. The inauguration was not so 32nd President and went home glad that they had.