Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, followed by post-war relief of Europe. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928. His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression, and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as lackluster. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.
Herbert Hoover's tenure as the 31st president of the United States began on his inauguration on March 4, 1929, and ended on March 4, 1933. Hoover, a Republican, took office after a landslide victory in the 1928 presidential election over Democrat Al Smith of New York. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1932 presidential election by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, after one term in office.
The 1956 State of the Union Address was delivered by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, on Friday, January 5, 1956, to both houses of the 84th United States Congress in written format. Eisenhower did not deliver a speech before a joint session of Congress because he had suffered a major heart attack four months prior and was recovering in Key West, Florida. Instead, Eisenhower opted to pre-record remarks from his office at the Naval Air Station in Key West summarizing his State of the Union Address which were broadcast to the nation in the evening on January 5.
The 1920 State of the Union Address was written by the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, on Tuesday, December 7, 1920. It was his last address to both houses of the 66th United States Congress. Warren Harding became president on Friday, March 4, 1921. He said, "By this faith, and by this faith alone, can the world be lifted out of its present confusion and despair. It was this faith which prevailed over the wicked force of Germany. You will remember that the beginning of the end of the war came when the German people found themselves face to face with the conscience of the world and realized that right was everywhere arrayed against the wrong that their government was attempting to perpetrate." He is referring to how the United States contributed to the victory of World War I.
The 1926 State of the Union Address was given by Calvin Coolidge, the 30th United States President, on Monday, December 6, 1926, to the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate. It was his fourth State of the Union Address and was delivered to the Congress in written format.
The 1960 State of the Union Address was given on Thursday, January 7, 1960, by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, to a joint session of the 86th United States Congress. He said, "We must strive to break the calamitous cycle of frustrations and crises which, if unchecked, could spiral into nuclear disaster; the ultimate insanity." It was the height of the Cold War, and both the Soviet Union and the United States had a responsibility to the world.
The 1914 State of the Union Address was given by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th United States president, on Tuesday, December 8, 1914, to both houses of 63rd United States Congress. He concluded it with, "To develop our life and our resources; to supply our own people, and the people of the world as their need arises, from the abundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade to enrich the commerce of our own States and of the world with the products of our mines, our farms, and our factories, with the creations of our thought and the fruits of our character,-this is what will hold our attention and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the years to come, as we strive to show in our life as a nation what liberty and the inspirations of an emancipated spirit may do for men and for societies, for individuals, for states, and for mankind."
The 1901 State of the Union Address was given on Tuesday, December 3, 1901, by the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It was presented to both houses of the 57th United States Congress, but he was not present. He stated, "The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month." He concluded it with, "Indeed, from every quarter of the civilized world we received, at the time of the President's death, assurances of such grief and regard as to touch the hearts of our people. In the midst of our affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken these international relations of mutual respect and good will."
The 1893 State of the Union Address was written on Monday, December 4, 1893, by Grover Cleveland, the 24th United States president, to both houses of the 53rd United States Congress. It was his fifth address, and his fifth year in office. He said, "It is believed that under the recent amendment of the act extending the time for registration the Chinese laborers thereto entitled who desire to reside in this country will now avail themselves of the renewed privilege thus afforded of establishing by lawful procedure their right to remain, and that thereby the necessity of enforced deportation may to a great degree be avoided."
The 1974 State of the Union Address was given to the 93rd United States Congress, on Wednesday, January 30, 1974, by Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States. He said, "We meet here tonight at a time of great challenge and great opportunities for America. We meet at a time when we face great problems at home and abroad that will test the strength of our fiber as a nation. But we also meet at a time when that fiber has been tested, and it has proved strong.
The 1875 State of the Union Address was given by Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States on Tuesday, December 7, 1875. It was written by him, but not presented to the 44th United States Congress by him. He said, "In submitting my seventh annual message to Congress, in this centennial year of our national existence as a free and independent people, it affords me great pleasure to recur to the advancement that has been made from the time of the colonies, one hundred years ago. We were then a people numbering only 3,000,000. Now we number more than 40,000,000. Then industries were confined almost exclusively to the tillage of the soil. Now manufactories absorb much of the labor of the country." The Industrial Revolution had begun.
The 1796 State of the Union Address was given by George Washington, the first president of the United States, on Wednesday, December 7, 1796. It was given in Congress Hall, Philadelphia. He gave it directly to Congress. He began with, "In recurring to the internal situation of our country since I had last the pleasure to address you, I find ample reason for a renewed expression of that gratitude to the Ruler of the Universe which a continued series of prosperity has so often and so justly called forth." He ended with, "God's providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual."
The 1837 State of the Union Address was given by the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, on December 5, 1837. It was presented to the 25th United States Congress by a clerk, because it was not yet the custom for the president to deliver it himself. He began with, "We have reason to renew the expression of our devout gratitude to the Giver of All Good for His benign protection. Our country presents on every side the evidences of that continued favor under whose auspices it, has gradually risen from a few feeble and dependent colonies to a prosperous and powerful confederacy."
The 1799 State of the Union Address was given to the United States Congress, on Tuesday, December 3, 1799, by the second president of the United States, John Adams. He said, "the return of health, industry, and trade to those cities which have lately been afflicted with disease, and the various and inestimable advantages, civil and religious, which, secured under our happy frame of government, are continued to us unimpaired, demand of the whole American people sincere thanks to a benevolent Deity for the merciful dispensations of His providence." It was the last address to be given at Congress Hall, Philadelphia.
The 1852 State of the Union Address was given by the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, on Monday, December 6, 1852. It was spoken to the 32nd United States Congress by a clerk, not the president. He said, "Besides affording to our own citizens a degree of prosperity of which on so large a scale I know of no other instance, our country is annually affording a refuge and a home to multitudes, altogether without example, from the Old World. We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the happy Constitution and Government which were bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit in all their integrity to our children."
The 1856 State of the Union Address was given by Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States. It was presented to the 34th United States Congress by the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives. He said, "it is necessary only to say that the internal prosperity of the country, its continuous and steady advancement in wealth and population and in private as well as public well-being, attest the wisdom of our institutions and the predominant spirit of intelligence and patriotism which, notwithstanding occasional irregularities of opinion or action resulting from popular freedom, has distinguished and characterized the people of America." He also stated, "In the long series of acts of indirect aggression, the first was the strenuous agitation by citizens of the Northern States, in Congress and out of it, of the question of Negro emancipation in the Southern States." President Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska act. This neutralized the issue of slavery in the central states, and did not say whether to allow it or not.
The 1824 State of the Union Address was written by James Monroe, the 5th president of the United States.
The 1805 State of the Union Address was given by the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, on Tuesday, December 3, 1805. He did not give it directly to the 9th United States Congress, but only presented his written address. It was the first of his second term in the White House. He began with, "At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against each other, and when those with whom we have principal intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually desirable." He ended with, "On this first occasion of addressing Congress since, by the choice of my constituents, I have entered on a second term of administration, I embrace the opportunity to give this public assurance that I will exert my best endeavors to administer faithfully the executive department, and will zealously cooperate with you in every measure which may tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety of our fellow citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles of our Government."
The 1793 State of the Union Address was given by George Washington, the first president of the United States. It was given in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Congress Hall. Washington stood before the 3rd United States Congress on Tuesday, December 3, 1793, and said, "While on the one hand it awakened my gratitude for all those instances of affectionate partiality with which I have been honored by my country, on the other it could not prevent an earnest wish for that retirement from which no private consideration should ever have torn me." He ended with, "Permit me to bring to your remembrance the magnitude of your task. Without an unprejudiced coolness the welfare of the Government may be hazarded; without harmony as far as consists with freedom of sentiment its dignity may be lost."
The presidency of Herbert Hoover began on March 4, 1929, when Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the 31st president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1933.
