Every four years, the United States elects a President. And every four years, that President makes a speech, outlining his goals and plans for the coming term. Presidential inaugurations are Constitutionally mandated. Inaugural speeches, however, are just a tradition, but an enduring tradition.

The tradition of inaugural speeches began with George Washington speaking to a joint session of Congress in the Senate Chamber of Federal Hall in New York City. It has continued for more than two and a quarter centuries, all the way up to Donald Trump's speech on the West Front of the Capitol to crowds that filled the National Mall.

Presidential historian Ian Randal Strock has compiled every pone of the 59 Presidential inaugural addresses into this volume. Also included are descriptions of the elections that brought those Presidents to office, as well as information on the various inaugural ceremonies.

In November of 1864, after three-quarters of a century of Presidents, and more than three years of the Civil War, the first full-time Presidential body guards were finally hired. A promotion two months later left a job opening in the foursome, and William H. Crook was hired away from the Washington Police Force (he had previously served in the Union Army during the Civil War). As one of the bodyguards, Crook was in close contact with President Abraham Lincoln and his family, observing the six

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness is Henri Bergson's doctoral thesis, first published in 1889. In it, he tries to dispel the arguments against free will. These arguments, he says, come from a confusion of different ideas of time. Physicists and mathematicians conceive of time as a measurable construct, much like the spatial dimensions. But in human experience, life is perceived as a continuous and unmeasurable flow, rather than as a succession of marked-off states of consciousness--something that can be measured only qualitatively, not quantitatively. And because human personalities express themselves in acts that cannot be predicted, Bergson declares free will to be an observable fact.

French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was influential in the tradition of continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War. Bergson is known for his arguments that processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.

He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented. In 1930, France awarded him the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1857. He graduated from Yale College (now Yale University) in 1878, and then from Cincinnati Law School in 1880. In 1887, he was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court. In 1890, he was appointed Solicitor General of the United States, and then to a seat on the US Court of Appeals (Sixth Circuit) in 1891. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War, expecting Taft to follow him in the Presidency. In 1908, Taft was elected the 27th President of the United States.

After one term, Roosevelt returned to challenge Taft for the Presidency. Woodrow Wilson won the election, and Taft won the ignominy of being the only sitting President to come in third in his bid for re-election. After leaving the White House in 1913, Taft became a law professor at Yale Law School, and was also elected president of the American Bar Association. He co-chaired the National War Labor Board in 1917 and 1918.

In 1921, President Warren Harding fulfilled Taft's lifelong dream of an appointment to the Supreme Court, when he named Taft the 10th Chief Justice (making Taft the only person to serve on the Court and as President). At one point during his tenure on the Court, Taft remarked Sometimes I do not remember that I was ever President. Taft retired from the Court in 1930, a month before his death.

In 1914, between his service in the Executive and the Judicial branches of the US government, Taft gave this lecture as part of the Page Lecture Series before the Senior Class of Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School. As Taft says in his introduction, a discussion of the ethics and ideals of that profession would come within the purpose of the Page foundation, which was to promote the ethical side of business life, including the morals and ethics of public service.

Herein, Taft discusses the history of the legal profession, which shows that a paid advocacy is the only practical system, and the rules of conduct to which lawyers must be held in order that such a system shall promote justice.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish immigrant to the United States. He arrived as a poor child, but--as the epitome of the rags to riches story, built himself into one of the richest men in the world. As a young man, who worked as a telegraph operator, and used his wits and business acumen to parlay his job into greater investments during and after the Civil War. Those investments in railroads, bridges, oil derricks, and more made him very wealthy by the 1880s. Then he brought the Bessemer process for steel-making to the United States, and eventually sold his Carnegie Steel Company for $480 million in 1901 (the current equivalent of nearly $14 billion).

Following that accumulation of staggering wealth, Carnegie dedicated the remainder of his life to philanthropy, giving away nearly 90 percent of his fortune by the time of his death. His 1889 article Wealth (later retitled The Gospel of Wealth) details his belief in the responsibility of philanthropy by the self-made rich. He wrote that the best way of dealing with the new phenomenon of wealth inequality was for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor.

Carnegie's massive philanthropic efforts especially emphasized libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. He built Carnegie Hall, and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

A new creative challenge: can I capture a full year in haiku, one day and moment at a time?

In this Haiku collection born of her 2023 New Year's resolution, Deb invites you to savor seventeen-syllable glimpses into her world and her inner self, from the first blooms of spring to the quiet stillness of winter evenings, and more. Woven throughout this book are reflections on her journey through life-the fleeting thoughts, sacred moments, and heartfelt emotions that make each day a mosaic of wonder and meaning. She shows that even the smallest promise can lead to a journey of growth, mindfulness, and creativity.

Deb hopes that you will find something inside these pages that will speak to your soul and remind you that every day holds a story worth telling.

In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (first published in 1900), Henri Bergson develops a theory not of laughter itself, but of how laughter can be provoked. He describes the process of laughter (refusing to give a conceptual definition which would not approach its reality), used in particular by comics and clowns, as caricature of the mechanistic nature of humans (habits, automatic acts, etc.), as one of the two tendencies of life (degradation towards inert matter and mechanism, and continual creation of new forms). However, Bergson warns us that laughter's criterion of what should be laughed at is not a moral criterion and that it can in fact cause serious damage to a person's self-esteem. This essay made his opposition to the Cartesian theory of the animal-machine obvious.

Monty Python co-founder John Cleese recommends Laughter, telling us Bergson says it's a social sanction because we laugh together as a group in society, and it's a sanction because we're trying to get people to behave flexibly.

This volume also includes the short lectures Dreams and The Meaning of the War, which was delivered as the presidential address to the Acad mie des sciences morales et politiques in December 1914.

French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was influential in the tradition of continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War. Bergson is known for his arguments that processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.

He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented. In 1930, France awarded him the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.

In 1912, Woodrow Wilson was the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He campaigned against the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft, and Taft's predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who had split off from the Republican Party to form his own Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party. Much of the campaign focused on the US economy, particularly the candidates' views of the business monopolies and the Federal Reserve System.

This book is a collection of pieces from Wilson's ca

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish immigrant to the United States. He arrived as a poor child, but--as the epitome of the rags to riches story, built himself into one of the richest men in the world. As a young man, who worked as a telegraph operator, and used his wits and business acumen to parlay his job into greater investments during and after the Civil War. Those investments in railroads, bridges, oil derricks, and more made him very wealthy by the 1880s. Then he brought t

In November of 1864, after three-quarters of a century of Presidents, and more than three years of the Civil War, the first full-time Presidential body guards were finally hired. A promotion two months later left a job opening in the foursome, and William H. Crook was hired away from the Washington Police Force (he had previously served in the Union Army during the Civil War). As one of the bodyguards, Crook was in close contact with President Abraham Lincoln and his family, observing the sixteenth President as a person, and recording his observations.

Following Lincoln's assassination (Crook wasn't on duty at the time), he continued in the role for President Andrew Johnson. After Johnson left office, President Ulysses Grant (whom Crook had grown to know during his service under Lincoln) appointed him Executive Clerk of the President of the United States, and then dispersing agent in 1877. Eventually, he became the Chief Disbursing Officer. In January 1915, President Woodrow Wilson celebrated Crook's half-century of service in the executive mansion, presenting him with a cane and acknowledging his more widely but less official title, White House Encyclopedia. Two months later, Crook died of pneumonia at the age of 75, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In that half century working in the White House, directly for the Presidents, William H. Crook grew to know the men who held the nation's highest office, and their families; their public and private lives. Though his experience lasted through twelve administrations, his memoir only covers the first six (though he called it Through Five Administrations, counting the 1881-85 term of James Garfield and Chester Arthur as one).

Andrew Carnegie Speaks for the 99%
(formerly The Gospel of Wealth)

Before the 99% occupied Wall Street...

Before the concept of social justice had impinged on the social conscience...

Before the social safety net had even been conceived...

By the turn of the 20th Century, the era of the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had already accumulated a staggeringly large fortune; he was one of the wealthiest people on the globe. He guaranteed his position as one of the wealthiest men ever when he sold his steel business to create the United States Steel Corporation. Following that sale, he spent his last 18 years giving away nearly 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, and universities.

His charitable efforts actually started far earlier. At the age of 33, he wrote a memo to himself, noting ...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money. In 1881, he gave a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1889, he spelled out his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society, in an article called The Gospel of Wealth this book.

Carnegie writes that the best way of dealing with wealth inequality is for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor.

Though written more than a century ago, Carnegie's words still ring true today, urging a better, more equitable world through greater social consciousness.

Matter and Memory: An Essay on the Relation of Body and Spirit, is a complex exploration of human nature and the spirituality of memory. In this work, Henri Bergson investigates the function of the brain, and opposes the idea of memory being of a material nature, lodged within a particular part of the nervous system. He claims that Matter and Memory is frankly dualistic, leading to a careful consideration of the problems in the relation of body and mind. His theories on sense, dualism, pure perception, the concept of virtuality, and his image of the memory cone may make this a confusing and challenging existentialist work. However, the years of research and extensive pathological investigations he spent in preparation for this and other essays have gained him great a justly deserved distinction as a brilliant theorist and philosopher.

Bergson wrote Matter and Memory in reaction to The Maladies of Memory (1881) by Th odule Ribot, in which he claimed that the findings of brain science proved that memory is lodged within a particular part of the nervous system; localized within the brain and thus of a material nature. Bergson opposed this reduction of spirit to matter. Defending a clear anti-reductionist position, he considered memory to be of a deeply spiritual nature, the brain serving the need of orienting present action by inserting relevant memories. The brain thus being of a practical nature, certain lesions tend to perturb this practical function, but without erasing memory as such. The memories are, instead, simply not incarnated, and cannot serve their purpose.

French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) was influential in the tradition of continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War. Bergson is known for his arguments that processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.

He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented. In 1930, France awarded him the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.

Immigrants have no rights
America is founded on Christianity
Unlimited guns are my birthright

These are just a handful of arguments being shouted by vocal conservatives even though the Constitution of the United States--the very laws of our nation--says something quite different.

If liberals are going to counter these erroneous, angry, ill-informed positions with facts, they need to learn for themselves what the Constitution says.

To remedy this knowledge gap, criminal defense attorney and unabashed liberal Michael A. Ventrella teaches the basics with a large amount of humor and snark, all illustrated with more than 40 cartoons by 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial artist Darrin Bell, creator of the syndicated comic strip Candorville.

Attorney Michael A. Ventrella has taught Constitutional Law at a number of institutions of higher learning, so clearly he's just one of those liberal elites.

Artist Darrin Bell's hard-hitting editorial cartoons can be found in major newspapers and all over the internet, where people share them without giving him credit.

Grandpa and Me and the Park in the City is the story of Braden, a seven-year-old who spends his summers with his grandpa in the city. Braden once loved going to the park with his grandpa. Now he's feeling sad. He thinks he's too old for the swings and the slide. But he's in for a big surprise when Grandpa takes him to the park very early one morning.

The park is filled with people of all ages. They are doing all kinds of fun exercises. Braden says he can do them, but when he tries, he realizes that they are harder than they appear. Embarrassed, he stops trying. Then it comes to him, right out of the blue, some practice and hard work and he could do the exercises too. And he learns that you're never too old to have fun in the park.

This book is for children, parents, and grandparents. It also lends itself to inter-generational, ethnic, and urban study theme units for elementary school teachers interested in creative classroom learning. Urban children especially will identify with the city park.

Nothing is as peaceful as living in the mountains. That's what Laurie's mom said when the family left New York City for the Colorado mountains. Sure, it was peaceful, until the worst blizzard ever hit--and without warning.

Yesterday thirteen-year-old Laurie was an average girl living a normal life. Now she is trapped in a house, cut off from the outside world--no cell phone, no internet. And trapped with her is fourteen-year-old Russell, a brainy, know-it-all boy she absolutely despises, and five small children. She doesn't especially like kids and now she is totally responsible for all of them.

The children face disaster after disaster as the storm rages on.

Rutherford B. Hayes is today best remembered for serving his one term as President of the United States (1877 to 1881). But how did he become the person who was elected in 1876? This classic biography, first published in late 1876 (before the election) shows where Rutherford Hayes came from, how he grew to be the man he became, and how the politician evolved, from his school, law, and military careers, to his time in Congress, his three terms as governor of Ohio, and then his nomination to th