by p.smith

Created on: August 13, 2007   Last Updated: June 15, 2008

I would never presume to do justice to JFK's political legacy. He has achieved a mythic status and his flaws and motivations still leave people wondering what he was really like, personally.Despite all the media coverage, the documentation and the speculation, he is still an enigmatic figure.The ongoing debates about his enduring effects on our world, his philandering ways and his shocking, public death will not soon be silenced.He was a man of gigantic interest to millions of people.

I have no wish to trivialize the discussion of his legacy. But there is one controversy about JFK which leaves him unjustly smeared as a man who put many talented professionals out of work on a mere whim; who sent industrious, middle class employees to the welfare rolls; I refer, of course to the accusation that he decapitated the hat industry. This slander is demonstrably unfair. JFK was a man who respected headgear in an age when society was clearly starting to question its continued use. Just look at the accusation that he went hatless on the day of his inauguration.
On January 20th John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States. He wore a silk top hat throughout most of that memorable day. There are pictures to prove it too. From the time he climbed into the limousine to be driven to the White House, until late in the evening, at the Inaugural Ball , the top hat was very much in evidence. But while he was delivering his inaugural speech, he DID remove his topper. It's visible on the empty seat behind him in the pictures taken while he was delivering his impassioned "Ask not" speech. Now I don't know if you're a gifted orator , of Irish extraction, but even if not, you can probably correctly guess his reasons for removing the hat. Speech-making is a very physical activity, when done properly. The effective orator must gesticulate, move naturally, almost as punctuation to his words, and move his head and eyes to give widespread eye contact. Just imagine for a moment someone giving a speech while standing ram-rod straight, and totally still. Robotic, isn't it? So when JFK removed his top hat in order to give himself over completely to delivering one of his most important speeches, he was no doubt thinking only of the dignity of the occasion. Top hats perched precariously atop moving heads, have been known to fly off. We can't blame JFK for avoiding top hat control issues while delivering his rousing speech. He respected his hat enough to put it

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