Bush Salutes a Man for All Inaugurations

Two hundred years ago, when this was a city of wig makers and bakers, traders and candlestick makers, George Washington completed an arduous journey by coach, horseback and barge from Mt. Vernon, Va., to Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, there to take the oath of the presidency for the first time.

President Bush and a multitude of New Yorkers paid homage Sunday to that short ceremony--and to the democratic traditions to which it gave birth--as they capped a festive weekend in the city that for two years served as the nation’s capital.

“George Washington defined and shaped this office,” Bush said in a speech in front of Federal Hall, where Washington was sworn in on April 30, 1789, and where the first Congress met.

“It was Washington’s vision, his balance, his integrity, that made the presidency possible,” said the 41st President. “ . . . So much of the vision of that first great President is reflected in the paths pursued by modern presidents.”

For Bush, it was a day of distant history and modern-day symbols of an office in which he had served for exactly 100 days as of noon Sunday.

At an ecumenical “Service of Praise and Thanksgiving” at St. Paul’s Chapel, where Washington, too, had worshiped, Bush sat in the pew--diffidently constructed off to the side--that was reserved for the first President.

TelePrompTer Missing

And from behind bullet-resistant glass in front of Federal Hall, he looked on while a veteran actor played the presidential role in the re-enactment of Washington’s swearing-in. In a three-minute reading of excerpts from Washington’s inaugural address, no TelePrompTer was in sight.

The actor, William Sommerfield of Philadelphia, costumed in brown Colonial garb, arrived in a carriage drawn by two white horses. Bush arrived in an armored Cadillac limousine, bearing District of Columbia license plates, after a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport aboard Air Force One.

Standing diagonally across Wall Street from the New York Stock Exchange, Bush saluted the nation’s progress, saying: “Over the last 200 years, we’ve moved from the revolution of democracy, to the evolution of peace and prosperity.”

And, reflecting on the “awesome prospect” that faced Washington 200 years ago, Bush declared:

“How unlikely it must have seemed then, that we might become United States. How uncertain, that a republic could be hewn out of the wilderness of competing interests.”

‘Team of Giants’

Washington “created a living, functioning government” based on the Constitution, Bush said. “He brought together men of genius--a team of giants, with strong and competing views. He harnessed and directed their energies.”

At the end of the ceremony, red, white and blue carnations and a rainbow of confetti rained down on the throng from the ledges of the Stock Exchange building and from surrounding office buildings. The reports from a ceremonial rifle volley rousted a flock of pigeons that otherwise appeared to be taking little interest in the goings-on.

Only the pigeons and invited guests were allowed within a block of Bush. All others were kept behind three lines of blue-coated New York City police officers and eight metal and wooden barricades.

The celebration on the sunny spring Sunday offered a rare glimpse of New York’s Colonial history. In the narrow streets that were once the thoroughfares of the nation’s capital, the stone and brick reminders of the infancy of the United States--Federal Hall and the chapel several blocks away, among them--were squeezed into the shadows cast down into the city’s canyons by the glass and steel towers of commerce along Wall Street.

Common Fare in New York

Such celebrations as last weekend’s--which included a red, white and blue fireworks extravaganza Saturday night, a parade Sunday afternoon, a 60-ship flotilla in New York Harbor and a ball at the Waldorf-Astoria--are becoming a rehearsed, if not quite common, diversion for New York: The city celebrated the bicentennial of the nation’s independence 13 years ago and the centennial of the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1986, with yet greater displays of exuberance.

Federal Hall, the focal point of the celebration, is actually a new structure, by standards of Colonial America. It was built 149 years ago.

The original Federal Hall, on whose second-floor balcony Washington swore to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution of the United States, was torn down in 1812. By then, George Washington was dead and his vision of a capital city on the swamplands bordering the Potomac River just north of his beloved Mt. Vernon had become reality.

While the weekend saluted an event 200 years in the past, it brought Bush into close, if only symbolic, contact with the problems of modern-day urban life.

Rare Sight in City

St. Paul’s Chapel on lower Broadway, where Washington worshiped immediately after his inauguration, is one of the rare buildings in the city that is carrying out the same mission today as it did 200 years ago. The Georgian-style stone church was built in 1766.

These days, the church’s balcony houses a small contingent of homeless men.

And throughout most of Bush’s speech at the “inaugural” ceremony, about half a dozen people stood up and displayed banners to demand that the government take a greater role in the fight against AIDS.

Bush was joined at the podium by New York Mayor Edward I. Koch and Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.)--and by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.