Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, Franklin D.] Proceedings at the Ceremony in Commemoration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Commencement of the First Congress of the United States under the Constitution at a Joint Session of the Congress in the House of Representatives March Fourth Nineteen Thirty-nine . 76th Congress, 1st Session. House Document No. 212. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1939. 8vo. Photographic illustrations. Specially bound in black morocco, covers with single-fillet gilt border, front cover gilt-lettered; blue watered silk linings, the front lining centering the Presidential seal stamped in gilt (spine lacking). "MAY GOD CONTINUE TO GUIDE OUR STEPS" (from FDR's address). FIRST EDITION OF THE FOURTH WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS BOOK, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY THE PRESIDENT TO HIS SON on the front free endpaper: "John from FDR 1939." The text reproduces the many addresses and speeches made in honor of the susquecentennial of the First Congress, including FDR's address on pages 35-42. Hours after returning from a 2 week Caribbean cruise on 4 March 1939, FDR delivered an address to Congress in celebration of its one-hundreth anniversary. At one point he spoke about the "freedoms that are inherent in the right of free choice by free men and women," including the freedoms of speech and religion. Two years later in his January message to Congress, the President elaborated upon the "essential human freedoms" -- freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship from want and freedom from fear which illustrator Norman Rockwell immortalized on four covers of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. IN A SPECIAL BINDING -- ONE OF THE SCARCEST CHRISTMAS BOOKS.