A century ago, at noontime, Friday, December 8, 1922, President Warren G. Harding strolled to the rostrum of the House of Representatives (1). There he was greeted, amid enthusiastic applause from the floor and galleries, by Speaker Frederick H. Gillette and President pro Tempore of the Senate, Albert B. Cummins. The President was there to deliver his second Annual Message, which, since 1947, has been officially known as the State of the Union Address (2). In it, the President would lay out his concerns and legislative priorities. Seated before him were members of the 67th Congress, meeting in their unprecedented fourth and last session (December 4, 1922, to March 3, 1923). This occasion marked the sixth and final time he would appear before the 67th Congress (3).

The address he made that day, running 5,749 words, became a historic moment in presidential communications: (4) Thanks to broadcast radio, President Harding’s words would be broadcast throughout most of the country. For the first time, thousands of Americans were able to hear the Annual Address live as it came from the lips of their President. This was also the first time anyone had spoken by radio from the Capitol’s legislative chambers.

The President, who himself was a radio enthusiast, had spoken over radio twice before, at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on May 30, 1922, which marked his radio debut, and then at an event honoring Francis Scott Key at Fort McHenry on June 14 (5). At both these events, he had acted in the President’s ceremonial role. This address at the Capitol, however, was made as part of his official presidential duties as required by the Constitution (Article II, Section 3), so it, too, was, in a sense, a first. What follows is the story of how this historic broadcast took place.

The acoustics of the Chamber of the House of Representative were notoriously bad, making it difficult for members to follow the proceedings. Officials, impressed by the new public address technology, decided to install such a system. Bell Laboratories, a unit of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, researched the project and did the work. Installation was done during the recess between the 2nd and 3rd Congressional Sessions in 1922, with “carbon button” microphones put in place for the members and 10 trumpet-shaped loudspeakers suspended from the ceiling, referred to by members as the “flying coffin.” The equipment for managing the system was housed in the Capitol basement (6). 

For some time, there had been calls for using radio to broadcast proceedings of the Congress. Representative Vincent Brennan (R-MI) was prominent in this movement, offering the first, but unsuccessful, measure to permit radio coverage of the House and Senate (7). Thus, the amplification equipment for the House was designed to also serve as a portal for transmitting House floor activity to a radio station for broadcast (8). The radio technicians involved with Harding’s broadcast viewed it as “an experiment.” (9)

When President Harding spoke, a microphone was before him with others placed strategically about the Chamber. His words were conveyed for four miles over specially installed telephone lines to the Navy’s experimental radio station, NOF, at the Anacostia Naval Station. This station had the best transmitting equipment but its range during daylight was limited to around 200 miles. But, as previously arranged, its broadcast was picked up by other powerful stations and rebroadcast so that a good part of the country heard the President’s words as far West as the Rocky Mountains. Nonparticipating stations may have gone off the air to cut down on interference. As many as 10 stations, and likely several more, were involved in broadcasting the address (10). The Houston Post, grasping broadcast radio’s importance, wrote: “President Warren G. Harding was ‘just around the corner’ from Houston for an hour Friday while delivering his annual message….The event marks a new era in American history.” (11)

There was, unfortunately, a problem with the broadcast that likely reduced its listenership. While it had been announced that the President’s speech would be broadcast, the exact day of the broadcast was in doubt up to 10 p.m., Thursday evening, when the President’s address was finally sent off to the Public Printer (12). The broadcast would take place the next day at noon. This meant there was little or no advanced notice to the public. That the address was given at noontime, rather than in the evening, also limited audience size (13).

Another factor added to the confusion. Traditionally, with only one exception in 1855, the Annual Message was transmitted by courier for reading by the House Clerk or given in person by the President on the second day of the new session of the Congress. That would have been on Tuesday, December 4, 1922. But on that date, President Harding was still busy drafting his address, which involved conferring with cabinet secretaries and members of Congress. This process was complicated by the fact that the November midterm election had raised new concerns and issues to be dealt with (14). This break with tradition received considerable newspaper attention.

Also, during this period, the President had to deal with other matters of state. For instance, on December 4, he submitted to Congress the first Federal budget produced under the new Budget and Accounting Act, and he also entertained delegates to a Central American conference. On December 6 and 7, he met with former French Prime Minister George Clemenceau.

President Harding’s Annual Message, which took around an hour to deliver, was well received by members of Congress and the public (15). The First Lady, Florence Kling Harding, who, recovering from a long illness, listened to the broadcast (her radio receiver was the same as used by the U.S. Marine Corps) in her sitting room. Upon the President’s return to the White House, he found her waiting for him in his study to discuss his message (16).

David Lawrence, a major syndicated journalist of the day, stated that the President had given “a comprehensive account of ‘the state of the Union.’ ” The recommendations the President offered did not come as a surprise but “his words formally [put them] on the record.” (17) Among the key matters discussed was relief for the farmer, a truly pressing problem, along with transportation issues, labor dispute resolution, and Prohibition enforcement. He also urged the submission to the States of constitutional amendments abolishing child labor and ending tax exempt securities. As a more unusual item, he recommended the approval of a survey of a plan for the drafting of all the nation’s resources, human and material, if war should come again. He had previously called for this in his inaugural address. This measure was a response to the war profiteering during the Great War about which there was much popular anger. For a full text of the President’s address, click here.

At the opening of his address, President Harding had lamented that “the readjustment of the social and economic order is not more than barely begun.” But the legislation passed by the 67th Congress had put in place a normalcy program that would soon return the nation to a peacetime basis, the primary objective of his presidency, and laid the foundation for the New Era in which radio would play a key role. (18)

One last word: For years, during the broadcast of the President’s State of the Union Address, your author has listened to media commentators state that the first broadcast of this event was made in 1923 by President Calvin Coolidge. I trust that this essay shall help to correct this error, which, alas, has become embedded in our history. (19)