Party Planning: Seeking the Proper Tone - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

Party Planning: Seeking the Proper Tone - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com: "The most elaborate presidential inaugural parade took place during one of the nation’s biggest economic expansions.

In 1953, in the postwar boom, the newly sworn-in president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, led a convoy up Pennsylvania Avenue with 73 bands, 59 floats, 350 horses, 3 elephants, an Alaskan dog team and military vehicles. There were 25,000 foot marchers, and it lasted four and a half hours. (It was deemed so excessive that subsequent parades were limited to 15,000 marchers.)

Perhaps the most austere was in 1945, when the nation was still at war and Franklin D. Roosevelt, on his fourth inauguration, was in failing health. There was no parade. He took the oath on the South Portico of the White House in a ceremony that lasted just 14 minutes. He wanted chicken a la king to be served for lunch to his guests, but his housekeeper said she could not keep it hot and instead served cold chicken salad, rolls, coffee and cake, unfrosted. Wartime rationing meant no butter for the rolls.

It is safe to say that Mr. Obama’s inauguration will fall somewhere in between."