By Rev. Donald R. Kiernan

Twenty five years ago last month the city of Gainesville, was visited by the president of the United States. This scene was repeated last Friday with a visit by another chief executive of our land.

The quarter-century-ago visit was by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President, a frequent visitor to Georgia, stopped in Gainesville to view how a city was going about the task of rebuilding itself after a terrible act of nature, a tornado, had taken hundreds of lives and done millions of dollars in damage on the morning of Monday, April 6, 1936.

The visit last week by President Lyndon Johnson was also in the nature of an inspection. The president came to Gainesville to lay emphasis upon his War on Poverty program, a program which affects 20 counties in this ninth congressional district. First hand, the chief executive wanted to see how this city was attacking the urban renewal, education, road building and poverty projects.

The contrasts, twenty five years apart, saw at one time a city literally devastated and now, like the Phoenix of ancient Greek mythology, a vigorous city rising up upon its own ruins.

Twenty-five years ago, Saint Michael’s Church was new. Miraculously it had escaped the tornado. Located in its path, the tornado changed direction just a few yards from the newly-constructed building.

Some of the early parishioners remember well that day. The Courtenays, Cinciolos, Crisps and Lawlors were among the first parishioners who can recall the visit of President Roosevelt and the inspiration and impetus he gave to a sorrowing people.

These people remember too the bleak day of the president’s visit. It was as if the day were made to fit the sorrowful occasion.

May 1964, however, was a different story. The weather was literally made to order. Preparations had been well made and as one radio announcer termed the president’s visit “it was accurately successful.”

Roosevelt came here on a train; Johnson flew in by helicopter. The presidential party came by way of Atlanta, and touched down on the Gainesville airport. Transistor radios kept the people along the way informed about every action, from the time the president landed until he departed.

A motorcade, led by Chief of Police Hoyt Henry, drove a route through the center of the area now under the Urban Renewal program.

Dignitaries included Governor Carl Sanders; Senator Herman Talmadge; Congressmen Carl Vincent and Phil Landrum; Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz; Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Anthony Cellebrez; Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman; and Undersecretary of Commerce Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.

Mayor Henry O. Ward acted as master of ceremonies and on a platform erected in front of city hall he presented to a cheering crowd of forty thousand the president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson and his daughter, Luci.

The president made frequent references to the visit of his predecessor twenty-five years ago. Citing the phrase of President Roosevelt, “lend me your hands and hearts,” he pleaded with the people to stamp out the poverty of the area and to guarantee to all our people the freedoms demanded by justice.

It was not President Johnson’s first visit to Gainesville. Back in 1960 when he was running for office of vice president, he made a campaign speech here from the back of a railroad car. The senator was well received by a crowd of enthusiastic well wishers. But it was nothing compared to the crowd of thousands who crowded into Gainesville’s Roosevelt Square on Friday morning the 8th, day of May, 1964.

One little boy of the parish, Larry Merrit, rushed up to tell me that he had shaken the hand of the president. I asked, “What did you say to him, Larry?” he replied, “Hi.” Then I asked what the president had said to him. Just as proud he told me that the president had said, “Hi” too.

Gainesville is a city on the move. A bond issue this week decided the future of a proposed Junior College Vocational School complex to be built here. The country hospital is in the process of enlarging its bed capacity with a building program now in progress. A nursing school has been established in connection with Brenau College located here. Lake Lanier, according to statistics, had more tourists last year than any other government recreational facility. Urban Renewal is under way and a road study to facilitate the flow of traffic has just been completed.

The visit of President Johnson will serve as a further impetus to the people of the area to get the job done. Just as the visit of the late President Roosevelt served to stimulate the imagination and progress of a devastated city, last week’s visit by President Johnson will insure the continued growth of a community dedicated to progress.