Presidents Say the Darnedest Things

While researching something else entirely, I came across this, which must surely rank as one of the strangest statements ever to flow from the mouth of an American president. Speaking fifty-two years ago today — in an otherwise unrelated statement on the 75th anniversary of the invention of the incandescent light bulb — Dwight Eisenhower offered the following quilt of non sequiturs:

Soon we will be celebrating one of our holidays, one that typifies for me much of what we mean by the American freedom. That will be Halloween. On that evening I would particularly like to be, of course, with my grandchildren, for Halloween is one of those times when we Americans actually encourage the little individuals to be free to do things rather as they please. I hope you and your children have a gay evening and let’s all give a little prayer that their childish pranks will be the only kind of mischief with which we Americans must cope. But it can be a confident kind of a prayer too, for God has made us strong and faith has made and kept us free.

Each of those words makes sense independently; put together, I haven’t the faintest idea what Eisenhower was trying to say.