Word spread from Seattle about the amazing effects of their local prayer breakfasts. The city of Seattle was so positively affected that Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York City traveled to Seattle to find out how prayer changed their city. In January 1941, the newly elected Governor Langlie presided over the first prayer breakfast, held in Olympia, Washington. Three hundred men and women attended from all over the state. The word spread and city and state breakfasts reached southward to San Francisco, eastward to Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and then in 1942, to our nation's capitol. As America went to war in Europe and the Pacific, two Senators and a Supreme Court Justice and a member of the Administration began to meet informally to talk and pray together. A House group followed soon after. At the personal request of President Roosevelt, breakfast groups were founded in the United States Senate (1943) and then in the House of Representatives (1945). When those first groups began, there was an understanding "that this would be a meeting of friends", "titles and positions were dropped at the door", "regardless of race, political party or belief " all are welcome.

 

During the years that followed, Vereide served those serving in Washington, D.C. Once at a news conference in 1949 at the Oval Office, Vereide asked President Harry S. Truman if he would consider setting aside a day of prayer in our nation like they did during the last days of the war. President Truman responded saying, "I think that that should be done every day, not necessarily on any special day." They did pray that day for wisdom and encouragement for the President and the nation's leaders. Their prayers, especially for the world's dilemmas, continued daily and as they met weekly through the years that followed.

In January 1953, former general and newly-elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower told a friend the White House, "is the loneliest house I've ever been in." After the President learned of the Representative's Prayer Breakfast, he instigated a combined prayer breakfast which immediately took on virtually a life of its own. As they prepared, the President thought that he might only be coming over to see 20 or 25 or maybe 50 people. On February 5th, 1953, members of Congress, along with President Eisenhower, established the first Presidential Prayer Breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. That month, Time Magazine covered the Prayer Breakfast events as they unfolded in their February 15, 1953 edition:

"In an assembly room of Washington's Mayflower Hotel one morning last week gathered a group of 600. The President of the United States was there. So were the Vice President, the Chief Justice of the United States, Cabinet members, Congressmen, diplomats, businessmen. Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, called order. "This morning," said Baptist Carlson, "we are here to renew our faith and our commitment to God." In the next half-hour, half a dozen notables rose to their feet. Wisconsin Senator Alexander Wiley, a Lutheran, read from the First Psalm ("Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly."). Vice President Nixon, a Quaker, read from the 15th chapter of John ("This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."). Hotelman Conrad Hilton, their host, a Roman Catholic, told them: "It took a war and the frightening evil of Communism to show the world that this whole business of prayer is not a sissy, a counterfeit thing. Rather it is a part of man's personality, without which he limps."

 

In his dedicatory remarks, at the 1st Presidential Prayer Breakfast, President Eisenhower said, "Once in a while it might be a good thing for us to turn back to history. Let us study a little bit of what happened at the founding of this Nation. It is not merely the events that led up to the Revolutionary War. All of the confused problems that we were then called upon to solve were as difficult as those we face now. When we came to that turning point in history, when we intended to establish a government for free men and a Declaration and Constitution to make it last, in order to explain such a system we had to say: `We hold that all men are endowed by their Creator.' In one sentence we established that every free government is imbedded soundly in a deeply-felt religious faith or it makes no sense. Today if we recall those things and if, in that sense, we can back off from our problems and depend upon a power greater than ourselves, I believe that we begin to draw these problems into focus. Today I think that prayer is just simply a necessity, because by prayer I believe we mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite."

[Time continued reporting] "The last speaker was Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was raised a Methodist, now frequently attends Baptist services with his wife. "I believe no one can read the history of our country," he said, "without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses. Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia, or to the Charter of New England, or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it: freedom of belief, of expression, of assembly, of petition, the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of the home, equal justice under law, and the reservation of powers to the people. I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country."

 

In 1964, at the 12th Annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast, President Lyndon B. Johnson remarked, "No man could live in the house where I live now or work at the desk where I work now without needing and without seeking the strength and the support of earnest and frequent prayer. In these last 70 days, prayer has helped me to bear the burdens of this first office which are too great to be borne by anyone alone. I believe that these annual prayer breakfasts serve a most useful purpose in both reminding and reassuring the people that those who hold their trust are themselves godly and prayerful men and women. With the duties which rest upon us, we have much to pray for; that we may, as a nation, be just in our strength, wise in our actions, and faithful in our trust."

 

Every sitting United States President, since Eisenhower, has attended and provided remarks at the Prayer Breakfast. In 1970 the name was changed from "The Presidential Prayer Breakfast" to "The National Prayer Breakfast" to emphasize the individuals attending and their purpose in gathering. Each year the President is joined by members of their Cabinet, the Supreme Court, Congress, the Diplomatic Corps, the Military Leaders from all Services and Leaders in the private sector from every state in the Union. In honor of the small weekly breakfast groups formed in 1941, the breakfast continues to bring together the Leadership of the United States in recognition of the moral and spiritual values upon which this nation is founded. Once a year, the members of the House and Senate breakfast groups do in public what they do each week in private.

 

During the National Prayer Breakfast in 1975, President Gerald R. Ford remarked, "On the day that I suddenly became President of the United States, after all the guests had gone, I walked through some of the empty rooms on the first floor of the White House and stopped by that marble mantle in the dining room to read the words carved in it; words that were a prayer of the first President who ever occupied the White House: 'I pray to heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it,' John Adams wrote. 'May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.' I am grateful to President Adams for leaving that message and to all who have said amen to it for nearly two centuries. My own prayer is for God's continued blessing and God's continued guidance for our country and all its people whose servants we in government strive to be."