Although President Woodrow Wilson has promised to keep the nation out of World War I, war with Germany hangs over the events surrounding his inauguration. He takes the oath of office privately in the President’s Room at the Capitol on Sunday, March 4, and again the next day, administered by Chief Justice Edward White on the East Portico of the Capitol. Only a month later on April 2, Wilson asks Congress to declare war. It will be declared on April 6, 1917.