February 19, 1973
Page 4403
LETTERS ON PRESIDENT TRUMAN
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, in the past month, I have received many letters expressing an outpouring of sympathy to Mrs. Truman and her family, paying tribute to the great memory of President Truman. Harry Truman's courage, his boldness, his simplicity, and his vision touched the lives of millions of Americans. His loss is very keenly felt.
One of the most moving and thoughtful tributes I have received is that of Rabbi David Berent of Congregation Beth Jacob in Lewiston, Maine. Rabbi Berent expresses with eloquence and
warmth the great affection in which President Truman was held by the Jewish people of our country and the world. I ask unanimous consent that the tribute be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the tribute was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
ADDRESS BY RABBI DAVID BERENT OF CONGREGATION BETH JACOB FOR MEMORIAL PRAYER SERVICE FOR PRESIDENT HARRY S TRUMAN, DECEMBER 31, 1972, SAINT JOSEPH'S CHURCH, LEWISTON, MAINE
Reverend clergy, distinguished citizens, and fellow Americans: It is with great diffidence that I accepted the invitation of the Arrangements Committee to be its spokesman at this Memorial Service – all sparkling ornaments in their professions, whose tongues are far more eloquent than my poor lips to speak words of tribute in memory of the 33rd President of the United States.
Millions of words have been written since Harry S. Truman breathed his last on Tuesday. There is little that I can add to that which has already been said.
Mourning is often little more than official. It is seldom the portion of the famous to evoke sincere grief at their passing. In all the years of my ministry, I have seldom looked upon truer sorrow than that which was evoked by the American people when the news of Harry S. Truman's passing became known.
As I recall it, when Daniel Webster died, his passing was lamented in the perfect tribute: "There is no Daniel Webster left to die." Last Tuesday morning, another Homeric figure was called to death, and America plunged into mourning might well express its sense of loss in the terms: "There is no Harry S Truman left to die."
Surely in all America there survives no other figure before whom detraction long was silenced and calumny transformed into praise. Best of all, he was not a martial figure, though he steered a nation towards ending World War II. He was not an exciting personality such as were two other octogenarians at the zenith of their mighty careers – Gladstone and Clemenceau. He had none of the oratorical genius or hypnotic potency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But Harry S. Truman was a great American, as truly as Wilson or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One does not lightly liken any American or any human to Abraham Lincoln, but Harry S Truman had something of the simplicity and of the sheer human greatness which were Lincoln's. One might also add ruggedness, except for the fact that Harry S Truman, with all his strength in and for the right, was one of the most gentle and gracious of human beings. As was pointed out to me by our own Mr. Democrat, Louis Jalbert, who knew Harry S Truman personally, Harry S. Truman's code was simplicity, even as he was a profoundly humble human being. Throughout his life, this man from Independence, Missouri, devoted all his energies to the perpetuation of the American way of life, and was a flame in the battle against the wrong and the injustice of tyranny.
Harry S Truman will live in history as one of the elemental figures which created a new political world. How great he was as Commander-in-Chief which he inherited from Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he ended World War II, when, with heavy heart, he dropped the bomb in order to avert another "D" day on Japanese soil, which would have cost a million lives and another million maimed and/or ruined – history will determine.
When in the United States Senate, he was termed "the Senator with a conscience." Harry S Truman was not only a Senator with a conscience; but pre-eminently the conscience of the Senate. He stood out as the great apostle and servant of democracy. No American since the day of Lincoln was more truly "of the people, by the people and for the people." He recognized and acted upon the imperatives of social-economic as well as political democracy, and sought to move his country to live by them, and in obedience to their commands. Each of the mighty battles Harry S Truman fought will abide as an inspiring memory to his fellow Americans. He was Jeffersonian in his political idealism, like Lincoln in his American simplicity, and Roosevelt in his inimitable dedication to the democratic hope of his country and of mankind at its highest.
He was prophetic when he declared – after his request to Congress in 1950 for economic aid to Korea was denied – when he said that had the $200 million been allocated that unfortunate war would have been averted, as indeed our tragic misadventure in Viet-Nam.
Harry S Truman championed civil-rights legislation which resulted in Senator Strom Thurmond's candidacy for the Presidency as a "Dixiecrat" in 1948. History will record, I believe, that Harry S Truman more than any President in American history thus far, equal only to the lamented John F. Kennedy, vigorously challenged the morality of racial and religious discrimination.
I cherish the memory which I have refreshed by referring to the text of an address by Harry S Truman in 1948 which he made in New York's Madison Square Garden when he said: "When the word went forth that a home for the Jewish people was to be established in Palestine, it was a matter of profound interest not only to the Jewish people but to people throughout the world. It seemed in accord with a beautiful and sacred tradition. The story of a marvelous people surged upon our mind, enriching our thought. It seemed in accord with the highest and loftiest principles of justice that this should be so." He then burst into a paragraph that still, haunts one's memory:
And he closed with the words: "In the faces of this vast audience I see great anxiety, great worry and great sorrow. But I also read in your faces great purpose and great determination. Let that purpose and determination be your pillar of fire by night and your pillar of cloud by day, to lead you into possession of that which belongs to you as a people." The great audience hungering for comfort, and passionately eager for light, burst into a demonstration which, Harry S Truman told his friend Judge Rosenman, that he would remember to his last day.
Indeed, there is little doubt that Harry S Truman was the most important American non-Jew in Judaism's contemporary history. Eleven minutes after the State of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben Gurion, on the 14th day of May in 1948, a few months after this stirring address, Harry S Truman personally ordered de facto recognition of the new State. Truman's action served immediate notice to the nations who stood with tanks on Israel's borders.
Had Truman not taken the action he did, Israel could have been destroyed within hours.
On the holiest day of the year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest in Jerusalem's Temple, 25 centuries ago, would read a portion from the Sacred Scroll to the people.
He would conclude with these words: "Much more than I have read is written herein." I, too, have read from the life-scroll of a truly great American and human being. More, much more is written and will be written in the pages of our nation's history about this extraordinary, outstanding, God-blessed person. History will treat him kindly. In God he has now found ultimate repose. May the Eternal send his comforting balm to the heart of his beloved Bess, his daughter Margaret, and all his loved ones, and to all who mourn the passing of Harry S. Truman.
America will never forget a man equal to himself, who served in the United States Senate with character, and the Presidency with dignity and dedication. "He never sold the truth to serve the hour" nor sought less than to keep his country upon the highest level of equal law and unfailing justice.
May the memory of this great American President be constant inspiration to all people who seek the better world for which he labored.