July 29, 1974
Page 25442
JIM FARLEY HONORED AT NOTRE DAME
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the University of Nitre Dame recently awarded James A. Farley its highest honor, the 1974 Laetare Medal, an award given annually since 1883 to outstanding American Catholics.
It is an honor Jim Farley has earned many times over. As Postmaster General, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in more than three decades in politics, Jim Farley earned a reputation both for a mild and gentle manner and for ironbound incorruptibility.
As the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., president of Notre Dame, said in announcing the award–
In a day when the craft of politics is held in low esteem by the general public, it is well for us to honor a man who practiced it with both integrity and affability.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the University of Notre Dame's citation awarding the Laetare Medal to Jim Farley, along with several newspaper clippings and a description of the award, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME TO HON. JAMES A. FAIRLY
GREETINGS SIR: The strength and vitality of our country can be attributed in large measure to the genius of our political system, to the vigor of our free economy and, above all, to the spiritual values which we as a nation espouse. To a remarkable degree, in your life and your work, you, perhaps more than any other man of our time, symbolize our national commitment to these values and to the proposition that honorable competition, whether in politics or business, best serves the American people.
Who could foretell that the lad of twelve who stood trackside to hear William Jennings Bryan would become Chairman of the Democratic National Committee? Who would have predicted that the Town Clerk of Stony Point, New York, would become the mentor of the President of the United States and the Postmaster General in his Cabinet? Who could have foreseen that the young bookkeeping student at Packard Commercial School would some day be Board Chairman of an American corporation operating in every corner of the world? Who, indeed, had the prescience to predict that this affable Irishman would become as familiar a figure at the Papal apartments as he was at the White House?
In retrospect, Sir, it is easier to see how your own character and Providence have combined to bring you to this day. Throughout your life, you have honored the God-given dignity of every man and woman, and because of this no American has more friends. Yours has been the world of precinct committeemen and prelates, of salesmen and presidents, but you have neither been awed by the powerful nor unmindful of the powerless. You have never forgotten your friends. Your opponents and competitors hold you in the highest regard.
In politics and in business, where it is often easier to do the expedient thing, you have been a man of principle. Without losing Franklin Roosevelt's friendship or lessening your allegiance to your political party, you opposed more than two four-year presidential terms because you believed such was not in the national interest. Today, when America's faith in its political institutions and personalities is challenged as never before, you stand as a beacon of integrity.
Your public life, as well as your business career, are on record for all to see. Not so well-known is your edifying private life which you cherished with your beloved Elizabeth, your son and daughters, and now with your grandchildren. The geniality, the courage, the compassion which we admired at a distance have been theirs to cherish close up. Yours, sir, is the special charisma of the Catholic layman. Your influence in secular society was great at a time when the impact of Catholics generally was small. A man of faith in a world of fact, born closer to the First Vatican Council than to Vatican Councilia II, you anticipated by several decades the role of the layman in a Church which is ever old and yet ever new.
For what you have achieved, then, but even more for what you are, the University of Notre Dame presents to you its most prized symbol of esteem and affection, As we seek to honor you, you surely honor the Medal and the University in accepting it. For your lifelong dedication to your family, to your country, and to your Church, for the decency and integrity which you have always exemplified, for the leadership you have given in countless good causes, it is my honor, as President of the University of Notre Dame, to confer upon you its Laetare Medal.
[From the South Bend Tribune, Mar. 22, 1974]
"JIM" FARLEY AWARDED ND'S HIGHEST HONOR
(By Paul Lamirand)
James A. Farley, former postmaster general, has been chosen to receive the 1974 Laetare Medal, the University of Notre Dame's highest honor.
The choice of Farley – a major influence in the Democratic Party in the 1930s and one-time political ally of the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – to receive the award was announced Saturday by Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame president.
Father Hesburgh said, "In a day when the craft of politics is held in low esteem by the general public, it is well for us to honor a man who practiced it with both integrity and affability."
The medal normally is presented at Notre Dame commencement exercises, scheduled this year for May 19. It has been given annually since 1883 to outstanding American Catholics.
Farley, 85, is currently honorary chairman of the Coca-Cola Export Corp. He lives in New York City.
Born the son of an Irish brick manufacturer in Grassy Point, N.Y., in 1888, Farley completed high school and worked 15 years for a gypsum company as a bookkeeper, company correspondent and salesman.
His first foray into politics was his election as town clerk for Stony Point, N.Y., in 1911.
He moved up through various state Democratic Party positions to state chairman in 1930, the year Roosevelt was re-elected governor of New York by a record 725,000 votes.
Following Farley's service as floor leader of the 1932 Democratic Convention, he became postmaster general after Roosevelt's election. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
In August, 1936, he look a leave without pay to run Roosevelt's second successful campaign.
Farley split with Roosevelt over the third term issue. He resigned from the cabinet post and campaigned only perfunctoritly for Roosevelt's third term. Just before the 1944 convention, Farley resigned as national party chairman to dramatize his opposition to a fourth term for the President.
The unchallenged honesty of Farley – known as "Gentleman Jim" and "Genial Jim" – has been commented on by several biographers.
He is said to have left the $15,000-a-year cabinet post in debt because he demanded that a building materials firm he founded should not solicit orders where his influence would count and should reject all public business offered.
Farley has two married daughters, a son, and 10 grandchildren. His wife, Elizabeth, died in 1955.
Farley joins a list of Laetare Medal winners which includes President John F. Kennedy (1961), Clare Booth Luce (1957), Sargent Shriver (1968), Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. (1969), and Dorothy Day (1972),
[From the San Antonio Light, June 23, 1974]
ON THE LINE WITH CONSIDINE
James A. Farley, 1974 winner of Notre Dame's treasured Laetare Medal, enthralled his audience at the Waldorf with an account of his life in politics and his 35 post-political years with Coca-Cola. It was a feat of total recall, a remarkable summation of the times, lives, triumphs and disasters of a vast tapestry of Americana. It's a pity that his response to the conferring upon him by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh of the award, which dates back to 1883, could not be heard by history scholars across the land.
Big Jim, perhaps the last honest politician, breathed life into the images of presidents, popes, kings, king-makers, dictators, tycoons and common folk he met along the way. He thanked the long-gone constituents (Farley will be 86 "and holding," as he says in this space age, on May 30) who launched him on his political career by electing him town clerk of Stony Point, N.Y. in 1912. And he especially thanked a man who moved him into the big leagues of politics, Jimmy Walker,
PICTURE IN PARIS
He told of a meeting he had with Walker in Paris during the latter's troubles with New York's imperious Judge Samuel Seabury. A New York Times correspondent asked the two to pose.
Walker, perhaps the most photographed politician of that time, demurred. He didn't think it would be a good thing for Farley, by then on his way to making Franklin Delano Roosevelt the President of the United States. Farley said nonsense, and the picture was taken. It appeared on the front page of the Times.
Seabury had some harsh things to say about Farley for consorting with a man who had fled the country, and when he returned by ship Farley was questioned about the Seabury blast by reporters who had "gone down the bay." One of them, Jim recalled the other night, was Jimmy Duffy of the N.Y. Telegram.
FRIENDLESS JUDGE
"I knew Jimmy well," Farley reminisced at the Waldorf. "He was the dean of that crowd. So I said to him, "Jimmy, it's apparent that Judge Seabury doesn't know what it means to have a friend."
Farley apologized about the length of his accepting speech.
"I've gone to so many doggone banquets that I've become sensitive about the time the average speaker takes to get over a point. I tried to wrap mine up as quickly as I could, knowing it was getting late. In my confusion I think I left out seven presidents I have known. But I guess the memory of Mussolini helped me shorten it. I was received by him after he came into power and complimented him on the draining of the Pontine marshes at some length. He seemed to be fascinated by what I had to say about the marshes and the political situation. It became a monologue. But then he put his hands on the arms of his office chair and half rose from it.
"'When are you leaving Rome?', Mussolini said.
"I took the hint."
[From the Albany Times-Union, May 30, 1974]
OPTIMISTIC ABOUT FUTURE "GENIAL JIM" FARLEY REACHES 86
(By James Chilblain)
NEW YORK.– James A. Farley, who has had two outstanding careers in his lifetime – one in politics, the other in business – observes his 86th birthday today and has no thought of retiring.
"My health is very good and I feel all right," said Mr. Farley when I interviewed him in his midtown office where he holds down the position of honorary Chairman of the board of Coca-Cola Export Corporation. "I enjoy working and meeting people."
"Genial Jim" reaches his 86th milestone manifestly disturbed over the apparent loss of White House credibility, the revelations of campaign spending in the last presidential election and the Watergate disclosures. But his confidence in the American people is unshaken and he predicted once Watergate is cleared up, "the United States will come out more united than it has been in many years."
In his hey-day in politics in the 1930s Farley, as Democratic National Chairman, visited every state in the Union and served 7 years as postmaster general in FDR's cabinet. He was often referred to by newspapermen as "Mr. Politics."
After joining Coca-Cola in September, 1940, he traveled all over the world for the company and met many noted personalities and people in all walks of life.
I asked Mr. Farley to name the six persons who impressed him most during his career in politics. He replied:
"Former Mayor James J. Walker, former Gov. Alfred E. Smith, former Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson, and former Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia."
It was Sen. Glass who placed Farley's name in nomination for the presidency at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1940.
When asked to name the personalities who impressed him most during his extensive travels abroad, he replied:
"This is a question not easy to answer. However, I do not hesitate to say that in my opinion Pope Pius II was the greatest person I ever met.
"Naturally, I was impressed at the opportunity I had to meet and talk with Winston Churchill, General Franco, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mussolini who was at the height of his power in Italy in 1934 and at the time was doing a great job for his country."
[From the Paterson News, May 29, 1974]
ANOTHER AWARD FOR BIG JIM
(By Ernest Cuneo)
WASHINGTON. Notre Dame's intellectual first team, every bit as fit and quick as its football varsity, took the field the other night at the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf to award the Hon. James A. Farley the Laetare Medal, the University of Notre Dame's highest accolade.
Since it is a tossup as to which is the more famous, James A. Farley or the University of Notre Dame, it was more or less like an exchange of honors between Harvard and Yale.
Appropriately enough, these two sportswriters and fans, Ed Sullivan and Bob Considine, were on hand to record the momentous proceedings.
The name of James A. Farley is, of course, as familiar in the world of sports as it is in politics and international business. He was New York state's first boxing commissioner and he is a racing commissioner right now.
For all practical purposes, the New York Yankees would no more start the game without Big Jim in his first base box than they would without a first baseman, both are necessary fixtures of the club.
Big Jim is the loyalist of Yankee fans, but to append the word "loyal" to Farley is a redundancy.
Loyalty, happily enough, begets loyalty, and it detracts not in the least from the glory of the Notre Dame award that thousands of the Hon. James A's friends reacted with the observation, "It's about time!"
Actually, it was about time, because the melted snows of the Great Blizzard of 1888 were still tumbling to the sea when James A. was born that May day in the lovely little Hudson River community of Grassy Point. Jim's father was the captain of a Hudson River schooner, which carried the area's chief product, bricks, to the great metropolis downstream.
One morning, Farley's dad was kicked by the family horse as he was hitching him to the carriage. Two mornings later, the 10-year-old lad looked out the window and saw a hearse in front of the house and from then on his widowed mother took charge of her very young children.
James A. Farley recalled the other night of how his mother had told him never to take an alcoholic drink and that he never had. He was roundly cheered for this and, since the University of Notre Dame had thoughtfully provided three excellent wines, Bob Considine, and I, whose mothers had executed no such pledge, were happy to keep the team batting average by taking slugs of all three.
Actually, Farley and that immediate Hudson River locale are something of a cross-section of dynamic America. Some 60 miles upstream at Hyde Park, a wealthy squire's son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was playing with his pony.
A few miles west, an athletic child, W, Averell Harriman was cavorting about his railroad- financier father's near one million acres. Across the Hudson was the vast private domain of John D. Rockefeller, Pecantick Hills. All three of these wealthy families, the Roosevelts, the Harrimans and the Rockefellers, were to produce governors of New York state.
James A. Farley, however, has the distinction of being the only one who turned down the Governor's Mansion, though Franklin D. Roosevelt as President, all but begged him to make the easy run for it.
Jim couldn't; he had a growing family to educate and he felt that was his first duty. The one-time powerful postmaster general was interrupted with thunderous applause when he stated that he left public office in 1940 owing $100,000. One could not help but feel sorry for our country that its present state is such that Farley's statement was regarded as evidence for continued faith in the Republic.
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME,
March 24, 1974.
THE LAETARE MEDAL
"The Laetare Medal has been worn only by men and women whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church, and enriched the heritage of humanity."
These are the exacting criteria employed by the University of Notre Dame in awarding its Laetare Medal each year. Established in 1883, the medal was restricted to lay persons until 1968, when it was announced that henceforth priests and religious would also be eligible. Over the years the Laetare Medal has been presented to 74 men and 19 women – soldiers and statemen, artists and industrialists, diplomats and philanthropists, educators and scientists.
The Laetare Medal is an American counterpart of the "Golden Rose," a papal honor antedating the eleventh century. The name of the recipient is announced each year on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent and an occasion of joy in the liturgy of the Church. The presentation of the medal is normally part of the University's commencement exercises in May.
The idea of the Laetare Medal was conceived in 1883 by Professor James Edwards. His proposal met with the immediate approval of Rev. Edward F, Sorin, C.&C., founder and first president of Notre Dame, and the Rev. Thomas E. Walsh, CSC, then president of the University. Through the years the recipients of the Laetare Medal have been selected by an award committee headed by the president of Notre Dame.
Generally regarded as the most significant annual award conferred upon Catholics in the United States, the Laetare Medal consists of a solid gold disc suspended from a gold bar bearing the inscription "Laetare Medal." Inscribed in a border around the disc are the words "Magna est veritas et prevalet" (Truth is might and will prevail). The center design of the medal and the inscription on the reverse side are fashioned according to the profession of the recipient.
Laetare Medalists
1883 – John Gilrnary Shea, historian.
1884 – Patrick Charles Keeley, architect.
1885 – Eliza Allen Starr, art critic.
1886 – General John Newton, engineer.
1887 – Edward Preens, publicist.
1888 – Patrick V. Hickey, founder and editor of the Catholic Review.
1889 – Anna Hanson Dorsey, novelist.
1890 – William J. Onahan, organizer of the American Catholic Congress.
1891 – Daniel Dougherty, orator.
1892 – Henry P. Brownstone, philosopher and author.
1893 – Patrick Donohue, founder of the Boston Pilot.
1894 – Augustine Daly, theatrical producer.
1895 – Mary A. Sadder, novelist.
1896 – General William Starke Rosecrans, soldier.
1897 – Thomas Addis Emmet, physician.
1898 – Timothy Edward Howard, jurist.
1899 – Mary Gwendolin Caldwell, philanthropist.
1900 – John A. Creighton, philanthropist.
1901 – William Bourke Cochran, orator.
1902 – John Benjamin Murphy, surgeon.
1903 – Charles Jerome Bonaparte, lawyer.
1904 – Richard C. Kernel, diplomat.
1905 – Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, philanthropist.
1906 – Francis J. Quinlan, physician.
1907 – Katherine Eleanor Conway, journalist and author.
1908 – James C. Monaghan, economist.
1909 – Frances Tiernan (Christian Reid), novelist.
1910 – Maurice Francis Egan, author and diplomat.
1911 – Agues Replier, author.
1912 – Thomas M. Mouldy, philanthropist.
1913 – Charles B. Herberman, editor-in-chief of the Catholic Encyclopedia.
1914 – Edward Douglas White, jurist and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1915 – Mary V. Heroics, philanthropist.
1916 – James Joseph Walsh, physician and author.
1917 – William Shepherd Benson, admiral and chief of naval operations.
1918 – Joseph Scott, lawyer.
1919 – George L. Duval, philanthropist.
1920 – Lawrence Frances Flick, physician.
1921 – Elizabeth Nourse, artist.
1922 – Charles Patrick Neill, economist.
1923 – Walter George Smith, lawyer.
1924 – Charles D. Hagsniss, architect.
1925 – Albert Francis Zahm, scientist.
1926 – Edward Nash Hurley, businessman.
1927 – Margaret Anglia, actress.
1928 – John Johnson Spaulding, lawyer.
1929 – Alfred Emmanuel Smith, statesman.
1930 – Frederick Philip Kenkel, publicist.
1931 – James J. Phelan, businessman.
1932 – Stephen J. Maher, physician.
1933 – John McCormack, artist.
1934 – Genevieve Garvan Brady, philanthropist.
1935 – Francis Hamilton Superman, novelist.
1936 – Richard Reid, lawyer and journalist.
1937 – Jeremiah Denis M. Ford, scholar.
1938 – Irvin William Abell, surgeon.
1939 – Josephine Van Dike Brownstone, catechist.
1940 – General Jugh Aloysius Drum, soldier.
1941 – William Thomas Walsh, journalist and author,
1942 – Helen Constance White, author and teacher.
1943 – Thomas Francis Woodcock, editor.
1944 – Anne O'Hare McCormick, journalist.
1945 – 0. Howland Shaw, diplomat.
1946 – Carlton J. H. Hayes, historian and diplomat.
1947 – William G. Bruce, publisher and civic leader.
1948 – Frank C. Walker, Postmaster General and civic leader.
1949 – Irene Dunne, actress.
1950 – General Joseph L. Collins, soldier.
1951 – John Henry Phelan, philanthropist.
1952 – Thomas E. Murray, member, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
1953 – I. A. O'Shaughnessy, philanthropist.
1954 – Jefferson Cafrey, diplomat.
1955 – George Means, labor leader.
1956 – General Alfred M. Gruether, soldier.
1957 – Clare Boothe Luce, diplomat.
1958 – Frank M. Folsom, industrialist.
1959 – Robert D. Murphy, diplomat.
1960 – George N. Shuster, educator.
1961 – John F. Kennedy, President of the United States.
1962 – Francis J. Braceland, M.D., psychiatrist.
1963 – Admiral George W. Anderson, Jr., chief of naval operations.
1964 – Phyllis McGinley, poet.
1965 – Frederick D. Rossini, scientist.
1966 – Mr. and Mrs. Patrick F. Crowley, founders of The Christian Family Movement.
1967 – J. Peter Grace, industrialist.
1968 – Robert Sargent Shrives, diplomat.
1969 – William J. Brennan, Jr., jurist and associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
1970 – Dr. William B. Walsh, physician, Project Hope originator.
1971 – Walter Kerr, drama critic, and Jean Kerr, author.
1972 – Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, journalist, and author.
1973 – Rev. John A. O'Brien, author.
1974 – James A. Farley, business executive and former Postmaster General.