January 24, 1978
Page 585
A TRIBUTE TO HUBERT HORATIO HUMPHREY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Senate will not be as happy, or as stimulating and challenging a place, without HUBERT HUMPHREY. We will miss his easy smile, his boundless enthusiasm, his courage, his honesty, and his warmth.
In the past few months, he has been honored here and in his beloved Minnesota as a warm and beloved friend. In death he was accorded Presidential honors he was denied in life. And history will hold him in higher regard than many if not most Presidents.
I think HUBERT realized in the last months of his life that he had truly won something more important than elections — an enduring place in the hearts of his people and in the history of our country.
It was HUBERT's ambition to be President. He lived in a time when ambition in politics was regarded by many people as unseemly. But HUBERT was proud of his ambition, because he was driven not by a need for glory or personal power, but by an intense desire to make things better.
HUBERT saw government as society's most powerful tool for fashioning the public good. And by the public, HUBERT meant the people. He treated everyone equally and well. He thought not of social needs, but of human needs. I think that distinction is a key to our understanding of what made HUBERT a great man.
HUBERT was a tireless campaigner as I have personal reason to know because he genuinely liked everyone he met. A story I heard about a visit HUBERT made to Connecticut in 1972 illustrates what I mean.
HUBERT had agreed to speak at two rallies, one before dinner and one after dinner. To no one's surprise, he arrived late to the first rally, and spoke a little longer than everyone had planned, including, I am sure, HUBERT himself. The organizers knew it would be impossible to have dinner and then make the second rally, so they offered to cancel the rally. HUBERT cancelled dinner instead.
HUBERT gained his sustenance not from food, but from his contact with people. He campaigned so hard and so often that he knew the politics and issues of some places better than the local party leaders.
In 1968 HUBERT fell a half-million votes short of his dream of the Presidency. He chose me to be his Vice-Presidential running mate that year — the supreme political experience of my life — and during the long uphill campaign I came to know him well.
In the last few days of that campaign, we knew we had a chance to win. But we did not. It is a measure of HUBERT'S courage and eagerness for life that he did not dwell on that defeat.
After the campaign, our two families vacationed together, and he never once in that 10 days brought up the subject. On a few occasions when he was by himself, one was tempted to believe he might be dwelling on his disappointment and possibly feeling some bitterness. If so, he never let it show. He loved having the kids around and they would drag him off to play on the beach or go swimming or snorkeling. And there was never any suggestion in his demeanor or his behavior that he was anything but happy and content and looking forward to what the future held.
Beyond HUBERT's many legislative accomplishments, I think it was this refusal to accept the results of adversity that most affected us. He did not talk about the past. He wanted to talk about the future.
He believed in the American dream, and he was proud to say so. He believed that the average citizen can learn and grow and prosper in a democracy, and that we can do anything we really want to do. And he knew the job of government was to help the individual find his own satisfaction.
He always had hope. He always had dreams. He always wanted our lives to be better.
I talked with him often in his last months and, after my back operation, I found it difficult to get the subject around to HUBERT's health. He was always much more interested in finding out how I was. He must have been in great pain. He must have known his time was short. But he never conceded it. He would always tell me, "Oh, I'm feeling better."
And despite the pain, the certainty of his death, he never succumbed to self-pity; he never lost his eagerness for tomorrow; he never stopped thinking, planning, working, or talking.
Someone said once HUBERT had more answers than there were problems. The truth is, he saw many problems before most of us were aware of their existence. And he was always ready to take them on, before they were ready to take him on.
I will miss HUBERT — my open-hearted, generous, always considerable friend.
I will miss the sight of him — reaching out to people — and especially the children — my children.
They instinctively loved him, sat on his lap, listened to his stories.
I will miss the sound of him, that voice which was built for optimism and good cheer, the quick mind ceaselessly conjuring word pictures to convey the ideas to move people. If he felt he was not getting through, he tried again with new phrases and images — and so his speeches may have been long, but never dull. They vibrated with the excitement of his beliefs and his hopes.
I will always miss, with a deep sense of loss, what we can never have — a HUMPHREY Presidency. What an exciting and challenging experience that could have been. We would have believed in him — as we all did in the end. He would have had us believing in each other — as we once did. He would have had us building once more — the country of our faith and our hopes.
FRITZ MONDALE said it for me in his moving eulogy:
He taught us how to hope and how to love, how to win and how to lose; he taught us how to live, and finally, he taught us how to die.
Lest the record of the Senate be incomplete, I ask unanimous consent that the entire text of that moving eulogy, which touched me deeply, be reprinted in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the eulogy was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EULOGY OF VICE PRESIDENT WALTER F. MONDALE
Dear Muriel, the Humphrey family, and guests. There is a natural impulse at a time like this to dwell on the many accomplishments of Hubert Humphrey's remarkable life. By listing a catalogue of past events as though there were some way to quantify what he was all about. But I don't want to do that because Hubert didn't want it and neither does Muriel.
Even though this is one of the saddest moments of my life and I feel as great a loss as I've ever known, we must remind ourselves of Hubert's last great wish, that this be a time to celebrate life and the future, not to mourn the past, and his death.
But, Muriel, I hope you will forgive me if I don't entirely succeed in looking forward and not backward, because I must, for a moment. Two days ago, as I flew back from the West over the land that Hubert loved, and to this city that he loved, I thought back over his life and its meaning. And I tried to understand what it was about this unique person that made him such an uplifting symbol of hope and joy for all people.
And I thought of the letter that he wrote to Muriel over 40 years ago when he first visited Washington. He said in that letter, "Maybe I seem foolish to have such vain hopes and plans. But, Bucky, I can see how, someday, if you and I just apply ourselves and make up our minds to work for bigger things, how we can someday live here in Washington and probably be in government, politics or service. I intend to set my aim at Congress."
Hubert was wrong only in thinking that his hopes and plans might be in vain. They were not, as we all know. Not only did he succeed with his beloved wife at his side, he succeeded gloriously and beyond even his most optimistic dreams. Hubert will be remembered by all of us who served with him as one of the greatest legislators in our history. He will be remembered as one of the most loved men of his time. And even though he failed to realize his greatest goal, he achieved something much more rare and valuable than the nation's highest office. He became his country's conscience.
Today the love that flows from everywhere, enveloping Hubert, flows also to you, Muriel. And the presence today here, where America bids farewell to her heroes, of President and Mrs. Carter, of former Presidents Ford and Nixon, and your special friend and former First Lady, Mrs. Johnson, attest to the love and respect that the nation holds for both of you.
LIVED BY THREE PRINCIPLES
That letter to Bucky, Muriel, also noted three principles by which Hubert defined his life: work, determination and high goals. They were a part of his life's pattern when I first met him 31 years ago. I was only 17, fresh out of high school, and he was the Mayor of Minneapolis. He had then all the other sparkling qualities he maintained throughout his life; boundless good humor, endless optimism hope, infinite interests, intense concern for people and their problems, compassion without being patronizing, energy beyond belief, and a spirit so filled with love there was no room at all for hate or bitterness. He was simply incredible.
When he said that life was not meant to be endured but rather, to be enjoyed, you knew what he meant. You could see it simply by watching him and listening to him. When Hubert looked at the lives of black Americans in the 40's, he saw endurance but not enjoyment, and his heart insisted that it was time for Americans to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.
When Hubert looked at the young, who could not get a good education, he saw endurance and not enjoyment. When Hubert saw old people in ill health he saw endurance and not enjoyment. When Hubert saw middle-class people striving to survive and working people without jobs and decent homes, he saw endurance and not enjoyment.
Hubert was criticized for proclaiming the politics of joy, but he knew that joy was essential to us and is not frivolous. He loved to point out that ours is the only nation in the world to officially declare the pursuit of happiness as a national goal.
But he was also a sentimental man, and that was part of his life, too. He cried in public and without embarrassment. In his last major speech in his beloved Minnesota, he wiped tears from his eyes and said: "A man without tears is a man without a heart." If he cried often, it was not for himself but for others.
Above all, Hubert was a man with a good heart, and on this sad day it would be good for us to recall Shakespeare's words: "A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black [beard will turn white, a curled pate] will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart is the sun and the moon. Or, rather, the sun and not the moon for it shines bright and never changes but keeps his course truly." Hubert's heart kept its course truly.
He taught us all how to hope and how to love, how to win and how to lose; he taught us how to live, and, finally, he taught us how to die.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I will also miss something that ought not to be lost in history, and that is HUBERT HUMPHREY's sense of humor and his wit. Malcolm Forbes in the February 6, 1978, edition of Forbes' includes some examples of that sense of humor in his editorial entitled "I Can't Resist One More Happy Hubert Humphrey Memory." I ask unanimous consent that that editorial be printed in the RECORD at this point so that those who read the RECORD may enjoy once more that incomparable combination of humor and optimism which was the hallmark of
HUBERT HUMPHREY.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD as follows:
I CANNOT RESIST ONE MORE HAPPY HUBERT HUMPHREY MEMORY
A little more than a decade ago, we marked FORBES' 50th Anniversary with a tented dinner at our home for some 600 corporate presidents, board chairmen, CEOs and their wives.
The then Vice President Humphrey captivating this not-too-many-Democrats gathering, beginning with these chuckleful off-the-cuff observations:
After standing in the receiving line with Malcolm and Bertie for two hours and 50 minutes here this evening, I've come to the conclusion that I must be the only vice president present tonight ..."
One man came through the line and was introduced as the head of Hertz. A little later came a gentleman introduced as the head of Avis. I tell you, you'll never know how good it is to meet another Number Two ..."
"Somebody asked me tonight, and this is a true statement, 'Mr. Vice President, how do you manage this job, how do you get along with President Johnson?' I told him what Disraeli had replied when asked how, as Prime Minister of Britain, he was able to get along so well with Queen Victoria, and Disraeli replied, 'I never refuse I never contradict and I sometimes forget.' That's the secret of being Vice President ..."
"Among other things tonight, our host has taken a strong stand in favor of inheritance. I do, too. Vice President, and then you-know- what ..."
In a now-poignant reflection of his boundless optimism, Hubert Humphrey commented:
There's just one point that I'd like to take exception to. Malcolm said that this is the 50th Anniversary of Forbes Magazine and that he doubted we'd be here for the 100th. I wish Malcolm would speak for himself. I've never felt better in my life ...