March 23, 1978
Page 8308
A TRIBUTE TO HUBERT HUMPHREY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on February 2, 1978, a service of thanksgiving for the life and work of Hubert Humphrey was held at the American Church in London, England. The service was attended by the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet, Ambassador Brewster, and Mrs. Thatcher, leader of the opposition, among others.
Hubert Humphrey touched the hearts not only of Americans but people throughout the world. The service in London is eloquent testimony to that fact.
Mr. Anthony Hyde, chairman of the Democratic Party Committee Abroad, delivered a moving eulogy at the service "Reflections on Hubert H. Humphrey."
I ask that Mr. Hyde's remarks be printed in the RECORD.
The material follows:
REFLECTIONS ON HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
There is a dream — an old fashioned American Dream — that every American boy can grow up to be President.
Part of that dream — and it is not yet dead in America — is that courage and loyalty; decency and kindness; and the willingness to work and to work hard will be rewarded by success.
Hubert Horatio Humphrey had that dream; and although the ultimate prize three times escaped him, who is to say that his life was not a success?
Success is, after all, not a destination. It is a journey. And Hubert's journey, as the record shows, ran true and straight. Even in moments of failure and frustration — including the ultimate frustration of death — the Spirit of this remarkable and remarkably successful man shone through with a strong and steady light.
I never asked him how he got the name of "Horatio." My own opinion is: it was an echo of the turn-of-the-century optimism of America as the "can-do" country. America has a sense of the possible and Humphrey was the embodiment of this. His bounce, his buoyancy, his "can-do" spirit came to him as a priceless personal legacy from his mother and father and before that from his Yankee and immigrant forebears.
Over the years I have had some experience with that "priceless personal legacy"! It dates from the time our close friend, Bill Benton, asked me to help in Humphrey's first Senate re-election campaign in 1954 and includes the time when some of us gave a dinner in his honour, and afterwards went on to Annabels. At three in the morning, I remember his son Skip saying to him: "Dad, we better go home. and let these good people get some sleep." Hubert knew how to play hard as well as work hard.
His career is pure Americana. For some it may seem corny. If it does, so be it.
He was born in 1911 in Wallace, South Dakota, in a room over a drug store, the fourth child of Hubert and Christine Humphrey. Much of his early life he spent on a farm and all of his life he had a feeling for the land and for the people who work on the land.
At 10 years of age we see him working in his father's drug store, washing dishes and serving sodas. This is almost the classic American pattern of its day.
What was not so usual, was his father's deep interest in politics and in the issues of the day, which he discussed with his customers. They used to say about him: with every pill, he sold or tried to sell an idea — an idea about the "good society." The young Hubert grew up in this cracker-barrel atmosphere.
In 1926 he went through an early Mid-West Bank closing and lost his life's savings. At 15 he got off lightly: his life's savings were $14O!
The next year the Depression struck the Mid-West in earnest and his father had to sell his house to pay his bills.
But his father had that irrepressible spirit and energy which all of us recognize in his famous son. He made a new start.
At high school Hubert's record was outstanding: athlete, star debater, top student and class valedictorian. This was a taste of early success. But Hubert was no stranger to failure — even if it was not his own.
Oh yes, he knew failure: failure of the American Dream to stand up to the harsh realities of the 20's; failure of the land to produce; failure of businesses; of financial institutions; the failure of Government to act in response to the needs of the American People.
Hubert was very much a child of the GreatDepression and of the New Deal.
He knew what it was like to hitchhike because there was no money for fares;
To have to leave university twice: once because, even with his own earnings, there was no money to pay for tuition; a second time, sfter he had been able to return on a scholarship, because his father was ill and both he and his brother had to leave to run the family business.
He knew about duty and loyalty, too ... a characteristic for which he was to be criticised in later political life.
All this left its mark on the boy and the young man who was to become one of the most useful, compassionate, effective and successful men in public life, in our time.
It left its mark but it never touched the core of the man: his optimism, his bounce, his warmth, his belief in himself and in other people.
He had a dream of going to Washington, of doing things ... big things; and of being "someone" in the world, as he would put it. It bubbled to the surface in a letter he wrote from Washington to Muriel Buck, the girl he was to marry. He wrote:
"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 here in Government politics or service. I intend to set my aim for Congress. Together we can do things, I am sure. Never let me get lazy or discouraged. You be my inspirational force, Muriel."
Lazy or discouraged, he never was.
They say that behind every great man, there stands a woman. Hubert was luckier than that. His Muriel walked beside him .. . grew with him ... shared his triumphs and endured his defeats. She is the kind of a wife that if a man reached out in the dark, her hand would be there.
I have "sketched-in" Hubert Humphrey as a boy and as a young man because it helps to explain the mature man.
He was a man of international stature and outlook, yet he was intensely American. He stood for the old fashioned virtues which have helped to make America great.
For the can-do spirit.
For hard work.
For loyalty.
For courage.
For determination.
For compassion for the weak and needy. For the equality — yes, and for the brotherhood of man.
He loved his family. He cared. He cared passionately ... but not just for his family and friends ... for America ... for mankind.
He knew how to accept defeat and yet remain undefeated.
He had the ability to live and to fight without rancor. He was forgiving. There was no malice in the man. No envy; no bitterness; no self-pity. What a man!,
Of the thousands of letters he received during his stays in hospital, one that he particularly treasured was from Sugar Ray Robinson, which ended with the line: "Keep on punching, old buddy." Hubert kept on punching; not just for himself but for all of us. My friend Archie MacLeish has called this "a special kind of gallantry."
There will always be a warm place in the hearts of those who knew him either in person, as I did, or by his services to the Nation. And when those hearts no longer beat, he will move softly into the pages of history. Though he could not quite make the American Dream come true for himself, he did for millions of others. His eloquence and energy made the dream become the law; for Equal Opportunity; for Equal Rights; for Human Rights. And this was true for much of the major legislation in America of the past quarter century.
He will be known as the man who loved his fellow man ... who gave all he had to give to America ... and to the world. Gave it with joy and without restraint. Oh, yes. The bounce and the joy will be remembered. The Happy Warrior has left the scene. The World is not a poorer place. It is a richer place because he passed here and the American dream still lives.