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A wise and eloquent man once said:

Whom the gods love die young no matter how long they live.

At 73, Senator DIRKSEN died youthful, a favorite of the common people as well as the gods. He was, as President Nixon said, a politician in the finest sense and an extremely likable man.

As in the case of other great men, he was personally a paradox. He cultivated a public reputation for eloquence, affability, and as a champion of good-natured causes. His television appearances, his writing, and his speaking, his devotion to gardening and his quick wit gave vitality and substance to that image.

Yet, there was much more. The foundations of his life were laced with earnest determination, studious hard work, and a remarkable professionalism in achieving the goals he pursued. Despite an outward casualness, he was a man meticulously aware of history, fact, and the nuances of political life.

A clergyman and acquaintance recalled the other day that as a young man, the Senator became interested in the Bible, studied it with increasing intensity and finally committed whole passages to memory.

That same single-minded intensity and devotion to hard work were hallmarks of his work in this body.

He worked long hours in the House, often taking home a bulging briefcase. He immersed himself in the issues that were his primary responsibility and became a respected and recognized authority. The price was failing eyesight which eventually forced him to withdraw for a time from public life.

When he returned a few years later, he brought to his work in the Senate the same energy and determination linked with that uniquely likable public personality.

The combination produced a distinguished and colorful career. In recent years, virtually every major piece of legislation passed by the Senate bore his personal mark, a fact which alone testifies to the importance of his life.

His impact often was equal to that of the Presidents of his time and he wielded power with wisdom and precision.

Like other great men, his life was a product of circumstance and timing more than an accurate reflection of his immense talents.

He was a man who very well might have been a President had time and circumstance been kinder. Yet, whatever personal slight fortune may have dealt him was propitious for his country and his party.

In a period in which his party was a distinct minority in Congress, his resonant eloquence was the single Republican voice uniformly recognized in every corner of the Nation.

It was a time when he wielded great influence but was denied many of the satisfactions that usually go with the formal mantle of authority.

Death came at a time when the party he had helped nurture through difficult years was again vital, in power and able to provide him some of those rewards.

As much as his wisdom, experience and leadership will be missed, we are fortunate to have had those colorfully packaged qualities as a vibrant bridge over difficult times.

The inflections of his life, like those in his voice, reassured and sustained us through a period when that is what his party and his country needed most.

ADDRESS BY HON. BEN REIFEL

OF SOUTH DAKOTA

Mr. Speaker, the death of EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN is a great loss to all of us. The late senior Senator from Illinois was a respected leader not only in his party and the U.S. Senate, but throughout the Nation.

He was a politician in the best sense of the concept. His life style, if not closely followed, should at least be carefully studied by all who seek influence and the wise use of it, who feel compassion for their fellow man, and who want to improve the entire world community.

ADDRESS BY HON. JOHN B. ANDERSON

OF ILLINOIS

Mr. Speaker, at its meeting yesterday the House Republican Conference paid deep and sincere tribute to one of the great legislative leaders of our time, the late distinguished Senate minority leader, the Honorable EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, of Illinois. With the concurrence of other Members of this House, I now insert in the Record the brief but heartfelt tribute which was offered at that time:

TRIBUTE TO Hon. Everett McKinley DirKSEN

Whereas the members of the House Republican Conference have been deeply saddened by the death of the distinguished Minority Leader of the United States Senate, the Honorable EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN of Illinois; and

Whereas the late Senator has served his state, his party and his nation with distinction and dedication unparalleled in the recent history of the United States Congress, first as a Member of the House of Representatives, then as a United States Senator, and most recently as Senate Minority Leader; and

Whereas the services he has rendered to party and nation will be remembered with that special mark of honor which is reserved for the ablest and greatest of this nation's lawmakers and political leaders:

Therefore be it resolved that the House Republican Conference now pays special tribute to the memory of a distinguished lawmaker, a peerless party leader, a statesman and Senator whom history will honor even as we honor him here today—the Honorable Everett McKinley DirkSEN of Illinois; And be it further resolved that the House Republican Conference express to the late Senator's wife Louella and to all the members of his family, our most sincere sympathy in the great loss that has been theirs.

ADDRESS BY HON. ROBERT MCCLORY

OF ILLINOIS

Mr. Speaker, my longtime friend and constituent William H. Rentschler is a mighty man with the pen.

Several years ago Bill Rentschler composed a tribute to Senator EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN of Illinois, our mutual friend. I am calling this article to the attention of the Members of the Congress

and to all Americans throughout the land, as it seems most fitting to ponder the penetrating and illuminating words used by Bill Rentschler in describing our colleague.

TRIBUTE TO AN EARTHY PLAINSMAN

(By William H. Rentschler)

This essay, which dates back some three years, expressed then my affection and deep admiration for Everett McKinley Dirksen. It now becomes a tribute to the memory of a towering figure in the annals of America.

A tall man, now bent with the weight of years, walks with measured gait along the flat, fruited plains of Illinois toward the yellowed pages of history. You know somehow where he is going.

And you know he senses and relishes his fated role as mover and philosopher, as one around whom legends will grow, as one whose memory will linger. This man is EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, steadfast helmsman for that little crew of Republicans in the United States Senate.

They honored him in Chicago one late April evening in 1966, when the biting wind belied the promise of spring, at one of those big, glossy, often deadly dull $100-a-plate dinners.

Without a note or scrap of paper before him, he "preached" for one solid hour and twenty-two minutes more, surely long enough to bore stiff most anyone except perhaps his forgiving family.

Yet from the moment EVERETT DIRKSEN set free from deep in his innards that first velvety syllable, those seated, affluent diners—1,800 in all—leaned toward him and strained to hear every word as if life itself depended on his next one.

Before DIRKSEN rose, the bony young minister from the little frame church in Pekin spoke reverently of the Senator as "one who stands among us, but towers above us."

That set the stage. Then EVERETT DIRKSEN shuffled to the lectern, blinking in seeming surprise at the glare of TV lights he contends with almost daily. The celebrated silvery locks were tangled and awry. A huge carnation made a white splotch on his black suit. The massive head, the sagging face were thrust forward, and tired, watery eyes peered over horn-rimmed spectacles into the sea of admirers. He looked for all the world like the fabled cowardly lion from cinema's Land of Oz.

There was in the great ballroom the perfect silence of expectancy, for most of them had savored the Dirksenian thunder before.

Then the words began to come, resonant, rolling, soft and almost inaudible at first. He told a gnarled old story about a grateful cow, one of his oftrepeated favorites. Half the crowd had heard him tell it before, yet they wandered almost gleefully alongside him to the punch-line, and then roared with laughter, feeling he had permitted them to share with him an intimate

moment.

What he said was not new. Some would brand it corny or trite, the same old clichés about God and motherhood and freedom and all that. The empty sophisticates might dismiss him as out of touch with these frenetic times.

But you know somehow this man is not shallow or calculating or emotionless. You can see an incandescent glow in those tired eyes when he talks of freedom. A medical curiosity with an impressive catalogue of ailments, he suffers not from the limiting myopia which afflicts and restricts so many of his colleagues and contemporaries. His mind scans the ages with a certain graceful sweep. It searches the archives and draws easily on the great books and fine minds of human history.

There is an element of grandeur, a certain homely wisdom about this righteous, earthy plainsman. His is a dying breed, towering like the shaggy mammoths above the gray flannel prodigies who are guided by polls, surrounded by faceless aides, preoccupied with the cosmetics of image.

"No, you can't eat freedom," DIRKSEN purred, “or buy anything with it. You can't hock it downtown for the things you need. When a baby curls a chubby arm around your neck, you can't eat that feeling either, or buy anything with it. But what in this life means more to you than that feeling, or your freedom?"

He had much else to say that night in Chicago. Here are a few random wisps of his "conversation" with 1,800 dinner companions:

"We must glue our eyes on the cause of freedom. It's the one thing that counts. The quiet, insidious erosion of freedom is taking place constantly They're trying to remake us from stem to stern, trying to subvert our principles . . . It is time for those citizens who believe in the durable values to stand up and be counted . . .”

"There would have been no civil rights bill without us Republicans. That bill was written in my office . . . The Negro should come back to the Party of Lincoln."

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"Americans today are a prosperous but unhappy people . . . there is frightful turbulence and discontent and bewilderment Not the least confused are those in Washington as they caterwaul and wander aimlessly about. . . ."

"That burglar they call inflation is eating into every paycheck. . . . When it gets out of control, then controls go on, and you don't have freedom.

"Some of these kids think it's smart and fashionable to burn draft cards. But they only do it when the TV cameras are there. I think it's smart-aleck

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"George Meany asked for my support on the repeal of 14-B. 'You fairly wrench my heartstrings,' I told him, 'but you'll never get my vote.'” "The reapportionment fight is just beginning. If you know you're right, you're not discouraged by one lost battle. We'll fight it out to let the people decide . . .'

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