Senators weep paying tributes
Meet in solemn mood before packed gallery
WASHINGTON (UP) – The Senate, which fought him bitterly on many domestic issues, today forgot past animosities and paid heartfelt tribute to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Meeting in a solemn mood before crowded galleries, the Senate heard its leaders eulogize the late president as a leader of mankind and a great symbol of democracy in America. All traces of partisanship were gone in the face of a loss which members obviously believed to be one of the severest ever suffered by the United States.
Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) opened the session.
“We do not honor him,” he said of the dead president, “merely because the American people allowed him to shatter precedents. We do not honor him because history allowed him to rise to a position of world leadership. We honor him for his personal qualities, his moral and intellectual stature. We honor him as an American and as a citizen of the world in the true sense.
“Wherever men long for liberty, wherever they shed their blood for the high ideals of humanity, his name is and will be cherished throughout the world, now and in all the ages.”
Vandenberg tribute
Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, the Republican senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to go to San Francisco, solemnly told the Senate that “a successful peace must be his monument.”
Democratic Whip Lister Hill (D-Alabama) said Mr. Roosevelt was “the foremost man of all this world.”
‘He’ll never die’
“And now,” Mr. Hill continued, “he stands with Washington, with Jefferson, with Lincoln, with Wilson, and has joined the choice and master spirits of all the ages. He is not dead. Is Washington dead? Is Jefferson dead? Is Lincoln dead? Franklin Roosevelt will never die.”
Members wept openly and unashamedly as Mr. Barkley spoke. In a Senate which he had roundly trounced in the last few weeks for large-scale absenteeism, there were few empty seats. The atmosphere was stilled and tense.
Sits in back row
Sen. Edwin C. Johnson (D-Colorado), who so often had opposed administration policies, sat in the back row, his face lined with grief.
Republican Leader Wallace H. White (R-Maine) sniffed, took out a big white handkerchief and blew his nose. Mr. Vandenberg held his head in his hands. Sen. Robert F. Wagner (D-New York), the president’s great friend since they were together in 1911 in the New York Senate, seemed lost in grief.