Networks and Pittsburgh stations canceled commercials last night and up to 1 p.m. today, while considering further action.
Network and local programs joined in tribute to Mr. Roosevelt’s memory. KQV presented Bishop Austin Pardue of the Episcopal Church, Father Quigley, head of Catholic schools here, and Rabbi Freehoff last night. They planned to pick up memorial services from Trinity Cathedral today.
Drew Pearson was in town last night and devoted his talk over KQV to the president, forgetting their differences of a year or more ago. He and a local commentator said they had confidential information of the President’s condition, which, of course, they didn’t have. Another said he got the flash at 5:11, which he didn’t. His newswire runs through the Pittsburgh Press building and is relayed to the station from this building. No one had it at 5:11.
John B. Kennedy climaxed a night of tributes at 11:45 when he read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Requiem,” which Mr. Roosevelt had copied inside a book he gave Mr. Kennedy years ago.
Here is the verse:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
It appears on the poet’s tombstone.