to the church the very next Sunday without any fanfare, without any show, but simply an honest, humble member of the vast congregation there. We also have high regard for their daughter Mrs. Baker, as far as we have had an opportunity to know her. She is certainly a splendid representative of that fine family.

Mrs. Stennis joins me in this expression of sympathy and condolence for all members of the family.

ADDRESS BY HON. STROM THURMOND

OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Mr. President, the passing of EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN was a singular loss to the U.S. Senate as well as to the State of Illinois and the Nation. His voice is already missed in the councils of the President and the Congress. He was a unique leader in history, and he left a void not easily filled.

The distinguished senior Senator from Illinois had served as minority leader since 1959 and his wit, charm, effervescence, and gift for expression endeared him to friend and foe alike. Many a time he brought perspective back to a tense debate with a well-phrased sentence, poem, or quote from the great orators of history. He was one of the greatest orators of our time and wove a web of words that any young person could understand, and that any contemporary would heed. In my years in the Senate it is not possible to recall a Member whose delivery of the spoken word was more admired.

Mr. President, more important than his ability to speak well, Senator DIRKSEN understood the problems faced by our Nation. While we differed on some issues, I was particularly impressed with his deep sense of patriotism and his love of this Nation which he served so long and so well. As minority leader he dealt with the great issues of the day and considered each with exacting analysis to which he applied his sense of commitment to this country.

Above all, Senator DIRKSEN was a Christian gentleman. His devotion to the affairs of his church, and to Christian activities gen

erally, fully measured up to the outstanding performance he gave to every worthwhile activity. His devotion to God was such that, as illness came upon illness, he was able to have the feeling he could face tomorrow unafraid.

Mr. President, I wish to extend my sympathy to his gracious and charming wife in whose companionship he had a strong partner to stand with him in stress as well as in victory. And, also to his daughter goes my heartfelt sympathy, and to his son-in-law, the distinguished junior Senator from Tennessee. Their loss is great, but the loss of our Nation is equally heavy.

Mr. President, the newspapers of South Carolina paid many handsome tributes to Senator DIRKSEN, and I ask unanimous consent that the following be printed in the Record.

Editorial in the Lancaster News of September 11, 1969, entitled "DIRKSEN'S Death Leaves a National Void”; editorial in the Dillon Herald of September 11, 1969, entitled "Ev Brightened Landscape"; editorial in the Columbia Record of September 9, 1969, entitled "DIRKSEN Joins the Noble Dead"; editorial in the News & Courier of September 9, 1969, entitled "Everett Dirksen"; editorial in the Greenville News of September 8, 1969, entitled "EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN"; and editorial in the State of September 9, 1969, entitled "Senator From Illinois, Salesman for America."

There being no objection, the editorials were ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

[From the Lancaster (S.C.) News, Sept. 11, 1969]

DIRKSEN'S Death Leaves A NATIONAL VOID

The unexpected death of Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen deprives the nation not only of a senator, but of an institution.

For Ev DIRKSEN was that—and many other things as well. He was a renowned wit, a peerless orator, a statesman and a political tactician of the highest order. He was loved and feared by members of his own Republican party. The Democrats attacked him, but they couldn't scorn him.

President Nixon said:

"To politics and government he brought a dedication matched by few and a style and eloquence matched by no political leader of our time.” DIRKSEN, the veteran politican of the past who never let the present get away from him, “brought the embellishment of the past to the politics of the present,” said Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho. “He was an authenic product

of an earlier period who remained prominent and powerful to the moment of his death. We will not see the likes of him again."

The immediate target for much of Dirksen's parliamentary foxiness was Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield. The Montanan said: "His word was good. Everything was on the table."

Harry F. Rosenthal, Associated Press writer wrote:

"His language smacked of Shakespeare and the Bible and Victorian England, his delivery of William Jennings Bryan, his fervor of Billy Sunday." Among his more recent political accomplishments, DIRKSEN played a vital role in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Both issues depended on obtaining a twothirds vote in the Senate. On both he had the power to deliver or withhold the Republican votes needed for the two-thirds majority. He bucked powerful pressures in his own party to deliver the votes.

Attacked, praised, reviled, applauded, Ev braved all to do what he thought was best for America and Americans.

[From the Dillon (S.C.) Herald, Sept. 11 1969]

EV BRIGHTENED LANDSCAPE

Sen. EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN was a man of immense personality. Millions were charmed and delighted by his flamboyant style, his folksy wit, and his husky voice which has been described as organ-like and mellifluous. His mannerisms, tousled hair and baggy eyes made him easy to caricature. He was one of those rare individuals who become legendary in their own time. He enlivened and brightened the political landscape which all too often seems to lack a sense of humor.

DIRKSEN, the senior senator from Illinois, was a product of America's heartland. He was born of what most people would consider common, hardworking people in the small town of Pekin, Ill., in 1896.

His father died when he was five and as a boy he was taught a healthy respect for work. Many of the small town values and virtues stuck with him throughout his life as he became one of the most outstanding political figures of his time.

He was known as a prodigious worker. An early riser, he routinely was at his Senate office by 8:30 a.m. At home he liked to putter in the soil, raising fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Perennially for years, he waged a personal compaign to get the marigold adopted as the national flower. At least once a year he could be counted on to make a speech in which he extolled the beauty of the marigold and enumerated the reasons why he thought it should be the national flower.

DIRKSEN's career in national politics spanned some 35 years. He served 16 years in the House of Representatives before first being elected to the

Senate in 1950. During most of his career, the Democrats dominated the Congress and occupied the White House.

Ironically, DIRKSEN played his greatest political role while the opposition party was in power. As the leader of the Republican minority during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, his favor was ardently courted.

Although his friendliness to some Democratic proposals caused his Republican associates to grumble, DIRKSEN refused to bend to partisan pressures. He took a practical view of the lawmaking process. He once explained it this way:

"You start from the broad premise that all of us have a common duty to the country to perform. Legislation is always the art of the possible. You could, of course, follow a course of solid opposition, of stalemate, but that is not in the interest of the country."

One of the qualities which endeared DIRKSEN to many Americans was his fierce patriotism. He made no bones about loving his country. In an age when some think patriotism is old-fashioned, that isn't always a popular thing to do. It is difficult to imagine Washington without Everett DirksEN's immense personality hanging over national politics like some sort of a human equivalent to the Capitol dome.

Without Ev, Washington and the national political landscape is bound to be duller.

[From the Columbia (S.C.) Record, Sept. 9, 1969]

DIRKSEN JOINS THE NOBLE Dead

A great American heart throbs no more; a strong American voice, mellifluous in its glorification of the grandeur of this land and its people, is silenced. Not again will the people of this beloved land listen to the florid phraseology of the distinguished orator of America, EVERett McKinley DIRKSEN.

He is dead and the flowers of the field, especially the marigolds, drop their heads in sorrow and mourning along with God's favored creatures, men.

Senator DIRKSEN was a remarkable person-as an individual, as a Senator, as a devotee and student of our unique political system, and as an American. Away from the duties of the Senate, to which he devoted untiring hours of his latter years, he was a devoted husband and an admiring father. In conversation of the parlor, he was not the Shakespearean actor of the Senate or public stage. He was polite, courteous, a profoundly good listener, receptive to new ideas, but strong in his own convictions.

The people knew him best for his public displays of masterful command of the language with Nineteenth Century majesty; his tousled hair and deep voice perfect counterparts to his ready flow of language, resonatingly rich in the style of "belle lettres." His polysyllabic selectivity aided and did not injure the simplicities of the thought he chose to convey.

His store of wit, from which he drew often, was as large as that of Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina-another raconteur of the Senate, noted for his "stories."

This was the surface; the placid, babbling current scarcely ever touched by the froth of anger. Beneath the surface, the dedication to country, people and causes ran deep-and was seldom fathomed by those who criticized him for seeming vacillation.

Senator DIRKSEN did, indeed, alter his strategy from time to time-never abandoning fundamental principles, but moving to adopt contemporary manifestations of those principles when the proper times came.

He did so because, in the historic train of U.S. Senators he has now joined, he was another of the Great Compromisers. Without such men, the American political system would fragment, fail; and freedom would be lost.

Men of totally inflexible principles, narrowly drawn and even more narrowly constricted by events, could not understand the DIRKSENS of our body politic. They never shall as they never have. The late President John F. Kennedy understood and cautioned the young people of America, while he lived, to be prepared to compromise to advance their causes.

Passionate advocates of small minds and smaller interests cannot understand the obligations that fall upon leaders of the U.S. Senate. Sensitive to the needs and demands of a changing, volatile public, they must assess domestic and foreign issues that come before the Senate and pass judgment thereupon. One man's ideology and one man's cause cannot prevail; the will of the majority must be served while the whole of the American people, and the republican form of government, are sustained.

At this point in the legislative process, the DIRKSEN's of history play their roles. EVERETT DIRKSEN's name as a Great Compromiser-will be permanently attached to memorial pieces of legislation, including the Civil Rights acts, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Blessed are the peacemakers and blessed are the Great Compromisers, although they are often without honor among the ideologues of their day. Senator DIRKSEN was a star among stars, yet unperceived by some of his critics. Today, they should remember Wordsworth, who said: "Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; look up a second time, and, one by one, you mark them twinkling out with silvery light, and wonder how they could elude the sight!"

In memory of a great American, Wordsworth could be paraphrased: There is one great society alone on earth: the noble living and the noble dead. Noble in life, EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN is noble in death.

[From the Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, Sept. 9, 1969]
EVERETT DIRKSEN

The emphasis in obituary accounts of Sen. EVERETT DIRKSEN of Illinois, who died Sunday at 73, is on his colorful personality. He was a character