Madam Speaker, yesterday marked the 40th Anniversary of the death of Everett Dirksen. To celebrate the remarkable life of my predecessor and to mark this occasion, I respectfully ask that the following article be placed in the Record.…
Madam Speaker, yesterday marked the 40th Anniversary of the death of Everett Dirksen. To celebrate the remarkable life of my predecessor and to mark this occasion, I respectfully ask that the following article be placed in the Record.
Dirksen's Last Days
(By Frank H. Mackaman, The Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, IL)
On August 12, 1969, just before the U.S. Senate recessed
for a few weeks, Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen held a
press conference in his office. It would be his last. Dirksen
seemed relaxed and in a genial mood, chatting amiably with
reporters and joking with his staff. To the casual observer
everything seemed normal but it was not. Doctors had just
told the Senate Minority Leader he was seriously ill. They
had discovered a spot on Dirksen's right lung and suspected
cancer. A second x-ray on the 14th showed the tumor had
grown, making an operation necessary.
To prepare, the senator from Pekin rested for three weeks
at ``Heart's Desire,'' his home outside Washington DC,
rummaging in his beloved garden and working on a memoir he
would never complete. A realist, Dirksen transferred title to
most of his property to his wife, Louella. He also gave her a
pre-signed resignation from the Senate if the operation left
him incapacitated. He loved the Senate, and it was ever on
his mind.
Dirksen entered Walter Reed Hospital on Sunday, August 31,
to ready himself for the operation two days later. He took
with him a briefcase loaded with work, the contents of which
were transferred to The Dirksen Center several years after
his death. These documents show the amazing breadth of his
interests and the substantial burden of his office.
The briefcase contained notes for upcoming speeches,
including one in his own handwriting entitled, ``God,
Country, and Grandchildren: Soliloquy with Grandchildren'' in
which he mused about the legacy his generation would leave
and harkened back to the lives his parents led in Pekin. He
made notes concerning the congressional session about to end.
Dirksen reviewed letters from constituents, information about
pending legislation, requests for appearances, a plea from
Illinois Governor Richard B. Ogilvie to revise the federal
revenue-sharing calculation, letters about federal jobs, an
early draft of what was called the ``Everett McKinley Dirksen
Library Project,'' and much, much more.
On Tuesday morning, September 2, at 8:45, Colonel Alan R.
Hopeman and a team of Army surgeons began to operate. The
spot on Dirksen's lung could not be readily examined without
surgery, but, in surgical terms, it was in an almost ideal
position, close to the periphery of his chest, so that
surgeons could remove it with only a small incision. They
did so without difficulty. The tumor, which had grown to an
inch in diameter, proved to be malignant.
As they had planned in this eventuality, the surgeons took
the next step of removing the entire upper lobe of Dirksen's
right lung. What had begun as a relatively simple operation
became major surgery consuming three hours. The doctors found
no evidence the cancer had spread, however.
Dirksen's strong constitution and vigor brought him through
the procedure with flying colors, and his recuperation was
rapid. Mrs. Dirksen and their daughter, Joy, and son-in-law,
Senator Howard Baker, found him alert and cheerful when they
were first allowed to see him on Wednesday. The next day,
however, Dirksen complained of pain and became confused and
restless, perhaps the result of a minor stroke, insufficient
oxygen, or even withdrawal symptoms from cigarettes (Dirksen
complained to his doctors and his son-in-law about not being
able to smoke). A second procedure became necessary to
replace the tube draining his lung.
Senator Dirksen suffered a crisis that evening, and it
wasn't until 8:00 Saturday morning that his doctors
stabilized him. This episode probably caused the
bronchopneumonia which soon developed. He rallied after this
operation, though, even sitting up in bed to eat his meals.
He spent a restful night and ate a good breakfast with
Louella. He appeared to be past the immediate crisis of a
post-operation heart failure and was already making plans to
resume a work schedule. He even took a few minutes to go over
the papers in his briefcase. For example, a Seattle radio
station requested a tape about the marigold to which Dirksen
replied with this hand-written note:
Dear Day--Just now I'm languishing in a hospital as a
result of surgery. An op'g [operating] room no match for my
marigold gardens. Guess the tape must wait. Sorry.
The doctors assured Senator Baker that Dirksen was well on
the road to recovery and that Baker could travel to
California to join President Richard Nixon. The optimism
proved premature.
Abruptly at 2:51 that afternoon, Sunday, September 7,
Dirksen collapsed and stopped breathing. His heart, which had
enlarged over the years to twice-normal size as the result of
emphysema, just quit. The desk sergeant at the Forest Glen
section of the hospital, Roger Brooks, received an urgent
call from the main hospital summoning a surgeon. Brooks took
a police cruiser to pick up a Col. Blake for the trip to
Dirksen's room. Army doctors were already at his side,
massaging his chest, trying to restart his heart. They gave
him sodium bicarbonate, calcium, and other medicines. They
used a defibrillator to try to shock his heart into action.
The doctors worked so vigorously that they cracked five of
his ribs. But Dirksen did not respond. At 4:52 p.m., the
doctors pronounced him dead at age 73. Louella and Joy were
with him at the end. Forty years ago.
Mourning for the Senator was national and of a personal
quality, particularly among his colleagues in Congress and
his friends in Pekin. His body lay in state under the great
dome of the Capitol, an honor accorded to only three
members of the Senate before him.
In his eulogy to the fallen leader, President Nixon
recalled remarks Daniel Webster had made more than a century
before in testimony to a political opponent: ``Our great men
are the common property of the country.'' That described
Dirksen well. His public service spanned an era of enormous
change, and he played a vital part in that change. Through
six presidencies, as Nixon put it, ``Everett Dirksen has had
a hand in shaping almost every important law that affects our
lives,'' and while he never became president, ``his impact
and influence on the Nation was greater than that of most
Presidents in our history.''
Air Force One brought Dirksen home on Thursday, September
11. Pekin deserves much of the credit for Dirksen's influence
on the national stage. The senator knew that, and he said so
on a return visit to his hometown in 1961:
After long absences enforced by the duties of office in
Washington, there always comes back to me some lines from
that poem which I learned long ago, ``Breathes there a man
with soul so dead, who never to himself has said, this is my
own, my native land.'' This is my own, my native land, my
native city, where the family taproot went deep many
generations ago, and it will ever be so, no matter what tasks
life may assign me. All the major decisions in my life have
been made here . . .
The inspiration which I received here from a saintly
mother, a devoted family, steadfast friends, the constant
faith of teachers who taught me, the inspiration I found here
in church, and the atmosphere of a quiet and well ordered
community were the forces which helped to fashion those
decisions, and for these I shall be always and eternally
grateful. . . .
An estimated 80,000 people watched the funeral procession
proceed the 15 miles from the Peoria airport, south on Route
24, through Pekin on Route 9, to the Glendale Memorial
Gardens on the east side of town where more than 6,000 stood
in waiting. Among the dignitaries accompanying the procession
were Vice President Spiro Agnew, five members of President
Richard Nixon's cabinet, 42 U.S. senators, and 27 U.S.
representatives. Dozens of state officials joined them, as
did over 200 members of the press.
The 1:00 p.m. ceremony itself was brief, lasting only 15
minutes. Six pallbearers, representing the armed forces,
carried the casket to the gravesite. The Rev. Edward L.R.
Elson, chaplain of the Senate and pastor of the National
Presbyterian Church in Washington DC, conducted the service.
The Rev. Ralph Cordes, pastor of Pekin's Second Reformed
Church, and the Rev. Charles Rechard, pastor of Woodland
Presbyterian Church in New Orleans and a friend of the Baker
family, also delivered prayers. Members of the Pekin American
Legion post color guard participated in the ceremony, too,
along with the honor guard and the Chanute Air Force band.
Lt. Gen. Vernon P. Mock, commanding general of the Fifth
Army, presented the American flag, which had been draped over
the casket, to Mrs. Dirksen.
When the ceremony ended, mourners passed by the casket. One
of the first was Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who
placed a spray of marigolds, Dirksen's favorite flower, on
the casket. The two of them had enjoyed a friendly rivalry
over the years to name the national floral emblem--she a
proponent of the rose.
The Rev. Elson had ended his eulogy fittingly with these
words, ``The last march has ended. A mighty man of God has
answered his last roll call. His battles are all fought, his
victories all won.''