From the Vault of the ProConPundit:
Eulogy for Strom Thurmond
by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Columbia, South Carolina – July 1, 2003
(As Transcribed)
Nancy, Strom, Julie and Paul: James Strom Thurmond. Fritz, he was one complex guy. For what else would explain that he asked, I’m told by Nancy, a guy named Biden from the State of Delaware to be one of his eulogists. I’ll never figure him out.
And Strom, I won’t forgive you. Lindsay, I always thought I was in control, but I knew down deep that I wasn’t and I think this is his last laugh. For what else could explain a North East liberal presence as the only outsider speaking here today, with the possible exception of Vice President Cheney.
Strom Thurmond was the only man whom I knew who, in a literal sense, lived in three distinct and separate periods of American history and lived what would have been considered a full life in each of those periods, particularly in his beloved South. Born into an era of essentially unchallenged and unexamined mores of the South, reaching his full maturity in an era of fully challenged and critically examined bankrupt mores of his beloved South, and living out his final three decades in a South that had formally rejected its past on race. In each of these stages in my observation, and I was only with him the last three decades, Strom represented exactly where he came from.
There’s an old hymn that includes these lyrics: "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side... Then it is the brave man who chooses while the coward stands aside."
No one ever doubted Strom Thurmond’s physical courage. You’ve heard much written about it. About fifteen years ago I was reminded of this: I was coming up in an escalator with Strom going to a vote and a fella, who apparently had held a long-time grudge against Senator Thurmond, a tourist, literally interposed himself between me and Strom. And he said, "If you weren’t so old I would knock you..." and Reverend, I won’t say what he said. "I would knock you down."
And I immediately stood between them, and Strom literally took of his coat, and said, "Hold my coat, Joe."
And I looked at him and said, "No, no, no, no, no, no!"
And with that he went down and did twenty-five push ups. He had to be 88 or 87. He stood up and looked at the man and said, "If you weren’t so young, I’d knock you down."
Strom Thurmond was also a brave man who, in the end, made his choice and moved to the good side.
I disagreed deeply with Strom on the issue of civil rights and on many other issues, but I watched him change. We became good friends. I’m not sure exactly why or how it happened, Nancy. But you know we did. And Fritz could never figure it out; neither could I. Fritz is my very closest friend in the Senate.
But I do know that friendship and death are great equalizers... where our differences become irrelevant and the only thing left is what’s in our heart.
I went to the Senate emboldened, angered, and outraged at age 29 about the treatment of African-Americans in this country, by everything that, for a period in his life, Strom had represented. But then I met the man.
Our differences were profound, but I came to understand that, as Archibald MacLeish wrote, "It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived, for better or worse, in life."
Strom and I shared a life in the Senate for over thirty years... we shared a good life there and it made a difference. I grew to know him... I looked into his heart and saw the man, the whole man... I tried to understand him. I learned from him... and I watched him change oh so subtly.
Like all of us, Strom was a product of his time, but he understood people. He cared for them. He truly wanted to help. He knew how to read people... how to move them... how to get things done.
I’ll never forget we went down to see President Reagan. Strom and I had the Thurmond-Biden crime bill. We sat in a room with President Reagan and with Ed Meese, Jim Baker, William Smith, the Attorney General. And Strom started to try to convince the president to sign onto our bill, and he turned to me and he said, "Joe, explain it to him."
And I did my little bit, and it looked like the President was coming on and I swear in the Lord’s house that this is a true story, and with that, as Ed Meese, Mr. Vice President, thought the President might be convinced, he stood up and he said, "Mr. President, it’s time to go."
And with that the President very respectfully looked over and said, "Well, Strom, I have to go." And he had his hands on the table, and the president went to get up like this, and Strom grabbed his arm and pulled him back into his seat. I never saw anyone do that to a president.
And the president looked very sternly at Strom, and Strom said with his hands still on his arm, he said, "Mr. President when y’all get to be my age you’ll understand, you’ve gotta compromise." And the president then was about 85 years old.
Strom knew America was changing, and that there was a lot that he didn’t understand about that change. Much of that change challenged many of his long held views. But he also saw his beloved South Carolina changing as well, and he knew the time had come to change himself... But I believe the change came to him easily, and I believed he welcomed it because I saw others of his era fight that change, and never ultimately change.
It would be humbling to think I was among those who had some influence on his decision, but I know better. The place in which I work is a majestic place. If you are there long enough, it has an impact on you.
You cannot, if you respect those with whom you serve, fail to understand how deeply they feel about things differently than you, and over time I believe it has an effect on you. This is a man who in 1947, the New York Times ran a lead editorial saying, "Strom Thurmond: Hope of the South." And it talked about how he had set up reading programs and gotten better books for ‘separate but equal schools.’ This is a man who was opposed to the poll tax. This is a man who I watched vote for the extension of the voting rights act. This is a man who I watched vote for the Martin Luther King Holiday. And it’s very easy today to say that was pure political expediency, but I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that Strom Thurmond was doing what few do once they pass the age of 50. He was continuing to grow, continuing to change.
His offices were next door to mine in the Russell Building, more appropriately mine were next to his. And, over the years, I remember seeing a lot change including the number of African-Americans on his staff and African-Americans who sought his help.
For the man who will see, time heals. Time changes. And time leads him to truth, but only a special man like Strom would have the courage to accept it, the grace to acknowledge it, and the humility – in the face of lasting enmity and mistrust – to pursue it until the end.
There’s a personal lesson that comes from a page in American political history that is yet unwritten, but nevertheless it resonates in my heart. I mentioned it on the floor of the Senate the other day.
It’s a lesson of redemption that I think applies today and I think Strom, as he listens, will appreciate it.
When I first arrived in the Senate, I met with John Stennis, another old Southern Senator who became my friend. We sat at the other side of this gigantic grand mahogany table he used as his desk which had been Richard Russell’s. It was the table upon which the Southern Manifesto had been signed, I am told. The year was 1972.
Senator Stennis patted the leather chair next to him when I walked in to pay my respects as a new young senator which was the order of the day, and he said, "Sit down, sit down, sit down, son." And those who served with him know he always talked like this. And he looked at me, and he said, "Son, what made you run for the Senate?" And like a darned fool, I told him the exact truth before I could think better. I said, "Civil Rights, sir."
As soon as I said it, I could feel the beads of perspiration pop out of my head and I got that funny feeling, and he looked at me and said, "Good. Good. Good." And that was the end of the conversation.
Well, eighteen years later, after us having shared a hospital suite for three months at Walter Reed and after him trying to help me in another pursuit I had, we had become friends. I saw him sitting behind that same table eighteen years later, only this time he was in a wheelchair. His leg had been amputated because of cancer, and I was going to look at his offices because in my seniority his office was available as he was leaving.
I went in and sat down and he looked at me as if it were yesterday, and he said, "Sit down, Joe. Sit down, Joe." And tapped the chair.
And he said something that startled me: He said, "You remember the first time you came to see me, Joe?" I shook my head. I didn’t remember. And he leaned forward and recited the story.
I said, "I was a pretty smart fellow, wasn’t I, Mr. Chairman?"
He said, "Joe, I wanted to tell you something then, and I’m going to tell you now." He said, "You’re going to take my offices, aren’t you?"
I said, "Yes sir, Mr. Chairman."
And he ran his hand back and forth across that mahogany table in a loving way, and he said, "You see this table, Joe?" This is the God’s truth. He said, "You see this table?"
I said, "Yes sir, Mr. Chairman."
He said, this table was the flagship of the Confederacy from 1954 to 1968. He said, "We sat here most of us from the Deep South, the old Confederacy, and we planned the demise of the Civil Rights movement."
And then he looked at me and said, "And it’s time. It’s time now that this table go from the possession of a man who is against civil rights to the table of a man who is for civil rights."
I was stunned.
And he said, "One more thing, Joe." He said, "the civil rights movement did more to free the white man than it did the black man." I looked at him, and I didn’t know what he meant, and he said in only John Stennis’ fashion, he said "It freed my soul. It freed my soul."
Strom Thurmond’s soul is free today. His soul is free.
The Bible says, "Learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together... Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."
Strom, today there are no longer any issues to debate. There is only peace, a patch of common ground, and the many memories that you’ve left behind.
For me, those memories are deeply personal, and they will stay with me as long as I live. Strom Thurmond stood by me when others didn’t, and when it was against his political interest to do so. I had been accused of something terrible, in my view, on the eve of the Bork nomination. I gathered the entire Judiciary committee, I was then Chairman, and I said to Democrats and Republicans alike, "I will stand aside as Chairman so that it will not effect this proceeding. And the first man to jump to his feet was your father, and he said: "No!" And I said, "Well, let me explain." And he said, "You don’t have to explain anything to me. You’re my chairman." And with that everyone stood up, but Strom Thurmond was the first man on his feet. He did not seek a single explanation for what I had been accused of.
And clearly, when partisanship was a winning option, he chose friendship, and I’ll never forget him for it.
I was honored to work with him, privileged to serve with him, and proud to call him my friend.
His long life may well have been the gift of his beloved God, but the powerful and lasting impact he had on his beloved South Carolina and on this nation is Strom’s legacy, his gift to all of us. And he will be missed.
The British essayist, William Hazlitt once wrote, "Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It’s a sort of natural canonization."
The truth and genius and virtue of Strom Thurmond is what I choose to remember today.
To Nancy, to Strom; to Julie, and to Paul... to all his friends... to the people of South Carolina who knew him so well and loved him so much... America mourns with you. I mourn with you, for I knew Strom well. I felt his warmth as you did... I saw his strength as you did... I was the beneficiary of his virtues as you were. And I will miss him as you will... as we all will...
But he lived a long and good life and I know that, today, a benevolent God has lifted his arms to Strom. I just don’t know what Strom is saying to that benevolent God because you know he’s saying something.
So I say, farewell, Mr. Chairman. We stand in adjournment until we meet again.
