Remembering RFK

When someone asks me who I admire when it comes to politicians, my answer usually surprises them.

Not because they thought they had me figured out. They don't. It's because my answer is two men, on different sides of the political fence.

Those two men are Ronald Wilson Reagan and Robert Francis Kennedy. Sure, one was a Republican and the other was a Democrat. Those who asked are, at this point, usually walking away shaking their heads.

That is not what this story is about. No, not this time. As I look at the calendar I see that the year is 2008 and it has been 40 years since the death of Robert Kennedy. And both of my political heroes died the same month, around the same day - - but years apart. Reagan died on June 5, 2004 while Kennedy died on June 6, 1968. That, too, is a story for another day.

As a major anniversary approaches such as the death of a man who very well could have been president, I tend to reflect and remember the things he said.

The year was 1968 and was filled with blood, sweat, toil and tears. It was also a time when we lost two great leaders months apart, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

Let's look back, and from his words, see the wisdom and the pain that surrounded him. But also the hope he had for his country and his fellow citizens. It's not often a politician speaks from the heart and goes against the grain, but RFK did. He died believing one man can change the world. In a way, he did that, too.

RFK quotes:

"It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth while. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans." Speaking about how the GNP doesn't tell all about the country.

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: 'In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'" Speaking in Indianapolis after telling the crowd of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black." More from his speech in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968.

"Let us dedicate to ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people." Right before leaving the podium after speaking to the crowd about the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly." Do not sit on the sidelines.

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas." Get involved and care.

"A revolution is coming -- a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough." Doing the right thing pays off.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Without hope we might as well die.

"Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily -- whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence -- whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again." City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio on April 5, 1968.

"I think we can end the divisions within the United States. What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis. And that what has been going on with the United States over the period of that last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions -- whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or in the war in Vietnam -- that we can work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running." Speech at the Ambassador Hotel, shortly before he was shot.

Edward Kennedy at RFK's funeral:

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be rememberd simply as a good decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are
and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'"

As we end this story, here's one more quote that RFK uttered on April 5, 1968. The events that would transpire in June 1968 would make it all the more painful. He said, in reference to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "No one -- no matter where he lives or what he does -- can be certain who next will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed." A little over two months later it would be him.

SOURCES: Quotes from Robert. F. Kennedy: The Dream Lives (home.att.net) and rfkmemorial.org.