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Skriven 2006-12-30 23:31:16 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0612301) for Sat, 2006 Dec 30
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Vice President's Remarks at the State Funeral of Former President Gerald R.
Ford
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
December 30, 2006

Vice President's Remarks at the State Funeral of Former President Gerald R.
Ford
The United States Capitol Rotunda


˙˙˙˙˙ Remembering President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006)

8:11 P.M. EST

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Mrs. Ford, Susan, Mike, Jack, and Steve; distinguished
guests; colleagues and friends; and fellow citizens:

Nothing was left unsaid, and at the end of his days, Gerald Ford knew how
much he meant to us and to his country. He was given length of years, and
many times in his company we paid our tributes and said our thanks. We were
proud to call him our leader, grateful to know him as a man. We told him
these things, and there is comfort in knowing that. Still, it is an ending.
And what is left now is to say goodbye.

He first stood under this dome at the age of 17, on a high school tour in
the Hoover years. In his congressional career, he passed through this
Rotunda so many times -- never once imagining all the honors that life
would bring. He was an unassuming man, our 38th President, and few have
ever risen so high with so little guile or calculation. Even in the three
decades since he left this city, he was not the sort to ponder his legacy,
to brood over his place in history. And so in these days of remembrance, as
Gerald R. Ford, goes to his rest, it is for us to take the measure of the
man.

It's hard to imagine that this most loyal of men began life as an abandoned
child, facing the world alone with his mother. He was devoted to her
always, and also to the fine man who came into their lives and gave the
little boy a name he would carry into history. Gerald and Dorothy Ford
expected good things of their son. As it turned out, there would be great
things, too -- in a journey of 93 years that would fill them with loving
pride.

Jerry Ford was always a striver -- never working an angle, just working. He
was a believer in the saying that in life you make your own luck. That's
how the Boy Scout became an Eagle Scout; and the football center, a college
all-star; and the sailor in war, a lieutenant commander. That's how the
student who waited tables and washed dishes earned a law degree, and how
the young lawyer became a member of the United States Congress, class of
1948. The achievements added up all his life, yet he was known to boast
only about one. I heard it once or twice myself -- he said he was never
luckier than when he stepped out of Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids
with a beautiful girl named Betty as his bride.

Fifty-eight years ago, almost to the day, the new member from Michigan's
fifth district moved into his office in the Cannon Building, and said his
first hello to the congressman next door, John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
They belonged to a generation that came early to great duties, and took up
responsibilities readily, and shared a confidence in their country and its
purposes in the world.

In that 81st Congress were four future Presidents, and others who wished
for that destiny. For his part, Mr. Ford of Michigan aspired only to be
Speaker of the House, and by general agreement he would have made a fine
one. Good judgment, fair dealing, and the manners of a gentleman go a long
way around here, and these were the mark of Jerry Ford for a quarter
century in the House. It was a Democrat, the late Martha Griffiths, who
said, "I never knew him to make a dishonest statement nor a statement
part-true and part-false, and I never heard him utter an unkind word."

Sometimes in our political affairs, kindness and candor are only more
prized for their scarcity. And sometimes even the most careful designs of
men cannot improve upon history's accident. This was the case in the 62nd
year of Gerald Ford's life, a bitter season in the life of our country.

It was a time of false words and ill will. There was great malice, and
great hurt, and a taste for more. And it all began to pass away on a Friday
in August, when Gerald Ford laid his hand on the Bible and swore to
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He
said, "You have not elected me as your President by your ballot, and so I
ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers."

What followed was a presidency lasting 895 days, and filled with testing
and trial enough for a much longer stay. Even then, amid troubles not of
his own making, President Ford proved as worthy of that office as any who
had ever come before. He was modest and manful; there was confidence and
courage in his bearing. In judgment, he was sober and serious, unafraid of
decisions, calm and steady by nature, always the still point in the turning
wheel. He assumed power without assuming airs; he knew how to treat people.
He answered courtesy with courtesy; he answered discourtesy with courtesy.

This President's hardest decision was also among his first. And in
September of 1974, Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there
can be no healing without pardon. The consensus holds that this decision
cost him an election. That is very likely so. The criticism was fierce. But
President Ford had larger concerns at heart. And it is far from the worst
fate that a man should be remembered for his capacity to forgive.

In politics it can take a generation or more for a matter to settle, for
tempers to cool. The distance of time has clarified many things about
President Gerald Ford. And now death has done its part to reveal this man
and the President for what he was.

He was not just a cheerful and pleasant man -- although these virtues are
rare enough at the commanding heights. He was not just a nice guy, the
next-door neighbor whose luck landed him in the White House. It was this
man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely through a crisis that
could have turned to catastrophe. We will never know what further
unravelings, what greater malevolence might have come in that time of
furies turned loose and hearts turned cold. But we do know this: America
was spared the worst. And this was the doing of an American President. For
all the grief that never came, for all the wounds that were never
inflicted, the people of the United States will forever stand in debt to
the good man and faithful servant we mourn tonight.

Thinking on all this, we are only more acutely aware of a time in our lives
and of its end. And we can be certain that Gerald Ford would now ask only
that we remember his wife. Betty, the President was not a hard man to read,
and to his friends nothing was more obvious than the source of his great
happiness. It was you. And all the good that you shared, Betty, all the
good that you did together, has not gone away. All of that is forever.

There is a time to every purpose under Heaven. In the years of Gerald
Rudolph Ford, it was a time to heal. There is also, in life, a time to
part, when those who are dear to us must go their way. And so for now, Mr.
President -- farewell. We will always be thankful for your good life. In
Almighty God, we place our confidence. And to Him we confirm you, with our
love and with our prayers.

END 8:20 P.M. EST

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