Roosevelt Memorial Rites Marked by Sperry Eulogy

Students and faculty of the University paid reverence to the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Saturday as Dean Willard L. Sperry of the Divinity School delivered a culogy in services held in Memorial Church at noon.

The address was broadcast by loudspeaker to overflow crowds that thronged the Yard, most standing in silent homage. Dean Sperry concluded with the quotation of Walt Whitman's elegy to President Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed."

The address in part:

"There is one thing above all others which we have instantly and instinctively felt about him; he 'should have died hereafter.' He died too soon. He had earned the right to see victory on land and sea.

"Kept the Faith"

"But we know that he would not have had it otherwise, if having it otherwise had had to mean turning aside from the straight path he had set before himself, or shirking the lead he had taken upon his shoulders. He had measured his own physical strength over all these years--and the margins were never wide; he had taken the measure of this own high calling to office; he had measured himself against the times in which he lived; and he had taken the measure of his enemy. He had not asked to be spared, he fought a good fight, and he kept the faith which he had professed and never doubted; faith in his country, faith in its ideals, faith in his fellow citizens, faith in the men whose Commander in Chief he was, faith in God and in the righteousness of God....

"There is no doubt of his greatness. He had already become by the common confession of both those who always agreed with him and those often disagreed, one of the greatest presidents we have over had, one of the greatest citizens among our many generations, perhaps the greatest single world figure of these tragic and decisive years. News of his death reached England late at night, and the British Broadcasting spokesman said, with utter candor and generosity, This is the darkest night of the war.'

"Son of Harvard"

"One always felt that his greatness had its roots in a disciplined character. His gaiety, his spontaneity, were deceptive. Only a man who knew what is meant by the 'iron string of self-reliance.' and the self-discipline which makes that string sound clear when it is fairly struck, could have overcome the paralyzing and crippling handicap of his young manhood. Behind the facade of cheerful health there must always have been a heritage of pain; his ease in public must have been earned by a stern asceticism in private.

"So also with the manner of his life. He had been born, as this country goes, to great wealth. He broke the tradition which says that it is the first duty of such a man to make more money, or his good fortune to be able to idle his days away over a lifetime of self-indulgence. He revived an older and better tradition, which says that private 'privilege only lays upon such a man more heavily the duty of public service.

"He was a member of this 'beloved community of memory and hope' which is Harvard. We have lost one of our own sons. We would not say that elsewhere there is no sorrow like unto our sorrow. But our sorrow is touched with humble and proper pride that this society was one of the shaping forces which prepared him for his duty and his destiny."