Franklin Delano Roosevelt '04

"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble." -John Milton.

A father of his people has joined many sons in final sacrifice for country. Like the Ensign who died at Pearl Harbor, like those who have left Cambridge and will not return, he was a son of Harvard. A world mourns the loss of a leader. Harvard, alma matter, says a last good-bye to a member of the Class of 1904. To the world he leaves the beginnings of freedom; to Harvard he leaves honor.

Last night radios sounded eulogy and elegy. Men said all that they could say: we have suffered a terrible loss. The soldier in Paris said he was going back into the lines with the heaviest heart of his war. Doomed men in Berlin snickered at the passing of the warmonger. Around us were voices that choked with incredulity. But this is no time for despair.

This son of Harvard who made the largest contribution to the necessary victory read yesterday of the march on Berlin, and until blood washed his brain into unconsciousness planned for San Francisco and Peace. The victory and the peace for which he fought until his last day are not to be gained by abject pessimism at our loss.

We are still deep in a dangerous wilderness. Our pathfinder is dead. But there are others to show the way. How can we know where to follow if the tears blur our visit and pessimism beclouds our minds. There was no hope who accept the inevitability of war, who have taken "World War III" into their vocabulary, will doubt more deeply now the possibilities for peace. President Roosevelt is gone, they will wail, and Simple Uncle Sam will be outsmarted in his own San Francisco.

It is a time for hope and action, not mournful indecision. The death of a leader is our challenge.