A TRIBUTE TO A GREAT STATESMAN
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all good men toll for theeHow intricate the dust!
I would go, to know! a debt of gratitude.Your compassion for the poor and helpless
If these from oblivion awakes you.
Observe them suffering, awake from deep slumber
Observe them going down.The cold passion for truth
Existed in your ideas.
You are Uncle Teddy, the lion of the Senate,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Congress. You are far
From great Clan, but even farther in ideals and
Political hatreds...So long and may the Dream live on.......ASC
Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, last surviving brother in an American political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.
In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, served alongside 10 presidents – his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them – compiling legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.
Speaking briefly to reporters at his rented vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., President Barack Obama called Kennedy one of the “most accomplished Americans” in history – and a man whose work in Congress helped give new opportunities to millions.
“Including myself,” added the nation’s first black president, who ordered government flags lowered to half-staff.
Sen. Edward Kennedy on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2002. Edward M. Kennedy, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died Tuesday night, Aug. 25, 2009. He was 77. (Lane Turner/The Boston Globe) #
Joseph P. Kennedy, seated center, the head of the United States Maritime Commission and former chairman of the SEC, with his wife Mrs Rose. Kennedy and their children at their home in Bronxville, N.Y. in 1937. Seated left to right, are Eunice, Jean, Edward, Mr. Kennedy, Patricia and Kathleen. Standing are Rosemary, Robert, John F., Mrs. Kennedy and Joseph, Jr. (New York Times Studios) #
In this April 11, 1938 photo, Teddy Kennedy, center, and his sister Jean attend the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, London, as their father, the new American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, paid a call to the King. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts was the last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history. He died at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. (AP Photo) #
This March 1938 file photo shows Joseph Kennedy (2nd-L) and his wife Rose (3rd-L) with their children (L-R) Kathleen, Edward, Patricia, Jean and Robert in London, England. (AFP/Getty Images) #
Amb. Joseph Kennedy, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, with his family at the Embassy residence in London in 1938. From left: Eunice, John, Rosemary, Jean, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Edward, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., Patricia, Robert, Kathleen. (Dorothy Wilding/John F. Kennedy Library via The New York Times) #
A file photo shows members of the Kennedy family, from left, John F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy, Rose Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Patricia Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, and Edward "Ted" M. Kennedy (kneeling), pose for a photo in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, U.S., in this 1948 photo. (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston via Bloomberg) #
A file photo shows Harvard football players, from right, Edward "Ted" M. Kennedy, Leo Daley, and Phil Haughey in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., in 1955. (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston via Bloomberg) #
In this Nov. 11, 1958 file photo, Edward M. Kennedy, and Joan Bennett, kneel on the altar and receive communion from Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York at the nuptial mass at St. Joesph's Roman Catholic Church in Bronxville, N.Y. (AP Photo, File) #
Robert F. Kennedy, left, Counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee, confers with his brothers Edward Kennedy, center, and Sen. John F. Kennedy during a committee hearing in Washington, D.C., in 1959. (AP Photo) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy, center, flanked by his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, at the White House in August, 1963. (JFK Presidential Library via The New York Times) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy, third from left, walks with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and sister-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy, during the funeral procession for his slain brother, President John F. Kennedy, outside the White House in Washington, Nov. 25, 1963. (Abbie Rowe/National Park Service/JFK Library via The New York Times) #
In this July 9, 1964 file photo, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy smiles and waves a bandaged hand from the back of an ambulance after being transferred from Northampton, Mass. to New England Baptist Hospital, in Boston to treat injuries sustained in a private airplane crash. (AP Photo/ File) #
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, left, takes a stroll with his father former ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy on an open porch at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, Dec. 8, 1964, where the senator was recuperating from the broken back he suffered in a plane crash. (AP Photo) #
In this March 15, 1967 file photo, Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., left, and Robert Kennedy, D-N.Y., sit together during a session of the Senate Labor Subcommittee in Washington. They were members of the subcommittee. (AP Photo, File) #
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy with brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy are shown during the St. Patrick's Day Parade in South Boston, March 17, 1968. (AP Photo/J.W. Green) #
Crowds gather to watch the car which Sen. Edward Kennedy drove off Dike Bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island in July, 1969. Questions as to why Kennedy didn't seek immediate help for his passenger who was trapped underwater and died haunted Kennedy for years after the accident. (The Boston Globe) #
In a July 25, 1969 file photo Sen. Edward Kennedy is escorted by troopers as he leaves court in Edgartown, Mass., after pleading guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of the accident which killed aide Mary Jo Kopechne. (AP Photo/File) #
In an Oct. 14, 1970, file photo Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., speaks at the dedication ceremonies of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center in Waltham, Mass. (AP Photo/JWG/FILE) #
Joan Kennedy naps next to her husband, Sen. Edward Kennedy, as he worked on a speech during a five-state campaign tour in 1971. (George Tames/The New York Times) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy with son Patrick, right, on a roller coaster in Agawam, Mass., in 1976. (Photo by Joseph Dennehy/The Boston Globe) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., left, waves to the crowd as he arrives at Faneuil Hall accompanied by his wife Joan Kennedy, left, to formally announce that he was challenging Pres. Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1979, Boston, Mass. (AP Photo/J. Walter Green) #
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy addressing members of the California delegation at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in August, 1980. (D. Gorton/The New York Times) #
In this Aug. 15, 1980 file photo, President Jimmy Carter, left, shakes hands with Sen. Edward Kennedy on the podium at the Democratic National Convention in New York's Madison Square Garden. The two had vied for the Democratic presidential nomination. (AP Photo, File) #
In a June 4, 1983 file photo John F. Kennedy Jr., second from left, listens to his uncle Ted Kennedy, right, with his mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, left, and sister Caroline Kennedy, second right, at his graduation from Brown University, Providence, R.I. (AP Photo) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy with son Edward Kennedy Jr. and grandson Edward III at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport, in July, 1998. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe) #
While passing Nobska lighthouse U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., talks with Coast Guard personnel aboard the Cutter Hammerhead as they arrive at port in Woods Hole, Mass., after returning from the burial-at-sea service for John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette Thursday, July 22, 1999. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia) #
Senator Edward M. Kennedy worked on his remarks before a patients' bill of rights rally in 2001 outside the Capitol in Washington. (Photographs by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) #
In this file picture taken on July 27, 2004 Senator Edward Kennedy arrives to speak to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) #
In a Sept. 27, 2004 file photo Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, delivers his speech about the effect of the war in Iraq on America's security at George Washington University in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta/file) #
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asks questions during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee with General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on Capitol Hill September 11, 2007 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy walks out of the room after taking part in a news conference about the minium wage bill that was being debated on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Jan. 24, 2007. (Doug Mills/ The New York Times) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate education committee, with three other members of the panel: Sens. Jeff Bingaman, Democrat, left; Lamar Alexander, Republican, right; and Michael B. Enzi, the senior Republican member, during a gathering in the President's room, just off the Senate floor, on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2007. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy is kissed by his wife Victoria Reggie after he addressed the Democratic National Convention in Denver, in August, 2008. Kennedy, who was being treated for a brain tumor, stopped by the convention to the delight of delegates. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times) #
U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) waves to the crowd during day one of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the Pepsi Center August 25, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy with his wife Victoria Reggie as they joked around with members of the media as they waited for the arrival of President Michelle Bachelet of Chile in Hyannisport, Sept. 23, 2008. (Essdras M. Suarez/The Boston Globe) #
In a May 20, 2008 file photo provided by Sen. Kennedy's office, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., center, is surrounded by family members, left to right, son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., stepson Curran Raclin, son Edward Kennedy Jr., daughter Kara Kennedy, his wife Vicki and stepdaughter Caroline Raclin in a family room at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston when Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. (AP Photo/file) #
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy takes in the view of the Atlantic Ocean from his front porch at Hyannisport, Mass., on May 22, 2008. (Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe) #
In a May 21, 2008 file photo Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and his wife, Victoria, right, sit at the helm of their sailboat "Mya" at the Hyannisport, Mass., Yacht Club. (AP Photo/The Boston Globe, Matthew J. Lee/file) #
U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) (R) and his wife Vicki Kennedy arrive prior to a welcome lunch outside the Caucus Room at the Senate Russell Office Building on Capitol Hill November 17, 2008 in Washington, DC. Kennedy returned to his office after he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May and underwent brain surgery in June 2008. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) #
President Obama with former President Bill Clinton, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the Oval office of the White House, in Washington, April 21, 2009. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy throws the ceremonial first pitch to his catcher, Hall of Famer Jim Rice, at Fenway Park in Boston, April 7, 2009. (Jim Davis/The Boston Globe) #
The flag flies at half-mast over the U.S. Capitol the morning after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) died at his home in Massachusetts, August 26, 2009 in Washington, DC. Known as The Lion of the Senate, Kennedy, 77, served there for 46 years after he was elected to the seat once occupied by his brother, former President John F. Kennedy. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) #
Father: Joseph P. Kennedy (b. 6-Sep-1888, d. 18-Nov-1969)
Mother: Rose Kennedy (b. 22-Jul-1890, d. 22-Jan-1995)
Brother: Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (b. 25-Jul-1915, d. 12-Aug-1944 killed in action)
Brother: John F. Kennedy (US President, b. 29-May-1917, d. 22-Nov-1963 assassination)
Sister: Rosemary Kennedy (b. 13-Sep-1918, d. 7-Jan-2005)
Sister: Kathleen Kennedy (b. 20-Feb-1920, d. 13-May-1948 airplane crash)
Sister: Eunice Kennedy Shriver (b. 10-Jul-1921, d. 11-Aug-2009)
Sister: Patricia Kennedy Lawford (b. 5-May-1924, d. 17-Sep-2006)
Brother: Robert F. Kennedy (US Attorney General, b. 20-Nov-1925, d. 6-Jun-1968 assassination)
Sister: Jean Kennedy Smith (diplomat, b. 20-Feb-1928)
Wife: Virginia Joan Bennett (m. 30-Nov-1958, div. 6-Dec-1982, one daughter, two sons)
Daughter: Kara Anne Kennedy (TV news producer, b. 27-Feb-1960)
Son: Edward Kennedy, Jr. (disability rights attorney, b. 26-Sep-1961)
Son: Patrick Joseph Kennedy (US Congressman, b. 14-Jul-1967)
Mistress: Suzy Chaffee (rumored affair while Kennedy was married to Bennett)
Wife: Victoria Anne Reggie (attorney, m. 3-Jul-1992, one stepson, one stepdaughter)
Son: Grier Curran Raclin ("Curran", stepson, b. 20-Nov-1983)
Daughter: Caroline Raclin (stepdaughter, b. 26-Dec-1985)
Henry Sanford (L), Staff Assistant of the office of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), pauses as Staff Assistant Meagen Manning (R) answers the phone in Kennedy's office at the Russell Senate Office Building August 26, 2009 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Sen. Kennedy has passed away at the age of 77 at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts after battling a brain cancer. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) #
A picture of U.S. President Barack Obama and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) hangs in the reception area of the office of Kennedy at the Russell Senate Office Building August 26, 2009 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) #
Sen. Edward Kennedy on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2003. (Lane Turner/The Boston Globe) #
Of the many accomplishments of Ted Kennedy, few have had a more profound effect on America—America as a state, as an economy, a society, and as a nation—as the first act he ever managed to passage, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
The Kennedy family made tremendous sacrifices for our country. Joe Kennedy died in a secret mission during World War II. John and Robert, of course, were both assassinated. And just about every other member of the family had a long history of public service, either in the political sphere or with causes like Eunice's devotion to the Special Olympics. The Kennedy "clan" was also famously loving and close. Thus, it was appropriate that a cause championed by John Kennedy and eventually brought to passage by Teddy put in to immigration policy a preference for family ties over marketable skills:
The current system of legal immigration dates to 1965. It marked a radical break with previous policy and has led to profound demographic changes in America. But that's not how the law was seen when it was passed -- at the height of the civil rights movement, at a time when ideals of freedom, democracy and equality had seized the nation. Against this backdrop, the manner in which the United States decided which foreigners could and could not enter the country had become an increasing embarrassment.
An Argument Based on Egalitarianism
"The law was just unbelievable in its clarity of racism," says Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University. "It declared that Northern Europeans are a superior subspecies of the white race. The Nordics were superior to the Alpines, who in turn were superior to the Mediterraneans, and all of them were superior to the Jews and the Asians."
By the 1960s, Greeks, Poles, Portuguese and Italians were complaining that immigration quotas discriminated against them in favor of Western Europeans. The Democratic Party took up their cause, led by President John F. Kennedy. In a June 1963 speech to the American Committee on Italian Migration, Kennedy called the system of quotas in place back then " nearly intolerable."
My home—the Detroit area—has been transformed in recent decades by massive immigration from Lebanon and Iraq, Yemen and Albania. I moved a few years ago to DC, which has become a major destination for immigrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea and West Africa. I'm now working in the quintessential Scandinavian state, but whose largest cities now have thriving communities of Vietnamese and Cambodians and Hmong and Somalis. In major cities like New York or Los Angeles, or in small towns that become destinations for immigrants from halfway around the world, the people we live next to, buy things from, worship with, befriend, marry and with whom we create our own families, are people who were let in to America because of Senator Ted Kennedy's first major legislation.
That the bill prioritized family ties, and was passed by an Irish Catholic, is apt. Catholics were the most despised religious group in early America. After the enslaved Africans and the persecuted native Americans, no other major group was so marginalized as the Irish. But today, Irish Catholics are no longer discriminated against, are no longer outside the mainstream of American society. The discrimination was fading, but still existed in 1960, when John Kennedy became our first (and still only) Catholic president. But thanks in part to the accomplishments and sacrifices of the Kennedy family, by the time I was growing up in the 1970's, being discriminated against because you were Irish Catholic—a real experience for my grandparents—was for me something that existed only in history and family lore.
To Uncle Teddy with all my appreciation, and the reason why I am here…..ASC
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all good men toll for theeHow intricate the dust!
I would go, to know! a debt of gratitude.Your compassion for the poor andhelpless
If these from oblivion awakes you.
Observe them suffering, awake from deep slumber
Observe them going down.The cold passion for truth
Existed in your ideas.You are Uncle Teddy, the lion of the Senate,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Congress. You are far
From great Clan, but even farther in ideals and
Political hatreds...So long and may the Dream live on.......ASC
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