[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 20 (Wednesday, March 4, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E284-E285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING HENRY STEELE COMMAGER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. THOMAS M. DAVIS

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 4, 1998

  Mr. DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, it is with deep sadness that I 
rise today to announce the passing of a great historian and teacher, 
Henry Steele Commager. His contributions to our nation during the 
twentieth century are beyond measure. He taught generations of 
Americans to respect the genius that lay behind one of the greatest 
documents in world history, the United States Constitution. Mr. 
Commager died on Monday, March 2, 1998 at the age of 95. It is 
difficult for me to believe that such a prolific American historian is 
gone.
  When I was a student at Amherst College, I had the honor of having 
Mr. Commager as an instructor. This brilliant scholar reminded his 
students about the unique circumstances and rare, combined genius that 
existed when our republic was created. In addition, he worked 
tirelessly to awaken a true respect for and commitment to our 
government institutions from his students. Under his tutelage, I came 
to learn about the power of our Constitution and the importance of its 
structure in every facet of our government. I believe Mr. Commager's 
tireless passion led many young people such as myself to public 
service. Moreover, I firmly believe he showed many of his students how 
to be active citizens committed to fighting apathy in the American 
electorate.
  Mr. Commager encouraged all politicians not to be afraid of their 
moral convictions and to vote on the principles that originally elected 
them to office. He was a strong-willed man with the singular courage to 
pursue the hearts and minds of all Americans. His writings were not 
limited to the academic world, rather he actively sought to engage all 
individuals and rouse in them a passion for our history, our founding 
fathers, and our institutions of government. Henry Steele Commager 
dedicated himself and his life's work to preserving our Constitution.
  I know that Henry Steele Commager will be missed by lawmakers in both 
chambers who were influenced by his many writings, particularly The 
Growth of the American Republic. The breadth of his work and its 
lasting legacy will always serve as a reminder of Mr. Commager's 
patriotism and the strength of his commitment to democratic principles. 
My deepest condolences go to Henry Commager's family, his wife Mary 
Powesland and his children. Recent articles in both The Washington Post 
and The Washington Times illustrates Mr. Commager's contributions to 
our nation.

                       [From the Washington Post]

       Henry Steele Commager, 95, one of the leading scholars of 
     U.S. history, died March 2 at his home in Amherst, Mass. The 
     cause of death was not reported.
       Dr. Commager taught U.S. history at colleges and 
     universities for more than a half-century. Since the 1930's, 
     he had maintained a torrential outpouring of writing aimed 
     not only at sophisticated scholars but also at 
     undergraduates, high school students and the general reader. 
     He had the gift, rare in an academic, of being able to 
     seemingly effortlessly translate historically complex matters 
     into supremely lucid and deceptively simple prose.

[[Page E285]]

       Generations of his readers learned that their country was 
     truly admirable and that, if it sometimes stumbled, it always 
     righted itself. Dr. Commager, who called himself an 
     independent Democrat, wrote with the faith of a Jeffersonian 
     liberal in the aims and abilities of the American people and 
     clearly admired the nation's past.
       As a champion of the U.S. Constitution, once calling it the 
     ``greatest monument to political science in literature,'' he 
     wrote of this country's greatness as not unrelated to the 
     sweeping growth of social justice.
       He lectured Americans not only in classrooms but also in 
     some of the best-received general history texts of his time. 
     He may be best known for ``The Growth of the American 
     Republic,'' written with Samuel Eliot Morrison and published 
     by the Oxford University Press in 1931. Noted historian Allan 
     Nevins hailed the book as ``the most entertaining, 
     stimulating and instructive single-volume history of the 
     United States as yet written.''
       Dr. Commager and Nevins collaborated on the work's 10th 
     edition, which was published in 1987.
       In 1941, Dr. Commanger co-wrote ``Our Nation,'' which 
     became a leading high school U.S. history text. In 1942, he 
     and Nevins co-wrote ``America: The Story of a Free People,'' 
     a best-selling book for the lay reader that covered U.S. 
     history from the first British settlers to the Japanese 
     attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
       In addition to immensely popular general histories, Dr. 
     Commager also wrote on more specialized topics. These 
     included a 1936 biography of a pre-Civil War New England 
     theologian and abolitionist, and such philosophic offerings 
     as ``The American Mind,'' ``Freedom, Loyalty and Dissent,'' 
     ``The American Character'' and ``The Empire of Reason.''
       He also was a prodigious editor, making historic writing 
     more accessible to the general reader. Works he edited 
     included Alexis de Tocqueville's ``Democracy in America,'' 
     Benjamin Franklin's ``Autobiography'' and Francis Parkman's 
     ``The Oregon Trail.''
       He once maintained that his most significant work may have 
     been his now-legendary ``Documents of American History,'' 
     first published in 1934. Growing to more than 600 documents, 
     its 10th edition was published in 1988.
       Dr. Commager was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in Chicago. 
     Orphaned before he was 10 years old, he was raised by a 
     grandfather, a Chicago clergyman. The future historian began 
     earning his living at age 15 by working in a local library.
       He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and master's 
     and doctoral degrees in history from the University of 
     Chicago. He also received a master's degree in politics from 
     Oxford University in England and attended the University of 
     Copenhagen.
       During World War II, he worked for the Office of War 
     Information in Europe and also was an official Army 
     historian. He taught history at New York University from 1926 
     to 1938 and then at Columbia University before joining the 
     faculty at Amherst College in the 1950's.
       As a teacher, Dr. Commager promoted discussion if not 
     downright battles in the classroom. A champion of civil 
     liberties, he had tangled with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) 
     in the 1950's over the professor's opposition to loyalty 
     oaths.
       Even in the 1980's, he continued to lecture politicians on 
     history and civil liberties, quoting Supreme Court Justice 
     Oliver Wendell Holmes to the effect that ``we should be ever 
     receptive to loathsome ideas.
       George McGovern, the former South Dakota senator and 
     Democratic presidential candidate, who once taught history 
     with one of Dr. Commager's popular texts, told the Associated 
     Press that the historian's public pronouncements helped sway 
     policy makers to question the Vietnam War.
       ``He certainly influenced me in making certain that I was 
     on the right track. My own instincts and reading and study 
     convinced me of that. To have a person of the status of Henry 
     Steele Commager saying the same thing was very reinforcing,'' 
     McGovern said.
       Over the years, Dr. Commager wrote for such publications as 
     Current History, the Atlantic Monthly and the Nation. 
     History, however, reported that he owned at least a thousand 
     classical record albums, which he played while working.
       Dr. Commager also was enthusiastic about sports. He had 
     written works on baseball and was a rabid college football 
     fan. At least one parent of an Amherst graduate recalls Dr. 
     Commager shouting ``advice'' from the stands, in no uncertain 
     terms, to an embattled Amherst football coach.
       Dr. Commager was a member of numerous historical societies, 
     as well as Phi Beta Kappa, and the American Scandinavian 
     Society.


     
                                                                    ____
                      [From the Washington Times]

       Henry Steele Commager, a prolific American historian who 
     championed the Constitution as a model of political genius, 
     died yesterday at the age of 95.
       Mr. Commager, who died at his home in Amherst, wrote a body 
     of works spanning much of this nation's history. But his 
     best-known work was ``The Growth of the American Republic,'' 
     which in various revised versions served as a standard 
     college text for generations of students.
       His impact went far beyond fellow historians and students. 
     Mr. Commager wrote as much for the popular press as for the 
     scholarly journals. In both arenas, he championed principles 
     of the Constitution, which he called the ``greatest 
     monument to political science in literature.''
       The self-described independent Democrat also did not shy at 
     lecturing Congress and presidents about what he viewed as 
     their moral and constitutional obligations.
       Mr. Commager was John Woodruff Simpson lecturer at Amherst 
     College--a post previously held by poets Robert Frost and 
     Archibald McLeish. Before coming to Amherst in 1956, he was 
     on the faculty of New York University and Columbia 
     University.
       He also held chairs in American history at Cambridge 
     University and Oxford University. He lectured at universities 
     in Latin America, Japan, Israel and most of the countries of 
     Western Europe.
       Mr. Commager, who earned his doctorate from the University 
     of Chicago in 1928, also wrote ``Theodore Parker,'' 1936; 
     ``Majority Rule and Minority Rights,'' 1943; ``The Story of 
     the Second World War,'' 1945; ``The American Mind,'' 1951; 
     ``The Commonwealth of Learning,'' 1968; ``Jefferson, 
     Nationalism and Enlightenment,'' 1975; ``The Empire of 
     Reason,'' 1977; and ``This Day and Generation,'' with Edward 
     Kennedy, 1979.
       In 1934, he edited ``Documents of American History,'' a 
     compilation of nearly 500 writings. The 10th edition was 
     published in 1988.
       ``The Growth of the American Republic'' was written with 
     Samuel Eliot Morison in 1931. Mr. Commager collaborated with 
     Alan Nevins on the 10th edition published in 1987.
       Born in Pittsburgh and orphaned before his 10th birthday, 
     Mr. Commager was raised by his grandfather, a Chicago 
     clergyman. He said he began earning his living at the age of 
     15 by working in a library.
       Mr. Commager married Evan Carroll in 1928, and they had 
     three children. He married Mary Powlesland in 1979.
       She survives him. His other survivors include two 
     daughters.

     

                          ____________________