[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 21, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S3655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBERING DR. ELBERT B. SMITH

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, with the recent death of Dr. Elbert B. 
Smith--known to his friends simply as ``E.B.''--I lost a much beloved 
mentor, advisor, and friend.
  Obituaries in the Washington Post and elsewhere have captured the 
essential facts of his life. Since 1990, he was professor emeritus at 
the University of Maryland. He served in the Navy in World War II, 
earned his master's degree and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and 
taught at Iowa State University, among other colleges, before joining 
the faculty at Maryland in 1968. Over the years, he also served as a 
Fulbright professor at the University of Tokyo and at Moscow State 
University, and elsewhere. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as 
a Democrat in Iowa in 1962 and again in 1966.
  What those factual obituaries fail to capture is the spirit of this 
remarkable man--his personal warmth, his talent for friendship, his 
great love of history and scholarship, and his passion for progressive 
causes.
  He was one of the most influential people in my life, beginning in my 
years as an undergraduate at Iowa State University, where he was a 
history professor. He inspired me to get involved in politics and 
public service. When he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1962, I got involved 
in his campaign. And what a campaign it was--an unconventional, 
insurgent, student-run campaign against the status quo. This was 6 
years before Senator Eugene McCarthy ran a similar campaign for 
President.
  While working on his campaign, I was also president of Young 
Democrats at Iowa State, and we had just passed a resolution urging the 
admission of Communist China to the United Nations. Of course, this 
could have been an embarrassment to the Smith campaign. But to his 
great credit, E.B. said: ``That is your call, Tom, stick to your guns, 
I'll stand by you.'' That is the kind of principled person he was.
  During the campaign, E.B. went to Washington to have his endorsement 
photograph taken with President Kennedy. There is a picture of E.B. 
presenting JFK with a copy of his scholarly biography of Senator Thomas 
Hart Benton, titled ``Magnificent Missourian.'' The reason E.B. chose 
this gift, of course, was that Thomas Hart Benton was one of the eight 
Senators that Kennedy included in his book ``Profiles in Courage.''
  E.B. lost that 1962 election, but only very narrowly, against the 
longtime incumbent Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper. But that campaign 
was revealing of the kind of man he was: a straight-shooter, a person 
of great integrity, serious but with a sense of humor, a fighter for 
the little guy, standing up for civil rights and economic justice.
  Fast forward a decade. In 1972, I was fresh out of law school. Ruth 
and I moved back to Ames, and, frankly, we were flat broke. E.B. 
allowed us to live rent free in a house that he owned in Ames. With 
that house as campaign headquarters, I ran for Congress again in 1972, 
with a student-run, insurgent campaign modeled after E.B.'s 1962 
effort. I lost, but we did well enough to run again in 1974, and win.
  When I arrived in Washington in late 1974 as a newly elected 
Representative, E.B. and his wife Jean were living in College Park, 
where he was teaching at the University of Maryland. My wife Ruth was 
serving then as Story County attorney, and had to stay back in Iowa. 
The Smiths generously allowed me to live with them for the next 3 
years. I commuted back to Iowa on weekends.
  From his days in the Navy, E.B. loved to sail and was an expert 
sailor. Many a time he took me out on the Chesapeake Bay on his boat. I 
always felt that he liked it best when the weather was cold and foul, 
with the rain pouring down. The rest of us would be huddled down below, 
and E.B. would be up top, steering the boat, having a great time. It 
reminded him fondly of his days as a Navy deck officer in the Atlantic 
during the war. Over the decades during my time here in Washington, one 
of my great joys has been my sailing outings with E.B.
  Of course, the other great joy of E.B.'s life was Jean, his wife of 
58 years, their five children, nine grandchildren, and eight great-
grandchildren. After Jean died in 2002, E.B. found another wonderful 
partner--coincidentally, also named Jean--who filled his last years 
with much happiness.
  E.B. Smith was a dear friend and an invaluable mentor. He imbued me 
with the ideal that politics and public service are honorable callings. 
He always said to me: Don't worry about losing, do what is right, stick 
up for your principles.
  I feel truly blessed to have had the friendship and counsel of E.B. 
Smith for so many years. He touched not only my life, but the lives of 
so many others all across the globe. He died one day short of his 93rd 
birthday, after a full, active, and accomplished life. Through his 
scholarship, generosity, and simple human decency, he made the world a 
better place.

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