Our Gang (26 page)

Ameriblah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah

blah one hundred years ago. Blah blah blah blah

of Galilee. And yet those would surrender hope

blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah

cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah before him. Blah blah blah the

republic. Blah blah blah the people. Blah blah

blah blah blah nation's capital."

The Eulogy Over the Baggie

(As Delivered Live on Nationwide TV

by the Reverend Billy Cupcake)

Now today I want you to turn with me to page

853 in your dictionaries. Our eulogy is from the

letter "L," the twelfth letter of the

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183

alphabet, and our word is the fifth down in the

left-hand column, directly below the word

"leaden." Our word is "leader." Now how does

Noah Webster define "leader"?

Well, Noah writes, "A leader is one who or one

that which leads." One who or one that which

leads. One who or that
which
leads.

Just the day before yesterday I read an article in a

current magazine by one of the top philosophers of

all time and be wrote, "Leaders are one of man's

top necessities." And in a recent Gallup Poll we've

been reading where more than ninetyeight percent

of the people of America believe in leadership. I

was in a European country last summer and one of

the top young people there told me that the

teenagers in his country want leadership more than

anything else. President Lincoln-before he was

killed-said the same thing. So did Newton-Sir Isaac'

Newton, the great scientist-when he was alive.

Now when Noah tells us that a leader is one who

or one that
which
leads, he is telling us what

"leader" means in the ordinary sense of the word.

But I wonder if be who lies here before us in this

baggie was a leader in the ordinary sense. I don't

think be was. And I'll tell you why. I talked to a

psychiatrist friend of mine only this morning and

be said, "He was not an ordinary leader." And one

of my friends, a distinguished surgeon who does

heart transplants at one of our

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great hospitals, wrote me a letter and said the same

thing: "He was not a leader in the ordinary sense of

the word."

Well, you say, what was he then, if he wasn't a

leader in the ordinary sense? He-and I repeat that-he

was a leader in the extraordinary sense of that word.

Now what does that mean, the extraordinary

sense of that word? Fortunately, Noah defines

"extraordinary" for us, too. You will find the

definition on page 428 in your dictionaries, in the

right-hand column, six words down, directly

beneath "extraneous." Extraordinary, Noah tells us,

means, "beyond what is ordinary; out of the regular

and established order."
Beyond
what is ordinary.

Out of the regular and established order.

Now what does that mean? I read only the week

before last in an Australian newspaper that I get in

my home a story about a fellow who made news

down there-and why did he make news down there?

Why do I know about him thousands and

thousands of miles away? Because he was

extraordinary in some way or another. He was that

rare thing among men. He was himself and no one

else. Himself and no one else.

And what does Noah tell us about "himself"?

"Himself," Noah says, "an emphatic form of him."

An emphatic form of him. Here then is

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what was so extraordinary about the leader around

whose baggie we are gathered today. He was

emphatically himself and no one else.

You know. Let me repeat that. You know, I have

been to funerals of ordinary leaders the world

round, and I know you have too, by way of the

miracle of television. We all know the wonderful

things that are said on these sorrowful occasions.

But I think I have only to repeat the fine words that

are intoned over the graves of ordinary dead

dignitaries for you to see how truly extraordinary

was our own dear departed President, in and of

himself. In and of himself, which, you remember,

Noah tells us is the emphatic form of him.

Now I
don't mean to disparage the ordinary

leaders of this great globe by this comparison. I read

a letter only three weeks ago Thursday that a radical

young person wrote to his girl friend disparaging

and scoffing and laughing at the leaders of this

world. Now he may laugh. They laughed at

Jeremiah, you know. They laughed at Lot. They

laughed at Amos. They laughed at
-
the Apostles. In

our own time they laughed at the Marx Brothers.

They laughed at the Ritz Brothers. They laughed at

the Three Stooges. Yet these people became our top

entertainers and earned the love and affection of

millions. There are always the laughers and the

scoffers. You know there used to be a top tune in all

the

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jukeboxes called "I'm Laughing on the Outside,

Crying on the Inside." And I read an article in a

news magazine only Sunday before last by one of

our top psychologists which says that eightyfive

percent-eighty-five percent!-of those who laugh on

the outside cry on the inside because of their

personal unhappiness.

I am not then trying to disparage the ordinary

leaders of the world by this comparison. I want

only to illustrate to you the extraordinary leadership

of the man who walked among us for a brief while

in a business suit, and now is gone. Only yesterday

morning at ten A.M., I overheard a lady in an

elevator of one of our top hotels, say to a young

person, "There has never been another like him in

history, there will never be another like him again."

Now. Let me repeat that. Now, when an ordinary

leader dies-and I mean by "ordinary" just what

Noah does, on page 853, the last word down in

column one: "of the usual kind" or "such as is

commonly met with"-when an ordinary leader dies,

there always seem to be words and phrases aplenty

with which to bury him. However, how ever, when

an extraordinary leader dies, a man who was

himself and no one else-what then do we say?

Let's try a scientific experiment. Now science

doesn't hold all the answers and many of my

scientific friends tell me that all the time.

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Science, for instance, doesn't know what life is yet,

and in a recent Gallup Poll did you know that five

percent more Americans believe in life after death

now than they did some twenty years ago? So

science doesn't have all the answers, but it has

provided us with many wonderful breakthroughs.

Let's try this scientific experiment. Let's try the

phrases for an ordinary man on this extraordinary

man. And you tell me if you don't agree that as

applies to him who lies here in his baggie, they are

hollow to the ear and false to the heart, and vice

versa. Let's see if when this experiment is over, you

don't say to me, "Why, Billy, you're right, they don't

describe him at all. They describe one who or one

that which leads, but not him who was emphatically

himself and no other."

I'm going to ask that we bow our heads now.

Every head bowed and every eye closed, and listen.

They say of an ordinary leader, when and if he

dies, of course-he was a man of broad outlook;

Or, he was a man of great passion;

Or, he was a man of deep conviction;

Or, he was a defender of human rights;

Or, he was a soldier of humanity;

Or, he was scholarly, eloquent and wise;

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Or, he was a simple, peace-loving man, brave

and kind;

Or, he was a man who embodied the ideals of

his people;

Or, he was a man who fired the imagination of a

generation.

They say of an ordinary man, when and if he

dies, that the loss is incalculable to the nation and

the world.

They say of an ordinary man, when and if he

dies, that all will be better for his having passed

their way.

Need I go any further? There was an article in a

current magazine last month by a professor who is

an authority on human behavior, and he writes that

you can tell when a crowd of people is in agreement

with you. Well, the professor is correct. Because I

know that you are all saying to yourselves, "Why,

Billy, you're right-in vain do I listen for the words or

word that describes he who lies here in this baggie;

for these are phrases that summon up the image of

an ordinary leader, not the extraordinary leader we

have lost."

What word or words then will describe this

extraordinary man? I was in an African country one

year ago this July and I heard a top political expert

there call him "The President of the United States."

The President of the United States. In another

African country I heard about

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a teenage girl who called him "The Leader of the

Free World." The Leader of the Free World. And a

lawyer friend of mine, a well-known judge, who

lives in South America wrote me a letter not too

long ago and he had an interesting thing to say. He

said he heard a man in an elevator in a top hotel in

Buenos Aires, Argentina, call him "Commander-in-

Chief of the American Armed Forces. Commanderin-

Chief of the Armed Forces.

. Yet are these the words in which he lived in the

hearts of his fellow countrymen? Perhaps that is

what he was to the rest of the world. But to we who

knew him, nothing so majestic or formal could

begin to communicate the kind of man he was and

the esteem in which he was held. Because to us he

was not a leader in the ordinary sense-he was a

leader in the extraordinary sense. And that is why

we who knew him think of him by a name as

unpretentious and unceremonious as the name you

might give to your own pet, a name as homey and

familiar as you might bestow upon a little puppy.

I'm going to ask that we bow our heads again.

Every head bowed and every eye closed, while we

all share in the remembrance of the name by which

he was known to we who knew him best, the name

by which we called him in our hearts, even if we