General Mark Milley and former Sen. Elizabeth Dole follow behind a Joint Service Casket Team as they carry the coffin carrying the remains of former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., during the retiring procession following the funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI |
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Dec. 10 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden eulogized late Sen. Bob Dole on Friday, calling him a man of his word, while daughter Robin Dole called him the most generous person she's ever known during an emotional funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.
Biden remembered Dole as a man who voted for the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., working to save social security and securing the passage the Americans with Disabilities Act. He pointed to Dole growing up during the Depression in the "dust bowl" of Kansas, which shaped his compassion for people and resiliency of the American spirit.
"Bob didn't hate government. He wanted government to work," said Biden, who served to Dole for 25 years in the Senate. "He wanted it to work for folks like him, who came up the hard way. Bob understood hardship. He had known hardship. He never for it. He never forgot the people who sent him to Washington."
Biden quoted Dole's words when he decided to vote for the King holiday, saying, "No first-class democracy can treat people like second-class citizens."
The president said Dole lived by a "code of honor" and while they often disagreed, he was "never disagreeable" with him.
"Bob Dole was a man of his word," Biden said. "He loved his country, which he served his whole life. The Bible tells us to much is given, much is expected. Bob Dole, for all of his hardship, believed he's been given the greatest gift of all. He was an American. And he felt it."
A longtime GOP leader in the Senate, Biden said Dole also enjoyed a good political fight, calling him a "proud Republican."
"He could be partisan and that was fine," Biden said. "Americans have been partisan since Jefferson and Hamilton. Like them, Bob Dole was a patriot."
Robin Dole said she was appreciative of her father's final years where they would talk almost daily and told her stories she had never known before. She said Dole made a promise to help one person every day but at one time thought he felt in a goal until she reminded him of the years he helped multitudes of people in his position.
She said her father believed in second chances, something she knew of personally.
"He was my rock," Robin Dole said. Dole, a longtime U.S. senator from Kansas, died on Sunday.
After the event at the cathedral, Dole's casket will be taken to the national World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., where actor Tom Hanks, broadcaster Savannah Guthrie and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will speak.
Dole was a member of the U.S. Army during World War II and played an instrumental role in funding construction of the memorial, which opened in 2004.
On Saturday, Dole's body will be flown to Kansas for a public viewing at St. Mary Queen of Angels Catholic Church in the town of Russell. Retired Sen. Pat Roberts, and current Kansas Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall will speak at the morning service.
Dole will then be taken to Topeka, where Gov. Laura Kelly and Lt. Gov. David Toland will receive him at the Kansas Statehouse.
"In public office, Sen. Dole was always a voice for Kansas," Kelly said in a statement on Sunday. "Dole's legacy goes far beyond the walls of Congress."
Ultimately, Dole's body will return to the Washington, D.C., area and he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.
