Lawmakers welcome Ike to Capitol
Washington ? It took four years to bring a statue of President Eisenhower to the U.S. Capitol, longer than it took the U.S. Army to defeat the Germans during World War II.
Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed a permanent place in the Capitol during a dedication ceremony Wednesday, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., formally accepted the sculpture into the National Statuary Hall Collection.
“He would be in awe,” said granddaughter Mary Eisenhower.
“I saw a stage full of greatness standing up there and praising my grandfather, and it was hard to keep a dry eye, because those people have been great in my life, Democrats and Republicans alike, and he would particularly like that it’s a nonpartisan thing,” said Eisenhower, who lives in a Kansas suburb of Kansas City, Mo.
The top congressional Democrats, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, also were among the speakers. Daschle opened his remarks by praising “another good and decent son of Kansas, Bob Dole, who showed me by his example what it takes to be a good leader.”
The former Kansas GOP senator and 1996 presidential candidate, was also onstage. Dole, a World War II veteran whose injuries cost him use of his right arm, said Eisenhower was widely regarded as a failure when he left office in 1961.
Former Sen. Robert Dole is among hundred attending the unveiling ceremony of the Dwight D. Eisenhower statue in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington.
“Historians ranked him in the bottom third of presidents. Reporters said he’d rather play golf than govern, that he couldn’t read when his lips were chapped,” Dole said. “No one considers Eisenhower a joke today. Historians and academics are beginning to modify their view and recognize the importance of his integrity, honesty and trustworthiness.”
Dole and the other speakers noted it was just two days before the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day invasion of France by Allied forces under command of Eisenhower, who was raised in Abilene, Kan.
The bronze, by Lawrence sculptor Jim Brothers, is based on a well-known photograph of Eisenhower addressing paratroopers just before the D-Day invasion. Kansas exchanged the statue for a marble sculpture of a now-obscure former governor, George Washington Glick.
Former Sen. Bob Dole, left, stands with Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, after the unveiling ceremony of the Dwight D. Eisenhower statue in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The bronze likeness of the 34th president, clad in his general's uniform, replaces a statue of a little-known Kansas governor.
