Tribute

In the Hall of the House of Representatives, a great assemblage paid final tribute to Warren G. Harding. At a joint session of the House and Senate, with the President, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court and the Diplomatic Corps occupying the front seats, Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes delivered a memorial address in honor of the late President.

In the gallery sat Mrs. Harding, in black, wearing a short mourning veil. With her were George B. Christian, Jr., General Sawyer, former Senator and Mrs. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Daniel R. Crissinger (Governor of the Federal Reserve Board), Dr. Heber Votaw (brother-in-law of the late President) Amos Kling (brother of Mrs. Harding), Mr. and Mrs. Howard Chandler Christy. In the Executive Gallery were Mrs. Coolidge, the wives of the Cabinet, Mrs. Nicholas Longworth.

The Chaplain of the House pronounced a short prayer. Then Secretary Hughes arose and delivered his tribute, concluding: "Warren G. Harding gave his life to his country. No one can do more than that. He exhausted himself in service, a martyr in fidelity to the interests of the people for whom he labored with a passionate devotion. He was a man of the people, indulging no consciousness of superiority, incapable of arrogance, separated from them neither by experience nor by pride nor by eccentricity. He was brother to all whose strivings in countless communities, whose eagerness, adaptability, energy, venturesomeness and common sense give the stamp of the American character. Nothing human was alien to him, and he had 'the divine gift of sympathy.' He wrought mightily for the prosperity of the Nation and for the peace of the world, but he clothed the exercise of power with the beautiful garment of gentleness. If American life with all its possibilities of conflict and turmoil is to be worth living it must be lived in the spirit of brotherly understanding of which he will ever be an exemplar in high office."

The Chaplain of the Senate pronounced a benediction, and the assemblage disbanded.

Observers from the press gallery reported that one of those most moved by the tribute was Attorney General Daugherty.

On the same spot, on the same day of the year (Feb. 27) and at the same hour (noon) :

Twenty-two years earlier John Hay had delivered an oration for the dead McKinley, and

Forty-four years earlier James G. Elaine had eulogized the dead Garfield.