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A UMNS Commentary
By Donald E. Messer*
3:00 P.M. ET Oct. 22, 2012
The Rev. Donald E. Messer and former Sen. George McGovern on July 19 at
the Newseum in Washington. A UMNS photo courtesy of Don Messer.
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I deeply grieve the passing of a great humanitarian, statesman and
long-time personal friend, former United States senator and 1972
Democratic presidential candidate, George S. McGovern.
Right up until the final few days before he entered hospice care
and died peacefully, McGovern seemed to triumph over aging and to defy
death. Most nonagenarians prefer a slower pace, but at age 90, he
continued writing books and traveling the country delivering speeches.
He penned an op-ed article for the Washington Post in late
September and in early October performed a reading of Aaron Copland’s
“Lincoln Portrait” at the South Dakota Symphony in Sioux Falls.
McGovern’s deepest personal and political passions were to end war and eliminate hunger.
He often acknowledged that he did not see much hope in eliminating
humanity’s sinful proclivity for using violence but that he did believe
that hunger could be ended in his lifetime. He was scandalized that
the world had enough food for everyone, but that almost a billion
people went to bed hungry every night.
At his 90th birthday party in Washington this past July, McGovern
was hailed as a hero for his lifetime of pioneering legislation to feed
the hungry of the world. Richard Leach, the president of World Food
Program USA, proclaimed “no one on the planet” has had a more profound
impact on ending hunger. McGovern was saluted by a bipartisan retinue
of politicians who credited him with inspiring them to enter
politics.
As a senator, McGovern wrote legislation to initiate the food stamp
program, school lunch program and the supplemental food assistance to
women and children (WIC). Later, as a U.N. ambassador, he recruited his
former political rival-turned-friend, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas),
to sponsor an international school lunch program to feed the hungry
children in less economically developed nations. Both men were honored
with the prestigious World Food Prize in 2008.
In 2005 it was my unique privilege to co-author the book, “Ending
Hunger Now: A Challenge to Persons of Faith” with those two men. Though
their political philosophies on most international and domestic issues
differed drastically, they were united in their Wesleyan heritage that
feeding the hungry was at the core of being a Christian. Both were
deeply concerned the church was not doing enough to lobby and advocate
for the poor and hungry.
A Gospel imperative
Born July 19, 1922, to a Methodist preacher’s family in South
Dakota, McGovern spent one year as a seminarian at Garrett Theological
Seminary before completing his Ph.D. in history from Northwestern
University. Deciding his calling was politics, not the ministry,
McGovern, however, retained a deep sense of the Social Gospel throughout
his political career. To him feeding the hungry was a Gospel
imperative as well as integral to a civilized society.
I first met McGovern 50 years ago when I was a junior college
student in India and he was President John F. Kennedy’s first Food for
Peace Director. Living in southern India, I would daily encounter
people begging for food and see children starving in the streets.
McGovern’s visit to India was welcomed as it signaled food from America
would soon be arriving.
A decade later, when at the age of 30, I became president of
McGovern’s alma mater, Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D., I
was immediately engaged in one of the most controversial presidential
campaigns in history. McGovern had captured the Democratic nomination
with his anti-Vietnam war rhetoric and his grassroots appeal to include
everyone in the primary process, not just the political bosses.
Though McGovern was a decorated World War II veteran, he was
labeled a wild liberal “peacenik.” He was accused of supporting
“abortion, acid, and amnesty” for those who had evaded the military
draft and fled to Canada. Reporters flocked to the campus seeking to
differentiate McGovern’s personal character from his political
caricature.
Incumbent President Richard Nixon defeated him in a landslide,
winning 49 of the 50 states. But a few years later, McGovern was
vindicated, when both President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew
were forced to resign because of corruption. McGovern was re-elected to
the Senate by conservative South Dakota and Republican President
Gerald Ford invited him to the White House for consultations, appointing
him to serve in the United States delegation at the United Nations.
Despite humiliating defeat, and being the target of many a
political commentary over the years, McGovern never lost his wry wit,
intellectual fervor or moral compassion. Rooted in his Christian faith,
he spoke prophetically against war, not only in Vietnam, but also Iraq
and Afghanistan. He championed programs for the poor and the
marginalized. He forgave his political enemies, even honoring former
President and Mrs. Nixon by attending their funerals. He was awarded
America’s highest honor, the Medal of Freedom, by President Bill
Clinton.
Still active at 90
At age 90, even as his body became frail, McGovern’s mind was
still alert and active. In the past few years, he published several
books, most recently, “What It Means to Be a Democrat” (Blue Rider
Press, 2011) and a biography called “Abraham Lincoln” (Times Books,
2008). At a signing of the Lincoln book, he was greeted by an overflow
audience at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif.
He traveled to Kenya and Uganda just two years ago. But, last year,
after an exhausting three-city speaking tour of Germany, his doctors
urged him to eliminate his international travels.
Last December, he was hospitalized after falling near the George
and Eleanor McGovern Library at Dakota Wesleyan. He remained hopeful to
the end that he would regain strength to renew a vigorous schedule
that most 50- year-olds would find too demanding.
In a visit just two weeks ago, he expressed to me his appreciation
and encouragement for the work we have been doing together on issues of
world hunger and global AIDS through the Dakota Wesleyan University
McGovern Center. He was thrilled that current students and faculty were
carrying on his legacy of feeding the hungry, fighting disease and
tackling poverty.
McGovern resisted retirement at his 90th birthday party. Instead,
he proclaimed his hope that the “good Lord will extend my years beyond
one hundred. I do intend to complain loudly to St. Peter if I am called
above (or raise the devil, if I’m called below) before we end hunger
in America. I also expect to see us reach well past ‘the end of the
beginning’ of our victory over world hunger.”
His wish of living to 100 and his dream of ending world hunger did
not come to fruition. But I’m confident that he faced death without
fear.
He often recalled an audience with Pope John XXIII, recounting with
quiet satisfaction how the Pope grasped his hand and said, “Mr.
McGovern, when you go to meet your Maker and he asks, ‘Did you feed the
hungry?’ You can say, ‘I did.’”
*Messer, a United Methodist pastor and executive director, Center
for the Church and Global AIDS, Centennial, Colo., is co-chair of the
United Methodist Global AIDS Fund Committee and co-author with George
McGovern and Bob Dole of “Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to
Persons of Faith” (Fortress, 2005).
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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