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It is, I insist, hard to define the Rayburn contribution to our political civilization because it is so massive and so widespread and so complicated, and because it goes so deep.

But this we know: Here is a great life that in every area of American politics gives the American people occasion for pride and that has invested the democratic process with the most decent qualities of honor, decency, and self-respect.

I pray to God that he may be spared to us for many years to come for this is an influence the United States and the whole world can ill afford to lose.