Senator Pat Moynihan Dies
America will miss Daniel Patrick Moynihan. U.S. senator, Democratic leader, Harvard professor, ambassador to the U.N. and to India, author, naval officer and former bartender; he was all these. And to the Irish American community he was equally a source of pride and controversy. He took unpopular stances on Irish issues and Sinn Féin, referring to Gerry Adams and his colleagues as “those people. I don’t know those people.” He was criticized for not being critical enough of British policies in Northern Ireland.
To his eternal credit, Moynihan was one of the few politicians willing to take unpopular stands because he did what he felt was right. He raised the issue of social assistance with an intense passion, as stubborn a supporter in his seventies as he was in his fifties. Moynihan was like a dog with a bone when it came to welfare, he simply would not let it go, and he strongly criticized President Bill Clinton for his welfare reform bill.
Almost every profile of him referred to his Irish Catholic background. He was born the day before St. Patrick’s Day in 1927 and lived in the Irish
ghetto of Hell’s Kitchen. His grandfather came from Kerry in the 1880’s and it was Moynihan’s experience as an Irish American that influenced his writing. His 1963 book, Beyond the Melting Pot is regarded as a work ahead of its time in its comprehension of the complexity of American ethnicity.
The new Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan will be named after him, a fitting tribute to a man who traveled out into the world and brought knowledge and new ideas back home. He will be missed.
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