Richard Norton Smith's remarks at dedication of Dole Institute of Politics

Nothing is more typical of Senator Dole than his insistence that today's ceremony be something other than a personal tribute. The same holds true for the Institute that bears his name. More than a classroom, exhibit hall or archive, this is a civic cathedral. Instead of a high altar, visitors will find themselves standing before the world's largest stained glass American flag. Framing the flag are two columns of battered but unbroken steel, each more than 10 feet high.

The columns once formed part of the World Trade Center in New York City. At first blush they may seem out of place on this pastoral Kansas hillside. But in their symbolism and their call to service they are as powerful and timeless as the flag itself. Like silent sentinels they flank one GI's uniform, forever bonding the America of December 7 with that of September 11, and reminding us that every generation can be the greatest generation.

For a building so rich in symbolism, it seems only appropriate that the Dole Institute should face uphill. In fact, it climbs one of the steepest slopes of Mount Oread. To most non-Kansans, it comes as a surprise that anything in this state should have a prefix of "mount." History records otherwise. The New England abolitionists who established Lawrence as a 19th-century outpost of freedom were naturally drawn to the heights. The higher the altitude the nearer to God -- and the easier to look down on their Missouri neighbors. This is an attitude that persists -- by the way -- especially during basketball season.

Nevertheless, in the vast treeless terrain of western Kansas, hills are about as scarce as seagulls. So when he was first assigned to the 10th Mountain Division in the winter of 1945 Bob Dole thought it was a curious thing. The 10th, after all, was famed for its Olympic champions -- a division on skis, some called it. And Kansans -- well, they don't get a lot of practice skiing. Around here snow is something that covers the winter wheat crop.

But Bob Dole was wrong about one thing: He had already spent a lifetime scaling hills of adversity and possibility. Certainly life in Dust Bowl Kansas was an uphill thing -- even in a small town where everyone was your neighbor and almost everyone your friend. Sixty years ago he climbed Mount Oread for the first time. He arrived in Lawrence hugging a dream of becoming a doctor. That dream was crushed on another hill -- Hill 913 -- half a world away, on a brutal April morning in 1945.

Then came the longest climb of all -- through operating rooms and recovery rooms and endless sessions of physical therapy. After the war new heights beckoned: law school and the Kansas State Legislature. Russell County attorney, and the United States Congress. In Washington his character, wit and uncommon leadership skills made him master of the Hill -- Capitol Hill. Today he returns to Mount Oread, to stand where he belongs, on the summit of American politics and Kansas history. His life has long since become the stuff of legend. His legacy is measured in a thousand bills and countless acts of kindness or inspiration to anyone who has ever been overlooked, sold short or counted out on account of a defeat or disability. Tested by adversity, made sensitive by hardship, a fighter by principle, and still the most optimistic man in America ...