RUSH LIMBAUGH JR.'S LEGACY A RICH ONE FOR US

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-slivered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.

And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Rush Limbaugh Jr. is gone, but surely the animating passions of his life are ever with us and the more so for his having sustained and nurtured them, as he did so fervently.

The above poem, "High Flight", by John G. Magee, was a favorite of Rush's and hung on the wall of his office. Rush's love for and service to aviation has been much remarked upon. He was justly honored for his many contributions.

It might be easy to forget that, beyond his sheer love of flying, revolutionary insights lay at the heart of his service to aviation. World War II, which saw Rush in harm's way in the China-Burma-India Theatre, established beyond contest the new rules of modern warfare. Among these is the maxim that superiority in air power is of cardinal importance to war planners. As recently as 10-15 years before, this had been hotly disputed by some generals and admirals, always ready to fight the last war. But World War II left no doubt of the absolute primacy of air power.

Armed with this fundamental insight, Rush and other farsighted individuals returned to the peacetime nation whose freedom their extraordinary service had made secure. Immediately, Rush went to work applying the logical implications of this lesson for peacetime commerce, industry and trade.

Just as modern aviation advances had shrunk the world and forever altered the strategy and tactics of warfare, so those advances meant that no small- or medium-sized city could hope to compete in the last half of the 20th century unless it had a modern airport as its gateway to the world. For as Rush understood, commercial aviation would be as important to population, commercial and industrial growth as the coming of the railroads had been in the 19th century.

And, as with the backward-looking war planners of the 1920s, there were those here in Cape Girardeau who resisted this notion. A skeptical public had to be convinced of the need for and benefits that might flow from a modern airport. Through years of effort, Rush led so many others who overcame those objections, made their case and triumphed. Old Harris Field became the new airport, complete with a 6,500-foot runway that could land most any aircraft. Cape Girardeau truly entered the 20th Century, in large part because of the efforts of Rush Limbaugh Jr.

Then there was the historical, political, rhetorical and Biblical scholarship of the man. And Rush's legendary fierceness as an advocate was so awe-inspiring that it marked him as a standout even in a family of distinguished attorneys.

At the center of Rush's well-developed political philosophy was the individual each person a unique creature of his God. From this logically flowed a passion for that individual's freedom, understood as ordered liberty under God's laws, and a belief that the surest guarantee of that freedom lay in restraining and limiting the ever-growing power of governments at all levels.

It was Rush's fate to live much of his life during periods when his passionately held views seemed out of favor even ridiculed by a nation eager, in those bygone days, to place its faith in the power of government to remake society after some vision of central planning. But he also lived to see the sweeping triumphs of his vision of the limited role of government; the collapse of Communism because of the vigilance and courage of people like himself; and the awesome regenerative power of the American people, their liberties unleashed by the enactment, during the last decade, of policies he had fought for all his life.

He lived to see one son a repected attorney and city councilman, the leading vote getter in two elections; the other a national celebrity of rising importance, the most listened-to radio talk show host in America. He was so very, very proud of them. And as they carry on his work, and his name, our sympathies are with the entire family.