Statement by the President on the Death of William Faulkner.

IT CAN be said with assurance of few men, in any area of human activity, that their work will long endure. William Faulkner was one of those men. Since Henry James no writer has left behind such a vast and enduring monument to the strength of American literature. His death came in Oxford, Mississippi, in the heart of the setting for that turbulent world of light and shadow which was the towering creation of his mind and art. From this world he sought to illuminate the restless searching of all men. And his insight spoke to the hearts of all who listened.

A Mississippian by birth, an American by virtue of those forces and loyalties which guided his work, a guiding citizen of our civilization by virtue of his art, William Faulkner now rests, the search done, his place secure among the great creators of this age.