Daniel Patrick Moynihan - 1927-2003
"A scholarly man with the air of a rumpled professor, Moynihan had a variety of interests. He was one of the earliest proponents of welfare reform, writing an article in 1965 about the breakdown of African-American families. He was an expert on foreign affairs and was also a champion of urban redevelopment.

In his distinctive cadence, Moynihan held forth on a variety of subjects on the Senate floor. The Almanac of American Politics once described him as "the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson."

Moynihan was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but grew up in New York. He worked as a shoeshine boy, graduated from a Harlem high school, worked as a longshoreman and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before becoming a scholar and politician.

He was a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and received a doctorate from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. As a professor at Syracuse University in the 1950s he often published essays and reports about political and social issues."