PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- President Clinton, more than half the Senate and other dignitaries celebrated the late Sen. John H. Chafee on Saturday as one of the country's great politicians.
Chafee, one of the last Republican moderates in the Senate, died of congestive heart failure last Sunday at age 77.A horse-drawn carriage, accompanied by six Marine pallbearers, carried Chafee's body from the Rhode Island State House to Grace Episcopal Church.
The funeral drew 51 of Chafee's Senate colleagues, along with 14 former senators, the president and first lady, three members of Clinton's Cabinet, and many state officials.
It was one of the biggest turnouts of national figures for the funeral of a U.S. senator -- a reflection of the admiration Chafee earned during his four decades of public service, including 23 years in the Senate.
He had a reputation for honesty and integrity, and for choosing compromise over partisan politics, and former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri said the nation needs more politicians like Chafee.
"In politics there is a premium on finding issues that divide us because divisiveness is a vote-getter," said Danforth. "John Chafee bound us together. That's why he was universally respected in the Senate."
Chafee was a former secretary of the Navy, governor of Rhode Island for six years, and before that a member of the Rhode Island Legislature.
In the Senate, he spearheaded efforts to protect the environment and expand health care and child care.
One of the senator's sons, Zechariah Chafee, recounted his father's life -- as a champion wrestler at Yale, a Marine who fought at Guadalcanal and in Korea, his six years in the Legislature, six years as governor, and then 23 years in the Senate.
When he was age 8, he saved a friend from drowning after the pal had fallen through ice on a frozen pond. That friend, Bruce Sundlun, grew up to become a Rhode Island governor.
"What a man, what a life," Zechariah Chafee, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the mourners.
One of John Chafee's other sons -- Warwick Mayor Lincoln Chafee -- is a candidate for his father's Senate seat.