"After 4 years as Vice President to Truman, Barkley retired from politics, seemingly forever. But he longed to return to this Chamber which had seen his greatest successes and his most ignoble defeats. So he ran for and won reelection in 1954, ousting Republican John Sherman Cooper.
Alben Barkley died on April 30, 1956. He left this world doing what he loved--giving a speech.
In his final moments, he explained to a crowd of students at a mock convention at Washington and Lee University that as a newly elected Senator, he had refused a seat in the front row of this Chamber, despite his decades of service.
"I am glad to sit in the back row," the 78-year-old Barkley said. "For I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty."
Those were Senator Barkley's last words before he collapsed. The crowd's applause was the last thing he would hear, before suffering a massive heart attack."
--Senator Mitch McConnell, Rep., KY
Just thought that was cool -- what a way to go! We found on Wikiquote a list of famous people's last words before dying, too, and some of them were pretty funny! A few:
