As a member of Congress who made his way to the White House, John F. Kennedy never forgot his Capitol Hill roots. In the days after the president’s funeral, Roll Call’s editorial on Nov. 27, 1963, recalled that Kennedy wrote to us the year before, on the occasion of our seventh anniversary, to wish us well:

“The original aims of your newspaper — to provide the members and staffs on Capitol Hill with a weekly medium of news about each other and to inject a healthy spirit of fun into the proceedings of Congress — have been admirably fulfilled. We on this end of Pennsylvania Avenue will continue to count on ROLL CALL for the excellent ‘under the dome’ coverage it provides.”

As Roll Call founder Sid Yudain wrote in the editorial: “No newspaperman could wish for a greater testimonial.”