NATIONAL REVIEW – Edwin J. Feulner, founder and longest-serving president of the Heritage Foundation, died yesterday at 83. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and their two children.
Feulner founded Heritage in 1973 alongside Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Since his passing, Republican politicians and conservative institutions have remembered him as a courageous and wise defender of truth.
“Sir Isaac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ As a young Capitol Hill staffer, I learned what it meant to be a conservative by seeing the example set by Ed Feulner and the team of people he assembled at the Heritage Foundation,” National Review CEO Chuck DeFeo said.
“It wasn’t just his commitment to principle, but the vision, leadership, and integrity that came forth so clearly, leaving a strong impression.”
“As a movement, we see further and have accomplished so much by standing on his shoulders. We are forever grateful. Onward — always.”
Feulner served for 37 years as Heritage’s president before he moved into an advisory role.
“His unwavering love of country and his determination to safeguard the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in human history shaped every fiber of the conservative movement—and still do,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said.
“Whether he was bringing together the various corners of the conservative movement at meetings of the Philadelphia Society, or launching what is now the Heritage Strategy Forum, Ed championed a bold, ‘big-tent conservatism.’”
“He believed in addition, not subtraction,” Roberts continued.
“Unity, not uniformity. One of his favorite mantras was ‘You win through multiplication and addition, not through division and subtraction.’ His legacy is not just the institution he built, but the movement he helped grow—a movement rooted in faith, family, freedom, and the founding.”
