**Mr. Burton's Remembrance of President Reagan**

***June 9, 2004***

**The Speaker Pro Tempore:** The gentleman is recognized for three
minutes.

**Mr. Burton:** I thank the gentleman for yielding. I, like all my
colleagues, would like to extol the wonderful accomplishments \--
accomplishments of President Reagan. The economy coming back from the
doldrums, the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and the communist menace
we faced so much back in the 1960\'s, 1970\'s, and 1980\'s.

What I want to talk about today is a personal experience I had with
Ronald Reagan. when I was running for office over a period of about 10
or 12 years I promised my mother, who was a waitress who worked for
many, many years as a waitress, that if I ever got elected to the
Congress of the United States, the first thing I would do is take her in
the front door of the White House and introduce her to the president of
the United States. I got elected in 1983 and I called the White House
and they said, yes, we can give you a couple minutes with the president.
So I called my mom and I took her in the front door of the White House
expecting a very perfunctory meeting where he would shake hands, take a
picture, and that would be it. Unbeknownst to me, he contacted my office
and tried to find out everything he could about me. When we walked in he
put his arm around me and said to my mother, "this is one of the finest
young Congressmen in the Congress, and I want you to know that I really
appreciate all the things he\'s done." He reeled off three or four
things I accomplished, and my mother, I could see her chest expanding
and expanding. Here\'s a little lady from the Midwest who had a very
tough life, was abused as a wife and as \-- protected me and my sister
and brother from abuse from my father, and she had nothing but a tough
life, and here was the President of the United States telling her when
\-- what a great guy her son was. I'll never forget that as long as I
live. She walked out of the office with my stepfather and me. She was so
proud and she carried that picture of the president and us together for
the rest of her life. She was so proud until the day she died. He was
that kind of a guy.

I remember another time I debated Al Gore when he was in the House and
Tom Downy of New York on the strategy \-- strategic defense initiative
when the president first started talking about defending this country
from an incoming missile attack.. I debated Al Gore and Tom Downy on a
special order for probably 30 or 40 minutes. I thought that was the end
of it. Two days later I got a personal handwritten letter from the
president thanking me for sticking up for him. Who would believe that
the President of the United States would take the time to write a
handwritten note to a new congressman because he took a position that
paralleled the president\'s? He was just a wonderful \-- wonderful
down-to-earth man.

When I first got elected they had dinner for all the freshmen
congressmen and after the dinner we were walking around the greenroom
and everybody was patting the president on the back and saying what a
great job he had done with the tax cuts. As he walked by me I thought I
better talk about something besides tax cuts because he\'s walking past
everybody. I really wanted to talk to the guy. As he walked by I said,
"Mr. President, one of my favorite movies was 'King\'s Row'." He said,
"thank you very much", took two steps past me, stopped, turned around
and came back, and talked for 10 minutes about that movie. It was one of
the greatest thrills of my life to get a real insight what he did as a
movie actor. He enjoyed it as well. All my colleagues gathered around
and it was one of the highlights of the evening.

That's the kind of guy Ronald Reagan was. He cared about people in
addition to being a great president. And so I'd like to say to his
family, God bless you, all of you. Mrs. Reagan, you were great to us as
well when you were First Lady. God bless you and your family. And the
good Lord I'm sure has a very high place in heaven for Ronald Reagan.
Thank you very much.