S5624 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE April 25, 1995

Allen Billington in ‘‘The Protestant

Crusade, 1800–1860’’:

One pamphlet, ‘‘The Pope’s Strategem:

‘Rome to America!’ An Address to the

Protestants of the United States, against

placing the Pope’s block of Marble in the

Washington Monument’’ (1852), urged Protestants to hold indignation meetings and contribute another block to be placed next to

the Pope’s ‘‘bearing an inscription by which

all men may see that we are awake to the

hypocrisy and schemes of that designing,

crafty, subtle, far seeing and far reaching

Power, which is ever grasping after the

whole World, to sway its iron sceptre, with

bloodstained hands, over the millions of its

inhabitants.’’

One night early in March 1854, a

group of Know-Nothings broke into the

storage sheds on the Monument

Grounds and dragged the Pope’s marble

slab toward the Potomac. Save for the

occasional ‘‘sighting,’’ as we have come

to call such phenomena, it was never to

be located since.

Work on the monument stopped.

Years later, in 1876, Congress appropriated funds to complete the job,

which the Corps of Engineers, under

the leadership of Lt. Col. Thomas I.

Casey did with great flourish in time

for the centennial observances of 1888.

Dread of Catholicism ran its course,

if slowly. Edward M. Stanton, then

Secretary of War, was convinced the

assassination of President Lincoln was

the result of a Catholic plot. Other manias followed, all brilliantly described

in Richard Rofstadter’s revelatory lecture ‘‘The Paranoid Style in American

Politics’’ which he delivered as the

Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford University within days of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Which to this

day remains a fertile source of conspiracy mongering. George Will cited

Hofstadter’s essay this past weekend

on the television program ‘‘This Week

With David Brinkley.’’ He deals with

the same subject matter in a superb

column in this morning’s Washington

Post which has this bracing conclusion.

It is reassuring to remember that

paranoiacs have always been with us, but

have never defined us.

I hope, Mr. President, as we proceed

to consider legislation, if that is necessary, in response to the bombing, we

would be mindful of a history in which

we have often overreacted, to our cost,

and try to avoid such an overreaction.

We have seen superb performance of

the FBI. What more any nation could

ask of an internal security group I cannot conceive. We have seen the effectiveness of our State troopers, of our

local police forces, fire departments,

instant nationwide cooperation which

should reassure us rather than frighten

us.

I would note in closing, Mr. President, that Pope John Paul II will be

visiting the United States this coming

October. I ask unanimous consent that

Mr. Will’s column be printed in the

RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the

RECORD, as follows:

[From the Washington Post, Apr. 25, 1995.]

FEVERED MINDS, MARGINAL MEN

(By George F. Will)

The Tennessee marble on the side of the

Morgan bank building in lower Manhattan

still bears, defiantly, scars inflicted on Sept.

16, 1920, when a horse-drawn wagon loaded

with sash weights exploded amid a lunchtime

crowd. Among those blown to the pavement

was Joseph P. Kennedy. He was one of the

fortunate. The blast, which shattered windows over a half-mile radius killed 30 and injured more than 100.

There were no arrests, or explanations.

Someone probably had taken too seriously

some socialist critique of capitalism, but the

incident fed J.P. Morgan Jr.’s many phobias,

which included: ‘‘The Jew is always a Jew

first and an American second, and the

Roman Catholic, I fear, too often a papist

first and an American second.’’

Today, as the nation sifts and sorts the

many jagged and tangled fragments of emotions and ideas in the aftermath of Oklahoma City, it should remember that this was

not America’s baptism of lunacy. Bleeding

Oklahoma City is a few hundred miles down

the road from Pottawatomie in what once

was bleeding Kansas, scene of a memorable

massacre. John Brown’s body lies amoldering in the grave, but his spirit—massacres in the name of God—goes marching on

in the paranoia of a few.

A very few, on society’s far fringes. Which

is progress. After Brown killed the mayor of

Harpers Ferry and seized the arsenal, he was

sentenced to be hanged. Yet America’s preeminent intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson,

said of him, ‘‘That new saint, than whom

nothing purer or more brave was ever led by

love of men into conflict and death . . . will

make the gallows glorious like the cross.’’

Morgan wrote the words above about Jews

and Catholics to A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard, of which institution Morgan

was an overseer. It is unthinkable that such

sentiments could be expressed in such circles

today.

Today when the fevered minds of marginal

men produce an outrage like the Oklahoma

City bombing, some people rush to explain

the outrage as an effect of this or that

prominent feature of the social environment.

They talk as though it is a simple task to

trace a straight line from some social

prompting, through the labyrinth of an individual’s dementia, to that individual’s action.

Now, to be sure, it is wise to recognize that

ideas, and hence the words that bear them,

have consequences. Those who trade in political ideas should occasionally brood as William Butler Yeats did when he wrote this

about the civil war in Ireland:

Did that play of mine send out

Certain men the English shot?

Did words of mine put too great strain

On that woman’s reeling brain?

Could my spoken words have checked

That whereby a house lay wrecked?

However, an attempt to locate in society’s

political discourse the cause of a lunatic’s

action is apt to become a temptation to extract partisan advantage from spilled blood.

Today there are those who are flirting with

this contemptible accusation: If the Oklahoma City atrocity was perpetrated by individuals gripped by pathological hatred of

government, then this somehow implicates

and discredits the current questioning of the

duties and capacities of government.

But if the questioners are to be indicted,

the indictment must be broad indeed. It

must encompass not only a large majority of

Americans and their elected representatives

but also the central tradition of American

political thought—political skepticism, the

pedigree of which runs back to the Founders.

The modern pedigree of the fanatics’ idea

that America’s government is a murderous

conspiracy against liberty and decency—a

money-making idea for Oliver Stone, director of the movie ‘‘JFK’’—runs back to the

1960s. Those were years John Brown could

have enjoyed, years when the New York Review of Books printed on its cover directions

for making a Molotov cocktail, and a student died when some precursors of the Oklahoma City fanatics practiced the politics of

symbolism by bombing a building at the University of Wisconsin.

Today, when some talk radio paranoiacs

spew forth the idea that the AIDS virus was

invented by Jewish doctors for genocide

against blacks, it is well to remember that

the paranoid impulse was present in the first

armed action by Americans against the new

federal government. During the Whiskey Rebellion 200 years ago a preacher declared:

‘‘The present day is unfolding a design the

most extensive, flagitious and diabolical,

that human art and malice have ever invented. . . . If accomplished, the earth can

be nothing better than a sink of impurities.’’

It is reassuring to remember that

paranoiacs have always been with us, but

have never defined us.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, seeing the distinguished Senators from

Oklahoma on the floor, I know we all

look to hear from them. I thank the

President and yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business

for 10 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered. The Senator

from Oklahoma is recognized.

DISASTER IN OKLAHOMA

fMr. INHOFE. Mr. President, 5 days

ago we had a disaster that occurred in

Oklahoma. I happened at the time to

be in Dallas in a regional meeting on

base closure when I got a call from the

President of the United States. At that

time, the entire Nation, only hours

after the blast, was watching as the

smoke still had not yet cleared.

The President advised me as to what

the Federal Government was doing. He

told me about the FEMA team that

was coming in, about the FBI, about

law enforcement, all having to do with

the tragedy, and asked if there was

anything more that I could think of

that could be done from the Federal

level. Of course, I told the President

there was nothing else I could think of

that could happen, and I proceeded

back to Oklahoma.

When you see something like this

that happens and you see the resources

that are poured in from the Federal

Government, the State government,

the city government, but then most of

all from the individuals, it is, indeed,

heart warming. I agree with Billy Graham, during the memorial service,

when he made the statement that it

draws us together, it brings out the

best in people when a tragedy of this

nature takes place. It is one thing to

watch it on the television, and it is another thing to experience it knowing

that you have personal friends that are
April 25, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5625

inside the building. And as we speak

today, I have personal friends that are

inside the building. It was 5 days ago—

5 days and 1 hour ago—that the blast

went off. When you look at the building and see that it happened from the

north side, the lower half of the building on the south side is still intact to

some degree. I have hope and faith that

there will be some individuals who are

still alive in the building.

But when I think back and remember

the 4 days that I spent over there, some

of the experiences that we have had are

very difficult to describe. My son is an

orthopedic surgeon. There is a doctor

who practices with him. The doctor

had to go in and amputate a lady’s leg,

in order to extract her alive from the

rubbish—it was a decision that she had

to make—with no anesthetic. Do you

want to die or do you want us to take

your leg off and pull you out? And she

chose the leg.

On the first night when the rains

came and it turned cold, I watched in

cadence some 200 firemen marching

down with all their regalia on—their

crash helmets, their fire suits, their

boots—knowing that 40 at a time would

have to go inside this building and

crawl around on their hands and knees,

not knowing whether the structure of

the building would hold up and allow

them to remain alive. They did risk

their lives. I was told that there was

not one that went in that was ordered

in. They all volunteered to do it. As

you know, we have lost some lives of

those who have been a part of the medical and rescue teams.

During this time, we had an occasion

to look at where do we go from here? I

was asked by the President 2 hours

after the blast, ‘‘What could be done to

preclude something like this from happening?’’ I have come to the conclusion

that nothing in terms of added security

or nothing in terms of taking away

more freedoms is going to preclude

some mad person from doing something

like this if he has his mind set on doing

it. This was a mobile unit, it was an explosion put together using fertilizer,

using things that are certainly legal on

the market. And if we were to take

those things off the market, they

would find something else, we know

that. It would just make it more challenging to them.

I think that if we try to approach

this providing more security, we are

wasting our time. However, I do think

there are some things that can be done.

Senator NICKLES, Senator DOLE and I

have submitted a resolution which we

will be voting on in just a few minutes.

The resolution calls for condemning

the violence in the strongest possible

terms. We send condolences to the families. It applauds the rescue workers

and supports the death penalty and

commends the President and the Attorney General for their quick action. But

it also pledges to approve legislation to

combat terrorism.

I remember in 1990 when we had the

airport security bill. I had an amendment on the floor—at that time, it was

in the other body—to have the death

penalty in cases where a terrorist was

carrying out a hijacking and it resulted in a death. You never heard so

many bleeding hearts in your life

standing up saying, ‘‘You can’t do that,

that’s inhumane.’’ I believe something

like that today will pass. While nothing good comes from tragedies like

this, if anything good were to come, it

would be that we are going to be able

to get tough on these guys and actually

punish them.

I look at our system—I am not a lawyer—but when I see Roger Dale Stafford, of the Sirloin Stockade murder,

sitting there watching color TV year

after year, when I see that it takes an

average of 91⁄2 years to carry out an

execution, then something is wrong.

I had a debate during the course of

this with Mr. Ron Cubie, who is the defense lawyer in the World Trade Center

case. He was contending that the 1994

crime bill was one that could take care

of problems like this, that it provided

the death penalty in case of terrorism.

That is not true. The 1994 crime bill

was a farce. It did not provide any exclusionary rule reform. It did not provide any habeas corpus reform. So

while they had on record the death

penalty, they did not do anything

about the endless delays that keeps the

invocation of the death penalty from

becoming a reality.

That being the case, there is no deterrent. It is no deterrent for a terrorist who is proposing to do something as

was done in Oklahoma 5 days ago. If he

thinks the very worst scenario, the

worst thing that can happen to him, is

that he is going to wait 91⁄2 years and

then be executed, he looks at our system and laughs at our system.

I am one of those rare individuals

who honestly believes in his own heart

that punishment is a deterrent to

crime. And when we wait for the punishment, long delayed periods, many of

those people are waiting in an environment that is more livable than the environment that they are accustomed

to. And to many of the people who

might be involved from some other nations, Middle Eastern nations, that is

not a deterrent. I have long sensed, in

the years that I spent in the other

body, that one of the problems we have

in combating crime in this country is

that the majority of people in Congress

prior to the election of November 8

honestly did not believe in their hearts

that punishment was a deterrent to

crime. Now we have the ACLU and

these organizations sitting around saying that we are so concerned about

these poor people who are involved in

these crimes. We have been much more

concerned about the criminals than we

have been about the victims.

Mr. President, that is something that

is going to change. Maybe it took this

tragedy in Oklahoma to make that

change. I suspect that is the case.

There are some bills that have been introduced prior to this tragedy—one was

introduced by Senators BIDEN and

SPECTER—that are going to do something about our ability to use resources out there to bring people to

justice. Wiretapping for law enforcement officers to use. Is that an invasion of privacy? Yes, maybe it is. But

somebody has to do something about

it. We have a lot of procedural things

that can be done that are addressed in

that legislation that I think should

pass.

I think the resolution submitted by

my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator

NICKLES, and our majority leader, Senator DOLE, and others, is going to set

the stage for the passage of tough legislation, providing tough and swift penalties for those people in America that

are involved in terrorist activities or

those people who are proposing to become involved in any other crime.

I think that it may be that we will

look back 10 years from now and say

that because of those individuals that

died painful deaths out in Oklahoma,

maybe that resulted in doing something about crime in America.

I do not think that it is over yet. As

we speak today, there are firefighters

and rescue workers crawling through

the rubbish on their hands and knees,

hearing the cracks. When you walk by,

as Senator NICKLES and I did, and see

the human flesh that is on jagged

pieces of iron—my office is located

three blocks away, my Senate office in

Oklahoma City. Our windows were

blasted out. It is very difficult to explain to people the magnitude of that

explosion—one that they originally

said was a 1,200-pound explosion. They

now say it had to be 5,000 pounds. To

put that in perspective, in World War

II, that was about 10 of the largest

nonatomic bombs they used in the war.

And this was all perpetrated by one or

two deranged minds, who somehow feel

people had to be murdered to prove

some type of a point.

Lastly, I am going to hope that those

individuals—and there are some

around—who would try to exploit this

tragedy into saying that we were

wrong in the elections of 1994 in rebelling against some of the intrusions into

our lives by Government, or that somehow this philosophy is tied into this far

extreme fringe right wing that appears

to be responsible for this tragedy, when

in fact the revolution, as I have referred to it, that took place in the ballot box on November 8, 1994, should not

be reversed and people should not try

to exploit this tragedy in reversing it.

Finally, I want to commend those

who have joined me and those whom I

have joined in putting together this

resolution. I am sure it will pass at

noon today. I think that will be the

predicate for doing something very

meaningful about this type of activity

in America.

As we speak, there is a funeral taking place in Oklahoma City. It is for a

daughter of a very close, personal

friend of DON NICKLES and myself.

There will be many more funerals. I
S5626 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE April 25, 1995

think the Nation will be standing by

and watching. I am sure that all the

Nation grieves with us. I have been

called by people not just from all over

the Nation but all over the world. We

should take any action necessary to

make sure that something like this

does not happen again. It has been said

many times that if it can happen in the

heartland of America, in Oklahoma

City, it could happen anywhere. No one

is immune.

I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment my colleague, Senator INHOFE,

for his statement and appreciate his assistance in putting this resolution together. It is with a sense of sadness

that we have this resolution before the

Senate today. We will be voting on it

at 12 o’clock. I wish that we were not

here. I wish the tragic disaster that

happened last Wednesday, April 19, had

not happened. The deadliest terrorist

attack that ever happened on our soil

happened in Oklahoma City at 9

o’clock.

This resolution is cosponsored by

Senators INHOFE, DOLE, and DASCHLE,

and a total of 75 of our colleagues have

cosponsored. My guess is that many

more will join in cosponsoring by the

time we finish our vote.

This resolution speaks for the Senate

but really speaks for America when it

says we want to condemn this type of

violence. It is a cowardly act, an evil

act, one that is responsible for at least

80 deaths that now have been confirmed, with 150 missing and will probably be recovered in the next couple of

days. Most of those are expected to be

fatalities. In excess of 400 were injured.

I visited some of those injured. Some

were injured very severely. Some will

be significantly injured for the rest of

their lives as a result of this cowardly

terrorist attack.

Mr. President, it becomes very personal when you see and know the individuals affected. Senator INHOFE mentioned that we have a very good friend

who is having a funeral today for his

daughter. I talked to another friend

today whose wife almost lost her life.

She is a very good friend of ours as

well. I talked to another friend who actually worked for the Senate, worked

for my colleague, Senator BOREN, for

several years. His child was almost

killed and is still listed in critical condition.

At the memorial service or prayer

service on Sunday, I talked to a lot of

the victims. I talked to one young couple that lost two children, and that experience makes it all become very personal. I talked to two children who lost

their mother.

I talked to an individual who lost a

spouse. The stories go on and on. This

is a real tragedy of immense proportions with great damage inflicted on

those lives.

This resolution expresses our condolences, sympathies and prayers for the

families of the victims, to the injured

and also for the deceased. We pray for

them and we want them to know of our

outrage for the crime and our compassion for those individuals as well.

This resolution states our strong support for the President and for the law

enforcement officials who are doing everything within their power to apprehend and try and punish those people

who are responsible, and it states that

we support the President and the Attorney General as they say this is certainly a case in which the death penalty is appropriate. I concur with that.

This resolution also goes a little bit

further and says we want to thank the

volunteers and the countless people

who have put so much into alleviating

the pain. Senator INHOFE mentioned

some of the firefighters. I remember I

was also in Dallas, and I flew up in the

first plane available, returning to

Oklahoma City, and I was accompanied

by three firefighters who donated their

time and money. They wanted to be

there to help rescue innocent people.

We have met countless people, and not

just from Oklahoma. We have had firefighters across our State, but we met

firefighters from Arizona and from

Maryland and from all corners of the

country. They are working unbelievable hours, and it is not easy work. I

might mention that the work was very

difficult at that time and very dangerous. It is not any easier now, because the likelihood of finding survivors is diminishing by the day.

So their task right now is very gruesome, very difficult, and it continues

to be dangerous. And our heartfelt

thanks—and I am speaking on behalf of

all Oklahomans, but really all Americans—for their courageous efforts.

When we see this type of evil deed, it

makes people think, how in the world

could society degenerate to such a low

level, or how could evil be so prevalent

to have such an act of violence destroy

so many innocent lives.

I might also mention, maybe the

light that comes after this evil is to see

so much good that has come from so

many people, so many thousands of

people, all across the State of Oklahoma and all across the country, who

are not only condemning the violence

but reaching out to help those people

who have been injured, to help those

families that have been torn apart, to

comfort and console.

It has been heartwarming to hear

President Clinton’s remarks, Reverend

Graham’s remarks, Governor Keating,

Mayor Norick, all of which I will say

did an outstanding job not only at the

prayer service, ‘‘the time for healing,’’

as Mrs. Keating referred to it, but really to reach out to the families and to

comfort and console those families and

let them know that we really do care.

It is very heartwarming and it made

us feel good, and as Reverend Graham

said, ‘‘Good will overcome evil.’’ We

want to thank the volunteers, all the

people that worked in the hospitals. I

talked to a survivor’s family, and he

said had it not been for the outstanding work of so many volunteers and the

rescue operation, his wife would not

have survived, and she is now anticipated to be a healthy survivor.

We want to thank those countless

people who risked their lives and were

willing to make that kind of sacrifice

for other people. It makes me very

proud of my State. It makes me very

proud of my country. Instead of this

being the low mark which devastated

not only our city and our State and our

Nation, I think it is giving us the

chance to rally around and say, yes,

good will prevail. There are a lot of

good people in this country, and people

are reaching out and trying to assist

and trying to help. We thank them for

that.

Mr. President, I want to address just

another item, a development that has

happened in the last day or so that I

find very troubling in relation to this

event. The issue is pointedly noted and

cautioned against by columnist George

Will, who noted that an attempt to locate the cause of a lunatic’s action is

‘‘apt to become a temptation to extract

partisan advantage over spilled blood.’’

With respect to this tragedy, the contempt for those people who try to gain

political advantage from the Oklahoma

City bombing will only be exceeded by

the contempt for the perpetrators of

this crime.

Mr. President, where should our

hearts be? What should our goals be?

Where should our compassion be? Surely it should be to reach out to those

families that are affected, and that has

to be our focus, and then to arrest and

convict and punish those people who

are responsible for this atrocious, cowardly, evil act.

Yet, even before the missing have

been recovered, I see politicians and

some pundits contemptibly jockeying

for position, trying to blame the other

side for the evil actions of a few individual criminals.

The bombing in my State was not the

work of the left or the right, of conservatives or liberals, Republicans or

Democrats, or even right-wing extremists, as some people would say. The

Reverend Billy Graham laid the blame

on the proper place, noting that the

tragic event has proved again that

‘‘Satan is very real, and he has great

power.’’ He noted that the Bible tells

us evil is real and the human heart is

capable of limitless evil when it is cut

off from God and cut off from moral

law. I agree 100 percent.

I am ashamed, I am bothered, even

appalled by hearing politicians or pundits who would stoop so low as to play

politics with this tragedy.

A reporter on a talk show, Juan Williams, just recently linked the attack

to Republicans in Congress saying,

‘‘It’s the same kind of idea that has

fueled so much of the right-wing triumph over the agenda here in Washington.’’

In an attempt to blame Republican

leaders in general, columnist Carl

Rowan was quoted in the Washington
April 25, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5627

Post as saying, ‘‘I am absolutely certain the harsher rhetoric of the

Gingriches and the Doles * * * creates

a climate of violence in America.’’

I do not know who the President was

talking about yesterday when he said

‘‘loud and angry voices’’ spread hate

and ‘‘leave the impression that, by

their very words, that violence is acceptable.’’

Mr. President, this tragedy took the

lives of innocent young children and

adults alike. Surely in the effort to lay

blame, our focus must rest with the

criminals—the evil, cowardly, individuals who took the lives of so many innocent people. Surely, the focus of our

hearts and our passion and our prayers

must remain with the families that

have been devastated.

I just hope and pray that those people who may be tempted to extract partisan advantage from this unbelievable

act will look inwardly and find compassion in their hearts and not resort to

playing politics with the lost lives of

my fellow Oklahomans.

If you were there—Senator INHOFE

and I were there, Governor Keating and

others—and walked around in the

ruins, and talked to the firemen and

talked to the rescue people who were

struggling to find additional survivors,

the very idea that someone might be

playing politics with this is almost beyond comprehension. It is offensive. I

hope we do not hear it again.

Let us find those people responsible

and punish them and show compassion

for the families. Those families have

had their lives ruined. They lost loved

ones. They lost a child, a daughter, a

spouse. They lost a father or a mother.

Their lives in many cases have been

more than devastated by a tragedy

from which they may not be able to recover. If it were not for the grace and

comfort of God, they may not be able

to recover.

This Senate, by our resolution today,

I think, will be expressing comfort and

consolation to those families, our outrage at this unbelievable, unspeakable

crime, and our sense that we in Congress want the law enforcement people

to apprehend them and to punish them.

We compliment the law enforcement

people for the outstanding job that

they have done. We compliment the

rescue efforts that are going on today

and will probably be going on for some

days ahead. We compliment our political leaders from President Clinton,

Governor Keating, and the city officials, Mayor Norick, and many others

who have put in so many tireless efforts, including fire officials and others.

We want them to know we support

them and we appreciate their efforts.

We appreciate the sacrifices they made

to show that good can overcome evil. I

think we have seen that in my State. I

am very proud of the State of Oklahoma and our country as a result. I

yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may consume

such time as I may require.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JOHN

fSTENNIS

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President once again,

the silver cord has been loosened and

the golden bowl has been broken:

‘‘Then shall the dust return to the

earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.’’ These

words from Ecclesiastes—spoken probably ten centuries before the birth of

Christ—bare the indelible stamp of permanency. Somewhere, every day, every

hour, every minute, they are brought

home to someone, and in their train,

follow the inevitable pain and sorrow

and tears, that we all must bear when

loved ones and friends depart from us

in this earthly life. The angel of death

is no respecter of persons, and each of

us will one day hear the beating of his

wings—

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind’s

breath,

And stars to set—but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O

Death!

Mr. President, it was with sorrow

that I heard the sad news over the past

weekend that our former colleague and

friend, John Cornelius Stennis, had

passed away at the age of 93. When I

came to the United States Senate in

January 1959, John Stennis was a Member of this body, and we served together 30 years—until he retired at the

close of the 100th Congress in 1989. So,

it is with sadness that I pay tribute to

the memory of this departed colleague

today. As we grow older, we are obliged

to bid farewell to some friend almost

every day, and thus does the circle

gradually, and all too rapidly, diminish; for—

There is no union here of hearts

That finds not here an end.

Mr. President, John Stennis was a

man who achieved greatly in life. For

41 years and 2 months, he represented a

great and patriotic constituency in

this Chamber, where some of the greatest men of the Republic have served

and aspired to serve, and that achievement alone would mark him as a man

among men. When we add to this the

fact that he served as a member of the

Mississippi State House of Representatives for 4 years, as district prosecuting attorney from 1932 to 1937, and as a

circuit judge from 1937 to 1947, we begin

to realize what a wonderful career we

are remembering today—60 years in the

public service—in elective positions,

where neighbors and friends, who are

often more critical than strangers, are

the electors! What more could be said

by way of eulogy? Volumes could be

written and less said. Yet, that is the

record of our former colleague and

friend, who, in the merciful dispensations of an all-wise Providence, has

now passed on to the other side.

John Cornelius Stennis was born

near DeKalb, Kemper County, Mississippi, on August 3, 1901. He attended

the county schools; graduated from the

Mississippi State College in 1923, and

graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1928. He was admitted to the bar in 1928 and commenced practice in his home town of

DeKalb. I had the honor of serving on

the Arms Services Committee and on

the Appropriations Committee with

Senator Stennis, of both of which committees he had served as chairman before his voluntary retirement at the

close of the 100th Congress.

John Stennis was an honest man, and

he was a good man, as good men go in

this life—plain and modest. He was

amiable, courteous, and courtly—a

southern Christian gentleman, in every

sense of the word. He was intellectually honest, a man of great moral rectitude, simple in his habits, and completely devoid of hypocrisy. He was a

Senator who loved the Senate and who

was dedicated to its traditions. He was

conscious at all times, of the great

trust confided in him by the people he

represented, and he carried in his heart

a great reverence for this institution

and for the Constitution of our country. His was a steady hand, an upright

character. He was a man of justice and

fairness to all. He was unassuming in

his manner, sincere and firm in his

convictions. Devoid of envy, he was

ambitious only to serve the cause of

justice and humanity, and being of, for,

and from the people, he gave his life to

their service. In him, the great people

of Mississippi had an ever faithful

friend and servant.

Mr. President, John Stennis was not

a large man physically. He was actually rather slight. But he was a giant.

The breadth of his character was huge,

and the steel of his courage was formidable. Nothing defeated him—not

the bruises of the legislative battlefield; not the frightful attack by thugs

in the street, who almost caused his

death, near his home; not the death of

his beloved wife; not the loss of his leg

to cancer.

Nothing defeated him. Nothing held

him down for long. He always got up

again and went on. He struggled, but he

prevailed and endured. And he did it all

with a quiet, unassuming dignity.

He was courtly—ever the gentleman.

I called him a Senator’s Senator. He

represented everything fine about the

Senate and everything fine about the

human spirit. He was the cream of all

things decent that one looks for in a

leader and in a man.

Had he lived in another age he would

have been just as great, as respected,

as beloved, and as revered as he has

been in his own time. He would have

enhanced any company in any situation in any age.

But most of all, the indomitable fortitude stands out. There is a courage