May 18, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 5235

four lovely children, articulate campaigner

and author—a truly gracious lady.

It is my pleasure, as President of the U.S.

Association of Former Members of Congress,

speaking on behalf of the members of our Association—your friends and admirers all—to

present to you this plague for exemplary

service to the nation and these two books of

letters from your friends.

REMARKS OF VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE

It’s such an honor to get a Distinguished

Service Award from a group that epitomizes

Distinguished Service.

And, I’m pleased to be a part of the 25th

Annual Spring Meeting. For the last 25

years, every spring, a group of individuals

have come together to reflect on—and to add

to—the role they played in the oldest democracy in the world—a government that more

than any other can shape life.

In or out of office, you serve your country—by your leadership, by your dedication,

and by your very example.

In Congress, we entered a world of traditions. There are those who will never understand why in the midst of a heated debate

that we refer to opponents as ‘‘My distinguished colleague’’ or ‘‘My esteemed friend

from the other side of the aisle.’’

Though, of course, there are limits. Thaddeus Stevens (R–PA) once said, ‘‘I will now

yield to my honorable colleague * * * who

will make a few feeble remarks.’’

Then there was Senator Homer Capehart of

Indiana. He once got so carried away with

the rhetorical courtesies that he referred to

himself as ‘‘The Distinguished Senator from

Indiana.’’

But those of us who have been lucky

enough to serve in our Nation’s Capitol,

know that these traditions ensure civility

when we need it most.

And we also know, that when we say ‘‘good

friends on the other side of the aisle * * *’’

that it is not only civil * * * that it is not

only just tradition of our Congress * * * but

something which is absolutely true.

I know that your service and your contribution hasn’t stopped with your retirement from Congress. Of course, sometimes

retirement is involuntary. My father, who

‘‘retired’’ from the Senate in 1970, likes to

say, it was due to a marginal error on the

part of the people of Tennessee.

There is a line attributed to Jefferson that

‘‘When a man assumes a public trust, he

should consider himself as public property.’’

That isn’t always easy.

Two reasons come to my mind right away.

First, regardless of what side of the aisle

you sit on—you came here with the intent to

serve your constituents and your nation the

best way you knew how. And not only was

that your goal: it was your accomplishment.

And second, and on a more personal note,

no one knows more than all of you how much

you sacrificed during your time in office.

You were on the road * * * working long

hours * * * you were away from the family.

You missed the kids’ baseball games for a

hearing on the budget. Instead of helping

your daughter with her homework, you had

to be in the Cloakroom—eating a hot dog for

dinner—waiting for a vote.

Your spirit of self-sacrifice has always inspired me to remember what really matters.

Serving the nation. And for me to be honored

by a group of people with such noble intentions—that is the highest compliment I

could be paid.

President Kennedy once said that: ‘‘Mothers all want their sons to grow up to the

President. They don’t want them to become

politicians in the process.’’

You have all been politicians. None of us

has been President. But on this week after

Mother’s Day, I hope you feel you’ve made

not only your family, but your country very

proud.

Mr. RUPPE. Mr. Speaker, I would

like to say one thing, I thought the

Vice President was very, very kind and

gracious to give us his time last

evening. I think I can say to everyone

here that his remarks certainly reflected his empathy with Members,

former and present Members of the

U.S. Congress.

The Speaker was bipartisan, he was

gracious, he was kind, and I think he

really was, as he well should have been,

indeed, the highlight of that evening. I

hope his friends and his family realize

how important his being there and accepting that award was for all of us as

former Members of Congress.

Lindy Boggs, our new president coming up.

Lindy, I just want to say how pleased

we are as an association that you will

be the next president, and how happy

we were that you did, I’m sure, a great

deal of work in getting Vice President

GORE to be with us last evening. It was

a marvelous evening, an outstanding

event, and he was very, very gracious

to join us.

I would also like to put in a statement from the Ukrainian People’s Deputies of the Former Verkhovna Rada,

who, for their association, extended to

us their greetings at the time of their

25th anniversary:

MAY 18, 1995.

Hon. PHILIP E. RUPPE,

President, U.S. Association of Former Members

of Congress, Washington, DC.

DEAR MR. RUPPE: On behalf of the Association of Ukrainian People’s Deputies of

Former Verkhovna Rada we want to, first of

all, congratulate you and AFMC on the occasion of your 25th Anniversary. We wish you

enjoyable festivities and many, many more

years of success.

Secondly, we want to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to you

and, through you, to your entire membership, first of all—Kyiv Representative of

FMC Mr. Cliff Downen, for the support, both

advisory and financial, that the U.S. Association of Former Members of our Association.

Our organization’s meeting was held on the

floor of the Verkhovna Rada on the 31st of

March with the participation of the Chairman of Verkhovna Rada and almost two hundred former members. We signed up 168 member’s of our Association on the first day. We

look forward to working with you and other

former members associations of the World in

the years ahead.

Thank you again for your assistance and

support.

With warm regards and our best wishes for

your continued success,

PAVLO KYSLYI,

President of Association.

OLEXANDR BARABASH,

LEONID BILYI,

JURYJ GNATKEVICH,

Vice Presidents of Association.

Mr. RUPPE. Mr. Speaker, this concludes the 25th Annual Report to the

Congress by the U.S. Association of

Former Members of Congress.

I want to say to the Speaker that we

were very honored by his warm welcome and by his generous comments to

all of us here today. We want to thank

those seated Members of the Congress

for their very personal greetings. It is

always fun to come back on the floor

and see some of the Members with

whom we have served in the past, or

others whom we have gotten to know

via C–SPAN or other forms of media,

and have the opportunity to greet

them personally.

I think I can say for everyone in this

group, and I certainly can say it for

me, that being a Member of Congress

was probably the most exciting and the

most challenging moment of my life,

so this, for me, and I think it is for all

of us, is a rare and thoroughly enjoyable opportunity to greet old friends,

to feel for a moment the majesty of

this Chamber, and share with everyone

here the activities of its former Members.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we want you to

know that this association will continue its efforts to promote greater

public understanding of and appreciation for this very uniquely American

legislative body, the U.S. Congress.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The

Chair thanks the very distinguished

Member, and the statements will be

conveyed to the Speaker wholeheartedly.

The Chair wishes to thank the former

Members of Congress for their presence

here today. I should say, before terminating these proceedings, the Chair

would like to invite all those former

Members who did not respond when the

roll was called to give their names to

the reading clerks for inclusion on the

roll.

The Chair wishes to thank all the

other former Members of the House for

their presence here today. Good luck to

you all.

The House will continue in recess

until 10 a.m.

Accordingly (at 9 o’clock and 37 minutes a.m.), the House continued in recess until 10 a.m.

fb 1000

AFTER RECESS

The recess having expired, the House

was called to order by the Speaker pro

tempore [Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma] at

10 o’clock a.m.

ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER

PRO TEMPORE

fThe SPEAKER pro tempore. The

Chair will recognize each side for five

1-minutes.

PRINTING OF PROCEEDINGS HAD

DURING RECESS

fMr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings

had during the recess be printed in the

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD and that all

Members and former Members who

spoke during the recess have the privilege of revising and extending their remarks.