Date: 1995-12-20
Speaker: DIRK KEMPTHORNE (republican)
Chamber: S

ALAN SIMPSONoh. there is one I will miss when he leaves this Chamberand many other Senators on that side of the aisle. BOB BENNETr of Utah recognized the rhetorical. cesspool for what it was last Friday and he kept himself above it. He took note of it. I have never heard our majority leader. I have never heard our minority leader. I have never heard any majority leader or minority leader accuse other Senators of lying. I am confident that our leaders and most Senators find such gutter talk to be unacceptable in this forum. Mr. President. in 1986. I helped to open the Senate floor to the televising of Senate debate. On the whole. I think it has worked rather well. I believed then and I still believe that TV coverage of Senate debate can and should educate and inspire the American people. But in my 37 years in the United States Senate. this has been a different year. William Manchester in his book "The Glory and the Dream" speaks of the year 1932 as the "cruelest year." I was a boy growing up in the Depression in 1932. I remember it as the cruelest year. But. Mr. President. in some ways. I think this year has been even more cruel. I have seen the Senate deteriorate this year. The decorum in the Senate has deteriorated. and political partisanship has run rife. And when the American people see and hear such intellectual pemmican as was spewed forth on this floor last Friday. no wonder there is such a growing disrespect for Congress throughout the country. The American people have every right to think that we are just a miserable lpt of bickering juveniles. and I have come to be sorry that television is here. when we make such a spectacle of ourselves. When we accuse our colleagues of lyingI have never done that. I have never heard it done in this Senate before. Clay and John Randolph fought a duel over less than that. Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton for less than that. When we accuse our colleagues of lying and deliver ourselves of reckless imprecations and vengeful maledictions against the President of the United States. and against other Senators. it is no wonderno wonderthat good men and women who have served honorably and long in this body are saying they have had enough! They may not go out here publicly and say that. but they have had enough. Mr. President. it is with profound sadness that I have .taken the Floor today to express my alarm and concern at the poison that has settled in upon this chamber. There have been giants in this Senate.- and I have seen some of them. Little did I know when I came here that I would live to see pygmies stride like colossuses while marveling. like Aesops fly. sitting on the axle of a chariot. "My. what a dust I do raise!" Mr. President. party has a tendency to warp intelligence. I was. chosen a Senator by a majority of the people of West Virginia seven times. but not for a majority only. I was chosen by a party. but not for a party. I try to represent all of the people of the stateDemocrats and Republicanswho sent me here. I recognize no claim upon my action in the name and for the sake of party only. The oath I have taken 13 times. and in my 50 years of public service. is to support and defend the Constitution of my countrys government. not the fiat of any political organization. This is not to say that political party is not important. It is. But party is not all important. Many times I have said that. and I have said that there are several things that are more important than political party. Sometimes as I sit and listen to Senate debate. I get the impression that to some of us. political party is above everything else. I sometimes get the impression that. more important than what serves the best interests of our country is what serves the political fortunes of a political party in the next elections. This Senate was not created for that purpose. This is not a forum that was created for the purpose of advancing ones political career or ones political party. In the day that the Senate was created. no such thing as political party in the United States was even a consideration. None of our forebears who created our republican form of government was for a party. but all were for the state. Political parties were formed afterward and have grown in strength since. and today the troubles that afflict our country. in many ways. chiefly may be said to arise from the dangerous excess of party feeling in our national councils. What .does reason avail. when party spirit presides? The welfare of the country is more dear than the mere victory of party. As George William Curtis once said. some may scorn this practical patriotism as impracticable folly. But such was the folly of the Spartan Leonidas. holding back. with his 300. the Persian horde. and teaching Greece the self reliance that saved her. Such was the folly of the Swiss Arnold von Winkelried. gathering into his own breast the points of Austrian spears. making his dead body the bridge of victory for his countrymen. Such was the folly of Nathan Hale. who. on September 22. 1776. gladly risked the seeming disgrace of his name. and grieved that he had but one life to give for his country. Such was the folly of Davy Crockett and 182 other defenders of the Alamo who were slain after holding out 13 days against a Mexican army in 1836. thus permitting Sam Houston time enough to perfect plans for the defense of Texas. Such are the beacon lights of a pure patriotism that burn forever in mens memories and shine forth brightly through the illuminated ages. What has happened to all of that? Mr. President. when our forefathers were blackened by the smoke and grime at Shiloh and at Fredericksburg. they did not ask or care whether those who stood shoulder to shoulder beside them were Democrats or Republicans. they asked only that they might prove as true as was the steel in the rifles that they grasped in their hands. The cannonballs that mowed brave men down like stalks of corn were not labeled Republican cannonballs or Democrat cannonballs. When those intrepid soldiers fought with unfailing loyalty to General Thomas J. Jacksonwho was born in what is now Harrison County. West Virginiawho stood like a wall of stone in the midst of shot and shell at the first battle of Bull Run. they did not ask each other whether that brave officer. who later fell the victim of a rifle ball. was a Democrat or Republican. They did not pause to question the politics of that cool gunner standing by his smoking cannon in the midst of death. whether the poor wounded. mangled. gasping comrades. crushed and torn. and dying in agony all about themhad voted for Lincoln or Douglas. for Breckinridge or Bell. No. They were full of other thoughts. Men were prized for what they were worth to the common country of us all. not for the party to which they belonged. The bones that molder today beneath. the sod in Flanders Field and in Arlington Cemetery do not sleep in graves that are Republican or Democrat. These are Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country. not in the service of a political party. We who serve together in this Senate. must know this in our hearts. I understand. and we understand. that partisanship plays a part in our work here. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. There is nothing inherently wrong with partisanship. But I hope that we will all take a look at ourselves on both sides of this aisle and understand also that we must work together in harmony and with mutual respect for one another. This very charter of government under which we live was created in a spirit of compromise and mutual concession. And it is only in that spirit that a continuance of this charter of government can be prolonged and sustained. When the Committee on Style and Revision of the Federal Convention of 1787 had prepared a digest of their plan. they reported a letter to accompany the plan to Congress. from which I take these words: "And thus the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable." Mr. President. Majorian. the Emperor of the West. in 457 A.D. said he .was a prince "who still gloried in the name of Senator." Mr. President. as one who has gloried in the name of Senator. I shudder to think of the day when. because of the shamelessness and reckless intemperance of a few. I might instead become one who is embarrassed by it. Let us stop this seemingly irresistible urge to destroy all that we have always held sacred. Let us cease this childish need to resort to emotional striptease on the Senate Floor. Let us remember that we are lucky enough to reside in the greatest country on earth and to have the further fortune to have been selected by the American people to actively participate as their representatives in this miraculous experiment in freedom which has set the world afire with hope. Mr. President. there are rules of the Senate and we simply cannot ignore those rules. We must defend them and cherish them. I will read to the Senate what Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson said with regard to the Senates rules on March 3. 1897. because I believe his observation is as fitting today as it was at the end of the 19th century: It must not be forgotten that the rules governing this body are founded deep in human experience. that they are the result of centuries of tireless effort in legislative hall. to conserve. to render stable and secure. the rights and liberties which have been achieved by conflict. By its rules the Senate wisely fixes the limits to its own power. Of those who clamor against the Senate. and its methods of procedure. it may be truly said: "They know not what they do." In thisChamber alone are preserved. without restraint. two essentials of wise legislation and of good governmentthe right of amend.ment and of debate. Great evils often result from hasty legislation. rarely from the delay which follows full discussion and deliberation. In my humble judgment. the historic Senatepreserving the unrestricted right of amendment and of debate. maintaining intact. the timehonored parliamentary methods and amenities which unfailingly secure action after deliberationpossesses in our scheme of government a value which cannot be measured by words. Mr. President. we must honor these rules. The distinguished Presiding Officer today. SLADE GORTON of Washington. respects and honors these rules. We simply have to stop this business of castigating the integrity of other Senators. We all have to abide by these rules. Mr. President. may a temperate spirit return to this chamber and may it again reign in our public debates and political discourses. that the great eagle in our national seal may continue to look toward the sun with piercing eyes that survey. with majestic grace. all who come within the scope and shadow of its mighty wings. I yield the floor.